Ticket to Paradise: Disney Parks Prices from 1955 to 2024

Our world moves in cycles; predictable patterns of ebbs and flows, beginnings and endings, life and death… like the phases of the moon, some things can just be counted upon as tried, true, and sure. And so it is with annual price hikes at Disney’s two resorts in the United States. Truly a tale as old as time, you can bet your bottom dollar that come hell, highwater, war, recession, or pandemic, somehow and some way, the cost of a day at Disneyland or Walt Disney World will rise.

That annual increase in admission earns powerless social media scorn from fans who, like clockwork, return to the airwaves every spring to announce that at last, officially, and evermore, they have been priced out, and that The Walt Disney Company will ne’er again see a cent of their hard-earned cash. Sometimes, they return to say the same thing after a second price hike in the fall, too!

All the while, headlines across both Disney Parks fan sites and traditional media report with breathless delight that when Disneyland opened, admission cost $1 – one dollar. It’s true that in the nearly 70 years since, the sticker price for a single day at Walt’s Magic Kingdoms costs 150 times more than when it started. But today, we wanted to analyze the admission prices for a single day at Disneyland or Walt Disney World over time to understand when, why, how, and by how much the cost of a day at Disney Parks has risen…

While you won’t find us excusing Disney’s substantial cost (nor mentioning its dwindling benefits – a story best saved for another time), we will spend the last page explaining why headlines about “$150 Tickets to Magic Kingdom” aren’t telling the whole story…

1955

1955 Disneyland 1-Day price: $2.25
Today’s equivalent: $23.00

When Walt Disney first started dreaming aloud about the project that would become Disneyland, he had a hard time finding anyone else who was enthusiastic about the endeavor. Bankers, his brother Roy, and even his wife Lillian simply didn’t understand why a successful studio man like Walt would want to get involved in something as “dirty” as the amusement park business. Before Disneyland, “amusement parks” conjured images of seaside boardwalks or grown-up trolley parks open to the public and populated by dizzying pay-per-ride thrills, carnival barkers, gaudy vendors, sandy beach-goers, and troublemaking teens who could walk through – a “barefoot crowd” atmosphere Walt disliked.

To differentiate his park from its contemporaries, Walt Disney purposefully chose a spot far from the beach. And unlike parks open to the public to wander through, Disneyland had a single, gated entrance and charged a flat fee for admission (in 1955, $1.00) as well. Of course, once inside, guests would also need to pay for each individual ride like any other park of the era, with prices ranging from 10¢ to 50¢ each (the equivalent of $1 to $5 today).

Naturally, to pay for admission and then to hand over a nickel or dime at each attraction on top of it made guests feel they were being… well… nickel-and-dimed. To ensure Disneyland’s premium pricing didn’t leave a bad taste in guests’ mouths, Walt tasked the park’s PR manager, Ed Ettinger, with developing a system to better conceal the per-ride ticket costs with tiered coupons as a middle man.

Three months after the park opened – on October 11, 1955 – Disneyland debuted new Ticket Books, which bundled admission to the park with a selection of eight ride coupons ranked by letter (some A-, B-, and C-Tickets) for $2.25 for adults. A-Tickets were redeemable for access to smaller attractions and exhibits like the park’s Carousel and Main Street Vehicles, while the more limited C-Ticket included headliners like Jungle Cruise, the Mark Twain, or Fantasyland’s dark rides.

With inflation, that would make the price of admission and eight ride tickets the equivalent of about $23 today. And while fans would no doubt love to see Disneyland in its opening year, being realistic about what a Ticket Book actually offered for that price – including once-per-ride access to just eight attractions with Jungle Cruise as the grandest – it’s probably fair to say that today’s Disneyland justifies a price five times that of 1955’s with at least five times as much to do!

1958

1958 Disneyland 1-Day price: $4.25
Today’s equivalent: $40.00

Just three years later, general admission rose for the first time to $1.25.

The price of Ticket Books grew, too. The new “Big 10” ticket book (including admission and 10 attractions) cost $3.25, while the “Jumbo 15” set guests back $4.25 – the equivalent of about $40 in today’s spending power.

Introduced in 1956, the more exclusive and limited “D-Ticket” cost 50¢, meaning a la carte rides on the (promoted to D-Ticket) Jungle Cruise, Mine Train, Pack Mules, Stage Coach, Steamboat, Sailing Ship, Tom Sawyer Island, Canoes, and Rocket to the Moon were the modern equivalent of about $4.75 each once guests had exhausted those in the Book.

By the way, attractions added just in 1958 included Alice in Wonderland, the Grand Canyon Diorama on the Disneyland Railroad, the Midget Autopia, and the Sailing Ship Columbia. The previous year had seen the Frontierland Shooting Gallery, House of the Future, Motor Boat Cruise, and Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough. So the price rose incrementally, but probably deservedly so.

1959

1959 Disneyland 1-Day price: $4.50
Today’s equivalent: $42.00

1959 was a landmark year in Disney Parks history. As part of the largest expansion in Disneyland’s history to that point, Walt Disney oversaw a “Grand Re-Dedication” of the park. On June 14, Tomorrowland simultaneously welcomed three rides so exceptional in their scale and execution, a new tier of ride coupon was required to experience them: the “E-Ticket.”

(Though ride coupons are no longer in use, “E-Ticket” is still popularly used by both fans and Disney itself to described top-tier, headlining attractions. Here at Park Lore, we recently swept through each Disney Park wondering which attractions at each would qualify as “E-Tickets” today – and counting down which park offers the most. “E-Ticket” has also arguably permeated beyond the Disney Parks bubble. Astronaut Sally Ride famously described her first trip to space as “a real E-Ticket”!)

Alongside the debut of the E-Ticket, the cost of a “Jumbo 15” ticket book increased just 25¢ from the year prior, now affording guests 2 A-Tickets, 2 B-Tickets, 3 C-Tickets, 4 D-Tickets, and 4 E-Tickets: enough for the new Disneyland-ALWEG Monorail, Matterhorn Bobsleds, and Submarine Voyage, plus one of the promoted E-Tickets: the Jungle Cruise, Mine Train, Pack Mules, Stage Coach, Steamboat, Sailing Ship, Tom Sawyer Island, Canoes, or Rocket to the Moon.

The most “all-inclusive” price to spend a day at Disneyland in today’s terms was up two dollars to $42, but remember that the cost included just four E-Tickets, with additional headlining attractions costing the modern equivalent of $4.75 a pop.

1971

Twelve years later, the cost of Disneyland’s “Deluxe 15” ticket book had risen by about $1.50… but in terms of spending power and inflation, the cost to visit Disneyland had actually remained fairly steady… and even slightly decreased to a modern cost of $40. That’s surprising considering that between 1959 and 1971, the park had added the Modern Marvels: The Enchanted Tiki Room, Carousel of Progress, The PeopleMover, Adventure Thru Inner Space, Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland, and “it’s a small world” plus Walt’s magnum opus – Pirates of the Caribbean – and the Haunted Mansion!

Obviously, 1971 is an interesting year to examine for another reason. Flashing a continent east to the new Walt Disney World, when Magic Kingdom opened in October, admission alone cost $3.50. Admission plus “11 Adventures” and access to the resort’s transportation came bundled at $5.75 – 20¢ less than Disneyland’s most inclusive ticket book the same year, worth about $39 in today’s spending power… Magic Kingdom’s E-Tickets included “it’s a small world,” the Mickey Mouse Revue, Jungle Cruise, the Tropical Serenade, The Haunted Mansion, and the Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Interestingly, Disneyland and Walt Disney World ride coupons were interchangable, meaning an E-Ticket ride coupon (either in a Ticket Book or purchased a la carte for 90¢ – the equivalent of $6 today) could be used at either Disneyland or Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion regardless of the park it was purchased at.

Walt Disney World’s first price increase came in February 1972 (just four months after opening).

1979

Inflation is a funny thing. By the end of the 1970s, Disneyland was a park supercharged not only by the extravagent E-Tickets of the ’60s, but by the “cheap and cheerful” steel coasters of the ’70s – namely, Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. In other words, this Disneyland is surprisingly close to one we know today in terms of its ride count… yet adjusting for inflation, a “Deluxe 15” ticket book in 1979 actually had less value than a “Big 10” had in 1959, worth just $32 in today’s terms.

At Walt Disney World, meanwhile, a “12 Adventure” ticket book cost $10.50 – the modern equivalent of $40, and the beginning of Walt Disney World’s ticket prices pulling ahead of Disneyland’s.

So far in our look back, admission at Disneyland and Walt Disney World has stayed relatively steady – hovering around a modern equivalent of $40 for the “most inclusive” day. But beginning in 1982, absolutely everything would change at Disney Parks… Read on…