A big part of planning a vacation to Disneyworld is deciding what kind of ticket to purchase. There are several options which can be customized to your vacation style and budget.

As I mentioned in my last post, we learned the hard way that you can’t use a single day ticket to get into multiple parks (rookie mistake!) We thought if we had a 5 day park ticket that we could use 2 in one day, leaving 3 tickets left to get into the parks. That’s not how ticketing works, which we learned as our daughter threw a tearful fit in the turnstiles of Hollywood Studios.  Since we had a long planned dinner reservation, we caved and upgraded to a Park Hopper ticket on the spot. Lesson learned!

Here’s the lowdown on tickets just in case you aren’t planning on making a special memory of dropping an extra $250 on a ticket upgrade as you’re walking into the park!

Single Day ticket –  allows entry into one park per day. The longer you stay, the lower the ticket price per day.  As of today, a 1-day adult ticket is $89, 2 days are $88/day, but a 6 day ticket drops to $46.33/day. So after your first 2 days, you basically pay another $100 for 4 more days in the parks. Good deal!

• Best for: First time visitors can definitely get away with single day tickets because there’s so much to do in each park that you can easily spend 8-10 hours there (or more if it’s extra magic hours!)

Park Hopper ticket – allows same-day entry into any of the 4 parks – Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios.

• Best for: Anyone who wants to go to 2+ parks in one day. Sometimes extra magic hours are available in one park, but your dinner reservation or special event is in another park – that’s when the Park Hopper is so convenient because you don’t have to plan to spend your entire day in a park just because you have a reservation.

Water Parks and More ticket – adds a ton of other options for entertainment outside the 4 main parks. The ticket includes entry to the 2 water parks (Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon,) ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex, DisneyQuest in Downtown Disney, Disney’s Oak Trail Golf Course, or Disney’s Fantasia Gardens/Winter Summerland mini golf courses.  One thing to note is that you can only pick one extra per day – you can’t go to 2 water parks or golf and a water park in a single day.

• Best for: Visitors who will be staying a week or more, have been to the parks before and want other options to spend a few days outside of the parks while remaining in the Disney bubble!

You might also like:

Pros & cons of staying on Disney property (a.k.a. in the bubble)

The best laid plans

Tagged: Disney, Disney tickets, Walt Disney World