How Much Do You Pay Per Ride at Walt Disney World?
Our friends at FinanceBuzz recently passed along some information that we found interesting.
In fact, their analysis dovetails nicely with a recent UrbanTastebud article about the cost of visiting Walt Disney World.
So, since MickeyBlog was collating this data anyway, we thought it’d be useful for our readers to put two and two together here.
How much do you pay per ride at Disney?
Let’s Talk about Park Costs
I always accept that nobody will believe me when I say these things. Still, I honestly spent part of my day advising a Canadian friend about an upcoming Orlando vacation.
Yes, you can think of him as my made-up Canadian girlfriend if it helps.
Anyway, my buddy has two daughters under the age of 15 but older than five.
So, they’ll have the full Walt Disney World experience. He’s trying to budget the trip right now and asked me for hotel advice.
My friend is currently trying to talk himself into staying offsite, something I never recommend. Still, I’ve been honest with him about the pros and cons.
The reality is that everyone’s Disney vacation budget will work differently. Nobody likes to hear that, but it’s the truth.
Where you stay, how long you visit, WHEN you visit, and even how much you mind standing in line all factor into the equation.
The UrbanTastebud analysis tried to determine a price for a family of four.
To the writer’s credit, they considered myriad factors and offered four different realistic options.
One is for staying at a Value Resort during peak season, another is for the off-season, and the other two are for a Deluxe resort during those timeframes.
While I’m confident a MickeyTravels agent could find several deals that the writer didn’t know about, this individual theorized a price range of $3,703-$6,766.
That’s for five nights or an average of $740.60 to $1,353.20 per night. That strikes me as fair since it’s comprehensive.
After all, the price includes food, lodging, admission, and potential upgrades.
You should read the whole article to learn the thought process behind each expense.
Still, I think it’s fair to say that $1,000 per night is a reasonable baseline cost at Walt Disney World.
The Cost Per Ride
Meanwhile, FinanceBuzz has done some fascinating calculations about the cost to ride various Walt Disney World attractions.
Something we should keep in mind here is that Disney theme parks use tiered pricing now.
So, once again, the time of your visit impacts the admission price for that day.
FinanceBuzz settled on an average ticket price of $138 per person, which is a fair evaluation at the moment.
More interestingly, the author averaged the length of time that each Disney attraction takes.
As we all know, sit-down attractions, the show-based ones, require much more time than rides, some of which are as short in duration as 75 seconds.
Also, I quibble a bit with their calculations about how many attractions are available at each Walt Disney World theme park.
However, I suspect that we’d get ten different answers if we asked ten different people.
For example, should a character greeting count? How about a parade or Cavalcade?
Nobody’s opinions are right or wrong here, merely…opinions.
Perhaps the most important takeaway from their article involves the amount of bang for the buck you’ll receive at various Disney theme parks.
Overall, FinanceBuzz tracks 54 attractions that take an average of eight minutes each to experience.
Guests must stand in line for an average of 36 minutes for each attraction.
So, for every nine minutes you stand in line, you get two minutes at an attraction.
The article also determines which parks offer the most attractions per hour.
A splashy infographic suggests that Magic Kingdom and EPCOT tie at 1.7 attractions per hour, while Disney’s Animal Kingdom isn’t too far behind at 1.5.
As you’d guess, Disney’s Hollywood Studios comes in last with 1.2 attractions per hour, a byproduct of having so many attractions with waits of 60+ minutes.
What Does MickeyBlog Think?
I’ve been writing MickeyBlog wait-time articles for a couple of years now and should throw that information into a database at some point.
Still, I thought it’d be interesting to compare some of our results to determine how much you pay per ride at Disney.
I pulled three different articles, the most recent one, the third week of March, and the third week of January.
Then, based on that information, I took the average wait times for the four parks.
Here’s what we come up with:
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom – 45 minutes
- Disney’s Hollywood Studios – 52 minutes
- EPCOT – 37 minutes
- Magic Kingdom – 43 minutes
You’ll notice that my wait time averages are universally higher than the other author’s. Sometimes, the difference is substantial.
I’ve just cherrypicked a few data points from 2022, a time when theme park attendance has approached pre-pandemic levels.
I presume the author has used a more complete data set, some of which includes a time when Walt Disney World was throttling traffic more.
Anyway, our calculations would have the average wait for each park as:
- Disney’s Animal Kingdom – 1.3 attractions per hour
- Disney’s Hollywood Studios – 1.2 attractions per hour
- EPCOT – 1.6 attractions per hour
- Magic Kingdom – 1.4 attractions per hour
You know how I’m also saying that EPCOT offers the best value? Yeah, here’s the data supporting that belief.
How Much Do You Pay Per Ride?
As a Disney fan, you would prefer that FinanceBuzz is closer to correct than me.
I will admit that including a July week as one of my three data points skews these calculations toward the high end.
Still, you can use this information to set your expectations for how the parks are working right now.
This summer, you’re paying about $8 per ride during an average park visit according to Finance Buzz.
That calculation involves how many attractions you may experience during a given park visit.
For example, 1.4 attractions per hour at Magic Kingdom would indicate 17 attractions during a 12-hour visit.
As an FYI, my numbers would come in closer to $9 per ride. So, that’s the range during the summer of 2022.
Remember that these numbers will go down in the fall when ticket prices are less expensive.
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Feature Photo: Disney