Price Increases Are Coming For Some Disneyland Fans, And They Are Not Pumped About It

Mickey Mouse in Fantasmic show at Disneyland
(Image credit: Disney)

Price increases at Disneyland Resort have become par for the course, but that certainly doesn’t mean that fans are happy about it. Yesterday, Disneyland fans finally got the news they were waiting on when it was announced when Magic Key Annual Pass renewals would finally be available. And it was also announced how much the Magic Keys would cost. A lot, the answer is a lot.

The top two Magic Key options saw price increases of $150 and $200 for the year, and the top of the line option, the new Inspire Key, now costs more, but with blockout dates making the parks unavailable at Christmas and New Year’s, something that previous annual passes didn’t have at that high end price point. Needless to say, Twitter is full of people are less than thrilled.  

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Between the increase in prices and the addition of other paid extras, like Genie+, fans are getting really frustrated. It’s understandable that people would want to go back to pre-pandemic days, where park reservations were not required and FastPass was free for everybody. 

And price increases are one thing if you’re an individual person looking to pick up a Magic Key. For couples or families, every price increase hits that much harder, as every member of a family needs one to be able to get into the park at the same time. 

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Of course, if you don’t have a Magic Key right now, you can’t have one even if you want one. Disneyland Resort stopped selling Magic Keys a couple months ago and when they go on sale tomorrow they will only be available for those looking to renew existing passes. There’s still no telling when, or even if, new Magic Keys will be available for purchase.

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The overall issue is that between prices for tickets or passes, plus Genie+, then the fundamentally wrong Disneyland reservation system on top of that, it’s just becoming more difficult to go to Disneyland. Even if you have the money and the price increase ultimately doesn’t stop you from buying the Magic Key, it still doesn’t make getting inside the parks any easier.  

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And beyond that, it’s possible that even if you are willing to drop the cash. You may not be able to do so. Disneyland Resort says that some Magic Keys may be available in limited numbers, so for those that aren’t renewing on day one, because they waited a couple months to buy the pass, by the time they do have a chance to buy back in, the pass they want, even the pass they had previously, may not be available, forcing them to either spend more, or get less.

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Of course, the only way any of this changes is if the response to all the price hikes and blockout dates, people don’t spend the money. It’s hard to tell at this point if that might happen, but it hasn't happened in the past, which is why we are where we are now.

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.