GAD - will they let us do this.....

[AC7179]

I know the FP are for people who have multiday tickets and APs, but can one CHOOSE to get the FP card over the 1 day admission? I'm wondering if we should do that for my 5 year old, so we can all have FPs for the busy rides, as we are going during spring break.

 

[doconeill]

I know the FP are for people who have multiday tickets and APs, but can one CHOOSE to get the FP card over the 1 day admission? I'm wondering if we should do that for my 5 year old, so we can all have FPs for the busy rides, as we are going during spring break.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean. If you are asking if you can opt to get the FP option if you do not already have a valid multi-day ticket, then no, you cannot. You could however purchase tickets that day, and as long as they are multi-day tickets then you can then opt for the FP.

Obviously the more busy times are when the extra FPs are more useful. But if you haven't bought tickets an essentially $79 off a ticket is hard to ignore as well. Essentially you are equating the FP option for your family to a $79 value.

Also, your 5 year old could not get a GAD voucher anyways as the volunteer minimum age limit is 6, so they would not have an option of a 1-day ticket anyways. the GAD voucher is only good for the person in whose name it is issued in. The only way the 5yo can benefit is if someone else in the group turned in a GAD voucher for the FP option, and everyone in the group would get a FP card.

Edit: I also forgot - depending on what you mean by Spring Break - make sure its not during the blackout period for GAD...

 

[huskies90]

Obviously the more busy times are when the extra FPs are more useful. But if you haven't bought tickets an essentially $79 off a ticket is hard to ignore as well. Essentially you are equating the FP option for your family to a $79 value.

This is the part I am struggling with. We are a family of 4 so the value of the GAD is $336 off our multi day tix if we use the ticket option. That is huge. But the idea of getting 4 days of touring with all those fastpasses. What is the dollar value of that? $336? Probably not. But can you put a price on a slice of theme park touring heaven?

 

[doconeill]

This is the part I am struggling with. We are a family of 4 so the value of the GAD is $336 off our multi day tix if we use the ticket option. That is huge. But the idea of getting 4 days of touring with all those fastpasses. What is the dollar value of that? $336? Probably not. But can you put a price on a slice of theme park touring heaven?

But you could do just ONE day of the Fastpasses at a particular park, and use the other three for tickets. If we finally get to do GAD for our December trip and get three vouchers, we'd likely take DW and mine and upgrade them to tickets or APs, and take DD#1's and use that for FPs (since her ticket will be cheaper anyways). DD#2 won't even be eligible to volunteer until the end of October, so we're not including that in planning.

Then again, we may not even NEED them in early December. But for once it would be fun to actually use something I write about

 

[huskies90]

But you could do just ONE day of the Fastpasses at a particular park, and use the other three for tickets. If we finally get to do GAD for our December trip and get three vouchers, we'd likely take DW and mine and upgrade them to tickets or APs, and take DD#1's and use that for FPs (since her ticket will be cheaper anyways). DD#2 won't even be eligible to volunteer until the end of October, so we're not including that in planning.

Then again, we may not even NEED them in early December. But for once it would be fun to actually use something I write about

That's a good idea. But it is still $84 a day whether you do one day or four. I am going the last week in August so if we get free dining, the decsion will be made for me because I will have to get tickets with my package. I assume you cannot apply your one day to the tickets in your package, correct? I guess you could always just get a one day ticket with your package and save it for the next visit and use the GAD for this visit. That's another idea.

 

[doconeill]

That's a good idea. But it is still $84 a day whether you do one day or four. I am going the last week in August so if we get free dining, the decsion will be made for me because I will have to get tickets with my package. I assume you cannot apply your one day to the tickets in your package, correct? I guess you could always just get a one day ticket with your package and save it for the next visit and use the GAD for this visit. That's another idea.

No, you cannot apply the GAD voucher to existing tickets, including those in packages, but as you said you can pocket the tickets from the package for future use/upgrading.

We are DVC so we are not using any sort of package, so all options are open to us.

 

[LaurenT]

No...you can exchange your voucher for 1 one day ticket OR a FP for each member of your party (up to 6)..you cannot exchange 1 voucher for a 1 day ticket for everyone in your party. Max dollar value for each voucher is $79. If each person in your party volunteered, then you'll each have a voucher good for $79 pass...

 

[Ted C]

Just remember to use the FP option everyone in your party must have a Multi-day ticket or AP. I ran into this in August. Ironically the birthday girl only had a single day ticket I had from a past trip. I had to pay $90.00 to upgrade it to a two day so we could activate her birthday FP option. Also remember that everybody must have a valid ID, birth certs for kids, or it's a no-go. Also everybody must be present at the window, with their passes in hand, to get the GAD FP's. The actually take everyone's entry passes.

Take a Sharpie with you when you head to the parks. Write Donald and Daisy on the back of each person's GAD FP card. Mark the passes each time you activate them so you can keep track of how many of either credits are left on each pass. This comes in especially handy when not everyone wants to ride the same rides. For instance two in our group did not want to ride TOT. That left one extra "Donald" credit on each of those cards. The "Donald's" are obviously the best credits, you don't want to not take advantage of them. The same two in our group went and did TSM a second time. It's very difficult to keep track of the credits, especially with seven in your group, if you don't have a system in place.

 

[doconeill]

Just remember to use the FP option everyone in your party must have a Multi-day ticket or AP. I ran into this in August. Ironically the birthday girl only had a single day ticket I had from a past trip. I had to pay $90.00 to upgrade it to a two day so we could activate her birthday FP option. Also remember that everybody must have a valid ID, birth certs for kids, or it's a no-go. Also everybody must be present at the window, with their passes in hand, to get the GAD FP's. The actually take everyone's entry passes.

Not quite. Only the person turning in the GAD voucher (the voucher has to be in their name) needs to have the multi-day ticket. In your case with the Birthday promotion, the promotion was specifically for the person who has their birthday on that day, and was for a free day's admission. You could only opt for the alternative if that person had a multi-day ticket. This was definitely stated in the promotion details.

The reason this is the case is because a single day ticket would be by definition unused, and therefore would never expire until it was used, and could be saved for a future trip.

Also, only the person turning in the GAD voucher should be required to have photo ID, although in general everyone (except children) should be able to produce an ID if needed.

They do check everyone else's tickets just to verify they are eligible to enter the park, and therefore get a FP Exchange Card.

Take a Sharpie with you when you head to the parks. Write Donald and Daisy on the back of each person's GAD FP card. Mark the passes each time you activate them so you can keep track of how many of either credits are left on each pass. This comes in especially handy when not everyone wants to ride the same rides. For instance two in our group did not want to ride TOT. That left one extra "Donald" credit on each of those cards. The "Donald's" are obviously the best credits, you don't want to not take advantage of them. The same two in our group went and did TSM a second time. It's very difficult to keep track of the credits, especially with seven in your group, if you don't have a system in place.

This is a great tip - although I don't know if the sharpie (or any other) ink would wipe off easily. Did you do this and did it work well?

 

[Ted C]

Yes, the Sharpie worked great due to the hard plastic surface, just let let it dry before handling or putting it back in your pocket We first did it on a piece of paper but quickly found marking on the actual cards was much better. Also, since we didn't use all of our "Daisy" credits when at DHS we picked a "same size" family and gave them the cards so they could use them up.

You're absolutely right about the ID only being required for the person turning in the GAD voucher for that given day however, since this promotion will likely affect everyone in the family, I just wanted to make sure no one forgot to take their ID's/birth certs to WDW in general and if one decides to do two parks in one day, activating two different vouchers, then that second person is going to need their ID with them.

 

[TLinden16]

I'm going to move this over to our promotions board.

 

[donaldsgal]

Since Ted C just mentioned the address thing, I thought I'd ask this here (posted on another thread that didn't get many responses). He mentioned having an ID with you, so that's why I'm wondering about it:

"Before going in to edit our sign-up information for the GAD promo, I thought I'd ask here, first.

I signed up my sister and I for our volunteer opportunity. After hitting submit, I read that family members, friends, coworkers, etc. not living with you can sign up on their own.

My question is, will this be an issue? Is this just a preferential thing for Disney or a mandatory requirement? Will the voucher be denied if she didn't sign up on her own? The only way I can think that this would even be detected is if they ask for us to show our driver's licenses and our address shows as the same on the vouchers but different on our licenses? Are the addresses on the voucher? We plan to trade in for the FPs for this. If this is going to be an issue, I'll go in and take her off, then re-sign her up with her email address (I usually sign her up with things as I access the internet more often from home and have all her contact info - she gives me permission, though, so don't worry, I'm not committing fraud).

The other is that, if this is based on verifying the voucher with our license, I've moved since my last license, so even my info won't match the voucher. What do you say, people? Edit this or leave it alone? Thanks!"

 

[Ted C]

I'll call and find out but I don't think it matters concerning either. Each volunteer is handled as a single situation as I understand it no matter who signs them up. Now the vouchers may end up coming to you but it doesn't really matter. Once you get and print them she will still have to show her own ID when submitting the voucher for FP. Also, as long as you have a valid license with photo ID I don't think they will match up the address change. The real issue here comes down to prove of ID for the children since they don't have official photo ID's. This is what they're concerned about I think.

Also there's my other theory, Disney will take as many different names, addresses, etc. that they can get their hands on. Think about the AUDITED data base potential created from the Birthday/GAD promotion. It's staggering... I know one thing for sure, they are matching up the ID you give them with some kind of national ID database to make sure you're who you are. It happen to me in August. It came back saying I wasn't where I was from. It was my OK driver's license. They let me in and corrected the other data base. My questions is, what data base were they comparing it to? Homeland Security comes to mind...

 

[TheTXTaylors5]

When I printed our GAD vouchers, they only had the person's name on it with a bar code. I assume Disney has all the required information in their database. Luckily, we have passports for our kids. So, we took those as proof of identity for the kids. If you don't have a passport, you will need to bring an original raised-seal birth certificate to show proof for the kids. A state-issued Driver's License is valid for adults. I think they are only looking at the name and date of birth as proof of eligibility. There isn't an address on the passports and they accept those as proof of identity. They can change the address in the system onsite if needed.

Also, only the person turning in the voucher needs to show proof of identity. If you opt for the FP option, everyone in your party must present a valid multi-day ticket or AP to get the special FP cards.

Jennifer

 

[doconeill]

If you don't have a passport, you will need to bring an original raised-seal birth certificate to show proof for the kids.

Disney has actually changed this requirement. They now accept a plain copy of the birth certificate.