Staying offsite - buying theme park tickets?

[Carla1183]

We've booked Wyndham Bonnet Creek for November 2017, is best way to buy tickets the Undercover Tourist or Mouse Savers website? Best timing, or the prices pretty much never change?

And as for "booking" the rest of our trip, do we need to do anything to activate the My Disney Experience stuff to attach dates to our trip in Disney's eyes? Or we just set up an account there, and then at the 30 day mark I can look at what Fast Passes are available? And then the tickets are just a totally separate thing, not really 'activated' until we use them at the gate?

Thanks for the help, our first trip!

 

[Robo]

We've booked Wyndham Bonnet Creek for November 2017, is best way to buy tickets the Undercover Tourist or Mouse Savers website? Best timing, or the prices pretty much never change?

And as for "booking" the rest of our trip,
1. do we need to do anything to activate the My Disney Experience stuff to attach dates to our trip in Disney's eyes?
2. Or we just set up an account there, and then at the 30 day mark I can look at what Fast Passes are available?
3. And then the tickets are just a totally separate thing, not really 'activated' until we use them at the gate?

Thanks for the help, our first trip!

1. Nope.
2. Yup. You can only book EACH FP+ day of your trip individually, as each day becomes "30 days in advance."
3. Yup.

 

[siskaren]

We've booked Wyndham Bonnet Creek for November 2017,

1. is best way to buy tickets the Undercover Tourist or Mouse Savers website? Best timing, or the prices pretty much never change?

2. And as for "booking" the rest of our trip, do we need to do anything to activate the My Disney Experience stuff to attach dates to our trip in Disney's eyes?

3. Or we just set up an account there, and then at the 30 day mark I can look at what Fast Passes are available?

4. And then the tickets are just a totally separate thing, not really 'activated' until we use them at the gate?

Thanks for the help, our first trip!

1. You don't buy tickets from Mousesavers - they just give you links to good deals. Another option to look at is parksavers.com.

2. Nothing needs to be activated - you would just need to link your tickets to your MDE account.

3. Once you get your tickets linked, you can immediately see what Fast Passes are available since your tickets aren't part of a package.

4. The clock doesn't start ticking for using your tickets until you actually enter a park for the first time, if that's what you're asking.

 

[Carla1183]

Thanks! But I do need to link the tickets to MDE, which is what I wasn't sure of. I just went through the steps of signing up for MDE just to see how it worked and it did want me to link tickets, which makes sense

Any reason to wait on tickets to see if deals pop up, or just buy them now? (Or as soon as I can decide what exactly we want - doing 5 day trip, not sure about park hoppers yet).

 

[TinkLoverSam]

You can buy 5 day base tickets and upgrade them to park hoppers once you're there if you decide you need them. You have to have tickets linked to MDE to make fp selections

 

[Carla1183]

oh that may answer the question i put in a whole other thread, good to know we can add park hoppers later if we want to! is it more expensive to do that?

 

[siskaren]

oh that may answer the question i put in a whole other thread, good to know we can add park hoppers later if we want to! is it more expensive to do that?

It costs the same, whether you add it now or later.

 

[dmunsil]

It costs the same, whether you add it now or later.

The discounters almost always discount park hopper tickets more (because the wholesale cost from Disney is at a deeper discount, to the best of my understanding), so in practice it is cheaper to buy park hoppers in advance than to add park hopper later, if you plan to buy from a third-party discount site. The difference is only a few dollars a ticket, so if you really don't think you'll hop, it's probably better to get the non-hopper and then add hopping only if your plans change.

 

[Robo]

1. The discounters almost always discount park hopper tickets more (because the wholesale cost from Disney is at a deeper discount, to the best of my understanding),

2. so in practice it is cheaper to buy park hoppers in advance than to add park hopper later, if you plan to buy from a third-party discount site.

3. The difference is only a few dollars a ticket, so if you really don't think you'll hop, it's probably better to get the non-hopper and then add hopping only if your plans change.

1. That may or may not be the case.
2. Regardless, it is no cheaper to buy the Park Hopper option already ON the discounted ticket than it is to add the Park Hopper option ("upgrade to") once at WDW.
That's because when a guest upgrades a ticket purchased from an authorized discounter, Disney automatically assigns the full current gate price to the discounted ticket
for the purposes of the upgrade.
3. It simply does not matter what the discounter paid Disney for the ticket, or what the guest paid the discounter for the ticket.

 

[dmunsil]

2. Regardless, it is no cheaper to buy the Park Hopper option already ON the discounted ticket than it is to add the Park Hopper option ("upgrade to") once at WDW.
That's because when a guest upgrades a ticket purchased from an authorized discounter, Disney automatically assigns the full current gate price to the discounted ticket
for the purposes of the upgrade.

I wasn't clear. The absolute value of the discount (which you retain, as you correctly note) is different between the two tickets, so the amount you "lock in" is different.

I'll give an example:

5-Day Base Ticket full gate cost: $362.10
5-Day Park Hopper full gate cost: $435.59
Upgrade charge at the park: $73.49

UT 5-day base ticket: $348.59 ($13.51 off gate)
UT 5-day hopper ticket: $413.27 ($22.32 off gate)

Option 1: Buy a 5-day Park Hopper at a discount in advance: $413.27 (save $22.32)
Option 2: Buy a 5-day base ticket at a discount in advance, then upgrade at the park: $348.59 + $73.49 = $422.08 (save $13.51)

So you save roughly $8 by buying the hopper in advance instead of buying a base ticket and upgrading at WDW. I didn't check the other discounters, but every one I've ever looked at has had bigger absolute discounts on hoppers, except when they occasionally run a special on a base ticket but not the equivalent hopper.

 

[cassie58]

If you have the money, I would buy now, as price increase may be coming soon, since last one was Feb. 2016. If you sign up for Mousesavers newsletter(if you haven't already), when it comes out on the 15th, you can use that link to UT for ticket prices, and can compare parksavers rates to see best deal.

 

[Jimsig]

It pay to shop around. For example last night I priced out 6 day non Park Hoppers (2 adult and 1 child) from Disney, Undercover Tourist, and AAA based in New England. By using Disney Gift Cards purchased at Target to get the 5% off using the Red Card it was cheaper to buy right from Disney. It was a savings of $8 total.

However for hoppers it was better to buy from Undercover Tourist and buy a 4 day hopper with 3 free days hopper and the total was $30 then a 6 day hopper from Disney and $52 cheaper then from AAA. It was less that way then buying a regular 6 day hopper.

I second what Cassie said above about the next price increase, they seem to happen in Feb.

 

[MissPrice]

I used Undercover Tourist and got 2 7 day park hoppers. Saved almost 100 dollars than if I were to buy directly from Disney. You just out in the ticket number in My DIsney Experience and go from there. -Amanda

 

[Tomh]

Always compare the discounter prices too, sometimes one of them will be cheaper than the others, and it is not always an insignificant difference.

 

[mitchfishguard]

We've booked Wyndham Bonnet Creek for November 2017, is best way to buy tickets the Undercover Tourist or Mouse Savers website? Best timing, or the prices pretty much never change?

And as for "booking" the rest of our trip, do we need to do anything to activate the My Disney Experience stuff to attach dates to our trip in Disney's eyes? Or we just set up an account there, and then at the 30 day mark I can look at what Fast Passes are available? And then the tickets are just a totally separate thing, not really 'activated' until we use them at the gate?

Thanks for the help, our first trip!

Im coming back to Orlando at last after 7 years away and will be there Nov as well. Ive bought my Universal and Seaworld from UndercoverTourist, but got a ridiculous deal of 14 day ultimate Disney for £300 a head, direct from Disney.

 

[BigredNole]

Im coming back to Orlando at last after 7 years away and will be there Nov as well. Ive bought my Universal and Seaworld from UndercoverTourist, but got a ridiculous deal of 14 day ultimate Disney for £300 a head, direct from Disney.

Europe travelers get insane ticket deals from WDW. Far better than anything we get in the US.