The Magic Kingdom was a bit less magical Thursday morning for Walt Disney World fans who hoped to get an annual pass after the park once again made them available.
Wait times in the queue to buy one of the yearlong passes to Disney’s Florida theme parks were multiple hours long as wannabe Mousketeers lined up online to buy one, after sales were suspended 16 months ago to manage crowd levels.
Pent-up demand was a given, seeing as it has been more than a year since most people could become an annual passholder. (Florida residents were able to buy one for $399.) But even by those standards, the wait times have been long.
Disney said in advance of Thursday’s offering that sales wouldn’t begin before 6:00 a.m. ET. A two-hour wait that started at 9:00 a.m. ET was still going strong at 11:15 a.m., with the status bar showing roughly only a quarter of the progress bar filled.
Some of those people in line might not walk away with a pass, either. Disney, when it announced plans to resume sales, warned that only a limited number would be available, and future clampdowns could come.
An annual pass won’t be cheap for non-Floridians. The top tier pass, called the Incredi Pass (which has no blockout dates), costs $1,399 for one year’s access, a $100 increase from the last time it was on sale.
Disney World first suspended sales of new annual passes during its four-month shutdown for the pandemic in 2020. It resumed sales in September 2021 with new prices, restrictions, and names, only to suspend sales again two months later.