Long term approach w/ tickets?

[themaster]

I realize many of you go back to disney again and again..

I was wondering if after some of you, purchase your tickets.. you buy the non-expire options and just max them out to 10 days..?? (cause what after 4 days purchase it goes to $3 per additional day.. I think non expiry is what $50 to $100 flat so..) you end up with a bunch more days for a return visit..?? is my understanding..

I guess the question I want to know is it worth it.. long term?
Do you actually use the tickets?
Do you lose them?
Or you still waiting for that return day.. (obviously for some)?

Also this brings up one other question I had.. are WDW tickets good for WDW only or does disneyland, euro disney, japan disney etc. count??

 

[disneymagicgirl]

there is a sticky with lots of info under the theme parks thread....you will prob find all your answers there.

the non-expir is too expensive to make up the $$ you pay, unless you are purchasing it under the 4/3 deal.

if you are using the 4/3 deal, I would recommend getting 10 non-expir with water parks options also. that way, you are paying the non-expir fee for a 4day ticket, not a 7day ticket. this is a bargain!

hth!

 

[AJKMOM]

We always buy non-expiring park hoppers and use them for 2 or 3 trips, because the way we travel is to go a week or less, once a year. It may take us 2-3 years to hit the parks 10 days, so it's worth it to get the 10 day pass. A lot cheaper than 4-3-3 or any other combo of 10.

DH has a small safe that we put all things Disney in.

 

[DisneyMomx7]

We buy annual passes instead. If we need a package (like the 7/4 deal) we just buy a one day ticket and save it. Then when we are ready to buy the annual pass we just upgrade the one day ticket.

 

[camtheriot]

I am thinking of doing that this year. Especially since they have the 4/3 deal. I figured it would save us like $500 on our next visit. It's also a great way to get your husband to agree to go twice in one year . If free dining does come out in Aug/Sept., all I would have to pay for is the room!! And how could he turn down a week long vacation for only a little over $1000 (staying at a moderate resort)!!!

My plan is brilliant

 

[ScrapperBelle]

For the last several years, we have bought 2 sets of 10 day non expiring tix for our family. We are usually at WDW for 10-12 days so we use lots of our days and water park/disney quest options, but we always have plenty left.

Right now, DH and I are planning a trip in Sept. We don't have to buy any tix. Actually, we each have over 30 water park days and over 20 theme park days "banked" on old tix.

We are only going to be there for a week this time, so we will have plenty of days left, but I am considering buying us each a 10 day non-expiring ticket again. I'm just not going to get the water park option this time.

We are planning a big family Christmas trip in a year or two and if we have enough days "banked", then I can possibly help out other family members with their room or tix if I need to.

 

[Princess Disney Mom]

We get the 10 day non expiring for several reasons. One is we have an autistic child and some days we planned to go to the parks she is too overwhelmed so we stay at the resort. With non-expiring I don't feel like I lost out on a day. We also go often so we do use up the tickets. We have used the WDW tickets at DL. Also I record the ticket numbers in case they are ever lost they can be replaced.

 

[GoofyBaseballMom26]

"We are planning a big family Christmas trip in a year or two and if we have enough days "banked", then I can possibly help out other family members with their room or tix if I need to."

I might have misunderstood your statement but other people cannot use multiple day tickets that have days used on them. For example, if you buy a 10 day non expiration ticket and use 3 days... only you can use the rest.

If I misunderstood what you meant.. sorry for butting in.

 

[corinascot]

We've done that. Our first 2 trips we used the same 10 day tickets. We like it b/c it's flexible.

 

[ScrapperBelle]

"We are planning a big family Christmas trip in a year or two and if we have enough days "banked", then I can possibly help out other family members with their room or tix if I need to."

I might have misunderstood your statement but other people cannot use multiple day tickets that have days used on them. For example, if you buy a 10 day non expiration ticket and use 3 days... only you can use the rest.

If I misunderstood what you meant.. sorry for butting in.

We will only use the tix for ourselves. I meant that I could buy additional tickets (or pay for a room, buy a meal, etc.) for other family members if we didn't have to buy any tix on that trip. I know better than to give someone else our used tix (besides, that's just tacky, IMO).

 

[tjlamphere]

I like buying tickets in advance...I feel the price will always be going up, and sooner or later, we will use them...peace of mind to not having to worry about buying tickets.

But about the 4/3? Can you buy a 4 day Disney ticket, and you get 3 free days? Or is the 4/3 only good for resort stays where tickets are included? We always stay offsite, and buy tickets only.

So I am not crazy in buying a 10 day hopper pass every few years...we use up several days on an annual basis, and as I said, I like to know that I am always "ahead of the game", and never have to worry about buying tickets for an upcoming trip.

 

[aviva5675]

We bought 10 day non expiring our last trip, used 4 days and have 6 left. I've gone 3 times for one day while visiting my Dad in Fla in the winter, so I'll have to pay for 3 days if we all go together the 3 of us in my family. The savings was just too great to pass up. And the amount tickets go up each year makes it worthwhile too---saving probably 5-10 each year per ticket, that adds up.

We wouldnt go more than once in a year, so annual pass for us doesnt make sense.

Remember non expiring, forever--thats a long time! Figure sometime in the next 20 years you probably will return--just dont lose them!

 

[mikey13v]

The cost of the non-experation option is $213 per person(200+tax) on a 10 day MYW ticket. Prices drop about $30 for every day less than 10.

The cost of a 10 day premium MYW ticket(hopping, and water park) with the non-experation is $572 per adult.
2 MYW 10 day park hoppers would total would be $610 per adult.
An annual pass for an adult is $500, or $393 for DVC member.
A premium annual pass for an adult is $637, or $504 for DVC members.

It all depends on your vacation habbits. If you go to the parks more than 10 times in on year, the AP would probably be the way to go.

If you go on 3 trips over a couple years, going to the theme parks 3 times, and the water parks 3 times each trip, then the Non-expire 10 day MYW would probably be better.

Just remeber that the non-experation option almost doubles the cost of a 10 day MYW base ticket. ($252+$213)

 

[seashoreCM]

Disney's buy 4 get 3 free plan is not for tickets only. You start with a resort vacation package and if you book and pay for more than 4 days you get up to 3 days free.

With the tickets you order with the 4/3 package you get up to 3 days of admission free when you buy at least 4 days of admission.

If you order non-expiring tickets with the 4/3 package you get up to 3 days of non-expiring admission free when you buy at least 4 days of admission.

Ticket days need not match room days but for a package you must order some kind of ticket and the tickets ordered have to be the same for each person in that room up until you arrive and receive them.

Some other ticket sellers such as Undercover Tourist have 4/3 or similar ticket-only deals every so often but so far none of those deals are for non-expiring tickets.

* Up to -- If you order 7 or more days you get the full 3 days free.

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

We usually buy 10 day nonexpiring park hoppers with waterpark & fun passes on them also. We've always done this because it's the most bang for the buck not just on the additional days (I think over 4 days?) being much less expensive but also the waterpark & fun days means we can use those to go to waterparks or DQ and extend our vacation a bit with those without costing us extra later on/etc. We usually do this because we intend to do future trips so the tickets would already be purchased (or atleast a good portion of them would be) AND if the child is under 9 when you purchased a child ticket and go back next year or whenever and they are now 10- they'll exchange it for adult ticket with no extra charge.

HOWEVER, if you have no plans to go back for years and years and you know that is really what is going to happen- then it might not be worth it unless you just want to sit on that "investment" of having days left on the ticket for a future trip someday...
For instance this trip we're using leftover days on some tickets but some of us have ran out of tickets (more tickets were bought for some of us when the entire family didn't go on that trip -so those have leftovers, the rest were used on the last trip THEY went on) so this time I just bought enough tickets for this trip and we'll be back to even. I dislike having it all different amount of days leftover for each of us in the family. LOL AND we know we won't be going back to WDW atleast until 2011 at the earliest (after our upcoming trip in May). We'll be doing the 14nt transatlantic which starts in Barcelona- can't go to WDW afterwards- and after that trip it's unlikely we'd be able to go to WDW on another vacation until 2011. This time I decided I didn't want to sit on the extra money (primarily for nonexpiration- the additional days doesn't add as much as nonexpiration does) for that long. Others might want to -but we're just trying to make this trip as inexpensive as possible to save up for the 2010 cruise! So that was the deciding factor for us.

To answer the question about using the tickets elsewhere- I don't think it works vice versa and not sure about OTHER parks-but I do know you can exchange one day off a multi-day WDW ticket for a one day pass to DL- because we did that for DH the one day he was with us at DL before our last cruise. I've heard you can't use DL tickets at WDW though. But at DL you can- but you have to get the ticket changed into a one day pass at DL -you can't just walk in using a WDW ticket.