Park Passes for DVC owners

[DVCTiff]

Has anyone figured out what the best strategy is for choosing/buying park passes? If we plan to go twice a year, is it smarter to buy an Annual Pass? We generally like to park hop and use the water parks, and some of our stays may be only three days while others may be five. Just wondering if anyone had some tips. Thanks!

 

[TheRustyScupper]

1) Most people agree that 8-days is the break-even point.
2) If you'll go to PARKS for 8-days, an AP is better.
3) If you will plan less than 8-days in PARKS, go Hopper. *
4) We haven't bought an AP or UPH in years.

* I know several people that buy Hopper-Plus and stretch their days by going to a water park for two days or so, then parks the remainder of the trip.

 

[MAGICinMYHEART]

Well, the break even for Annual pass is 8 days..so you'll have your days but I would also work the dates out so you could also use the AP for the next year by moving your arrival date up by a week if possable. Org trip say March 20th, second trip Sept,...if you planed your third trip for following year March 3rd you could use pass 3 times.

Hope you can make sense of this.

 

[dianeschlicht]

We buy annual passes. If you are going for more than 8 days, it is the most cost effective way to go! We don't usually take advantage of the water parks, so we only get regular annual passes. We usually go for a minimum of 2 weeks a year, and often go up to 29 days in a 12 month period.

 

[Eeyore7]

Since DVC members receive a 10% discount on UHP's, is it possible to purchase them & exchange them for Annual's? Many times we have extended our stay & wished we had purchased the annual passes instread of the UHP's.

 

[CarolMN]

Just to clarify: The break even for plain annual passes is 8 days. These do not include admission to the waterparks or Pleasure Island. Break even for Premium Annual Passes is quite a bit longer - 13 or 14 days. (In addition to the 4 major parks, PAPs include admission to the water parks, Disney Quest and the waterparks).

You'll really just have to do the math based on your park plans. If you are only going to the waterparks once or twice, an AP may be your best option. You would just pay separately for waterpark admission. Your DVC membership will get you a discount on the waterpark admission - at least it does right now.

 

[Dopey Sharon]

Like everyone else said, it depends on how many days you will be going to the parks. We will be leaving Sunday, for six days. I bought four day hoppers. I have two days left on passes from previous visits. After I thought about it, since we have a trip planned in June, I decided to get annual passes. We (DH & I) will use the APs and I'll give my kids the hoppers I bought (they will be going with us in June). And, since I have the APs, I'm planning on going again in November.

 

[crisi]

It also depends on if you are making a decision based solely off of "price per park day" or if you have other factors in mind.

For instance - I think hoppers would be the best deal for us....but we buy UPHs. Mainly for the following reasons....

1) Only one card to carry around which is our room key, charge card and park pass. That, $50 and a drivers license lets us keep our load VERY light.

2) I'm a disorganized mess. If I had extra days on a park pass at the end of a trip, there is no guarentee I'd ever find the park passes when leaving again. No savings if you can't find the pass.

3) We like the flexibility of being able to hit the park every day. Last trip we completely "blew" a day with our UPH by having a resort character breakfast, spending the day at Blizzard Beach, and only going to the park for dinner. Had we had PHPs, I would have used the water park and booked a resort dinner because I'd never "waste" a day like that. With UPHs, they cost is just part of the vacation. Makes no financial sense, but a lot of emotional sense to us.

4) We don't spend enough days to justify an AP - much less a PAP. And APs have the same issues with "you have to be able to find them - or find the 'safe place' you put the numbers when you loose them."

5) This last trip we brought guests and paid for their park passes. I wanted them to have complete flexibility without understanding the park pass system. Handing them a UPH and saying "this will get you whereever you want to go" made it much easier. They aren't likely to revisit Disney, so buying PHs and having them save days didn't make sense.

 

[jaysue]

Bought AP's for 03/04 as we knew we would be at WDW at least 10 days

For future trips...horror of horrors I can see actually not going to a park at least (dare I say it) for one day... or even more going to Sea World or IOA/USF for a day or two


thanks
jaysue

 

[DVCTiff]

Thanks for all your great replies. I'm probably more confused than ever but I think Park Hoppers are the way to go for us since I only see us having 6 "park" days over two visits. We usually can do just resorts the nights we arrive and we leave fairly early on the mornings we leave for home so I think it's just best to cover the full days we're there (which are not enough to justify an AP or PAP).

Happy ticket buying to all!

 

[dianeschlicht]

It sounds like you have a good handle on what you really will need. Because some fo use travel 10 days at a time, even in the years we only have one trip planned, we can do two consecutive years trips on one AP by skewing the dates by a week. That is why APs make sense for us, but if you don't think you would be in the parks more than 6 days over 365, then it doesn' make sense for you.

 

[sters]

Originally posted by crisi
It also depends on if you are making a decision based solely off of "price per park day" or if you have other factors in mind.

For instance - I think hoppers would be the best deal for us....but we buy UPHs. Mainly for the following reasons....

1) Only one card to carry around which is our room key, charge card and park pass. That, $50 and a drivers license lets us keep our load VERY light.

2) I'm a disorganized mess. If I had extra days on a park pass at the end of a trip, there is no guarentee I'd ever find the park passes when leaving again. No savings if you can't find the pass.

3) We like the flexibility of being able to hit the park every day. Last trip we completely "blew" a day with our UPH by having a resort character breakfast, spending the day at Blizzard Beach, and only going to the park for dinner. Had we had PHPs, I would have used the water park and booked a resort dinner because I'd never "waste" a day like that. With UPHs, they cost is just part of the vacation. Makes no financial sense, but a lot of emotional sense to us.

4) We don't spend enough days to justify an AP - much less a PAP. And APs have the same issues with "you have to be able to find them - or find the 'safe place' you put the numbers when you loose them."

5) This last trip we brought guests and paid for their park passes. I wanted them to have complete flexibility without understanding the park pass system. Handing them a UPH and saying "this will get you whereever you want to go" made it much easier. They aren't likely to revisit Disney, so buying PHs and having them save days didn't make sense.

6) Lose your UPH, the smiling CM will kindly cancel the old and reissue you a new card without missing a beat. Lose your Hopper and you'll be out the cost of your lost days and have to buy a new one. (I'm also a disorganized mess and this happened to me on my last trip.)

 

[JimC]

We buy APs because we visit often, rarely go to the water parks any more (can get discounted tickets if we decide to go); use the AP codes for non-point stays; play miniature golf with AP discount; use AP shopping and meal discounts.

It is the lowest cost option for us. Our 02-03 APs had a per day cost to the parks of just under $10; excluding the AP resort code discount that paid for the passes outright and excluding all of the discounts on shopping, meals and miniature golf.

 

[Dopey Sharon]

This is the first time I bought APs ...what are the other discounts that come with them...shopping and food? Thanks!

 

[JimC]

Here is link to a great summary on APs.

http://allearsnet.com/pl/apass.htm

 

[crisi]

We lost a UPH last trip as well. I'm sure it was left in a FastPass machine. And I know a lot of park tickets get left in FastPass machines. Reissued without missing a beat - and didn't have any extra charges on it either (my big fear - it wasn't even signed - ouch!). The guy who had lost his PH in front of me in line at guest services wasn't so lucky.

 

[Dopey Sharon]

Thanks, Jim!

 

[JVL1018]

Just a note: You can also have your park hopper on the same card as your room key and room charge, just buy it at the front desk when you check in and it's the all in one card like a UHP.
Also, if you photocopy your PH..and then lose the PH, all you have to do is show guest services the photocopy and you will get a replacement.
As for us, we get APs, because we take 2 trips in one year. Both in the fall about a year apart, but we stagger the weeks, so we can use the APs both trips.

 

[CarolMN]

Originally posted by JVL1018
Just a note: You can also have your park hopper on the same card as your room key and room charge, just buy it at the front desk when you check in and it's the all in one card like a UHP.
...........................

That's true, but you will have to pay gate price for the hopper ticket to do it. For me, it's too high a price to pay for a small convenience.