Annual Pass or 10 day non-expiring?

[hockeyprincess]

Hey all,

I need your help/advice. We are planning a 9 day-8 night trip this July to celebrate 2 birthdays!! Debating back and forth, back and forth, Annual Pass or 10 day non-expiring, PH and WPM passes????

We own at OKW so do travel to WDW every year. May not always be the same time of year though, and we always fly. So in other words, if I find a great deal on airfare, we're there!! That's usually how the planning goes. In fact, I just booked our upcoming trip, oh less than a month ago I would say.

Considering Annual Pass for the following reasons:
Can purchase TIW card. (considering not doing the DDP this trip)
DVC discount.
Cheaper than 10 day NE tickets, but of course, only good for 1 year
Water park days would be extra (would probably not get the PAP)

10 day NE tickets:
We are not planning on doing alot of parks this trip, thus could save the park days
We ARE planning on going to the waterparks this trip!
Cost more than AP and no DVC discount (mousesavers is the best deal I've found, and still costly)

Another question I had, can you use the recently released 10% discount on AP's (http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2164541) on top of the DVC discount?

Also there's a cash room discount this summer for AP holders, does this also apply to 25% discount on rack rate for DVC owners?

If the above 2 questions are answered YES that may very well sway my decision. What else am I missing as far as advantages of having an Annual Pass??? (Besides the obvious--wanting to plan more trips into one year than our typical ONE!! )

Also, I am SO not the math whiz..... I read to purchase 6 day passes from UT and upgrade while at the parks? How does this work.... so confused!

Thanks all, I know you will have the answers I need to help me make this decision!

 

[Grandbuddy]

Depends on whether you can get back to WDW soon enough to take full advantage of the AP.

If you get the 10-day, non-expiring ticket, you can add the WP & more option pretty cheaply.

If you don't get back to WDW within the year, your unused days will still be available when you do get back.

Are you aware that your WP/DQ entrances also do not expire? If you've only used 4 WP entrances when you've used up all your park days, you still have WP or DQ days available until all 10 of these are used up. That could cover 20 full days of WDW activities....

 

[Anal Annie]

You are right around the break even point for the AP's. I just priced out our options before I ordered the vouchers for our AP's. We have a 4 n trip for later this month and 7 n at BCV followed by 3 n at VB in August. So we have a total of 11 nights planned at WDW. But since we're going down on a Fri. afternoon / early evening for this next trip I considered not trying to go to a park that nite and just plan for 10 park days. We have discovered that we don't do the water parks on our shorter trips or in the winter and we always only go to them for like 1/2 day anyway then we park hop somewhere else - so with the non-expiring tix we'd still use a reg. park day too which makes them not such a good deal for us.

At $1,461 the 10 day non-expiring tix was the 2nd most expensive option for us (fam. of 3 "adults"). The one advantage would be that I guess we'd still have remaining water park days left and wouldn't have to pay for that again any time soon.

To purchase individual hopper tix for each trip was the most expensive option at $1,641 for 4 day & 7 day hoppers.

The reg. AP's were $1,179 and were the best deal for our scenario by far. PAP's were $336 more. We will probably decide to hit at least one water park on our August trip and will just pay with the DVC discount at that time. If they don't raise the price before then I think that will cost us $108 for the one day admission.

 

[buzz5985]

I find that we have AP we will do things like - let's go to MK for lunch, a quick dole whip and leave. Or lets go to Epcot for Fish and Chips and leave. Or lets go to Fantasmic tonight. It really helps when you have several trips planned in 1 years time.

Our last trip we had the hardest time deciding what ticket to buy. We ended up buying tickets from AAA with a discount and upgrading them to a 10 day nonexpiring/water park - no hopping. The No Hopping saved a lot of money but it makes planning a lot harder. It was the first trip we had without a hopper and found we really didn't miss it too much.

I just find the AP give you a lot of freedom. But the 10 day give you a lot of value especially if you aren't going to the parks every day.

Janis

 

[chum]

My vote would be the 10 day non expiring.

 

[Disneycouple99]

You can use the 10% on top of the DVC discounted AP.
You do not get an AP discount on rooms on top of the DVC 25% discount.