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How much are Magic Key annual passholders worth to Disneyland?

October 17, 2023

The $9.5 million Magic Key class action settlement offers a glimpse behind the curtain that Disneyland rarely shares with the public and provides a rough estimate of what annual passholders are worth to the Anaheim theme park.

Disney agreed in September to settle a federal lawsuit alleging that annual passholders who purchased the $1,399 Dream Key in 2021 were unable to make theme park reservations at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure despite the promise of “no blockout dates.”

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As a result of the class action suit, each of the 103,435 Dream Key annual passholders will get $67.41.

With a little back-of-the-napkin math, those few numbers offer surprising insight into the billions Disneyland takes in annually from Magic Key passholders and daily visitors.

While $67 won’t even pay for a ticket to Disneyland on the cheapest day of the year, the $9.5 million Magic Key class action settlement represents a refund of nearly three weeks of theme park access for annual passholders.

Crunching the numbers, the Dream Key cost passholders about $3.83 per day — an amazing bargain compared to the $104 to $194 visitors pay for daily admission.

Disneyland’s lawyers basically agreed to pay Dream Key passholders for about 18 days of access to the Anaheim theme parks in the class action lawsuit.

The $67 payout works out to just under 5% of the cost of a $1,399 Dream Key annual pass.

The $9.5 million settlement represents just under 7% of the $144.7 million Disneyland raked in from 103,435 Dream Key passholders in 2021.

The settlement offers the first official headcount of Magic Key annual passholders — a number that Disneyland has carefully guarded for decades.

Disneyland has raised prices on annual passes since 2021 and recast the Dream Key as the Inspire Key. There’s no way of knowing if there are still just over 100,000 Inspire keyholders today — but the number serves as a good estimate.

What the settlement doesn’t reveal is the full size of the annual passholder army. Disneyland breaks the Magic Key passes into four tiers: $1,649 Inspire Key, $1,249 Believe Key, $849 Enchant Key and $499 Imagine Key.

If the four Magic Key tiers were divided equally, Disneyland’s annual take would be $439.2 million from 413,740 passholders.

Disneyland’s yearly haul grows much larger if the Inspire keyholders represent roughly 10% of 1 million passholders — the long-held and widely accepted estimate.

If the three lowest Magic Key tiers were divided equally, Disneyland’s 1 million passholders would drop $949.7 million annually into Disney’s coffers.

Passholders make up only a portion of the total attendance for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.

Disneyland’s 16.9 million visitors in 2022 was 90% of the 18.7 million that came to the park in 2019, according to the TEA/AECOM report. Disney California Adventure did slightly better at 91% — tallying 9 million visitors in 2022 compared to 9.9 million in 2019.

Annual passholders comprise an estimated 50% of Disneyland attendance, according to UBS financial analysts.

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Disneyland and DCA daily visitors pay an average of $149 per day to get into the parks. That’s probably on the low side when you factor in parkhoppers, after-hour events and multi-day tickets.

If 12.95 million daily visitors came to the parks in 2022, that works out to $1.9 billion walking through the front gates. With the slightly higher 14.3 million daily visitors in 2019, Disneyland’s annual gate revenue jumps to $2.1 billion.

Adding up the back-of-the-napkin math, Disneyland brings in a staggering $2.3 billion to $3 billion annually from Magic Key passholders and daily visitors.

Orange County Register

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How much are Magic Key annual passholders worth to Disneyland?

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