APs Help

[CaptainRon1955]

I need to know all about APs can you help?
If I buy online now, when will my year start (going in march)?
Disney just put out discounts for 2008 till first of March but im going 1 day in March and 8 days in April, want to stay in a Disneyland resort hotel in April,will they have AP rates for then (or should I say have they in the past had rates for those months).
Please talk me into buying 1 for the discounts ,because the price for 1premium AP is not that much more than 9 days in park with the current discounts.
Please talk me out of buying 1 if I wont gain anything.
Please help me stop rambling on (since its my first post).

Thank You.

 

[THpoohbear]

Hi!

No matter when you buy your AP, it "begins" the first day of use. If you buy now but don't use it until March or later, it begins the first day you use it for admission into DL or DCA. The only exception to this is if you buy a park hopper, use it for a few days, and then upgrade it to an AP. When you do that, the AP begins on the day you first used your park hopper for admission. Does that make sense?

I don't keep track of hotel discounts because I'm a local, but as far as Premium AP discounts, you should consider the discount you'll get on food and merchandise in the park and in DTD. Parking is included in the Premium AP, and you'll get 15% of food (when you spend at least $10) and 10% off merchandise (when you spend at least $10). Depending on your plan for meals and souvenirs, that might save you a bit and it's worth considering if a long park hopper is almost as expensive.

 

[DisQueen]

THpoohbear is correct about when your AP starts, however, make sure that by purchasing it now, it won't expire before you activate it in March. We bought our AP's last year and I'm pretty sure we were required to activate them before a certain date. I'm a little foggy on the details, but seems like I had 1-2 months to activate. I did purchase the AP's through a special promotion and that may have given the extra restriction. Might not apply to your situations, but it would be awful to purchase now and have them expire!

Sorry, I'm no help on hotel discounts either since we're local too.

 

[ilvpoohbear76]

I might be able to help on the hotel discounts.

As far as ap rates I have not seen them offered in the past 5 yars for April at all.
They usually will not offer AP rates during the busy seasons and then end of March and good part of April tends to be the spring break time for most people and not everyone in every state gets the exact same weks off for spring break so it is a long strech of busy time for DL.

You can expect most really good AP rates to be offered during what Disney considers te Value season or at least that seems to be the pattern as far as we can tell.....I guess I could be wrong but we have been AP Holders now for 5 years and we always try to go during the AP rate specials so we can enjoy different times of the year and stay onsite!!!!

Now I should mention that you would still get a standard 10% discount at the hotels durng the busy season on most occasions but there can be times where they are almost booked that they wont even give you that discount as well.........have not had it happen to us but it has happend to our friends.

Alright well I hope that helps with the hotel questions. Everyone have a Magical Day!!!!

TTFN