A Plan for Disney’s Annual Passes to Return
As a Florida resident and fan of the WDW company since I was a young child, I am astonished as to the way Disney World is operating post the 2020, COVID-19 Pandemic. Although it is apparent that normalcy has returned to the park in some fashion, I disagree as a fan of the parks on the way that few important parts of my childhood that were included in the parks have yet to return. When I was around eight or nine years old my parents had annual passes to both Disney and Universal. As a south floridian it was only a mere two to three hour drive for us in the car meaning one or two movies on our way up on a friday and then one to two movies on the way back down south the following sunday, meaning we would spend the weekend at the resort to get the most out of our passes, before returning home. After four years my parents became sick of the annual passes and canceled them. We then did Universal more often than disney, due to us not being sick of that park but we didn;t do it as often as we had the disney parks.
What Disney currently has available in terms of annual passes for its Florida Park, is inexcusable and despite it not offering the same perks as the old Annual pass system it is abundantly clear that there are some fans(like myself) who want to purchase their top tier pass, and cannot due to the current availability of passes available, the only one available having an abundance of block out dates and in particular not working on Saturdays, sundays the weekend dates that i would use my pass on as i live three hours away from the parks and would rather take a friday off of work and plan a weekend stay at one of the hotels and travel to Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom Parks, as i do not care for the waterparks nor do i care for animal kingdom and probably will only go there on rare occasions sticking mainly to the three other parks that I favor higher than Disney’s “zoo, but with Avatar, Dinosaur and Everest.” What the higher ups at Disney don’t seem to realize is that by not reopening the passes they are alienating some younger “Disney Adults” who want to spend their money on Disney, but can’t because they were A) in college the last time that passes were available or B) looking for work the last time passes were available.
While personally I would have already purchased and made four trips with a fifth on the way by now as a Disney parks fan, under the current circumstances. I would argue that there are some changes that can be made to Disney’s current annual pass system, that would benefit Disney fans like myself who truly do want to essentially “live at Disney world” and i shall provide an example of such a system based on what Disney has currently in place and what their competitors such as universal also have in place to compete with theirs.provided that i am only a fan of the Parks, i have heavy hopes that someone at Disney will read my idea and possibly put something similar in place to the idea i am about to provide Bellow.
The Current Pass System at Disney vs The Current System at Universal:
The currently in place annual pass system is consistent of four annual pass systems, starting with the top tier Disney Incredi Pass and ending with the lowest tier Pixie Dust Pass(the only one currently available) that only allows guests to enter parks monday through friday(something that only suits retirees in central florida and summer time new families in central florida area).
The below chart shows the currently in place annual pass system for Walt Disney world in florida.
In my opinion as a fan the current annual pass system isn’t worth it even for the currently unavailable top tier Incredipass. They seem to forget the geography of the state they are located in, seemingly only offering passes that are meant for central floridians and not the other parts of florida that would use annual passes if they were readily available. Disney’s competitor Universal on the other hand has a variety of annual pass options and are giving more back to the guests who purchase annual passes than Disney is.
Bellow is the chart written on the current Universal Studios Annual pass page online:
As can be seen Universal has a lot more benefits and options for purchasing their current annual passes as compared to Disney. Not only do they add more perks and discounts to their annual passes that are apparently cheaper than what some sites are claiming disney’s incredi-pass is worth, but they offer different ways for their guests to use their passes.
My solution to the Disney Annual Pass Problem:
My first solution for Disney and their annual passes option is to create a system similar to what Universal has, where the water parks Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard beach are separated from the main four theme parks, allowing an option for both the Water Parks and Theme Parks or just the Theme Parks or just the water parks as opposed to the current system where all six are included on four types of passes. My second proposal would be to add special event incentives to the passes. Disney offers both Mickey’s not so scary halloween party, afterhours events, and a christmas celebration over the course of a single year, perhaps it would be beneficial to offer up a free entry each of these events as part of a purchase of a top tier Annual pass. My third proposal would be to include extra magic hours or 24 hour Disney events to the passes allowing guests with annual passes to spend more time in the parks and get more out of their trips. Another idea to separate from Universal is to add free usage of the Disney Genie service to the top tier passes.
Below is my proposed plan for the parks by themselves annual pass system:
As can be seen there is enough incentive for Guests to purchase these passes for just the theme parks then, there would be a similar pass setup for the waterparks only and a pass that includes both the theme parks and water parks together.
Bellow is my plan for just the water parks as a annual pass:
This as you can tell is more for Florida residents and residents who live in central florida as well as for the disney water park fans(who seem to exist) and while they only apply to the theme parks add more options for annual passes. I would think that these three passes would purchase them seasonally mostly during the summer and warmer seasons but will allow guests to do the water parks either 3 to 4 times a year.
The final option would combine the two plans i previously mentioned and include both the four theme parks and two water parks, giving incentive for what Disney is currently offering on their website in terms of annual passes to guests, these would be the most expensive of the offerings but would include more annual pass perks that i’m sure the management team could figure out on their own allowing fans of the parks and water parks to get the most bang for their buck while allowing the parks fans who don’t care for the water parks to only gain access to the parks and water parkfans(who i assure those reading do exist) to only enjoy the water parks. Of course the option to have either or is available and to have both is available but does that mean people like myself who wouldn’t use the water parks need to buy a pass that includes a part of Disney I would probably never use to begin with?
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