When shopping around for discount Disneyland tickets, it’s important to make sure you understand the details behind the tickets as well as how to make sure you’re buying from a legitimate source. In this post, we review different ways to find discount Disneyland tickets!
New: Disney Announced Early 2024 Disneyland Ticket Discounts
Disney has announced two pretty significant discounts for early 2024.
SoCal Resident Discounts Return
Starting December 5, 2023, SoCal residents will have the opportunity to buy discounted tickets for January 2 through June 2, 2024. The deal will include three-day single-park tickets for $225 for weekdays and for $275 for weekends.
[Expired] Kids’ Special Ticket Offer
$50 Disney tickets are back…sort of! There’s a new deal directly from Disney on kids’ tickets. For dates January 8 - March 10, 2024, tickets are available for kids 3-9 at rates as low as $50 per day. This is a pretty huge discount, roughly around 50% off.
Disneyland Ticket Options Explained
Before we get to the places to find the cheapest, deepest discounts on Disneyland tickets, we need to cover some boring basics about the tickets.
Disneyland Tickets Dates
Generally, Disneyland tickets are typically not tied to specific dates. One-day tickets are tied to a “tier” of dates and can be used (with appropriate park reservation) during their tier or lower tiers. Multi-day tickets must be used within 13 days of first use. All tickets have expiration dates, but the value of a wholly unused, expired ticket can applied towards the purchase of a new ticket.
But when shopping around for discount tickets, be sure to check whether special restrictions apply. Even Disney sometimes offers date-restricted tickets as part of special sales.
Disneyland Park Reservations
Beyond just buying a ticket, Disneyland requires you to make reservations to access the parks. When buying a ticket directly from Disney, you’ll usually make a reservation as part of that process (though you may later choose to modify it). When buying from a third party, you’ll usually need to go through the extra step of linking your ticket to your Disney account and then making a reservation. If you have park hopper tickets (discussed next), you’ll need to begin your day in the park with your reservation. Hopping begins at 11AM. You can read more about park reservations here.
Disneyland Park Hopper Tickets
There are two types of Disneyland tickets—park hopper and one-park-per-day tickets. Disneyland park hopper tickets allow you to move between both Disneyland park and Disney California Adventure park (the two parks at Disneyland resort) on the same day. Park hopping begins at 11AM.
One-park-per-day Disneyland tickets allow you to go to only one park each day of the ticket. You can go to one park every day or split the days between the two theme parks, that’s up to you.
We don’t think park hopper tickets are necessary for stays of longer than two days. If you want to see both parks in a single day, you’ll need park hopper. For two days, we’d recommend one day at each park, but it’s worth doing a little research to see whether you might need extra time at Disneyland park, specifically. Anything longer than two days and park hopping is much more a convenience than a necessity.
That said, park hopping is a pretty big convenience. We pretty much have always gotten park hopper in both Disneyland and Walt Disney World (now we’re passholders at both, so it’s moot). We’ve always found the flexibility to be worth it, particularly if you’re only visiting once a year (or a lifetime!).
How Many Days?
This question is answered in more depth in our Disneyland Planning Guide, but since it’s relevant here we’ll give a short version. At the base, we think three full days for a first trip is a good amount. This allows 1.5 to 2 days for Disneyland Park and 1 to 1.5 days for Disney California Adventure.
We don’t like to cut that down, so adding travel days to either end, which makes it a total five-day commitment, is our go-to. But if you did four days with your arrival or departure day being a partial day at the parks, you’d do fine, too.
But shorter trips are definitely worth taking. If you’re a few hours from the parks, a weekend (arrive Friday night, depart Sunday night) would allow you to hit all the major highlights.
Straight to the Gate
One thing to check when shopping for theme park tickets is whether they are “straight to the gate” tickets. Most Disneyland tickets you buy in advance will allow you to go straight to the gate (the park turnstiles) instead of stopping at a ticket booth to pick up your tickets.
If you do have to stop at a ticket booth, they conveniently are located just outside the parks. Try and arrive an extra 15 minutes early so you can still head in right when the parks open. You might also want one member of your party to still go line up at the turnstiles.
Genie+ Add-On for Disneyland Tickets
Genie+ is the main, paid “skip the line” service at Disneyland. We cover it in much more detail in our Disneyland Genie+ Lightning Lane Guide. For the purpose of this post, the important thing to know is that you can buy Genie+ ahead of time for the length of your ticket or you can buy it day-by-day during your trip.
Purchased in advance, it costs $25 per day, but you must purchase it for the entire length of your ticket. On a day-by-day basis, prices generally vary between $30 and $35. We recommend getting Genie+ for at least one, and probably two days of a trip. This means it makes sense to buy it in advance for trips of one or two days, maybe three. But anything longer and you’ll probably want to purchase it on a day-by-day basis once in the parks.
Discounted Tickets
Let’s close our section on ticket types and features by clarifying a major point. Discounted tickets are generally just as good as tickets bought directly from Disney, except that some are limited in dates! That’s it. You don’t lose any privileges because you bought your tickets from a discount broker.
It always helps to confirm the fine print, but the ticket brokers do a good job of advertising these things for you. There’s isn’t much you could miss out on anyways (because the tickets themselves confer few “perks”). The only two issues I’d flag are…
Does the ticket include Genie+? This applies to all tickets, even those you buy from Disney. When purchasing a ticket, it’s important to know whether it comes with Genie+ or whether you’ll have to buy it once inside the park (if you want it at all).
What are the date restrictions? As mentioned above, this is the most common restriction on discounted tickets. If they can only be used to a certain date range, you’ll need to pay close attention to it. These restrictions tend to be very well advertised.
Top Picks For Discount Disneyland tickets
Disney has continued to increase prices year after year. This makes it more important than ever that guests purchase discounted tickets to stay under budget!
Get Away Today
Discount: Varies - Difficulty: None - Risk: None
Get Away Today is one of the most popular sites selling discount Disneyland tickets. They sell Disneyland tickets and tickets to other attractions, like Universal Studios Hollywood and SeaWorld San Diego.
Moreover, Get Away Today specializes in California vacation packages. This opens the door to potentially hundreds of dollars in savings. Remember to always be sure you're getting the cheapest hotels. Even the best package deals can sometimes be beaten with a little bit of searching.
Undercover Tourist
Discount: Varies - Difficulty: None - Risk: None
Undercover Tourist is a longtime seller of Disneyland tickets and has been in the Disney World business even longer. It’s always worth comparing their prices to those over at Get Away Today. While we've never purchased Disneyland tickets from them, we're purchased Disney World tickets from them numerous times.
If you're at all concerned about buying tickets from a third-party seller, we've got you covered with a post dedicated entirely to why we recommend Undercover Tourist for Disney discounts.
Other Discount Ticket Brokers
These are brokers we’ve seen recommended by sources that we trust but that we can’t personally vouch for:
The Standard Discounts
The next set of discounts are standard offers that are either easy to get for everyone or easy to get once you've worked your way into an exclusive group for the discount.
Public Offers from Disney
Discount: Varies - Difficulty: None - Risk: None
Disneyland occasionally offers discounts directly. The Disneyland offers page is here, and we recommend you scroll through the list, don’t use filters, as they may miss some deals.
Usually, these are matched or beaten by the ticket brokers we discussed above, which means these will rarely be a great option. One example of a good deal though was the annual passholders ticket deals for friends that beat the deals available to the general public.
Southern California Resident Discount
Discount: 15% to 20% - Difficulty: High - Risk: None
These offers come and go, but Disneyland often has discounted tickets available to Southern California residents. California residents who are serious about Disney should probably consider an annual passport (for which they also receive a discount).
Disney Vacation Club Discount
Discount: About 10% - Difficulty: High - Risk: None
Disney Vacation Club members occasionally get ticket discount offers. For most DVC members, it will make sense just to have an annual pass, so it's rare that these ticket offers are going to be worth much.
They also aren’t very high when they do happen. If you’re a DVC member, look into an annual pass, and pay attention to deals as they pop up. But definitely don’t wait for them or plan too heavily around them.
Military Discount
Discount: Around 40% - Difficulty: Heroic - Risk: Heroic
The 2024 military discount Disneyland ticket page describes the currently available offer, which looks to be around 40% off the regular ticket prices. Tickets can be purchased from US military base ticket offices. Restrictions apply, but here’s the top line:
Disney Military Promotional Tickets may be purchased at participating US military sales outlets only by Eligible Service Members (defined below) or their spouses (but not both) who present valid military identification, for use by themselves and other family members and friends, as provided herein.
The best source for information on these discounts, including prices and how to purchase tickets, is Military Disney Tips.
AAA Discount
Discount: Very Low - Difficulty: Medium - Risk: None
At one point, AAA discounts were a decent way to save on Disneyland tickets. No more. First of all, the discounts come from individual branches, so you'll have to call local AAA offices to get quotes. Second, their discounts tend to be pretty small, often beaten by the prices you'll find on ticket broker sites. Worth a phone call, if you're already a member, but no worth effort beyond that.
Sam’s Club
Discount: Low - Difficulty: Low - Risk: None
Sam’s Club is now offering Disneyland tickets. As we’re not members, we can’t speak to the process or how good these discounts will be, but they might be worth looking into if you’re a member.
Deal Hunting
Not so much “discounts,” these are out-of-the-box ways to carefully consider before trying.
Using Discount Disney Gift Cards
Discount: Varies (about 8%) - Difficulty: Medium - Risk: None
This will rarely be the best discount you can get, but we want to mention it for the sake of completeness. You can typically get discount Disney gift cards, saving about 8 to 10% on Disney purchases, including park tickets.
A lot of people are big fans of this “trick” but it’s not hard to understand why we advise against it. First, you can often find nearly as good or better deals by buying from a discount broker.
Second, you can use your discount Disney gift cards for things like food, merchandise, or Disney hotel stays that you otherwise might not find a great deal on. Instead of wasting your gift cards on the tickets, for which discounts are readily available, use them for things you’ll otherwise be buying at full price.
The Magic Key Annual Pass
Discount: Varies - Difficulty: Medium - Risk: None
You came looking for discounts, and we're telling you to maybe just buy a yearlong ticket? Look, this one is just going to come down to how the math works out for you. Disneyland annual passes are too complex to break down thoroughly in this post, but here's two quick notes.
First, if you’re taking two trips a year, it’s worth considering annual passes for the family. At three trips, you’re probably going to be saving money with an annual pass.
Second, because of the discounts on parking, merchandise, and dining, it can sometimes make sense for one family member to get an annual pass while the rest of the family gets standard tickets or a different tier of annual pass.
Sales
Discounts: Varies - Difficulty: Low - Risk: None
You can catch sales from Disney or third parties throughout the year. The most common sales dates are around Black Friday and anytime ticket prices go up. If prices go up, ticket sellers will typically hold a “sale” at the old prices for a few days.
eBay / Craigslist / Etc.
Discount: 10-30% - Difficulty: Medium - Risk: High
We don’t advocate buying tickets on eBay or Craigslist or any other person-to-person resale sites. The reason is pretty simple - prices for many, if not all, things on these sites are determined in part by the risk associated with buying over sites. Can you find legitimate tickets on these sites? Of course! Will the legitimate tickets have big discounts? No!
There are going to be a few people who put up an eBay account just to sell tickets they lucked into, but you can’t easily distinguish those from scammers. If someone has 1000+ positive reviews for selling park tickets, they aren't going to have to offer much of a discount. In short, finding a true, legitimate discount on a ticket via these sites is incredibly difficult, and never worth the risk of getting to the park and being denied entry!
Where do you buy your discount Disneyland tickets? Did we miss anything??
All Your Other Disneyland Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Disneyland planning! Take a second to check out our most important content and you'll not only be an expert, but you'll save big $$$ along the way.
Just starting out? Check out our Disneyland Planning Guide. If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disneyland crowd calendars.
When it comes to hotels, we’ve got reviews of all three Disney hotels: Disneyland Hotel, Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, and Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel. As for tickets, check out where to find discount Disneyland tickets.
Know what to ride with our: Disneyland Rides Guide and Disney California Adventure Rides Guide. And just as important, know how to get on the best rides without the wait with our Disneyland and Disney California Adventure FASTPASS and MaxPass Strategy! For the complete guides to a day at the park, we have a One Day Disneyland Itinerary and a One Day Disney California Adventure Itinerary.
We always recommend arriving at the parks early. If you can get access to Extra Magic Hour at Disney California Adventure or Extra Magic Hour and Magic Morning at Disneyland, you’ll have the most time in the parks. Even without those bonus hours, you’ll need to know Rope Drop Strategy at Disneyland and Rope Drop Strategy at Disney California Adventure.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.