Tickets to the “Happiest Place on Earth” will undergo a major change this weekend, as Disney Parks implements seasonal pricing on single-day admission tickets, the company announced Saturday.
Starting Sunday, tickets to Disneyland and Disney World will be offered at three different rates: value, regular and peak days, according to a post on the Disney Parks blog.
Tickets will be most expensive on peak days, such as the winter holidays and at times during the summer when school is out. However, park visitors would pay less for a one-day ticket during the value period, when attendance is expected to be lower.
Buying regular tickets in non-peak periods, or purchasing multi-day park tickets and annual passes, would deliver “more flexibility and value,” the blog stated.
The pricing change comes as Disney Parks looks for ways to help spread out visitation to its popular parks, which have continued to see an increase in visitors even as the cost steadily goes up.
In the final three months of 2015, Disney’s domestic parks reached a new attendance record, and overall had a 10 percent increase in visitors, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Disneyland even had to shut its gates for periods of time during the typically busy holiday season, including on Christmas Day. The park temporarily closes to new guests if it reaches maximum capacity.
“The demand for our theme parks continues to grow, particularly during peak periods,” Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown said in a statement to the L.A. Times. “In addition to expanding our parks, we are adopting seasonal pricing on our one-day ticket to help better spread visitation throughout the year.”
According to the newspaper, value days at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure will be priced at $95, regular days at $105 and peak days at $119. The latter two prices — particularly on peak days — represent fairly substantial increases, as current single-day tickets to the Anaheim parks cost $99.
Based on Disney calculations, 30 percent of the year would be designated as value days, 44 percent would be regular days and 26 percent would be classified as peak days, the newspaper reported.
It was not immediately clear whether annual pass and multi-day tickets costs would also rise on Sunday.
The change in ticket pricing also comes as Disneyland works on a major expansion to create a new 14-acre “Star Wars” themed land. Earlier this year, several attractions and eateries were closed — some permanently — as construction on the project got underway.
The closures impacted roughly a quarter of Disneyland’s 85 acres, and represented almost 15 percent of the park’s attractions.
