Upgrade to AP?

[nun69]

ok...so we have our resessie's all squared away and ready to go...my question is, has anyone bought their hopper tickets from AAA and then upgraded at the park? I want to do this becuase it will be me, DH, DD {15} and DS {7} so if we upgrade, then next year we can all go {all 6 of us and the tickets will be paid and the 2 little ones will be under 3!!!!so they will be free!} ....if you did, do you recall what the difference was to upgrade? We will have 6 day park hopper tickets, so we will be upgrading from there~ thanks!

 

[Cinderlala]

We just upgraded our 5 day hopper tickets to APs, and the price is simply the difference between the price of your hopper tickets and the AP you want.

So, our 5 day hopper tickets were $194 each and our APs were $259 each, and when we upgraded we paid $65 for each AP.

 

[bumbershoot]

You pay the difference between the AP you're getting and the "upgrade value" of your ticket.

Right now the Premium AP is 379, the Deluxe is 259. I don't know about the southern CA ones.

If you bought your tickets and that's it, you probably paid the cost they'll go from. If they were part of a package, you won't know their actual value, but you could probably call AAA and ask what their value was.

It's encoded on the tickets, to the AP office will know.

When we went, we had 5 day tickets from our Costco package. The adult tickets were valued at 189, so we paid the difference between that and what the Deluxe was at the time (we upgraded the day before the prices went up to what they are now). With DS's it was a bit more, b/c the AP cost is the same from 3 to adult, but the tickets were worth less.


Are you staying onsite? If yes, you can upgrade any time. If you're staying off site, use your Magic Morning first, and then after that (even on the same day) you can upgrade and not lose that MM day Take everyone to the AP office, wait your turn, give them names and address, they take the tickets, you pay the difference, everyone gets their pictures taken (they can take pictures of kids in strollers), everyone gets their APs!

 

[nun69]

sweet....I actually thought I would just wait until the last day to upgrade, does it matter? We will be there on a Sat {sometime, will be driving up from Legoland, so we will just take our time} and will leave the following Friday~and do they put the 1st date of yoru tickets as the date on your AP? I think I read somewhere that that is how they do it, but wanted to confirm it~Thanks again!

 

[Queenbillabong]

The only thing is if you wait until the last day, you won't get the AP discount. But if you do it before the last day, you will miss out on an early entry....... Either way works, depends on which is more important or worthwhile to you. With the AP, the only early mornings you would get is if you stayed at one of the three DL hotels....

 

[Sleepless Knight]

Keep in mind that once you upgrade, you become eligible for all the AP discounts, so once your MM is over, I would upgrade. To be completely honest, I recommend upgrading to the premium. My first pass was a deluxe, but I quickly figured out that having May-August weekends blacked out made quickie day trips more complicated. The big advantage of a premium is that you can literally go whenver you want. If you have friends or family going down, you don't have to worry about being blacked out on those days. My parents are considering a December family visit, and due to everybody's schedules, if the visit happens, it will happen during blackout days on the deluxe. Because I have the premium, I don't have to worry about my pass not working with my family's plans. I've also had friends visit during blackout periods when I had the deluxe, so I couldn't really "go."

Between the increased discounts(15% on food, 10% of merchandise) and no blackout dates), the premium really does pay for itself(I learned that the hard way the first year of having an AP). I'm likely going at the end of August for Sleeping Beauty at the El Capitan over Labor Day Weekend. With that weekend blacked out for deluxe, I would have to take more time off work to get more days in the park, but I have the premium, so it doesn't matter. It's already paid for itself.

 

[nun69]

we are going to do our MM and Toontown Madness as soon as spossible so we can ge tthem out of the way before everyone starts to wear down and get tired later in the week...so I will just upgrade as soon as that happens~ I don't think a premium AP would be worth the money for us...if we go again it will probably only be 1 trip unless I can do something in there where me and just the 2 older kids can go on a quick trip! so I'll just weigh the difference in price and go from there~! The fact that we got our Disney Chase card in the mail yesterday {with a NICE limit} might not make the decision very hard

 

[Sleepless Knight]

I would upgrade right after your last MM/Toontown entry (as in before you eat your first in park meal/buy souveniers with premium on that very day) so you can begin to take immediate advantage of the discounts.

Remember this when looking at the difference. It's only $120 from deluxe to premium, but when you throw in parking(and some hotels are a lot cheaper than the ones right on Harbor, but don't have a shuttle) and the other discounts it does add up. Each person has to decide what's the best for themselves, but I should have bought the premium from the get go. Not doing it actually "cost" me a lot more than the difference I didn't want to pay the first time out.

 

[boiseflyfisher]

If you are arriving on Saturday, you can use your MM on Sunday morning. Your AP will be dated from the first day you used your parkhoppers. If you are arriving on Saturday and are using your PHs on Saturday, going to MM on Sunday and upgrading to an AP after MM, your AP will be dated from the Saturday that you first used your PH. Is that clear as mud? Your next chance to use MM is on Tuesday if you don't use it on Sunday. You may want to consider upgrading one of the APs to a premium if you think you will take advantage of the parking. The Premium AP also gets you a higher discount on resort food and you get a discount on merchandise.

 

[nun69]

if you have an AP are you entitlted to the early entry into the park on everyday that it is offered or are you only entitled to EE/MM if you stay onsite or you get them with your park hopper tickets?

 

[bumbershoot]

Your ToonTown Morning Madness is a separate voucher, and is NOT based on type of admission. You do not have to wait until you've done that. The ONLY thing you should do first is your Magic Morning if you're only getting it "from" your tickets.

if you have an AP are you entitlted to the early entry into the park on everyday that it is offered or are you only entitled to EE/MM if you stay onsite or you get them with your park hopper tickets?

APs are never given MM b/c of their admission. If an AP holder stays onsite, they get the MMs that are offered during their stay, just like any other guest of a Disney hotel (with some sort of admission, of course, LOL...you can't just go into Disneyland b/c you stayed there without a ticket).

 

[nun69]

thanks! that's what I thought,but I just wanted to verify! We booked through AAA so we will have our vouchers for Toontown Madness~thanks again for all the info!

 

[bumbershoot]

boiseflyfisher thought their explanation was clear as mud; I thought it was good but just in case I'll give my experience.

We first entered the parks with our 5 day hoppers September 18, 2007. We were staying at Paradise Pier, so we had all the MMs offered during our stay anyway, and didn't have to worry about that with upgrading. But we just didn't get around to it until the 20th. Our APs were backdated to the first day we used the parkhoppers, and you get the FULL year*, so ours expire on September 18, 2008.

*and in a year like this one that meant we got one extra day of possible use b/c of Leap Day, lol




I've tracked the discounts we got and the discounts we would have gotten, and I still can't make a Premium worth it for the way we used our APs, or the food and merchandise we bought, this year. BUT I've had to skip three days I wanted to, or want to in August, go to the parks b/c they were or are blocked out. So even though financially it hasn't been worth it b/c we did not send me to the parks anyway, next time I will get the Premium so I can go at the drop of a hat and not worry.

 

[DBBean]

I'll be getting AP for myself, DH and my 4yr old. My 18 said this was his last
year for Disney. So if I get AP for the rest of us how does the 10% meal
discount apply since my family meal will all be on one bill? Do they look at everyone AP or just the payee?

 

[bumbershoot]

Only the one paying needs to have an AP.

 

[Sleepless Knight]

BUT I've had to skip three days I wanted to, or want to in August, go to the parks b/c they were or are blocked out. So even though financially it hasn't been worth it b/c we did not send me to the parks anyway, next time I will get the Premium so I can go at the drop of a hat and not worry.

That's the best reason I think to get the premium. At first glance, deluxe looks like the way to go because it's cheaper, but because of blackout dates, you may not be able to make trips you otherwise want to. The thing about having an AP is that you can suddenly make more visits because you already have the park tickets, yet another lesson I learned the hard way. I got a 2 day park hopper in September 2006 and decided not to get an AP. Then in December, my brother invited me to go down with him and some friends, and suddenly I was buying another 2 day park hopper(only this time I picked up the deluxe AP, but even then had invitations to go down on blackout dates that I couldn't take advantage of.