I'm a
Disneyland annual passholder and I've had the Premier Passport twice. Once when it was $849. (And although it seemed expensive at the time, what an incredible value it was back then! Only $200 more than my Disneyland passport got me tickets for two vacations at WDW.) And my current Premier Passport which cost $1,099 plus tax which expires soon. In both cases, the only reason I bought it was because I knew I would be at WDW at least twice in that year. I ended up going more often because the tickets were "free" but I don't think I'd buy it unless I was already going to spend so much on admission. With the price jumping up an incredible 31% this past year alone, it's time for a break from Disney parks, so I'm done for a while.
The Premier Passport could be a good value for you if you were going to spend more than
$1,485.77 in admission to the US parks. There are no renewal or local resident discounts on the Premier.
But it looks like this isn't a good value for you unless you take advantage of a lot of AP discounts at Disneyland, and perhaps start using the water parks/golf courses at Disney World.
If you don't get a Premier Passport, here's what you would've spent (assuming that prices don't go up further):
1. WDW: As an Orlando resident, the cost to renew your Platinum Pass is $584.69. (Please double check this, as I'm using third party sites to find this info.)
2. DLR: The retail value of 4-day park hoppers at Disneyland is currently $320 each.
Therefore, if you buy 4-day hoppers for each of your two Disneyland visits, your total cost will be $584.69 + $320.00 + $320.00.
Total cost is
$1,224.69. That's less than the cost of the Premier Passport.
Some additional considerations:
With a Premier Pass, you get all the privileges the Platinum Plus AP. Compared to the Platinum AP, it's about a $74 renewal value if you took advantage of it.
For your May trip, you might even be able to get cheaper tickets to Disneyland through Park Savers or other similar services, if you trust them.
You would get some additional discounts at Disneyland (e.g., 15% on almost all QSR and TS food, 20% on merchandise, on-site hotel discounts). The discounts at DL are often more generous than at WDW. You'll have to do the calculations on whether that closes the gap of $1,224.69 vs. $1,485.77.
You'd enjoy the pride of being in an exclusive club of Premier Passport holders. Haha. I don't put a dollar amount on that, but for some people it's an added bonus.
You could "justify" more vacations to Southern California than you would've otherwise taken without an DL AP, but that's only if money and time are no objects.
Your only options to use the already-purchased tickets is to go to Disneyland and pay for the $1050 Signature Plus pass with your existing 4 day park hopper tickets as 'credit' towards the purchase, then pay the difference between Premier and Signature Plus ($450) to upgrade to Premier. Then you're able to use them at both coasts.
Agree. If you decide to get the Premier Pass, wait until you get to Anaheim. Not sure if this is how it usually works, but I've upgraded tickets in a single transaction before and paid only one charge on my credit card. I'd tell the ticket cast member that you want to get the Premier Passport, and they can figure out the most efficient way to upgrade your 4-day park hopper tickets.
(Edited to correct some info above.)
