Disney World isn’t selling new annual passes
Expert warns they might not come back until 2022
Richard Howard wants to attend all the festivities for Disney World’s 50th-anniversary celebration, a must-see event for theme park die-hards.
He seems to be out of luck, at least for now.
The Orlando man can’t buy a new annual pass since Walt Disney World stopped selling them after the parks shut down during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Six months into the reopening, Disney said new passes will eventually go on sale at a later date but declined to provide a more detailed timeline.
Disney World is renewing current passholders as their plans expire.
“The Walt Disney World Annual Passholder program remains in place, and we appreciate the continued loyalty and dedication of our current Passholders,” Disney spokeswoman Erica Ettori said in a statement.
One theme park expert warned it could be months, possibly early 2022, before new passes go on sale again as Disney is tightly limiting crowds during the pandemic and because of strong demand for Disney World’s 50th celebration that officially begins Oct. 1.
“It would be foolish for them to introduce it in just a couple of months when this event is happening,” said Rick Munarriz, a Florida analyst at The Motley Fool who follows the attractions industry. “At the end of the day, Disney has to look out for the number of people that it’s regulating into its parks right now. It is a bit of a supply and demand issue.”
In California, meanwhile, Disneyland is canceling all passes and issuing refunds.
A new membership program will spring up in the future, but Disneyland has not released details.
Disneyland shut down in March and has no official reopening day. The Los Angeles area remains a COVID-19 hot spot, and California has stricter COVID-19 restrictions than Florida.
Disney World in Florida reopened its four theme parks in mid-July and began operating some of its hotels again.
Could Disney World be next?
Disney World’s annual pass program isn’t in jeopardy, Munarriz said, pointing to the differences between the California and Florida parks beyond just that one coast is closed and the other is inviting back visitors.
Disneyland is a smaller park with fewer hotels on-site. It’s also older so it’s accrued a large number of pass holders from the Los Angeles market, Munarriz said.
Los Angeles Times reported Disneyland has an estimated one million passholders.
“There’s probably more passholders in Disneyland than there is in Disney World,” Munarriz said. “Disney will need its Disney World passholders more than Disneyland passholders in the near future.”
An unknown return
Munarriz said his best guess when new Disney World passes would be available again is mid-January 2022 unless Disney World increases its capacity beyond the current 35% cap.
If the passes do return sooner, Munarriz said he expects them to have limited dates or a higher price.
“I don’t think that they’re going to offer the traditional 365 days-a-year, open-access to the parks unless it’s at a very high price, or it’s a very, very, very restrictive,” Munarriz said.
Annual passes have been a part of Disney World’s history since 1982, just before Epcot opened, and Disney began selling them to adults for $100, said Morgan Flaherty, a news editor at AllEars. Net, a Disney fan site that tracks historical prices for Disney.
Over the years, both the pass costs and options increased. For the first time, Disney offered a Florida resident annual pass option for $209 in 1995 and later added different tiers in 2015, Flaherty said.
Disney CEO Bob Chapek has made it clear during the pandemic: When it comes to visitors, not all are viewed equally in the eyes of the company.
The guests who buy day tickets, stay in Disney hotels and eat at Disney restaurants are who the company wants at Disney World while it tries to rebound from the economic disaster, not the annual passholder.
“Typically someone who travels and stays for five days to seven days is marginally more valuable to the business than someone who comes in on an annual pass and stays a day or two and consumes less merchandise and food and beverage,” Chapek said in August during an earnings call.
Disney withdrawal
Among those kept out of Disney World until the new passes return are people who took up Disney World’s offer to cancel their passes last year during the pandemic while the parks were closed and many faced job uncertainty.
“It’s probably the worst for the people that canceled their passes early in the pandemic and thought, ‘Oh, I’ll just get them back when the parks open again, and now to find that they’re shut out, that has to hurt,” Munarriz said.
Disney said it is renewing passes for people who canceled them during the pandemic on a case-by-case basis.
For Howard, a series of events unfolded which left him without a pass for the first time in a quarter-century.
In February 2020, Disney raised the prices, so Howard debated if he wanted the shell out $2,200 for a pass to Disney World and Disneyland. He was a California native living in Orlando whose heart was in both places.
He hesitated, and then the pandemic hit. Now, it’s too late.
“Certainly, there’s a bit of Disney withdrawal,” Howard said.
He has missed his evening trips to the parks to buy ice cream or ride the Haunted Mansion that he’s loved since a kid. The web project manager said he’s spent more than $1,000, roughly what the cost of a pass anyway, to buy park tickets so he could keep creating Disney content for his Orlando tourism YouTube channel, his hobby.
With the Disney World anniversary ahead, Howard said he hopes he can see all the new shows, food and special merchandise released for it.
“I think they’re going to be limiting themselves to a lot of people who would love to be able to enjoy that if they don’t open up the annual passes for Walt Disney World,” he said.