When we visited WDW and stayed at BWV in November 2001, I decided it would be worthwhile to buy annual passes. We've never had annual passes before.
Prior to going, I looked into whether there would be any advantage to buying our passes (or pass vouchers) in advance, either at the
Disney Store or online. It turned out there is no advantage -- neither a better price, nor greater convenience.
So after we had checked into our 1BR suite at BWV, we walked over to the International Gateway entrance to Epcot. We presented a credit card and our Disney Club card to the CM in the ticket booth. She showed us our choices. We decided on regular annual passes because we would not make sufficient use the extra features of the premium annual passes (such as water park admission) over a 12-month period. We saved around $15 on each of the two passes with our Disney Club card.
I asked if we could get the free extra 100 days that Florida residents were getting at the time. She said no. So, as Illinois residents, we paid more and we received a shorter term pass than if we were Florida residents. And DVC owners pay the same as anyone else.
We filled out short applications (and we may have shown our Illinois drivers licenses, I don't recall). A few minutes later we had our annual passes and we were inside Epcot.
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