I would plan about 15-18 months out of when you will be going, and do it individually with an est of # of days and parks, and trips.. This will save you the most. Not being decided upfront about which way you will pick your tickets.
Any year you plan on going twice do it, there are more benifits you get 10 - 20% off alot of different things. ESPECIALLY if you like going to a park every day.
1 trip less than 8 days per year, agree with diznutz 10 day no exp. plus hopper. I would also add water park tickets, for 53$ you get 10 visits to the water parks and/or Disney Quest. Adding this to an AP a year you do get AP for timing reasons, water parks option on an AP is about 100$ per person.
I feel the AP this year is almost to cheap for renewals for
DVC, 100 off for being DVC combined with the renewal discount giving us 15 months (renewed yesterday! ) and the credit for the GAD voucher put our APs at less than 1K for 3 people and were for 15 months. * (We have 7 days of water park tickets from an old pass.)
*Some would argue.. but compared to what I would have paid it would have been almost 500$ more AND only 12 months. ....AND I would have paid it.