Updated May 2024: It’s now been one year of having a Walt Disney World Annual Pass! I just renewed my pass in April 2024, and this math below definitely helped save me some money this past year!
In addition to savings at restaurants and on merchandise with my Annual Pass, I also saved a good bundle of money booking my Resort Rooms with Annual Passholder discount offers. My annual pass to Walt Disney World roughly saved me about $1977 on ticket fees alone for trips in April, June, October, November, January 2024, and April 2024! In total, I was in the parks a total of 23 days over a year spanning from early 2023 and into 2024 using my Annual Pass.
I also used the Annual Pass multiple times for discounts at restaurants, to book a discounted trip on the Galactic Starcruiser, to book a special tour for our family, and four times to book resort rooms with the Annual Passholder discount. In total, the pass saved me well over $5000 in 2023 by my estimation!
Let’s do the math together! One of the questions I get asked often, is “Is Getting an Annual Pass to Walt Disney World worth it?” and what people really want to know when they are asking me this question – is how do you decide when you should get an annual pass to the Florida theme parks.
I recently got an Annual Pass to Walt Disney World Resort when annual pass sales resumed on April 20, 2023. Let’s walk through the math below of how I decided this was the right time to get one – and I will also share some tips on how to save money even without an annual pass, if now isn’t the right time for you!
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Breaking Down the Math of an Annual Pass
For the sake of this conversation, we are going to assume you are an Out-of-State visitor. Out of state residents that do not reside in the state of Florida only currently have one Annual Pass option (unless they are DVC members), the Incredi-Pass option.
For Florida residents, there are three additional options with varying prices and benefit levels. It is safe to say, that if you’re a Florida resident and a Disney fan – getting an annual pass would be worth it! If you plan to visit multiple times a year, the benefits alone along with exclusive discounts help make that decision, for Florida residents is not as much “if” and more deciding which level best fits your needs mainly centered around either the blackout date times or cost.
These are the three levels currently available at the time of this article for Florida residents, with the last level also being available to Disney Vacation Club members (which I also get asked about A LOT, we’ll make that a separate post!):
As you can see, for even a handful of few day visits for a Florida resident, it becomes worth it to look at definitely at least the Pixie Dust Pass level, if not event just straight to the Pirate Pass level for fewer blackout dates. The Disney Sorcerer Pass would have the least amount of blackout days for Florida residents or Disney Vacation Club members that qualify for this pass.
For Disney fans that do not reside in Florida and do not qualify for a Disney Vacation Club member pass level, this question of “is it worth it?” becomes slightly more difficult, due to many factors that include:
- How Many Times You Plan to Visit
- How You Tour When You Visit
- Which Benefits Are Most Important to You
I’ve crunched the numbers so you don’t have to, and this is how I came to the conclusion that getting a Walt Disney World Resort Annual Pass would be a benefit to me this year.
How Many Times Do You Plan to Visit Walt Disney World Resort
The simple math behind this one is looking at how many park days you typically include on a general visit to Walt Disney World Resort, and then multiplying the cost of those tickets over the number of times you plan to visit within a 12 month time period.
I will use my upcoming trips as an example, where I am visiting for a conference in April 2023, for this trip I planned to purchase a 4-day Park Ticket With Park Hopper option to be able to visit multiple parks in one Disney day.
For instance, this 4-day Park Hopper ticket would cost me:
PLUS any applicable taxes or fees, which when placed in my cart brings it to a total of $678.29:
These prices can also fluctuate based on time of year, as the daily ticket price goes up and down depending on demand for the time frame you are looking at visiting.
As you can see, if you plan on visiting multiple times AND park hopping, these costs add up fairly quickly. Even just two trips at 4 days with park hopping tickets would put you at a ball park total of around $1356.58… planning a third trip? That third round of tickets would bring you to $2034.87.
An Incredi-Pass, that allows you to visit multiple times within a year, park hop to available theme parks, and reserve up to 5 park day reservations at one time is currently priced at $1399, plus applicable taxes.
After tax the Incredi-pass would be in a range of $1484.38 after tax without any additional add-ons. Although I would recommend to add on the $99 PhotoPass package, because if you’re going to be visiting more, you might as well get some photos to share while you’re at it!
Comparing even just these two scenarios against each other, clearly the line in the sand (so to speak) is between the second trip and the third trip. Any 12 month period where you were planning to visit 4 or more days and wanted to park hop, and will be visiting more than twice that year, would bring it to a rate where an annual pass would start being a savings.
Even two trips could pan out to be savings if you’re planning to park hop, if you take into account exclusive Annual Passholder discounts and offers.
You can see that you can run this math with non-park hopper tickets as well, but with a 4-day entrance ticket without park hopping sitting at $546.89 plus taxes – the three visit rule still holds true to be the best deal without adding park hopping to your tickets as well.
How You Tour When You Visit
Do you visit 1 park on 1 day? Or are you a park hopper? This question becomes null if you have enough visits planned, however if you love to park hop and you have only a few visits planned, it could be the difference between the annual pass being the best value or not.
An Incredi-Pass may be for you if any of the following are true:
- You like visiting multiple times throughout the year for long-weekend type of trips and would like to do as many of possible of these during the next 12 months.
- You like park hopping and typically visit the theme parks for 5 or more days while you are at Walt Disney World Resort, and you plan to visit more than once in the next 12 months.
- You are planning an extended vacation of over multiple weeks and plan to be at the parks more than 10 days during your stay. Even just one trip to Walt Disney World in this scenario may be the best fit. Park tickets go up to 10 theme park days, but if you are retired and wintering in Florida without a Florida address – getting an Incredi-Pass may make the most sense to visit over a month or extended trip to Florida.
Which Benefits of Having an Annual Pass are Most Important to You
One of the big perks of being an Annual Pass holder at Walt Disney World are the exclusive passholder discounts, opportunities, and with savings of 10% off at many restaurants, 20% off most merchandise at most onside stores, and exclusive resort room discount offered just to passholders, these discounts can rack up quickly.
And if you decide to utilize a big offer like an annual passholder discount off the Galactic Starcruiser, being a passholder could more than pay for itself with the benefits.
How Often Do I Plan to Visit
As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, I recently became an Annual Passholder myself (yay!) and this is the math that I used to determine whether a Walt Disney World Annual Pass would be right for me this year.
I will be visiting for a week in April and had planned to park hop at least 4 days during that trip. I knew our family had planned a vacation for July, and we would be in the theme parks at least 4 days on that trip. Additionally, I also would like to visit in January for the opening of the International Festival of the Arts at EPCOT. Now that I have the annual pass, I think that trip is guaranteed… and I likely will visit for the opening of the International Flower & Garden Festival at EPCOT in March 2024, one of my all-time favorite festivals to go to!
That brings me to the opportunity of at least 4 trips within the next 12-month period and well within the range that an Incredi-Pass will be well worth it in my situation! Not to mention the cool discounts and benefits that are now available to me as a passholder!
So you may be thinking… well that all sounds great – but I’m not planning on visiting more than twice this year. Or I don’t think we would use the park hopping. Or this just isn’t in the budget right now. I get it. When our kids were little we actually visited with very budget minded trips and becoming an Annual Passholder probably wouldn’t have made sense at that point.
Ways to Save Without an Annual Pass
There are ways you can save, and spend multiple days at Disney. Undercover Tourist is one of the only legit places to find discounted Disney tickets and you can get a deal on your tickets before you arrive with the promotion below!
They also offer special deals on certain resorts and other accomodations! Make sure to check with them before you book, especially if you do not have other discount avenues like an Annual Pass or DVC membership.
Frugal Disney Tips
I also would be remise if I didn’t share some of my best frugal Disney tips – regardless of whether you’re an annual passholder or not! When the kids were younger, we visited Walt Disney World multiple times a year on a much stricter budget and I accounted for all pennies during those trips to know where we were spending money. I also figured out a number of ways to save money, on trips where you don’t want to add a lot of additional expense.
- Bring in refillable water bottles for members of your family to stay hydrated. Restaurants will give you cups of water at no charge!
- Pack your park bag with snacks your family will enjoy! Getting a Disney snack is always great fun, but those snacks add up! If you have little ones, pack some Goldfish or their favorites like GoGo squeeZ, because a lot of times I found that when my kids were preschoolers that is what they asked for anyways.
- If you’re flying in, get a Wal-Mart+ grocery order or Amazon grocery order delivered to your resort. You can also Uber to a Target or Wal-Mart to pick up essentials including snacks if you have a large family!
- Bring cooling fans and cooling towels. There are very few times of the year that I feel like these aren’t as needed. It’s Florida and it’s hot most of the year, cooling towels or fans can be the literal different between a meltdown or not.
- Order a small souvenir item from Amazon before leaving to go to Disney World and then give it to your child when you’re in the hotel room. I found for my preschoolers this did the trick because they got something new right at the beginning of the trip and then didn’t “need” every single thing they say along the way on the trip!
Here are some of my favorite finds to order on Amazon before heading to Walt Disney World:
Found in photo:
Water Bottle / Neck Fan / Handheld Fan / Snack Bags / Cooling Towels
Polka Dot Tee / Polka Dot Skirt / Bow Scrunchie / Character Wristlet / Loungefly Backpack / Black Sandals
Find these and lots more travel essentials on my Amazon Storefront.
I love finding new and interesting items that help keep you organized while traveling, if you do too I also share items from Target, Sephora and more on my BeingMommywithStyle LTK Storefront for more ideas! My shoppable video content on YouTube shares more favorites from home, beauty, fashion and more – you can find my review channel here:
** All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. Being Mommy with Style is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com
