Annual pass holder

[LOVEDISNEYLAND]

I was just wondering and wanted to get some opinions. Do your think it would be a better idea to just buy an annual pass if my husband and I go more than twice a year or even three times a year?

 

[kuusimo]

If you are going at least twice it would pay for itself. Plus you get a discount on food and shopping at Disneyland and CA!

 

[audrabolster]

I live in Orange County, and have the deluxe with parking. It gives you a 10% discount on food purchases, and you recieve 10% at places in Downtown Disney.

It gives you more of an incentive to visit the park!

 

[bumbershoot]

Hey, I'm in Tacoma, too! hi!

Just add up the number of days you want to be there in 365 days' time, and then figure out what the cost of those passes would be. We had a 5 day trip planned, and got a package through Costco with 5 day parkhoppers that were worth 189 for the adult hoppers (little bit less for the kiddo).

Since my brother lives in San Diego and we plan on visiting him *at least* once in the year's time, and during that visit we would go to Disneyland for at least a day trip...adding a day ticket (not even a hopper) to that 189 was going to be more than the Deluxe AP. Absolutely no thinking beyond that was necessary, we knew that the AP would be the answer.

And then adding in the discount on food makes it even better!

 

[bumbershoot]

Oh, and we chose the Deluxe after checking the blackout calendar and realizing that we really never go during the blacked out dates anyway, so there was no point to get the Premium.

Your situation might be different.

 

[LOVEDISNEYLAND]

Thanks guys!! I think that's what we will do then. We will be going there in December for 10 days with the whole family and in March again for 4 days (quick trip) just me and my husband. That way we will only have to pay for airfare, hotel and transfers from the hotel. no rental car for the March trip because we won't need one. we'll just use a shuttle. So thanks again guys!!! Maybe I'll buy annual passes when were down at Disneyland in December and surprise my husband with them on Christmas day! Just an idea. Thanks again!!

 

[JenDisneylandlver]

So far this year we've used our passes twice. In June we had 3 day Hoppers that we upgraded to the Deluxe passes. We used it an extra day on that trip. Then we went again in October, for 4 days, and it right there saved us lots of money. We plan on going again in June (right before they expire), so it will be like free tickets for that trip. So yes, I think it's worth it!

 

[bumbershoot]

Thanks guys!! I think that's what we will do then. We will be going there in December for 10 days with the whole family and in March again for 4 days (quick trip) just me and my husband. That way we will only have to pay for airfare, hotel and transfers from the hotel. no rental car for the March trip because we won't need one. we'll just use a shuttle. So thanks again guys!!! Maybe I'll buy annual passes when were down at Disneyland in December and surprise my husband with them on Christmas day! Just an idea. Thanks again!!

You might have already thought of this, I am not sure, so do forgive me if this is a big "well of course" sort of post.

You know you can upgrade from parkhoppers to the AP and only pay the difference, right? And since you'll be there with other family members, you'll want to be sure you have the EE with them...so you would want to start with PHs and upgrade.

(Unless you're staying onsite, in which case the EE days are separate from your tickets, as staying there gives you EE privileges for all the EE days during your stay. So if you're staying onsite, you'll have the EE anyway. )

Since I don't know if you will BE at DL on Christmas day, this might be an "of course" statement too...but if you upgrade from tickets, or just start off with an AP, your hubby will know the first time he tries to get into the parks and doesn't have his parkhopper. When you upgrade they take your hoppers (which was unexpected, so unexpected I didn't think to ask for my "souvenir" ticket back! boohoo) and just give you the APs.

Also, you take pictures when you get your APs, so again your hubby will know already.

Maybe the xmas surprise could be taking him to Blue Bayou, after getting the APs, and surprise him with the 10% off the bill, with the AP discount!

 

[LOVEDISNEYLAND]

You might have already thought of this, I am not sure, so do forgive me if this is a big "well of course" sort of post.

You know you can upgrade from parkhoppers to the AP and only pay the difference, right? And since you'll be there with other family members, you'll want to be sure you have the EE with them...so you would want to start with PHs and upgrade.

(Unless you're staying onsite, in which case the EE days are separate from your tickets, as staying there gives you EE privileges for all the EE days during your stay. So if you're staying onsite, you'll have the EE anyway. )

Since I don't know if you will BE at DL on Christmas day, this might be an "of course" statement too...but if you upgrade from tickets, or just start off with an AP, your hubby will know the first time he tries to get into the parks and doesn't have his parkhopper. When you upgrade they take your hoppers (which was unexpected, so unexpected I didn't think to ask for my "souvenir" ticket back! boohoo) and just give you the APs.

Also, you take pictures when you get your APs, so again your hubby will know already.

Maybe the xmas surprise could be taking him to Blue Bayou, after getting the APs, and surprise him with the 10% off the bill, with the AP discount!

We will be going December 8th-17th. My husband and I will be arriving there first on Saturday, then his cousin be there on Tuesday and then my mother and father in law will be coming on Wednesday and we will all be leaving on the 17th at the same time. So we won't actually be there on Christmas day but pretty close. So does that mean that according to the package each of has, we might have EE on seprate days. If so, do we need to talk to our travel agent? We have our trip already paid off so we might not be able to make any changes. Our plan was to use EE on the same day together. We are also not staying onsite. We have decided on the Best Western Park Place Inn & Mini Suites. oh yea, Forgive me, but what does PH's stand for (pass holders)??

 

[bumbershoot]

I'm sorry if I confused you. (I need an embarrassed face smilie)

EE is on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. With your tickets, you can choose one of those days that falls in your trip.

I was just saying that if you're onsite, you get EE each day it is offered. But since you're offsite, you get one EE day. Your choice of M, T, Th, or Sat.

I'm using PH for ParkHoppers (tickets).

What I was trying to get at is...if your point in getting Annual Passports is to save money over the year, you will want to upgrade your and your husband's parkhopper tickets DURING your stay. When you upgrade, you will take pictures for the APs, and therefore it won't be an xmas day surprise, because your hubby will know from the picture he had taken. You have to upgrade the tickets while they are still in use; you can't finish all the days of the tickets, leave, and then upgrade.

BUT you will want to wait to upgrade until AFTER your whole family does the EE day, because once you change to an Annual Passport you don't get EE days. (unless you stay at a Disney hotel, just to be thorough)


I hope I explained that right this time...I'm so sorry I was confusing the first time through.

 

[LOVEDISNEYLAND]

Oh no worries!!! I just wanted to make sure. Not sure how much the park hopper tickets are because we bought it through our travel agent (Who is the best!!) as a package deal. I know that we got 7 day hopper tickets. The rest of the days will be at Universal Studios, Knott's and just sight seeing. preferrably in Hollywood but were not sure! All I know is that the daily grind of life, going to school full time and working full time is really starting to get to me, so therfore I need a nice 10 day vacation to feel somewhat refreshed when I come back. I know a lot of people would say that you don't need 7 days in Disneyland and I say, well you do if your me and a total Disney freak!!

 

[oldenewguy]

We got two day park hoppers with our dream vacation that is comming up in 12 days . Am I able to upgrade those to delux AP's?

 

[stacielee]

We got two day park hoppers with our dream vacation that is comming up in 12 days . Am I able to upgrade those to delux AP's?

Any ticket can be upgraded to an AP, you just pay the difference in price.

 

[bumbershoot]

I know a lot of people would say that you don't need 7 days in Disneyland and I say, well you do if your me and a total Disney freak!!

Oh no, we ended up with 6.5 days in the parks and we feel like we barely scratched the surface, especially at DCA! Don't get me wrong, we were exhausted and ready to go home, but as soon as we got back to Tacoma I was ready to get to Anaheim again! So I'm with you on the 10 day thing.

We got our 5 day hoppers with a Costco travel package, and they were upgradable. I called them to find out the value (this was before the recent price hike, and was 189 for the adult hopper, which was the same as the ahead-of-time cost through disneyland.com) so I knew what the difference was going to be. I bet your travel agent could find out, too!

 

[beroh2253]

Any ticket can be upgraded to an AP, you just pay the difference in price.

I have (4) park hoppers with 2 days on each remaining. Could I upgrade these to 2 AP's? If so how do you order from home or do you just put a down payment on the AP and pay the rest when you go with the voucher to guest relations and pick up the AP's?

 

[DangerMouse]

I have (4) park hoppers with 2 days on each remaining. Could I upgrade these to 2 AP's? If so how do you order from home or do you just put a down payment on the AP and pay the rest when you go with the voucher to guest relations and pick up the AP's?

Beroh, are you talking about DLR hoppers? Have they expired? (You know, they are only good for 13 days from first date of use).

I saw you're in PA and thought you may be talking about WDW hoppers. . . which cannot be used to upgrade to DLR AP's.

 

[beroh2253]

They use to sell 5,6 and 7 day hopper passes that had no expiration, we got these 4 passes back in 2002. We had been getting the length of stay pass the last few times 2006 and 2007 so we could get the DDP. The last time we used some days (3 days ea. Me and DW) was in 2003.
We would like to do maybe 2 or 3 trips in the next year and thought about AP's and thought maybe trading in or upgrading the unused hopper pass days.
And how exactly we would do that if we could?

 

[beroh2253]

I guess this may be a Disneyland site only? So I better look for the WDW site. Some day I will get out to California.