GAD + Military Salute Tickets?

[Ash&Wes07]

I just finished reading this thread, and my head is spinning.

This is going to get long. Sorry!

I am hoping one of the resident ticket experts can help me out.

We're planning on going for 5 nights in May. Originally, we were just going to do the 4-day Military ticket and call it a vacation. But, I really wanted to take advantage of the volunteer program. This will be our only trip to Disney this year (and probably for at least a year) since I am pregnant.

From what I gathered, you can't "combine" tickets, so we can't have all 5 days put on our KTTW card, correct? Meaning we can't redeem both vouchers at the same time.

Will we need to redeem our Military Salute voucher at the ticket window and then on Day 5 redeem our GAD voucher?

Thank you if you've made it through this far and can provide even an ounce of help. I have no clue what I'm doing, LOL.

 

[curemyreed]

I don't have an answer to your question, but wanted to ask if you have considered exchanging the vouchers for the FastPass option?

 

[Ash&Wes07]

Yes, I've considered it. But, if I use the free ticket as a ticket, we can save $ by not upgrading the military salute tickets to park hoppers. We'll get more use out of an extra day in the park than the FP.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

You should be able to upgrade your GAD ticket to a Military Salute ticket for $21.30 (including tax). But that gives you only a four day ticket. However, the Military Salute can be upgraded to include the WPF&M Option for an additional $26.63 (including tax) which will allow four entries to the water parks and Disney Quest and which do not have to be used on the same days as the Theme Park entries. Also, it is $26.63 per ticket to upgrade the Military Salute tickets to hoppers.

 

[Ash&Wes07]

Wow, thank you so much! I never even thought that would be a possibility!

 

[jthornton94]

Are you sure the GAD voucher can be applied towards the military offer? The military offer cleary states it cannot be combined with any other offer. It would be great to get four days for under $25!

 

[Cheshire Figment]

The rule here is:

The “Give a Day. Get a Disney Day.” ticket may be upgraded using the same business rules as with any 1-Day Magic Your Way Base Ticket. (If used, “Give a Day. Get a Disney Day.” tickets can only be upgraded within 14 days from the first date of use. Unused, expired "Give a Day. Get a Disney Day." tickets may not be upgraded.)

The internal information for the Military Salute tickets does specifically state that unused non-promotional tickets may be used, but implies that used tickets may also be upograded. If someone were to come to my ticket window with a used GAD ticket within 14 days and was eligible for the Armed Forces Salute tickets I would be able to do the upgrade with no problems.

 

[jthornton94]

I just got off the phone with Disney and was told you are not able to upgrade the GAD ticket to the military ticket. Hopefully the confusion will be straightened out shortly.

 

[Order66]

Interesting....... I was also wondering if you can upgrade the GAD to the military salute tickets. We're going for 9 days and my plan was to buy the military tickets for the 3 of us + use our GAD certificates for a 5th day. I would have preferred six park days (wanted two days off to do water parks/DTD and 1 day for SW) and thought if on the last day I really wanted to, I could upgrade my 2 sons GAD ticket to a 2 day....I have a 1 day ticket left over from last year. But if I can use the GAD I could use my 1 day leftover ticket (which I know I can use to buy the military tickets as I did it last year) and their 2 GAD tickets...and use my GAD for fast passes.

I'll be interested to get a report from someone who's done this already. It might change my plans. If not I still have plan A.


regards

 

[Family Fun Mom]

What if you don't want to "upgrade" in any way? I thought we could do the volunteer work and use the GAD ticket for our first day (which we plan to be in the Magic Kingdom) then activate our Military Salute tickets the next day and use those four days. That's a total of five days but no combining and no upgrading.

Does anyone see how that might be a problem?

 

[Cheshire Figment]

It would not be a problem.

However, to save time while you are getting your one day tickets from the GAD vouchers you can activate the Armed Forces Salute ticket at the same window. That way you will do both transactions at one window visit and will not have to stand in line again to activate the tickets.

 

[dd50]

The rule here is: The internal information for the Military Salute tickets does specifically state that unused non-promotional tickets may be used, but implies that used tickets may also be upograded. If someone were to come to my ticket window with a used GAD ticket within 14 days and was eligible for the Armed Forces Salute tickets I would be able to do the upgrade with no problems.

I was wondering about that. Has anyone done that yet?

 

[Ash&Wes07]

I was just wondering if anyone has tried this yet?

 

[alabamadaisy]

Just got back from Florida. We visited the Magic Kingdom a week ago (2-21-10) and used our GAD tickets for admission. Although we had already decided not to upgrade to the military tickets, I wanted to know the answer to this anyway (I had posted and watched the discussion on the boards several weeks before we left). At the end of the day, I stopped in City Hall (I think that's the correct name- it's just inside, to the left as you enter, the main entrance to Magic Kingdom.) and asked if we would be able to upgrade to the military ticket. The cast memeber who helped us said "good question, I'll have to go ask someone else" so apparently it's not something they've seen often, but she went in the back and came back out and said "Yes, you can!"

 

[Melknor]

Thank you alabamadaisy for checking into this! I'm glad to hear that it is definately do-able. Now to decide if we want to use this option or the FP's...............

 

[Ash&Wes07]

Just got back from Florida. We visited the Magic Kingdom a week ago (2-21-10) and used our GAD tickets for admission. Although we had already decided not to upgrade to the military tickets, I wanted to know the answer to this anyway (I had posted and watched the discussion on the boards several weeks before we left). At the end of the day, I stopped in City Hall (I think that's the correct name- it's just inside, to the left as you enter, the main entrance to Magic Kingdom.) and asked if we would be able to upgrade to the military ticket. The cast memeber who helped us said "good question, I'll have to go ask someone else" so apparently it's not something they've seen often, but she went in the back and came back out and said "Yes, you can!"

Thanks for doing this!

 

[Order66]

Excellent! Thanks for stopping and asking.

regards

 

[WDWRookie2009]

After reading the threads I am now thinking of doing the GAD military upgrade. We are a family of 5 and our youngest is 3 so he was not allowed to take part in the GAD promotion. We will be purchasing 5 salute passes and we are adding park hoppers. So about 126 per person. If we have to purchase these tickets from our local ITR office for $99.00 each (adding on the park hoppers when we get there) how do we use the GAD as part of the upgrade?

It seems crazy that they would let us have a 4 day park hopper pass for $47.93 or so??

I would do it though because our family of 5 could get four day park hoppers for $317 and change.. ($126 for our 3 year old.)

TIA!

 

[Cheshire Figment]

You should only purchase one ticket at the ITT office, that for the 3yo.

Then the other four of you can exchange the vouchers for one day, one park, tickets and those can be upgraded to Military Salute tickets. The price for the upgrades will be $21.30 including tax each.

At the same time you can activate the 3yo's Salute Ticket.

And the price to upgrade any of the Salute Tickets to park hopping or WPF&M is $26.65 per option per ticket.

 

[Order66]

So can you buy your tickets in more than one transaction? I thought they all had to be purchased at the same time?

Thanks in advance.

regards