Disney’s parks are getting more expensive, again

It’s a small, and increasingly expensive, world.

Fulfilling the dreams of kids and Disney adults alike got a lot pricier from Wednesday, with the most in-demand daily tickets at Disneyland rising between $7-$12, while annual passes to the park soared by as much as $125.

Although the base entry fee of $104 is staying the same, the move hasn’t done much to combat the growing feeling among many people that a lot of Disney’s parks are becoming almost unjustifiably expensive. In fact, a recent report from Disney blog MickeyVisit suggests that the most expensive daily tickets for the California park have risen 114% in the last 10 years, from $96 to $206. 

Visiting the Disney World parks in Florida, whose recent shuttering in the wake of Hurricane Milton could wipe $200 million from the company’s earnings according to Goldman Sachs estimates, will also be getting more expensive, though not until 2025, after the company announced price hikes there 8 months ago. 

The rising prices may have upset a lot of die-hard Disney-heads, but a lot of the evidence suggests that millions are still willing to pay up to get into the House of Mouse’s many global parks. In the first 3 quarters of Disney’s fiscal year so far, the company’s super lucrative Experiences division, which includes domestic and international parks and consumer products, brought in $25.9 billion — up almost 7% on the same period last year. 

Disney still dominates the most visited theme parks in the world list too, according to the annual Global Attraction Attendance Report from TEA and AECOM, occupying 8 of the top 10 spots from Florida to France and Tokyo to China.

Deciding how much to charge for entry into some of the “happiest places on Earth” is always going to be a hard puzzle. For years, Disney’s answer has been: just a little more than last year.