Military ticket experiences--please post here!

[appleorchard]

The other thread is so long and so much has changed that I thought I'd start a new for people to post their actual experiences(if any!) buying and using the tickets.

Were you able to buy the tickets without everyone present and then have the people who weren't there use them without any problem?

Were you able to buy tickets without giving names of the people who would be using them or were names put on the tickets right away?

How much info(SSN?) did you have to give Disney on the military member?

Anything else you'd like to add to help those of us still struggling with the ticket issue? I'd love to hear some real experiences!

 

[ilovetheg8rs]

Thank you for posting a new thread! I just went to the other one and asked the same question!!!

 

[CanadianGuy]

I will post this again in this thread..

The rules for this offer are very clear => all members must be present at the time of activation.

Regardless of how your fellow travelers who post on this site may have expereinced things - that's nothing you can count on.

The rules are clear. Just because some others may have snuck thru before all staff were up to speed on this promotion -- I would not base my vacation plans on that.

And they do NOT ask for your SSN for this promotion.

 

[Megkel]

My experience with this has been very love hate. We bought our tickets at our base ITT office last month. When I went in to purchase them I was told because I am not the service member they couldn't sell the tickets to me. My husband bought the tickets the same day no problem. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law are also going with us (they are military also) and getting their tickets themselves. I have not heard if they have had any problems or even tried getting their tickets. My husband is now unsure if he will be able to go with us because of the military so I called to make sure I could activate our tickets when we get there. The first CM I spoke to said no my husband would have to be there although he didn't seem very professional. I hung up with him and called back to ask if my husband could activate his families tickets even though we didn't buy them (we would still be under our 5). The CM I spoke with said that a spouce could activate the tickets as long as their id says "spouse". When I asked her my question she asked to place me on hold while she found out for me which I was happy to do. The hotel was simple and everyone was very helpful with that. We go in September so I hope everything is worked out by then.

 

[appleorchard]

Thanks, Canadian Guy. If it's a problem to discuss this feel free to pull this post. I'm just wondering how many people have already purchased tickets with plans to use them in the future WITHOUT everyone present, etc. What happens when they get there? How about the people with three emails stating they can use two tickets for one person on two different dates? Are they really going to be told when they get there that they can't do it?

From the beginning, I read the rules, sighed deeply, and made plans to use the tickets exactly as stated, even though I could have saved a lot more money if I could have used them differently! But I wonder if everyone else in the "real world" is using them differently, and not getting questioned at all about it.

I think most people here understand the "official rules"--but is Disney enforcing them? That's my question.

 

[Mickey Fliers]

We arrived in Orlando after our Disney Cruise on Jan. 29th. We went to SOG where my husband picked up his complimentary pass and we purchased the additional 5 passes with hopper. We were purchasing passes for me, my 3 sons and one for my niece who attends U of F. The next morning we went to Disney Studios and activated our passes at guest services, my niece was NOT with us. They asked my husband where he was stationed and for his ID. We asked if we could activate my niece's pass since she wouldn't be joining us until later that day and we didn't want to have to wait for her to go to the park. The CM said "no problem". We did not provide him with any other names or birthdays. He instructed us to write our names on the passes with a sharpie.

We used the passes that morning at DHS and my niece joined us after class at EPCOT.

YMMV.

 

[samc]

Our Experience from earlier this month:

Purchased vochers from SOG - they were still open at 8:30pm. Our entire party was not present. It was very easy to upgrade some and not others. We were also able to pay for the tickets separately - I wasn't sure if the sponsor would have to make the payment and everyone pay him back.

We went directly to guest services at DTD - the one in the marketplace is closed for rehab, so must go to pleasure island. My sister and I didn't have our driver's licenses. Ticket agent activated tickets for those that were present and had their license. I explained to her that we would not be together the next day or have our sponsor with us (he went to SeaWorld) She promised me it wouldn't be a problem to activate our tickets without the sponsor as long as we had our license.

I went back to the DTD guest services alone the next am and was able to activate my ticket without any problems.

My sister activated her ticket the following day at Hollywood Studios - the ticket agent there was a little confused but we explained to her what the DTD gal had said, plus our military sponsor was with us this day so that helped! She talked to her manager and eventually activated it - there was never a question of doing it, she was very nice and just questioned the process at DTD......I did too because that went against everything I had read on here.

We used our tickets for the rest of our trip without any trouble - with and without our military family member present.

BTW - at DTD we were issued the regular paper tickets....I asked if I could keep the plastic voucher as a souvenir but was told they had to keep those. The ticket agent at Hollywood Studios put my sister's days on the voucher so she was able to keep hers.

Overall - great experience.....still some bugs in the system but everyone was very kind and never acted like they were going to turn us away without tickets

 

[ilovetheg8rs]

Wow, seems like there's still some confusion with the CM's! Hopefully they will get it all worked out!!

So glad you had a good trip!!!

Tam

 

[ilovetheg8rs]

 

[honey11dog]

Does anyone know if you can wait to use tickets after you activate them? My issue is that we are all going in June for a Disney trip and our annual passes are still valid until July. I want to take the kids back to Disney in the fall for another trip but husband won't be with me then. Can we go and pay for the companion tickets at SOG and then go get them activated and wait to use them in the fall? I have a valid spouse military ID. But I don't want to find out that I needed him with us to activate the tickets at the ticket window.

My second question is can you get 2 companion passes for one person? Our youngest doesn't have an annual pass. So, she needs a ticket for our trip in June. Then she will need another for the fall. I would still only need 4 companion passes.

 

[JoanneNC]

Does anyone know if you can wait to use tickets after you activate them? My issue is that we are all going in June for a Disney trip and our annual passes are still valid until July. I want to take the kids back to Disney in the fall for another trip but husband won't be with me then. Can we go and pay for the companion tickets at SOG and then go get them activated and wait to use them in the fall? I have a valid spouse military ID. But I don't want to find out that I needed him with us to activate the tickets at the ticket window.

My second question is can you get 2 companion passes for one person? Our youngest doesn't have an annual pass. So, she needs a ticket for our trip in June. Then she will need another for the fall. I would still only need 4 companion passes.

Yes on the delayed use (even though your ID will be fine later in the year) and no on the 2 per person question.
NOW with that said, I was told in an email that 1 person could use more than 1 ticket BUT other emails have been sent contradicting this. I would not bank your plans on them allowing it but of course ask when you are there in June.

Have fun

 

[llqool]

I have read and reread the original press release on this and i still think it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Has anyone been able to call WDW and get answers to their questions? My husband is active duty, but we are remotely located, so not near a post to ask questions at a ticket office. I called a CM this morning and she said they didn't have "any" information about it (which I find hard to believe, since even though you buy the vouchers at SOG or a ticket office, you still have to activate them at Guest Relations in WDW) and to call SOG. It's nearly impossible to get through to SOG -- have called and left msgs and emailed them, but still no answer.

I am, of course, wondering all the same things that everyone else is -- whether I, as spouse, can buy the vouchers, or if hubby has to do it, whether everyone needs to be present when vouchers are bought/activated, whether the companion tickets can be used without the active duty sponsor there, and lastly whether the military sponsor ticket can be upgraded to an annual pass.

it seems like experiences at Guest Relations are very inconsistent!

 

[honey11dog]

Yes on the delayed use (even though your ID will be fine later in the year) and no on the 2 per person question.
NOW with that said, I was told in an email that 1 person could use more than 1 ticket BUT other emails have been sent contradicting this. I would not bank your plans on them allowing it but of course ask when you are there in June.

Have fun

I will probably just get her a Florida resident ticket for the second trip. It is not that much more money and it will eliminate the confusion. I am happy that I can purchase the companion tickets in June and use later on. Thanks!

 

[JoanneNC]

I have read and reread the original press release on this and i still think it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Has anyone been able to call WDW and get answers to their questions? My husband is active duty, but we are remotely located, so not near a post to ask questions at a ticket office. I called a CM this morning and she said they didn't have "any" information about it (which I find hard to believe, since even though you buy the vouchers at SOG or a ticket office, you still have to activate them at Guest Relations in WDW) and to call SOG. It's nearly impossible to get through to SOG -- have called and left msgs and emailed them, but still no answer.

I am, of course, wondering all the same things that everyone else is -- whether I, as spouse, can buy the vouchers, or if hubby has to do it, whether everyone needs to be present when vouchers are bought/activated, whether the companion tickets can be used without the active duty sponsor there, and lastly whether the military sponsor ticket can be upgraded to an annual pass.

it seems like experiences at Guest Relations are very inconsistent!

A lot of your questions has been clarified through the press releases and other conversations with CM's and reports back.

If you have an dependents ID that indicates you are a spouse - you can buy and activate 5 companion tickets. Only these companion tickets can be upgraded to an Annual Pass. The free service member's ticket can not be upgraded at all since it has no value to it.
The service member does NOT need to be present BUT all tickets need to be bought/activated at once. Meaning if you have plans on using the 5 companion tickets in March and then the service member was planning on using his free one in June and won't get his until June that will NOT work.
There is some confusion if all persons using the 5 companion tickets need to be present during the activation, the official answer is YES but previous reports have reported that is not always the case, but I would make plans based on the rules instead of the exceptions

 

[kikiV]

bump

 

[devores]

This subject has been and will be beat into the ground.

As was mentioned before, follow the rules placed out there by Disney and you cannot go wrong. This is a great thing they are doing and to try to take advantage of it is wrong.

We will continue to get differing answears for one main reason. When someone has a question, they call to get an answear. When they do not get the answear they want, they keep calling until they get the one they want. Then they are confused as to why they got different answears and why they do not agree with the rules.

We are mil to mil so there are a million ways we could use the system to our advantage. But we are honest people and are getting our 2 comp tickets and just 2 companions for our children. As per the rules.

So, if the rules state on ticket per person and you choose to try to use 2 and get turned away, you have no grounds to be upset.

 

[appleorchard]

This subject has been and will be beat into the ground.

As was mentioned before, follow the rules placed out there by Disney and you cannot go wrong. This is a great thing they are doing and to try to take advantage of it is wrong.

We will continue to get differing answears for one main reason. When someone has a question, they call to get an answear. When they do not get the answear they want, they keep calling until they get the one they want. Then they are confused as to why they got different answers and why they do not agree with the rules.



We are mil to mil so there are a million ways we could use the system to our advantage. But we are honest people and are getting our 2 comp tickets and just 2 companions for our children. As per the rules.

So, if the rules state on ticket per person and you choose to try to use 2 and get turned away, you have no grounds to be upset.

I totally agree with you about following the rules; if you read my old posts you'll see that we're doing just that, not even taking a chance on activating the tickets to be used by other family members at a later date. The problem has been, and still is, that Disney has not been explicit on questions such as , "Can the same person use two tickets?" I'm not planning on doing this, but believe me, no where does it say this would not be allowed. It says one complimentary ticket only, but it doesn't say the same person can't use two companion tickets.

On the other hand, I DO feel that it's implied in the rules that one person won't use two tickets, but it doesn't really state that. I don't want to take advantage of the system in any way, but I also don't want to be a fool and not take advantage of using the tickets in a way that's ok with Disney--like activating the tickets all at once, even though the rest of our party isn't arriving until later the same day. I don't want to waste half a park day waiting for the rest of our group if DISNEY is ok with us activating them all and using ours before the rest of our party gets there later in the day. I know the original rules say everyone needs to be there at activation, but if I'm the only person in the "World" who's waiting until everyone's there to use my tickets, because Disney isn't enforcing that particular rule, I'd like to know it. And if they start enforcing it, I'm fine with that--better, in fact, because it's much easier to follow the rules if you know what they really are.

I'm not at all a rulebreaker, which is why we're doing an extra trip to take advantage of this offer rather than trying to bend the rules to fit our circumstances.

I'm SO grateful for this offer!

 

[WDW Traveler]

A lot of your questions has been clarified through the press releases and other conversations with CM's and reports back.

If you have an dependents ID that indicates you are a spouse - you can buy and activate 5 companion tickets. Only these companion tickets can be upgraded to an Annual Pass. The free service member's ticket can not be upgraded at all since it has no value to it.
The service member does NOT need to be present BUT all tickets need to be bought/activated at once. Meaning if you have plans on using the 5 companion tickets in March and then the service member was planning on using his free one in June and won't get his until June that will NOT work.
There is some confusion if all persons using the 5 companion tickets need to be present during the activation, the official answer is YES but previous reports have reported that is not always the case, but I would make plans based on the rules instead of the exceptions

This is the part I'm confused on. My FIL went to our local base to inquire about the companion tickets and was told they CAN NOT be upgraded to an annual pass. I've read a couple of explinations of the promotion and one said you can and one does not mention it. The explination on the Disney website does not mention upgrade-ability. Has any one tried this yet?

 

[mdrob214]

If you upgrade the companion tickets to an AP, you really aren't gaining anything because the value of the ticket (when upgrading)is $99, not the full value of a 5-day ticket. Does that make sense? So you'd be paying full price for the AP either way.

 

[Lolie]

I have read and reread the original press release on this and i still think it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Has anyone been able to call WDW and get answers to their questions? My husband is active duty, but we are remotely located, so not near a post to ask questions at a ticket office. I called a CM this morning and she said they didn't have "any" information about it (which I find hard to believe, since even though you buy the vouchers at SOG or a ticket office, you still have to activate them at Guest Relations in WDW) and to call SOG. It's nearly impossible to get through to SOG -- have called and left msgs and emailed them, but still no answer.

I am, of course, wondering all the same things that everyone else is -- whether I, as spouse, can buy the vouchers, or if hubby has to do it, whether everyone needs to be present when vouchers are bought/activated, whether the companion tickets can be used without the active duty sponsor there, and lastly whether the military sponsor ticket can be upgraded to an annual pass.

it seems like experiences at Guest Relations are very inconsistent!

I called Ticketing and they transferred me to Shades of Green for clarification. Try that...