You know, I was one of those people who sort of glanced over the news of a new ticket promotion called “Magic Your Way” once it was announced through numerous press avenues.

Of course, that was before I realized how big this thing really was, and how great it was for the Walt Disney World Resort to finally have tickets that could give guests what they wanted to buy, and not force them into a specific ticket. Guests could buy their tickets based upon their vacations, rather than planning their vacations around their tickets.

If that doesn’t make too much sense, let me explain...

As it was (meaning before yesterday, which was the start of the new “Magic Your Way” ticketing system and the end of the old system), guests visiting the Walt Disney World Resort had several options for tickets. For those wanting to spend three days or less in the Parks, however, their options were very limited.

At the start of the old ticketing system was the “One Day / One Park” ticket, which would allow one guest access to any park for one day, but that was it. It explicitly denied any Park Hopping ability, which would allow that guest to visit another theme park on the same day. They would only be able to visit that one theme park for that day.

Here where the old system becomes real fun, and a burden to some guests. The next step in the old ticketing system was your Four Day Park Hopper Pass, which would allow one guest to visit theme parks for four days, with the ability to park hop between any of the parks on each of those days. In addition, guests could have bought the Four Day Park Hopper Plus for an additional fee instead, which would allow them access to the Water Parks, DisneyQuest, Pleasure Island, and Disney’s Wide World of Sports.

After the Four Day Park Hopper (and Plus) ticket, the park hoppers increased by day, meaning a five day with the same options, a six day, a seven day, and so on.

As you may have figured out, there is a large gap between going from a single park on a single day ticket to the next choice of a four day park hopping ticket. What happens to all of those folks who want to park hop but only have one day to visit, or those who have two or three days who also want to park hop?

Well, in the past the answer was usually either buy more than one single park / single day ticket for each Guest, or go ahead and purchase the Four Day Park Hopper. The nice thing was that the remaining days never expired on the multi day park hoppers, so you could come back and use the remaining days at a later time. Some guests used that to their advantage, buying say a Six Day Park Hopper for everyone in their party and using only three days on their first trip, while planning a second three day trip later on.

Of course, many guests were squeezed into the multi day park hopper, or the single day / single park ticket, either buying more than they wanted, or not buying as much access as they would have liked to have.

Now that has changed, and I for one and very glad.

The new ticketing system takes all of the single day and multi day tickets, and basically throws them out the window. In their place is a brand new system for ticket choices, and it couldn’t be more user friendly...

...with that said, I should take a moment to mention that the Annual, Seasonal, and other “calendar based” tickets will still be available. Now back to your regularly scheduled article...

To start off, the “Magic Your Way” system requires a base ticket. This ticket is not a Park Hopper, but we’ll get to that in a bit. It is good for one park per day per person, and just like ALL of the Disney park tickets, is non-transferable. That means that if you’ve ever sold off a ticket with days remaining on it, or bought a ticket with unused days still left on it, you are actually breaking the law.

But anyway, back to the base tickets. The base tickets range from one to seven days, with a price range of $59.75 for a one day to $199.00 for a seven day ticket. Okay, so now we have our choices, so let’s say I want to visit the parks for five days, which would be a five day base ticket at $193.00. Notice, however, that the price difference between a five day base ticket and a seven day base ticket is only $6. With the new system, the more days you add, the less you pay per day.

Now, here’s where the new system becomes dynamic and fun. I now options I can choose to add to my ticket. Let’s start with the two main ones.

First off, I can choose to add the “Park Hopper Option”. This is a flat $35 fee, no matter what type of base ticket I buy. If I bought a one day base ticket and wanted to make it a Park Hopper, it would be an additional $35. If I had the seven day base ticket, it would still be $35, and all of my days would become Park Hoppers. In our running example here, let’s say I want to make my five day base ticket a park hopper, so I’m going to add $35 to the price of my ticket bringing it to $228.00.

The second major option I have is to add the “Magic Plus Pack Option”. This allows me a certain number of visits to the Water Parks, Disney Quest, Pleasure Island, and Disney’s Wide World of Sports, depending on the base ticket you buy. A one day base ticket will give that person two visits of their choice, all the way up to five visits of their choice for the person holding a seven day base ticket. The price for this option is a flat $45, again regardless of the type of base ticket purchased. For our example, I’m going to add this option as well, bring my five day ticket with Park Hopping and the Plus Pack to $273.00.

Now, had I wanted to, I could have saved a lot of time by just asking for the Five Day Magic Your Way Premium Ticket, which is just the base ticket with the Park Hopping and Plus Pack options already built in. It’s $273.00 for the Five Day version, so there no savings if you ask for it versus adding the options separately, but it is a much easier way to order the same end result.

That’s the new ticketing system in a nutshell, but there is one major thing I haven’t mentioned yet: expiration dates. While the new ticketing system is a giant leap in customizing your Walt Disney World vacation, these new tickets expire 14 days from first use, whether or not the entire ticket is used or not. There is a last option, of course, which would be to add the “No Expiration Date Option”, which varies in price based upon what base ticket you buy. It’s not available for the one day base ticket, since , well, once you use it there isn’t another day to save! For the two day base ticket, the No Expiration Option is $10, and goes up to $55 for the seven day base ticket. I’m planning on using all of my five days in the Theme Parks as well as my two visits to the Water Parks and one visit to DisneyQuest, so I don’t need to add this option.

As you can see this new system is great because it allows guests to completely customize their tickets to what they want to do. Want to spend one day in Magic Kingdom and one day in Epcot? All you need is a two day base ticket. Want to park hop for three days? Buy a three day base ticket with the Park Hopper option. Want to park hop for a day, but visit Pleasure Island and DisneyQuest? All you need is a on day base ticket with the Magic Plus Pack option. Finally, the choice is up to you.

...and along with other companies, Disney is offering advance purchase savings for base tickets with at least one of the Park Hopping Option or the Magic Plus Pack Option, either through www.DisneyWorld.com, through the Disney Reservations Center (407 W-DISNEY), or anywhere outside the State of Florida (AAA, CAA, Travel Agents, etc.).

While that may seem unfair to those of us in the State of Florida, we are getting a great deal instead. For Florida Residents, we have the option of buying a Three Day Play Pass for the non-resident price of a Two Day Base Ticket ($119). Both the Park Hopping and Magic Plus Pack options can be added, and the pass expires six months from first use, unless the No Expiration Option is added. The bad news is that this takes the place of the old Play 4 Days Pass, but unlike that old pass, this new one has no blackout dates.

The other option available to Florida Residents is regarding the One Day Base Ticket. Florida Residents have two choices in regards to this ticket, in that they can keep the base ticket as it is (one park / one day) and receive a 10% discount on the price, or they can pay the full $59.97 and receive the Park Hopping Option for free. That, in my opinion, makes up hands down for the loss of the Play 4 Days Pass.

Of course, there are three other things tied into the new Magic Your Way ticketing system, namely the “Magic Your Way Package” which combines your Walt Disney World Resort stay with your tickets, the “Magic Your Way Package Plus Dining” which combines your Resort stay with tickets and the Disney Dining Plan, and the “Magic Your Way Premium Package”, which combines just about everything Walt Disney World has to offer, including such things as Cirque du Soleil and Golf.

The best part about all of these options is that you don't have to add them right when you buy your base tickets. All of the options may be added to your base tickets at any time, and will be applied to the remainder of your base tickets. This is a really nice feature, in case your plans stray a little from what you had planned on once you get down here. In the past, had you bought a one day / one park ticket and wanted to go to another park on that same day, you would have been forced to buy another one day / one park ticket. Now, you could take your existing base ticket to any Walt Disney World Resort ticket window or Guest Relations office and the Park Hopper Option can be added for the flat fee of $35 (which again applies to your entire base ticket, not just that day).

While the ticket choices will be changing, some security measure regarding the tickets will be as well. There is now a signature line on the back of the card, but more importantly, everyone with a ticket as of today will have to use the biometric scanners located on top of the turnstiles. You know, those things you make a peace sign with your hand and stick it in for? While a lot of people may not like them, they are critical to use with the new pricing method, and believe it or not are easy to use once your figured it out.

Here’s my advice on making the scanner easy to use: Make a peace sign (or “V” sign like after WWII) with your right hand, and stick your index and middle fingers in the machine. PUSH THEM ALL THE WAY IN (most people get lost and frustrated here), until the webbing between your fingers touches the stopper inside the machine. Then, squeeze your two fingers together until you hit some more stoppers. The lights on the machine show you where your fingers are not lined up; your job is to get all of the lights to go out. Wait for them all to blink, and you’re done! Trust me, once you’ve done it about three times, you’ll get the hang of it.

The most important part of this change is to prevent the resale of unused days on used tickets, which as I said before is illegal. I someone tries to sell you one of these types of tickets, you used to have a 50% chance of them working at the Theme Park Gate. Now, your chances are about 0%.

All in all, this is good news for guests, as the savings for multi day tickets are incredible for the longer stays. If you’re interested in finding out more, go onto www.DisneyWorld.com to find out more. Once there, you can even custom build your tickets online and buy them with the advance purchase discount as well.

Thanks for stopping on by, and I’ll see you next week!