Priority entrance pass - EXPLAINED

[Dizneefamily+4]

Ok, long story short, after some problems we encountered during last year's trip to the world, we received 4 1-day park passes with hoppers and 4 "priority entrance passes" that we can redeem at guest services anytime through 2031. We just spontaneously planned a short 5 day trip for August (we were supposed to stay at the Poly again, but have postponed that trip to Aug. 2013 when we can stay longer.)

So, my question is, does anyone know what a priority entrance pass exactly is? I did a quick internet search and came up with a post on the DIS from 2006 that said that they basically were like an immediate fp - you put your "special" card into the fp machine at say 12:00 and it spits out the fp good for anytime between 12:00 - 1:00. And you can go right into the fast pass line. At that time, the poster said that each one of their cards was good for 2 Fast Passes. Does anyone know if this is accurate and if it still works this way?

I do have a call in the cm that sent us the information, but thought I'd try the experts here while waiting for that call back! TIA!

 

[mesaboy2]

Ok, long story short, after some problems we encountered during last year's trip to the world, we received 4 1-day park passes with hoppers and 4 "priority entrance passes" that we can redeem at guest services anytime through 2031. We just spontaneously planned a short 5 day trip for August (we were supposed to stay at the Poly again, but have postponed that trip to Aug. 2013 when we can stay longer.)

So, my question is, does anyone know what a priority entrance pass exactly is? I did a quick internet search and came up with a post on the DIS from 2006 that said that they basically were like an immediate fp - you put your "special" card into the fp machine at say 12:00 and it spits out the fp good for anytime between 12:00 - 1:00. And you can go right into the fast pass line. At that time, the poster said that each one of their cards was good for 2 Fast Passes. Does anyone know if this is accurate and if it still works this way?

I do have a call in the cm that sent us the information, but thought I'd try the experts here while waiting for that call back! TIA!

I've not heard that exact terminology before, but I received a couple of "attraction re-entry passes" in recent weeks due to ride closures. They function in the same way you describe from the 2006 thread, except they were one-for-one and good for a matter of days, not years.

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

Just to clarify - once we redeem the 1 day park pass and the priority entrance pass, that's it. The 2031 expiration date is just that we have until then to redeem them - not that we get to continue using them until then (although how cool would THAT be?!! )

We've gotten the ride re-entry passes before too due to ride closures, so maybe they DO work like that. We'll see what our friendly neighborhood CM says when he calls back!

 

[bwang123]

we had immediate use fastpasses on our past trip. they worked as you described above, arrive at the fast pass booth at 9am and get a fast pass good for 9am to 10am (no matter the posted return times). each card was good for 3 fast passes.

 

[mesaboy2]

Just to clarify - once we redeem the 1 day park pass and the priority entrance pass, that's it. The 2031 expiration date is just that we have until then to redeem them - not that we get to continue using them until then (although how cool would THAT be?!! )

We've gotten the ride re-entry passes before too due to ride closures, so maybe they DO work like that. We'll see what our friendly neighborhood CM says when he calls back!

That would be cool for sure. And lead me to ask what they messed up so badly for you. (I don't really care to know since it isn't.)

Yes, I'd be interested to know the answer myself so I could add it to my mental files.

 

[jn0662]

We had this last trip (priority entrance)--

What it is is a pice of paper (we had 6 passes so 6 piecies of paper). On them, the lady at guest services will write how large your party is (we had a party of 6 so she wrote 6). Then we took them to the fastpass que area and showed it to the attendent, the attendent then took the pass and counted the number of people (6) and let us in the fast pass line. It was pretty cool, there was no set time. I will post a picture later today once I get back to the home computer!

Have a fun, safe trip!

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

That would be cool for sure. And lead me to ask what they messed up so badly for you. (I don't really care to know since it isn't.)

Yes, I'd be interested to know the answer myself so I could add it to my mental files.

It was a room issue and a transportation issue. I don't want to go into detail as I don't want this post to devolve into the old flame-able discussion of people "getting" things from Disney by complaining. In fact, in our case, we didn't complain while we were there (other than what it took to have our room moved due to the room issue.) We called after the fact just to let Disney know the issue so it could be handled differently in the future. We WERE NOT looking for them to give us anything special at all. It truly didn't inconvenience us all that much - and we re-iterated that several times in our conversation with this particular cm.

I think that Disney now feels as though they must compensate everyone for everything. As a matter of fact, when we were scheduling this trip and talking with the reservation cm, it came up that we were trying to schedule our flight to coincide with our son's appointment at Children's Hospital because the Milwaukee airport is so close to it and we have to be there anyway (Milwaukee is cheaper to fly from than Green Bay, but it's a 2 hour drive, so if we're going to be there anyway....) The cm said to make sure that we tell them when we book so they can do something magical for our son since he'd be at Children's Hospital. In NO WAY will be taking them up on that. Our ds has stomach issues that he sees a pediatric gastroenterologist for. He's currently on a medication for it and has to be seen every 6 months while he's on it. The ped gastro that he sees happens to have her office at Children's Hospital (not too many of these specialists at regular clinics around WI.) So, he's seeing her as a maintenance visit, not anything serious. There's no way we would try to milk Disney based on that!

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

We had this last trip (priority entrance)--

What it is is a pice of paper (we had 6 passes so 6 piecies of paper). On them, the lady at guest services will write how large your party is (we had a party of 6 so she wrote 6). Then we took them to the fastpass que area and showed it to the attendent, the attendent then took the pass and counted the number of people (6) and let us in the fast pass line. It was pretty cool, there was no set time. I will post a picture later today once I get back to the home computer!

Have a fun, safe trip!

Now THAT is cool! That one day we get to use this for will be awesome! Thanks for the response!

 

[Cheshire Figment]

One thing about the One Day Hopper Passes. Since they are Complimentary they cannot be upgraded or modified in any way, and so if you are going for five days I would suggest that they all be used by one person.

Here is the math reason why (all prices below are for an adult and not including tax).

A one day base ticket is $89 ($124 including hopping), but these tickets are worth $0.00.

A four-day hopper costs $313 and a five day hopper is $325. The difference is only $12.00.

If you buy three five-day hoppers and a one-day hopper it will cost $1,099. (Three five-day hoppers plus a one-day base would be $1,064.)

If you had each person use a one day complimentary hopper, you would then have to buy four four-day hoppers and spend $1,252 total.

So it would save over $150 to have one person use the four comps.

Isn't Disney Math wonderful?

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

we had immediate use fastpasses on our past trip. they worked as you described above, arrive at the fast pass booth at 9am and get a fast pass good for 9am to 10am (no matter the posted return times). each card was good for 3 fast passes.

Thanks for the re-affirmation of the info from the 2006 post!

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

One thing about the One Day Hopper Passes. Since they are Complimentary they cannot be upgraded or modified in any way, and so if you are going for five days I would suggest that they all be used by one person.

Here is the math reason why (all prices below are for an adult and not including tax).

A one day base ticket is $89 ($124 including hopping), but these tickets are worth $0.00.

A four-day hopper costs $313 and a five day hopper is $325. The difference is only $12.00.

If you buy three five-day hoppers and a one-day hopper it will cost $1,099. (Three five-day hoppers plus a one-day base would be $1,064.)

If you had each person use a one day complimentary hopper, you would then have to buy four four-day hoppers and spend $1,252 total.

So it would save over $150 to have one person use the four comps.

Isn't Disney Math wonderful?

Thanks Cheshire! Regular math is hard enough for me (thank goodness I'm married to a high school math teacher!) Disney math - ugh!

 

[Traveliz]

One thing about the One Day Hopper Passes. Since they are Complimentary they cannot be upgraded or modified in any way, and so if you are going for five days I would suggest that they all be used by one person.

Here is the math reason why (all prices below are for an adult and not including tax).

A one day base ticket is $89 ($124 including hopping), but these tickets are worth $0.00.

A four-day hopper costs $313 and a five day hopper is $325. The difference is only $12.00.

If you buy three five-day hoppers and a one-day hopper it will cost $1,099. (Three five-day hoppers plus a one-day base would be $1,064.)

If you had each person use a one day complimentary hopper, you would then have to buy four four-day hoppers and spend $1,252 total.

So it would save over $150 to have one person use the four comps.

Isn't Disney Math wonderful?

That is exactly what we did a year ago when one person had won four tickets at a charity event. It worked perfect to have the one person use all four and the others used a variety of other ways to enter.

Liz

 

[mesaboy2]

It was a room issue and a transportation issue.

Seriously didn't care to know, but glad that Disney took care of you. Totally understand your thinking.

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

We had this last trip (priority entrance)--

What it is is a pice of paper (we had 6 passes so 6 piecies of paper). On them, the lady at guest services will write how large your party is (we had a party of 6 so she wrote 6). Then we took them to the fastpass que area and showed it to the attendent, the attendent then took the pass and counted the number of people (6) and let us in the fast pass line. It was pretty cool, there was no set time. I will post a picture later today once I get back to the home computer!

Have a fun, safe trip!

It willl be intersteding to hear the CM's comment on this one (and after your trip if what they told you was actually true), the procedure the PP stated above is what i have seen the past few years in the park. The card to use in the FP machine would be awesome and streamline the process but I havn't seen alot of those mentioned and over than DVC sales pitches havn't seen one used in a while.

This just reminds me of how much I loved GAD FP cards and wish they would bring that back.

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

We had this last trip (priority entrance)--

What it is is a pice of paper (we had 6 passes so 6 piecies of paper). On them, the lady at guest services will write how large your party is (we had a party of 6 so she wrote 6). Then we took them to the fastpass que area and showed it to the attendent, the attendent then took the pass and counted the number of people (6) and let us in the fast pass line. It was pretty cool, there was no set time. I will post a picture later today once I get back to the home computer!

Have a fun, safe trip!

My dh just got off the phone with the cm - he basically explained it just like it worked for the above poster. Of course, my dh didn't ask if there is a limit - like is it a 2-time use? 3-time use? unlimited use? So, I guess we'll just find out when we get there and report back.

Seriously didn't care to know, but glad that Disney took care of you. Totally understand your thinking.

It willl be intersteding to hear the CM's comment on this one (and after your trip if what they told you was actually true), the procedure the PP stated above is what i have seen the past few years in the park. The card to use in the FP machine would be awesome and streamline the process but I havn't seen alot of those mentioned and over than DVC sales pitches havn't seen one used in a while.

This just reminds me of how much I loved GAD FP cards and wish they would bring that back.

ITA! And it will definitely be interesting to see if what the cm (who originally granted us these passes) just told us is how it will actually work. Like I said, we'll report after the fact - we go in early August.

Thanks again for all the replies!

 

[Traveliz]

My dh just got off the phone with the cm - he basically explained it just like it worked for the above poster. Of course, my dh didn't ask if there is a limit - like is it a 2-time use? 3-time use? unlimited use? So, I guess we'll just find out when we get there and report back.





ITA! And it will definitely be interesting to see if what the cm (who originally granted us these passes) just told us is how it will actually work. Like I said, we'll report after the fact - we go in early August.

Thanks again for all the replies!

My daughter is a CM on some of the busier FP attractions. I will see if she knows if there is a limit and report back.

Liz

 

[jn0662]

For us it was one time use, there were times where the cm forgot to take the pass and we used it again (2 or three times actually)!

Also, just a heads up, we were able to break it up and use half ours one day in MK and the other half in HS another day. We just asked at guest relations if we could break it up and they said sure. Not sure if you would be intrested!

Also, do not want to be in your business, but I read about your son! I would def tell disney, he (and all of you) is more than deserving of what disney may do. Regardless of being OK like he is--I am in the medical field and whenever a kid has to visit the hospital more than once, it is a scary expierince for them (and I am sure all of you). Hopefully they can do something special for all of you. Who cares what others think, they have no clue what that is like! And do not think of it as milking disney, you paid for it! Good luck and have a safe trip. I will post the picture of that pass once I find it!

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

My daughter is a CM on some of the busier FP attractions. I will see if she knows if there is a limit and report back.

Liz

Thank you!

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

For us it was one time use, there were times where the cm forgot to take the pass and we used it again (2 or three times actually)!

Also, just a heads up, we were able to break it up and use half ours one day in MK and the other half in HS another day. We just asked at guest relations if we could break it up and they said sure. Not sure if you would be intrested!

Also, do not want to be in your business, but I read about your son! I would def tell disney, he (and all of you) is more than deserving of what disney may do. Regardless of being OK like he is--I am in the medical field and whenever a kid has to visit the hospital more than once, it is a scary expierince for them (and I am sure all of you). Hopefully they can do something special for all of you. Who cares what others think, they have no clue what that is like! And do not think of it as milking disney, you paid for it! Good luck and have a safe trip. I will post the picture of that pass once I find it!

Thanks for the heads up about breaking the pass up between parks! Since we'll have the hopper, that would be great! I'll watch for the picture of the pass! Thanks again!

 

[Dizneefamily+4]

OP here. We just got back from our trip, and I've now got an explanation on what exactly priority entrance passes are. Basically, when we redeem them (we opted to wait until our trip NEXT August to use these), each of us get 4 fast passes to be used on any ride at any time during that day. Since there are 4 of us, we get 16 fast passes. If all 4 of us choose to go on the same rides together, then we essentially get 4 fast passed rides. We don't have to do it that way. We could choose to let our kids go on, say, EE together (while we use the chicken exit) in which case they'd get to fast pass it 8 times total. Make sense?

Given the fact that they are now enforcing the fast pass return times, these passes will be like gold on next year's trip ! While we still were able to use the regular fast pass system this trip, we did find ourselves criss-crossing the parks SO much more than we had in the past. That made for some tired legs by the end of our short trip!