DVC-Annual Pass question

[kristinw3girls]

My Dh and I are taking our first trip as DVC members this weekend. We wanted to buy a 3 day park hopper. We are also planning a trip with the entire family for November. Can we buy (or better said, SHOULD we buy) annual passes on this trip? Can 2 members have annual passes, and the remainder of the family not? Confused and any help would be appreciated. Thanks!!

 

[cloudnut220]

How many days are you going in November? It will probably be close. Some members of a group can have hoppers, other can use Annual Passes.

 

[kristinw3girls]

We are taking our family for 8 days seven nights. I appreciate any direction you can give!! We are not interested in the water parks or Disneyquest.

 

[cloudnut220]

The DVC annual pass (non-premium) is $446.24 per person over age 10. If you were planning on buying a 3 day park hopper pass now ($ 305.66 ), plus an 8 day park hopper pass later ($ 351.45 ), you would do better to buy the AP. The AP will also get you merchandise discounts (it's usually 10 percent for non premium passes, and you get it at ALL merchandise locations--I even get 10 percent off my dole whip!) and room discounts in select season.

There are so many Disney ticket options, you really have to sit down and crunch the numbers for whatever you were planning on buying on each trip to see which makes more sense (I pulled prices from here http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/tickets.htm#tickettypes). Personally, I think having an AP makes sense since I go a lot and enjoy the discounts from TIW and merchandise.

 

[kristinw3girls]

Thank you! I was thinking it would be cheaper to buy the passes this year! I appreciate your help.

 

[momof2disprincesses]

Plus when you have an AP, you can always try to sneak in another trip that year. That's what I wind up doing!

 

[kowalik]

When we first joined we found the annual pass made more sense with 10 days or more visits in a year. with 2 seperate trips it is most definatley a better option also this way you may squeek in a 3rd without much pain.

 

[kristinw3girls]

I wish we could go for a third trip. This is the first year we will be going 2 times. We bought DVC and the contract came with 100 points to be used before 2/1/12. What's a girl to do but book a grownup trip in January!!

 

[sherreis]

We crunched the numbers and it was worth it for DS16 and I to buy APs when we arrive at the end of this week for our 4 day trip. We're going back again as a family in June and DH and DS11 will be buying regular passes for that trip. I'm also going to buy TIW card when there this weekend which will save us money on restaurants for this trip and the June trip.

 

[RweTHEREyet]

I wish we could go for a third trip. This is the first year we will be going 2 times. We bought DVC and the contract came with 100 points to be used before 2/1/12. What's a girl to do but book a grownup trip in January!!

But since your passes will be good for a whole year, maybe your third trip could be the week before your passes expire, even if you had to borrow the points, it would work out better than having to buy passes again.

 

[dbs1228]

We bought AP's (before rates went up have not gotten them yet just voucher) we will use them for our 10 night stay in Feb and have decided to go again in December for 8 nights instead of waiting until Feb 2013. My 21 yr old DD has made out the best she validated her AP 2 weeks ago - she was there for 8 nights, going for 4 nights in Feb (then back to college) and she just booked a trip in July with a friend using Grandma's RCI exchange (2 bdrm BWV not bad)! for 7 nights then Dec. 8 nights. Not sure how that happened - I do not even get to go that much!

Check out the rates on Undercover Tourist for park hoppers to compare, free shipping, reliable and you can save money on regular tickets if and when you ever need them.

 

[bumbershoot]

If the big-family trip is a package deal, you'll have to buy at least a 1 day ticket for that package, FYI. Of course, you can just tuck them away to save for later, and upgrade to what you need at a later date.