GAD Question from 1st timer

[Andrea73]

Please forgive me if this has been asked and answered. I did not see it when I looked. I am new to this and this is our families 1st trip to WDW.

We are planning to do MYW with the dining. Which means we will have to have the package booked in advance and paid for.

Does this mean that my only option for GAD is the FP ? I will not be able to apply it to my tickets because they will have been paid for in advance?

Thanks so much!

 

[irishdadx4]

Please forgive me if this has been asked and answered. I did not see it when I looked. I am new to this and this is our families 1st trip to WDW.

We are planning to do MYW with the dining. Which means we will have to have the package booked in advance and paid for.

Does this mean that my only option for GAD is the FP ? I will not be able to apply it to my tickets because they will have been paid for in advance?

Thanks so much!

There's also the statue with pins...which sounds kinda neat actually, maybe if someone gets one of these they can post a pic of it. We're under the same umbrella. We're going and will have multi-day tickets. At first I didn't think GAD was worth doing, the free gift card on your birthday they offered last year was great, but of course that's not on the offer this year. But I actually looked at the fast pass thing...and It's actually pretty useful and has some advantages. We'll have four GAD vouchers (our kid's vouchers) to turn in during our Aug trip giving us one for each park. These are like guaranteed fast passes for the attractions on the list. They are available even if the regular fast passes are handed out for the day, and they are active immediately after they are issued, so no needing to come back to ride later. I can see these being great for attractions like Toy Story Mania. That ride has fast pass lines that are as long as or longer then the standby line for the ride, and the fast passes are all gone early in the day. So you can use your park tickets to get fast passes to other rides that you want and use the GAD fast pass voucher to get you TSM rides later. I think they are going to be great actually. Can't wait to use them in Aug By the way DW and I are using our GAD vouchers in Dec for a stop at Magic Kingdom before we go on the Podcast 2.0 Disney Cruise

Have fun, hope you got a great activity you're doing to earn your GAD tickets, and have fun at WDW
And enjoy your first trip, we went the first time last Aug '09 and had to go back for Dec '09 for Disapollozia, and then booked on the Podcast cruise and then got a PIN for free dining starting in Aug, so we had to book a family trip for Aug '10. All this planning first WILL pay off, don't let anyone make you think it's crazy to do all this before you go. It will make your trip so much more magically. Have a great time

Mike

 

[StitchandPooh'sMom]

To book MYW with dining, you only need to have a one day ticket on your package (unless you are booking a special promotion that requires a certain number of days of tickets). If you think you will be returning to Disney (who isn't? ), then you can book your package with one day tickets and save the tickets that are part of the package for another trip. The tickets that are a part of your package will not expire until you use them, while the GAD tickets must be redeemed by December 15. You can then upgrade your GAD tickets to the number of days and options that you want, and you will still have one day tickets from your package that you can upgrade on a later trip.

You cannot apply the GAD credit to a ticket you already have - you can't combine two ticket values for one ticket.

So your financial outlay would be the same - you would purchase one day tickets for each person in your group as part of your package. You would also get one day tickets for each person who has a GAD voucher. Upgrade your GAD tickets, paying the difference between whatever ticket you need and a one-day ticket - you will get a credit of $79 for each adult GAD ticket. You will end up paying the same amount for tickets that you would with a package, but you will also end up with one day tickets that are unused for each person in your group. Do not use your package tickets - save them for another trip. They can be removed from your KTTW cards and upgraded to the number of days you need on another visit.

Or you can do the FP cards - especially valuable if you will be there during a busy time. Or the pins, especially valuable if you have pin collectors!

Hope this makes sense - it is not as complicated as it sounds when I try to explain it!

 

[Andrea73]

Thanks!! They do say that "time is money" so the FP will have great value on busy park days. They may keep me from losing my mind if the kids get restless.