Annual Pass - worth it for Canadians?

[chanty]

Hi there,

We are considering purchasing the Annual Pass as my husband would love to go more often and have mini-trips... For sure, we'd save money on tickets.

But is it also worth it for the hotel deals, etc.?

What are the specials on the dining plan??

I've done some reading here http://www.wdwinfo.com/discounts/discounts-ap.htm ...but can't find the discounts on the dining plan?

Thanks!

 

[Ted in Halifax]

The room discount is an important saving ... and yes, the dining may be attractive to some, but we bought ours because of the number of days we will spend in Disney. Basically a 10 day hopper would be $1300 US approx 2 adults 2 kids ... the AP ran us $1962 US approx, but covered our 14 day trip. We wanted access on all our 14 days ... plus this will cover a trip in May (1 week) and another in February 2011. So for us having 5 weeks access was the primary reason.

The room rate was a bonus, but not a significant reason for us ... I already have a PIN for 20/30/40 plus our March stay had a public discount of 30% ... so basically we gained 10% more discount through the AP rate (40% discount)

Worked out to between $12 to $14 discount per day. Worked out to more than 150 for March 2 week stay.

If we didnt get an AP we would need to get a basic hopper for 2 adults 2 kids ($1300) plus 4 extra days (this could run more than $800) .... plus it freed up $150 in room discounts

So with no AP our costs would have been several hundred dollars higher ... just for March alone ...

 

[ABCanada]

No discount on the DP but you can get a TIW card which gives you 20% off food and beverages (incl alcoholic) at most WDW TS and lounges. This works better for us than the DPs. (It does add an 18% automatic tip)

http://www.wdwinfo.com/disneydiningexperience.htm

Without the TIW you get 10% off at most of the same TS but not alcohol.

Have had annual passes on and off for 15 years and it has worked well for us. Even if you only go once a year you can time it to include two trips (April first year March the second).

There is usually a good AP room rates but many of the other specials require that you buy tickets and sometimes for the full length of the stay so if you are a fan of Free Dining this may not work well for you. Saying this, for other than a Value the AP room rate might be a better deal, you always need to run the numbers.

 

[stefanospops]

We have the annual pass, but we also have three weeks worth of trips planned over a single one year period. Hotel discounts are meaningless to us because we own at the Disney Vacation Club. But if you stay offsite you also get free parking with the annual pass which is another nice perk. I also have the Tables in Wonderland card which is great if you end up spending about $400 in meals over a 1 year period. Anything more and the savings are worth it.

 

[Cdn Gal]

We have the annual pass, but we also have three weeks worth of trips planned over a single one year period. Hotel discounts are meaningless to us because we own at the Disney Vacation Club. But if you stay offsite you also get free parking with the annual pass which is another nice perk. I also have the Tables in Wonderland card which is great if you end up spending about $400 in meals over a 1 year period. Anything more and the savings are worth it.

Ohhhhhh- 3 trips in one year!!! Soooooo jealous right now!

 

[Kat&Dom]

I think the AP is definitely worth it. I bought an AP last August because I was staying off-site and had another trip planned for next month - again off-site. The fact that you get free parking is a huge savings. In August, I had an 8 day PH that I upgraded to the AP - it was $240 to upgrade but I didn't have to pay the 8 days of parking which was a value of $96 so for my trip next month the cost is $144 and the parking cost alone for this trip would be $112 so the park part is $32 for the 8 days.

I also like the fact that the AP includes the PH so you can hop as much as you want.

 

[MikeyNS]

We were surprised at the number of stores in DTD that gave us 20% off for our PAP we had.. Create a T, World of Disney, Once Upon a Toy. I have never seen those types of discounts as a perk for the PAP, only 10% for the AP. Adds up quite nicely!

 

[MikeJ]

We bought APs last year and got in 4 trips with them (May, August, November and March) averaging 6 days each. We also got the Tables in Wonderland card. As we're also DVC owners, we didn't care about the room discounts although we did get 50% off a round of minigolf at Winter Summerland and 10% of shopping at World of Disney.

The nice thing is that if you don't have a park day planned (or maybe you're doing Typhoon Lagoon) but want to dine at, say, Epcot, you don't have to burn a day on your park hopper just to go for dinner. We also found it allowed for more leisurely park visits. If a line was too long for an attraction we would shrug our shoulders and say "we'll do it later in the week" or "next visit". (I have this thing about waits longer than 20 minutes. )

If you like to dine in the world, the TiW card is definitely the way to go. Over the year the card (which cost $75) saved us almost $400 off our restaurant bills. And that *includes* alcohol...

 

[MECH8T7]

This may be obvious but getting an AP can often be worth it even if you are not planning multiple visits in a calendar year by timing two visits properly.

In the past (before we became DVC members), I would buy an AP at the start of a 7-day WDW vacation in spring of one year if I thought there was a reaonable likelihood that we would return the following year for a similar vacation but a week earlier.

This way, we would be in a position to take advantage of AP hotel discounts and the Disney Dining Experience (now Tables in Wonderland) on both trips.

I only bought the AP for myself and not the rest of the family to make the economics of buying the AP not look so bad if, for whatever reason, we didn't make it to WDW the following year.

Of course, I would not renew my AP when the initial 12 month period lapsed. Rather, I would get a new AP at the start of the next trip down.

 

[Ted in Halifax]

Exactly ... our original plan was March 2010, followed by Feb 2011 (4 weeks in total), covered by 1 AP. Let it lapse in March 2011, but renew in March 2012 and follow up with a Feb 2013 trip.

Ted

 

[roberthodgson]

We are heading back down to Disney in December and we will be ordering the AP as the discounts and extra perks are worth the extra cash as well as being able to go any day even for a short while juring the 14 days we are there.

Looking forward to our Christmas trip (I Hope Finances Allow it)

 

[Reese]

We are getting Ap's when we go in May for the second time. The first year we had AP's we had a 14 day trip in Sept and a 10 day trip in Dec planned so it just made sense.

Here's where the snowball effect starts.... It made even more sense when I found a cheap villa rental for a 10 days in Jan so I thought to get more bang for my buck I found another cheap rental in March. Well they had the birthday promo on so it just made sense to rent a villa in May so two of the kids got birthday cards to spend. We drove for all the house rentals so with the AP parking is free. Also since we had airline credit DH and I escaped without any children for two nights. Still more airline credit so I took just DD for her birthday in July. Then to finish up our airline credit DH took our oldest for 2 nights. The last three short trips were onsite with the QSDP since with the AP we were able to get a room discount and not have to buy a ticket for the DP.