Military Tickets

[jamdisney]

I've prided myself on knowing how to do Orlando well, but we're entering new territory. My daughter married her high school sweetheart last year and he's active military. This will be our first visit using the military discounted tickets. Seven or eight of us are visiting DisneyWorld and US/IOA the last week of August. Here's my questions:

1) For the six people that are buying the military discounted questions, how do we link them to FP+? Am I understanding correctly that we can't pick them up until we arrive and show military ID?
2) Either DH or I will buy the military tickets and the other will buy through Undercover Tourist. We both have Magic Bands from last year's visit, when we stayed on Disney property. How do we link them to the new tickets, especially the military ticket?
3) How soon do we need to purchase the military tickets? If we're able to link them to FP+, we'll need them at least 30 days out (which would be 7/22).
4) The US/IOA website mentions discounted tickets for military personnel but there's no details. Can anyone give me an idea of price and if we also pre-purchase them and pick them up onsite with ID? Is there a six-person limit there also?

I'm used to being the person who handles all of our plans but am at the mercy of DD, who's stationed a few states away. We hope to visit them at the beginning of July and I'm thinking we can handle the ticket buying then. I feel a bit like I don't know what I don't know, though, so please feel free to share any other useful information you can think of with me!

 

[Sweeney1996]

Military tickets for both Disney and Universal can be purchase at the service members base's recreation office. ITT for Air Force is what it is called. Not sure for Navy, Marines, or Army.

Tickets can also be purchased at Shades of Green at Disney.

Purchase the military tickets as soon as you can, they must be purchased by the person that is eligible for the discount, the military member, or their spouse. Disney tickets can be linked on MDE, to be used with the Magic bands..

I just bought our Uni tickets last week. Right now, a 3 day park to park ticket is $147.00 per person, to be used by December 14th of this year, I believe.

 

[Brokakaycharanla]

For everything military and Disney related, make sure to visit www.militarydisneytips.com I do not work for them, I have no affiliation with them, but I'm the wife of a military man and I use their site for every question related to the military discounts and Disney.

The really steeply discounted tickets that are available for the military are called the Armed Forces Salute (abbreviated AFS) tickets. These are 4 day tickets that can include the park hopper and water park fun and more option, depending on the ticket you purchase.

AFS tickets are available at base ITT, MWR and Travel offices. They are also available at Shades of Green on Disney property. In order to obtain these tickets, your daughter or her husband will have to buy them at one of these places. When they make the purchase, they will not receive an actual ticket. What they will get is an exchange voucher. This voucher must be activated by the service member or their spouse at any Disney guest relations office. To activate, your daughter or her husband will have to show their military issued ID.

You can link the voucher in My Disney Experience to be able to make FP+ selections. The above website has a detailed blog post about how to do this.
When you link the voucher in MDE, you will be able to assign it to an individual just like a regular ticket. Just make sure to make a note of which individual was assigned what voucher, while this is not necessary it will save you some time at guest relations. I learned that from experience. If you have a technical glitch, you can call customer service and speak to someone in the tech department about linking your ticket. If they tell you that you can't link them, hang up and try again because it can be done. I know, I had to do this myself.

As far as linking them to your exisitng magic band, if you put them on your existing MDE when you assign the ticket it should already link to a valid magicband. If that does not happen, you can link them at guest relations at the time you exchange the voucher for the actual ticket. I also had to link an at guest relations with a magicband from a previous trip.

I would personally by the military tickets and undercover tourist tickets at the same time if you are really wanting to make FP+ selections and do it sooner rather than later just in case there are any hiccups. You should have your daughter check at her base, there is a standard military discount ticket available that sometimes beats the undercover tourist ticket prices and there is no limit on the number of tickets you can purchase.

As far as US/IOA, I do not know the limit but I believe their current offer expires before your August Trip. The Military Disney Tips website has information about those tickets also. You can also find Military Disney Tips on Facebook. The guy who runs the site and Facebook page is named Steve. He's a fountain of information and if you post a question, he'll get back to you very quickly. I can't recommend his site enough.

I hope this helps and I hope you have a truly magical stay at the World!

 

[jamdisney]

Thank you both very much! You helped to clarify things for me, I appreciate it.

 

[SABeasley98]

Another vote for militarydisneytips.com. Steve is an amazing resource. I married into a military family & have done 6 or 7 trips now with military tickets. We have used the military salute tickets & the Stars & stripes tickets depending on what worked best for us each trip. This will be our first trip since FP+ started so I don't have any advice on that part

 

[EPHomie]

Just an FYI, Military Disney Tips announced today that the Salute has be extended until Dec 20, and a member can purchase 12 tickets instead of 6. This could potentially be a HUGE savings if your family hasn't yet purchased tickets.

My family used the US/IOA tickets in January. At the time the deal was purchase an 1 day park hopper and get two days free. We originally planned one day but couldn't say no to a second day for free. Keep in mind that the tickets need to be activated at the ticker window upon arrival, so add that time to your schedule. The line was 20 minutes in January, I'd imagine it would be very long in August. Your son in law or daughter should be able to call ITT to get ticket information updates.

 

[jamdisney]

Thanks for sharing your experience, SABeasley.
And EPHomie, we haven't purchased the tickets yet, so I'm really happy to hear that we can buy 12 tickets. Thanks, too, for the 'heads up' on the potential wait at US/IOA. I'm going to think about activating them on our way to our condo on Day 1 so that we don't waste time on a park day.

 

[wlake]

Hello! My dad will be joining us for a few days of our trip using the AFS ticket and is staying at SOG (so no Magicband; I'm assuming he'll have a regular card type ticket to enter the parks with). There's a long story in here, but let's just go with the current, most basic facts: we have all of our FP+s made, I got his voucher with the number to link yesterday, we leave in less than a week, Dad's not a Disney fan. Am I better off making him a family member on my MDE account and just being in charge of his ticket and trying to add him to our FP+s, or am I better off making him his own MDE account and being in charge of it that way? He's going to be a little touchy about the whole thing either way, so the more I can do behind the scenes and present as a done deal the better. Dad at Disney is pretty new ground for me! Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.