Understanding the Magic Your Way Ticket System at Disney World

I was telling a client the other day, “I don’t know much, but I do know a Disney vacation will only get more expensive”. The reason I know this is because most of the Disney World employees are union members, and they are guaranteed a certain price increase every year. This increase in labor costs ultimately means an increase in ticket prices.

If you take a minute to understand the Magic Your Way ticket system you can save yourself lots of money. In 2005, Disney rolled out the Magic Your Way Ticket system to give visitors more options to choose from on their theme park tickets. These options include: the base ticket, the park hopper option, the water park fun and more option, and the non-expiration option.

Base Ticket- this is the least expensive option and quite frankly the best option for most families, especially if you have small children. This ticket allows you go to one park per day. You may come and go as many times as you want, but only out of that one theme park.

Park Hopper Option- This ticket will allow the guest to visit multiple theme parks in 1 day. For example, this ticket allows you the opportunity to go to MGM, Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and EPCOT and you may hop from park to park. So you may visit Animal Kingdom in the morning, EPCOT in the afternoon and MGM Studios in the evening. This is the most popular ticket we sell.

Water Park Fun and More Option- This ticket not only allows the client to visit the four major theme parks, but it also allows you the opportunity to take advantage of the 2 Disney water parks, Pleasure Island, and Disney Quest. This is a great option especially if you are visiting during the fall, spring or summer months, the greatest benefit this ticket has is the ability to visit the Disney Quest park. Since Disney Quest is indoors, it gives families another great option especially on those rainy days.

On each one of the options listed above, you have the opportunity to add the non-expiration option. When pricing the tickets, a good rule of thumb is to add about per option onto the price of the base ticket.

Now if you are a family which comes to Disney World every year or every other year I would strongly recommend buying the 10 day park hopper with water park fun and more options with the non-expiration option. This will give you and your family the ability to come to Disney World and spend 10 days at the 4 major theme parks jumping from park to park and still have 5 entrances into either of the two water parks, Disney Quest or Pleasure Island.

On the other hand if you have a family with small children, and you do not know when you will make it back to Disney World, I would suggest going with the base ticket and not adding anymore options onto it. Most of the hotels have great swimming pools if you choose to play in the water, and most children are only able to stay at the parks for 5 to 6 hours before they wear themselves out. This will not give you enough time to start hopping from park to park, so the best option is to stick with one park per day.

Hint- If you don’t know if you need the park hopper option or not, I would elect to not get it. I know that goes against all the other so-called Disney experts, but only 40% of the guests who purchase the park hopper option actually hop from park to park. In addition, you can always add any of the options onto the tickets while you are at the theme parks by simply going to the “Customer Service” desk at the entrance of each theme park and paying an upgrade fee.

If you are looking for cheap tickets to Disney World, please call one of our friendly guest service agents at 1-800-641-4008.