Today I’m taking a break from the history videos to explore a fun little “what if”
look at the Disney parks.
These days we pay a mostly flat admission fee to get into the Walt Disney World parks
and with that fee we get to enjoy whichever attractions we want as many times as we want.
However, that wasn’t always the case.
From the opening of Disneyland in 1955 until the early 1980's, Disney employed the use
of ticket books.
The finite tickets not only limited how many rides you could ride, but the A through E
class system limited what you could ride.
If you wanted to ride more after that you had to buy more tickets.
Today I want to explore what it would be like if Disney still used those ticket books.
I want to thank subscriber Oodololly who wrote in and suggested this topic.
If you want to check out their channel later, they’re two sisters who frequently vlog
from Disney World.
For this “what if”, I’m using the 1979 Magic Kingdom ticket book as a reference.
Back then a 12 ticket adventure book for an adult, which included park admission, cost $10
There were technically still ticket books in 1980 through 1982, but at that point they
phased out the A-E class system for just general ride tickets and where’s the fun in that?
So instead of burying the point of the video any further and rather than running through
every single ride, here’s my quick take on what a modern Magic Kingdom ticket book
would look like today.
With this list I tried to maintain the same distribution of rides per ticket type, but
tried to take into account the changing tastes of what guests seek out with a Disney vacation.
Now it’s important to note that the A-E ticket designation was a bit of a malleable
one.
There wasn’t any set-in-stone metrics used to decide which rides fell into which category.
Generally speaking the E-tickets were reserved for the newer, more expensive, and more popular
attractions, but that wasn't always the case.
Up until the end of ticket books, the Jungle Cruise remained an e-ticket attraction despite
the fact that it was a 24 year old concept with 24 year old technology.
Still, it was popular. The Country Bear Jamboree was also an e-ticket attraction.
Meanwhile Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, while enjoyed by many, wasn’t new or technologically advanced
or especially popular, so it was a C-Ticket ride.
In short, the really clever part of this ticket system was that every year Disney had the
opportunity to move around rides to different letters wherever they saw fit.
Because they also had control over how many of each ticket the books contained, they could
use the two together in order to try and influence how much guests visited each ride.
Of course it wasn’t a tight control.
Nothing was stopping guests from simply not using certain tickets or buying extras of
others, but it was enough to influence most guests’ behavior.
And, personally, that’s really the one perk of the ticket book system that I think we
lost with the introduction of general admission.
Now don’t get me wrong.
I love general admission and given the option would pick it any day of the week.
I think it’s the natural extension of what these ticket books were originally intended
to do, which was to take care of the spending upfront so that you could spend the rest of
your day enjoying your trip without constantly thinking about your wallet.
That said, look at that list again.
Let’s be honest, how many guests probably go to the Magic Kingdom every day and only
ever care about hitting up these seven rides?
I’d wager a lot.
Now it’s their trip so I won’t go as far as to say that’s wrong or anything, but
it is a bit of a shame that they’d potentially miss out on some otherwise really great experiences
just because they're not new or flashy.
With this old ticket book system, they would be paying into packaged deal that would incentivize
them to check out other experiences.
In other words, it encouraged a more well rounded visit.
Now as for the other parks at Disney World, well, they kind of stand as great examples
of why it’s ultimately a good thing that these ticket books are a thing of the past.
It’d almost be hard to fill a 12-adventure ticket book for them.
Epcot has 9-10 experiences when you consider the circle-vision films at the Magic Kingdom
were typically free.
As far as rides the Animal Kingdom, that too is also at around 9.
Hollywood Studios? Right now?
Forget about it.
Point being you’d be able to essentially do everything at least once, and some things
more than once which kind of defeats the effectiveness of a ticket book.
Like I said, I’m glad we have the ticket system we have now, and if you want to learn
more about why they ultimately made the change, I have an older video all about it.
I just figured it’d be fun to look at the current rides through the classic lens of
the A through E tickets.
So now I want to hear from you.
Does this breakout look right?
Am I crazy for putting certain rides under certain letters?
Let me know in the comments below.
I’d love to see what everyone’s own version of the classic ticket books look like.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time!