AP Break Even

[disney075]

We have been debating about this also for a trip February 2020. I think we have decided that the AP will be worth it for one person in our group to get.

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

In my experience there is no break-even. As soon as you buy an AP, you start planning more trips and spend even more! But it's oh-so-much-fun!

 

[Tallis]

I may have missed it, but is this for a Florida resident AP? We are residents and found the AP to be well worth it when purchasing the weekday option (we don't want to be near the parks on weekends or during the blackout dates).

We have that AP as well. It's a no-brainer for Florida residents that can even go a few days per year. The current FL resident price of a 3 day park hopper is $352. The price for a weekday AP is $319. We usually check in Sunday evenings and check out Saturday mornings. And you couldn't pay me to go during the hottest or busiest weeks that are blacked out.

In my experience there is no break-even. As soon as you buy an AP, you start planning more trips and spend even more! But it's oh-so-much-fun!

Haha, this is so very true! Ultimately, we spend WAY more than we would if we didn't have cheap APs. We end up at Disney all the time because of them.

 

[hertamaniac]

We have that AP as well. It's a no-brainer for Florida residents that can even go a few days per year. The current FL resident price of a 3 day park hopper is $352. The price for a weekday AP is $319. We usually check in Sunday evenings and check out Saturday mornings. And you couldn't pay me to go during the hottest or busiest weeks that are blacked out.

We're out before Friday and avoid the 1/2 dayers/locals that start their weekends early.

 

[lilmc]

We’ve been looking into getting a single AP for our family since we have two short trips planned and with parking and two Memory Makers we might break even. As a little bonus, I was wondering if the % off merchandise applies when on Disney Cruise Line as well? I’ve had a hard time finding an answer to that for some reason.

 

[QueenElinor]

Yes, I'd say in general that an AP discount could pay for itself very quickly if you're getting an AP discount booking a Club Level room at a deluxe resort with several DAH nights. If you're staying off-site, you do need to carefully calculate what you will spend while at WDW. Between these two extremes, there is a whole spectrum of break-even points depending on what you plan to do.

 

[Tallis]

We're out before Friday and avoid the 1/2 dayers/locals that start their weekends early.

Surprisingly, that's never been a problem for us. In fact, Friday is usually our latest night at the parks. We do only go during the "value" weeks of the year, so crowds are at their lowest anyway. Typically, we stay at Fort Wilderness, so if Friday got too busy to deal with the parks, we would just go back and enjoy Chip & Dale's campfire and movie for the evening. There is magic and happiness everywhere in the Disney bubble!

We do sometimes stay two weeks at a time and find plenty to do during our weekends off from the parks. I wish my family was on board with more two week trips, but everyone other than me seems to think it's too long.

 

[gharter]

My wife and i have 3 trips planned over the next, so the AP clearly makes sense for us. Our daughter will only be there for 1 trip, so she will only have the normal ticket.
Until we got APs, I didn't realize how much I really enjoyed photopass. Now we look out for photographers and do as many as we can if the line isn't too long.

 

[texasgingerbread]

You can't see the AP discount on the Disney website unless you are a passholder, so you'd need to follow these forums

Hi, can you recommend a good forum to follow for AP info? I am thinking about AP for Feb 2020 and wanted to start following. Thanks.

 

[ELLH]

I made this a while back and figured it might be useful here so I just updated the numbers (pulled from Disney's site) and put some caveats in case this thing is taken out of context.

It gives you a graphical idea of how many trips/number of days you'd need to purchase tickets for in order to make an AP worth your money. And, again, I didn't even attempt to factor in AP discounts. What you see below is just a "cost of tickets" comparison. The result is what I remembered it being even a few years ago: (2) 4-day trips pretty much covers the cost of an AP.

 

[QueenElinor]

Hi, can you recommend a good forum to follow for AP info? I am thinking about AP for Feb 2020 and wanted to start following. Thanks.

I think this is a pretty good thread right here, especially if you are on the fence about whether it's right for you.

Also, keep scanning the Resorts Forum. That's where I first decided to go for the Annual Pass- there was a thread about AP room discounts and it really helped me out a lot. Right now there's not a lot of activity in that regard because those deals are pretty much done & booked, but a thread will start up (or be resurrected) if more discounts become available during your time frame.

 

[bryanb]

In my experience there is no break-even. As soon as you buy an AP, you start planning more trips and spend even more! But it's oh-so-much-fun!

Oh how true this is. I do find myself visiting more often than I ever would if I had to buy a ticket each time. Same is true for park merchandise. The merchandise discounts bring the prices down from "expensive" to "kind of worth it" and all they do is make it more likely that I'll buy something.

And the hotel discounts look great at 20%-40% off, but in reality they're off these inflated "rack rates" that very few people actually pay. Definitely the full "savings" don't count toward breakeven if I wasn't going to visit, and they bring the hotels down from "very expensive" to just "expensive but at least low enough I might take another trip."

But you're right... I've enjoyed having an AP so much. Even just having it in my wallet gives me a happy feeling, like this membership or special power that I can enter the parks anytime I want.

 

[QueenElinor]

Oh how true this is. I do find myself visiting more often than I ever would if I had to buy a ticket each time. Same is true for park merchandise. The merchandise discounts bring the prices down from "expensive" to "kind of worth it" and all they do is make it more likely that I'll buy something.

And the hotel discounts look great at 20%-40% off, but in reality they're off these inflated "rack rates" that very few people actually pay. Definitely the full "savings" don't count toward breakeven if I wasn't going to visit, and they bring the hotels down from "very expensive" to just "expensive but at least low enough I might take another trip."

But you're right... I've enjoyed having an AP so much. Even just having it in my wallet gives me a happy feeling, like this membership or special power that I can enter the parks anytime I want.

That's why I'm glad there are 2286 miles between our house and WDW.
Which are all going to disappear in 6 days!!

 

[Chickinvic]

I've never been able to make an annual pass make sense for me (and I usually go once a year with a 6 day ticket). I can't make it work. I figured it would work if I were doing 2 such trips in a year, but that isn't in the cards for me (even with the parking savings and discounts).

 

[PerfessorZ]

I've never been able to make an annual pass make sense for me (and I usually go once a year with a 6 day ticket). I can't make it work. I figured it would work if I were doing 2 such trips in a year, but that isn't in the cards for me (even with the parking savings and discounts).

Our family usually goes once a year, but we’ve been able to time the trips in a way to be able to take advantage of APs. Once was a special offer of 13 months for the price of 12, and the other was spring break vacations lining up less than 12 months apart.

It’s not always easy to know when your next trip will be, but if you can line it up like that, APs can be worthwhile.

 

[ClapYourHands]

Are there any discount resellers who take Disney Gift Cards? I was thinking of getting regular tickets for our next trip, and possibly bridging to AP, but I think I've got bigger discounts on my gift cards than the resellers offer over Disney's online prices.

I have a trip planned for September with DD. She will be 4, so it's her last year that I can just take her on a whim when airline prices are lowish. I plan on the one big 7-day trip, and then maybe a couple of smaller ones here and there, so APs could make sense. But, it might be a bit of a disaster, so I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to the AP just yet.

The hard part is going to be dealing with the wailing and gnashing of teeth from her big brothers who are in school and will not accompany us if we go on multiple trips. Fortunately, I took them both to Disney last year and to Universal the year before without DD, so I hope I've got some credit built up with them.

 

[agamble]

We bought one for our 10 day trip next year, May 2020. We will also purchase a 9 day hopper for our other ticket.

We always get memory maker, buy a number of souvenirs, do some paid after hours and eat sit down every night. I'm thinking we will find it to be a benefit/break even. This isn't even counting on a resort discount.

Do APs come with memory maker at WDW? They do not at DL. That may be my tipping point to buy one AP as we are staying off site for a 2 week trip and the parking adds up fast.

In my experience there is no break-even. As soon as you buy an AP, you start planning more trips and spend even more! But it's oh-so-much-fun!

That was us with Disneyland APs.

Yes, I'd say in general that an AP discount could pay for itself very quickly if you're getting an AP discount booking a Club Level room at a deluxe resort with several DAH nights. If you're staying off-site, you do need to carefully calculate what you will spend while at WDW. Between these two extremes, there is a whole spectrum of break-even points depending on what you plan to do.

Do you know if AP holders can get a discount on DAH tickets if they haven't activated the AP, or retro actively? I think we would need to pre book the DAH.

 

[QueenElinor]

Do APs come with memory maker at WDW? They do not at DL. That may be my tipping point to buy one AP as we are staying off site for a 2 week trip and the parking adds up fast.


That was us with Disneyland APs.



Do you know if AP holders can get a discount on DAH tickets if they haven't activated the AP, or retro actively? I think we would need to pre book the DAH.

That's a really good question about the AP and DAH. I don't know the answer to that- I looked into DAH but didn't pull the trigger because we had already done the club level FP thing so it seemed like too much. I kind of assumed I'd get the discount, even though my AP is not activated yet, but you bring up a very good point there.

Memory maker does come with the AP now at WDW. I'd don't even know if we'll use it but we have it, without even asking for it.

 

[cakebaker]

Do you know if AP holders can get a discount on DAH tickets if they haven't activated the AP, or retro actively?

I have read reports that people were able to get a refund in the form of a gift card, but I’d call to confirm that.

 

[Rowlf the Dog]

Do you know if AP holders can get a discount on DAH tickets if they haven't activated the AP, or retro actively? I think we would need to pre book the DAH.

Yes, here: Bought my AP in January, but didn't activate it until mid-March. Early February I bought my DAH-tickets for MK, AK and DHS to the AP discount-rate. So no need for activate the AP in order to get the discount for special tickets-events.