Disney Just Quietly Admitted Park Prices Will Keep Going Up

If we see one complaint about Disney World and Disneyland more than anything else, it’s about the prices of everything involved with a Disney trip, whether that be the prices of hotels, the prices of tickets, the prices of food, or something else.

Well, Disney fans might have had high hopes for prices to go down…or at least stay static for a little while, once new CEO Josh D’Amaro took over the company, but the truth is that park prices are probably going to continue to go up.

Hugh Johnston, The Walt Disney Company’s Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, recently hosted a livestream Q&A session as part of the MoffettNathanson Media, Internet & Communications Conference. One of the things he was asked about was how the company planned on balancing parks growth and prices. Johnston confirmed that both topics would be a big factor in how the company does business over the next three to four years.

Johnston mentioned how Disney tends to use promotional activities to make sure the company is filling the parks every day. That makes capacity utilization on those parks high almost all the time, regardless of whether the promotion is a discount or other forms of promotion like Cool Kids Summer, a free Disney Dining Plan, etc. However, he acknowledged that Disney can’t really grow attendance at the moment because the parks are already at capacity. That’s where expansion comes in.

Now, Disney World and Disneyland are both planning some pretty big expansions over the next few years with new lands, new rides, and new experiences. Johnston said, “So then we add capacity, without a doubt, it creates the opportunity. Does that mean the yield is going down? Well, that’s not been our experience because when you put in a big new attraction, it actually — you see a surge in demand for it as well. So we tend to fill those things up really, really quickly without having to discount.

So what does this come down to? Well, Johnston suggested that adding these new things “offers some ability to charge more because essentially, you’re offering something new that wasn’t there before.” Basically, Disney feels that the new expansions give the company a good reason to raise prices because the company feels it’s now offering more to parks visitors, which makes the parks more valuable.

“Yes, we have the ability to grow attendance as we expand capacity,” he said. “I would expect to see both pricing and attendance growth over any 3- or 4-year time frame.”

To sum up, we’ll probably see at least ticket prices continue to go up in price as the new expansions open in Disney World and Disneyland. We’ll have to see if visitors are willing to pay more to get more experiences in the parks.

During Disney’s most recent earnings call for Q2 2026, the company shared that domestic theme park attendance has actually declined 1% for this quarter. However, this could be due to guests choosing international Disney experiences instead.

We’ll continue to cover ALL Disney news, so check back with AllEars again soon for more.