Am I missing something?? APs vs no exp tickets

[dmank]

We bought 10 day NE PH WaterParks and more in Jan 2010. We used 4 days that (7 day) trip; 2 waterpark days on a 3 day trip in Aug 2010; 3 days in Jan 2011; and plan to use 3 waterpark/DQ days in Aug.

That will leave us with 3Park Credits and 5 WaterPark/DQ days. We could do 2012 like this as well, so would essentially have gotten 3 years (and 6 trips) out of the 10 NE passes we bought.

What I like about this is it forces the downtime. The relaxing by the pools, doing the kids stuff, etc. We may even go to Sea World one of these trips.

That said, now that we are becoming DVC members, we may buy the APs next Jan and save the other tickets for another time. Especially if we stay at Boardwalk, I can totally see picking up all our lunches and dinners at Epcot. Or just go to AK for the Nemo show or whatever.

And I think once my kids get older, hanging at the resort is not going to be as fun for them so APs will be a must.

 

[JaneSparrow]

AP will not work for us because we don't have any more Disney vacation plans until either Oct or Dec 2012.

What I find interesting is the change in upgrade rule. We were at WDW 7/27 to 8/2 of 2010, when I inquired about NE option, we only have to pay for remaining days but you have to have at least 2 major park days remaining. Only DH had 1 day remaining so we didn't upgrade. We also had no idea that we will become DVC members at the time and will be back in less than 1 year (October vacation request was denied).

Like dmank, we expect to get at least 3 trips from the 10 day NE PH Water park pass. We will set aside any unused portion then get the AP if we are going twice within a year.

 

[pditullio]

Barring 1 trip per 52 weeks, less than 6 days, I would highly reccommend APS.

Totally agree with your entire post. If you are going to be at Disney for more than one trip per year, the AP is a no-brainer to me.

However, if you are only going once per year, the cost savings can be significant to go the other way. And after almost 20 years of DVC, we have really moved away from the AP in the last few trips.

I have spent the last decade doing this type of "AP vs. regular ticket math," and have gone back and forth, and have tried the strategy of booking our yearly vacations week 51 weeks apart to get 2 trips out of an AP. Have gotten the 10-day water park NE and used them for 2.5 trips...etc.

But the last few trips we've found that it's just not worth it for us to get the AP or the NE. Like the OP, we usually do only one long trip per year. Even when that trip is for 8 or 9 days, we are at the point now where we pretty much alternate between park day and a non-park (pool, etc.) day, one day in one day out.

Even still, I used to get the AP so that if we were at the pool all day and then wanted to go to Epcot for dinner or just for fireworks, I wouldn't feel like I was "wasting" a park day. But I realized you can't look at a per day cost. You have to just look at the pass as the total amount of time you spend in the park over the course of the trip.

For example, for our upcoming trip, we are there for 9 days. We got MYW (non-hopping) 7-day passes from UT for $250 each (tax incl.). We didn't get the NE option. We just look at it like $250 for total time in the parks for this trip and then these passes are done. And hopping, for me, after so many trips, just doesn't seem necessary either. Even though most of our park days include a break midday, we just plan for that same park in the evening.

And there are a LOT of overlapping discounts between DVC and AP, so while you don't get as many as with AP, there is still a lot of discounting going on.

For 3 of us at $250 vs. $399 (plus tax), the 7-day MYW gets us everything we need during an annual vacation and saves us a ton of $.

 

[bumbershoot]

What I find interesting is the change in upgrade rule. We were at WDW 7/27 to 8/2 of 2010, when I inquired about NE option, we only have to pay for remaining days but you have to have at least 2 major park days remaining. Only DH had 1 day remaining so we didn't upgrade.

This is the only place I've heard of this; could you have gotten a bad CM?

As far as I have ever read, to get no-exp on tickets you have to pay for the full ticket you have (not just the days left) and you have to do it inside of 14 days of the first use. You could just have one day left on it and upgrade as long as its the first 14 days of use, though that doesn't actually make sense financially.

 

[rnorwo1]

OP here! Funny this old thread came back up b/c just when I thought I settled to get the APs, I've been waivering again! We are probably just going to go on and do them this year just to see what the experience is like for us... we're going in May and then perhaps again during Mardi Gras as kids are out of school the entire week. Then next time we'll try the NE, when all of the kids are old enough to enjoy the water parks. Perhaps by the time those park tickets are used, we may not need the hoppers anymore.... the kids will be older and maybe we'll be eating more in the villa... right now we think we need them so we can pop into epcot to eat most evenings, but I guess with some planning we can definitely do without that.