No longer extending 5 day park hopper...

[bajadahl]

We just spent 9 days visiting Disneyland last week. There was a time when you could buy more days for a 5 day multi-day ticket, however, we were told we could no longer do that above the maximum of 5 days that they already sell. So for more than 5 days you have to start over with that steep price of the single day ticket.

For our family of 4 (me, dw, dd (13), and dd (11) it would have been $700 for 2 more days (no park hopper) on top of the $1260 for the 5 day(park hopper) tickets we already bought.

We instead chose to upgrade to deluxe season passes for $936. (This is the one with 50 black out dates per year) They gave us the full value for the 5 day park hopper tickets. So the math is like this: 4 X $549.00 = $2196.00 - $1260.00(already spent) = $936.00 additional paid

One tiny benefit that I discovered (let's see if I can describe it adequately) During the summer months Disney seems to black out one day each weekend for the Deluxe Annual Passport. The multi-day ticket has no blacked out dates. We used our multi-day tickets on a blacked out date on our first weekend. After realizing I would not be able to add more days inexpensively and knowing I would probably end up upgrading to an annual pass I was worried that this would cause us problems when trying to upgrade them later. There was no penalty for using our 5 day ticket on a black out date. We were still given the full value towards the Deluxe Annual Pass purchase. I was worried we would be forced to buy a Premium Annual Passport since the Premium Pass also has no black out dates. This saved me $920 This is the difference is price between the Deluxe Pass and the Premium Pass.

Anyway I was really surprised they wouldn't let us add days to our 5 day pass but it worked out and I guess we will make a few more trips out there over the next year.

Edit: bad math corrected.

 

[mom2rtk]

Unfortunately that has been the case for a while now. We finally were able to line up our visits to get 2 trips just inside a year and go with the AP.

 

[SMD]

Just a warning if you're planning to take a second trip to use the passes. Check the blockout days in Dec, July and around Easter. It's more than 1 day per week. There were 7 in July this year.

 

[bajadahl]

Yep - thanks SMD and mom2rtk. I guess I missed that it had been this way for a while. I have already looked at the dates for our next two trips and I'm good to go with the blackout dates. I was also prepared to make the jump to premier passes if necessary but that would have blown the budget for this trip. Looks like I'll be going again in March and June. Both weeks I'm looking at only have one blackout date (I will call that a travel day) lol

 

[Imdboss]

Oh how I miss the 7 day park hopper we had back in 2009 for $179!

 

[bumbershoot]

Anyway I was really surprised they wouldn't let us add days to our 5 day pass but it worked out and I guess we will make a few more trips out there over the next year.

No surprise why they got rid of the longer tickets, since AP is pretty much the only other option. Sigh.


but yeah it's been like this for ages, and they've done the upgrade that way for longer. I always get sad when people don't know these things, but I'm glad you were able to ugrade and it didn't ruin your plans.

 

[sheetz]

Anyway I was really surprised they wouldn't let us add days to our 5 day pass but it worked out and I guess we will make a few more trips out there over the next year.

This is exactly what they want people to do.

 

[Geemo]

Oh how I miss the 7 day park hopper we had back in 2009 for $179!

With the current price of tickets, we ALL miss multi-day hoppers for the past prices.

A single day hopper is $155 today.

Talk about inflation..... Cha Ching....

 

[Indiana Scott]

We ran into the same thing (will be in the parks 6 days) and decided to get AP's. Our family of three also plans to go back within a year so it actually saves us about $500 in the long run during the second trip.

 

[almacdonald]

The price jump between a 5 day ticket and an AP that you can actually use is huge. So much that we'll just end up going to Universal or Knott's Berry for the extra time we're in California. Too bad Disney, I would have given you more money for park ticket and food and stuff but now that money will go elsewhere since you make it such a hassle to visit 6+ days.

 

[clori]

When we went 2 years ago it was that way. Since I had no other trips planned (too far) it didn't make sense to upgrade. Instead we did a day at Knott's Berry (free for 2 of us thanks to mycokerewards) and we did a Hollywood/Warner Brothers tour. At WDW we always just do Disney so this was new for us.

 

[DLgal]

Just a minor correction. The Deluxe AP has 50 block out days, not 40. You get 315 days of admission. 365 days in a year.