New "Least Expensive Ticket" web page from the Unofficial Guide

[lentesta]

Hi folks,

For a few weeks now we've been trying to come up with a simple way to explain the best way to choose admission media from the 160+ different ticket options to Walt Disney World. After beating our heads day after day, we gave up and wrote a computer program. A link to the program is below.

This page will allow you to enter all of your trip information, including how many days you'll visit the theme parks, water parks, Pleasure Island and DisneyQuest. It tells you the four least-expensive ticket options that cover everything you want to do.

So, for example, if the least-expensive option is for you to buy a 5-day Park Hopper, a 1-day Pleasure Island ticket, and a 1-day Water Park ticket, that's what we'll recommend first. Of course, you'll want to check the other options listed just to make sure there's not a better deal that just costs a few dollars more.

We make separate recommendations for children and adults. We'll also consider Florida resident discounts, "Shades of Green" discounts, and whether you're able to use Advance Purchase discounts.

In the next few days we'll also start recommending "preferred" ticket options, probably when you're visiting WDW twice within 12 months and an annual pass becomes cost-effective.

As noted below, this is a pre-release version of the software. I've been told that Netscape users might have some trouble with it. Please address all issues here, if possible.

Thanks very much!

Sincerely,

Len Testa

Warning: this is "beta-test" code.
Unofficial Guide "Best Ticket Option" Page

 

[disney4us2002]

Thanks Len. I'm not the biggest fan of the UG but I have to say that program is a pretty cool idea!

Here's what I noticed when I tried it. My dh is active DoD civillian so I answered 'yes' to military because I know SoG is an option for us. Perhaps DoD could be added to question? It also asked if onsite and how many days to visit the parks. This created option number 1 of uph (stars and stripes) for 5 day thru SoG. The problem and why we won't be able to get those tickets is that we are staying onsite for 8 days, visiting Universal two days, and avoiding all parks Christmas day. The current plan is to visit the parks 2 days, then 1 day Univ, then back to Disney for 2 days, then Univ, then break day, then Disney again for last day. So, to do the uph, I would need too many different reservations. We are probably not the typical family however, so the program should work great for others. It would be impossible to account for every possible scenario, lol.

Carla

 

[lentesta]

Hey Carla,

Thanks for the feedback, and the detail on your vacation plans.

We actually thought about implementing a web page that would cover virtually every possible vacation scenario, probably including yours, but the user interface would have been so complicated that it would have required an hour to explain. In the end we went with "simple, and for most people" rather than "complex, and for everyone."

Thanks also for the DoD civilian information. I've not yet added text to the page to explain what each question means, but I'll add that in, too. Would you mind if I dropped you an e-mail if I have any other questions on that?

Sincerely,

Len Testa

 

[AMaloy314]

Len,

What a great program! It made me feel much more confident in the ticket purchase we made.

I did run into a couple glitches which were minor, but is there someplace that you would like us to report them since this is a beta program?


Thanks for posting this and letting us use it!

 

[pampam]

This is going to be great. I've bookmarked it. Thanks

 

[tmli]

In my situation we will be going for 2 weeks in Sept....I entered 10 theme park days (staying on site btw) and 1 water park day. I also entered yes to returning again within 12 mths.

For the adult the first choice was the AP, which is what I would expect....however for the child 1st choice was 10day hopper.

I believe the 10 day to be good for 30 days from first use.....should the program have taken into effect the 2nd trip? It doesn't seem to have, but I guess that would be difficult without knowing the length of 2nd trip?

I do think that it is a good program and I could see the value of it while planning what tkts to buy.

 

[Steve Hurley]

Len, this program is awesome. I'm a HUGE fan of the UG and tell everyone going the first time that they need the "Bible for WDW".

I tried the program and it worked fine but I was wondering if there was a way to take AAA discounts into account?


Thanks for all your and the UG teams great work.

 

[DMRick]

Didn't work for me..I put in one or more adult, returning within a year, no PI, no DQ..and got the following..and I would never buy a one day park, since you can't hop, and it shows two different prices for the 1 day/1 park in any case:

************
* Option 4 *
************
1 Day/1 Park Adult Ticket ($58.31)
2 Day/1 Park Adult Ticket ($111.3)
1-Day/1 Park Adult Ticket ($51)
Total cost for all tickets = $220.61

 

[GoldenOldie]

It appears this program has problems with even the most basic information. Iset all yes/no options to no, set 1 adult for 1 theme park day and set zeros for everything else. So in essence I asked for one adult doing one park only. The program gave me this:

For each adult:
The number of ticket combinations examined was 3375.
************
* Option 1 *
************
1-Day/1 Park Adult Ticket ($51)
Total cost for all tickets = $51

************
* Option 2 *
************
1 Day/1 Park Adult Ticket ($58.31)
Total cost for all tickets = $58.31

************
* Option 3 *
************
Pleasure Island 1-Day Adult Ticket ($21.25)
1-Day/1 Park Adult Ticket ($51)
Total cost for all tickets = $72.25

************
* Option 4 *
************
1 Day/1 Park Adult Ticket ($58.31)
Pleasure Island 1-Day Adult Ticket ($21.25)
Total cost for all tickets = $79.56


Option one is for military only. I said no to the military question.
Options three and four want to give me PI tickets when I said no to the PI question.

My other concern with this is that it is scripted in Javascript. That eliminates a lot of people from using it (Netscape users, text only browsers, PDA's, cell phone web access, people who turn off JS in graphical browsers, etc).

 

[autumnblue]

The program suggested UPH for me but I have no intention of going to the parks everyday. The program should ask how many days you are staying on the property as well as how many days you are planning on spending in the parks.


Autumnblue

 

[lentesta]

GoldenOldie and DMRick, thanks for the heads-up on the 'Active Military' bug. If you answer 'no' to Active Military, those options shoudn't be available. I'll take a look at that.

As for Javascript, according to our web logs, more than 90% of our visitors use Internet Explorer versions 4 and higher. The other option, something server-based, isn't feasible because of the number crunching required. But perhaps there's a workaround for Javascript in Navigator we can look at. If you don't mind sending me the error(s) you see, I'll be happy to take a look at them.

Autumnblue, how would you phrase that question to avoid asking any follow-ups? If we can put our heads together to come up with a solution, I'll be happy to add it!

Thanks again for the feedback.

Sincerely,

Len

 

[HeatherAnn23]

Neat program! I agree that you need a question about hopping. It did give me the least expensive option, but pairing an ultimate park hopper with a one day/one park. It would be nice if there was a question about if you plan on park hopping or not. We are avid hoppers, so we wouldn't consider buying the one park ticket.

 

[mtblujeans]

WOW - Great!! Thanks!!! I was stressing that I had not determined the cheapest route to go with tickets for our trip but this program showed me that I have picked the only feasible option for our visit. What a great idea this program is!! Thanks so much!!

 

[lentesta]

Thanks for that, mtbluejeans.

I've been kicking around the whole 'park hopping' question. The problem, I think, is that there's no way to determine the least-expensive option just by adding a 'Will you visit more than one park per day?' question.

For example, suppose I'm visiting Orlando for one day, and I want to see the MK and Epcot. The least-expensive option is two one-day, one-park passes. If I wanted to add a third park, either on the same day or the next, the one-day passes are still the least-expensive option.

It's only if I want to visit another park on the second day where the 4-day park hopper becomes viable. (I don't have the price sheet in front of me, but hopefully I've explained the idea.)

But if I ask the following two questions:

How many days do you plan to visit the theme parks?
Will you visit more than one park per day?

The yes/no answers don't tell me when to eliminate the 1-day/1-park tickets from consideration. The alternative, to specify whether you'll park-hop on each day of your trip, but that would make the screen look like a big game of Battleship, and seems like it'd be too much trouble.

I'd love to come up with two or three questions that would answer when those one-day/one-park tickets are viable. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Thanks again for your support!

Sincerely,

Len Testa

 

[AMaloy314]

Len,

I'm not sure that anyone has brought this to your attention. If they have, my apologies.

After entering info for nonresident, non-military, no other visit within a year, advance purchase possible, 1 or more adult and 1 or more child for a 5 days in park with no Pleasure Island, Disney Quest, or Water Parks (although I did enter No about children in PI), I was advised that these were a couple options:

************
* Option 3 *
************
Pleasure Island 1-Day Adult Ticket ($21.25)
Advance Purchase 5-Day Park Hopper Adult Ticket ($244.95)
Total cost for all tickets = $266.20

AND

************
* Option 4 *
************
DisneyQuest 1-Day Child Ticket ($26.63)
Advance Purchase 5-Day Park Hopper Child Ticket ($195.96)
Total cost for all tickets = $222.59




Maybe I should rethink not going to Pleasure Island and Disney Quest?

Again, thanks for letting us use this. It really is great. Just what we keep expecting from you super folks at UG!

 

[always quiet]

I tried using this, knowing quite well what is the cheapest route for my family to go (doing parks 5 days and 2 water parks, no disney quest, not pleasure island). It listed each time for me a 5 day park pass (not a hopper) and a seperate ticket to Pleasure Island. Neat program for a novice, but for many of those who frequent the DIS, not needed.

 

[GoldenOldie]

Len, I feel really badly for you trying to work the kinks out of this one. I gather from what I've read in the two threads you have running on this that you are limiting the choices to only tickets that are available for general public sale through Disney (not including the almost always cheaper Florida wholesalers offerings) and excluding any tickets like Play 4 Days and Seasonal Passes that have blackout or expiration dates.

It seems that even taking into consideration the above, what you've got scripted right now is awful. The script's author should have been testing it prior to declaring it ready and making it available for public testing. He/she would have easily seen that the program was returning incorrect information in way too many sets of circumstances. And the idea of returning four options for a one day one park visit is comical.

I think it's an excellent concept that unfortunately isn't ready for prime time yet. Why do I feel like Simon Cowell telling you this?

Good luck, my friend.

 

[lentesta]

AMaloy314, the program can sense you need a nightclub visit, no matter what you say.

Seriously, it looks like the issue is that the program is returning four options when less than four make sense. That's easy enough to fix. In this case, we should stop at two. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll work on that this weekend.

GoldenOldie, we knew the code needed testing when it was released; my original posting includes the words 'Warning: this is "beta-test" code.' We figured (rightly so) that the folks on the DIS would be able to come up with scenarios we'd not thought to test. And for that, I really appreciate everyone's efforts. Better this happen now than after we get the press release out.

Thanks again for the help. I'll post a note here when the next version of the code is ready.

Sincerely,

Len

 

[Selket]

I put in the info that 2 adults/1 child with 5 park days this year and returning within a year (it didn't ask me how many days I planned to visit on the return trip but it would be at least 5 days if not more). I also told it I didn't want to go to PI but the options never suggested an annual pass and kept suggesting that I buy extra passes to get into PI.

I don't quite understand why it insisted on the PI trip. Does this mean that the UG is paying for my babysitting?

 

[lentesta]

Selket, we just posted a fix that should resolve the issue where tickets are suggested for places you don't intend to visit. So we'll have to decline that babysitting offer. That fix also should resolve the issue of suggesting SoG tickets to non-military individuals.

The issue we're working on now goes something like this:

Request:

1 day in the park
1 water park

Solution:

1 day/1 park pass
1 day water park pass

:
:

1 day/1 park pass
1 day water park pass
1 day water park pass

Again, that extra water park pass is unnecessary. We hope to have that resolved shortly.

Thanks again for the testing.

Len