Annual pass changes coming........

[hamilkm]

So our APs expire in June. We are going in Feb and June. If I go to Guest Relations in the park when we get there in Feb, I can upgrade just my AP (our family has 3) and essentially pay $101 for Memory Maker for our Feb and June trip?
That might be worth it.

That is what I did! I have downloaded all our photos from this long weekend trip and plan to do the same on our December weekend trip and our March week trip. I only did mine but have been able to download photos from other people on my friends list with no problems.

 

[opal]

As a FL resident, we're not happy about this at all. There's no longer any real fl resident discount. We had annual passes that expired last July and loved them, used them all year long - took all kinds of day trips. But we never used photopass, just not our thing. So we didn't renew thought we'd take a few months off, and now the price increase is huge, unless we start to put up with blackout dates. That sucks - I don't want to get blocked out at Christmas, those are some of the best times to go. Looking at this, we probably won't buy passes at all. I know Disney doesn't care about losing individual customers as long as they make more money in the long run, but it's pretty disheartening.

I tend to agree that the benefits to a FL resident have been diminished. I guess now that the Parks seem to be busy no matter the time of year, the Mouse is less dependent on his FL neighbors. On the surface, including parking with the passes seemed like a positive move until you realize the price increase reflective of that perk is being charged to every member of your family who has an adult pass even though you are all traveling in the same vehicle. Add to that, every time you stay onsite you receive a parking pass which allow you to park for free.

 

[hamilkm]

Thank You
This was what I was looking for. My wife likes the ride photos and the couple photos. So MM has alsways been worth it to us.

Now I just need to find out if I can get a refund on the MM I purchased for my trip next month and whether I need to upgrade both our passes.

I don't know about the memory maker but I'm pretty sure you don't have to upgrade both passes.

 

[Jennasis]

OKI...lemme get this straight...

We have vouchers for brand new APs. We bought these earlier this year (just before the last price hike). We are going to activate them on our trip in December.

Will they be Platinum upon activation?

 

[Rash]

I'm in the same boat and would like to know this as well.^^^^

 

[lugnut33]

OKI...lemme get this straight...

We have vouchers for brand new APs. We bought these earlier this year (just before the last price hike). We are going to activate them on our trip in December.

Will they be Platinum upon activation?

Best of my understanding is you will be Platinum. Now, if you call and ask you might get a totally different answer.

 

[ravenclawtrekkie]

OKI...lemme get this straight...

We have vouchers for brand new APs. We bought these earlier this year (just before the last price hike). We are going to activate them on our trip in December.

Will they be Platinum upon activation?

Yes. Non-renewal certificates for former Annual passes will activate to Platinum passes, barring something weird happening in the computer that isn't supposed to.

 

[rfc0001]

Wow. I just found out about this a few minutes ago. Our AP's expire October 18 and we haven't renewed yet. We were actually debating it, but we were likely going to renew this weekend. Is there anyway they will let us renew at the old rate? I can't believe they gave us no warning!

Not unless you got a renewal reminder postcard, with the rate guaranteed in writing. FWIW, they never give a reminder -- it always happens that Authorized Disney Ticket Resellers get the notice about 1 day in advance and warn everyone on the forums. This time just caught more people off guard since it already happened in Feb, which is normally when it occurs.

 

[kphamousbr]

We still have unused Memory Maker . We don't think we need it since annual passes have photo pass feature . We like know if anyone get credit or refund for unused MM . Thanks.

 

[rfc0001]

We still have unused Memory Maker . We don't think we need it since annual passes have photo pass feature . We like know if anyone get credit or refund for unused MM . Thanks.

Several people on this and the PhotoPass vs. MM thread area saying they got refunds. I'm not sure what number, but PhotoPass # is 407-560-4300.

 

[Madteaparty001]

@ravenclawtrekkie I've seen a lot of answers about DVC, FL, and people that already have an Annual Pass but I can't seem to figure out an answer to my situation. I'm going in a couple of weeks, bought 4 day tickets direct from Disney back in January before the Feb price increase. I was planning on using a ticket to go into Magic Kingdom to price lock and then head off to Guest Relations to upgrade to an AP. Will I be able to upgrade to the old AP pricing with the old benefits? Will I have to pay the difference for the new AP? How does that work?

 

[ravenclawtrekkie]

@ravenclawtrekkie I've seen a lot of answers about DVC, FL, and people that already have an Annual Pass but I can't seem to figure out an answer to my situation. I'm going in a couple of weeks, bought 4 day tickets direct from Disney back in January before the Feb price increase. I was planning on using a ticket to go into Magic Kingdom to price lock and then head off to Guest Relations to upgrade to an AP. Will I be able to upgrade to the old AP pricing with the old benefits? Will I have to pay the difference for the new AP? How does that work?

This is actually a simple situation. When upgrading your tickets, you'll choose a current pass type and pay the current price. The computers will no longer issue the old pass types, and since you didn't have a previous pass or any kind of certificate, there's no reason any old pricing or old benefits would even come into play.

FWIW, you can go to a ticket booth instead of Guest Relations if you want, our lines are usually shorter and we do upgrades. (Edit: Just saw you wanted to do it at MK, their ticket booth lines are long either way, so it's up to you, lol.)

 

[Cupcake2008]

Not unless you got a renewal reminder postcard, with the rate guaranteed in writing. FWIW, they never give a reminder -- it always happens that Authorized Disney Ticket Resellers get the notice about 1 day in advance and warn everyone on the forums. This time just caught more people off guard since it already happened in Feb, which is normally when it occurs.

Has anyone used their renewal postcard or letter to get the old price at the ticket windows? The new passes and prices are the only options that come up for me online. My pass expires on the 22nd and I was going to renew for $478.19. If I now have to pay $584.69 to not have black out dates, I am not renewing. I fell in love with Disney taking one or two family vacations a years as a kid, and I moved five minutes away from the Magic Kingdom in 2006. I have had an annual pass every year since then, but Disney keeps getting less and less magical. I used to love going on weekends, but now it's lost so much of the fun with the frustration of having to make fastpasses, the inability to make dining reservations, the park overcrowding, and the construction/ lack of/declining maintenance issues. Although I love Disney and have such fond memories, sometimes it just seems less frustrating and more fun to head to Universal. It's very disappointing to see Disney pushing annual passholders and especially locals out. I'm hoping it doesn't take another horrible tragedy like 9/11 for Disney to remember how the locals kept them in business a few years ago. There's a lot to think about this renewal time.

 

[Madteaparty001]

This is actually a simple situation. When upgrading your tickets, you'll choose a current pass type and pay the current price. The computers will no longer issue the old pass types, and since you didn't have a previous pass or any kind of certificate, there's no reason any old pricing or old benefits would even come into play.

FWIW, you can go to a ticket booth instead of Guest Relations if you want, our lines are usually shorter and we do upgrades. (Edit: Just saw you wanted to do it at MK, their ticket booth lines are long either way, so it's up to you, lol.)

From my understanding it used to be that buying tickets and then using one of them locked you into the pricing of that time period. For example if it was $280 for 4 days tickets and $625 for an AP, but then a week later that turned into $300 and $650, as long as you used one of the tickets you would be able to upgrade to the $625 price. Otherwise what would be the point of using one of the tickets first? Am I wrong in this?

Because from what you are saying it sounds like the $280 will be applied towards the $749 price with no other option.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Have there been any revised benefits for merchandise, food & beverage, and/or FP+. Any changes changes are there in those 3 areas? An AP survey today indicated there was.

 

[Aimeedyan]

2 quick questions (maybe @ravenclawtrekkie can answer?)

1. If someone bought their FL resident annual pass for the pre-February price hike cost, do they still just pay the difference between the latest cost ($529) or what they originally paid for it?

2. Can someone convert - and pay the difference between - a FL resident annual pass to a Gold Pass instead of a Platinum? Or do you have to just move to the closest match to your current pass?

 

[rfc0001]

2 quick questions (maybe @ravenclawtrekkie can answer?)

1. If someone bought their FL resident annual pass for the pre-February price hike cost, do they still just pay the difference between the latest cost ($529) or what they originally paid for it?

2. Can someone convert - and pay the difference between - a FL resident annual pass to a Gold Pass instead of a Platinum? Or do you have to just move to the closest match to your current pass?

If it's activated, you would receive credit of price before hike toward new AP price (if you want to covert legacy AP to Gold or Platinum). If it is unactivated (certificate), it will be issued as Platinum AP, so nothing is owed. From there you could apply the current value of AP toward any other AP -- which you can do at any time prior to your pass expiration.

 

[lovethattink]

Have there been any revised benefits for merchandise, food & beverage, and/or FP+. Any changes changes are there in those 3 areas? An AP survey today indicated there was.

I'm holding the new passholder sleeve and it says to go to Disneyworld.com/PassholderPerks for information on various discounts.

 

[CMNJ]

From my understanding it used to be that buying tickets and then using one of them locked you into the pricing of that time period. For example if it was $280 for 4 days tickets and $625 for an AP, but then a week later that turned into $300 and $650, as long as you used one of the tickets you would be able to upgrade to the $625 price. Otherwise what would be the point of using one of the tickets first? Am I wrong in this?

Because from what you are saying it sounds like the $280 will be applied towards the $749 price with no other option.

I don't think you had it quite correct. The way it previously worked was that if you bought a ticket at a discounted rate and then upgraded to a more expensive ticket after using the ticket once you locked in the current gate price for your ticket. So using your example you would then get $300 credit toward your $650 pass even though you actually only paid $280. (Though it would actually be $300 toward the current $750 cost unless you are DVC/Fl resident and eligible for lower cost passes). They call it price bridging and we did it back in May-we had bought 4 day PH tickets from AAA before the Feb price increase. We used them once and then upgraded to the DVC discounted annual passes. We got the credit for the current 4 day PH cost applied toward the cost of the current DVC annual passes not the prices that were in effect when the tickets were purchased in January.

 

[NMK62303]

So when we activate our certificates on 10/26 and convert to Platinum (as is what I have gleaned in the last 5-6 pages) will we be able to capture our Photos from our trip which starts 3 days earlier on 10/23? Thoughts? I could save the one day MM for MNSSHP that I was considering purchasing for 10/25 .............