Disney World Tickets and 2025 Ticket Prices

By Dave Shute

DISNEY WORLD 2025 TICKET PRICES

Disney World theme park ticket prices vary based on how many park days they are purchased for. Prices also vary depending on the first day of use they are eligible for, as illustrated in the chart below, which graphs how much more expensive a ticket start date is compared to the lowest price of that ticket length in 2025.

Moreover, both prices and eligible use dates can vary depending on which among several ticket types you buy, and even how you buy them.

So, you have to make four decisions before buying your tickets:

1. Buying as part of a package or separately, and if separately, on-line (cheaper for most relevant tickets) or at the gate. Most first timers will buy on-line, commonly as part of a package.
2. Whether to buy what I’ll call a “base ticket,” or a ticket with add-ons. Most first timers should buy base tickets. (Disney calls these “1 Park Per Day” tickets.)
3. The number of ticket days you want.
4. Your targeted first day you are eligible to use of these tickets, and the first day they will actually be used to visit a park—which are not always the same dates

There are two bits of good news here.

• First, you can add “add-on” features and/or ticket days to a not-yet-expired version of one of these tickets. So if you start with a six day base theme park ticket, and then decide halfway through your vacation that you really needed an eight day Park Hopper ticket, Disney World will allow you to pay the price difference to upgrade your base theme park ticket. So the risk of buying too little ticket is low.
• Second, you have me to guide you through the process!

To actually purchase a ticket, you have to know answers to all four of the questions above. But, because almost everything can be seen as a variant of the “1 Park Per Day” base theme park tickets, I’ll start with that, and then build on it.

WHAT IS A “1 Park Per Day” DISNEY WORLD THEME PARK TICKET?

What Disney calls “1 Park Per Day” tickets—which I call “base tickets”—are tickets good for one park per day for between one and ten ticket days.

On any base ticket day, you gain unlimited entrances to and exits from one single theme park during its regular operating hours. So on one day you can go to Magic Kingdom, leave and return, and on a different day you can go to Epcot, leave and return, then leave and return again. You can go to any one park on any eligible day until you hit the limit of the number of park days you bought.

What you can’t do with base tickets is go to two different parks on the same day—for that you need the Park Hopper add-on, discussed below. For any given ticket length and eligibility period, base tickets are the least expensive tickets available to the general public.

I’ll cover add-ons and many other ticket topics later on this page–but first, let’s get into prices.

WHAT ARE THE PRICES OF THESE DISNEY WORLD TICKETS AND HOW DO THEY VARY?

If you buy Base tickets or Base + add-on tickets, the price of the tickets will vary based on the length of the ticket, whether it is for someone ten or older or three to ten years old at the time of their visit (kids younger than three are free), and when the first day of eligible use is.

Prices per day typically go down with longer tickets compared to shorter tickets with the same first eligible day. While the date-based pricing means how much they go down will vary over the year, typically the least expensive days to add are days six through ten, each of which costs on average over 2025 around $25 per day to add. Adding a day to one, two and three days tickets cost an arm and a leg. Adding a day to a four day ticket is in between.

Tickets for kids three to nine cost ~$5 to ~$25 less per ticket than tickets for those ten and older, with the larger savings applying to longer tickets.

More profoundly, the ticket price also varies depending on the first start date. In the longer ticket lengths—five days and longer—in 2025 prices for tickets of the same length vary over the course of the year on average almost 50%, or about $280—that’s a $1,100 difference for a family of four. See the table for the price range by length for base tickets.

Over the year, tickets are more expensive during the times when on average families with school-age kids most want to go, so they will be typically higher during holiday periods, common vacation periods except the summer, and over weekends.

• In 2025, the most expensive tickets are during the popular vacation periods around Presidents Day in February, later March and April through Easter, around Thanksgiving, and mid-December through the end of the year. Prices also go up for ticket dates that include other three-day-weekend holidays and various Disney special events.
• The least expensive tickets in 2025 are from early August through September, and are especially low from mid August through the third week of September. This period combines a typical semester-beginning period (when families find it difficult to travel), miserable heat and humidity, and the peak of the hurricane season.

To see exact prices for your potential dates, go to Disney’s website here and select your how many park days you want. Then navigate to the month that includes your first date of eligible use. The calendar will show you the average daily ticket prices by first day of eligible use for base tickets. These prices are rounded, and pre-tax, but will illuminate for you the various prices for various possible start dates. To test the price with add-ons (discussed later), click a specific date, then select the ticket type.

If you have many potential dates you could visit, then the chart below might be helpful for honing in on the lowest ticket prices during the periods available to you. It shows the rounded average price per day for every start day from January 1 through December 31, 2025 of four day tickets–I picked this ticket length because, with its seven-day use period, it averages out what would be otherwise visually maddening weekend upcharges…

Note that (after New Years) ticket prices start the year lowish, go up mostly up in January and early February, peaking for Presidents Day, then drop, go up in early March, calm a bit in the second half of March, go up and stay high through Easter, go down in later April and May, go up Memorial Day and then bunce around in in June, peak for the summer near the Fourth of July, then are low the rest of the summer and especially in mid-August to later September. Prices are high again October and later, with peaks around Columbus Day (a common fall break period), before Thanksgiving, and before and through the Christmas holidays.

Those with eagle eyes will note prices most of the time are between 23% and 33% higher than the lowest of the year.

For those of you with regular eyes, see the chart below–the same as the one above, but with lines added at 23% and 33%.

Once you dig into it, you see that the ticket pricing is trying to direct you in particular to August and September, and direct you away from President’s Day, Spring Break, Columbus Day, and especially the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. You can see this more clearly on the heat maps at the link: color-coded Disney World ticket price heat map for 2025.

To make this even clearer, I’ve charted the same data as a percentage distribution. The vertical dimension is how much higher a 4 day ticket on a start date is than the lowest-priced such ticket of the year, and the horizontal dimension is the percentage of the year’s 365 ticket prices at that level.

Basically, ~70% of the start dates in 2025 see Disney World 4 day ticket prices between 23% and 33% higher than the lowest of the year. 10% of dates–all in August and September–are 4% higher than the lowest of the year, or better, and 10% of dates are at least 34% higher than the lowest of the year, mostly around Thanksgiving and the end of the year.

WHAT OTHER DISNEY WORLD TICKET TYPES ARE AVAILABLE?

In addition to base tickets, you can also buy three types of add-ons to base tickets. A few other ticket types are worth mentioning as well.

The “Park Hopper” add-on to base tickets gives you the ability to visit more than one park in a day. Returning visitors commonly enjoy the extra flexibility that Hoppers give them, but I counsel first-timers to only add them after they are sure they need them. Each Disney park takes more than a day to see, and travel between parks can take longer than first-timers might imagine.

Adding a Park Hopper costs an additional flat fee for the entire length of the ticket. Adding a Hopper to a four to ten day ticket costs a flat fee of ~$91 to ~$101, depending on the date of a visit

The “Water Park and Sports” add-on to base tickets adds the ability to visit the Disney water parks Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon or the minor venues on property, including mini-golf before 4p at Winter Summerland or Fantasia Gardens, a round of golf or “foot golf” at the 9 hole Oak Trail golf course, or admission to the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex. (Various restrictions apply.) You get a set of minor visits to these venues equal to the number of days of your base ticket, so a three day ticket gets three additional minor admissions, and a seven day ticket, seven admissions. This add-on costs a flat fee of ~$75 for any length of ticket, and is a good value for visitors who would have attended at least two days at the water parks anyway. First timers generally will gain more value by focusing any extra time they have either on rest or on the theme parks.

The “Park Hopper Plus” option is an add-on to a Hopper ticket. It combines the benefits of a Park Hopper add-on with those of a Water Park and Sports add-on. This add-on adds a flat fee of ~$21.30 to the Hopper price. Returning visitors planning both to hop and for multiple visits to the minor venues—especially the water parks—can gain real value out of this add-on. First timers generally will gain more value by focusing any extra time they have either on rest or on the theme parks, rather than on the minor parks.

The main other option is Annual Passes, of which there are various types, which provide unlimited entry to the parks over most or all of 12 months. Annual Passholders typically must also make park reservations.

Narrower populations—most significantly Florida residents, visitors from the UK, and members of the US Armed Forces—can often find different or special offers. Check the Disney World website for eligibility, prices and terms of these. Reservations may be required for some of these ticket types.

HOW SHOULD THESE DISNEY WORLD TICKETS BE BOUGHT?

Base tickets and their add-ons can be purchased separately, or as part of a Disney World package that also includes a Disney World hotel room.

If purchased separately, they can be purchased on-line or at the gate. Tickets of three days or longer purchased separately will be ~$21 more expensive if purchased at the gate rather than online. Base and Base with add-ons tickets purchased as part of a package will be the same price as tickets purchased separately online, but may have a better usage window than tickets purchased separately.

So if you are also planning to book a Disney-owned hotel room, in many cases it will be best to purchase your tickets as part of a package; if you are purchasing tickets separately, buy them online.

WHAT ARE THE ELIGIBLE USE PERIODS OF THESE DISNEY WORLD TICKETS?

Base tickets and their add-on variants must have their first day of eligible use identified before you can purchase them. Except for one day tickets, which must be used that exact day, these tickets come with varying usage windows—that is, for example, you don’t have to use a four day ticket on four precisely consecutive days. This lets you fit in days off, visits to other Orlando attractions, water park visits, etc., and lets you roll a bit with family or weather issues.

Base and Hopper tickets not purchased as part of a package have the following usage allotments:

• Two and three day tickets get two extra days for use
• Four through seven day tickets get three extra days
• Eight through ten day tickets get four extra days

So if you buy a four day ticket whose first day of eligible use is May 3, 2025, you can use this ticket any four days of the seven day period that begins May 3 and ends May 9.

Water Park and Sports and Park Hopper Plus tickets get one additional day of use added to the above—making it easier to fit the water parks or mini golf into your visit. So the four day ticket in the above example would be usable through May 10.

Base and add-on tickets purchased as part of a package get a usage period of whatever is longer:

• The usage periods noted above, or
• The length of the hotel reservation they are booked with, figured as the number of booked nights, plus one.

So if you bought the same four day May 3 ticket noted above as part of a seven night Disney hotel package, your usage period would be eight days (seven nights plus one), extending through May 10.

WHAT FIRST ELIGIBLE DAY SHOULD BE TARGETED FOR THESE DISNEY WORLD TICKETS?

Because usage periods for all ticket lengths greater than one day are longer than the number of ticket days, and because average daily prices can be different from day to day, some may find ticket savings by picking as their first eligible day a date somewhat earlier than the first day they plan to be in a theme park.

Some of the most extreme examples of this are just before holidays. If you are committed to the parks the four days beginning 8/26/2025, a four day ticket that begins 8/26 will cost you $531/person. But a four day ticket whose first day of eligible use is 8/23 can also be used for the four days beginning 8/26, and will cost $513. That’s a savings of about $18 per ticket–or ~$75 for a family of four.

Note that this won’t work if you are buying a package—if you have a package, your first day of eligible use will be set as the day you check in to your hotel.

WHAT’S THE PRICE TO ADD A DAY TO DISNEY WORLD TICKETS?

Back in the olden days, when prices didn’t vary by start date, it was pretty straightforward to figure out the extra cost of a ticket a day longer.

Now that prices vary so much over the course of the year, you can only know for sure the costs of adding days by comparing tickets of varying lengths with the same start days. On average, the cost to add days six through ten is around $25 per day.

THE ADD-ON THAT’S NOT AN ADD-ON

Walt Disney World offers a couple of what are in effect ticket upcharges to let you avoid what otherwise might be long lines. Known as Lightning Lane Single Pass and Lightning Lane Multi Pass, these upcharges can easily add another $25-$50 per person per day. There’s more on these Lighting Lane extra-charge options here.

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