The Walt Disney Company is raising the price of tickets at its Disneyland Parks as well as its Walt Disney World Parks. The move comes in an effort to help control the growing crowds at the parks as attendance continues to increase year after year. The company is portraying the change as a crowd-management technique rather than a push to maximize profits. The parks have seen record crowds most recenty in its last financial quarter with attendance increasing 10 percent from 2014. 

Beginning today the company will begin using tiered pricing in which ticket prices will vary between “Value Days”, “Regular Days”, and “Peak Days”. Essentially off season times may dictate a price that is cheaper than dates during the summer or spring break time periods. The new price will be $95 for a value day, $105 for a regular day and $119 for a peak day. Disneyland and Disney California Adventure have been charging $99 for a one-day ticket.

As attendance numbers continue to grow with no signs of slowing down especially during peak periods of the year Disneyland says they are hoping the new pricing structure will help spread guest around throughout the year. “In addition to expanding our parks, we are adopting seasonal pricing on our one-day ticket to help better spread visitation throughout the year.” says Suzi Brown, Disneyland spokeswoman.

When you think about it many things already use tier pricing such as hotels, airlines, as well as car sharing services. Disney had been doing surveys that asked about tiered pricing so it was expected that a change like this would be occuring. Universal Studios Hollywood however beat Disney to the punch when it came to this form of pricing which they put in place ahead of the opening of the Harry Potter land.

Over a 12-month period, 30% of the days will be “value” days, 44% will be “regular” days and 26% will be “peak” days, Disney calculates.