Getting an annual pass for Walt Disney World is one of the biggest (most expensive) decisions a Disney traveler can face. You’re looking at roughly $1500 a year right off the bat, plus the cost of the vacations you’ll have to plan to get value out of the pass.
In this post, we review the types of Walt Disney World annual passes—the Incredi-Pass, Sorcerer Pass, Pirate Pass, and Pixie Dust Pass—discuss whether or not a Disney World annual pass is “worth it”, and discuss all the different perks you need to know when considering a Disney annual pass.
Types of Disney World Annual Passes & Prices
Before getting into the weeds of analyzing the passes, we’ll give an overview of the types of Disney annual passes.
Add-Ons For All Passes
It’s useful first to mention something that has changed from years past. All passholders now have the option of add-ons for their annual pass. These are similar to sets of perks that used to be offered to specific levels of passes, but now even the lowest-tier passholders can add them, for a price. Currently there are two add-ons.
The Water Park and Sports ($99+tax) add-on gives you daily admission to your choice of one of:
Disney’s Oak Trail Golf Course
FootGolf at Disney’s Oak Trail
Disney’s Fantasia Gardens Miniature Golf Course (one round prior to 4:00 PM)
Disney’s Winter Summerland Miniature Golf Course (one round prior to 4:00 PM)
ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex
If you’re interested in water parks alone, there’s a bit of annoying math involved. Adult Water Park tickets cost $74+tax most days, but there is a standard discount for passholders that brings the cost down to $49+tax, so you might not go for the add-on if you aren’t sure you’ll make two water park visits. There’s also a “seasonal pass” (NOT annual pass) for the water parks for $79+tax.
The Disney PhotoPass Downloads ($99+tax) add-on gives you unlimited downloads of your Photopass photos for the duration of your pass. You can read more about PhotoPass and the standard Memory Maker photo purchase option here.
Memory Maker one day costs $75+tax, and for a full trip costs $185+tax or $210+tax, depending on when you buy it. If you wanted photos from more than one day of any trip, the PhotoPass downloads add-on will be worth it.
Notably, you can download photos from people on your Friends and Family list, so a household only needs one person to have this perk to get the entire family’s photos. (That said, you have to be vigilant about downloading them ASAP before they are removed from the Friends and Family’s accounts.)
How Annual Passes and Reservations Work
One last thing before we get to talking about the specific passes—reservations. As of 2024, date-based tickets no longer require reservations, making the (complicated) reservation requirement a downside of having an annual pass instead of a regular ticket.
Passholders need parks pass reservations to visit the parks, with some exceptions we’ll get to shortly. This means if a passholder wants to visit Epcot on December 1 they must confirm:
That their pass is not blocked out on December 1
That passholder reservations are available December 1
While blockout dates are known in advance, reservation availability is always subject to change. Passes are also subject to a maximum number of reservations they can have at a single time, which varies by tier. There are three important exceptions to these general rules.
First, passholders can enter parks without reservations after 2PM (except Magic Kingdom on Saturday and Sunday; still subject to blockout dates). (Note: This perk appears a little hidden in official documentation. The most recent spot I can find it mentioned is this post.)
Second, when a passholder has a Disney hotel reservation, they’re able to make reservations for the theme parks each day of their trip without those counting against their maximum number of reservations.
Third, there are “Good to Go” dates where passholders can visit select parks without a reservation.
Comparing the Four Walt Disney World Annual Passes
We’re going to start with a quick rundown of the four types of Disney World annual passes. Then we’re going to discuss each one and analyze whether or not it might be worth it for you, partly by comparing it to the passes most similar to it. Here’s a broad look at the four passes.
The Incredi-Pass is the only pass available to all guests (no residency / DVC requirement). Holders can have 5 parks pass reservations at a time. It has no blockout dates. It costs about $1,543 ($1449 plus tax).
The Sorcerer Pass is available only to DVC members and Florida residents. Holders can have 5 parks pass reservations at a time. It has about 20 blockout dates around Thanksgiving and Christmas / New Year’s. It costs about $1,064 ($999 plus tax)
The Pirate Pass is available only to Florida residents. Holders can have 4 parks pass reservations at a time. It has around 65 blockout dates around most holidays and spring break season. It costs about $851 ($799 plus tax).
The Pixie Dust Pass is available only to Florida residents. Holders can have 3 parks pass reservations at a time. It is blocked out nearly half the year, including all weekends and major holidays. It costs about $468 ($439 plus tax).
If you’re not a DVC member or a Florida resident, you just have to decide whether you want an Incredi-Pass or no pass at all. DVC Members can choose between the Incredi-Pass and the Sorcerer Pass, and Florida residents can choose between all four passes. Now, let’s talk about each pass, starting with the one most readers will be looking at.
Disney Incredi-Pass
The Disney Incredi-Pass is the most extensive Walt Disney World annual pass available. It’s also your only option unless you’re either a Florida resident or a Disney Vacation Club Member, which is why it’s a huge focal point of this post.
With the Incredi-Pass, you get:
access to all four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Disney Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom), with park hopping, every day of the year, subject to reservation requirement
ability to hold up to five parks pass reservations at a time
up to 20% discount on select dining and merchandise (perk of all passes)
free standard theme park parking (perk of all passes)
enter parks without reservation after 2PM (except Magic Kingdom on Saturday and Sunday; still subject to blockout dates) (perk of all passes)
The Disney Incredi-Pass costs about $1,543 (includes tax) for adults and children. You can purchase all the Walt Disney World annual passes at Guest Services or online at Walt Disney World’s website.
Is The Disney World Incredi-Pass Annual Pass Worth It?
Again, if you’re a DVC member you can choose between an Incredi-Pass and a Sorcerer Pass. If you’re a Florida resident, you can choose between all four passes. In those cases, read this section and then keep reading for more analysis of those passes.
But if you’re not in those buckets, your only pass option is the Incredi-Pass, so the analysis is pretty straightforward.
A five-day adult Disney World ticket with park hopper for a random weekend in October 2025 from Undercover Tourist costs $794. This means two five-day trips will run you about $1588 for tickets, or about $55 more than an Incredi-Pass.
If you’ve got three trips, you’ll probably have little difficulty justifying the Incredi-pass. If your two trips are shorter than five days, it might be a little more difficult (start by looking at ticket prices on dates you’re considering and run this analysis from there). With one long trip, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to justify the Incredi-pass.
If your two (or more) expected trips come to a little bit under the price of the Incredi-Pass, keep in mind the other savings the pass will bring you. Generally, the pass is easily going to be worth it once you have multiple trips totaling 10 days. So let’s say you have two trips totaling eight days—how much savings can you expect the pass to offer during those days?
If you’re not staying at a Disney resort, the parking benefit will save you $30 per day or $240 over the course of eight days in Disney World.
If you average $40 per day on select dining (usually table service) and merchandise, you’ll save $64 over the course of eight days in Disney World.
As we’ll mention below, though, the dining discount is usually closer to 10% and doesn’t include most quick service restaurants. I don’t want to belabor this analysis too much more, though.
But wait, there’s one last thing I want to highlight. If you’re a two-tripper then maybe you’re on the fence about an annual pass. What if you think about it how Disney wants you to—if you add in a third trip this year, your tickets are already paid for!
This is really just a way of saying “an annual pass makes sense if you take three trips a year”, but I think it’s worth pointing out that if you’re already a two-tripper who is thinking you’d like to take a third trip, or maybe just five trips in 24 months, then an annual pass might be a good idea.
Disney Sorcerer Pass (FL Residents and DVC Members Only)
The Disney Sorcerer Pass is the second tier Walt Disney World annual pass, available only to Florida residents and members of Disney Vacation Club. With this pass, you get:
access to all four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Disney Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom), with park hopping, every day of the year except around 20 days around Thanksgiving and Christmas (in 2024, calendar here), subject to reservation requirement
ability to hold up to five parks pass reservations at a time
up to 20% discount on select dining and merchandise (perk of all passes)
free standard theme park parking (perk of all passes)
enter parks without reservation after 2PM (except Magic Kingdom on Saturday and Sunday; still subject to blockout dates) (perk of all passes)
The Disney Sorcerer Pass costs about $1,064 (includes tax) for adults and children. Making the Sorcerer Pass $479, or about 31% cheaper than the Incredi-Pass.
That Sorcerer Pass savings compared to the Incredi-Pass are huge, and if I were eligible it’s probably the pass I would get. The 2024 blockout dates are around Thanksgiving and Christmas.
While I enjoy spending the Christmas season at Disney World, blockouts don’t start until December 19, which means you’d have no problem planning a trip earlier in December—when the resort is well in Christmas mode—if that’s important to you. Since the only difference between the Incredi-Pass and the Sorcerer Pass is that limited blockout calendar, you shouldn’t have much problem picking between them.
Disney Pirate Pass (Florida Residents Only)
The Florida passes are where things start to get more appealing from a price perspective. The Disney Pirate Pass is the third tier Walt Disney World annual pass, available only to Florida residents. With this pass, you get:
access to all four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Disney Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom), with park hopping, most days of the year with most holidays blocked out (calendar here), subject to reservation requirement
ability to hold up to four parks pass reservations at a time
up to 20% discount on select dining and merchandise (perk of all passes)
free standard theme park parking (perk of all passes)
The Disney Pirate Pass costs about $851 (includes tax) for adults and children. Making the Pirate Pass $213, or about 20% cheaper than the Sorcerer Pass.
Compared to the Sorcerer pass, you’re losing one parks pass reservation (5 vs. 4). You’ve also got about 65 blockout days with the Pirate Pass (vs. 20 for the Sorcerer Pass), mostly days centered around holidays.
The Sorcerer Pass kept most holidays, which makes it more appealing to DVC members. The Pirate Pass loses these, but that’s because it’s targeted at locals. Florida residents—the only people with access to the Pirate Pass—might find the Pirate Pass and Pixie Dust pass more appealing if they can make the schedules work.
Disney Pixie Dust Pass (Florida Residents Only)
The Disney Pixie Dust Pass is the fourth and lowest tier Walt Disney World annual pass, available only to Florida residents. With this pass, you get:
access to all four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Disney Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom), with park hopping, most days of the year with most holidays and all weekends blocked out (calendar here), subject to reservation requirement
ability to hold up to three parks pass reservations at a time
up to 20% discount on select dining and merchandise (perk of all passes)
free standard theme park parking (perk of all passes)
enter parks without reservation after 2PM (except Magic Kingdom on Saturday and Sunday; still subject to blockout dates) (perk of all passes)
The Disney Pixie Dust Pass costs about $468 (includes tax) for adults and children. Making the Pixie Dust Pass $383, or about 45% cheaper than the Pirate Pass.
The Pixie Dust Pass is blcoked out nearly half the year but if you look at most four-day stretches—and even a few three-day stretches—where the pass is usable, tickets for those days will cost you more than this pass. So it’s really easy to justify the cost of this pass if you can make even one of your trips fit the pass.
The trap you don’t want to fall into with the lower tier passes is getting the pass thinking you’ll fit your schedule around it and then you wind up with a holiday family trip…and then a weekend or two because the kids can’t go on school days…and then all of a sudden you’ve spent more than a Pirate Pass.
The Pixie Dust Pass is really appealing, but if you’re so into the idea of a Disney World annual pass that you’re still reading this post, you need to be realistic about whether you’re going to need the extra days a Pirate Pass offers.
Ticket Bridging To Save On Your Walt Disney World Annual Pass
Ticket bridging is the process of upgrading a discounted Disney World ticket to an annual pass in order to save money on the annual pass.
The process basically works like this:
Purchase a discounted Walt Disney World ticket
Go to guest services during your trip to upgrade your ticket to an annual pass
Guest services will work their Magic, and they’ll “credit” your annual pass purchase with the pre-discounted price of your ticket
Pay the difference between the full value of your ticket and your annual pass
Confused? Let’s say you didn’t buy a discounted ticket. And let’s say you paid $300 for a ticket and an annual pass costs $1500. You can go to guest services at any point during your visit and pay $1200 to upgrade to an annual pass.
Now, let’s say you instead got that $300 ticket for $250. When you go to upgrade to an annual pass, Disney guest services will give you credit for the full $300 price of the ticket. So you’ll pay an additional $1200 to upgrade, getting an annual pass for a total of $1450, or $50 off.
Your annual pass will be dated retroactive to the first date you used your park ticket, but your Photopass benefit will not be retroactive. I complained to Disney about this and they gave me access to my Photopass photos from my trip. We last bridged in June 2018 successfully with no difficulty.
Disney World Annual Pass Discounts
The above section should have done most of the work of helping you decide whether or not to get a Disney World annual pass. But whether you are still on the fence or just want to read more about what perks you’ll get, we’re going to discuss the discounts (here) and the other perks (next section) of Disney World annual passes.
You should always check the specifics at the Disney World website’s passholder benefits page, because restrictions apply, but here’s a look at some of the passholder discounts.
Walt Disney World Annual Pass Renewal Discount
Renewing your annual pass usually comes with a discount of about 15% (this is the discount we received renewing in 2023). There is no discount for the add-ons.
In most cases, it will make sense to seize the renewal discount, especially given the frequency of price increases. That said, if your schedule allows you to push your trips a few months each year, you might forgo the renewal and get a new annual pass. This requires thorough planning, though maybe not any more than is required to ensure you get value out of your annual pass.
Do Disney World annual passholders get ticket discounts?
As a general rule, no, Disney World annual passholders do not get ticket discounts. There are occasionally special offers that allow them to buy discounted tickets for limited dates, and they can get discounted tickets to many special events, but they do not have general access to special discounts on Disney World tickets.
Dining Discount Is Really 10% At Select Table Service Restaurants Excluding Alcohol
A quick scroll through the benefits page reveals that the 20% figure is barely ever available, 10% is really the standard, and most of the locations included are table service restaurants. Alcohol is excluded. Keep in mind you can roughly replicate this discount for free with the Chase Disney Visa card.
Merchandise Discount Is Usually 20%
The merchandise discount is much more generous than the dining discount, and it isn’t matched by the Chase Disney Visa card’s 10% discount. Mostly, if you’re looking to buy standard Disney merchandise in the parks, hotels, or Disney Springs, you’ll get 20% off.
Merchandise obviously includes things like t-shirts, but you might be surprised to see you’ll get a discount for basically anything sold in the stores, including things like diapers at the baby care centers.
Annual Passholder Room Offers
Annual Passholders regularly have access to special Disney hotel offers. These usually have substantial overlap with publicly available discounts, with the annual passholder benefit being slightly expanded dates or an extra 5-10% off. This isn’t a huge margin, but it does make some of the cheapest dates at Disney World even cheaper.
It’s Always Worth Checking The Other Discounts
From 15% off most tours to $2 off select AMC movies at Disney Springs, there are a variety of other discounts available to Passholders. You’ll find these listed in the benefits page.
Other Disney World Annual Pass Perks
Besides monetary perks, being an annual passholder comes with a range of other perks you need to know about. You’ll find a wide range of these advertised on the annual pass “specials” page of the Disney website. We’ll cover some major ones we like.
Things We Already Mentioned
A few we already mentioned…
Ability to purchase Water Parks and Sports and PhotoPass add ons
Park hopping every day your pass is valid
free standard theme park parking
V.I.Passholder Days
V.I.Passholder days are days where Disney offers limited-time perks to passholders. These include things like increased discounts, exclusive merchandise or food, and unique Photopass opportunities.
More Parks Pass Reservations At Disney Resorts
If you’re staying at a Disney resort, you’ll be able to book parks pass reservations for the duration of that stay—including departure and arrival day—in addition to the parks pass reservations you get to hold under the terms of your annual pass.
Exclusive Annual Passholder Merchandise
Annual passholders have access to exclusive “Annual Passholder” branded merchandise through Walt Disney World resort. Most commonly, this gear going to be found at the main stores of the Walt Disney World theme parks.
Annual Passholder Giveaways
Annual passholders often have access to free giveaways. At Epcot’s festivals annual passholders typically receive a free magnet for visiting Epcot once, and sometimes a more impressive item (like a set of coasters) for visiting five times.
Dedicated Annual Pass Entry Line
Annual passholders have a dedicated turnstile at the parks. This turnstile is usually not open in the morning for rope drop (it’s usually open by 1:00PM or so) and will oftentimes have longer lines than the other turnstiles (though you at least hope APs should flow quickly through…spoiler: they don’t).
Phased Closure Status
Note: There haven’t been phased closures since 2020, so we aren’t entirely sure if / how this would work moving forward. Presumably, passholders with parks pass reservations would almost always be entitled to enter the park at which they have a reservation, even if other guests are turned away. However, the “enter parks after 2PM…” perk, for example, might be cutoff on busy days.
A perk that doesn’t get much attention is how annual passholders are treated on the busiest days of the year. This is not a listed perk because Disney’s policies on this aren’t fully public, but there is a consistent pattern we expect them to stick to.
When the parks get too busy, Disney begins closing them to certain guests. There are four phases of closures, and annual passholders are not blocked out of the parks until the fourth phase, which has only happened once in the last decade. When the fourth phase rolls around, no one may enter the parks, so annual passholders really get the best treatment of all guests on these rare days.
Other Special Events
Passholders also occasionally get invited to other special events. One example of this was the passholder preview of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in Florida, along with passholder previews for new rides like Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Disney World 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 Walt Disney World planning guide! If you're still picking dates, we've got everything you need to know about Disney World crowd calendars. For picking your hotel, check out our Walt Disney World hotels guide.
When it comes time to book we’ll help you find discount Disney World tickets. Decide whether you need a dining plan in our Complete Guide to Disney World Dining Plans! And don't forget to book those Disney World Advance Dining Reservations!
Don't forget to master your Disney World Genie+ and Lightning Lane strategy a few months in advance. We'll keep you out of long lines so you can maximize the magical time in the parks! We've got park-specific guides as well: Magic Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Epcot Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, Animal Kingdom Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, and Hollywood Studios Genie+ and Lightning Lanes.
Know what to ride with our guides to: Magic Kingdom rides, Hollywood Studios rides, Epcot rides, and Animal Kingdom rides! Plus learn about the water parks with our guide to Blizzard Beach and our guide to Typhoon Lagoon! And for some some fun prep, check out our Ranking of Every Ride at Walt Disney World.
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.