Trying to decide on best tickets for us. Discounted multi day tickets benefit with the preferred AP questions?

[ninafeliz]

I'm trying to figure out the best ticket option for our upcoming trip - 2 adults and 2 kids, planning 3 non consecutive days in early December. We want park hoppers, we will include volcano bay if we buy separate tickets (since they aren't more expensive, so will obviously get them and decide based on weather!), we will likely exclude it if we go any AP route since that really increases them and the temps in dec are questionable.

The cheapest is UT 3 day P2P with third park free promo 1171.80

We cannot do seasonal APs because US has concerts 2 of the days we will be there.

I'm trying to understand the preferred AP benefit of 15% off multi-day theme park admission tickets purchased at the front gate (Up to 6 tickets per transaction per day). Does that 15% come off of the prices I am seeing online, or are there higher gate prices? Because, if the 15% comes off of the online prices, the second cheapest price I'm finding is to buy us 1 two park preferred AP, and then buy 1 adult and 2 child 3 day passes at the gate. The prices I see online are 3 day 3 park promotional tickets that are 304.99 adult/294.99 kids, so 15% off would be $259.24/250.74. The AP is $420.60. This would give us a total of 1230.85 (if I did the math right) and we would get 10% off merch and food, right? Plus 15 % at HRC and we will likely eat there. I'm just concerned that that promo is an online price, and when we get there the price will be much higher and the 15% off doesn't even bring it down to what I could pay by buying ahead of time online. Does that make sense? FWIW, the non promo price is the same price but you just get 2 parks, so if we had to do that and get 15% off that price it would be ok, unless it happens to be a heat wave in early december and my kids would be upset to not have volcano bay as an option. Since my AP wouldn't include it that would probably negate any savings if I added it, so to to that way we really need to decide against volcano bay ahead of time.

Any experience with the 15% off multi day admissions with the preferred AP? Or thoughts on ticket options, anything I'm not thinking of?

I like the option of an AP plus tickets, to get 4 APs (3 power, 1 preferred) is 1554.88, and since we don't have a definite second trip planned where we will have time for Universal that doesn't seem to make sense. Sorry this ended up long, it would be easier to explain in person than in writing lol !

 

[MikeNamez]

The gate price is higher. No incentive with using the AP to buy multi day tickets at the park, they about equal out. Can't really answer anything else, I only buy direct from Universal.

 

[georgina]

I did the math for someone on a recent thread, and I believe the AP discount is off the gate price of tickets, so buying an AP for that vs UT is pretty much a wash. Are you driving? a Preferred AP gets you free parking also *(after the first visit, which I never really understood), in addition to food & merchandise discounts. If you want the preferred for those other benefits, I would still get the other tickets from UT.

 

[ninafeliz]

The gate price is higher. No incentive with using the AP to buy multi day tickets at the park, they about equal out. Can't really answer anything else, I only buy direct from Universal.

I did the math for someone on a recent thread, and I believe the AP discount is off the gate price of tickets, so buying an AP for that vs UT is pretty much a wash. Are you driving? a Preferred AP gets you free parking also *(after the first visit, which I never really understood), in addition to food & merchandise discounts. If you want the preferred for those other benefits, I would still get the other tickets from UT.

Thank you both. I was afraid that the 15% off discount would be something like that, and end up not being a good deal. We are driving, but we are staying at PFB so parking won't help us. Buying one preferred AP + 3 UT tickets costs us $125 more than just buying all of the tickets from UT - plus we would all get VB (for the chance the weather is warm enough for a water park) with UT. Since it's only 10% off food and merch, and not even alcohol, I doubt we would spend the $1200 (maybe slightly less because of HRC being 15%) to make it worth it, it seems like we should just buy tickets from UT and forget the AP idea. Too bad the weekend we are there is blocked out of the seasonal pass - then I probably would have just bought us all APs just in case. Although that's a slippery slope.

 

[MikeNamez]

Thank you both. I was afraid that the 15% off discount would be something like that, and end up not being a good deal. We are driving, but we are staying at PFB so parking won't help us. Buying one preferred AP + 3 UT tickets costs us $125 more than just buying all of the tickets from UT - plus we would all get VB (for the chance the weather is warm enough for a water park) with UT. Since it's only 10% off food and merch, and not even alcohol, I doubt we would spend the $1200 (maybe slightly less because of HRC being 15%) to make it worth it, it seems like we should just buy tickets from UT and forget the AP idea. Too bad the weekend we are there is blocked out of the seasonal pass - then I probably would have just bought us all APs just in case. Although that's a slippery slope.

If your staying at PFB you may want to check the AP Rate to see if that will help at all May be able to save more than what the cost difference would be.

 

[ninafeliz]

If your staying at PFB you may want to check the AP Rate to see if that will help at all May be able to save more than what the cost difference would be.

Thanks, we're staying with a conference rate, so that won't apply for this trip. It certainly would have been something to look into though. I hope our rate is pretty good, I think it was $205. It seemed good when you consider you also get unlimited express pass.

 

[ninafeliz]

I just had a random thought, and I'm sure no one but me cares but I thought I would post it here anyway since it pertains to my initial question . I could go ahead and buy the seasonal passes, since we were going to go to the parks 3 days and only one of the 3 days we were going to go is affected by a concert. We would just have to go to only IOA that day if I am understanding correctly. So more to think about... We did want to do the grinch breakfast, I'll have to check if that is in US or IOA. Decisions, decisions....

 

[MikeNamez]

I just had a random thought, and I'm sure no one but me cares but I thought I would post it here anyway since it pertains to my initial question . I could go ahead and buy the seasonal passes, since we were going to go to the parks 3 days and only one of the 3 days we were going to go is affected by a concert. We would just have to go to only IOA that day if I am understanding correctly. So more to think about... We did want to do the grinch breakfast, I'll have to check if that is in US or IOA. Decisions, decisions....

As long as IOA isn't blacked out that day you are good to go on that front.

I would also have to assume the Grinch Breakfast is in IOA since that's where Seuss landing is.

 

[ninafeliz]

As long as IOA isn't blacked out that day you are good to go on that front.

I would also have to assume the Grinch Breakfast is in IOA since that's where Seuss landing is.

I looked it up and it is in IOA. So we could still do it and only do IOA on Saturday Dec 7th, and park hop Mon and Tues. another hiccup with the breakfast, though, is that we would either have to go Sat am after doing MVMCP on our arrival day after getting up super early to fly in, or go on Sunday early before our Disney day. If we don’t get APs we won’t waste a ticket to just go to breakfast, but I don’t think anyone will want to get up for breakfast after the party, so that might me something that has to give.