Park Passes

[THE COLONEL]

Am going in February for 10 days and thoughts are turning to buying passes. My initial thoughts on my requirements are for 5 day hopper plus plus single day admissions to Sea World and Universal. Any advice on the best sources? By my calculations it would seem to be quite a bit cheaper to buy the hoppers direct and on line from Disneyworld.com and have them shipped. This view is based on a very arbitrary comparison between that price and virgins quoted price. Am I way off the mark and not taking account of something obcvious. I also intend buying the single day passes on line from the parks themselves. Again is there a better way ? Apologies in advance for any breathtaking naievity. Last time we were there we had no little one in tow and drifted merrily through the parks with no pressure. This time calls for military precision to avoid stress and the disappointment of a 6 year old with high expectations and low boredom threshold.

 

[WDWfan uk]

Hi there There is no naivety in your post! It is a very good question! To encourage people to buy passes ahead of time, the prices on the gate at WDW are now higher than if you buy in advance - I would suggest comparing prices with each parks on-line stores plus www.ticketmania.com where you can get Sea World and Universal as well as WDW. It's also worth checking the price at your local Disney Store.

I'm sure other people will suggest other sources that you can look at. Take into account that not all can supply the actual passes some give vouchers which need to be exchanged over there - Ticketmania will provide the actual passes.

 

[BevS97]

I wouldn't worry about the 6 year old being bored! She will have a great time. You, however, may be a little bored as you do It's a Small World for the 10th time!

As to the passes, I haven't heard of any special offers lately, but I would keep your eyes on the boards, last year there were some great deals to be had, the 10 day passes were reduced to £199 which made them a great deal, and we bought Annual Seaworld passes online for only $5 more than a 1 day ticket.

I believe the Annual Seaworld passes are sold at the start of each calendar year (they are a calendar year pass, rather than a year from the date of purchase, so our passes expire on 31/21/02). Even if you only use them 2 or 3 times, they are still a superb value.


With a 6 year old along, I would be inclinded to look at longer passes, like the 10 day pass. This would enable you to do a number of shorter visits to the park, rather than trying to cram everything into long days. We found with our 4 year old, that we couldn't manage a full day before she got ratty. If we arrived early, we would leave around 3pm, and if we knew we wanted to stay late for parades or fireworks, then we wouldn't arrive at the parks until lunchtime or even later.

I would take a close look at the rides at IOA/Universal before you decide to go there - these are superb parks for older kids and adults, but we found there was very little on offer for Katie - admittedly she is quite timid on rides, but other than Barney, there was nothing that she would/could ride at Universal, and not a lot at IOA. (I think she did the Carosuessel, then we tried Cat in the Hat which she found scary, and that was it for her.)


Sorry this is long - just a few thoughts which may or may not be relevant to your situation,

Bev