booking on line with AP

[anne60]

I have an annual pass, and was wondering if there is a way to book at the disneyworld site and get the AP discount?

 

[drusba]

No. You can only do them by calling.

 

[BCV23]

Do you think that might change? At least there is now access to benefits for AP holders. If you have to enter your # for access, at least it would cut down on folks booking without having APs or intending to get them.

 

[drusba]

Perhaps eventually, but possibly not during your lifetime. If you have followed the Disney history on internet sites and their use, you will know that Disney has never been on the forefront of that industry and many would say it is still light years away from the back-end (and probably bent-over and looking up its own back-end). At one point, Disney thought it could become another yahoo through its "go" site but that turned out to be a financial disaster mainly because it must have hired industry rejects to set up the site because ease of use was certainly not given a high priority. I believe it took Disney about 4 years to figure out that if you are going to have a Disney site, you should make it easy for people to find such things on the site as "Disney World." True to form, it followed the rest of the hotel industry by about 8 years of even having the ability to book anything on-line (apparently the "suit" at the top believed for a long time that on-line booking was just a passing fad that Disney should not jump into because undoubtedly everybody actually preferred listening to Disney music on the phone for fifteen minutes before ever reaching a booking agent).

So now Disney actually has a page for Annual Passholders. Undoubtedly, that idea languished in committee for 8 years before someone said, "You know that might actually be a good idea." But if you have been to the site, you can see the hand of Disney's broad website experience at work. Is there anything on the first page of the Disney Site, or the Disney World page, or any other first hit Disney page that even tells you that an annual passholders page exists? If you go to ticket purchases and it shows annual passes does the ticket page tell you the annual passholders page exists? Did you happen to answer "no" to both of those questions? Now you understand why, when Disney first got into the site business, people had a hard time finding "Disney World" on its site -- apparently it is still employing the same geniuses from times past.

Of course, when you finally do find the AP page, it is very easy to log into for the first time because there are simple instructions to follow. Whoops, Disney must have missed one there. It says to put in your AP identification number which you can find "in the lower right hand corner on the back" of your AP. Take out your AP and see if there is any ID number "in the lower right-hand corner" on the back of the AP. Unless your ID number is "Disney Visa," which is what actually appears in that lower right hand corner, you may be at a loss. So you start punching in any numbers or any numbers with letters next to them that you find on the back and you continously get the message that your ID number is not recognized. I am not going to give away the secret here. I want everyone to go through the frustration I did before figuring what you actually had to put in as your ID number before you could get into the site. Actually, I did not figure it out. I had to call and listen to Disney music for fifteen minutes (which, of course, is what I really wanted to do in the first place) before reaching someone who also could not tell me how to do it. The CM was very kind about it and admitted that she also had an AP and had yet to figure out how to get onto the site. I said that there are probably a lot of CM's nearby in the same room as she was and, if she would be so kind, would she ask about and see if anyone has the secret. She did just that and after about 10 minutes, she found a CM that had the answer. She was just as delighted as I was to finally be enlightened.

Now, of course, once you are in the AP site, you are going to find just what you wanted to know. For example, I wanted to know if the 30% discount for golf was going to be in effect in March 2004. There was a nice section of discounts, easy to read and very informative ... if you are looking for discounts that were in effect in early 2003. There was no 2004 information and when I read through the 2003 information it was actually wrong just based on what I knew it had been. Nevertheless, I feel confident they will have that problem fixed just in time to tell me wrong information about the 2004 discounts when I will be looking for the 2005 discounts.

In essence, you should have hope that eventually you will be able to do on-line booking for AP rates. Keep that flame of hope alive. Without hope, we would all fall into depression. However, don't feel too disappointed if your hope never produces results.

 

[disneyjunkie]

Originally posted by BCV23
Do you think that might change? At least there is now access to benefits for AP holders. If you have to enter your # for access, at least it would cut down on folks booking without having APs or intending to get them.

I don't buy tickets until the last minute. On our first trip to disney, I got son's tickets at South of the Border and my tickets in Orlando. I won't buy them in advance in case I have to cancel the trip.

The only way I'd buy an AP would be to take advantage of the AP rate. I'm not going to buy an AP and then HOPE they release AP rates for our dates.

 

[Erin12303]

I was able to book 2/20-2/28 for 8 nights at the Beach Club-standard view-$2185.00.
Also, we got 2/20 and 2/21 at the Polynesian-garden view-$558.00.

Good luck....I booked at 4pm on 1/1/04.

 

[BCV23]

Originally posted by disneyjunkie


The only way I'd buy an AP would be to take advantage of the AP rate. I'm not going to buy an AP and then HOPE they release AP rates for our dates.

We purchase annual passes because we go more than 8 days per year. In fact, I believe DS2 used his 40 days last year and we live 1100 miles away.

I would never purchase an AP just hoping that I would be able to secure a room discount either. But I book our resort part of the stay (we are BCV members too and some of our nights are at BCV) and then hope for AP rates. I'm very glad some should be out tomorrow and hope I'm lucky enough to apply one.

Since there are a limited # of rooms at AP rate, it would seem fairer to me if those who actually have APs or honestly intend to purchase them were the folks able to get those discounts. I've read reports of people bragging that they booked AP but weren't asked for it at checkin and so never actually bought an APs for their family. Doesn't seem right to me. I do think it is probably hard to monitor but with a site like the current one, at least you'd have to enter your AP# to book.....of course assuming that some fine day there is that capacity.

 

[BCV23]

Erin, thanks so much. Didn't even see your post at first because I was busy posting when you did. Just booked, too! Thanks again!