Which ticket option would you pick and why?

[kohlby]

We're in the process of planning our next Disney trip for this fall. We have it down to two options. This would be for 8 days of our trip, as the other days' plans wouldn't change.

1. Go the first week of October. Our tickets would be under a group educational rate so we are stuck into that week and cannot add days on to the tickets. Tickets are 5 day water park and more with hopper. We would need to attend the Behind the Seeds tour as well, taking up a little bit of park time. The plan is 5 days in the regular parks and 3 days for water parks.

2. Go in November not during peak times. (Possibly even into the first week of December). Our tickets would not be under a special rate. We would get 7 day base tickets - so no hopper. We would get one day of waterparks as well.

The price difference comes to less than $100 extra for option 2.

Other possibly helpful info: Our last Disney trip was Sept of 2014. (We're usually Nov/Dec people). We did 8 days in the Disney theme parks and 3 days in the water parks. (And twice to Disney Quest - but I know we can't count on that being open this time). Kids will be 13, 10, and 7. We likely won't do Disney again for two more years after this trip.

 

[ReluctantDisaholic]

I'd prefer #2 - 5 park days isn't enough. And since we're not huge waterpark people, 3 waterpark days would be too much for us.

 

[GoofyGirl1717]

Option 2 with that little of a price difference unless MNSSHP was something you were interested in.

 

[Accident]

Is it safe to assume that the $100 difference doesn't include any room discounts that will become available in the summer?

The end of nov into the first week of december is one of my favorite times to go. It's really crowded for thanksgiving weekend but really dead the first week of december and all the winter holiday are in full force starting that week. We always arrive the saturday after thanksgiving and stay for at least a full week. The catch22 is I've never seen a discount for this week. If your more mid-month, then free food (if it comes out) and other things might actually save you even more money. It's a gamble at this point as it's too early in the year to know what will come out.

We do love halloween, and food and wine will be going on at the same time. I'm not aware of the exact discount you have so I'm not sure if you'll be able to take advantage of anything that will come out later. I personally love halloween but not sure I'd be happy with just 5 days. It has been crowded this time of year the last 2 years and the extra time on nov/dec might be needed if the crowds continue and you just have to do the parks slower than normal.

 

[kohlby]

Is it safe to assume that the $100 difference doesn't include any room discounts that will become available in the summer?

The end of nov into the first week of december is one of my favorite times to go. It's really crowded for thanksgiving weekend but really dead the first week of december and all the winter holiday are in full force starting that week. We always arrive the saturday after thanksgiving and stay for at least a full week. The catch22 is I've never seen a discount for this week. If your more mid-month, then free food (if it comes out) and other things might actually save you even more money. It's a gamble at this point as it's too early in the year to know what will come out.

We do love halloween, and food and wine will be going on at the same time. I'm not aware of the exact discount you have so I'm not sure if you'll be able to take advantage of anything that will come out later. I personally love halloween but not sure I'd be happy with just 5 days. It has been crowded this time of year the last 2 years and the extra time on nov/dec might be needed if the crowds continue and you just have to do the parks slower than normal.

The Oct discount is a ticket-only discount. The other ticket cost is going through UT for all but the water park and getting the water park through Disney. We may be off-site for the entire time. If we find a good room discount, then we'll do a split-stay with some being off-site still. Free dining has never worked out as worth it for us since everything else has to be not at a discount. (And we like the flexibility of eating where we want when we want, especially with two kids with quirky eating habits). We won't do MNSSHP. We did it during our last trip and not everyone is interested in staying up that late again, though we did enjoy it. We don't think the Christmas Party will be worth it for us. We don't care about F&W either way. (The cost for option 1 is $1775 and option 2 is $1858.68 - that's for 5 people and includes all taxes).

Our family is split on what they want. Hence the "why" in case there are things we aren't considering.

 

[Accident]

We're not water park people so I would probably spend the extra $100 and head in november probably the week of the 13th. Any discounts that come out later should be valid for that week where the following week they probably wont be and I would hope to save even more money as it got closer. There is also a little chance this might be a lower crowd week since the thanksgiving crowd will start to show up that weekend.

 

[Dug720]

We're not water park people so I would probably spend the extra $100 and head in november probably the week of the 13th. Any discounts that come out later should be valid for that week where the following week they probably wont be and I would hope to save even more money as it got closer. There is also a little chance this might be a lower crowd week since the thanksgiving crowd will start to show up that weekend.

I would agree with this. With only two water parks, I don't get why they'd plan three water park days with option 1 - personally I can't even find enough to keep myself occupied for one whole day at a water park.

 

[kohlby]

Ack - just went over to the UT site and recalculated and realized I made an error. Doing a 6 day - not 7 day - will be under $200 difference. I don't think UT rates changed that quickly, so I must have punched something in wrong. And though we would now buy a 6 day with this rate change to make them close, I'll keep the original post though as we would get it with the idea that we could add on days while there if we wanted. (We can't add days on to option 1).

 

[kohlby]

I would agree with this. With only two water parks, I don't get why they'd plan three water park days with option 1 - personally I can't even find enough to keep myself occupied for one whole day at a water park.

Because we did three days at the waterparks our last trip. We don't spend all day there. We consider those "rest" days. We spend the rest of the day either at Disney Springs or relaxing at the hotel.

 

[wilkeliza]

With your education tickets you could call and see about extending them. I don't know if education tickets are handled the same way as runDisney but with runDisney your leader can get your ticket extended and you just have to pay the price whatever it is. It is worth asking your leader. I know cheer groups and sports teams that also offer this. Basically it'll be a minimum of X days and then you can add on based on your group.

 

[rpb718]

My vote would be for option 2.

Blizzard Beach was down for what appears to be it's usual fall refurb starting 10/4 this past year, so depending on when Disney does the same for 2016 (which could be 10/2 or 10/8) you might only be able to go to Typhoon Lagoon. In any case I'd be hard-pressed to schedule 3 water park days even with both water parks open, let alone just one of them. If you are staying off-site, I'd seriously look around to plan something else outside of Disney if you go with option 1.

 

[CynBeth]

I would definitely do the PH and go the first or second week of Dec to experience all of the holiday stuff. We just went Thanksgiving Week and even though it won't be as crowded if you go the last week of Nov or early Dec, when we went from 12/7-12/15 two years ago it was a tad bit more crowded than we thought. This trip in order to get all of the dining we wanted on some days we had to be at one park for part of a day and then go to another late afternoon to make dinner at another park. I also would not even bother with the water park as who knows if it will be too cold. You may want that time to go back to a park you want to spend more time in or resort hop for the decorations or mini golf.

 

[MommaBerd]

Hi Kohlby!

I priced out the same educational trip, and we decided to go on our own the week before Thanksgiving week. We decided that 5 days wasn't going to be enough, especially with the tour requirements and since you can't add on days to the tickets that pretty much killed it.

I think prices are cheaper in November/early December and crowds will be lower. One of my concerns with the October dates were some holidays around each weekend - Rosh Hashanah and Columbus Day.

So, I'm biased towards your second option.

On another note - are you perhaps from the Atlanta area?

 

[mshanson3121]

We're in the process of planning our next Disney trip for this fall. We have it down to two options. This would be for 8 days of our trip, as the other days' plans wouldn't change.

1.Tickets are 5 day water park and more with hopper. We would need to attend the Behind the Seeds tour as well, taking up a little bit of park time. The plan is 5 days in the regular parks and 3 days for water parks.

You cannot do 5 days in regular parks and 3 days in water parks. You can only do 5 days, period. Now, you can do hop on those days and spend PART of those days at the water parks. That's it.

2. Go in November not during peak times. (Possibly even into the first week of December). Our tickets would not be under a special rate. We would get 7 day base tickets - so no hopper. We would get one day of waterparks as well.

The price difference comes to less than $100 extra for option 2.

Even with the extra cost, I would go with option 2 since you'll have more days at Disney.

 

[MommaBerd]

@mshanson3121 With the tickets she is talking about, you get 5 park days PLUS 5 other activities - water parks, DQ, mini-golf - which are separate from the park tickets.

 

[MommaBerd]

You could also hop over to the Budget Board to figure out some ways to generate some extra $ so you CAN add the extra days to option 2.

 

[mshanson3121]

@mshanson3121 With the tickets she is talking about, you get 5 park days PLUS 5 other activities - water parks, DQ, mini-golf - which are separate from the park tickets.

Oh, for some reason I thought it was more like a park hopper between parks. In that case then, if OP really wants to have 3 days of water parks... then I'd do the first option!

 

[kohlby]

Hi Kohlby!

I priced out the same educational trip, and we decided to go on our own the week before Thanksgiving week. We decided that 5 days wasn't going to be enough, especially with the tour requirements and since you can't add on days to the tickets that pretty much killed it.

I think prices are cheaper in November/early December and crowds will be lower. One of my concerns with the October dates were some holidays around each weekend - Rosh Hashanah and Columbus Day.

So, I'm biased towards your second option.

On another note - are you perhaps from the Atlanta area?

2-3 hours from Atlanta. I didn't check to see if the Southeast group near Atlanta was doing it too. This is through Carolina Homeschooler. There's another group doing it the first week of Sept.

Though the tour requirements are there, those are actually better this year. The class only takes about an hour and all our kids can go to the same one. This year, all three kids would have been in different programs if it had been done like years past - and the other classes took 2.5-3 hours each. (My kids did really enjoy their classes last time though).

We've done the full week before t-giving as well as the full week after t-giving several times and it's always been a great week. We did Universal this year though. (And once again, the weather was great the week after t-giving!)

 

[kohlby]

My vote would be for option 2.

Blizzard Beach was down for what appears to be it's usual fall refurb starting 10/4 this past year, so depending on when Disney does the same for 2016 (which could be 10/2 or 10/8) you might only be able to go to Typhoon Lagoon. In any case I'd be hard-pressed to schedule 3 water park days even with both water parks open, let alone just one of them. If you are staying off-site, I'd seriously look around to plan something else outside of Disney if you go with option 1.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll consider that in our planning if we go for Oct as we can start our trip the end of Sept to account for that if needed. We are planning two days at Universal and 1 day at Legoland as well with either option. We have annual passes for Universal and Legoland's special rate is too good to give up. Add in 5 days of Disney parks and 3 days of water parks (and some hotel time and Disney Springs time) and we're up to 11 days. We'll have plenty to do.

With your education tickets you could call and see about extending them. I don't know if education tickets are handled the same way as runDisney but with runDisney your leader can get your ticket extended and you just have to pay the price whatever it is. It is worth asking your leader. I know cheer groups and sports teams that also offer this. Basically it'll be a minimum of X days and then you can add on based on your group.

These education tickets cannot get days added on.

 

[MommaBerd]

This is through Carolina Homeschooler.

Yep! I thought so. I was asking if you were in Atlanta to see if we maybe knew each other IRL. The homeschool world is so small!

Though the tour requirements are there, those are actually better this year. The class only takes about an hour and all our kids can go to the same one.

Really, you are right about that. My kids just loved the classes, but that was offset by the additional days on the tickets previous years.

BUT, if your kids really love the water parks, as a PP said - BOTH water parks will be open in October. So, without any extra cost to you, that's two more days worth of entertainment.

I guess the question back to you is why WOULDN'T you do option 1? For us, we wanted more park days and we have a significant amount of Disney Dream Dollars from our Visa to spend, so we could justify going on our own. Why are you hesitant to go on the trip? I couldn't really tell from your initial post...