Ticket Question - Special Ticket - Youth Group / Dance The Magic

[speedyf]

I have a question about our tickets received through Dance the Magic. My child will be participating in various events this week with Dance the Magic including the taping of the ABC Christmas parade next weekend. We are arriving late Tuesday night and we leave Sunday in the late afternoon.

We originally planned on going to the parks on Weds, Thurs, Fri, and Sat. (4 days) because the taping of the parade was supposed to be on Sat. We were going to go to Downtown Disney and visit resorts on Sunday morning.

We purchased a 4 day hopper through the group for $250 each. Now that they have changed the taping date to Sunday morning for the parade, we would like to add a day to our tickets to see our child perform.

Does anyone know what the procedure would be for doing this?

I am very familiar with upgrading tickets as I have purchased discount tickets in the past and upgraded them to DVC annual passes. I know that you must use one day of the ticket first before upgrading to get the maximum benefit and keep your discount. I am wondering if these tickets are the same.

My ticket shows: "4 DAY PARK HOPPER - YM"

I read Cheshire's post on tickets and it seems that these tickets may fall under the #5 category of "Tickets not available to the general public". Based on the information in this post, it seems like we would need to visit Shades of Green to get our tickets upgraded. Does anyone have any experience with upgrading these "youth group" tickets? Does anyone have any specific experience with this "Dance the Magic" group and the associated tickets?

Thanks in advance for any help....

Speedy

 

[vicki_c]

I am under the impression that these Youth group tickets are not usually upgradeable. But I don't know why you would go to Shades of Green if they were, are they some kind of special military youth tickets? It didn't sound like it and I've never heard of anything like that. (I did not go back and look at the ticket sticky piece you referenced, sorry don't have time this morning).

 

[speedyf]

Here is a link to the post...just in case anyone wants to check it out:
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=18654301&postcount=5

The bottom of the post #5 states:
"There are special reduced price tickets called "YES", which stands for Youth Educational Series. These are available for preformed groups, usually either school groups or teams participating in events at Disney's Wide World of Sports. These may be base, hopper and/or WPF&M but not No Expire. They are valid only for specific dates. They may be used both by chaperones as well as students/team members. Very often for control purposes the chaperones will hold on to the tickets to effectively prevent the students from leaving the park after entry, so these tickets do not require finger scans.

There are tickets similar to MYW tickets sold at various military bases and at Shades of Green. These not only are discounted, but Florida Sales Tax is not charged. Because of their special tax-exempt status they cannot be upgraded or modified in any way at ticket booths or Guest Relations Offices. However, they can be modified or upgraded at Shades of Green. If one of these tickets has become demagnetized they can be reissued at any WDW location."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tickets are not military, but they are "like" military because of their tax free status and discount. Then, based on post #22, it looks like they won't price bridge the ticket anyway...so, I would have to pay the different between the discounted ticket (I think I paid $250 for a 4 day hopper) and a regular price 5 day hopper ($387.66 on the website) for a difference of $137.66 per ticket x 4 for each member of my family. I would be better off getting a 1 day non-hopper ticket for $105.44.

I guess it is what it is....I just wanted to make sure I don't mess up by using the ticket when I should have upgraded first...or upgrade first when I should have used the ticket first.

Here is the quote from post #22:
3. Deeply Discounted Tickets

"These are normally special tickets that cannot be purchased at a ticket window but require an advance purchase. They tend to be sold through Group Sales. Generally it includes the Y.E.S. program, bands, sport teams and conventions. If a ticket has a "not valid before" date on it, or a "not valid after" date (or both) it falls into this category. Other indications are the ticket says YOUTH, SPORT, YES, After 2:00 or After 4:00 on the ticket.

Normally these tickets cannot be upgraded. If there is an exception to policy made and days or options are added these tickets will not be price-bridged and the starting point is actually the price Ticket Operations sold the tickets for (not necessarily the price paid by the end purchaser).

Certain special tickets, such as the Armed Forces Salute or restricted Resident tickets (such as this year's Discover Disney) can receive certain upgrades normally, but because of the very deep discount will not be price bridged to an equivalent "tourist" ticket."

Thanks,
Speedy

 

[chartle]

That post is a bit confusing.

If they are military tickets it appears you can add days or exchange them at Shades of Green.

If they are YES tickets you can't upgrade them or return them anywhere except maybe by the Dance group organizer and that's iffy.

Do they have a valid date range?

Normally these tickets cannot be upgraded. If there is an exception to policy made and days or options are added these tickets will not be price-bridged and the starting point is actually the price Ticket Operations sold the tickets for (not necessarily the price paid by the end purchaser).

Also the "gate price" of a 4 day YES PH is $188.54 for performers and chaperones. This is the kind of price I paid when I planned these trips for my sons' band trips.

 

[chartle]

dup

 

[speedyf]

Thanks for the response, chartle.

Sorry for the confusion. The tickets are not military tickets.

These tickets were ordered through "Dance the Magic" which I don't think is directly affiliated with Disney. The last time my child performed with a dance group in Downtown Disney only, we were able to purchase discounted tickets. Those were paper tickets that had a date range printed on them. This was before the magic bands.

My current tickets are hard card tickets with "4 Day Park Hopper - YM" printed on them. I'm not sure if the "YM" has something to do with youth group. I'm going to try to call the Disney Youth program for lunch to see if they can give me any insight. I'm hoping I can add 1 more day to these tickets so that we don't have to pay a fortune to watch the kids on Sunday.

Thanks,

Speedy

 

[speedyf]

Thank you to everyone who responded.

I have confirmed that the tickets cannot be upgraded based on the information posted in Cheshire's post and the information I received on the phone. I called Disney Youth Customer Relations and she told me there was nothing that could be done from her end. She said I should try to contact my group organizer. I did this and found out the same information that we are stuck with 4 day hoppers at this point.

It is my own fault. My knowledge of Disney failed me this time. I was under the impression that I could buy the 4 day hopper and then upgrade later if we wanted to add another day like I have done with every other ticket I have ever wanted to upgrade in my previous 20 trips to Disney World.

Had I read a little more and known that these tickets were not upgradable, I would have just spent the extra $20 per person and bought the 5 day hopper.

I will still try to visit Guest Relations to see if some magic can be thrown our way...but, I'll be going in with very low expectations.

Does anyone know where I can 8 cheap 1 day tickets? Perhaps from a guy in a trenchcoat somewhere along International Drive?

Speedy

 

[chartle]

Does anyone know where I can 8 cheap 1 day tickets? Perhaps from a guy in a trenchcoat somewhere along International Drive?

Speedy

You mean like ones that will work.

 

[bumbershoot]

I personally would call and call and try. This isn't your oversight; this is because Disney changed the dates. As far as I can tell from your post, you planned on one date and then it changed. Not your fault. I would absolutely appeal to the ticketing people.

 

[chartle]

I personally would call and call and try. This isn't your oversight; this is because Disney changed the dates. As far as I can tell from your post, you planned on one date and then it changed. Not your fault. I would absolutely appeal to the ticketing people.

What complicates this is the fact that its going through a Dance Group. Through the years I have read quite a few posts about these organizations and they are very inflexible.

 

[subtchr]

Could you do the resorts/DTD day on Wednesday, and visit the parks Th, Fri, Sat, Sun?

I bring marching bands and choirs to WDW often, as my job, and we often have parents who think they can upgrade their kids' tickets, to no avail.

Best of luck, hope it works out!

 

[speedyf]

Bumbershoot...they originally told us to be available on the Sunday. The schedule was supposed to be tape on Saturday until 3pm and we would only need to tape Sunday if it rained all day Saturday and they couldn't get in the shoot.

Well...I figured that we would go with tickets through Saturday and just add on if we needed to go back in on Sunday morning. That was my mistake because I didn't know that we can't add days to these tickets like we can with regular tickets.

Now...we are arriving on Tuesday night. We did this on purpose to have a full day in the park with our 2 dancers on Wednesday. Thurs and Friday...they will be practicing and in workshops in the parks. They need tickets on these days....so, that will take 3 of their 4 days from Weds. thru Fri. They have nothing scheduled on Saturday with the group.

We now need to keep that last day for Sunday admission for the parade taping. The bad thing is that we fly out from Tampa at 5pm...so, after the taping is done at around noon, we won't have much time before we need to leave to head home. The original plan was that we would use the ticket to get in on Saturday for the taping, then stay in the Magic Kingdom that night until 2am and sleep late on Sunday.

Now...I have all day Saturday with no ticket unless we pony up over $800 for 8 - 1 day passes.

I was trying to be creative and thought maybe we could get MVMCP tickets for one of the days at $70 per ticket instead of $100 per ticket for a 1 day ticket. Well...the MVMCP's are on Thurs and Fri and those are the 2 days the kids have to use their tickets for practice and workshops.

I'm going to continue to try to get the upgrade...but, I just won't get my hopes up to high.

Thanks
Speedy

 

[speedyf]

Could you do the resorts/DTD day on Wednesday, and visit the parks Th, Fri, Sat, Sun?

I bring marching bands and choirs to WDW often, as my job, and we often have parents who think they can upgrade their kids' tickets, to no avail.

Best of luck, hope it works out!

Subtchr...we can definitely do this. But, had I known that the shoot was going to be on Sunday, we could have adjusted our plans to either fly up Wednesday afternoon (missing less work and school)....or, we could have gone from Wednesday night thru Monday and done Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun in the parks and had Monday as our final day to come home. Come to think of it...we should have done it this way anyway...but, none of us wanted to miss a Monday at work as it is usually the worse day to miss.