News

Disney To Start Charging Parking Fee at Disney Resorts

If you are staying at Disney resort hotel, you have been able to enjoy free parking. That might be coming to an end.

Disney is making a controversial change by removing one of the Disney resort perks and now charging for it. This was a rumour, but now confirmed and live on the Disney website.

There are several benefits of staying at a Disney World resort hotel. It's why we stay in one for the whole time we visit the Disney parks. We don't usually drive (we just taxi/Uber), but I know many people do still hire a car when staying at a Disney World resort hotel, and this new fee will have an impact on you.

Disney is introducing a new parking fee for overnight parking at all the Disney World resort hotels on booking made after 21st March 2018.

Deluxe Resorts $24/night

Moderate Resorts: $19/night

Value Resorts: $13/night

If you are a DVC member however, this parking fee will not apply to you.

Overall, I have no issue with costs going up in general–it's only natural. But, to take away a benefit at staying at a Disney hotel to charge for it. What's next? Fastpass?

Doing this may not be simply a way to increase revenue, but there might be a larger plan at play. This very well might be Disney trying to push the idea of not bringing a car even more. Just stay at our resorts and parks, eat only our food etc! (I have no issue with that myself–that's how we tend to do Disney anyway–but I know many people don't holiday that way.) Perhaps pollution in the area is higher than it should be and they need to encourage people to not bring cars and use the already running Disney transportation? It could also be a way that Disney is stopping people who abuse the system by parking at the resorts and getting the free buses to the parks. What's odd to me is that they let DVC members park for free, but not Annual Pass holders. I would have thought it would make good business sense to try to get the locals to stay in the hotels to squeeze extra money from them rather than push them away even more when they're not the ones who usually stay.

Either way, it's now an extra cost to consider if you're staying at Disney hotel and hiring a car.