Paper Annual Passes? What?

[TCPluto]

We got annual passes last summer. Had a problem scanning at almost half of the biometric scanners the first trip. OUr Christmas trip, not a single problem. So I think the readers can have issues, unrelated to the card or the initial scan.

Going back in three weeks, we'll see how they do then. The cards themselves appear to be holding up fine.

 

[Epcotkids]

It does seem strange; temory-plastic; year long - paper?? However, we have had PAPs for 3 years - never a problem .....yet. They are much thiner and when you carry yours and all the kids (4) it makes them nicer. I also like the charcter pictures. My DH ALWAYS gets Minnie!

I do recomend making a copy of the back of your AP and leave it in the room. If your AP should ever get damaged or lost it could make replacement much easier.

SHORT STOR: We went to Boma's (FWL) for dinner one night, then over to MK for fireworks, then jumped on the monorail to go back to Epcot to walk through back to BV. When we got off the monorail, we realized we didn't have our passes. We went to the ticket booth, where a very nice young lady looked up our APs, she was able to confirm that we had APs and then she, herself walked us through the gate! We were very grateful she was able to do that.

 

[NMW]

Need some help here.

What, pray tell, am I to think of my brand-new (2/2/05) plastic annual pass?

Just for the record, it doesn't work. Well, I guess the pass works, but the stupid fake finger scanner hoax thing doesn't work - not on one AP holder out of ten! We were there four days, went in and out of parks, and my wife never did get a good scan.

On the other hand, if that's the worst problem I have to ponder this week...

At least you have a positive attitude about it!

 

[Caskbill]

In the FWIW department, Sea World's AP's were plastic, and last year they changed to paper.

Our Disney passes have worked very well. The first year we ever got them, DW took a few tries before learning how to put her fingers in the biometrics scan consistently. After that, no problems.

 

[SueM in MN]

As other mentioned, the "paper" passes are not really paper at all. I've been told they are a Tyvek cardstock product (Those mailer envelopes you sometimes get from UPS, etc are a thinner version of Tyvek. Impossible to tear).
I've heard that they end up replacing a lot of the hard plastic cards because they get cracked (people have in a pocket and sit on them, etc.) The Tyvek ones are more durable for that type of "abuse" than the plastic ones are.

I've noticed that even though all the biometric readers look pretty much the same on the outside, sometimes it feels different when you slide you hand in - some of the readers are set at a little different height or angle or something. Those machines that don't "feel" quite right are the ones I have a problem with. Your fingers have to go in the same way as they did for you first reading. So, if the way the machine is set up is different, the fingers may not go into the reader exactly the same way.