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May 28, 2023

Disneyland resort tickets, parking prices are rising again

Prices are rising again at Disneyland and neighboring California Adventure Park

Prices are rising again at Disneyland and neighboring California Adventure Park by as much as 9% for single-day tickets and 11% for preferred parking.

The Anaheim resort has also increased prices by up to 25% — starting Tuesday — for the new Genie+ service, which allows visitors to skip long lines on some of the most popular attractions.

For the record:

9:43 a.m. Oct. 11, 2022An earlier version of this story said parking prices at the Mickey & Friends parking structure and the Pixar Pals structure had increased while prices for parking at the Toy Story lot remained the same. Only preferred parking at all three locations has increased. Standard parking prices at the locations remain the same.

The price hikes come a year after the theme park raised daily ticket prices up to 8% and increased daily parking rates by 20%. The increase also comes only two months after the resort raised prices for annual passes by as much as 16%.

By comparison, overall consumer prices rose 8.3% in August from a year earlier, the highest rate in four decades, according to the most recent federal report.

Halloween fans were already getting a taste of the steeper costs: Tickets to Disneyland's Oogie Boogie Bash range from $129 to $179 this year, up from $114 to $169 last year.

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A spooky thought: Halloween is going to be more expensive this year.

Disneyland officials tried to soften the blow of the latest annual price increases, which are typically announced before the busy Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holiday season, by emphasizing several new attractions and upgrades that are launching in the next few months, including a new Toontown ride and a parade in Disneyland.

"Disneyland Resort is always planning the next new idea, attraction and story," Disneyland officials said in a statement.

The park adopted a demand pricing system in 2016 that offers lower-priced tickets for low-demand days, such as Tuesdays in February, and higher prices for more popular days, such as Saturdays in December. The lowest-priced ticket for a single-day visit on low-demand days will remain at $104. The daily ticket for high-demand days, which was $164, has increased to $179, a 9% increase.

After the parks reopened in 2021 from a 13-month pandemic closure, Disneyland and California Adventure Park adopted a crowd-control system that required visitors to secure reservations before entering the parks. Hardcore fans have groused about the system, saying it has made visiting the park on high-demand days, especially on weekends, very difficult.

A two-day ticket, previously priced at $255, has increased to $285, a 12% rise. Disneyland officials said they couldn't yet say how many low-priced days the resort will offer in the next year, noting that the online calendar that shows the daily ticket prices is updated on a rolling 120-day basis.

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Disneyland Resort visitors will soon get to wear a wristband that gives them access to the park, helps them to skip long queues and pulses and glows to the beat of the nighttime light shows.

"Our tiered ticketing structure offers guests different options to experience that magic throughout the year, including our lowest price point — which hasn't changed since 2019," Disneyland officials said.

Preferred parking in the Mickey & Friends parking structure, the Pixar Pals structure and the Toy Story lot increased to $50 a day from $45. The price for standard parking in those locations remains $30.

The prices to upload Genie+, a feature that can be added to the Disneyland phone app, has also increased, to $25 from $20, when visitors make the purchase before arriving at the park.

Parkgoers who buy the feature after arriving at the park will pay a price that varies based on the demand that day. Disneyland officials did not disclose the price range for buying Genie+ at the park.

The feature allows visitors to make reservations to get on a ride at a specific time, skipping the traditional queues, much the way visitors used the now-retired FastPass or MaxPass.

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The newest expansion to the Disneyland Resort — Avengers Campus at California Adventure Park — will add an attraction: Marvel superheroes versus villains.

Just last month, Josh D’Amaro, Disney's head of parks, experiences and products, announced several new attractions at the resort, including a nighttime light show called World of Color — One at Disney California Adventure and a new fireworks show called Wonderous Journeys at Disneyland. Both will launch in January.

At the Avengers Campus in California Adventure Park, a new giant Hulk character began appearing last month, and the Mandalorian and Grogu — sometimes called Baby Yoda — from the television series "The Mandalorian" will appear at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge in November.

Magic Happens, a parade that was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic shutdown, will return this spring. A new ride in Toontown, dubbed Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway, is scheduled to get rolling Jan. 27.

Walt Disney Co. doesn't break out individual parks’ financial performance, but in the quarter that ended July 2, Disney parks, experiences and products generated $7.4 billion in revenue, compared with $4.3 billion in the same quarter last year. The division reached $2.2 billion in operating income for the quarter, compared with $356 million a year earlier.

"Operating income growth at our domestic parks and experiences was due to higher volumes and increased guest spending, partially offset by higher costs," the company said in its earnings report.