Annual pass vs. no expiration [BEST VALUE??]

[jemgumby]

Yep it just depends on your situation. For my family we have the 10 day non exp w/ park hopping and water park n more option. We knew we of course were going to be using 5 days for our upcoming trip in May and then we are heading down for another trip in December but only doing 1 theme park at Disney and then Disney Quest. On that trip we will be doing Universal/Islands of Adventure. We are also planning a trip for next May up to PA and so the AP will not work for us as we wouldn't get back in the year. However, we now have our tickets that we can use when we get back to Disney plus the "more" options of waterparks, etc. will help us out in future Disney trips too!

 

[swilshire]

Eww ya Sheila, I'd be a little upset 2. W/ our situation we r from Pittsburgh PA so..... Our choice is buy 2 APs and drive clear to Orlando aprox. 20 hours. 2 or 3 trips. OR just do a regular package w/ air fare & only go on 1 wdw vacation in that year. Now my thing is, I ALWAYS take @ least 2 weeks vacation b/c I get 2 paid in a year. W/ the AP I'd like to go 3 times to get the value of it. But thats 3x I pay for hotel & food as well,so we'd have to sacrifice our air fare to save some $. Make sense? What to do??

We timeshare, so there isn't a huge additional cost to add weeks. We don't spend much more on food and the like than we would at home. Our biggest constraint is school schedules.

One year we bought APs, we went for New Years, Spring break, a week in the summer, Fall break, and back for Christmas. We were ALL tired of Disney.

It's a little more complicated now that the two oldest are in college. Their breaks are often different times. Four of us went last year for New Years, Spring break, Fall break, and Christmas. We had other plans for the summer. My daughter joined us for the first and last trip. Our oldest son, only the four days at New Years. (We had spent a few days seeing Universal Studios, my 16yo's favorite park, before we bought our APs.)

We usually get our money's worth on APs, but I also enjoy vacationing other places. I get five weeks of vacation, but always manage to use it up somewhere.

Sheila

 

[Ava]

Note that the break even point for non expiring tickets vs expiring tickets happens between 5 and 6 days. If you go for 5 days or less it will be cheaper to get non expiration tickets (although only very slightly cheaper at 5 days). If you go for 6 days or more, expiring tickets are cheaper (again, though, only very slightly cheaper at 6 days).

You also have to consider the initial outlay of money and the inflexibility of the non expiration tickets. If you do go on two 5 day trips you could pay $481.38 for the 10 day non expiration ticket to cover both trips. Or you could pay $242.82 twice for two 5 day expiring tickets (or $485.64 total). As I said, it would be very slightly cheaper to go with the 10 day non expiration ticket, but you also have to pay an extra $240 now instead of whenever you take your next trip.

Plus you would be locked into 5 days for the second trip. If you wanted to add a few extra days on the second trip you could do that with the expiring ticket for only $3 per day. With the non expiration ticket you would be forced to buy a new 1 or 2 day ticket at a very high cost.

This is really interesting & helpful, thanks for doing that math for me! We're starting to plan a trip for May 2011 & I'm trying to decide what type of tickets to get for DP & myself. (DD will only be 2 so she's free, woohoo!) We'll probably go for 5 or 6 days, not counting arrival & departure days, but don't know with a 2-year-old if we'll want to go to a park every day or have 1 or 2 break days during the week. If we get 10-day non-expiring tickets we can be flexible & not feel like we're wasting $ if we don't end up going to a park every day, since we can save the days for the next trip. (From everything I've read I don't think it would be worth it to add non-expiring if we end up with 1 or 2 days left on 5- or 6-day tickets since the added cost is only a few $ once you hit 5+ days.) The only downside is that it's a lot of $ upfront to get 10-day non-expiring tickets for 2 adults.

Then there is the question of whether or not to add Park Hopping and/or Water Park & More options. I definitely think we will want Park Hopping, I've had it in the past & like the flexibility. But then for water parks, we're probably not going to do one this time, since DD will only be 2, but if we buy the option now we'll essentially have water park entries for the next several trips. But then again it's a lot of money to lay out upfront. (I think even on UG with the MouseSavers link it's close to $550 per adult for a fully-loaded 10-day non-expiring ticket - over $1000 is A LOT to invest in WDW tickets.)

So I'm torn. Part of me thinks go for the fully loaded tickets because it will end up being a better deal in the long run & part of me is too paranoid to put all that $ into WDW tickets because God forbid some emergency happens and I need that cash, I won't have it because it's sitting there in a WDW ticket! I know, I need help.

 

[BrettS]

I know, I need help.

Honestly, you really seem to have most of the general principles down, it's just that your right on the edge of where a non expiring ticket might make sense. 10 day no expiration tickets make a lot of sense for people who typically take shorter trips of 2 or 3 park days at a time... and in that case you just keep using the ticket until it expires and then buy another one. As I showed above, though, once you get to 5 or 6 days it's kind of a wash.

However, the great thing about Disney tickets is that they're always upgradable within 14 days of their first use... and you can even upgrade them multiple times. The trick is that you can't ever downgrade a ticket, so start with whatever you know you're going to need and then just upgrade from there.

In your case, what I'd suggest you do is start with a 3 day ticket without hopping and set aside some extra money to upgrade your ticket with if you need it. If you decide that you really want to park hop one day, just go to a ticket window and add it. If you use all three days and want a 4th or a 5th then add those days on when you need them. If your kid is cranky and you only go to the parks for 3 days or you don't need the hopping option then you'll have never paid for them and you can save that money.

However, you will have a bit of thinking to do at the end of your trip. Since tickets are only upgradable within 14 days of their first use you will need to decide then if you want to add extra days or add the no expiration option.

If you wound up going for 5 or 6 days (or more if you add your arrival and departure days... remember that the 5th through 10th day on an expiring ticket are only $3 each, so even if you only go for an hour or two it might be worth $3) then I wouldn't bother to add the no expiration option.

If you only went for 2 or 3 days, but you really liked Disney and think you'll be back for longer trips in the future then I probably wouldn't bother to add the no expiration option then either. It won't save you much money to just buy a longer expiring ticket on your next trip and you'll have much more flexibility because you won't be locked into the non expiration ticket.

However, if you only went for 2 or 3 days but you really liked Disney and think you'll be back for more 2 or 3 day trips then you might want to consider upgrading the ticket to 10 days and adding the no expiration option. As you said, it's a big outlay at first, but if you will be taking more shorter trips in the future then it will save you money in the long run.

Finally, if you do decide to upgrade to a non expiring ticket, you might want to consider whether you want to add the park hopping or water parks options, even if you didn't need them for this trip. As I said above, tickets can only be upgraded within 14 days of their first use, so if you have a non expiring ticket and want those options for future trips then you would need to add them during the first trip.

HTH,
Brett

 

[savannahcat]

Eww ya Sheila, I'd be a little upset 2. W/ our situation we r from Pittsburgh PA so..... Our choice is buy 2 APs and drive clear to Orlando aprox. 20 hours. 2 or 3 trips. OR just do a regular package w/ air fare & only go on 1 wdw vacation in that year. Now my thing is, I ALWAYS take @ least 2 weeks vacation b/c I get 2 paid in a year. W/ the AP I'd like to go 3 times to get the value of it. But thats 3x I pay for hotel & food as well,so we'd have to sacrifice our air fare to save some $. Make sense? What to do??

If I were in this situation, I would get the APs and do two trips. Fly for a short trip and then drive for a longer one. For me (I also live near Pittsburgh), it doesn't make sense to drive for a trip shorter than 7 or 8 nights.

When driving, we stay offsite where we can rent a 3BR condo for around $500/week. No rental car expense and free parking at the parks.

 

[Minnie*bell]

dont forget the deal with buting ap AVAILABLE I BELIVE TILL END OF JULY GET 18 MONTHS FOR THE PRICE OF 12MONT ap

Really?????? Hummmmm. I like!! =)

 

[Minnie*bell]

We timeshare, so there isn't a huge additional cost to add weeks. We don't spend much more on food and the like than we would at home. Our biggest constraint is school schedules.

One year we bought APs, we went for New Years, Spring break, a week in the summer, Fall break, and back for Christmas. We were ALL tired of Disney.

It's a little more complicated now that the two oldest are in college. Their breaks are often different times. Four of us went last year for New Years, Spring break, Fall break, and Christmas. We had other plans for the summer. My daughter joined us for the first and last trip. Our oldest son, only the four days at New Years. (We had spent a few days seeing Universal Studios, my 16yo's favorite park, before we bought our APs.)

We usually get our money's worth on APs, but I also enjoy vacationing other places. I get five weeks of vacation, but always manage to use it up somewhere.

Sheila

5 weeks!! Nice. If I lived closer Id get the AP. I could see the "2 much of a good thing" I could see after a while getting disneyed out. lol! But, it would take more than 2 trips a year for me. There r so many places in the world to see. But w/ a little one i think we will be spending a lot of our future vacations @ WDW. I'd like to do the Disney cruise one day.I never have. Maybe when our son is older. Thanks for all ur tips & advice!! We r still sadly unsure of what we should do, lol!!

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

I was so happy to find this thread. I am planning a trip for next summer and I was thinking of buying 10 day park hopper WP&More non expiring tickets. All the analysis has convinced me that it is the way to go for my family. We take other vacations to the beach, Hawaii, skiing, so we will only get to WDW every other year at the most. Our trips are 8 days/7 nights, but we don't want to be in the parks every day - too exhausting for us. There is soooooo much to do at WDW in addition to the parks. We'd like to mix in resort pool days, DTD shopping & Disney Quest days and Water Park days. My kids are also interested in trying out some of the activities at the resort marinas. DH & DS like to golf as well. I figure we'd only be in the parks 3 or 4 days each vacation and with hoppers we can hit the highlights in all 4 parks in 3 days. We can get three trips out of a 10 day WP&More non expiring ticket! Yipee!!!

 

[Tink-aholic]

Of course, there is no reason to do either/or...

I am still working on 10 day non-expiring tickets purchased in 2006! In between, I have purchased APs and other tickets as part of packages, but still have (and use!) some Theme Park and Water Park entries on those tickets left.

 

[Dizneydaz]

We always buy the 10 MYW, non expiring, PH, Water Parks and more for our trips. Yes it's a big outlay at the time but we can get 2-3 trips out of each 10 day not counting the WP&M options. We stay on property so free parking is never an issue. We typically spend 2 days in the water parks (really, one of our fav. things to do) One trip we even did 3 visits. Premium AP (inc. WP) are about $670 each, so that's a big amount to swallow. We wouldn't be happy if we went to WDW without going to the WP. However, there may become a day when AP look like a better way to go (if we were certain we were going twice in a 12 month period) I'm sure we would have enough Pluses leftover to use then.

For me, while the AP seem like a good deal it's the scheduling of trips less than a year from the last one that stops me. For example, we took our last trip in late Sept./early Oct. in 2010. At that time I didn't know what school DD11 would be attending for 7th grade or when she would be off in 2011. Turns out it's a very good thing I didn't buy AP since she will be off track in Oct 2011. That would have meant we would have missed the year to use our AP by a few weeks, min.

With the 10 day,......., I don't have to worry about making it back in less than a year. Plus there's always the possibility that we don't make it back the next year. Money being as it is.

Also, the free DDP in the fall almost always lures us back. You have to buy at least a 2 day MYW tix to get that (which we then upgrade next time we need to-yes, I have several 1 and 2 day MYW tix just waiting to be upgraded!)

We do have AP to DLR but we only live 30 minutes away and go many times during the year.

We currently have Premium AP at DLR. I may want to look at the cost to upgrade them to Premiere. Hmmm.. $700 less $459 already paid, a difference of only $251. Our DLR AP are good until Dec. 23rd, 2011. Maybe I should upgrade them this year? Could I squeeze in a trip for the holidays as well?

 

[susianew]

If you go for the non-expiring tickets, I would strongly advise you to reconsider adding the WPF&M option- even if you aren't going to use it now.

On the 10 day non-exp ticket, it gives you 10 days of waterparking for only an additional $54 each. ($5.40 per visit!!) And the cost to add the WPF&M to a regular, expiring MYW ticket is the same $54. Today's cash admission to BB or TL is $46+tax, and it goes up every year.

So unless you never, ever intend to visit a Disney water park, financially it makes sense to add the option now. Even after your park visits are gone, you can use you remaining fun visits on trips where you are getting a regular MYW ticket and avoid the upcharge then.

I went through the same calculations as you last year and ended up going with the loaded non-expiring tix. We only used 3 park days and 2 fun days, and now I have those remaining tickets to use the day before/after a cruise, or if we decide to do Sea World or Universal on our next trip and have fewer days for Dis. Had I gone with the annual passes, I would have had to schedule my next vacation around their expiration, and I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of some great airfares that came through a few weeks later.

Good Luck

 

[coachb]

I was looking at this very topic and thought, with the new prices, it might be time to revisit this discussion. If my math is correct, it looks like:

10 day adult MYW, park hopper with no exp, incl tax would be $608.12
New adult annual pass, incl tax would be $ 552.74.

Does this look right? Also, with the annual pass, does your year start on the date purchased? Thanks in advance...trying to decide what to do.

 

[swilshire]

I prefer annual passes because we feel like we can go to the parks for a few hours without worrying about "wasting" a ticket day. If the weather is threatening, no problem. A short visit on the day you arrive .... just part of the magic. With day passes, we feel obligated to "get our money's worth" and stay for long days.

That being said, we are NOT using them this time. We upgradede our "Give A Day" certificates last year for 10 day non-expiring parks plus more tickets. We drove over from the beach and used one day before the certificates expired. We used three days this week and will likely get two more vacations out of them. So far only DS17 has used any of the "more" days. He spent the day at Disney Quest. 3 days is really enough time for us to do all our favorite things in the parks.

Sheila

 

[bumbershoot]

I was looking at this very topic and thought, with the new prices, it might be time to revisit this discussion. If my math is correct, it looks like:

10 day adult MYW, park hopper with no exp, incl tax would be $608.12
New adult annual pass, incl tax would be $ 552.74.

Does this look right? Also, with the annual pass, does your year start on the date purchased? Thanks in advance...trying to decide what to do.

Those look right.

The AP's timeframe starts when you first *use* it. (or when you first use a ticket from which you then upgrade to an AP)

Don't forget...10 day, adult, hopping, no expiration, with waterparks and more: $666.69. That *can* ultimately give you 20 days of something to do, if you use the waterpark and more admissions just one per day.

The Premium AP, which includes waterparks, is $691.19.