The park continues to offer its variable discounting system for advance online purchases, where the price of a one-day ticket varies by the date you intend visit. But with the recent price increase the cheapest available advance-purchase ticket now costs $95 — the same as an undiscounted same-day or front-gate ticket cost before the increase.
Advance purchase tickets now vary between $95-105, with all weekends going forward and all weekdays between June 3 and August 15 costing $105. For reference, a one-day ticket at either Universal Orlando theme park costs $105.
Disney recently implemented its own variable pricing system for one-day theme park tickets, but those prices remain the same whether you buy your ticket online or at the front-gate. Disney's top "Peak" day prices are $124 a day for the Magic Kingdom, $119 for Disneyland and California Adventure, and $114 for Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom.
"Value" day prices for the Disneyland parks are $95 - the same as Universal Studios Hollywood's new lowest advance-purchase price. "Regular" tickets to the Disneyland parks are $105, matching the highest advance-purchase price at USH.
Universal Studios Hollywood last week introduced a new Platinum Annual Pass for $589, which includes no blackout dates, free parking before 5pm, a 15% discount on food and merchandise, priority boarding on the Studio Tour and a free Halloween Horror Nights ticket. Disneyland's top annual pass — the newly created Signature Plus — costs $1,049 and also included no blockout dates, free parking at any time, a 15% discount on food and 20% on merchandise, plus unlimited PhotoPass downloads. Note that the Disneyland pass covers its two theme parks while USH's covers just the one.
Universal's aggressive price increases surely reflects not just a desire to keep up with Disney but also its anticipation of a continued increase in the park's popularity, following the addition of several new attractions — including Fast & Furious - Supercharged, Springfield USA, and Despicable Me Minion Mayhem — leading up to next month's official opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Update: Context...
TweetSo $115 daily tix and $589 Platinum APs make those $119 USH season passes and $139-289 APs look like a deal now, huh? #ThatWasThePlan
— Theme Park Insider (@ThemePark) March 22, 2016
However, there has been fracturing between the multi-park tickets that make it impossible to get a one-size fits all pass. The SoCal City Pass used to provide admission to DL/DCA, Sea World, USH, Legoland, and an optional San Diego Zoo add-on. However, that pass has dropped USH from its offering. There is a SoCal Theme Park Pass, but that one leaves out DL/DCA. So, if you want to do both DL/DCA and USH, you're now stuck buying one of those park's single or multi-day admission passes at published rates. It makes what used to be a $250-350 single ticket now cost nearly $500 depending on how many days you want to spend at each park.
I totally agree with James that USH is a pretty terrible value at $115 per day (even at $95 it's not very good). The only unique attraction now at USH is the studio tram, which in some ways will be duplicated by new attractions at UO (Skull Island, Fast and Furious, and Jimmy Fallon Experience). If you really need a movie-making experience, you're probably better off going to one of the other studios (WB, Sony, or Paramount) and take their tours instead.
It seems to me these price hikes are targeted at locals to encourage them to purchase season passes, which Universal admitted were lagging in sales earlier this season in advance of the WWoHP opening.
Universal Studios Hollywood, even with Harry Potter, is not even close to a multi-day park. $115 for a single day admission, no thanks. No thanks to $95 either.
I do think USH has the right strategy at this time, however. At the moment, their sole priority is to prevent overwhelming crowds once Harry Potter opens next month. I just question whether it may work too well and compromise the attendance boost the land will give the park. I was thinking USH would see a ~20% attendance increase this year, but if they don't start offering significant discounts after the initial rush wears off a single digit increase is possible, which would be a major disappointment for the opening of an entire new land.
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