Man uses 46-year-old ticket that cost $8 to get into Disney’s Magic Kingdom

‘I realised it had never been used and there is no expiration date,’ man says

A man used a ticket from 1978 to get into Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida.

In a now-viral TikTok video, Matthew Ables revealed that the 46-year-old ticket was sold back in the day at the low cost of $8, which compared to the triple-digit cost of Disney tickets in 2024 sounds unbelievable. The ticket was an “old family keepsake” that was “collecting dust” even before he was born. It turns out that it was the “golden ticket” to Magic Kingdom.

“I realised it had never been used and there is no expiration date,” Ables said in the video, showing a clip of him walking up to the guest services booth. When he made it to the ticket booth, he wasn’t sure if his ticket would still be valid for the parks, but he was willing to take the chance. “I was getting nervous there because she started aggressively stamping ‘void’ all over the ticket booklet and then left.”

A few moments later, Ables said a cast member handed him a yellow pass, which allowed Ables to get into the park for the day. Still shocked, he told viewers, “I can’t believe this actually worked.”

The video has since received over 900,000 likes on the platform, with many users in his comment section expressing their awe and shock that the ticket worked.

“Glad that Disney honoured it for you,” one viewer wrote, while another added: “So magical!!!! Love this!”

“That was a treasured relic I do hope they put it up like a museum piece,” one person said. “It is something from the past.”

Someone who used to work in guest services at Disney Parks commented that this kind of thing happens more often than the public may think.

“I used to work Magic Kingdom guest relations,” they wrote. “This exact scenario would happen a few times a week!

According to the Walt Disney World Resort website, they pledge to honour all unexpired theme park tickets with remaining admission days or zero expiration dates. However, with theme park tickets that are dated, guests have the option to change the date on their tickets.

Some viewers below Ables’ video noted that the ticket from 1978 was likely considered a collector’s item and could’ve been worth a lot of money. “Dude that was worth so much money,” someone wrote.

Another person marveled at how much the prices have hiked since 1978.

“$8 in 1978 is worth about $40 in today’s value,” one viewer commented. “It’s crazy how much they keep raising the prices.”

An animated chart posted on TikTok by the user piechartpirate shows the increase in Walt Disney World ticket price since opening in 1971 to October 2021, showing how it greatly outpaces increases in wages, rent, and gas prices. Prices have reportedly gone up by at least 3,871 per cent in the past 50 years.

The TikTok account belongs to Sjoerd Tilmans of SJ Data Visualizations, a UK-based firm. The chart does not account for price increases since it went up, however, prices have reportedly continued to increase in 2022 and 2023.