Okay, I've been reading the "Wouldn't Disney Make More Money?" thread for too long. It's time to ask the question. I will only ask the type of pass, not the #of days (the poll would be too long then) If I forgot something please let me know. Thanks!
APs. Our current passes will average under ten dollars per day cost for the parks. Plus we took a non-points trip with AP room discount at the Poly. Next year we will have fewer trips but after eight days for AP and eleven days for PAP you are still ahead. And as indicated above, that is easily accomplished with two trips and a little care in scheduling the second trip.
We get AP's and get at least 3 trips out of it even though we usually only go twice a year. We schedule the third trip a week earlier than the year before to use the AP right before it expires. I don't know that you really save money with AP's overall. They tend to call out from their storage place "go on an extra trip, you already have a pass!".
Park Hopper passes! Our trips have been 7-9 days, and we like to do Sea World and Busch Gardens too. And with DVC we've found fun things to do outside of the parks like the bike and boat plan at WL. If they still had the old renewal rules on AP's (renewed AP started with next trip) then we'd reconsider. But until we start staying longer, we'll just use the HP's like we did this last time.
AP.. we go 2 weeks every year so 4 weeks on an AP makes it vvery reasonable. Plus that extra trip does call us too. Yes we have passes, points, what will it cost???? Hmm maybe I better book something else!!1
AP. This year I will buy mine when we go to Food & Wine Fest in November, I will use it again for the quick Mom and son trip in January and then use it once more for our regular summer vacation. Should get 12-14 days out of it that way. That = $26-$35/day. If I can schedule next years Food & Wine trip a week earlier, I'll stretch it even further, but that may not be possible.
APs are the only way for us to go. We go for 10 days over Easter, a long weekend in June, we are going back for a week in Aug, then another long weekend in December. The way we figure it, they have paid for themselves on the Easter trip and every other trip to the park is gravy. pin
A word on sample selection and sample size: This is a self selected sample. Disboarders may be more likely than the general DVC population to buy Annual Passes or Park Hoppers or UPHs or whatever. I'd guess we buy more APs, because there are many of us here who have a relative lot of points and go several times a year, and more Park Hoppers - because we are fairly well educated in them being a good deal - and know that there are discounts available via brokers on them. Whereas the average non-Disboard DVCer is possibly more likely to buy what Disney tells them to buy - the UPH. But without a similar study on non-Disboarders, it is impossible to say for sure. Sample size. There are currently about 43 responses to this thread and 58% of us hold annual passes. With 95% confidence we can claim that between 82% and 32% of us actually have annual passes. See statistical output below (from stats software called Minitab): Power and Sample Size Test for One Proportion Testing proportion = 0.58 (versus not = 0.58) Alpha = 0.05 Sample Alternative Alternative Size Power Proportion Proportion 43 0.9500 0.8232 0.3159 As there are more responses, these numbers will get tighter, but not very quickly. Proportions require BIG samples for high confidence and tight focus. Disclaimer, I am NOT a statistician - though I do this sort of work for a living.
PH+ passes. We've been going 2-3 times a year but only like to do the parks 1-2 days so AP doesn't pay for us at this time. Donna
We buy park hopper passes or one day/one park passes. We tend to only visit one to two parks (max) per visit. If we get the park hopper we spread it out over 3 years typically.
We also buy APs and use it for 2-3 trips in 365 days. We often have 35 days used when it expires. This time we will only have 26, but it is still a good deal. We like to go into the parks for restaurants etc. If I hadn't planned on going into WDW every day of my trip, I wouldn't have purchased DVC!
Crisi, Yes, I'm one of the "new kids" around here. We weren't aware of discounts on APs thorugh brokers. This weekend we did a lot of comparison on the prices of all different pass options. We've got the Disney Club card and I know we get a discount using that. What exactally is a "broker", and how do I find one to find out what sort of discount they offer?
Stop over on the budget board and there are a ton of posts about ticket brokers. Or try www.mousesavers.com. Mousesavers recommends Ticket Mania or Florida Orlando Tickets. I'm not an expert on ticket brokers and do not know if you can get an annual pass through them (we just buy our UPHs because we like our ticket keyed on our room card - its worth the difference to us to have one card that is park ticket, room key, and credit card). I do know that you can save on Park Hoppers and Park Hopper Pluses - and that if you are the kind of DVC member who isn't going to spend every day in the parks, and isn't going to spend enough days in the parks to make an AP worthwhile, a Park Hopper is going to be your best value.
BTW, if anyone is following the stats, there are 78 responses (sample size) and APs have 60%. Which means with 95% confidence we can say that between 40% and 79% of us use Annual Passes. (Sorry, kind of a geek on the stats thing).
We usually get the PH this time we got the PH plus. We usually alternate days and get to the parks twice during our weekly visit. The other days are spent doing some Disney things i.e. Swimming, DTD, visiting other resorts,visiting Celebration, maybe renting a boat, electrical parade, etc. etc. etc.. The other days we may visit Universal, Seaworld, NASA, shopping at BELZ and other centers. This year we plan on using a day to go to the Gulf coast for a swim. I own DVC for all I can do in and around DISNEY.
We go with the AP. We average anywhere between 20 and 40 days per AP. It is also great to just go into EPCOT for Illuminations or to eat dinner, and not feel like we are "wasting" a days admission. By cost comparrison, if you go into the parks 8 or more days in a calendar year, the AP is cheaper.
We usually purchase park hoppers but next trip we will probably purchase APs since we will most-likely spend at least 7 nights and then be back in the fall for a short trip! It would be nice to go to Epcot for dinner and not be concerned about using up a pass. Annmarie
