by jack marshall, all ears® guest columnist
featured article
This article appeared in issue 299 of June 14, 2005 of all ear® (issn: 1533-0753)
Author’s Note: Allears.net has added a new section of pages related to the history of Walt Disney World Resort ticket prices at http://allears. net/tix/tickethistory.htm. These pages contain ticket sales prices over the years, information on what each ticket entitles you to, and scans and photos of many of the actual tickets. Along with these new pages, I thought a little general history lesson on Disney World tickets was in order. This is the first of two articles designed to give a brief overview of the history of Walt Disney World media admissions.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout my life, it’s that the more you think you know, the less you know. I have always had a fascination with Walt Disney World tickets ever since my first visit in 1984. I even learned a lot about them by reading and discussing the tickets with other Disney fans. but in the six months of researching this project, I discovered how much I had left to learn. thirty-four and a half years of often erratic and ever-changing history is a lot to cover.
You are reading: Original disney world ticket books
I started doing this as a personal trip to broaden my understanding of wdw tickets. I realized after a lot of searching on google, yahoo and msn that nothing like this information existed anywhere on the web. there were sites with similar information for disneyland but nothing for walt disney world. Oh sure, there were some fan sites with a ticket here and some old fashioned prices there, but nothing as meaty as what Disneyland had. so i approached deb wills with the idea, she gave me the green light and the fruits of my labor are now online.
——————— the 1970s & 80s ———————
When Walt Disney World opened in October 1971, there was only one theme park, Magic Kingdom, and two tickets were actually needed for guests to enter. one ticket allowed use of the transportation system and the other allowed actual use. entrance to the magic kingdom (http://allears.net/tix/admissionticket.jpg). resort guests, Polynesian and contemporary, could purchase their tickets at their resort’s guest services and then take the monorail to the magic kingdom stop. fort wilderness guests could purchase tickets at guest services. outside guests had to enter through the transport and ticket center (ttc) where for the first few years they had to pay cash or use traveler’s checks to purchase their tickets as credit cards were not accepted at the time then ttc. there was no magic kingdom bus station back then. that’s why the ttc originally got its name: it was the place to buy tickets for off-site guests, as well as the transportation hub that took them from there to the magic kingdom.
The least expensive way to get in was to buy a general admission ticket ($3.75 in 1971) which had a coupon that allowed you to use the streetcars, monorails, or ferries (or steamboats, as disney called them the first year in the magic kingdom open) from the transportation center and tickets to get to the magic kingdom. general admission also had a coupon for your actual admission to the park. Once there, he was free to wander the park and enjoy any shows or attractions that didn’t require a ticket, such as the Diamond Horseshoe magazine. of course, you were quite free to purchase whatever travel tickets you subsequently decided you needed within the park. or you could buy one of several sizes of ticket stubs that would save you a few bucks compared to the individual prices of everything.
most of the tickets were sold in what disney called adventure ticket books. they contained the transportation ticket, an admission ticket, and a variable number of individual travel tickets. most travel at the time required a separate single travel ticket that was identified on a scale of letters from “a” to “e” (http://allears.net/tix/abcde. jpg). The park’s quieter attractions, like the Main Street Vehicles or Cinderella’s Golden Carousel, required an “A” ticket. top attractions (state-of-the-art at the time) like the Jungle Cruise or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea required an “e” ticket. some checkbooks were sold that allowed two days of admissions to the magic kingdom. in 1971 and 1972, the coupon books consisted of 7 or 11 trips. from 1973 to 1981, the standard ticket books for the public were 8 and 12 tickets.
pop quiz trivia question: there were eight attractions at walt disney world in the 1970s that required the now infamous “e” ticket. can you name them? I just told you two of them. hint: audio-animatronics were quite revolutionary in 1971 and were a huge hit with park goers. answer at the end of this article.
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Even though you got varying amounts of each ticket in different sized coupon books, there were never enough “d” and “e” tickets. So Disney set up several central ticket booths in each land (two in Fantasyland) where you could buy any additional tickets you needed. those tickets ranged in price from 10 cents to 90 cents each and hopefully you are sitting reading this, they never increased for the entire decade and more since they were sold. It’s hard to imagine Disney not raising a price, right? ticket book prices increased as the amount of park admission increased, but not as a result of the increase in individual ride tickets. most tickets then were priced by age in three categories: child (3-11 years old), junior (12-17 years old) and adult (17 and up), with the exception of guided tours and minor parks which they eliminated the junior category.
This ticket book system was tried and true. it was the same one that had been in use at disneyland for many years. in fact, individual ride tickets were interchangeable between the two parks. you could use a disneyland e-ticket at a disney world e-ticket attraction and vice versa.
one thing remained constant during that first decade. Disney started their long-standing habit of raising ticket prices every year starting in 1973. They’ve only lost one calendar year in which they didn’t raise most, if not all, of their ticket prices. that was in 1976, perhaps in deference to the celebration of the united states parade.
1979 saw Disney introduce a two-tier pricing system for many of its tickets. Resort guests now paid slightly less for their park tickets than the general public (or “daytime guests,” as Disney called them).
In the late 1970s, Disney was experimenting with two-day “passports”: tickets that included two-day admission to the Magic Kingdom and unlimited use of all attractions except the Frontierland Shooting Gallery. no further “a” through “e” tickets were required for these passports. Originally, they were only sold to members of the Magic Kingdom Club, but were soon made available to the general public. the first passports in 1980 and 1981 had a large string tied to a hole punched in the ticket so you could wear the ticket around your wrist or on a shirt button. (http://allears.net/tix/81-1dayjrmkc.jpg)
when epcot center opened in 1982, ticket books and “a” to “e” tickets were history. one-day park tickets replaced general admission. one-, two-, and for the first time three- and four-day world passports replaced the discontinued ticket books. Hopping from park to park became part of the overall Disney experience that continues to this day. A valid day ticket to Magic Kingdom or Epcot was now up to $15 for an adult. Disney no longer collected park admission tickets at the gate and held them. the tickets were now hand-stamped to indicate the date each admission was used and the ticket returned to you. disney began allowing guests with leftover old tickets to redeem them for credit toward the purchase of a new ticket.
The 1980s also saw the introduction of the first annual passports when Epcot opened in 1982. In 1984, Disney eliminated the children’s ticket category and changed the ages for a children’s ticket from 3-11 to 3-12. years. guests over the age of 13 had to purchase adult tickets. That lasted until 1987, when Disney lowered the ages of children’s tickets to the now familiar 3 to 9 years. In 1986, Disney introduced its first 5-day ticket: a 5-Day World Passport that sold for $81 for adults.
In the late 1980s, Disney opened its third theme park, Disney-MGM Studios. a day ticket was now up to $29 for adults.
————- questionnaire response ————-
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answer to pop quiz trivia question about the eight “e” ticketed trips on wdw in the 1970s:
pirates of the caribbean jungle cruise country bear jamboree haunted mansion hall of presidents its a small world 20,000 leagues under the sea space mountain
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I will cover the period from the 1990s to the present in part ii, coming soon.
If you have any prices or other information to add to our ticket history or have good quality scans or digital photos of the tickets we are missing, we would appreciate hearing from you. simply go to http://allears.net/forms/feedback.htm and select “send wdw ticket history information”. if you’d like to send scans/photos, let us know what you have and we’ll send you an email with the address to send them to.
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jack marshall, who likes to be called “the keeper of the allears® database of files and tips,” has a strong behind-the-scenes presence at allears.net.
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Editor’s Note: This story/information was accurate when published. be sure to confirm all current rates, information and other details before planning your trip.
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