Disneyland Annual Passholders Deprived From the Disney Experience
As the world has now “celebrated” the unofficial one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, another unfortunate one-year anniversary has also passed: Disneyland’s unprecedented closure.
Since opening day on July 17, 1955, the park had only ever been closed for a single day on a couple of occasions: the national day of mourning for the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 23, 1963, the Northridge earthquake on Jan. 17, 1994, and on Sept. 11, 2001, when the United States fell victim to a terrorist attack.
Back in March 2020, park officials thought the two-week closure was going to be its longest closure to date, but soon they realized that was not the case and that Disney’s near future would be greatly changed.
This most recent closure has placed many aspects of the Disney experience in disarray, but one of the most unexpected turns of events was the announcement of Disneyland abandoning the annual passport program that has been in place ever since the park opened.
On Jan. 14, 2021 all annual passholders were saddened to receive this email:
“I was very heartbroken, to say the least, when I heard that Disneyland was going to be closing the annual passes and I was only halfway into my yearly pass,” says Justin Baca, who only had his annual pass for five months before the park closure.
Prior to March 2020, the Disneyland annual passport program was a membership for the biggest Disney fanatics and a way to make going to the parks more accessible and cost effective. Even purchasing the cheapest pass, the one for Southern California residents, is equivalent to the cost of around four Disneyland tickets. The program allowed passholders to attend the parks anytime they wanted, with the exception of certain blackout dates selected by the Disneyland park.
“I originally got the annual pass so that I could go with a few friends of mine along with my family during my days (off). I love Disneyland with a passion and seeing that I would go so often, at the time, I just had to get the annual pass and get my money’s worth,” says Baca.
All of the Disneyland passes have since been refunded on a case-by-case basis. Factors such as the payment plan, total amount paid toward the pass, days the pass was utilized, and access days, determined how much passholders were refunded if they qualified for one.
However, the passholders have not been completely forgotten. Two weeks after announcing that annual passholders would be no more, park officials reinvented their titles to “Legacy Passholder.” As defined by Disney, these are the people who had an annual pass anytime before March 14, 2020. In addition to this new, honorary name, these passholders were granted the following, according to Disneyland.com: “As a Legacy Passholder, there are magical extras that celebrate you. From special offerings and Park news to discounts on select food and beverages and merchandise at select locations in Downtown Disney®District and Buena Vista Street.” There are also now digital backgrounds available for download exclusively to Legacy Passholders.
The Legacy Passholder title may be nice for some, but to Disney content creators, having an annual pass was crucial to their social media presence.
Chad and Nicole from FoodatDisneyland have had Disneyland passes since they started dating and even got engaged at Disneyland. They like to call Disneyland their “special place.” With such a passion for the park, they decided to create FoodatDisneyland — a platform on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok where they would share all information on Disney foods and provide reviews on the food.
In order to keep their content growing, they have to take frequent visits to the park. But now that the annual passes are gone, they are starting to worry about their social media presence.
“Our content will be affected because we will no longer be able to go to Disneyland at our leisure. Much of our success and growth stemmed from several park visits a week to have our pulse on the new and noteworthy items at the Disneyland Resort. Time will tell as to how much it affects our account.”
Two months after the announcement of the annual passes, Disneyland expanded their efforts to keep the magic alive with the Touch of Disney Experience on March 18. The park will be opening up more of Disneyland’s California Adventure for an immersive dining experience featuring some of Disney’s infamous foods such as Dole whip, Mickey pretzels, and the jumbo turkey leg. There will also be photo opportunities and chances to see some of Disney’s most beloved characters. Legacy passholders will once again gain exclusive discounts on merchandise and dining. More information about the event can be found here.
The release of this event made it prevalent that people were desperate to be in the parks again because the ticket sale website crashed within moments of the $75 tickets being released, according to @foodatdisneyland on Instagram. This took hours to resolve and even made the park expand this magical experience well into April when it was originally scheduled to end on March 31, 2021. Tickets are officially sold out.
To everyone’s surprise though, an even bigger announcement surpassed this news — Disneyland will be reopening their gates on April 30, 2021.
Legacy Passholder Josh Erenberg says he will be attending the reopening despite no longer being an annual passholder.
“I have been going to downtown Disney maybe once or twice a month so when it opens, I would love to be there,” Erenberg says. “If they increase their ticket prices greatly, I’ll be insanely livid since I was a pass holder but I’ll still be there. Disneyland was therapy for me. I’d go and feel more at home in Tomorrowland than I would in Santa Clarita. So I’m super pumped.”
