Disney, like many companies, will sometimes test the waters when it comes to ideas they
have in the form of customer surveys.
Did you know that in 1996 they surveyed guests about a potential annual pass that would have
been the Disney pass to end all Disney passes?
You see 1996 was the year Disney was celebrating Walt Disney World’s 25th anniversary.
The parks got a new parade, some new merch, and a castle makeover that looked… uh…
unique?
One other potential perk that Disney was testing the waters for, according to the Orlando Sentinel,
was a special 25th Anniversary Annual Pass.
It would have cost $2,500 and get this, it would have granted the passholder
access to all current and future Disney theme parks in Florida for the following 25 years!
That’s not all though.
The proposed pass would have also included a limited edition lithograph, a signed letter
from Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney and a customized etched
brick with the guest’s name on it near Cinderella’s castle.
Talk about an ultimate anniversary package.
A quarter of a century of park access and a way to immortalize yourself into the park itself.
Now, at the time an adult platinum annual pass cost guests $329.
Even if you assumed the price would never change, which it would, 25 years of annual
passes would cost $8,225.
So needless to say in the long run this would have been a potential financial loss for Disney.
I say potential because we could never know if guests who would buy this anniversary pass
would otherwise buy 25 years worth of normal annual passes.
In fact they probably wouldn’t.
When you combine that with the fact that space would have obviously been limited when it
came to these custom bricks, assuming they’d be around the same size as the Walk Around
The World bricks, it seems likely that this ultimate anniversary pass would have been
an exclusive and limited product.
Given Disney’s penchant for sticking to the anniversary number, I suspect it would
have been limited to either 250 or 2,500 guests.
Now is about the time I would ask you all if you’d be willing to buy a pass like this, but it wouldn’t
be a fair question.
After all, while $2,500 is nothing to scoff at, today it’s only about three times the
price of a platinum pass, which is about $850.
Back then the $2,500 price point against a normal $329 pass meant that the anniversary
pass was 7.5 times more than the normal price.
So applying that to today’s prices, would you pay $6,400 for such an annual pass?
I’m sure plenty would, especially when you remember that we’re talking about 25 years
worth of Disney access.
So what happened to the idea?
Well, there aren’t any specifics, but it ultimately never manifested beyond that survey.
Perhaps the value of the promotion just wasn’t worth the potential long term costs of the program.
Maybe they felt they didn’t need a promotion that drastic when they were already pulling
a stunt as large as transforming the castle into a cake.
Maybe it wasn’t ever intended to be a real product to begin with and the question was
just used to learn more about how much or little guests value access to the parks.
In any case the ultimate Disney pass to end all Disney passes, the 25th anniversary annual
pass, would join the ranks as yet another “what if” project that never came to be.
I want to thank Ye Olde Proppe Shoppe for sponsoring this week’s video.
As much as we would all love to steal our favorite Disney signs and bring them home
with us as, we shouldn’t.
Disney doesn’t like that.
So instead, check out some of the sign replicas over at Ye Olde Proppe Shoppe.
They have everything from Haunted Mansion signs to Tower of Terror signs.
They even have coasters if you’re looking for something smaller.
I personally picked up their Club 33 sign a little while back for my office, and the
best part is I didn’t even have to get on a decade long waiting list like the real Club 33!
If you want to check out everything they’ve got and learn more, there’s a link in the
description below.
Thank you all for watching, and I’ll see you next time!