What do you mean I can't add more days?!

[Amy5869]

Okay so we went to the ticket booth...and again were told NO. Can't happen, not going to happen, we don't have that option, you'll have to buy an annual pass...here's the difference in price for the upgrade. I countered with Okay, fine...but that's more than i need and it's blocked out for Saturday...when I am here and want to use it...and at this point I could have gone to Disney World and stayed on Property for the $$$ I will have spent. I was also informed by them that the most people stayed was 3 days. It was pretty frustrating. Finally a cast memeber helped us out but even then it was a strange mess that involved some ticket shuffling. Still not real sure what he did I just know we have tickets that still work. I know it can be done....but...apparently not everyone knows about it. All I can say is Good luck, keep asking, ask multiple people. I have also heard AAA sells a 9 day ticket....but even Disneyland said they don't have access to that. The ONLY have 5 day tickets and can't upgrade them for more days.

 

[disneegrl4eva]

and at this point I could have gone to Disney World and stayed on Property for the $$$ I will have spent.

dont know if you saw the post where everybody went balistic because certain people said exactly what you just said...it proves my point exactly! wdw is a better economical choice hands down!!

 

[AquaDame]

Okay so we went to the ticket booth...and again were told NO. Can't happen, not going to happen, we don't have that option, you'll have to buy an annual pass...here's the difference in price for the upgrade. I countered with Okay, fine...but that's more than i need and it's blocked out for Saturday...when I am here and want to use it...and at this point I could have gone to Disney World and stayed on Property for the $$$ I will have spent. I was also informed by them that the most people stayed was 3 days. It was pretty frustrating. Finally a cast memeber helped us out but even then it was a strange mess that involved some ticket shuffling. Still not real sure what he did I just know we have tickets that still work. I know it can be done....but...apparently not everyone knows about it. All I can say is Good luck, keep asking, ask multiple people. I have also heard AAA sells a 9 day ticket....but even Disneyland said they don't have access to that. The ONLY have 5 day tickets and can't upgrade them for more days.

I don't like this at all. I am very happy that someone was finally able to help you, but from your experience and that of others recently I would NOT bank any trip of mine in finding this elusive CM who can actually make the change. I would recommend assuming to play by the rules and stay with a 5 day or upgrade to AP rather than disappoint someone severely when they get there and they can't find someone to help. Letter writing all around needs to happen though as we used a 7 day park hopper every year when I was a kid! Check IDs or something but don't take the option away!

 

[DarthMole]

They however, do need to come up with a solution and firm policy that allows guests to visit this resort for as many days as they will let guests book rooms in their hotels for

I was just thinking something similar. If you can book a DL hotel for more than 5 nights, why can't they sell you a ticket that corresponds to your length of stay. At least for DL property guests. I can see multiple reasons why they would be limiting the number of days but I don't understand why they would restrict people who stay in their hotels. At the rates they charge, essentially limiting their stay via park ticket restrictions seems short sighted.

What would make more sense is added security measures and charging more for these extra days. $5 per ticket to go from 6-day to 8-day is just stupid when you've already plunked down about $250/ticket. Who wouldn't do it for $5? Make it $10 or $15 per day per ticket We did ours to add some flexibility to our schedule because it was only $20 for our family. If it were $40 or $60 per extra day, we wouldn't have done it on a whim. We would have considered our schedule and quite possibly stuck to our 6-day hopper and my wife's "park day / non-park day" schedule.

 

[Lomky]

We are also pretty disappointed by this. We are coming all the way from Edmonton Canada in Aug and we were hoping to add some days to our 5 day park hopper for some evenings where we don't already have plans (we are in the area for 10 days).

I even went to the point of contacting Disney in April to confirm that we can upgrade and I was told via email that "visit any ticket booth location...cast member will be happy to assist you".

Oh well, I guess 5 days will have to do, we'll spend our Loonies elsewhere

 

[tffnyjean]

I too think they need to have a firm policy. We will be there for 7 nights and wanted to go on our arrival night too, I think we will still go on arrival night(Sat.) but I'm thinking if we can't get some CM at a ticket both to add a day for us between Sat. and Wend. then we will be doing a day at Knotts.

You would think Disney would wan't people to continue to stay in their parks for up to 8 days. Tourists like myself are going to be spending money regardless of what park they are in Disney should want to keep our money there.

 

[AndyLL]

Athough many people on the DIS are voicing their disdain at this new policy, Disney themselves are saying that overall, there werent enough people who wanted more than 5 day passes...however, with that being said, i think they should have held off until they knew how well DCA would turn out in general...now that people are voicing their opinions in regards to DCA being a park they would happily stay at the entire day, they may need to rethink this

One of the original goals of DCA was to turn the Disneyland Resort into more of a 'resort' destination like Disney World instead of a 2-3 day trip.

So now that they've spent billions fixing up DCA they are trying to discourage that?

We normally stay 4 nights with 5 days in the park and for our Christmas trip we added a day just so we could spend more time in DCA.

Now we are stuck paying the extra night at the hotel and day of boarding for our dogs and we'll have to move our Gooy's reservation from Christmas Eve or day to our 1st night.

Upgrading to an AP is not an option because we'd do Deluxes and would be blocked out our last day. Instead of getting credit for that 6th day towards we'd have to play for the blackout day ticket.

Even booking a package and staying onsite only gives you a 5 day hopper.

It's crazy.

 

[ducky_love]

Well, this may be our last time flying across country for a while. The only way this would make sense is if the annual pass price came down. For our dates an annual pass would be almost double the price to add two more days.

Seems silly that they let us book the hotel, though. You'd think without an annual pass they'd toss you out after 5 nights too!!

Maybe we'll try Paris. The flight isn't that much longer and they'll keep us for a week!!

 

[Disney Dreams]

...I think it is very short sighted of DL to think people don't stay more than 5 days. Technically we are only going to be there 5 "days" this fall but I had hoped to add one more day to the tickets so we could enter the parks on the day of our arrival. It would only be a few hours but worth it if we could add on. I'm certainly not going to buy another one day pass, though!! ...

Two thoughts here:
1. (Not directed specifically towards ducky_love, as others have echoed this same sentiment) If someone were to come on the DISBoards and ask for trip advice and the question we hear over and over, "How many days?" most would say 3-4 days. I personally think 5 days to really enjoy it, but that's not my point here. VERY RARELY does anyone say, "Seven days." It's just not the general thinking for a DLR trip.

Now, when we could add a day or two for $5-$10 OF COURSE people would suggest to get the seven days because you are essentially getting those extra days for free. As a consumer, , as a business executive that is trying to handle crowd management while increasing revenue and improving the overall guest experience, it's awful.

That leads to 2) If someone buys a five day pass, and then adds a full day for a few dollars to come into the Park for a couple of hours in the evening the night of arrival, that person is now adding to the "the Park gets really crowded after 5pm" syndrome (which DISers lately seem to enjoy blaming on AP holders) that everyone would like Disney to mitigate. They are doing so by not making it so convenient to drop in for a few hours on the day of arrival.

I really hope you can still add days, we were hoping to add a day to our 6 day hoppers on Aug 4 so we could be in the parks on our arrival night.

See 2) above.

... They however, do need to come up with a solution and firm policy that allows guests to visit this resort for as many days as they will let guests book rooms in their hotels for

Hmmm... interesting dots to connect. I don't think that two are connected, nor need to be. Some people like a "pool day." Some people take a day to go to Hollywood, the beach, other theme Parks, and on and on and on. There are people who book stays at the DLR hotels and never enter the Parks. There is not a direct link between staying at the hotels and visiting the Parks, and I don't think there should be or needs to be.

I had no idea this was an issue. We decided to extend our trip a day and I just went to the place inside the gates of California Adventure (to the left, I can't remember what it's called!) and they added a day to my son's 5 day park hopper without batting an eye.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks! We bought them right before the price increase, so we'll see if adding another day is worth it or not.

You will be charged the difference between what the current gate price is and what you paid for the ticket you currently have.

...and at this point I could have gone to Disney World and stayed on Property for the $$$ I will have spent....

... wdw is a better economical choice hands down!!

I don't understand this sentiment. Okay, so maybe you could have stayed at WDW at a (Value?) Resort for the money (I have not done the math so I am going to just believe you on this), but if you were to do that --- you would not have had a Disneyland vacation. You would not experience Disneyland. You probably could plug a thousand destinations into that sentence, "I could have gone to ____ for the $$$ I will have spent..." but you would not have a Disneyland vacation. If you want a Disneyland vacation, there is only one place you can do that. And it's not in Florida.

Incidentally, people here on DIS on the Cruise section post frequently, "OMG! DCL is so expensive! I could have gone to Disneyland or WDW for less!" Maybe true, but you would not have a Disney Cruise. It's all about what / where you want your vacation to be.

Seems silly that they let us book the hotel, though. You'd think without an annual pass they'd toss you out after 5 nights too!!

Maybe we'll try Paris. The flight isn't that much longer and they'll keep us for a week!!

See above on both of these issues, but in short:
1. Hotel/Park - not necessarily connected
2. Would be a great vacation... but it won't be Disneyland if that's what you want.

- Dreams

 

[Ingrid0382]

Just wanted to report that we wanted to extend our trip again and added a seventh day onto a 5-day ticket at the ticket booth. While the CM was processing it (so that I knew we were past the point of no-return) I mentioned that I read online that people were having a difficult time adding days to their tickets. The CM said that it's a bit of a hassle, but they can do up to an eight day ticket and it has to be done through the ticket booth for anything beyond a 6-day ticket.

When I said it must be rough on people that come from far away and stay for two weeks, she said that the best option was an annual pass. She was pretty apologetic and admitted this has caused a lot of frustration. I hope others have the same luck that we did!

 

[ducky_love]

I don't think I can quote with this app but I just wanted to add that our 5 day trip is very much and exception and not how we normally vacation at DL. If we are flying 5+ hours we are staying at least a week! Our last trip we had an awesome 7 days in the park plus our MNSSHP day.

I'm glad this happened when by dumb luck we'd planned a short trip. But it makes me question if we should bother flying out for it again next year. (Of course, living at WDW lots of people ask why we bother at all!!)

And when I said Paris I meant Disneyland Paris!

 

[ValpoCory]

What would make more sense is added security measures and charging more for these extra days. $5 per ticket to go from 6-day to 8-day is just stupid when you've already plunked down about $250/ticket. Who wouldn't do it for $5? Make it $10 or $15 per day per ticket.

I wouldn't necessarily do it for $5, because tickets are a relatively small portion (<25%) of the DLR vacation expense, especially for out of town guests. Staying an extra day or two or three could add a thousand dollars to the cost of the vacation, taking into account hotel costs, food costs, airline luggage or laundry costs, etc.

 

[ValpoCory]

I too think they need to have a firm policy. We will be there for 7 nights and wanted to go on our arrival night too, I think we will still go on arrival night(Sat.) but I'm thinking if we can't get some CM at a ticket both to add a day for us between Sat. and Wend. then we will be doing a day at Knotts.

You would think Disney would wan't people to continue to stay in their parks for up to 8 days. Tourists like myself are going to be spending money regardless of what park they are in Disney should want to keep our money there.

I agree on the firm policy. The decision to upgrade from a 5-day pass to a 6-day pass needs to be made before we arrive. There is a slight chance I can run over from the Grand Californian to see if I can upgrade, but likely I won't be leaving my wife and kids alone. And if I walk my kids to the Disneyland ticket booth, that would just be mean to turn them around and leave. What would Clark Griswald do?

 

[LAWalz23]

Last Wednesday, we were able to upgrade from a 6 day that we had purchased online to a 7 day for $5 at Guest Services right outside Disneyland. We just asked if it could be done and the cast member did it.

 

[TigerlilyAJ]

Two thoughts here:
1. (Not directed specifically towards ducky_love, as others have echoed this same sentiment) If someone were to come on the DISBoards and ask for trip advice and the question we hear over and over, "How many days?" most would say 3-4 days. I personally think 5 days to really enjoy it, but that's not my point here. VERY RARELY does anyone say, "Seven days." It's just not the general thinking for a DLR trip.

Now, when we could add a day or two for $5-$10 OF COURSE people would suggest to get the seven days because you are essentially getting those extra days for free. As a consumer, , as a business executive that is trying to handle crowd management while increasing revenue and improving the overall guest experience, it's awful.

That leads to 2) If someone buys a five day pass, and then adds a full day for a few dollars to come into the Park for a couple of hours in the evening the night of arrival, that person is now adding to the "the Park gets really crowded after 5pm" syndrome (which DISers lately seem to enjoy blaming on AP holders) that everyone would like Disney to mitigate. They are doing so by not making it so convenient to drop in for a few hours on the day of arrival.
- Dreams

Your first point assumes that those of us who want to upgrade are a) similarly situated as those giving that "3-4 day advice" and b) that we agree with that sentiment.
Once I do my trip in Oct-Nov, I fully intend to still be here to offer advice to people like myself, people who are doing a Once in a Lifetime Trip and want advice on what's worth the time, how much you can see, etc. Because going a billion times like the more local AP holders and other vets who post here regularly have done does not necessarily give you the best idea on how long it truly takes to do *everything*--tours, rides, character interactions, day AND night entertainment, animation academy, et al--in one trip.
Many vets here have done everything (and have great advice and tips to give from their experiences)--but over the course of at least a couple trips. And now DCA is bigger than ever, so more to do and see. I do not see how the "3-4 day" idea possibly applies to people who are coming once and most likely just the once. That's why it seemed reasonable to me that Canadians and Australians/New Zealanders had bigger PHs they could buy, since by definition, even British Columbians are coming from further away than the average DLR visitor.
I also don't think that an item that constitutes 25% of my trip costs is a "small" part of the budget.
Considering that adding two or three days by buying a second, separate PH when you've already bought a 5-day PH costs more than an AP, the advice to just upgrade to an AP that some people received when trying to add extra days could lead to more APs, increasing any issues with AP holders.
For example, I might upgrade our tickets to APs for our 16-day SoCal vacation and ditch plans to do the Halloween and Holiday tours to make room in the budget. But if I do that, knowing we won't be back before the APs expire, I will not just go 8 days of the trip as I had originally planned when Flight Centre still offered Canadians 8-day PHs. I will go at least part of every single day we're there, if at all possible, to feel like I'm getting my money's worth, including the day of arrival and day of departure. And every dollar I spend on tickets/APs is a dollar less for food, souvenirs, and extras like the tours. So I will spend more time in the parks while spending less money while there. (More meals would have to be done outside the park.) So I'm not convinced of any increased revenue for the business.

 

[Disneylandfan1]

Speaking as someone from a family that genuinely uses that 6-day PH but lives too far away to make an AP an option, I would be very upset if they completely stop letting people add a day. There is NO WAY I would pay for a 1-day PH for my family just to add that 6th day. So our plan would have to be to spend our extra day in one of the other amusement parks in the area, since there are many options. I understand that people are selling their extra days online and I understand why they needed to eliminate the 6-day ticket. However, if I'm staying at the Disneyland Resort with my family, there must be a way to accommodate that situation. Thank you Dis members for keeping us updated on this situation. I'm not sure when our next trip will be but I really appreciate your help. It appears to me that we'd have to do 3 trips a year to make an AP worth the cost. I hope Disney comes up with a solution that works for everyone.

 

[mom2aidanNpiper]

Speaking as someone from a family that genuinely uses that 6-day PH but lives too far away to make an AP an option, I would be very upset if they completely stop letting people add a day. There is NO WAY I would pay for a 1-day PH for my family just to add that 6th day. So our plan would have to be to spend our extra day in one of the other amusement parks in the area, since there are many options. I understand that people are selling their extra days online and I understand why they needed to eliminate the 6-day ticket. However, if I'm staying at the Disneyland Resort with my family, there must be a way to accommodate that situation. Thank you Dis members for keeping us updated on this situation. I'm not sure when our next trip will be but I really appreciate your help. It appears to me that we'd have to do 3 trips a year to make an AP worth the cost. I hope Disney comes up with a solution that works for everyone.

I agree. I do understand their reasoning (people selling tickets, many people only staying 3-4 days). However we will be there for 7 nights (8 days) onsite and would love to pop into the parks when we would like. Yes, we are planning to do Legoland (full day) and Huntington Beach (1/2 day trip) in there but still, if we get done early or decide that we have more energy then we thought we would, we will not have the option to go into the parks if we want. As it is we can't go another full day and our arrival and departure days we would get nearly a full day of parks in their since we live on the west coast and our flights are really short. So I am stuck cutting out a whole day and figuring out what to do (DTD? Enjoy the pools? etc).

We go once a year but usually for only 3-4 days. This trip was supposed to be a week long enjoyable trip doing all the things we normally skip

I did email Disney expressing my concern over the issue and how inconsistent the policy seems to be. I hope that in the next 5 weeks (when we go) that something is done if enough people say something. Even if it means you have to prove you are in the area that long (showing hotel, onsite or offsite confirmations) maybe that would eliminate their fear of people selling unused days.

I don't know if anything would actually work, I just know I am pretty unhappy reading more and more reports that going to the ticket booths or guest services is resulting in a denial of adding on days.

 

[TheZue]

I would rather them check ID than cut the add a day tickets off. I get that people are selling them, but they are non-transferable yet that is completely uneforced. They are essentially operating on the honor system and are shocked that people are reselling. I'm going to try to add a day when we get there in September, but I'm not getting my hopes up at this point.

 

[Hoku]

I don't understand why people are willing to pay full price to go to a different park on that sixth day but not full price for another day at Disney. I love Disneyland and am happy to pay to go. It doesn't seem reasonable to fuss because you can't go for another 1-3 days for only $5.

The way I see it, some cast members are willing to upgrade tickets for super cheap. SCORE! But that should be viewed as a bonus we are sometimes lucky to get, not a "right" over which to whine about. Just my opinion, but scalping is a real issue. I also think it's fair to pay an entry fee, not bus change.

I side with Disney on this issue, though I will certainly still try my luck for a 6th day when we go.

 

[jlwhitney]

I will say in a way its dumb that the longest ticket they offer is a 5 day, but at the same time I can't imagine spending more than 5 days there at one time anyway. I am from Florida and go to WDW 2-4 times a year for long weekends (will do longer trips with kids when we get to that point) but there there is so much more to do. Water parks, mini golf, the resorts and so on.

Personally to me its a way for them to make more money for those coming longer trips, who are def the minority. At WDW the longest you can get is a 10 day so a 5 day at DL makes sense. 4 parks = 10 days 2 parks = 5 days.

This sept will be our third time to DL and each trip has been 2-3 days long and I think 3 is perfect, maybe 4 if one day is not a full day.