To Annual Pass or not ???

[Lou-Ann]

We are going for a week in September. We live in Arizona so we are about 6 hrs away. I am trying to decide if an Annual would be worth it with all the block out days. I would appreciate any input you might have... Thanks so much.

 

[Sleepless Knight]

I think living out of the SoCal area means that you're only eligible for the deluxe or premium APs. Premium has no blockout dates and deluxe blocks out Saturdays from May-August with some Sundays thrown in depending on crowds, major holidays, and the weeks before and after Christmas.

If you go more than once a year, get the AP.

 

[bumbershoot]

If you think about going even ONE more day in the 365 days from your first day on this trip, it's worth it to get the AP, just ticket-wise. Add in (or subtract?) the discounts, and you've got a bargain.

The Deluxe blockout dates aren't that hard, for us at least, to plan around, though I do admit I wish I had gotten myself a Premium.

 

[JadeDarkstar]

soi ive figuered out it will cost me 250 more to upgrade us three to aps with one premiuim (for food and store purches)
if for some reason we couldnt go this year in dec (looks more and more like we can) i will do one more trip next year in sep (after my money comes in before the halloween layover goes up)

 

[DebbieB]

I live in PA and got the deluxe AP for my 5 day trip. I'm out there for business and will hopefully will get another day or so in. One advantage I was not aware of in advance - you get 10% off practically all food.

 

[JadeDarkstar]

15% with the higher ap and free parking, tho we wont use the parking

 

[Lou-Ann]

The higher price one looks like a lot of money to save an extra 5 percent. I was wondering if I went with the lower one and found I needed a Saturday sometime or one of the blockout days, do I just pay a small fee to get in if I have the AP?

 

[CrazyDuck]

do I just pay a small fee to get in if I have the AP?

If $40 is small to you... Make sure you arent going to need entry on too many block out days!

 

[JadeDarkstar]

and lower one has no discount on suviners

 

[bumbershoot]

The higher price one looks like a lot of money to save an extra 5 percent. I was wondering if I went with the lower one and found I needed a Saturday sometime or one of the blockout days, do I just pay a small fee to get in if I have the AP?

The higher priced one isn't just for the discounts (that's a bonus). For me, it is so I could go whenever I wanted to. This year we upgraded to Deluxe APs, and the family has gone easily during available days, but I have had two times that I wanted to go but couldn't b/c it was blocked out. I did NOT end up going on those days, and those two days would only have been $80 in blockout passes (vs the $120 it would take me to get my Deluxe pass bought before the prices went up, to the current Premium pass), but if I had had the Premium pass I wouldn't have had to think about it, and would have had a few extra days at DLR, assuming I could have come up with the airfare for one of the trips I wanted to take.

For most people, it's the ticket savings that makes the APs worth it, if you will go even one day another time...for us we still haven't bought enough food and souvenirs to have made the Premium upgrade worth it (I keep every receipt and figure out what we have gotten in terms of discounts, and what we would have gotten with a Premium). But the ticket savings did it for us.

 

[Sleepless Knight]

If you're going to buy a deluxe AP, then do not buy any blockout tickets because you're only defeating yourself. The blockout ticket is $40, which really isn't that far away from the difference between a deluxe and a premium.

It's very, very easy to think that you can plan around blockout days, and to an extent you can. But all it takes is one blockout date and you're very close to being better off with a premium.

On one of my blockout days, they released a painting that I wanted. Stupidly, I paid for the blockout ticket and bought the painting, not realizing that had I upgraded to a premium, the savings on the discounts would have covered the difference, not to mention given me extra visits to Disneyland that I had to decline because I was invited to go on blockout dates.

What you don't always account for with having an AP is the ability it gives you to return to the park without having to pay for more tickets. I'm going again over Labor Day Weekend, but it was not a planned trip until I learned the El Capitan Theatre was showing Sleeping Beauty. Since I have the premium, I don't have to worry about that weekend being blocked out.

 

[Crazy4Disney72]

I live in PA and got the deluxe AP for my 5 day trip. I'm out there for business and will hopefully will get another day or so in. One advantage I was not aware of in advance - you get 10% off practically all food.

I also live in PA and got the deluxe AP for our 5 day trip to DL last November. In my case the AP hotel discount made it very worth it, $169 a night for PP concierge. For a family of 5 with 3 kids who are big breakfast eaters, this was a very good value (because we wanted to stay onsite, offsite, maybe not such a good deal financially, but it was DH's first trip and I wanted to be onsite) so it was worth it for me to get the AP. As previously mentioned by other posters, we also got a discount on the food we purchased. At the time of our trip, I was hopeful that perhaps I might get a solo trip in before my AP was up as I have enough RR credits on Southwest for a free roundtrip flight, but with going to WDW in September, it's just not going to be possible. I'm disappointed, because of course I would love to see DL again this year, but I still feel I got the value out of the deluxe AP even without making another trip.