Former Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s memoir calls Disneyland’s old annual pass a “terrible” deal for Disney. He says scrapping passes was too risky, so he raised prices instead.
Bob Chapek has a few things to say about Disneyland passholders, and most of them won’t win him any fans in Anaheim.
The former Disney CEO says the resort’s annual pass program was great for the people who held one and bad for the company. In his new memoir, he also admits that getting rid of passes altogether came up.
“The passholder experience was a fantastic deal for the passholder, but a terrible one for Disney and its more vacation-oriented guests,” Chapek writes in “Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth,” according to excerpts published by the Orange County Register.
What did Bob Chapek say about Disneyland annual passholders?
His main complaint is that passholders came a lot and didn’t spend much once they got there.
Chapek writes that Disney found out-of-state vacationers were worth about six times more per day than local passholders, the Register reported. Vacationers are more likely to stay at Disney hotels, buy multi-day tickets, eat in the parks and pick up souvenirs.
Chapek says Disneyland was “leaving revenue opportunities on the table to avoid stirring the hornet’s nest.”
BlogMickey, which went through the book’s chapter on the parks, reported that Chapek describes some passholders visiting as many as 200 times a year. He puts their average spending at about $25 a day, while other guests were willing to pay about $150.
Did Disney think about getting rid of annual passes?
According to Chapek, yes. It just didn’t go anywhere, because he knew how it would land with fans.
“We understood we would get blasted if I attempted to eliminate annual passes altogether, so I moved to shift the math,” he wrote.
Shifting the math meant higher pass prices, more restrictions and a push toward vacationers who stay longer and spend more. Chapek also wanted pricier, more exclusive experiences for guests who could afford them, and he argues that money helped keep regular ticket prices from climbing even faster.
“The fact remains that some customers generated more revenue than others,” he wrote. “Not that I didn’t appreciate the passion and enthusiasm the passholders had for Disney.”
How much did Disneyland annual pass prices go up under Chapek?
Enough to test how loyal passholders were. And they stuck around.
Disneyland had 1.1 million passholders when Chapek announced his first round of price increases, according to BlogMickey’s read of the book. The number dipped to 1 million, then climbed back to 1.1 million within months.
A second increase of 15% did the same thing. By that point, Chapek says, Disney was making more than 30% more on each pass while the number of passholders held steady.
What does Josh D’Amaro have to do with it?
Quite a bit, in Chapek’s telling.
Josh D’Amaro, who became Disney’s CEO in March, shows up all over this part of the book. BlogMickey reported that Chapek credits D’Amaro and fellow executive Michael Colglazier with studying the passholder problem and concluding that the passes were a great deal for passholders and a bad one for Disney.
Chapek also calls D’Amaro the “tip of my spear” for Disney’s park reservation system, according to BlogMickey.
Why do Disneyland passholders still need park reservations?
Chapek is a big fan of them. Reservations started when Disneyland reopened after its yearlong COVID-19 closure, and they let Disney predict crowds and control how many passholders came in on a given day.
He says some passholders saw the system as “heresy.”
“I was the one tarred and feathered when the reservation system proved unpopular among superfans,” Chapek wrote, according to the Register.
Disneyland swapped its old annual passes for the Magic Key program in August 2021, and Magic Key holders still have to book park reservations today. The top tier, the Inspire Key, costs $1,899, WDW News Today reported this week.
What is Bob Chapek’s book about?
“Behind the Castle Walls” came out Sept. 29 from Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Chapek co-wrote it with Don Yaeger.
It covers his 30 years at Disney, including his run as CEO from February 2020 until the board fired him in November 2022 and brought back Bob Iger. Chapek blames Iger for his ouster, and he’s been doing interviews to defend his record around the book’s release.
He told CNBC on Sept. 28 that he wrote the book because he felt the story out there was one-sided. “I felt like I had to get the truth out there,” he said.
Will Chapek’s comments change anything for Magic Key holders?
Probably not. Chapek has been gone from Disney for almost four years, and nothing in the book changes how Magic Keys work right now.
Still, if you’ve ever wondered why your pass kept getting more expensive, the guy who ran the parks just wrote down his side of it. A lot of passholders won’t love what they read.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Orange County Register, Oct. 7, 2026: original report on the memoir’s Disneyland passholder excerpts
WDW News Today, Oct. 8, 2026: Register excerpts from Chapek’s memoir and the current Inspire Key price
Inside the Magic, Oct. 8, 2026: Register excerpt quotes
BlogMickey, Sept. 29, 2026: Chapek’s passholder numbers, pass price rounds and Josh D’Amaro’s role in the book
WDW News Today, Sept. 28, 2026: Chapek’s CNBC interview and book details
Simon & Schuster: publisher, co-author and book details
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