Would You Still Own DVC if APs were No Longer an Option

[Sandisw]

exactly. it's not difficult math to figure out. I know others said they will do other things elsewhere around Disney or spent time at the hotels and stuff. that's awesome, but for us I would rather go sit ocean front on a beach in a huge comfortable house or hit a lake in a cottage and fish all week for way way less. Florida for us is Disney and the parks without that I have no need to be in Florida. just us though.

And, for me, it is just the opposite. I love Disney...have since I was little...and I'd rather spend time in the "bubble" than go other places. If it means less days in the parks, I will make it work without an AP. If it means changing up other trips we do, I would do that too!

DH is not as big of a fan as me so he is not thrilled with all the additional costs...hasn't been in years due to the age of our pet...so he lets me just do what works for me! We even talked about potentially buying in Fl, and renting it out, just to have something to be eligible for FL discount tickets, if the AP's don't return and they stop allowing me to renew.

I do think they will come back...not sure about price...because they do count on FL to buy them...I just wonder if they haven't yet because the winter break crowds are good...from what I have seen, the parks are pretty sold out this coming week.

 

[jimim]

And, for me, it is just the opposite. I love Disney...have since I was little...and I'd rather spend time in the "bubble" than go other places. If it means less days in the parks, I will make it work without an AP. If it means changing up other trips we do, I would do that too!

DH is not as big of a fan as me so he is not thrilled with all the additional costs...hasn't been in years due to the age of our pet...so he lets me just do what works for me! We even talked about potentially buying in Fl, and renting it out, just to have something to be eligible for FL discount tickets, if the AP's don't return and they stop allowing me to renew.

I do think they will come back...not sure about price...because they do count on FL to buy them...I just wonder if they haven't yet because the winter break crowds are good...from what I have seen, the parks are pretty sold out this coming week.

I hope they come back. We are a huge Disney family. It's what brought my wife and myself together when we started to date. Our love for Disney. We went multiple times a year until we got married and continued the same after marriage and now with the kids. I miss it soooo much. We collected WDCC for 15 years. We have a whole room in our home dedicated to our collection when we built our home. I sit in the there every night while i read or game and look at all the pieces and think about all the great times we had and all the people we met over the years. We love the parks always have. We aren't resort people ya we go swim everyday and chill out and most of our favorite places to eat are in the hotels, but the parks still ay a huge park into each and every trip. It's sad it really upsets me. I don't come here as much cause it upsets me when I read about others trips cause we miss it and so do my kids. I really really hope the passes come back. I said years ago I would never ever rent points but when covid hit and I actually was going to loose points I said might as well make a few bucks ad make others happy. I saw how easy it was I kept selling them cause I knew I would loose. them. I didn't sell anything that I know I will use going forward for the November trip but I'm only going if we can get passes cause then I'll book another trip for around easter and start our routine back up, but again without passes I think I'm done. It's sad cause Disney is such a huge part of my family's life. My parents keep asking when we are going back too cause thy miss coming with us. they were there with us for when each of my kids both went the first time. first with my daughter and then 2 years later when we had my son. they used to come at least once a year with us cause I had enough points for their room also. I guess all we can do is wait and see.

 

[sethschroeder]

Maybe sometime in the future we could do that, but when you have school aged kids (not pulling a middle or high schooler out of school), there is no flexibility to do that - you're stuck with the schedule you're given.

Have kids as well now entering school.

I will be shocked if we don't have flexibility to at least shift a vacation by 7-10 days year over year.

That sounds far to scheduled personally and I would simply rent the points for the 3-4 years or leave the kids behind.

 

[CarolynFH]

I wonder if Disney is waiting on the outcome of the lawsuit in California: https://allears.net/2021/12/20/news-disneyland-responds-to-5-million-magic-key-lawsuit/
Disney might be holding off on restarting sale of new APs at WDW in order to see what the court says about whether or how much capacity Disney must hold open for passholders as opposed to regular ticket buyers. Even though the lawsuit is focused on the Magic Key program at DL, the outcome might influence the design of the WDW AP program. They could be allowing renewals because that's a limited number of APs.

 

[MonaMN]

Have kids as well now entering school.

I will be shocked if we don't have flexibility to at least shift a vacation by 7-10 days year over year.

That sounds far to scheduled personally and I would simply rent the points for the 3-4 years or leave the kids behind.

Our school district always does the same week for spring break, which is when we prefer to travel (getting out of the snow and cold). I suppose if we wanted to melt in the summer we could do it, but I have zero interest in a Florida summer.

 

[RoseGold]

I wonder if Disney is waiting on the outcome of the lawsuit in California

Great point. You’re totally right. Maybe the structure of the AP is tied to that.

The real solution is a on-site guest AP, at least for me!

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Great point. You’re totally right. Maybe the structure of the AP is tied to that.

The real solution is a on-site guest AP, at least for me!

This is sort of tangential to the discussion at hand, but I agree. I have said for years that there needs to be some sort of AP for people staying exclusively on-site, whether it be DVC or regular hotel guests. Essentially, these guests would be treated as residents only when they are 'FL residents' at a WDW resort. Other AP options are available for those who desire broader entries for accommodations outside WDW. Why not have a pass available for guests willing to further commit to spending their accommodation dollars exclusively at WDW resort? It only makes sense.

This would be easy enough to police. They already know at the parking gates whether you're a hotel guest or AP holder or both anyway. It makes no sense this hasn't happened already. YEARS ago.

 

[jedst]

I'd even be happy without a discounted pass. Just let DVC owners buy all the different pass levels at full price so we can fully use the points we bought without penalty.

Unfortunately I think that falls in to the right thing to do for DVC owners, and not the most profitable thing for Disney to do. Hopefully it starts to become a reason people cite for not buying and they have to offer them to get sales.

I think we will sell if they don't come back this year. The way customer service has decreased over the last 10 years in our view and value for money going the wrong direction we were already thinking of scaling back.

We had 3 different trips planned within 12 months, and are now cancelling two of them as I'm not going to pay the cost of an AP 3 times. On our last trip we arrived the night before they cancelled selling AP's the second time. The line for customer service was so long at Disney Springs to convert our tickets, we figured we would just do it in the parks the next day. We had quite the nasty surprise when we got to the customer service desk at WDW that day to upgrade and they informed us they stopped selling them midnight last night.

 

[mac_tlc]

I voted "no", but given our circumstances, its not a strong "no". We now own a second home in Orlando so we qualify for the FL resident passes, which we can still renew. If we were to sell that home and be truly out-of-state DVC members again, I may sell the points but may rent them instead.


mac_tlc

 

[suebeelin]

We will sell, or rent perpetually, 2-3 years after we cannot buy AP’s.

Park tix will be too $$ and I would rather go overseas if we must buy at their current prices.

We thankfully have enough 5 day non-date specific tickets left (from a few years ago) to last us 2 more years; if they end AP’s then we will keep DVC for 3 years, till my youngest is 11, then sell/rent. He will be old enough to enjoy international or non Disney destinations at age 11.

We also have a 9 days left on our 10 day no-expire. New Year’s Eve??

 

[cm8]

My Ownership will not ever be tied to being able to purchase an AP. If we’re not able to renew, we will just use our points to visit elsewhere. I’m okay with that too! Membership extras come and go and I won’t ever depend on having something that was never promised and fully explained to me at purchase. Now, if we ever have another pandemic and they close the resorts again, I will expect them to fully compensate us for not providing service per our contract of not being linked to the parks.

 

[JoeA]

We've been DVC for about 12 or so years and have only had an AP once. We like to fly down but don't always go to the parks. Some are resort stays, some are Universal trips, and some are just a single park day.

But I do think not having a discounted AP for DVC is a typical Disney move (charge more and give less).

 

[Anal Annie]

This was hard to answer for me. We've always had AP's but had let our old ones expire pre-covid as we weren't going back for awhile. Then we were shut out once they stopped them and we paid OOP for tix for a couple of trips which I HATED doing. THANKFULLY they started selling them again just before the 50th and we bought them again because we were going to be there on the 50th. If they hadn't offered them in time I had already said no more trips after the 50th because the reg tix are absurdly expensive. Now with AP's again we have a long weekend booked in May and 8 nights in Sept just before they expire (so we'll have to decide if we want to renew then). If we couldn't have AP's I don't think we'd sell our DVC (yet) but we would definitely only plan ONE trip / year and we'd probably upgrade our rooms so as to not waste points that we'd normally try to save for more trips. We might plan more trips to Aulani or HHI or deposit the points into Interval or whoever and take other vacations.

 

[parmley88]

I never had an annual pass until I became a DVC Member. We used to only come once a year until DVC allowed us to go more often. If they didn't offer an annual pass anymore then I would probably still go to Disney once a year, but would utilize my membership to go to Universal. I'm sure I'm not the only one to think this way, but I would think Disney would want to lock in customers to keep them spending money in their parks.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

I changed to yes after thinking it through. I might not go as often and would opt for fewer trips in nicer rooms. But I am fairly certain I would maintain my DVC.

 

[mickeymom629]

I voted 'yes' because we also have gold vouchers and some unused tickets. My kids are grown with little ones and they can't afford to go often, as we all live a long drive/flight away. DH and I will go to use our points. When we run out of tickets, we will probably only do a couple days at the parks. I also want to wait to use my saved tickets until I see things change from the way they are right now. We ALL did 5 days in the park in January with some days being almost a waste of a ticket. Last April, DH and I did only 2 park days and relaxed 3 days at the resort and Disney Springs and it felt like a vacation.

 

[bakerworld]

Voted yes. We started purchasing the AP well before joining DVC so I don't equate the two. The DVC saves on the room. The AP saves on the parks. If anything not having the AP frees us up to look at other places to stay as our AP vacation choice will usually have a park walkable location.

When Disney stopped selling AP's in 2020 we still went for 8 days in November '20, 5 days in March '21, 5 days in May '21, and 4 days in July '21. We discovered with some experimentation that for the $ equal to the 2018 discounted Gold AP's we could visit the parks enough to satisfy us. With the new hopper restrictions we found the MYW ticket a better deal for us. We're older so we sleep late, go to bed early and no longer travel much with others. My BIL finds the ticket prices onerous but he's never purchased an AP and has to have a park ticket for every day except his arrival date. Either way both of us could deal with no AP's. We prefer the AP just because it takes another $ item off the planning, just like the DVC takes the room off the table, per vacation.

BTW, I just booked 1N at BC for my BIL because I accidentally canceled his DVC room = Sticker Shock.

 

[gharter]

Whether we go once a year or twice, as long as the AP renewal is cheaper than length of stay tickets, we will do the AP. OTOH, not having an AP is not a deal breaker, but we would spend less time in the parks.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Deleted my prior post. Thought I was in a different thread.

Wrong poll. Wrong thread. Wrong RESPONSE. LOL

 

[JAM9842]

We live in FL so even without the DVC discount we could get Florida resident rates so for us it would not be a game changer.