Disneyland Hotel Passholder Discounts and December Travel

[ChloroformSdxn]

Does anyone know when those will get posted? I'm currently looking for the first two weeks of December and wondering if it's worthwhile me to get an annual pass for the discount. Does anyone know what sort of early December discounts they had last year?

Right now I have a bit of a dilemma and I'm trying to decide what would be the best to do. Originally, I wanted to take my sons (who will be two and four) to Aulani in December for two weeks. But with the exchange rate right now, I'll probably make that trip a bit shorter. At the same time, I really like doing a "Mommy and Me" trip to Disneyland for my son's birthday at the end of January. The problem is I think they do an annual Splash Mountain shut down in January, and that's a fun ride to go on.

So the options are:

A. Stick to just Aulani in December, then do short trip end of January to Disneyland
B. Go to Aulani for say, 6 days, then fly to Disneyland for 4 days ish (and skip January Disneyland)
C. Go to Disneyland for a few days, then fly to Aulani for 6 days (and skip January Disneyland)

My son and I had a great time just the two of us on his birthday last year, and I don't really want to miss out on that, though Splash Mountain being closed was a bummer. I think it would be nice to see Disneyland all dressed up for the holidays, and we would avoid the late December crowds.

I realize I'm super lucky and this is a pretty good problem to have...

 

[Sherry E]

No one is sure if there will be any substantial Annual Pass discounts this year. If Disneyland Resort keeps seeing healthy crowds during the Diamond Celebration, they may not offer any discounts. In 2012, when Cars Land and Buena Vista Street opened, there were no Fall discounts beyond the standard 10% offered to AP holders every day. If Disney expects to have large crowds for the bulk of the year, they don't have a need to offer reduced room rates.


If there are any significant discounts offered after summer ends this year, what you would need would be the Fall discount. There is typically a discount that covers certain weeks/days in October, November and December (though those weeks/days are getting more limited), and it usually only extends as far as the weekend immediately before Christmas and then it ends. Sometimes, if Christmas is very close to the weekend preceding it (like just a couple of days after the weekend), the discount might end even earlier.

There is usually an AP holder Fall discount that could offer anything from 15% off the rack rate to 25% off. (Gone are the days of the really nifty AP discounts that brought the hotels down to under $200 per night.) There would also likely be a Fall discount for the general public as well, and that may only be 10% or 15% off.

There could also be a discount for Disney Visa card holders, and that would probably be anything from 10% off to 20% off.

If a Fall discount is coming -- to AP holders, Disney Visa card holders or the general public -- we would probably find out about it in September.

 

[planningjollyholiday]

Sherry is spot on with her analysis on disneyland discounts. One other thing to think about is that as an annual passholder for disneyland, you will get a room discount at aulani as well. Now having said that, the regular discounts for aulani have been pretty awesome lately, but who knows for your dates, the ap discount may be better.

 

[jina]

We are finishing up our AP year (expires next month). I was never able to find decent on site hotel AP discounts for the times we were going to DL and recently booked a trip to Aulani but found I got the equivalent discount via Costco + got a $200 Costco gift card so Costco came out cheaper. I did use the HoJo's 30% AP discount many times this past year which put the 2 room kids suite down to ~$200/night but unfortunately never scored a decent discount for on site. I'm definitely glad we had the AP this year - we went for 18 park days (although some were for just a couple of hours on arrival/departure days) and really made use of the dining and merchandise discounts and even used the tour discount yesterday but I had assumed we'd get to use an on site hotel discount but oh well.

 

[ChloroformSdxn]

OK, this is great to know! I remember asking at Aulani last year about AP discounts, and it was less than their seasonal discount being offered at the time (every 4th night free, $100/day resort credit, rental car and airport transfers.) I've booked at Aulani to take advantage of a similar deal this year, but it's fully refundable still.

Good to know about the dates for a fall discount and historical rates for Disneyland. I guess they have a different profile for bookings, so they release sales later. There's a pretty good combo deal being offered for a hotel across the street, so I'm thinking of maybe booking that unless the DLR hotels have something fantastic going on.

That being said, two trips, two months apart? Might be a bit much, right?