This post is part 3 of the 3 part Walt Disney World 101 series. If you have ever searched for information and advice about how to plan a WDW vacation, you will know there are TONS of resources and websites that can help. This can be daunting, overwhelming and stressful. Walt Disney World 101 covers the basics and allows you to make decisions about your Disney World vacation quickly and efficiently.
Disney World Park Ticket Basics
Now that you’ve decided, when to visit and where to stay, you need to figure out which park tickets to purchase. Deciding which park tickets to buy depends on how your family would like to experience Disney World. Answering the following questions will make it easier to decide what type of tickets to buy for your WDW visit:
- How many days will you be in the Orlando area?
- Do you want to go to a park on the day you arrive and/or the day you leave Orlando?
- Will you be going to WDW Theme Parks every day of your stay or will you be taking days to visit other Orlando theme parks or attractions outside of WDW?
- Does your family like to pack tons of things to see and do each day or does your family travel at a more leisurely pace while on vacation?
Once you’ve answered these questions, it should be easy to determine how many days your family needs park tickets for as well as options that need to be added onto the basic park admission tickets.
Magic Your Way Base Ticket
Disney World’s ticket system, called Magic Your Way, is a flexible and customizable sytem that allows you to add individual “options” onto base tickets.
With the Magic Your Way ticket system, you must first choose the number of days you want on a base ticket. The base ticket gives guests entrance to one Disney World Theme Park (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios or Animal Kingdom) each day. Ticketholders are allowed to leave and re-enter the same park multiple times on the same day. For example, a 5 day Magic Your Way Base Ticket gives the ticketholder entrance to one Theme Park per day for a total of 5 days.
Magic Your Way Base Tickets expire 14 days after their first use.
Magic Your Way Add On Options
Disney World’s Magic Your Way system offers three different “add-ons” or “options” to the base tickets. Disney offers these options to ensure you don’t pay for something you don’t want or need.
Here are the options you can consider adding on to customize your base ticket:
Park Hopper Option:
Parking Hopping allows guests to visit more than one park in one day. For example, if you wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom in the morning and Animal Kingdom in the afternoon, that would be considered hopping between two parks. Adding this option to your base ticket means that you can hop between the four Disney World Theme Parks as often as you’d like for the entire duration of your park admission.
No Expiration Option:
Disney World park tickets will expire 14 days after you first use the ticket. This means that if you purchase a 5 day ticket and only go to the parks for 1 day, the remaining 4 days you’ve paid for will expire 14 days after the day you visited the park the first time.
Should you purchase the No Expiration Option, however, those 4 unused days can be used anytime you want–even years from now (2 years, 5 years, 20 years — they never expire!).
Water Park Fun and More Option:
This option gives ticketholders the following:
- admission to Disney World’s 2 water parks – Blizzard Beach & Typhoon Lagoon
- admission to DisneyQuest (Downtown Disney)
- admission to ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex (includes 30 minutes of game play at PlayStation Pavilion)
- round of mini golf at Fantasia Gardens and Winter Summerland (before 4:00 PM)
- round of golf at Oak Trail family walking course
You use these in any order or day you choose.
Annual Passes
Although the majority of visitors to Walt Disney World purchase Magic Your Way tickets, annual passes are available for those wanting park admission for every day for a year. There are 2 types of annual passes for Walt Disney World visitors.
Regular Annual Pass – 1 year of unlimited admission to the 4 major theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom), plus free parking. The cost is $611.31 (all ages).
Premium Annual Pass – 1 year of unlimited admission to the 4 major theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom), the 2 water parks (Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon) and DisneyQuest, plus free parking. The cost is $744.44 (all ages).
Cost of Magic Your Way Tickets
Disney’s Magic Your Way ticket system is a tiered pricing system. The longer you stay, the less you pay per day. This pricing strategy applies to Magic Your Way Base Tickets, Park Hopper Option, Water Parks & More Option and No Expiration Option.
The following table shows the regular price of Magic Your Way Base Ticket prices for 2012. All prices below include 6.5% Florida sales tax.
| Days | Adult (ages 10 and up) | Child (ages 3-9) |
| 1 | $94.79 | $88.40 |
| 2 | $187.44 | $174.66 |
| 3 | $257.73 | $240.69 |
| 4 | $272.64 | $254.54 |
| 5 | $285.42 | $266.25 |
| 6 | $296.07 | $276.90 |
| 7 | $306.72 | $287.55 |
| 8 | $317.37 | $298.20 |
| 9 | $328.02 | $308.85 |
| 10 | $338.67 | $319.50 |
Where to Buy Disney Work Park Tickets and Discounted Tickets
You can purchase straight off of DisneyWorld.com.
If you are looking for discounted park tickets, we recommend Undercover Tourist.
They are contracted, licensed, and officially authorized by Walt Disney World to sell discounted tickets that are new and genuine. Taxes are included on their price lists and they offer free shipping to many countries in the world.
Read the entire Walt Disney World 101 series.
[…] You can read more about ticket options on our Walt Disney World 101: Park Tickets page. […]