So, day’s the day the new ticket pricing came out. I poked around briefly on the WDW website and found that for the value days, the ticket pricing is roughly the same as it was before. Of course, it depends on what days, specifically you pick.
But it did raise some interesting note-worthy things.
For example, I was looking at the dates in May 2019 that would correspond to the May 2020 dates we are looking at. So, I selected the 6 day ticket. But the price of the ticket appears to be an average of all the days in the COMPLETE window (6 + 4 days I believe it was). So, when I picked Sunday, May 19 as the first day, the total ticket price was slightly higher than if I picked Friday, May 17. We get a 10-day window to use the six tickets, so it seems like it makes the most financial sense to actually buy tickets that start on May 17, even though we won’t use them until May 19. (This still gives a couple flex days.)
I was also a little surprised to see that the week BEFORE the week we planned to go has lower prices even though the crowd calendars I’ve looked at actually show lighter days the week we were looking at.
Now the question will be what kind of discounts will be available through places like Undercover Tourist going forward.
I was wondering about this “first day of use” because when you select the date for first use, you get a window of valid use dates. So, does first day of use actually matter at all? What if I select Friday as it’s $7 cheaper per person for our tickets but I don’t go to the park until Saturday? It says you can make changes up until midnight the night before first use. But does that just mean if you want a different valid use window?
I wonder if they will start opening FPP windows based on first use date or still tied to resort reservation start date?
I would expect it is tied to resort reservation, since if you aren’t staying on resort today, it is simply 30 days out. There would be no advantage to purchasing a ticket for 2 days early since you don’t get a 2 day jump on fast passes that way.
This is a good point. It could be that if we were to buy for May 17, but show up on May 19, first thing they will say is, “Sorry. You gotta pay us the extra $3/ticket since you changed your first day of use.”
I was more thinking the other way: resort stay starts Thursday, first park day is Saturday, should I pick start date of Thursday or Saturday (assuming all my park days are covered in the valid use window either way)
Ah. Yes. That’s tricky. I’m guessing you pick Saturday, since that would be first day of use. But scheduling of FP+ should still be tied to resort day (Thursday). So, Saturday is actually 60+2.
Interesting, though. I think that will cause confusion, for sure.
I assume once you buy or renew, they can’t then change blackout dates for the duration of your AP? Any change would only apply to APs bought after the changes were announced?
For 5-day adult base tickets, prices went down by $5-7 on the slow days and went up by $60 or the busy days (end of December).
A client I quoted tickets for yesterday is taking a party of 9 people at the end of December. With the new ticket pricing she will pay $384 more if they get 3-day tickets, or $529 more if they get 4-day tickets. They will also not have the flexibility to use them the entire 8 days they are down in Orlando (staying offsite).
I did give her the heads up that a change would be coming, but this is not good news I have to share today!
ETA: Annual passes got hit too?!? Up by $48 for a Platinum Pass. This is the second price hike this year.