Southern California Resident Ticket Discount 2018

[PippensMcGee]

Hi everyone,

I want to ask for your advice. My family and I will be traveling to southern California in January to visit my family (I'm from there, though no longer live there). We are planning to visit the parks on January 10th and 11th.

I know for the past several years DLR has offered Southern California Resident discount specials starting in January. It looks like last year it started January 9th so I assume this year it will start being offered on January 8th... which is dangerously close to our visit. I understand my husband, daughter, and I might not be able to get the Southern California Resident discount, but my parents and sister can (we are all going to Disney together), and it's a significant savings, even if we only go two days and not 3.

It feels weird to not have purchased our Disney tickets in the couple of weeks leading up to our visit... so my question is this: is there any disadvantage to waiting until a day or two before out visit to buy tickets? I definitely do not want to buy them on site, but we could get electronic tickets up until the day before, right? That way we can wait to see if they offer a discount to S. CA residents this year?

And on that note, does anyone have any intel on whether they will be offering a deal? My mom called the ticketing office yesterday but the CM didn't know anything (or played dumb).

 

[Geemo]

Hi everyone,

I want to ask for your advice. My family and I will be traveling to southern California in January to visit my family (I'm from there, though no longer live there). We are planning to visit the parks on January 10th and 11th.

I know for the past several years DLR has offered Southern California Resident discount specials starting in January. It looks like last year it started January 9th so I assume this year it will start being offered on January 8th... which is dangerously close to our visit. I understand my husband, daughter, and I might not be able to get the Southern California Resident discount, but my parents and sister can (we are all going to Disney together), and it's a significant savings, even if we only go two days and not 3.

It feels weird to not have purchased our Disney tickets in the couple of weeks leading up to our visit... so my question is this: is there any disadvantage to waiting until a day or two before out visit to buy tickets? I definitely do not want to buy them on site, but we could get electronic tickets up until the day before, right? That way we can wait to see if they offer a discount to S. CA residents this year?

And on that note, does anyone have any intel on whether they will be offering a deal? My mom called the ticketing office yesterday but the CM didn't know anything (or played dumb).

Keep in mind the CM may ask to see ID for proof of residency to match up with the type of ticket you are using for entrance.
Similar to the Military ticket verification.
If you do not have a SoCal ID it might be an issue.

 

[PippensMcGee]

Keep in mind the CM may ask to see ID for proof of residency to match up with the type of ticket you are using for entrance.
Similar to the Military ticket verification.
If you do not have a SoCal ID it might be an issue.

Thanks. Sorry if I was not clear: I will be going with family members who are southern California residents--they would be the ones using the tickets. My husband and I would be using "regular" tickets (unless we determine that friends and family can buy tickets for non-residents in 2018... which I doubt will be the case).

There will be 5 adults going (and one 2.5 year old). 3 of the 5 adults live in Orange County or Long Beach.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

I can confirm that last year they were very strict about checking ID for proof of Southern California residency within the approved zip codes. Our friends were one number out of the zip codes and they were denied.

 

[PippensMcGee]

I appreciate everyone's input, however, I think my question is getting lost. I don't have a question as to whether the discount applies to me or my family. My question is:

Is there any reason I should purchase full price tickets now, rather than wait to see what the 2018 California resident discount looks like? There will likely only be a day or two from when the discount is announced/goes into effect, and our visit.

 

[msteddom]

I appreciate everyone's input, however, I think my question is getting lost. I don't have a question as to whether the discount applies to me or my family. My question is:

Is there any reason I should purchase full price tickets now, rather than wait to see what the 2018 California resident discount looks like? There will likely only be a day or two from when the discount is announced/goes into effect, and our visit.

I don't see any reason why you should purchase tickets now. A price increase between now and early January is highly unlikely. I would just wait and see.

Melissa

 

[PippensMcGee]

I don't see any reason why you should purchase tickets now. A price increase between now and early January is highly unlikely. I would just wait and see.

Melissa

Wonderful, thanks!

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

I appreciate everyone's input, however, I think my question is getting lost. I don't have a question as to whether the discount applies to me or my family. My question is:

Is there any reason I should purchase full price tickets now, rather than wait to see what the 2018 California resident discount looks like? There will likely only be a day or two from when the discount is announced/goes into effect, and our visit.

I guess the answer is there is no KNOWN reason for you to purchase or not purchase your tickets right now. Disney just suspended sales of the southern California annual pass again. That's just a piece of data but not necessarily related. Will they still offer the southern California resident discount tickets this year? No one knows yet as no announcements have been made. Will it hurt your relatives to wait in the hopes of purchasing these tickets if they do become available during the right timeframe? No unless there is a ticket price increase between now and then and the southern California resident tickets are also not offered. We don't know if there will be a ticket price increase because Disney doesn't usually announce that more than a day or so ahead of time if at all. That's not necessarily a typical time for a price increase so you can hedge on that. I think prices increased in February last year.

 

[PippensMcGee]

I guess the answer is there is no KNOWN reason for you to purchase or not purchase your tickets right now. Disney just suspended sales of the southern California annual pass again. That's just a piece of data but not necessarily related. Will they still offer the southern California resident discount tickets this year? No one knows yet as no announcements have been made. Will it hurt your relatives to wait in the hopes of purchasing these tickets if they do become available during the right timeframe? No unless there is a ticket price increase between now and then and the southern California resident tickets are also not offered. We don't know if there will be a ticket price increase because Disney doesn't usually announce that more than a day or so ahead of time if at all. That's not necessarily a typical time for a price increase so you can hedge on that. I think prices increased in February last year.

Great--thanks! I just wanted to check here in case there were things that the Disney "experts" knew that I didn't

 

[PippensMcGee]

Related question (sort of): if you buy straight from disney.com, does Disneyland issue a physical ticket if you buy online anymore? Or is it all electronic?

 

[ashley0139]

Related question (sort of): if you buy straight from disney.com, does Disneyland issue a physical ticket if you buy online anymore? Or is it all electronic?

You get a physical ticket printed out when you enter the park if you use the app or an email to enter.

 

[PippensMcGee]

You get a physical ticket printed out when you enter the park if you use the app or an email to enter.

Perfect--thanks for your quick response!

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

I appreciate everyone's input, however, I think my question is getting lost. I don't have a question as to whether the discount applies to me or my family. My question is:

Is there any reason I should purchase full price tickets now, rather than wait to see what the 2018 California resident discount looks like? There will likely only be a day or two from when the discount is announced/goes into effect, and our visit.

Since some family members won't be needing a SoCal ticket you could buy the tickets for the non-residents now and wait on the SoCal family members to see if the offer will come available again.

 

[ButterflyKisses77]

Honestly I doubt they’ll be offering the SoCal Resident offer again any time soon, just because they just stopped the SoCal Select passes in attempt to cut back on crowds. So it wouldn’t make sense to offer another discount when the parks are already so crowded all the time.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

Honestly I doubt they’ll be offering the SoCal Resident offer again any time soon, just because they just stopped the SoCal Select passes in attempt to cut back on crowds. So it wouldn’t make sense to offer another discount when the parks are already so crowded all the time.

Did Disney actually say that they were stopping SoCal passes in an effort to cut crowds? I wonder if there could be another reason, like an effort to sell more deluxe passes rather than SoCal passes.

 

[PippensMcGee]

Yes, all good things to keep in mind. I'd love to save money, but if they don't offer the discount, perhaps the crowds will be thinner...

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Look on Mousesavers.com to see if there are any deals in the meantime for all of you that could save even the non-CA residents some money on tickets. There may be some good holiday deals out there now where the tickets won't expire until well after your trip dates. Also check Last Minute Travel. (Membership codes for that site are easily found through Google.)

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

Did Disney actually say that they were stopping SoCal passes in an effort to cut crowds? I wonder if there could be another reason, like an effort to sell more deluxe passes rather than SoCal passes.

Yeah, your thinking matches my thinking. I figure Disney knows they are going to sell enough tickets and more expensive passes without having to offer the SoCal passes and that's why they suspended them. It's us the customers who would love to see lower crowds during our visits, not the bean counters at Disney. That said, they have offered that Southern California resident discount ticket in the past during times that didn't make any sense to someone like me looking in from the outside. Since it's a short-term promotion maybe they still find value in using it to pack people into every last bit of space.

 

[PippensMcGee]

Look on Mousesavers.com to see if there are any deals in the meantime for all of you that could save even the non-CA residents some money on tickets. There may be some good holiday deals out there now where the tickets won't expire until well after your trip dates. Also check Last Minute Travel. (Membership codes for that site are easily found through Google.)

Thanks for the tips! I have checked mousesavers but not recently, so I'll check again and I'll look at Last Minute Travel, too! Part of the problem is that we're only planning to do 2 days, and I haven't seen (m)any deals offered on such a short visit.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

If you have a Target RedCard you can buy a two-day ticket at Target and get 5% off.