Ultimate Park Hopper vs. Park Hopper PLUS passes

[Disney1fan2002]

OK, for the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would buy an Ultimate Park Hopper Pass as opposed to a Park Hopper Plus Pass. You save no money, in fact an Ultimate Pass costs MORE than a Plus pass. The Ultimate Pass expires at midnight the day you check out, so if you do not go to any parks on a day during your vacation, you lose that day. The Plus passes never expire. So if you purchesed a 5 day PLUS 2 pass, and you decide to just chill by the resort pool for the day, or go off property to Universal or something, you have that day to use on your next trip. Here is the example I found. I am going to Disney the week of Thanksgiving this year. We are checking in on Nov. 22nd and checking out on Nov. 28th. If I purchased the Ultimate Park Hopper Pass, I would have a 7 day pass. I could go to all of the theme parks plus the water parks and Disney Quest and WW of Sports Complex. The cost is $313.00 + tax per adult and $250.00 + tax per each child under ten. Now, the Park Hopper PLUS pass, we would buy the 5 day + 2 pass which gives us 5 days of unlimited admission to the 4 major theme parks and 2 days to go to eaither the water parks or Disney Quest or Sports complex. Any days you do not use, never expire. So if I choose to go to Universal, I still have that day at Disney to use some other time. These passes cost $247.00+ tax per adult and $197.00+ tax per child under 10. I have a family of 5...2 adults and 3 kids under 10. We go to Disney ALOT. So, buying the passes that never expire is a great perk for us. But, I just need to know who buys the Ultimate Park Hopper Pass, when the PLUS pass is cheaper, and you can use it in the future?

BTW, my name is Marie, this is my first post to this board. We are Disney fanatics, we became DVC members this past October.

 

[StampMom]

Welcome to the DIS, Marie! I've always wondered why people would buy the UPHs, too. For me, it's a huge perk that the days (and pluses) on a regular PH or PH+ never expire. The only thing that I can see that might make a difference is that I just learned (on the Theme Park A&S Board) that regular PH+ passes do not include Disney Quest -- only UPHs and APs do. But I haven't done the math to see if/how much of a financial difference it would make to just get regular PHs or PH+s and pay for admission to DQ.

Maybe someone else can "enlighten" us as to what's so great about UPHs, but until then, I'm all for regular, non-expiring PHs!

 

[DisneyFreaks]

Hi Marie, welcome to the Dis. We have always purchased a full package that included the unlimited length of stay tickets. We didn't know about all the different codes and discounts that you can get with a room only reservation until I found these boards. Our trip in May is saving us so much money. However, we will be there 8 days and my family usually goes to the parks everyday. The park hopper plus pass only goes up to 7 days so it has made it more difficult to decide this time what kind of tickets we should purchase. If you buy from Disney you don't get many options. We have decided to buy from paramount travel and will probably go with the 10 day world pass or the 30 day fun in the sun pass but these too are only length of stay and do expire. I don't know what else to do. I wish they made the park hoppers to include more days. Maybe I can try to talk my family into staying out of the parks for a day. LoL

 

[disfanRN]

HI- we purchase the ultimates because we love to go to Disney Quest at night, more than 2 times in a stay, especially in the low season when the parks close early. Admission to DQ is expensive, so if you go more than the park hopper allows- the money you spend for UPH is worth it!!

 

[Disney1fan2002]

The 7 day hopper PLUS pass is 7 days PLUS 4....so it is actually an 11 day pass. You have 7 days of unlimited admission to the 4 major theme parks, and then 4 days of admission to any of the water parks, or Disney Quest, or WW sports. Maybe that is what you can purchase for your 8 day trip, and then you will still have the left over days for your next trip. We purched the 7 Day Plus pass for our trip in October, and we still have 3 days left..so next year when we go on the cruise, we are spending 3 days after the cruise at WDW, we do not need to buy passes for that trip. We have them! LOL.

Hope this helps, and thanks for the welcome!

Marie

 

[peachgirl]

Until we purchased PAP's, the UPH was the only one that made sense for us. We always arrive early on the first day and don't leave on our last day till late in the evening, so we aren't wasting any days. We only go to WDW and we don't ever skip a full day at the parks so there's no waste there either.

We love DisneyQuest and usually go late in the evenings after the parks close. We also like to go to the water parks in the afternoon for a couple of hours each day instead of dedicating an entire day. With regular PHP's we'd be wasting a lot of our plusses just to spend a couple of hours at a water park plus we couldn't go as often as we like.

Finally, we don't like to plan everyday of our trip. If the mood strikes us to hit a water park, we want to be able to go and not worry about how many plusses we have left.

It really depends on your personal preferences. For some UPH's are the only way to go, for others PHP's make more sense. For us, multiple trips to DisneyQuest and the water parks makes UPH's or PAP's the only options that make sense.

 

[Gillian]

Welcome to the DIS!!

For us, the UPH wouldn't make sense. We have a 2 year old, so our time doing "stuff" is limited. We do get up early, but crash after lunch. After a nap we're only good until 8 or so before the kid (& dad) gets grumpy. A day of park hopping plus something else wouldn't work for us. And of course, the kid could spend all day in the (free) pool.

But when the kids are older, I think it would be fun to have an all-inclusive pass! We'd have to look at the price difference & see if it was worth it to us to have to flexibility. Also, we'd probably stay off site the first evening to get an early start the first day.

Like everything else lately, ask me again in 5 years!

 

[DisneyFreaks]

Thanks Marie, that sounds good but unfortunately my family prefers the regular parks and never go to the water parks. We are all adults so I think that's probably why. Any pluses they would have would probably be used up for nights at Pleasure Island! LoL I am now considering purchasing the 7 day PHP from paramount travel this trip though because as it stands with everyone's schedule our trip is still on shakey ground and that way if we don't get to go in May we won't lose money on the passes since the park hoppers are good forever. Thank you for reminding me of that. It will probably work better for us this trip.

 

[GoldenOldie]

Just to keep this straight for several posters in this thread:

DisneyQuest is not included as a plus option for the PHP passes. DQ admission only comes with UPH, PAP, and the various combos of DQ AP's.

 

[Disney845]

HI Disney1fan2002-

This is how we determined that UPH were better than PHP for us for an upcoming trip in 2004 (I know it is so far away!!!).

First, let me say that I am originally from FL so I always had APs and loved that flexibility.

MY SO and I are going with another couple (Scarlett873 and her DH). We will be spending 1 night off site when we arrive, then 2 nights on site at US/IoA and then moving to WDW on site for 5 nights. We considered the price differences for us, and it comes out to $4 more to do the UPH than the PHP. We plan on spending every day at a theme park, plus we want the option of going to a water park on the same day as a theme park, so this way we are not using a theme park day on the same day as a "plus" day. We are also planning on doing PI often . We may also do DQ. We did not want to limit our times at the water parks, or our evenings spent at PI. For us the UPH are a better deal, as we would be using up all the "plus" feature of the PHP and then some!!!

 

[disneyjunkie]

On our first trip we had the 5 day PHP( with 4 plus options). We were there for a week. On the days we didn't go to a major park, we went to a water park. It was nice to slow down the pace a little, but by 4:00 or 5:00 I was ready to go to a MP. However, we couldn't do that because we didn't want to "waste" a day on our passes.

One evening DS and I were at DTD, he wanted to go to DQ, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend that kind of money for just a couple of hours.

When we return to the world we will have a PHP,UPHP, 10 day, or 30 day pass from paramount. I don't mind spending the extra money on an unlimited pass if it allows us to come and go as we please.

 

[DisneyFreaks]

We have never used park hoppers before so I'm a little confused on using them. You can go to as many parks as you want to in one day and you still have used only one day of your PHP? Am I understanding this right?

 

[luvindisneyworld]

yes, you have unlimited park use on the PHP say you get the 7 day PHP you can visit each of the 4 parks as many times as you want to in those 7 days.now for the plusses on those passes, say you want to go to 2 water parks in 1 day that takes 2 plusses away from your 4 that you et on the 7 day PHP.
HTH, misty

 

[tink2dw]

Discounted Disney Quest tickets can be purchased at www.TicketMania.com

With no shipping costs.
Disney Quest Orlando Adult Ages 10+ $24.00
Disney Quest Orlando Child ages 3-9 $20.00

 

[Suedrews]

Length of Stay Pass.....or is it called something else now?

 

[DisneyFreaks]

I figured that's what it meant but I was getting unsure. Thanks for reassuring me luvindisneyworld. I appreciate it.
And I'm pretty sure the length of stay passes are now called Ultimate Park Hoppers Suedrews. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. LoL

 

[Disneycrazymom]

DisneyFreaks, Have you considered the Annual Passes. We bought them last year, just the one that the parks are included, not the water parks. Then we planned our trips so that we used them for 2 vacations almost a year apart. ( It would have saved us alot of money is I had not slipped in 2 extra trips in the middle of the year!!) But if you go every year and have more self control than I do, it is actually less money to buy the AP than 2 sets of park hoppers. I think the break even point is about 10 days.

 

[DisneyFreaks]

Thanks Disneycrazymom. AP's would be a great alternative but unfortunately we cannot make it back to Disney World a second time so the PHP would be cheaper and work out better for us. Paramount Travel seems to have the best deals so as soon as we decide which pass is the best for us we'll be ordering them for our upcoming trip in May.