Disney Annual passes

[tartangirl]

Hi,

With this cold weather I need to do some disney planning to cheer me up.

We're considering getting disney theme park annual passes this year as we reckon we can squeeze 3 holidays out of them and with free parking that might prove a decent saving, but I know very little about them so I was hoping someone would be able to answer a couple of questions:

Can you still use the Fastpass system with them? I'm not sure what form the pass takes but if it doesn't fit in the fastpass machines that would rule it out for us.

What discounts do you get? We never stay in Disney hotels but I was wondering if you get discounts at any (all?) of the restaurants in the theme parks and any at downtown disney.

Thanks for any help.

 

[jockey]

You can still use the fast pass machines with your AP. We got AP's for the first time this year and we also got the DDE - we made huge savings with this. For a list of other benifits check out this link

http://www.allearsnet.com/pl/apass.htm

 

[wayneg]

We bought AP's for the first time this last Aug because we are doing 3 trips totalling 50 nights and we are getting good value from them for park entry and parking only.
You need to look at the list of benefits and study how you would use them. Not sure yet if we will renew as we might only go for 39 nights in following 12 months.
If you use them for Hotel discounts and dining discounts they can be really worth getting but we prefer offsite hotels and dining.

We find AP's at Universal £52 and Seaworld & Busch £115(2 years) a lot better value than Disney for us. We renew these every year without question.

 

[tartangirl]

Thanks for the replies.

I think we will get benefit from 3 seperate visits as we will do at least 3 days in each visit and at least 10 days for any 2 visits so the non-expiry 10 day pass wouldn't be enough. Now to decide when to buy - are there ever any offers?

Restaurant discounts look good and with 50% off miniature golf we'll certainly do that.

We are still considering Universal APs as they are much cheaper - I assume the £52 is the renewal price. I was waiting to see if they have the second year free offer in which case we'd definately go with the Universal AP.

 

[wayneg]

Yes its the renwal price. We started with 2 years for $179 then renew every year at $99. The Seaworld/Busch is cheaper if you renew but it was better for us to let them expire and start again this time.

We are still trying to use our Disney AP's for the miniture golf but never seem to get time.
I still think Disney could give a discount on counter service food and purchases in all stores not just Disney Store DTD with AP's. We would be more likely to renew if they did this.

 

[daipp]

We always but an Annual Pass (use the DVC discount) and it ensures that we go back within 12 months !!

David

 

[Scottish_Maleficent]

sorry, posted on the wrong thread!!B