a question about park-hoppers

[disneydebi]

I have a question regarding park hoppers. I seem to remember sometime on this board seeing something about being able to add days to your hopper passes (prior to them running out). Is this true. I'm debating between a 4 day and a 5 day hopper. I don't want to buy the 5 day and not use the last day (yes, I know they never expire, but the likelihood of me getting back to WDW and using it again in the near or distant future is remote). So I'm wondering if I buy the 4 -day pass, and it looks like I might want or need that 5th day... can it be added onto the existing park-hopper?

thanks.

 

[GoldenOldie]

Days cannot be "added" to park hoppers. But you can upgrade it to a higher ticket (in your case a 4 day PH to a 5 day PH).

 

[heart4dis]

Good question. Here's a follow-up question-- Can the upgrade occur after the 4day pass is already been activated? That is, if I am on the 4th day and decide I'd like to stay one more day to visit a park (or parks), can I upgrade THEN? Or do I have to upgrade before I begin using the pass?

 

[MELSMICE]

Don't quote me but.......... I think you can upgrade after you have used the ticket, however, I don't think after you have used the last day you can upgrade at that point. I think you would need to buy another ticket.

I would either call, send them an e-mail (I usually get decent responses this way) or go to the TTC when you get there to find the correct answer to your question.

 

[Dopey Sharon]

Originally posted by GoldenOldie
Days cannot be "added" to park hoppers. But you can upgrade it to a higher ticket (in your case a 4 day PH to a 5 day PH).

If you're changing from a 4 day to a 5 day, you are "adding" a day.

 

[GoldenOldie]

Originally posted by Dopey Sharon
If you're changing from a 4 day to a 5 day, you are "adding" a day.

It may be semantics but no you're not. With Disney, terminology is extremely important.

You're upgrading from a 4 day PH by turning it in to GR to upgrade to a new 5 day PH. You cannot add days to any existing ticket. You can only get another one. The OP asked if it could be added onto the existing park-hopper. The answer is no.

Look at it this way. If you had a 7 day PHP with one day left, you can't "add" a day to it and come out with a 2 day PHP on the same ticket. So if you're changing from a 4 day to a 5 day, you are getting a whole new ticket.

 

[Dopey Sharon]

Originally posted by GoldenOldie

Look at it this way. If you had a 7 day PHP with one day left, you can't "add" a day to it and come out with a 2 day PHP on the same ticket. So if you're changing from a 4 day to a 5 day, you are getting a whole new ticket.

So, then, what you're saying is...if you have one or two days left on a park hopper (no matter what you originally started with 4, 5, 6, or 7) and wanted to add another day, oops...upgrade another day...you can't do that, since Disney doesn't sell two or three day hoppers?

 

[GoldenOldie]

Originally posted by Dopey Sharon
So, then, what you're saying is...if you have one or two days left on a park hopper (no matter what you originally started with 4, 5, 6, or 7) and wanted to add another day, oops...upgrade another day...you can't do that, since Disney doesn't sell two or three day hoppers?

No. Notice the key phrase I used in my post: "...on the same ticket.

I said you cannot add days to an existing pass. You cannot give your current pass (4, 5, 6, or 7) to the GR CM and have them put another day onto that ticket. They cannot do that. All tickets are encoded with the purchase information and price that was paid for it. Once it has been encoded with that information, it cannot be added to or altered. Think of it like a WDW resort reservation. You can only have one resort per reservation number. With admission media, you can only have one purchase information encoding per ticket.

The only option is to upgrade the ticket. When you upgrade, you turn in your old ticket and you get a new separate ticket that will have your new park admissions on it.

 

[disneydebi]

okay... so I have my 4 day hopper passes... on day 4 of my trip, prior to using that day's pass, I decide I want to visit the parks on a 5th day. So I "upgrade" to a 5 day hopper. So I have Disney take my existing, used passes and give me in return 5 day hopper passes? Do they then take off the 3 days that I have previously used? so that I am left with my one day that was left on my existing pass (day 4), and the 5th day that is now there because it's technically a "5" day pass (even though there are really only 2 useable days left on it?)

Is that right?

so confusing....

 

[MELSMICE]

Originally posted by disneydebi
okay... so I have my 4 day hopper passes... on day 4 of my trip, prior to using that day's pass, I decide I want to visit the parks on a 5th day. So I "upgrade" to a 5 day hopper. So I have Disney take my existing, used passes and give me in return 5 day hopper passes? Do they then take off the 3 days that I have previously used? so that I am left with my one day that was left on my existing pass (day 4), and the 5th day that is now there because it's technically a "5" day pass (even though there are really only 2 useable days left on it?)

No, actually here's what would happen:

--You start with a 4-day pass
--You use 3 days
--Day 4 before entering parks you want to upgrade to a 5-day pass
--You upgrade by paying for a 5-day pass minus the cost of the one day's admission that is remaining on your 4-day pass.

Example: if the 4 day was $200 and you used 3 days, or $150 worth of admission costs, you now have $50 remaining in admission costs on that ticket.

You want to upgrade to the 5-day. That cost is $250. They'll upgrade your 4-day to a 5-day & credit the $50 so the 5-day ticket would then cost you $200 on that day.

I hope that makes sense. Also, if it's an old ticket you want to upgrade they don't take "today's admission costs". They scan the ticket, find out what you paid & then take that "remaining credit" to apply to the new ticket.

One more thing we found out. When we upgraded at one point we were told that "plus options" did not have a value. Therefore, if you have a 5-day plus hopper with 1 park day & 2 pluses left you would get credit for the park day only. Maybe it's different now, but about 2 years ago that's how they did it with us.

Also (I'm a little long winded here). We were able to upgrade a child's ticket to an adult ticket at no cost & then apply the "credit" from the adult ticket to the PAP we were upgrading to. It was like a bonus.

As someone previously said, you can't "add another day". You can only upgrade.

I hope I have not confused you more!

P.S. I don't know the cost of tickets right now. I just used the round numbers above for examples!!

 

[disneydebi]

so at the end of all this... I'd have a brand new 5 day hopper - full, with 5 days on it, when all I really want is one day? Then I'd end up with paying for 4 more days that I'm not going to use (in the forseable future). If that's the case, it's not worth doing... I'd be better off buying the 5 day hopper up front and wasting one day, rather than upgrading at the end of my trip and wasting 4 days that would go unused.

Am i understanding this correctly now?

 

[GoldenOldie]

Originally posted by disneydebi
...Am i understanding this correctly now?

Yes. Melsmice gave you an excellent analogy.

In your case, the bottom line is either upgrade the ticket to a 5 day before you use it or if you're not sure when or if you'll need the extra day, you can always buy a 1 day/1 park (non-hopping) ticket for one day when you won't have to be park hopping.

 

[Dopey Sharon]

Thanks for straightening this all out, I think! lol I always thought you could "add" a day, but, I guess when you think about it, Disney doesn't sell one, two or three day hoppers, so you better upgrade before your current days run down to where you would only have one, two or three days. Is that right?

 

[GeoffM24]

Ok let's say you have TWO parkhopper passes, one with one day and one with 2 days could you credit those to tickets towards a single 4 day park hopper?

 

[MELSMICE]

Originally posted by Dopey Sharon
you better upgrade before your current days run down to where you would only have one, two or three days.

You could either upgrade or just buy a new pass. Also, if you are going to be in the WDW parks for 8 or more days during a 1-year time frame your best bet is to get an Annual Pass.

 

[Dopey Sharon]

I'm gonna try this once more....I have two four day hoppers for our upcoming trip. We are going for six days. I'm not sure if we are going to the parks more than four days. If, when we get there, we go to the parks three days, then decide that we want to go another two days...I will only have one day left...we can't upgrade and add another day? I don't want to buy more four day hoppers. The way I'm understanding this is...we couldn't add (or upgrade) two more days? So, if I want to upgrade and put two more days on our passes, I have to do it at the beginning of day three, before we go into any park???

 

[MELSMICE]

Originally posted by GeoffM24
Ok let's say you have TWO parkhopper passes, one with one day and one with 2 days could you credit those to tickets towards a single 4 day park hopper?

Don't know about that. You'd have to ask a CM. IMO the best place to go is the TTC to get things like this taken care of.

Dopey Sharon - if you get a 4-day hopper, use it for 1 day & then decide you will be going to the parks for more than the 4 allotted days, yes, you should do it after using it only 1X. I think you could get back to a 4-day hopper (better check that though) or go to a 5-day hopper, which would give you a total of 6 days then at parks.

Or, you could buy a 5 or 6 day hopper at the beginning of the trip & save any unused days because they never expire. Or you could get the 4-day hopper, use it & if you decide you want to go to a park another day just buy a one day ticket.

 

[GoldenOldie]

Originally posted by GeoffM24
Ok let's say you have TWO parkhopper passes, one with one day and one with 2 days could you credit those to tickets towards a single 4 day park hopper?

No. Disney will only allow you to use the credit from one old pass per new pass being purchased. You could use both if you were getting two new passes but not if you get only one.