Annual Pass and Early Entry

[KittyKat1978]

I have read if you buy a 3-day or more park hopper you get one early entry.

If you have an annual pass and don't stay on property, do you get any early entry days?

 

[LisaT91403]

AP holders do not get early entry (unless they are staying on property).

 

[starry_solo]

I have read if you buy a 3-day or more park hopper you get one early entry.

If you have an annual pass and don't stay on property, do you get any early entry days?

No.

 

[GrandBob]

Agree with the rest - no. That's the reason that the standard advice is to buy a park hopper, use the MM, and then upgrade to an AP. To really optimize it, use the MM at the earliest convenience, and upgrade as soon as possible, to start getting your AP discounts.

-Bob

 

[Mugglemama]

Not sure if you'll find this helpful or not, but...

...we've always taken advantage of MM's (with exception, of course, of the years that we had AP's). On our last trip, we were visiting in the middle of Summer, a Monday - Friday trip. As usual, we got up extra early for our MM (in this case, that meant we had to get 4 adults and 6 kids up at 4:30am in order to get ready to be in line at the security tables an hour before MM was to begin! UGH!).

We were SO disappointed when we arrived, and realized that a LOT of other people had gotten there even MORE than an hour before MM opening (in comparison to all of the non-MM days we showed up an hour early as well, and were first in line every single time).

The security tables didn't even open up until 5 minutes before we were supposed to be allowed into the parks...the turnstiles didn't start taking people until 15 minutes AFTER MM was supposed to begin...and there were FAR more people there for MM than there were for any other opening that we saw that week. So even though we'd gone through all of that trouble to get up before dawn and get there extra early...our MM was cut to 45 minutes, and the wait for Peter Pan (the first ride we always go to if we arrive for opening) was STILL 3x longer than it was on ALL of the non-MM days that we opened the park.

I can't help but wonder if what's happening is that so many more people are becoming "planners" in reference to their DLR trips in order to maximize their time in the parks, and as a result, a higher number of people are becoming savvy as to MM's and the benefit they (used to?) provide....culminating in a situation where the scales are tipping in the other direction now and MM's are becoming busier than non MM openings. I don't know.

This year we are buying AP's, but even if we were doing PH's, I still wouldn't even be bothering with MM. We're going to open DCA on MM days (having arrived a bit early to run into Disneyland first to grab some FP's for later).

Maybe a similar strategy will work for your family. Either way, have a great time!