KTLA

Tracy Bloom

The “happiest place on Earth” just got more expensive, as Disneyland on Monday raised the cost of most daily tickets and expanded its tiered-pricing ticket system.

While the cheapest one-day, single-park ticket remains $104, Disney increased the cost of all others tiers by $5 to $10. It also expanded the demand-based system to include a sixth tier that will bring the top ticket cost to $164.


Offering another option gives “guests more ticket choices to meet a variety of budgets as it moves closer to dynamic pricing designed to spread visitation throughout the weeks, months and year,” a Disney news release stated, noting that, “The demand to visit Disneyland Resort remains strong through the continued phased reopening.” 

Disney first introduced the tiered-system in 2016 as a way to deal with increased demand and manage crowd size. Generally, guests will pay more to visit the Anaheim parks on higher or peak demand days, such as on weekends, the winter holidays, Spring Break and during the summer. Admission is generally lower on days when less visitors are expected, such as non-summer, non-holiday weekdays.

Here is a breakdown of the ticket prices by tier:

Tier 6 pricing is expected to be available for the first time next March, according to a Disneyland Resort spokesperson. The calendar for March has not yet been released.

On top of most ticket prices going up, it will also cost $5 more to add the park hopper option — that is, the ability to go between both Disneyland and California Adventure Park in a single day.

The park hopper price now adds $60 extra for a single-day ticket, bringing the least expensive option to $164, with the most expensive one maxing out at $224.

Disney will also now charge $30 per vehicle or motorcycle to park, an increase of $5 over the old amount.

While Disneyland typically increases its admission prices once a year, this is the first such hike since the pandemic forced the yearlong closure of both theme parks and most of the Disneyland Resort. The last time Disney raised its prices was in February 2020, about a month before the shut down began.

Since then, Disney scrapped its annual passports for repeat visitors, replacing it with the new Magic Key program. (Of the four tiers, the Dream Key — the most expensive option and only key that gives visitors access to the theme parks every day of the year and includes free parking — has sold out) 

The theme parks also retired the FastPass and MaxPass sytems, replacing it with Genie+ and Lightning Lane. The new system isn’t available yet at Disneyland and California Adventure, but debuted last week at Walt Disney World in Florida.

Genie+ and Lightning Lane are more like the MaxPass system, which allowed guests to pay a set fee for the ability to make a FastPass reservation through the Disneyland app, instead of having to go to the attraction to get one. FastPasses, on the other hand, were free.

Once it launches later this fall, Disneyland Resort guests can pay $20 per ticket per day to access the Genie+ system, which will allow them to reserve a time on most attractions. Lightning Lane allows guests to make a reservation for the highest demand attractions for a fee, with or without buying the Genie+ option.