Annual Pass verus 10 day pass

[RebelHawk]

My wife and I have been using non expiring park hopping passes for over a decade. We purchase our 10-day ticket and use 2-4 days per trip. One 10 day ticket could end up lasting us for well over 2 years. When we heard the rumor about the non expiring option going away we called Disney and ordered 4 10-day non expiring tickets. After we purchased those we joined DVC so will most likely spend a few extra days per year in the parks. If the math works out we will just start doing APs. Since those non expiring tickets will be good forever we are looking forward to breaking them out 10+ years from now and laughing about how much money we "saved" on stocking up on them.

 

[bz8bls]

Yes the non expire were a little more but the way we used them we always were able to avoid at least two of Disney's famous price increases if not three plus as I mentioned this way we never had to worry about trying to use them up in a certain amount of time. These made them a great deal for us...smjj

smjj we used the ne tickets the same you did. Actually being DVC members we stretched tickets out to three visits. We didn't feel the need to go to parks very often because we knew we were coming back. This has actually made us rethink our DVC purchase (we have been members for almost 12 years)

 

[Disney_Mama]

I was really put off that the no expiration was taken away. It was the best fit for our family. We go once or twice a year. But only visit the park maybe once each trip. DH and my kids still have park visits left but I have used all mine up. So mad at myself that I did not buy it again after I used up my last park day. Because on my next visit I was told it was no longer offered. So for now I will just be buying one day at a time until DH and I retire and go for longer stays.

 

[supersnoop]

Undercover Tourist seems to have found some tickets laying around. They had some no-expiration tickets for sale on their website yesterday. Check if they're still available.

 

[shoes99]

Yes the non expire were a little more but the way we used them we always were able to avoid at least two of Disney's famous price increases if not three plus as I mentioned this way we never had to worry about trying to use them up in a certain amount of time. These made them a great deal for us...smjj

We've been buying NE tickets for the last four years from UT instead of AP. We are DCL fans who cruise
twice a year with a 2 or 3 night stay at a WDW resort. The NE works better for us. Our next trip is
Feb 2016 with 7 nights on DCL and 6 nights at OKW. I have two 5 days left and 2 two days left
of unused tickets. I'll figure it out in Feb. Sometimes DH doesn't even want to go to a park
every day, that's why the NE base or NE hoppers worked better for us since we can spread
them out over 2 or 3 years.
(The two day hoppers were a replacement ticket because even though I used an older base ticket thru the
gates on our last post-cruise trip, MDE took the entry off the older hoppers that we were saving to hop.)
When you have multiple tickets attached to MDE you really have to be careful. The CM gave us the 2 day hopper comp and told me not to add them to our MDE until we used up the older NE tickets. )

 

[Disney_Mama]

How does the Undercover Tourist site work? If I buy tickets from them are they someone else's old unused tickets?

 

[supersnoop]

How does the Undercover Tourist site work? If I buy tickets from them are they someone else's old unused tickets?

No. They're new tickets. They're an authorized reseller.

 

[Disney_Mama]

I just bought two 6 day no expiration from Undercover Tourist. Thanks for the information.

 

[nezy]

We buy the AP and go the end of August one year and then early August the next year. It works great. Sometimes we throw in a February trip, just because we have the AP!

In the end I am spending more because we make more trips (ie flights and car rental). I think "let's go to Disney, we have the annual passes" whereas I may have done a different trip. (We always rent a car because we have relatives in FLorida that we visit when we are there but everything truly revolves around the Disney part of the trip.)
When I did not have the AP and had the NE passes we definitely stretched them out and planned park days and non-park days. Now we don't even think about it. If I want to go to France in EPCOT for a pastry I will go to France and maybe that's it for the day and then maybe pop into another park for a specific ride. whereas if had a restricted number of days I would be at a park from open to close.

I don't know what is better actually but I know when these AP's expire I will bot be planning my next Disney trip very quickly. We have had 3 trips on the existing AP's Aug 2014,-Feb-2015 and upcoming Aug-2015. The DVC discount used to be much better or at least there were a few "specials". Hoping for greater AP discounts in the future otherwise may rethink my destinations.

 

[Humphrey_Bear]

My wife and I have been using non expiring park hopping passes for over a decade. We purchase our 10-day ticket and use 2-4 days per trip. One 10 day ticket could end up lasting us for well over 2 years. . . . .Since those non expiring tickets will be good forever we are looking forward to breaking them out 10+ years from now and laughing about how much money we "saved" on stocking up on them.

Same here. We've been stock piling 10 day NE hopper + WPM tickets from UT for years. For us it was also a hedge against the contant increases. We typically only go to the parks 4-5 days per trip, so we usually would get 2 trips per pass. Mourning the loss of the NE tix big time.

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

I am also upset that Disney did away with the NE tickets. We usually go every other year and use 2 park-hopper days, so our tickets last for 10 years! Now that our kids are nearly grown, my DH and I are planning on a trip just the two of us on our off-year. We would like to use one day on that trip, so we need only 3 days every two years. Annual passes will not work. I have a brand-new 10 day NE I just bought which I will start using this December. I also just bought my DH a 7-day NE and he still has 4 days left on his old ticket, so he has 11 days total. With our current plans, that will last us about 7 years. We will both be retired at that point, so we will probably start doing annual passes since we are planning on even more trips then. I'm just happy I was able to snag these NE tickets before they were gone forever!

 

[freediverdude]

Ha! Your precious no expiration tickets are gone! Forever! AH-hahahahaha!

-Maleficent

Darn you Maleficent! Be gone!

 

[davidl81]

In the end I am spending more because we make more trips (ie flights and car rental). I think "let's go to Disney, we have the annual passes" whereas I may have done a different trip. (We always rent a car because we have relatives in FLorida that we visit when we are there but everything truly revolves around the Disney part of the trip.)
When I did not have the AP and had the NE passes we definitely stretched them out and planned park days and non-park days. Now we don't even think about it. If I want to go to France in EPCOT for a pastry I will go to France and maybe that's it for the day and then maybe pop into another park for a specific ride. whereas if had a restricted number of days I would be at a park from open to close.

I don't know what is better actually but I know when these AP's expire I will bot be planning my next Disney trip very quickly. We have had 3 trips on the existing AP's Aug 2014,-Feb-2015 and upcoming Aug-2015. The DVC discount used to be much better or at least there were a few "specials". Hoping for greater AP discounts in the future otherwise may rethink my destinations.

We are the same way. We will go 3 times this year on our AP, Dec 2014, June 2015, and Dec 2015(the week before they expire). We will then go back some time in 2016 and buy AP's again and do 2-3 trips. I also have been know to book a last min weekend at SSR (like book on Tuesday and fly in Friday) since I have the AP and sometimes FF miles. I love not having to worry about how many days we have or if I am "wasting" a day by making a 2 hour park trip. But I totally understand how people are coming out losing a little money based on their touring habits on the 10 day NE. Really it hurts the people that maybe do only 2-3 park days a trip. It is overall a small percent of Disney guest, but it still hurts those people.

 

[suebeelin]

I have a 4 no expire tickets (10 days) for me, dh, ds5, and ds2... For the future. We are getting annual passes for the foreseeable future (5 dat trip jan 2016, then 10 day trip dec 2016). We won't need the NE tix until the kids are a bit older-- when universal might become a possibility.

So, basically we bought the 10 day NE for 5+ years from now to use. Presumably park tix will be insane by then.

 

[points envy]

Undercover Tourist seems to have found some tickets laying around. They had some no-expiration tickets for sale on their website yesterday. Check if they're still available.

So... Undercover Tourist has 6 day no expiration tickets, 1 park per day, for $558.06. Their 6 day ticket that expires is $334.95 which is comparable to MDE ticket current prices. In this situation, is there a discernible advantage to buying the no expiration tickets (that I'm not seeing)? Or... Was the real benefit when it was offered through dvc as a special offer?

 

[supersnoop]

So... Undercover Tourist has 6 day no expiration tickets, 1 park per day, for $558.06. Their 6 day ticket that expires is $334.95 which is comparable to MDE ticket current prices. In this situation, is there a discernible advantage to buying the no expiration tickets (that I'm not seeing)? Or... Was the real benefit when it was offered through dvc as a special offer?

The benefit is that you can use it like two three-day tickets, three two-day tickets, or even six individual tickets. Regular multi-day tickets are only valid for a 14-day period, but a no-expiration ticket can be used over the course of many years.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

I am also upset that Disney did away with the NE tickets. We usually go every other year and use 2 park-hopper days, so our tickets last for 10 years! Now that our kids are nearly grown, my DH and I are planning on a trip just the two of us on our off-year. We would like to use one day on that trip, so we need only 3 days every two years. Annual passes will not work. I have a brand-new 10 day NE I just bought which I will start using this December. I also just bought my DH a 7-day NE and he still has 4 days left on his old ticket, so he has 11 days total. With our current plans, that will last us about 7 years. We will both be retired at that point, so we will probably start doing annual passes since we are planning on even more trips then. I'm just happy I was able to snag these NE tickets before they were gone forever!

Not picking on you as there are several examples of this same behavior in this thread but we do all realize that this is exactly the reason NE tickets were done away with, don't we?

 

[supersnoop]

Not picking on you as there are several examples of this same behavior in this thread but we do all realize that this is exactly the reason NE tickets were done away with, don't we?

No, this behavior is exactly the reason NE tickets were created. Nobody knows exactly why they were discountinued, but it's more like an accounting issue.

 

[points envy]

The benefit is that you can use it like two three-day tickets, three two-day tickets, or even six individual tickets. Regular multi-day tickets are only valid for a 14-day period, but a no-expiration ticket can be used over the course of many years.

Sure... I understand the NE concept. Is this particular, 6 day NE ticket for $558 super advantageous or, at this point, it's not so beneficial? Considering, currently we can buy 3 sets of two day tickets from MDE prices for $576. I'm assuming DVC offered discounted 10 day NE park hopper tickets at a pretty discount. Or are the "old dvc guards" just lamenting the fact that NE tickets aren't available and the NE aspect of the ticket was the benefit (with no discount)? I've only been a DVC member for two years. I haven't had the luxury of buying a NE ticket with a dvc discount (if there was one). The way I see the 6 day ticket, from undercover tourist, it would only be beneficial if I bought it now, and used it in twenty years when ticket prices increase. Other than that, is there another advantage I'm not seeing to this particular six day ticket? Peace and Love

 

[supersnoop]

Sure... I understand the NE concept. Is this particular, 6 day NE ticket for $558 super advantageous or, at this point, it's not so beneficial? Considering, currently we can buy 3 sets of two day tickets from MDE prices for $576. I'm assuming DVC offered discounted 10 day NE park hopper tickets at a pretty discount. Or are the "old dvc guards" just lamenting the fact that NE tickets aren't available and the NE aspect of the ticket was the benefit (with no discount)? I've only been a DVC member for two years. I haven't had the luxury of buying a NE ticket with a dvc discount (if there was one). The way I see the 6 day ticket, from undercover tourist, it would only be beneficial if I bought it now, and used it in twenty years when ticket prices increase. Other than that, is there another advantage I'm not seeing to this particular six day ticket? Peace and Love

These have absolutely nothing to do with DVC. There was never (as far as I know) a discount on NE tickets.

You could buy three two-day tickets today and use them in 20 years. Regular tickets don't expire until they've been used. This six-day ticket would be useful if you would use it for one day a year for the next six years.

Really, I think the 10-day tickets with the water park option were the only real value when it came to NE tickets. It's easy to get three or more trips out of those.