Should we buy longer non-expiring WDW passes to save for future visits?

[007003s]

My wife and I ( ~30 year-old Canadians) will be spending 3 days at WDW next week (Feb 17-18-19 at Epcot-MGM-MK). We are wondering about buying a 7-day non-expiring Magic Your Way ticket (or even 10-day) rather than a 3-day ticket given the relatively small price difference between the two ($192.77 vs. $270.51 vs. $329.09 for 3/7/10-day non-park hopper, no plus options). We expect to return to WDW but we have no idea when - could be 5-10 years!

Has anyone else decided to do this? What ticket package did you select?

 

[AnimeArtist]

well if you really want to then go for it. but be sure to add the non-expire option to your hopper b4 u leave! the prices seem to go up every year however with the new tickets i am not sure that this is going to be happening anymore. however you can always buy tickets at a Disney store and then once u get to the parks add the non-expire option onto it because this cannot be done in the stores. either way your safe. if you see the tickets going up just grab 'em b4. they only expire 14 days after the first use so in theory u could by them now and not use them for a few years.

 

[lilsonicfan]

This is a question we're facing too.... we aren't going to be back at WDW within a year, I'm guessing, so AP's are out. We'll probably use about 5 days this time around, so I might just even it out and buy a 10 day.... but I don't know if my soon-to-be-hubby will even enjoy WDW!

 

[Helene]

I am definitely planning to buy the 10 day magic plus with the no expiration option. Given that the per day price drops to less that $30 pp per day, I look at it as saving 50% off the gate price. It will cost me a little over $1400 for 4 tickets (2A, 2C), but we go every year and may actually squeeze 3 trips from those 10 day "plus" tickets.

Have fun on your trip,
Helene

 

[swilphil]

I bought the 10 day no-expire, park hoppers. We will use 5-6 days this trip and save the rest for later. I found that it saved us a lot of money. On Ticketmania, the 10 day no expire is $340 and the 5 day parkhopper is $228. With the 10 day ticket, you can look it as buying a second 5 day park hopper for the next trip for only $112 or as buying two 5-day park hoppers for $170 each. That's not taking into account the future rise in ticket prices. The only problem is I don't know for sure how many days I want my next trip to be, and I may want to book a package in the future.

 

[calena]

I would buy the longer passes. We went last year and bought 5 day park hoppers. We didn't realize we would love it so much we would be back this year! So, this time I bought 7 day base tickets and will upgrade to no expiry at the parks. We still have one "plus" on our old park hoppers so will use that for Blizzard Beach. I read the UG recommends not buying the no expiry because most people don't use the tickets again, so it depends on how organized you are I guess (i.e. don't lose them).

 

[nicknamy1996]

We did the AP thing for trips Feb. 2003 and Jan. 2004. The next time (hopefully early next year) I plan to do the 10 day non expiring tickets and stretch them in to 2 trips, it will be a little cheaper and we are not required to go back within the year or lose the benefit (savings) The only problem is that with the APs we kept adding days to our trip and also we were able to go to the park for a couple of hours and be happy with that. So I am worried that this trip, if we scale it down to 5 days, may seem too short. But I will not pass up on the 10 day savings.

I guess two other options would be to use 6 or 7 of the days and have 3 or 4 left over and then see about doing the same next time around (I'm sure tickets will be different by then though) But if we were to do it again we could stretch 2 sets of 10 day tickets in to 3 trips (7 days, 7 days, and 6 days) But... the other option would be to plan a trip in a couple of years for 3(or 4) days at disney and the balance at one of the other parks or a Disney cruise.

 

[nicknamy1996]

calena did you price the difference from 7 to 10 days? If you are already paying for the non expire option you may want to seriously consider adding the 3 days to your tickets.

 

[Disneycrazymom]

You guys have me thinking! DH says that is always bad news! We are going to the parks for 7 days this year and I was planning on the 7 day hopper the expires. In 06 we are doing a 7 day cruise , if I add on the extra 3 days we could do a park before and 2 after the cruise. Now that is a great idea!!!! Dh will certainly at this little plan, but he loves me so . the only bad part is our cruise ends July 1 so that would mean the parks over 4th July. Thanks for the idea!

 

[poohj80]

We are dealing with a similar issue right now. We usually buy APs and with the new DVC discount they are more affordable. However, we currently have a short weekend trip planned next month plus the week after Thanksgiving but nothing in between since we're going to DL for the 50th in May. I would hate to lose 8 months of park time on an AP so am considering buying the non-expiring 10 day MYW passes instead. However, we also like the perks of the AP (room discounts, WoD discount, etc). We're leaning toward buying the AP because it's easier to justify a quick unplanned trip if the parks are already paid for plus if we buy the MYW passes I'm worried we'll be stingy with our days and not want to use them if we'll only be in a park a few hours each day. We've been spoiled by the flexibility of the APs and I just don't know if we can go back to budgeting days.

 

[westjones]

We expect to return to WDW but we have no idea when - could be 5-10 years!

Normally, I would agree and say buy the longer nonexpiring tickets. But if you don't think you will be going back for 5-10 years, I don't think I would do it. That is a long time to keep track of your tickets and who knows what will be going on that far out.

We go at least every other year (and lately it has been every year), so the nonexpiring tickets work best for us. In your case I would really think hard about doing this if you don't think you will be going back for that long.

DJ

 

[Donnask8pro]

If you get to the park and decide to upgrade to non expiring tickets do you have to do this on the first day or wait until your last day there and then upgrade? Make sense????

 

[doubletrouble_vb]

We are dealing with a similar issue right now. We usually buy APs and with the new DVC discount they are more affordable. However, we currently have a short weekend trip planned next month plus the week after Thanksgiving but nothing in between since we're going to DL for the 50th in May. I would hate to lose 8 months of park time on an AP so am considering buying the non-expiring 10 day MYW passes instead. However, we also like the perks of the AP (room discounts, WoD discount, etc). We're leaning toward buying the AP because it's easier to justify a quick unplanned trip if the parks are already paid for plus if we buy the MYW passes I'm worried we'll be stingy with our days and not want to use them if we'll only be in a park a few hours each day. We've been spoiled by the flexibility of the APs and I just don't know if we can go back to budgeting days.

Without using the other benefits of the AP remember your break even is at 11 days. That said I bought a PAP but I shouldn't have because I've discovered I have 6 plusses sitting around on old cards.

 

[poohj80]

Without using the other benefits of the AP remember your break even is at 11 days. That said I bought a PAP but I shouldn't have because I've discovered I have 6 plusses sitting around on old cards.

The break even point is a bit less with the DVC discount and we don't plan to get the PAP.

 

[disneysteve]

We're definitely buying 10-day non-expiring tickets. That will save us a bundle. The new MYW tickets are so much cheaper than the old tickets if you do it right. When the new tickets first came out, I figured out that we will save over $550 on our next 2 trips with the new tickets. Can't argue with that. And there are only 3 of us. For larger families the savings would be even more.

 

[seashoreCM]

So long as you know you will be back, it is hard to go wrong by keeping on buying 10 day non-expiring passes. In a few cases an expiring 7 day or expiring 10 day pass will work better.

You do have to be careful when you use the leftovers. YOu definitely do not want to use the remains of an old pass and also buy a new short pass to finish the vacation.

For each vacation either plan it using all old passes or plan it using no old passes. Then use an old pass only to avoid the purchase of a 1, 2, or 3 day pass.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[Trixiezzz]

So long as you know you will be back, it is hard to go wrong by keeping on buying 10 day non-expiring passes. In a few cases an expiring 7 day or expiring 10 day pass will work better.

You do have to be careful when you use the leftovers. YOu definitely do not want to use the remains of an old pass and also buy a new short pass to finish the vacation.

For each vacation either plan it using all old passes or plan it using no old passes. Then use an old pass only to avoid the purchase of a 1, 2, or 3 day pass.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

I've got a question about using an old pass on a trip where you've purchased new tickets:

We have 3 days left on a Park Hopper. This year we really only "hopped" one day: and that was to go to Epcot for Illuminations after going to another park during the day.

So... I was thinking of this:

1) Buy new NON-HOPPER tickets to use on all of the rest of the park days.

THEN-

2) Use one day of my old Park Hopper for the ONE day we want to hop.

Would this be a cost-effective way? Would it be cheaper than having to add the Hopper feature to the entire multi-day pass when all we need is a single day?

Let me know what you think.

THANKS!

 

[seashoreCM]

Actually yes in a few cases!

A six day pass costs three more dollars than a five day pass. If you want to hop for just one out of six days using your old pass you save $3. by buying the five day expiring pass instead of the six day expiring pass and also save $37. by not buying park hopping for the new pass. So the day you consumed off of the old pass gave you $40. of value which is not bad. I overlooked that possibility.

Now let's say you want to hop on two out of six days. A 4 day new pass costs $12. less than a 6 day new pass. You save the cost of hopping, $37. too for an immediate total savings of $49. You consume two days off of the old pass instead. Now the old pass gave you a value of $25. per day.

(If you used the old pass with 3 days on a vacation consisting of exactly 3 days, you get $60. of value for each day, but not everyone's vacation schedule matches this possibility.)

 

[Beherenow]

We will not be buying the 10 day base non-expire and here is the reasoning why:

We were in a dilemma like you about 6 or 7 days each trip that will expire vs. the 10 that won't for 2 separate trips. If you purchase each trip separately and let them expire, then you are not locking-in the $100 per person as an investment into the unknown future trips. By the time you add up the non-expire cost to the extra 3 day cost it is $36ish dollars per day for the last three days. If you buy a 7 day base MYW and let them expire, the cost per day is roughly $28ish dollars per day. If you know you will not be returning within the year or two, why would you want to want to tie-up your cash? There are more better returns elsewhere. If the weather turns bad for more than a two days, you can save the unused days for just $50 and it would still be cheaper per day. At least this is my logic.

 

[nicknamy1996]

Trixiezzz, That is exactly what I posted when they came out with these tickets. I think that is the situation that will work out best for a lot of people. If I had a hopper with some days left I would definitely buy a ticket w/o hopping and use up the hoppers on hopping days only.