When does an Annual Pass start to make sense?

[k5thbeatle]

How many days or trips to WDW in a given year before a person should start to seriously consider buying an annual pass? When does it make sense to buy this in lieu of getting daily passes or packages which include park passes?

I understand there are other discounts available for AP holders so please factor that in your response as well.

 

[SnackyStacky]

How many days or trips to WDW in a given year before a person should start to seriously consider buying an annual pass? When does it make sense to buy this in lieu of getting daily passes or packages which include park passes?

I understand there are other discounts available for AP holders so please factor that in your response as well.

I have never, and will never take discounts into effect when purchasing an annual pass. Resort discounts are never guaranteed and the merchandise discounts are only about 10% or so. I buy it for the admission.

If you'll be spending 10 or more days in the park consecutively (in one trip), it makes more financial sense to buy multi-day tickets.

If your trips will be spread out, an annual pass would make economical sense if you'll be spending 12 or more days in the parks.

 

[donnajon]

or if you know that you want to go to WDW for two vacations i.e. go the first week or two in June one year and the last week or two in May the following year.

 

[civileng68]

Like a previous poster, I only take admission into account.

The discounts as he said, for resorts are to inconsistent and the merchandise discounts are very small and we dont buy much to begin with.

The best part is, as said, if you go 12 or more days, you save money with an AP.

Also, remember parking is free with an AP.

 

[DMRick]

I'm the opposite..I always take the "extra's" into consideration, and I've never been disappointed (well, briefly during the trial period of booking only on line and so many days in advance, but that's gone now). Depending on where you'll buy your tickets (since the cost is different), if you buy in advnace or at the door, you just need to take the days you'll spend in the park and look to see the cost of those many days, depending on if you want the water parks, etc, against the cost of the same type of AP. Then take into consideration the Disney Dining experience card you are now able to buy vs being able to get the dining pla, which means you need to buy tickets. Think about if you are staying on property, and if not, that your AP gets you free parking. The past several years have afforded us nice discounts on rooms, and you can wait to buy your AP, until you see if a room discount will be forth coming when you plan on going to Disney. If you don't buy the DDE card, you do get 10% off at several restaurants, and you can see which ones on a couple different boards, and judge if that will be a money saver for you. Do you rent the boats at Disney? That's anothe rperk, although I think you get the same perk through AAA. There are some other perks we enjoy, such as being one of the first to ride new rides on special days, which is a perk only if you will be at Disney at the time.
For us, one of the main perks is being able to come and go..maybe just go in to Epcot at night to during the wine and food, or flower show, to listen to a band and not feel we have wasted a whole day ticket. Or just going in to eat at one of the restaurants. We like the fact we can spend an hour, or 5 in a park any time we wish. So a lot goes into getting an AP, as you can see.

 

[Bunchkin]

With the new MYW ticket pricing and considering how you would have to add in park hopping and no expiration, I think it's 10 days and you see the savings.

And I too take into consideration that I will be taking another trip in the same year and all the other discounts this allows me too. Resort, shopping, dinning, and the DDE card.

Like this year, again, we will be staying 2 weeks during Christmas and then will probably return for a week in Oct or Nov of next year. Well worth the money for us to buy the annual pass!!

 

[cjb71870]

My husband and I have been AP for the last 7 years. I also am very lucky to only live 1 1/2 hours away from DW. We have even stayed at the same hotel for the last 7 years. It is our second home. I was lucky to have a husband who became as addicted as I was when we met again after high school. We go on a regular basis. Just went last weekend and 2 weeks before that. That is why the AP makes sense to us. We even got married there.

 

[tabrizia]

We're going AP this year because we plan to go twice this year (well 4 times now we are going AP, but twice before that). Because our first stay is 9 days if we upgrade to 10 day no expire tickets the cost difference is less then one days ticket to go up to an AP. Since we plan to spend almost every day we are there for our 9 day vacation in a park, even if it is just for an hour, we would have to buy at least a 3 or 4 day pass for our second trip. At that point the AP is less expensive and so we are going for it.

We are not taking the DDE into account or the AP rates for rooms, while it would be nice to get both, just going to the parks more then 12 days or so makes it more then worthwhile for us to get the APs.

Basically it seems to come down to, if you are planning on going more then 14 days consecutively (and using the pass every day) or if you plan to go more then once a year it is worth it (as long as you plan to go more then 10 days or so since 10 days or less the no expire option on the MYW ticket is cheaper).

 

[Hugpug]

A lot depends on what kind of MYW ticket you would purchase for one thing. A no frills ticket(no extra add ons) then AP breaks even at 10-12 days but if you would buy a MYW with hopper option then 7 -8 days. It use to be a break even at 10 days but since they changed it to MYW it works out a lot different. You need to sit down and work out the math to make a decision. Of course if you are buying the AP for the discounts then it changes everything but remember you don't know if you will get a room discount or not for the time you are going. A lot to think about.

 

[nicolemarie]

I did not take into consideration AT ALL the number of park days I would be there, but when we were booking our trip, the AP room rates were already out. For a 7 night stay at YC, I saved over $1000. The AP and 3 8 day PH's was only $179 more than 4 8 day PH tickets. It was a no brainer even if I don't go again this year - but we probably will!!

 

[Leota]

I base it soley on the amount of admissions. If I'm going for a 10 day or longer trip, or multiple trips, I get the AP. The discounts are nice when they come & coincide with our plans, but I don't count on them.

 

[Mamu]

If my stay is 7 or more days I'll get the AP and hope to get a room discount too. Lots of times once we've purchased the AP we will return for a second trip before they expire. Plus if your planning on going to MNSSHP or MVMCP there are AP nights where you get a discount. They now have the DDE discount cards that you can purchase too, that can help save you money on your meals.

Yes an AP can save you lots of money, I know I've gotten some great deals on resorts with my AP.

 

[k5thbeatle]

Yeah, one reason mentioned above is that we sometimes will arrive later in the day and will want to go to F&W fest for maybe last hour or two. Now do we use a day's pass just for that? With AP at least that won't be an issue.

Sounds like we may make it 3X's within a year so Ap sounds like way to go.

Thanks for replies.

 

[fran99999]

My mind set is my DS7 and I can go to WDW for 1 year and only have to worry about air, room and meals. I have gotten great last minute flight deals and left on a friday night flight and come home on sunday night flight. Now if I was paying for tickets that means 2 days of ticket usage. I see it as 2 nights room at value for XX and 4 meals at counter( we eat breakfast in room. ME is free to/from airport.

All this I can pay off my CC with my next paycheck. Sometimes I come home Monday pm. I have gotten the AP discount on rooms. I have DDE card for meals if I want to go that way.

When I go for extended periods of time I usually try to rent DVC points. This May I rented these and will be paying for Dining as this is offered to DVC members and guests (me). I have paid the room cash and will pay cash for the dining plan at checkin 5 nights about $250. This means I will have almost no other expenses to put out. We eat bfast in the room so except for the Milk and juice its all paid for.

If I had to add in the expense of tickets I would not have been able to go 5 times so far this year. I love to travel at will. I think I was a gypsy in my past life.

 

[Kimberly815]

I just bought my first AP two days ago. I am planning on going in May for about 5 days, and then again in January (after my wedding- woohoo!) for about 5 days. I got the ALK for 5 nights in May for $100 off a night- which was the majoy catalyst for purchasing the AP.

I hope that after this year, I still think it was worth it to buy!

 

[dundee10]

"When does an Annual Pass start to make sense?"

When it starts saying to you, "It's time for another Disney trip!"

 

[crzy4mk]

Also, remember parking is free with an AP.

Absolutely! I definitely took this into consideration when I bought mine. We stay offsite, so parking can get costly. I knew I was making 2 trips at the beginning of this year, so I factored everything in and bought an AP. I would have had to pay for 6 days of parking in Jan., and 7 days of parking in Feb., so I saved about $120 just in parking fees with an AP. It was definitely worth it for me to buy the AP.

 

[Karnak]

I guess it depends upon where you live, but those who advise that one would have to visit the parks 10 to 12 times to make an annual pass a good buy do not make sense to me.

For example, as an AAA member and FL resident, a single admission ticket to one of the parks, for one day, is currently $56.70. If you multiply that by six, the total is $340.20. But an annual pass is priced at $313.95.

Easy to see that an annual pass is an excellent buy, even if you don't consider any other perks associated with the pass. It's a no-brainer. Duh.

Enjoy.

 

[ajcolorado]

Some folks plan two WDW trips for two years in a row. They might go in July of this year and then in June next year - getting the most from their AP's. My husband ended up "having" to go to WDW twice in 2005 - poor dear. So he had an annual pass and bought the DDE card. The rest of the family only went once so we just had regular passes. We did several sit-down meals and my husband and son did Dive Quest (although, the Disney Visa discount is actually better) so the DDE card definately saved us some money.

But here's where it stopped being a good deal - in January, it occured to me that DH's annual pass would expire soon...maybe we should just check out the deals. We ended up flying to WDW for a weekend and going on the Backstage Magic tour. The value resorts were only $49 w/ the AP discount but why not stay at POR? - it was "only" around $90 per night w/ the discount. Do you see how this goes? I'm not sure how much we spent because it was such a bargain.

His AP doesn't actually expire until April - hmmm, I wonder.....

 

[boomhauer]

I have to disagree with a few others here. I'd say if you're only making a 10 day trip once a year, a MYW w hopping is still cheaper. They're only about $250.

However, the AP for me is the only way to go. I read over and over where people say they don't take resort discounts in consideration. I've had an annual pass for 4 trips now, and have always gotten an AP resort discount that MORE than made up for the extra cost of the pass. Then, when you factor in all the extra days spent at the theme parks on top of that, savings off souveniers, food - It's a no brainer for me.

What an AP will do for you is allow you to take a 2nd trip in a year, even if it's not planned in advance. You find yourself one day looking at airfare and AP rates at resorts, and you say to yourself, "I could fly roundtrip for $130, stay at a Value Resort for 7 nights for $350, and my park admission is already paid for. Why not do it?"

That's how it started with me.