It's hard to believe that the infamous Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California is now 65 years old. It was a dream by a man with a mouse that has become so much more than I think he could have ever dreamed. When Disneyland opened in 1955, you could be admitted to the park just to walk around( Don't you wish we could still do this? I know I do!) for a dollar! We all know that Disneyland has come a LONG way since 1955, and this is not more evident than in the maps of the park and the sheer pay-to-play prices. Let's take a trip back in time to 1955:
While the original lands have prevailed over the years, only more being added, the park opened with a whopping 18 attractions outside of the magic of the new theme park. The price to get into the park was $1, without any rides or attractions! You could purchase additional attractions if you wanted to ride the flying elephants or spinning teacups. You could also skip the extra stop by purchasing a ticket booth at the gate. An adult ticket book would run you $2.50 and provide you with such items: King Arthur Caroussel and the Main Street Vehicles being A ticket; Dumbo, Teacups and Phantom Boats as a B ticket; and more energetic rides like Autopia and Peter Pan being a C ticket. The first ticket books in 1955 were only 8 tickets for attractions and then you could purchase more attraction tickets from there.
Next year, the ticket books were bumped up to "A" through "D", most likely with the opening of the Rainbow Cavern Mine Train. The tickets didn't jump in price too much over the rest of the 1950's with the exclusion of the brand new membership club: Magic Kingdom Club.
The Magic Kingdom Club was a program offering discounted tickets to employees of large companies, industry and the military throughout Southern California. It was the first of the membership clubs in California and actually sparked the offering of loyalty programs in grocery stores and other places. The Magic Kingdom Club offered their own ticket book, which largely remained less than the comparable ticket book from the Disneyland admission gates.
Over the years, the ticket prices steadily grew as you would imagine, but there wasn't a "passport" option until the 1980's. We know the opening day costs, and we know in 1985, Disneyland had its first annual passport, brought to you by, you guessed it, Magic Kingdom Club. This would cost $99 for the year. Over time, the coast has become what it is today.
Single day: depending on what time of year you go and the anticipated crowds, you could pay $104, $114, $139, or $155! And that is just for one park!
Southern California Select Annual Passport: $419, and you only get select weekdays
Deluxe Annual Passport: $829, and you get most days.
Signature Annual Passport: $1199
Signature Plus Annual Passport: $1449 to get every day of the year with free parking
You are getting a lot more park for your ticket. Now boasting over 91 attractions, shows, 3 new "lands", and special events, Disneyland has grown up quite a bit.
We also know that based on the cost then, and the cost now, Disneyland tickets have increased in value by 871%. Based on my personal calculations and the inflation calculator, I calculated an opening day "passport" ticket to cost about $4.93, roughly based on 1961's "passport to all Disneyland". I also calculated an opening day annual passport option at $24.66, based roughly on the annual passport option of 1985. So, using normal inflation values, we would only be paying $47.87 for a day at Disneyland today, and only $239.45 for annual passports(without all this multilevel craziness).
Now I know for a lot of annual passholders at Disneyland, this is a touchy subject right now. I realize the level of commitment you had to your beloved park and I am with you. My husband and I were just about to be passholders ourselves to better serve this blog, but alas.
Here are my graphs on the changes in prices over the years.
As you can see, the price hike is fairly substantial. As I mentioned before, we have quite the bit of inflation over the years and now, without the annual passholder program, we are all paying the prices.
I hope that this was as enlightening to you as it was to me! Thanks for reading!
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