I am soooo frustrated right now!!!

[A M&Asmom]

We are heading down to WDW from June 17th - 24th for a conference at CR. The conference is the 18th -20th so that leaves us 3 days after that to do the parks. There are 18 total of us going...10 adults and 8 children. We were planning on buying just 3 day passes without the park hopper option...and just choosing a certain park everyday to just stay at to save a bit of money. (Boy park hopping adds a ton when you are buying so many tickets)...so here is my frustration.

My mom belongs to AAA...(she is part of the group going with us)...and she thought she would help out by buying us gift certificates to AAA so we can get our park passes there. Well we were going to go buy our tickets and told the lady what passes we wanted and she said they don't have those there. The closest pass they had to that was the 4 day w/park hopper. Well...that is alot more money to add another day (which I probably won't be able to use) and park hopper....just so that I can buy them there. I looked at the gift certificates thinking I would just go to a AAA office in Florida (oh yeah, we are in Nebraska by the way) and buy them once we got there. Well the gift certificate says "Good at any AAA Nebraska office"!!! So I can't use them at a AAA Florida office. Nice huh! Now what??? I spend an extra ton of money so that I can use the gift certificates?????? I would just save them for some other travel time, but I have no plans to travel any other time in the near future as I am due to have my 4th child in late August....UUUGGGHHH!!!

I do have a family friend that is from Florida that is here visiting their family right now....do you think they can buy the tickets for me being a Florida resident? That would pretty much make up the difference in price. But can they buy Florida resident tickets while here in Nebraska?

I really need some imput on this one....PLEASE HELP ME!!!

 

[CathrynRose]

I do have a family friend that is from Florida that is here visiting their family right now....do you think they can buy the tickets for me being a Florida resident? That would pretty much make up the difference in price. But can they buy Florida resident tickets while here in Nebraska?

I really need some imput on this one....PLEASE HELP ME!!!

You need a Florida Resident ID to purchase and enter the park (for the first time, at least)

I dont know what to tell you. Cant AAA call another office and have them shipped there?

 

[ZuZugal]

Did you check with the conference organizer about purchasing tickets? We just got back and DH was attending a conference while we were there. I didn't think those ticket prices would be much better, but they really were. It was a Disney # that I had to call, but they dealt only in convention tickets. You might want to give that a try.

 

[HayGan]

Honestly, I would call the branch manager of the AAA and explain the situation. If they can't get you the tickets that you want from another office, then they may be able to give you cash value for the gift certificates or refund your mother's money for them. Worst case scenrio you could buy tickets you don't want and sell those (or the gc's) on ebay.

From what I understand, you do have to show id with the Florida resident passes so I don't think that would be an option.

Hope you can figure out a solution!

 

[java]

I am confused. Isn't your Mom paying for the tickets if she bought the gift certificates? I know that AAA doesn't sell all kinds of tickets- they only sell certain ones so going from office to office shouldn't make a difference. You know though I will check online with my AAA # to see if they even sell 3 day non-hopper. Now with each day the price per day actually goes down. And for the time you are going you may be happy to have hoppers on there.(we always start one place- go back to the pool then go someplace else in the PM)

 

[java]

OK I looked online and they are only selling Park hopper Plus water park stuff tickets(the most expensive kind-) so if you are not hitting water parks this would be a huge waste. Even just buying them online from disney you can get an adult 3 day for $181(you can get a 5 day for less than $20 more!!) without park hopping option. So are you all going to the conference? Because maybe some of you could get longer day passes and then the 3 days you have all together you could hit just the best of the best.......

 

[A M&Asmom]

Ok....I just got off the phone with a AAA agent here (after waiting on hold for 15 mins )...and they said I can only use the gift certificates at a AAA Nebraska location and they could order me the 3 day non hopper passes online, but then I can't use the gift certificates to pay for them..you have to put it all on a credit card...lot of good that does. I figured just for me, dh, dd14, ds5 & dd2...if I could buy the 3 day no hopper it would cost me $675...if I have to buy the 4 day with hopper it will cost me $905...so $230 more then I need to spend...just to buy them through them. I know some of the people in our group could go one of the days we are in the conference, but they weren't planning on doing that, & I really want to be there when my 2 youngest go to the parks for the first time..& I am sure the others would feel the same way...I am going to have to go personally into an office here and tell them what is going on. Maybe we can get the money back for the gift certificates...I highly doubt it...but all I can do is try.

As for the buying them with the conference discount....we thought we were going to be buying them through AAA so we never looked into it. Well, now the date they said you had to buy them by has already passed. But then what would I do with the gift certificates...I have $500 worth. I don't really want to sell them on ebay or anything.

And the FL resident thing obviously won't work for us if we don't have FL id....thanks for letting me know about that.

 

[brandt79]

I would definitely try to see if you can "return" the gift certificates to AAA for a refund. I don't think that would be out of line, especially if you explain the problem to them - they don't have the tickets you want, and if they order them, you can't use your gc's anyway. I've had pretty good success dealing with the Disney AAA representatives here in the Lincoln office - don't know if that's where you are, but I would certainly give that a shot. Good luck.

 

[A M&Asmom]

I am definitly going to try to get a refund...I am actually in Omaha. I hope I have some good luck with them.

 

[MartDM]

I'd stop in & speak with a manager at AAA about the situation. Although I find all the employees at AAA to be helpful, they do tend to go by the book. Perhaps the manager can do a little "outside of the box" thinking and work something out to get you those three day passes with your gift certificate.

 

[MickeynMinnie]

you should try your local disney store... if you have one... they are the same price as AAA at least around here they are( Buffalo) BUT heres what happend to my Boyfriend when he went to get his ticket through AAA..... he went a week before we were leaving to get a 5 day hopper pass... they said they didn't have any and they could order it and it would be there in 10 days... well he said thats not going to work... so they said they could print up a certificate that you could take to the Ticket place at disney to get your tickets.... we did that and actually turned in the certificate at the Hotel Lobby to get the ticket... you should ask about that.... Good Luck! and Have fun!!!

 

[seashoreCM]

Do not buy tickets from AAA that do not exactly fit your vacation. Should you need to modify those tickets, you have to pay enough money such that the final number of dollars it will cost you is roughly gate price of what you want to end up with. In which case you might as well have waited until you got to Disney to buy your tickets.

This is because the value of the ticket prior to modification is the wholesale price AAA paid to Disney.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[marlynnp]

can you use the gift certs to get travelers checks?