Taking a poll on ticket options

[Doogan]

I'm curious about what options you get on your tickets. For me the "park hopper" is a no-brainer, but I always struggle with whether the "never expires" is a good deal or not and whether to get the "water parks and more" option. I've ended up getting them because we like to take time off from going to parks every day and I hate feeling like I'm loosing those days and we really enjoy the water parks and it's so much cheaper if you get them added on to the ticket.

So, what is your opinion? I know you have one...

 

[kim_o]

I get 7 or 10 day (whichever is the better deal) non expiring park hopper with water parks. I just think it's better to get the discount price for buying more days. We're good about keeping track of our tickets, so the days don't go unused. And by the time I'm ready for my next trip, it feels cheaper since I don't have to buy a ticket (assuming the one from last time isn't used up yet).

 

[Not so Dumbo]

I think it depends on how long you will be down there, if your kids are tall enough for most of the rides at the water parks, and if you will be staying onsite or at a hotel with a great pool.

 

[pjynx]

I think it depends on how much you think you'd use the other features.

The first time we went, we were there for 11 days and we knew that we'd be going to both water parks, so we got park tickets for 8 days with the hopper and "plus" options, knowing that we'd use the plus options a couple days to get us through the remaining days (we spent our first (1/2) day there walking around the boardwalk and DTD so it didn't use up a day on our tickets). The plus options were great because it got us into both water parks and we even went to DisneyQuest one evening. We didn't really care for DisneyQuest so I doubt we'll go again.

This time, we're only going for 9 days. We *might* go to a water park, but we're not sure. The pool at our resort looks nice enough, we may just hang out there. But even if we do go to a water park, it would only be for 1 day, not 2, like last time. The "plus" option on the tickets is $50 each. Water park passes are less than that. Not much less for an adult, but I think $10-15 less for a child. So since we'd only be going to ONE water park at most, it doesn't make sense for us to get the "plus" option. If we feel like going to a water park, we'll just pay for those tickets.

We always get the hopper option, just because we don't want to plan our days in excrutiating detail. We make ADR's for dinner each night and we somewhat pay attention to EMH's, but having hoppers gives us the flexability that we prefer.

We don't get non-expiring tickets because when we go, we go for over a week at a time, yet there's a few years in-between each trip. I'm not sure I'd be able to keep track of them for 3 years, and we'd still have to add more days for every subsequent trip.

 

[hbehrman]

We always get the "No expiration" option because we will be back and I am very organized with our tickets.

Trip one (Sept 2006)
- free dining and MNSSHP
- Me, DW, twin DD4
- 7 day tickets NOE, Hopping and Water Parks
Used 3 theme park admissions, no "plusses" (WP), and really felt that hopping was useless for the kids this age. Hopped twice with sleeping kids at the arrival of the second park.

Trip Two (Sept 2007)
- free dining and MNSSHP
- Me, DW, twin DD4, DS2
- 1 Base ticket unused to get free dining package and it will be redeemed in future for a 10 day NOE park hopping ticket (when the kids are older)
- Used 2 theme park admissions, and 1 "pluses" (WP) for me and twin DD5 from last years, no hopping was done
- My wife and I each had a hopping ticket from our 1994 Honeymoon (none of them expired) so we each had a day with our son by ourselves in the parks, and a day alone with our daughters to do something just with them (I took them to a water park)

Upcoming Trip (August-Sept 2008)
- free dining (is this a pattern, this will be the last year of this for us though due to the girls starting kindergarten)
- Me, DW, twin DD6, DS3
- 10 day, NOE and Water parks

I always get the water park because if you think of it as a day of activity (which is how we use it) it is cheaper per day for the tickets than without it. Same logic for the 10 day pass. 10 day pass with WP means 20 days of fun in Florida. (note in 2006 the 7 day with water parks yielded the most water parks for the least amount, that is 7-10 day tickets all gave 7 pluses, only in 2007 did #day=#pluses). They may have made that retroactive for non-expiring tickets.