The closer you live, or if you have children, you might want to opt for the regular annual pass. Because most the block-outs for seasonal happen when school is out.
Anytime you see a passholder discount, it applies to all annual passes, including the epcot after 4 annual pass. Same goes for passholder exclusive merchandise.
We were seasonal passholders for about 3 years prior to moving to orlando. Then I bought us epcot after 4 pass (more affordable at the moment and it's our favorite park), after a couple of months I upgraded them to regular annual passes. Then started working for the company 2 months later...
We always bought play 4 passes (another fl resident special ticket) at the start of the summer when seasonals are normally blocked out, and then make a trip in september to upgrade our pass. You have 6 months to use the play passes vs 14 days with MYW. So even though seasonal was blocked out for summer, we used the play fours to get in. Any time you upgrade a pass though, it will apply the ticket price to the upgrade, but will expire from first date of use. So if you buy a ticket june 1 2008, play 4 pass. Upgrade to a seasonal in september, then to a regular annual pass in october. The ticket will expire on june 1st 2009.
Since it was only the two of us, we usually had no desire to go during the extreme busy time of the holidays because we could go any ol weekend with less crowds, so seasonals fit us perfectly for living in Ft Lauderdale, and we'd usually camp at Ft Wilderness so we still got free parking.
Once we moved to Orlando and Disney was only 20-30 min ride away, we got the regular passes because there was no need for staying on property as often as we went. So the savings on parking was a big deal.
There's always a limited number of rooms available for passholder discount, which can be up to 35% off rack-rate. But every time you make a reservation, tell them you're a passholder and fl resident, and if you belong to
AAA tell them that too. You don't have to book through AAA to get the discount... then they'll let you know if there's any discount that can be applied to your stay.
There's a 10% discount for eating at most of the resturaunts in Epcot's world showcase, Rainforest Cafe (or any Darden resturaunt), Most the Operating Participant's allow for a 10% discount. There's also a 10% discount given at World of Disney in DTD. 10$ or so discount for the Parties. And of course passholder exclusive merchandise like pins. And I think they give passholders some sort of discount off of special events like the big pin event in Sept or the Food and Wine that cost seperatly to attend (both events are like a couple hundred a ticket). I'm not sure if it's still true today, I haven't had a pass since 2006. Ohh and the special tours of the parks, like Keys to the Kingdom or Epcot's segway tour, not exactly sure of the discount, but I'm farely sure there is one.
