Walt Disney World has announced a new special offer for discounted multi-Day ‘Magic’ tickets for Spring to Fall 2025 available for the general public to purchase. This shares details about the deal, plus our commentary about why it’s being offered, the BIG downside this year, if it makes sense to buy, and how you can make it work even with said ‘big downside.’
Let’s start with the specifics. Get a 3-day, 3-park ticket starting at $89 per day ($267 total, plus tax) for visits starting on April 6 through September 22, 2025. This ticket is for 1-day admission to EPCOT, 1-day admission to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, 1-day admission Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and zero (0) days admission to Magic Kingdom. Limit one theme park per day—for a total of 3 admissions, on 3 separate days.
Just to underscore the point: this 3-day, 3-park ticket is NOT not valid for admission to Magic Kingdom. It’s a three day ticket, with one day spent in each of the other three parks. You cannot do multiple days in any of the parks–it’s a single day at each! (Note that this does not mean you can only enter the park once; same-day re-entry is allowed with these tickets.)
This ticket will be available for purchase starting March 27, 2025. You can buy directly from Walt Disney World or at an even deeper discount via Get Away Today! Additionally, Get Away Today offers an exclusive discount to readers of this site–enter promo code DTB24 at checkout for an extra $5 off this Magic Ticket! The ticket is also offered by travel agents, other authorized third parties, etc.
If the 3-Day, 3-Park Magic Ticket sounds familiar, that’s good–it should. Something very similar was offered each of the last two summers. Walt Disney World hasn’t released full details about the 2025 version of the ticket, but there’s a decent amount we can surmise from last year’s special offer, which sounds more or less the same.
In all likelihood, this 3-Park Magic Ticket will not require a theme park reservation to enter the Walt Disney World theme parks. It is a date-based ticket that must be used within 5 days of selected start date. All tickets and options are non-transferable and non-refundable, and exclude activities/events that are separately priced or not open to the general public.
The biggest difference with this Summer 2025 special offer is that there is NOT going to be a 4-Day, 4-Parks Magic Ticket that includes Magic Kingdom. That was the headline offer each of the last two summers, and that ticket started at $99 per day. It was also much more popular, unsurprisingly since Magic Kingdom is the castle park at Walt Disney World, and the most visited theme park in the world.
Like last year, pricing is date-based, which means the above costs are the starting rates for the Magic Tickets.
While the ticket starts at $89 per day, the dates offering that price are most likely to be during the August and September off-season, as well as the late April to May shoulder season. In other words, you’re going to be paying more around Memorial Day, Independence Day, and other higher-demand dates.
This should be unsurprising, and it tracks with date-based pricing for regular multi-day tickets. As such, the savings is fairly close to static, because as the price of the 3-Park Magic Ticket increases, regular tickets also go up by roughly corresponding amounts. As always, we wouldn’t necessarily plan trips around avoiding Memorial Day, Independence Day, or Labor Day–that trio has become the slowest set of holiday weekends at Walt Disney World.
None of these holidays are big like Easter, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or NYE because summer vacation is a more diluted school recess, so family vacations aren’t consolidated into a single week or two, as is the case with those holidays. With Memorial Day, there’s also the wild card of Epic Universe’s grand opening–it’s completely unclear whether that’ll hollow out crowds at Walt Disney World or contribute to a “rising tides” dynamic.
In general, using the date-based pricing should help (to some degree) redistribute demand more evenly. That’s the whole point of this ticket in the first place!
When revenge travel was running hot, the company used theme park reservations to limit access to Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. That redistributed attendance and push people towards Animal Kingdom and EPCOT to increase the utilization of those parks and normalize numbers across all four parks.
With pent-up demand exhausted, the company doesn’t have the same leverage to enact such guest unfriendly policies. People will simply vacation elsewhere rather than jump through hoops and not be given the full choice of which parks to visit.
It’s still a somewhat similar idea here. If left to their own devices, tourists would not visit Animal Kingdom and EPCOT in the same numbers or with the same frequency as Magic Kingdom (also known simply as “Disneyworld” to many casual guests) or Disney’s Hollywood Studios (aka “The Star Wars Park” or “The One With All the ‘Big’ Rides and New Stuff”).
The 3-Day, 3-Park Magic Ticket essentially accomplishes that, with its purchasers spending 33% of their vacation days at each park…and 0% of their time at Magic Kingdom. This makes it a fantastic deal for Walt Disney World visitors on a budget or those who dedicate a day to each park except the most popular one.
This is a savvy approach and better one than park reservations because it’s voluntary. Instead of trying to manipulate behavior, it essentially proposes a trade: you skip Magic Kingdom, vist the other 3 parks, and you get a discount. The idea is that guests on tighter budget will agree to this offer. It’s a win for them! It’s a win for Walt Disney World! Everyone goes home (or rather, to the parks) happy!
As for the “why?” of this Magic Ticket, it’s the same reason as each of the last two years. Pent-up demand continues to exhaust itself and there are signs of softness on the horizon for Walt Disney World. Over the last year, we’ve mentioned repeatedly that Walt Disney World is pulling out the ‘2019 discount playbook’ in trying to reverse lagging attendance and hotel occupancy trends.
There are more variables for 2025, though. The first is the pullback in international travel to the United States, especially by Canadians. Similarly but separately, there’s also declining consumer confidence, rising economic uncertainty, and concern about a looming recession that is giving people travel trepidations.
The biggest is the aforementioned opening of Epic Universe down the road. You’ve probably heard a thing or two about Universal Orlando’s new third theme park. It’s kind of a big deal. Epic Universe is the elephant in the room when it comes to strategic planning for pretty much all of Walt Disney World’s initiatives in 2025 and 2026.
Disney’s official position is that a “rising tide lifts all boats.” That’s what happened with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter over a decade ago, and Disney’s modeling supposedly shows the same will happen again. I don’t think they–or anyone–truly knows how this will play out until it does. The range of overall outcomes are it being a slight net positive or slight net negative for Walt Disney World.
One thing Disney has conceded is that they will lose market share to Universal Orlando. The thesis is that they’ll get a smaller piece of a larger piece. But to extend that metaphor further, each park is getting its own slice of pie. Magic Kingdom’s will almost certainly be bigger, whereas Animal Kingdom’s will almost certainly be smaller.
This is essentially an extension of the above conversation about park popularity. Visitors to Central Florida have limited vacation time, and the park they’re most likely to visit is Magic Kingdom. Let’s say they’re coming for Epic Universe and will stay on-site at Universal Orlando–they’re most likely to add a day at Magic Kingdom on the side. Let’s say they’re coming for Walt Disney World and will stay on-site there–they’re most likely to sacrifice Animal Kingdom in order to add-on a day at Epic Universe.
You get the idea. Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are the most clear-cut examples and these trends probably will play out at both parks. Less clear is what happens with Disney’s Hollywood Studios and EPCOT in the middle. Maybe DHS sees a slight bump as Epic Universe attendees also want to see the Star Wars stuff. Perhaps Walt Disney World guests cut EPCOT–or maybe locals pick up the slack since Epic Universe won’t have APs. Hard to say.
But the salient point concerns the two ‘kingdom’ parks, and this Magic Ticket broadly exists to commit people to multiple on-site days at Walt Disney World that include Animal Kingdom. It’s kind of a brilliant move from a captive audience and guest spending perspective, stepping up to (partially) fill the gap left by the end of Disney’s Magical Express and declining popularity of the Disney Dining Plan. (Similar ideas to both.)
Obviously, this Magic Ticket isn’t going to change the equation for guests who otherwise would’ve only purchased single day tickets to Magic Kingdom (Walt Disney World’s best-selling ticket type), but it will be enticing for guests considering multi-day vacations and visits. It should move the needle to a meaningful degree, and not just at the margins.
All of this is in theory, and has been what we’ve seen play out with past incarnations of the Magic Ticket. The key distinction between the last two years and 2025 was the existence of a 4-Day, 4-Parks Magic Ticket. I’m skeptical this ticket will be nearly as popular without Magic Kingdom.
Of course, I don’t have the data on ticket sales last year for the 3-Park version and Walt Disney World does. But my gut tells me that, even at a lower per-day price point, the 3-Parks Magic Ticket probably didn’t sell nearly as well as the 4-Parks version. That most people aren’t willing to forfeit a day at MK, even for a deeper discount. That this is coming too close to what Disney did a few years ago in trying to use park reservations to manipulate guest behavior and “force” them to visit parks other than Magic Kingdom.
I understand the why of this approach, which is essentially explained above. On top of Magic Kingdom being the park most likely to benefit from the “rising tide” of Epic Universe, it’s also the direct beneficiary of its own night parade. I just also can’t help but wonder whether Walt Disney World’s own internal analysis is overestimating the positive impact both will have, and underestimating how much less popular this ticket deal will be by virtue of excluding Magic Kingdom.
If this ticket deal is less popular, that could come back to bite them, as it potentially means even fewer people heading to Animal Kingdom. In turn, that makes me wonder whether we’ve actually seen the last of the Magic Ticket special offers for Summer 2025.
If early sales of this 3-Parks Magic Ticket are slow, it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising to me to see Walt Disney World scramble to roll out a 4-Parks Magic Ticket after Easter. That would actually make perfect sense, as Magic Kingdom isn’t going to have any near-term issues with attendance for the next few weeks, anyway.
A version that includes Magic Kingdom could have blockout dates around the debut of Disney Starlight Night Parade and summer holidays, or just spike in price for those dates. Or it could even require reservations (even if only for Magic Kingdom). I guess we’ll find out one way or another in a few weeks, if another ticket deal rolls out. I’m not necessarily expecting one, as Walt Disney World normally doesn’t adapt and deploy that quickly. But in this case, it’s entirely possible, as the playbook for this exact ticket type already exists from the last couple summers.
Should You Buy the 3-Park Magic Ticket?
As for whether we’d recommend the 3-Park Magic ticket deal for Walt Disney World visitors, that depends. First, there’s the threshold question of whether you’re willing to skip Magic Kingdom and visit the other three parks? If so, do you intend upon spending an entire day at each of them? Would you skip the Park Hopper option?
If the answer to all of those questions is yes, then buying this ticket is the right decision for you. If you’re on a tight budget and a vacation to Walt Disney World is already stretching your vacation dollars, then this ticket offer also probably makes sense if it fits pretty with your vacation parameters or is “close enough.”
In pricing out Walt Disney World tickets, it should be fairly obvious that the 3-Park ticket is a good deal–and that’s even as compared to discounts offered by authorized third party ticket sellers. As compared to front gate prices, this is a tremendous savings on admission–often over $100 per person.
Accordingly, if you’re a bottom dollar kind of visitor and this works within your Walt Disney World vacation plans, it’s a pretty open and closed case. You should buy one of the Magic Tickets for your Walt Disney world trip–it’s a good to great promo for your circumstances. It’s rare to see this deep of discounts offered to the general public on tickets, and it’s a really attractive offer even considering the “catch.”
Even if you want to visit Magic Kingdom, the 3-Park Magic Ticket might work for you!
One great use case is for those who are planning to attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party in August or September 2025. Keep in mind that MNSSHP attendees are allowed to enter Magic Kingdom as early as 4 pm with purchase of admission to that separately-ticketed special event. (Assuming that decade-plus old policy doesn’t change.)
With the 3-Park Magic Ticket plus Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party tickets, you could still get your Magic Kingdom fix without a dedicated park day on the standalone ticket. (If you’re visiting in April or May 2025, the same logic applies with After Hours at Magic Kingdom.)
If your trip is time-constrained, you could do morning and early afternoon at Animal Kingdom, and then bounce over to Magic Kingdom at 4 pm for MNSSHP. Or, you could do Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party on a different day completely, enjoying pool time or Disney Springs on your MNSSHP morning. Either way, you’d be able to spend a half day at Magic Kingdom, and during a time when rides typically have lower wait times.
The savings offered by this Disney Magic Ticket also makes it easier to justify the high cost of MNSSHP or perhaps an After Hours event. This is just one example, there are probably many other use cases for the 3-Day Disney Magic Ticket–you know your circumstances and priorities best.
The Walt Disney World Magic Ticket going to be a good option for families wanting to cut costs and reduce their vacation budget. It’s also a good option for those with 5+ day trips who are only looking to spend a day or two at Epic Universe and not the rest of Universal Orlando.
Paired with one of the room-only discounts that’s currently available, this ticket should make a Walt Disney World vacation possible for some people who might’ve previously thought it was out of reach. Or it might be able to make the trip cheaper, and allow for splurging elsewhere. It’s a really great deal–and a rare general public ticket discount.
However, the Magic Ticket deal is not for everyone, and we would encourage those who are on the fence to give it more thought and consider whether the savings are enough to overcome this ticket’s shortcomings. As with everything, there’s no one-size-fits-all advice when it comes to Walt Disney World, but this is not a ticket that we would personally purchase or recommend to most first-timers or infrequent visitors.
As explained in our Money-Saving Guide to Walt Disney World Tickets, we are huge Park Hopper fans and advocates. That’s one of the first and highest-priority splurges we’d recommend making, even if it comes at the expense of table service meals, Lightning Lanes, or just about anything else. That’s especially true for those with fewer days at Walt Disney World. (Not so much for parents with small children or anyone else who realistically won’t spend all day in the parks.)
Although all of them can be full-day parks, we struggle with recommending that first-timers spend 33% of their vacation time at Animal Kingdom. It can be difficult to assert that the average first-time visitor is going to want to spend more time at Animal Kingdom than Magic Kingdom.
And that is the case with this ticket, even making the charitable assumption that the Magic Ticket will be paired with After Hours or Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. If you don’t plan on doing that, it’s an even harder sell to recommend 0% of your vacation at Magic Kingdom, unless you have hardcore case of castlephobia. (An uncommon condition, but one that does afflict dozens of people annually.)
Realistically, that’s just not a good allocation of time for most people. This isn’t just our bias or personal preferences–there are stats to support it. For one thing, Animal Kingdom sees millions fewer annual guests than Magic Kingdom. For another thing, wait times show that Animal Kingdom crowds arrive late and leave early. (There’s a reason Animal Kingdom is the next park that’s earmarked for expansion.)
When it comes to Animal Kingdom, the ‘average’ guest is rolling up at around 10 am and leaving before 3 pm. The average first-timer can certainly spend more time at DAK, but you could easily arrive at opening (or better yet, for Early Entry) and leave fully satisfied at 1 pm, especially with the park down two attractions (over 20% of its total!) already in 2025. In fairness, it is also up one adorable tiger cub. Some might argue that nets out to a positive for the park (I would).
This is an illustrative example, and admittedly the most extreme one. We also favor splitting up both EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios into two half-days, but it’s much easier to fill an entire single day at them.
The salient point is that if you’re a first-timer to Walt Disney World, you should spend at least one full day at Magic Kingdom, if not 1.5 days and a half-day at DAK. Allocating more time to Animal Kingdom than Magic Kingdom is an inefficient use of time, and money is equally valuable (if not more so) to time for many people on vacation.
On the other hand, doing full days at EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, along with a morning at Animal Kingdom followed by a hard ticket event that same day at Magic Kingdom sounds very efficient. Not an optimal trip, but an interesting 3-day visit. Pair that with a day or even two at Epic Universe, and now we’re really cooking! If I weren’t an Annual Passholder, that’s what my summer/early fall Central Florida vacation might look like.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Will you be purchasing the 3-Day/3-Park Magic Ticket? Do you think this is a good deal, or is it too restrictive in ‘forcing’ you to visit Animal Kingdom and offering zero days in Magic Kingdom? Think this is a good option for those who want to add-on a day or two at Epic Universe? What about the notion of doing a split day at Animal Kingdom followed by a hard ticket event that same night at Magic Kingdom? If you’re a tourist, do the Magic Tickets appeal to you? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!