Long-term ticket question

[amym2]

We just had our first non-Disney-park DVC stay (we did do Typhoon Lagoon) and one of the reasons we didn't do a Disney park was cost. We never thought we'd do anything other than 5-7 day park hopper passes, because that is all we have done in the past. It honestly didn't even cross my mind until we were on this trip that we might want to consider buying 10-day non-expiring tickets so we could just use a day or two at a time.

I'm planning to do some number crunching, but I thought I'd ask what other people find works best for them. We will probably not get back to WDW until 2014 (planning Aulani next fall) and we're pretty sure we'll never go more than once a year, so annual passes don't make sense.

For those of you who have bought 10-day non-expiring tickets, have you found that they were a good investment? It's a BIG chunk of money to pay upfront (DD will be 10 in 2014 so we'll need 4 adult tickets), but we're thinking it would give us more flexibility.

Also, did you buy the park hopper or WP&M option? Could we add that later? We have always bought PH for 5-7 days trips and used them, but if we're just doing 2-3 days of parks, maybe we wouldn't need them? This trip was the first time we've done a WP, but the kids loved it and I'm sure will want to go back. We might prefer just to pay OOP at the time, though.

 

[jekjones1558]

We just had our first non-Disney-park DVC stay (we did do Typhoon Lagoon) and one of the reasons we didn't do a Disney park was cost. We never thought we'd do anything other than 5-7 day park hopper passes, because that is all we have done in the past. It honestly didn't even cross my mind until we were on this trip that we might want to consider buying 10-day non-expiring tickets so we could just use a day or two at a time.

I'm planning to do some number crunching, but I thought I'd ask what other people find works best for them. We will probably not get back to WDW until 2014 (planning Aulani next fall) and we're pretty sure we'll never go more than once a year, so annual passes don't make sense.

For those of you who have bought 10-day non-expiring tickets, have you found that they were a good investment? It's a BIG chunk of money to pay upfront (DD will be 10 in 2014 so we'll need 4 adult tickets), but we're thinking it would give us more flexibility.

Also, did you buy the park hopper or WP&M option? Could we add that later? We have always bought PH for 5-7 days trips and used them, but if we're just doing 2-3 days of parks, maybe we wouldn't need them? This trip was the first time we've done a WP, but the kids loved it and I'm sure will want to go back. We might prefer just to pay OOP at the time, though.

10 day non-expiring hopper tickets with WPAM option can be a good deal. Even if you use up all of the park days, you can save the WPAM days for future years. The key is to plan well. I am considering one of these for DH, who doesn't do parks much anymore because of health issues. The part that I don't like is that we would really be limiting our in-and-out option. We have been spoiled by APs. DH can choose to go to a park for an hour or just go from BWV to Epcot for fireworks anytime he wants to do so. With the non-expiring ticket he would not do that because it would be cost prohibitive. You would need to consider your park visit patterns carefully before making this decision.

 

[erionm]

Also, did you buy the park hopper or WP&M option? Could we add that later? We have always bought PH for 5-7 days trips and used them, but if we're just doing 2-3 days of parks, maybe we wouldn't need them? This trip was the first time we've done a WP, but the kids loved it and I'm sure will want to go back. We might prefer just to pay OOP at the time, though.

You can add the Park Hopper and/or WP&M options later, but you must do so within the first 14 days of use and there are other conditions to being able to add these options. See post #6 in this thread for info about upgrading MYW tickets: Everything About WDW Tickets

One thing about the WP&M option, they are based on entries (not days) and the hopper option doesn't apply to them. If you go to two different water parks in one day, that's two of the WP&M entitlements.

 

[Greysword]

I'm planning to do some number crunching, but I thought I'd ask what other people find works best for them. We will probably not get back to WDW until 2014 (planning Aulani next fall) and we're pretty sure we'll never go more than once a year, so annual passes don't make sense.

AP is a 12 month product, not calendar. As such, the general consensus is to use an AP over two consecutive years, ensuring the stays are within the 12 month period. Visit in July this year, then June next year, or July 15th-20th this year and July 10-15th next year. You'd get the full value (plus the perks) of the AP.

As for our family, we use the Salute to the Military tickets, which are a better value than the DVC AP (or any other option) at this time.

 

[Lizard Valley]

We just had our first non-Disney-park DVC stay (we did do Typhoon Lagoon) and one of the reasons we didn't do a Disney park was cost. We never thought we'd do anything other than 5-7 day park hopper passes, because that is all we have done in the past. It honestly didn't even cross my mind until we were on this trip that we might want to consider buying 10-day non-expiring tickets so we could just use a day or two at a time.

I'm planning to do some number crunching, but I thought I'd ask what other people find works best for them. We will probably not get back to WDW until 2014 (planning Aulani next fall) and we're pretty sure we'll never go more than once a year, so annual passes don't make sense.

For those of you who have bought 10-day non-expiring tickets, have you found that they were a good investment? It's a BIG chunk of money to pay upfront (DD will be 10 in 2014 so we'll need 4 adult tickets), but we're thinking it would give us more flexibility.

Also, did you buy the park hopper or WP&M option? Could we add that later? We have always bought PH for 5-7 days trips and used them, but if we're just doing 2-3 days of parks, maybe we wouldn't need them? This trip was the first time we've done a WP, but the kids loved it and I'm sure will want to go back. We might prefer just to pay OOP at the time, though.

I have purchased the no expiration passes in the past, and it was good value for us, but takes a lot of planning and number crunching. The value was really in the WPF&M option though.

Right now, a 10-day with PH+WPF&M+no expiration is $715.68 (but only $668.95 if you buy it through Undercover Tourist with the Mousesavers Newsletter link). I'll use $669 for my calculations.

That works out to 67$/day, and that's much cheaper than buying a 1, 2 or 3 day ticket (without PH or WPF&M). You break even at the 4-day mark ($68.16/day - again assuming you wouldn't add PH or WPF&M if you only bought a 4 day). Adding the PH option on a 5-day ticket comes to $69.23 per day, so the no expiration is still a better deal.

The math gets even better if you consider that this is using today's prices. Also, if you buy a child ticket with no expiration while your child is still under 10, you will be able to exchange this ticket for an adult ticket later at no extra charge (I have actually done this, with no problem).

As I mentioned, the real value was in having the WPF&M option. It costs about 23$ (included in the $669 above), and gives you 10 visits to the water parks, Disney Quest, and now mini-golf (although I think that is a total waste of a visit use). Even after you have used all of your park days, the WPF&M options remain valid until you have used them all up. Even though we used up all of our park visits a couple of years ago, the WPF&M options will stretch over 5-6 Disney trips for us (we usually do Disney Quest once, and one WP).

The one disadvantage we had: The first year we used 4 visits. The next year I planned a nice long 12-day trip (I spent more on hotel because I didn't have ticket costs to consider), but only had 6 park days left, so I really had to plan my itinerary and park touring well. Having the WP and Disney Quest to fill up a couple of days really helped, and we took several days off to relax between our park days.

So I would say that if you think you would like to do shorter trips, or only 3-5 park days, and get the PH and WPF&M, then the no expiration is a really good deal. Without the WPF&M, I don't think it's worth the extra planning involved.

 

[ldo]

For a weeklong stay, we do 2 park days and 1 WP&M day and use the Community Halls, pools, etc. the other days--so we can get 5 trips out of the pass--it's also more relaxing and we love DVC facilities. We have used both a 7 day and 10 day nonexpire. Also, as your child gets older, he might want to go to Univ. It's easy with the nonexpire to take a break from WDW and go to Univ for a day or 2 while still staying @ DVC and enjoying the amenities, same for Seaworld. It's much harder to "justify" that extra $$$ @ Univ/SW when you have a 5-7 day pass expiring or even an annual pass. We have mixed WDW, SW, and Univ (and even Legoland) with our 10 day nonexpiring tickets. Now that prices have gone up so much, when this set of passes expires, that might be it for us at WDW without a deal.

 

[rmcildw2m]

Thats what I have done for years . It cuts the cost per day done and you can get 3 maybe 4 trips out of 1 ticket . We have been going for only 3 day trips the past few years anyway, so thats why we started doing our tickets that way.

 

[msp2mco]

We sometimes have 10-day non-expirery tickets, but if it makes more sense to use a 7-day expirery ticket, we do that. So, we end up holding the 10-day tickets until we are only going to use 3- or 4 days on a trip. You just need to make sure you remember how many days are left on them and keep them in a safe place.

 

[amym2]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Definitely something to consider! So let me make sure I understand this... DD is only 8 right now. If we get her a 10 day non-expiring child's ticket, we can exchange it for an adult ticket for free? Would we have to enter a park before her 10th birthday?

 

[jekjones1558]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Definitely something to consider! So let me make sure I understand this... DD is only 8 right now. If we get her a 10 day non-expiring child's ticket, we can exchange it for an adult ticket for free? Would we have to enter a park before her 10th birthday?

Correct. A new ticket for a 10 year old would need to be an adult ticket. If a child turns 10 with any days remaining on a non-expiring childh ticket, then you may exchange the ticket for an adult non-expiring with an equal number of unused admissions.

 

[vicki_c]

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Definitely something to consider! So let me make sure I understand this... DD is only 8 right now. If we get her a 10 day non-expiring child's ticket, we can exchange it for an adult ticket for free? Would we have to enter a park before her 10th birthday?

Only if it is partially used before she becomes an adult. If it was never used, you can't exchange it for an adult ticket at no charge. They will most likely give you credit for what you paid towards an adult ticket though.

 

[cvjw]

We purchased the non-expiring tickets before we joined DVC and purchased annual passes. A few things that we learned about the 10 day non-expiring tickets:

Purchase the park hopping and water parks option. With the water park option, it doubles your park admissions for a small amount of money. We found that we didn't like being at Disney and not being able to go to a park most days, so going to a water park helped to stretch our Disney days.

We always felt that we had to maximize our time at a park when we used one of our 10 day tickets. That meant no 1/2 days, full days only to get our money's worth from the tickets. The park hopper option helped to maximize our Disney time when using one of our park days. We could park hop and attend the early EMH at one park, and the late EMH at a different park.

10 day non-expiring tickets work well for shorter trips. We always found that if we had 5 or 6 days left on a set of 10 day tickets and we were going for a full week, we just purchased new, expiring tickets. We have a few days left on a set of tickets that are about 7 years old - the days left on the tickets never matched up the days needed for the next trip.

We are AP holders now, and like that better. It is nice to be able to go to a park for just a few hours (for dinner or fireworks) and not have to worry about wasting a day on a non-expiring ticket. On the flip side, if 10 day non-expiring tickets are used correctly, they can be a great money-saver.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I agree with the poster just above me. We found rather soon after joining DVC that we needed to visit the parks. Without parks, DVC wasn't worth it to us. We started out (before the DVC/AP discount) buying APs and using them a week short of 1 year apart to get virtually two trips in two years on one pass. Then we would skip a year and start that process over. The reality is that we did indeed go every year, but we only needed to purchase APs every third year. Now with the discount, we aren't so frugal. We tend to take more trips.

 

[amym2]

Most likely all of our trips will take place during the kids' two week fall break in October, so it would be difficult to use APs. I suppose we could go the second week one year and the first week the next year, but who knows if that would work out with airline tickets and such. I don't think an AP would be ideal for us, but thanks to those who recommended it.

We would definitely use APs if we lived within a day's drive. We're about 16 hours away, though, so WDW trips won't be more than once a year. Too many other places to visit, too!

 

[montrealdisneylovers]

We do a four night Disney trip every year between Christmas and New Years. We buy the 10 day non expiration Park Hopper WP option and it has worked out very well for us. We usually do 2 to 3 park days a year (depending on the weather) but have yet to use the waterparks (usually too cold). We may try Disneyquest this year.

I still have some old tickets dating back to the year 2000 and when I look at the price I paid for those compared to what they cost today, I really wish I would have bought a lifetime supply back then!!! If only money grew on trees

 

[Belle & Ariel]

I agree with OP that there are too many other places to visit.

We get an AP and vacation several times that year at WDW.
Then we might go on 2 or 3 cruises the next year. Our points add up and we go back to WDW but get waterpark/Disney Quest annual passes and do that for a year, but cruise in Dec. or January when the waterparks would be too cold anyway.
We now have Sea World/Aquatica/Busch Gardens annual passes and stay DVC while we are visiting the Orlando parks in that family. We have used our points at Vero and not done any park that trip.
We get Disney theme park APs about every 4 years and that works good for us. I could not appreciate it if I went there every year.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Most likely all of our trips will take place during the kids' two week fall break in October, so it would be difficult to use APs. I suppose we could go the second week one year and the first week the next year, but who knows if that would work out with airline tickets and such. I don't think an AP would be ideal for us, but thanks to those who recommended it.

We would definitely use APs if we lived within a day's drive. We're about 16 hours away, though, so WDW trips won't be more than once a year. Too many other places to visit, too!

As you can see, we live much more than a day's drive away too. I agree that other places are good to visit too, and we do that as well. However, I've traveled a lot, and now I like the idea of a "go to" vacation where I don't really have to plan much other than how to get there and my food.
PS..Looks like you are taking advantage of Aulani also. We go there in February, but first we have our WDW trip in December.

 

[amym2]

I agree with OP that there are too many other places to visit.

We get an AP and vacation several times that year at WDW.
Then we might go on 2 or 3 cruises the next year. Our points add up and we go back to WDW but get waterpark/Disney Quest annual passes and do that for a year, but cruise in Dec. or January when the waterparks would be too cold anyway.
We now have Sea World/Aquatica/Busch Gardens annual passes and stay DVC while we are visiting the Orlando parks in that family. We have used our points at Vero and not done any park that trip.
We get Disney theme park APs about every 4 years and that works good for us. I could not appreciate it if I went there every year.

Yep, I have a feeling the older they get, the more the kids will prefer Busch Gardens and Universal. Waiting for DD8 to be tall enough for the big coasters (she's a daredevil) and then we'll probably alternate Disney with other parks.

Problem is we have so many non-Orlando places to visit... Williamsburg, VA is tops on the list for DS, and we planned to use our points to trade with RCI, but then we just couldn't stand not trying our first DVC trip this year. Also want to get to the Grand Canyon, Washington DC (used to live in that area but the kids were too little to appreciate it), and various other places. We did an Alaskan cruise this past summer, and now the kids want to cruise more, too. If only money grew on trees... and DH had endless vacation time!

 

[amym2]

As you can see, we live much more than a day's drive away too. I agree that other places are good to visit too, and we do that as well. However, I've traveled a lot, and now I like the idea of a "go to" vacation where I don't really have to plan much other than how to get there and my food.
PS..Looks like you are taking advantage of Aulani also. We go there in February, but first we have our WDW trip in December.

Definitely like the "ease" of WDW trips and the planning of them, too! We've traveled quite a bit, but now our kids are getting old enough to travel more easily and there are so many places we want to take them. They are VERY excited about Aulani! DD8 must talk about taking surfing lessons at least once a week. It is her dream...

 

[Dean]

Crunch the numbers. I'm doubting that the cost for the non expiring option is worth it in this situation.