How far in advance for Dec 04?

[EsmeraldaX]

Hi all,

We're back & planning a quick trip. We want to leave Boston in the afternoon on 12/2 (thursday) and stay at Pop Century for 3 nights and return home late Sunday night.

How far ahead do I need to book a room to get one?

I'm told this is a VERY slow weekend at WDW.

Also, if we get a UPH pass , will it be good 3 or 4 days. It says 3 nights, so I'm wondering, do we need to use it only Friday Sat & Sun and pay on our night of arrival?

Can you buy a UPH pass and book a room seperate or do you need to do a package?

We are looking at the Silver Package. Aside from PI & DQ the Parks , I don't see much else in the package we'd need.

What do you think?

Sheri & Chris

 

[disneysnowflake]

We are going to Disney from December 11 to Dec 18.

We've already booked our room. We did not book a package deal with Disney. We did it on our own.

We belong to AAA, so we got a 20% discount off the room only rate. Regular rack rate for 7 nights at Port Orleans French Quarter was $1038.10. With our AAA discount I paid $830.

We purchased our 5 day PHP at AAA on Valentine's Day. We paid $221 each for 5 day regular Park Hopper Passes.

When I first starting planning our trip in early Feb. I thought booking via Disney was the way to go. Then I found this site and found I could save money booking myself.

With Disney's packages they sell you Ultimate Park Hopper Passes which allow you to use the water parks and DisneyQuest. We don't have time to do the water parks. Also, in December would we really use the water parks??

They also required that we buy Ultimate Park Hopper tickets for the entire length of our vacation. That was impractical for us. We arrive at noon at the airport on the 11th. The parks don't stay open as late as they do in the Summer. Once we get to our hotel, check in and such we wouldn't have enough time to justify spending money on a ticket for the day we arrive on the plane.

Same thing with our departure day. Our plane leaves at 10am. We wouldn't even be able to go into the park, so why pay for a ticket? Disney didn't give us the option on how many days we wanted tickets for. It's set up for you to get tickets from the day you arrive until (and including) the day you depart. If you get into the airport super early and won't fly home until super late then maybe it would work, but not for us.

All in all, I spent $1714 for 4 adult aged (age10 and up) 5 day regular Park Hopper passes plus 7 nights in Port Oleans French Quarter resort. That's buying the passes at AAA and booking via Disney over the phone for a room only rate using a AAA discount.

Had I booked with Disney staying at Port Orleans French Quarter and taken the Ultimate Park Hopper passes they required for the entire length of our stay I would have paid $2557.40.

That saved me $843.

We are planning to do Disney Quest. Even if we buy our tickets for DQ separately, we are still better off than buying the package deal via Disney. We will even be able to purchase tickets for MVMCP and still have money left over from what we saved booking ourselves using the AAA discount.

Whew. I guess I'm long winded. My sister didn't believe me that we could save so much booking ourselves than booking via WDW as a package.

Hope that helps a little.

 

[tink2]

We're going Dec 5-11 at POFQ. We've already booked- just did room only. We don't need anything but a plain park-hopper pass, so when we did the math it was much cheaper to book it room only.
Good luck!

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Thanks for the great responses! I'm still undecided.

The problem we have is that we know we will be going to PI every night, and possibly DQ at least once. We'll also be hopping to and from all the parks ( I know it's only 3 nights / 4 days but we are just two adults and we spend very little time in the room).

Can I book the hotel and then buy a UPH pass through Disney? Or does it all need to be booked at once?

Thanks!

I wish I was going for 7 days !

 

[tink2]

EsmeraldaX- I'm pretty sure the UPH passes can be purchased separately. They are only for WDW resort guests- but I think they can be purchased separately through Disney. I would buy before I went though- all the tickets are cheaper now if they are purchased in advance.
Good luck!

 

[Eeyore2003]

We went last year the first week in December. Usually, I book about a year in advance. (Like I've had reservations for July since last summer), but since December is low season and we couldn't make up our mind where to stay, I didn't book them until June and did fine. We started with ressies at the Polynesian, then changed our mind to the Boardwalk Inn and had no problem with either.

But if you're concerned, better be safe than sorry. I also changed my package 3 times. First I took the regular package just to get my room. Then I changed to AAA, for that discount, then all things figured out, I ended up with the Dreammaker Package, which was the best deal at that time. I always get the Ultimate Park Hopper, just because I don't know where we'll be going and how often.

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Originally posted by Eeyore2003
We went last year the first week in December. Usually, I book about a year in advance. (Like I've had reservations for July since last summer), but since December is low season and we couldn't make up our mind where to stay, I didn't book them until June and did fine. We started with ressies at the Polynesian, then changed our mind to the Boardwalk Inn and had no problem with either.

But if you're concerned, better be safe than sorry. I also changed my package 3 times. First I took the regular package just to get my room. Then I changed to AAA, for that discount, then all things figured out, I ended up with the Dreammaker Package, which was the best deal at that time. I always get the Ultimate Park Hopper, just because I don't know where we'll be going and how often.

Thats why I am leaning towards the Ultimate Park hopper, even though we'll only be there for 3 nights, we will have a good part of our arrival day & our departure day. We also like to move around a lot and spend every evening for a while in the Adventurers Club. I'd also like to check out DQ so it seems like UPH is the best pass for us.

I'm still undecided though. But I figure, admission to PI is $21 per person per night. We'd be going all 3 nights so theres $63 a person right there.

 

[mydream]

EsmeraldaX,

You don't need to buy a package unless you want all those extras.
The UPH are good from the day of your check-in until park closing of the day of checking out. We love the freedom of the UPH's.
Book your room first, then buy the UPH 's later on.
It will be cheaper than a package.

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Originally posted by mydream
EsmeraldaX,

You don't need to buy a package unless you want all those extras.
The UPH are good from the day of your check-in until park closing of the day of checking out. We love the freedom of the UPH's.
Book your room first, then buy the UPH 's later on.
It will be cheaper than a package.

Hi! We booked last night. We ended up going with the package because we decided doing the Leave a Legacy would be fun. We decided not to do the silver package though, as we figured out we don't really spend enough on food to make it worthwhile.

I think the freedom of a UPH will be great. We love the adventurers club, but not really the rest of PI so we can now go there each night after the parks for a while Also, we wanted to check out Disney Quest but I felt bad about spending the $$ to just go in there for a few hours, so now I feel like we can do that without spending the $ for a whole day.

We won't be using the water parks , but that's okay. I think PI and DQ will be enough

I can't wait!