Universal Studios Hollywood significantly raises annual pass prices

Ground laying for Harry Potter. Place is going to be a madhouse.

That boy wizard must have done well in alchemy class - he can turn any base metal into gold!

It's interesting that the best pass still has blackout dates. I often wonder if they'll do that here in Orlando.

^As of yesterday, Preferred and Premier tiers have no blackout dates.

Still a ridiculously good deal if you get there just a few times.

I was wondering about the blackouts too because I thought someone had mentioned a while ago pass holders can no longer do Horror Nights on their passes in Orlando, but I might be thinking of something else. With the crowds Orlando gets during the Halloween season, I wouldn't be surprised to see them do passes that black out certain dates.

Universal hates poor people. ;)

First, to Travis: Well done....kudos!

Second:

bunky666 said:

I was wondering about the blackouts too because I thought someone had mentioned a while ago pass holders can no longer do Horror Nights on their passes in Orlando, but I might be thinking of something else. With the crowds Orlando gets during the Halloween season, I wouldn't be surprised to see them do passes that black out certain dates.

Ah, I should have clarified further. Like a Disney pass, there are still "separately-ticketed events." HHN is one of those.

Your season pass, no matter what tier, won't get you in...although I think Premier might get one free HHN night.

During the daytime in October, your pass is good....sometimes really good due to the lighter crowds. But there's little or no HHN...magic.

I was just surprised no one made the joke before me. :D

With all your approvals of the rate increases, Makes me wonder what kind of jobs you have since all these increases makes going to the parks nearly out of reach for the average American who doesn't make that much. I don't care about the discounts they give since it's a only a fascade to get you into the park and then hit you up on the high price of the food and drinks.

I'm an average Anerican who doesn't buy a season pass to USH so I don't care how much they raise the price. It has no affect on me.

Screamlord said:

....makes me wonder what kind of jobs you have since all these increases makes going to the parks nearly out of reach for the average American...

...but well within reach of people with sufficient disposable income.

The "average Americans" aren't the ones they're trying to attract.

The wealthier-than-average ones are more likely to give them the revenue generation they're looking for....

We've seen a lot of companies, and sometimes entire industries, focus on specific market segments very intentionally. Think about computers... Dell has for years focused on the thinnest margin, commodity market (with comparable quality), while Apple has focused on high quality, borderline luxury computers that achieve 30%+ margins. If there's any cultural weirdness I can point at right now, it's the idea that all things should be for all people when it comes to consumer products. It has never been that way, and I don't see why it should be.

Absolutely. I always have difficulty buying into the "Amusement Park X has priced its gate/FOL access/hotel rooms/season pass/what have you out of the range of average Americans" argument: it's a business selling a product to people with enough disposable income to afford the product.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going over to hotelbuzz.com to complain about how Marriott is pricing its JW Marriott hotels out of reach of the average American....

I'm more upset that Lamborghini keeps pricing their newest Aventador out of reach for the average American. I really really want one, but just can't afford it. But I'm still very much an automobile enthusiast.

In all seriousness though, of course I don't like price increases. I mean, really, who wants to pay more when you could pay less, amiright? But the fact of the matter is even a "significant" price increase of an annual pass is still a minuscule percentage of a household income, no matter how broke yo azz be. In the grand scheme of things, most will find that it's still worth the cost if it's what you want to do with your free time. One of the justifications we use for our CF platinum passes is that we are buying 6 months of entertainment for one price. It's what we want to do with our free time, so it's worth it, even though the price does seem to increase every year.