1. The luggage tags and DME tags are mailed to you in advance. Everything else is at check-in.
2. There is no sales tax on the tickets you bought. If you do upgrade them by hadding hopping and/or the WPF&M option it is done in two steps. First the tickets are changed to the gate price which includes tax; you do not pay for this. Then the tickets are further upgraded; each option costs $26.63 including tax per ticket, so upgrading two tickets with both options comes to $106.50.
2A. Note the tickets must be activated at any Park (including water parks and TTC) ticket window or a Park Guest Relations Office. This cannot be done at your hotel and must be done before you can enter any Park. If you want to do any upgrade it is easiest to do at this time.
3. The system may print new tickets or it could possibly just change the coding on your current tickets. The only information actually coded on the ticket is a serial number and what entitlements (days and features) are on the ticket. All data about use is actually kept in the ticketing computer.
And this may help you to make the decision about hopping or WPF&M options:
This is a "canned" response modified for the Armed Forces Salute 2010 tickets with the assumption you have both the Park Hopper and Water Park Fun and More (WPF&M) options.
Hopefully this will make it a little clearer. In effect you have two tickets with different privileges on one card. Everything expires at Midnight on September 30, 2010. Even if you use up all your major park days, the WPF&M entries remain valid until used or 09/30/10. (Note you do not have to use the days consecutively.)
You have four days of access to the four major parks (AK, DHS, EC, MK), and may visit more than one major park on a single day without any extra charges. Without the Park Hopper option you can only go to one major park per day.
You have four entries to the minor parks (BB, DQ, OT, TL, WWS). These may or may not be used on the same days as you go to the major parks. However, if you went to TL in the morning, Oak Trail in the afternoon, and Disney Quest in the evening of one day you would have used three of the four entries. (Note that leaving and returning to the same minor park on the same day does not use an extra entry.)
If you go to minor parks only on one day and do not go to a major park you do not use up one of your major park days.
If you were to go to a Water Park in the morning and then one of the major parks for the remainder of the day you would have used one minor park entry and one day of major park entry.
Note that with the ticket unless you have the hopper option you can only go to one major park per day. Unless you have the WPF&M option you cannot go to a minor park without upgrading or purchasing a separate ticket, but it costs less to add the option than to pay separately for one water park or DQ ticket.