Cheapest was to upgrade FL resident ticket

[mlwear]

Brief background: MIL is a FL resident. We invited her to stay with us at AKL for two nights anticipating paying $25/night for her stay. I called today to add this information and discovered that in order for us to have free dining we have to book her as a guest the full four nights and buy her the same ticket as ours (somehow in the back of my mind, I wondered if this would happen). Fortunately, we have two back to back ressies and bought 8 day tix for our family under the first one and just a one day base for the second half. We did end up getting free dining for her for the full four nights but would have rather saved the $--oh well, we already invited her.

Finally, my question. Our original plan was to buy her the FL resident 3 day park hopper pass. Now, I have a one day base ticket for her and will need to upgrade at the front desk. We only need a two day park hopper for her. Is there any extra discount I can get as she is a FL resident? What is the cheapest way to upgrade this?

Also--should I have mentioned to the CM that MIL is a FL resident? Would she have gotten a cheaper ticket or do all of our tickets need to be exactly the same? AND, should I have mentioned that our family is eligible for military discount tickets or can those not be purchased with the free dining plan (doubt we would have saved much with one day base tickets anyway) and/or can you even get the military ticket discount directly through Disney or do you have to go to MWR?

TIA to anyone who bothered to read this whole thing and esp. to anyone who has any answers they are willing to share.

 

[pjupton]

in order for us to have free dining we have to book her as a guest the full four nights and buy her the same ticket as ours

Finally, my question. Our original plan was to buy her the FL resident 3 day park hopper pass.

Well, I do understand what you are asking but I don't know the answer. Last summer they released the free dining deal combined with FL resident tickets under a separate code - I need an answer to the same question since some FL resident friends will be joining us for our upcoming trip and the best deal for them would be the room + free dining + the 3 day FL resident ticket. I don't have a clue about the military discounts either.

The good news is that if you are having to pay for MIL for all 4 nights, you'll have her meal credits for the entire 4 days even if she isn't there the whole time.

 

[cjsmith]

Well, I do understand what you are asking but I don't know the answer. Last summer they released the free dining deal combined with FL resident tickets under a separate code - I need an answer to the same question since some FL resident friends will be joining us for our upcoming trip and the best deal for them would be the room + free dining + the 3 day FL resident ticket. I don't have a clue about the military discounts either.

The good news is that if you are having to pay for MIL for all 4 nights, you'll have her meal credits for the entire 4 days even if she isn't there the whole time.

No one I know was able to get the free dining deal combined with the FL resident tickets, I don't know why. We were told that since this was a special that we couldn't combine that with any other discounts and so were our friends.

 

[CarolA]

Also--should I have mentioned to the CM that MIL is a FL resident? Would she have gotten a cheaper ticket or do all of our tickets need to be exactly the same? AND, should I have mentioned that our family is eligible for military discount tickets or can those not be purchased with the free dining plan (doubt we would have saved much with one day base tickets anyway) and/or can you even get the military ticket discount directly through Disney or do you have to go to MWR?

TIA to anyone who bothered to read this whole thing and esp. to anyone who has any answers they are willing to share.

You have to go to MWR or Shades of Green UNLESS Disney is running one of it's "appreciation" specials which I haven't seen in a while.

As for a FL ticket, when you go to upgrade her ticket just ask.

OR... If you have extra one day tickets (which I think you may have from reading the post) just have her use one of those....