TikToker Uses 46-Year-Old Admission Ticket to Enter Disney World: ’I Can’t Believe it Actually Worked’
“I tried getting into Disney World with a 46-year-old ticket originally worth $8," TikToker Mathew Ables shared in a video
Matt Stroshane
Dreams do come true at the most magical place on Earth — even 46 years later.
TikToker Mathew Ables shared a video on social media detailing his journey of finding an old admission ticket into Disney World from 1978 at his home and using it to gain entry into the park recently.
Ables kicked off the Jan. 23 TikTok video by saying, “I tried getting into Disney World with a 46-year-old ticket originally worth $8.” He then cut to a shot of the ticket in an old drawer and noted that it had been “collecting dust since before I was born.”
He showed off the yellow ticket booklet, which read, “10 Adventures in Walt Disney World The Magic Kingdom” and featured an older design of Mickey Mouse and the Disney castle. The back of the ticket booklet also read: “Admit one entry to The Magic Kingdom and also had admission for a “transportation ticket.”
In the video, he said he realized that “it’s never been used” and “there’s no expiration date” on the ticket. “Which means I’ve either found the golden ticket or I’m delusional thinking that the mouse is gonna let me use it to get inside nearly half a century later,” Ables said.
So, he decided to fly to Orlando, Fla. and go to the park to test out whether he could use the ticket to go inside. The TikTok video then showed him walking up to a 'Guest Relations' office and asking to use it for entry into the park, explaining that it was an old ticket.
Next, he noted he had gotten a little “nervous” it wouldn’t work after she “started aggressively stamping void all over the ticket booklet.”
AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
General views of the Walt Disney World Resort, celebrating its 50th anniversary on April 03, 2022 in Orlando, Florida.Ables then said that the staff member left and came back to give him a more modern yellow pass featuring Mickey Mouse, which he could use to get into the park. He scanned in and was able to gain access to Disney World for a day.
“I can’t believe this actually worked,” he said in the video as he walked up to the Disney World entrance castle.
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He ended the video noting that the same one-day admission ticket would “cost more than 20 times its original value,” going from $8 in 1978 to $164 in 2024. The latter price was shown on a screen during Ables' TikTok video.
Disney World Parks did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on the admission.
The video has so far amassed 9.2 million views within a week, over 943k likes, 50k bookmarks and over 3,800 comments with many people writing that they were glad Disney “honored” the ticket for him.
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Another commenter wrote that the ticket “was treasured relic I do hope they put it up like a museum piece. It is something from the past.” Ables noted that he tried asking for the old admission ticket back but they “kept it.”
Other people wrote that they had also used older tickets dating back to 1981 and 1993, as those tickets also didn’t have an expiration date.
“My whole childhood, my parents used old tickets they had. It’s always been so cool they still accept them,” one person commented. Another said, “what! my grandparents have like 10 of those! thought it was a souvenir all these years.”
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