Walt Disney World has a special program effective October 24, 2010 and running through October 1, 2011 for members of the United States armed services, their dependents and guests. This post discusses the program and is broken into three major sections: Eligibility, Entitlements, and Procedures for participating.
Eligibility and Definitions
A service member has a current active duty, including active reserve, or retired ID card from the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corp, or Navy. This includes disabled veterans whose ID Card indicates DAVPRM.
A dependent is the spouse or other relative of a service member who has an ID card (DD Form 1173) which shows the service member as the sponsor.
A guest is any person not a dependent accompanying the service member.
Not eligible on their own are persons who would normally have access to military bases and/or Shades of Green (SoG) such as DoD Civilians, NAF, USPHS and veterans who are not retirees. This list may include others. People who fall into this category may, however, be dependents or guests.
Tickets and Entitlements
A service member may purchase up to six “4-Day Disney’s Armed Forces Salute Ticket”. At the time of purchase the service member must choose between three possibilities. There is no Base ticket available. Each ticket is either a four-day Park Hopper or it is a four day non-hopper with four Water Parks and Fun entries. Either of these tickets is $138. A ticket with both hopping and WPF&M is available for $165. These may be used by dependents or guests. The name of each dependent and/or guest will be recorded in ATS, tied to the service member’s name, and will be printed on the ticket. The price is the same no matter the age of the user. As normal, people under age 3 do not require tickets.
All Tickets will expire Midnight, Saturday, October 1, 2011, even if all entries have not been used. After the tickets are initially issued, it is $27 (plus tax) to add WPF&M to a Hopper or to add Hopping to a ticket with WPF&M. The normal 14 day rules concerning expiration and upgrade do not apply. However, no additional days may be added and the ticket may not have the No Expire option added.
The Tickets may be upgraded to Annual Passes, Premium APs, Disney Premier Pass, Florida Resident Seasonal Passes, or Florida Resident Weekday Select Passes (with proper Florida ID). The normal 14 day upgrade period does not apply. However, there will not be “price bridging”; this means that the value of the ticket will be what was paid for it ($138 or $165) and not the current gate price of an equivalent MYW ticket. If the ticket is upgraded to an annual product the expiration date will be one year from the date of first use of the Ticket.
As an exception, if the immediate family has more than five dependents, additional Tickets may be purchased, but not to exceed the number of dependents. If the immediate family has more than five dependents tickets may not be purchased for guests.
If the service member is not available the spouse or unremarried widow may purchase and/or activate up to five Tickets for family and guests (including the spouse) so without the service member present a maximum of five tickets may be purchased. The special large family rule above applies. This purchase will not prevent the service member from receiving their ticket at a later date, but this will make the service member ineligible to purchase any additional tickets. Note that the Dependent ID Card (DD Form 1173) must show a relationship of either "Spouse" or "Unremarried Widow" to be able to activate the tickets. No other relationship can purchase tickets or have previously purchased tickets activated.
Block Out Dates
The following dates are blocked out for use of these tickets:
December 27 through December 31, 2010
April 17 through April 23, 2011
July 4, 2011 (Magic Kingdom Park Only)
Procedures and Purchasing
There are three sources available. Two of these sources are Shades of Green or many (but not all) MWR/ITT offices. These are not “live” tickets but must be activated. The advantage to purchasing these is that sales tax is not collected on the Tickets.
The third source is Walt Disney World Park Ticket Offices (including TTC) and Guest Relations Offices (including DTD). Sales tax will be collected on any sales of Tickets or upgrades. Note that these cannot be purchased at any Resort Lobby Concierge or online.
Certain information from the service member’s ID will be entered into ATS (Name, Birth Date, base where assigned and e-mail address) and the names of all Ticket holders will also be entered and tied to the service member. If the tickets were prepurchased (MWR/ITT or SoG) the person will get the same card back. If these are new tickets, the tickets will be printed by ATS.
Once activated the tickets may be used at any turnstile. Finger scans will be used. In the event a ticket becomes demagnetized they can be reissued just as any other ticket.
If you have unused non-promotional tickets and wish to have them applied to the purchase of Tickets, this may be done provided the value of the unused tickets is equal to or less than the value of the tickets being purchased or upgraded. You cannot use a GAD ticket to upgrade to an Armed Forces Salute ticket.
