Will you continue to buy an Annual Pass?

[jeanigor]

My premier dual coast pass expires 2 Nov.
Even with two trips in November and one in December, a roughly 36% increase in the price of the pass (with zero renewal discount) pushes this pass outside my fiscal comfort zone. I will be spending two weeks in Europe and visiting Disneyland Paris in 2016, so my discretionary travel budget and vacation time is being aimed toward that. I may think of purchasing an annual pass again in the future but not when my current one expires in a few weeks.

 

[loves to dive]

Yes, I just renewed my current one so it won't expire until the end of Sept. 2016, but it still makes sense for me to renew since I always get PH and even without any price increase for the PH tickets I still come out better. I may not renew my TIW though, since I'm not DVC I don't have black out dates on the AP so that is not an issue for me but I was right on the cusp of spending enough to make TIW worth it at the old price.

 

[jscottnc]

Running the numbers I have found that an AP is more cost effective if visiting WDW 2 or more times a year. The Gold pass currently fits my usual travel plans. I had expected some rate increase (the only sure things are death, taxes, and Disney ticket price increases); throwing in PhotoPass was a way to justify a bigger increase (at nearly no additional cost to Disney). Has Disney gotten too expensive? Clearly not yet.

 

[OKW Lover]

Running the numbers I have found that an AP is more cost effective if visiting WDW 2 or more times a year.

How many days do you figure each visit would be?

 

[jscottnc]

That's a good question. My visits usually contain 5 park days. If you get the park hopper, you would come out ahead at 3 to 4 days per visit. Mind you, I am a DVC member (I am eligible for the Gold Pass and renewals are a bit less) and my daughter is 18. YMMV.

 

[Grumpy247365]

I'll renew, most likely to the Platinum Pass. I think it comes out to 7 dollars more a month. I think I can afford that. I could never afford it if Disney didn't offer the monthly payments.

 

[rangermom]

I voted yes, but.... I'm not renewing my AP this year since we just moved to SOCAL and just got DL AP. We are not going to WDW until 2017 not because of AP prices, but for a family of 5 it cost us over $2500 to fly to WDW. We are spending the rest of 2015 and 2016 at DL. We are also going to Aulani in 2016 because it is cheaper to fly there than Orlando for us.

 

[OKW Lover]

Have now given this a bit more thought concerning my own AP. Being retired and living very close to the mouse, I'm going to renew, but at a lower (still to be determined) level. We've found that we don't care to be in the parks during the very crowded periods around the holidays. We also don't care to do the parks in the middle of the summer when we could just enjoy our pool. So, we won't be getting the pass that allows 365 days.

 

[Julylady]

I voted "no" but wanted to explain a bit. We typically schedule vacations 1-2 years in advance. If we know that we will be planning to spend more than 10 days at WDW in a given year, we will purchase the APs. If not, we purchase regular ticket. The addition of MM (which I would never purchase) will probably mean we will NOT purchase APs in the future.

 

[coastalhh]

Yes. Actually I was one of the ones asking for what is essentially the Gold pass on the surveys. I wanted photo pass and would be willing to give up a small number of select dates for it. Sometimes we go between Christmas and New Years and if we choose to do so we can always upgrade the 100$ price different at that time.

The way we travel is about 5 total. 2 to 3 day trips per year and the way we break it up we either had to purchase photo pass 4 to 5 times or not get it. I think we did get it 3 times last year which was an extra 500+.

I like the new passes that include photo pass and it also might help cut that crowd some at the busiest times.

(We are dvc members ).

 

[EricInPA]

We'll be grabbing Gold APs this year as DVC members. We park hop and will spend more than enough days to make it worth it for us.

(Its our first year as AP holders, so I don't technically fall into the poll's range)

 

[lodgelady]

No- giving ourselves a Mouse Break. Bought Universal passes this year.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I will have to do the numbers and figure out what would be cheaper and how many trips I will be making. I had just renewed mine 3 weeks before it changed so it's going to be good through part of next September.

My oldest is in his 2nd year of college so I have to really consider cutting my trips back anyway unless my ebay sales go up again significantly. This upcoming one is only 2 1/2 days at Disney and 2 days at Universal. I'm looking forward to doing Universal again even if I can't do roller coasters. LOL

 

[SamSam]

Will definitely renew at the gold level. We never go during holidays anyway, so it works for us. We go every fall for 3 weeks, so the AP is well worth it for us.

 

[OKW Lover]

Have now given this a bit more thought concerning my own AP. Being retired and living very close to the mouse, I'm going to renew, but at a lower (still to be determined) level. We've found that we don't care to be in the parks during the very crowded periods around the holidays. We also don't care to do the parks in the middle of the summer when we could just enjoy our pool. So, we won't be getting the pass that allows 365 days.

Following up on my own post. When it came down to actually renewing earlier this month we did decide to go for the Platinum (not plus) AP after all. Looking at the blackout dates for the Gold AP we decided that there are several days in there that we would venture into the parks. Most likely for F&G events or evening dining. We also regularly have folks that we know (many from right here on the DISBoards) coming in at those times and love to meet them in the parks.

 

[NancyIL]

My last AP expired in early 2014, and I didn't renew it. Only a few times did I actually "renew" an AP, as it usually made better financial sense to let it expire and get a new one when I was ready for another year of WDW trips.

I doubt that I will ever get another WDW AP. I have 4 days left on a 10-day non-expiring park hopper that I bought in 2009, and I'll probably finish that in 2016. I just ordered one 5-day MYW ticket from Undercover Tourist for a non-specified future trip - before the prices go up a few more times.