Your Experience with Buying Disney Admission Years in Advance & Using Them

[Jen and Ashwin]

I love this troll. That being said, here are my questions:

What if you have just one kid or three or four? What if hotel and food prices also double (which they probably will)? Planning a vacation for 15 years from now for an unknown number of variables sounds like a terrible idea. If I were you, I would set up an investment account with the money that I would have spent now on tickets, continue to contribute a small amount each month for the next 10-15 years and then decide what vacation makes the most sense for my family at that time (or none at all, given financial needs/wants).

 

[DetroitDisney]

I beg to differ. AFAIK there are no such investments that:

1. Have my friend of compounding interest,
2. Will not go down in value due to adverse economic conditions either global or directly related to the investment itself,
3. Do not require constant attention and manipulation using information that has to be heard on radio and/or seen on television and/or read in publications,
4. Will be worth sufficiently more in 10 to 15 years to liquidate, pay applicable fees and taxes, and then purchase Disney tickets and more at that time.

If there were such investments then folks would already have gone to them in droves, to avoid such problems as,

5. Having to buy yet more tickets to go with an attractive resort and/or dining package leaving the previously bought tickets unused.
6. A change in the overall ticketing system, eliminating the ability to add days to older tickets without tremendous additional expenditure.

Historically, no Disney ticket has ended up being useful for less in the future compared with when it was printed, except for venues and facilities that no longer exist.

I had to lol.

As a previous poster mentioned, vanguard is great. Any market index fund will do, as they mimic the overall market and have extremely low fees. And while returns are not guaranteed, in the history of America the worst return over a 15yr time frame is about 3%, and this was during the Great Depression. Outside of that example, over a 15yr period, the market has never been worse than about 6%, with highs of 18% annual returns.

Aka, you can VERY easily set and forget your money and laugh all the way to the bank.

The only reason more people don't do this is:
1. They have no extra money to invest
2. They have never even considered investing
3. Because of number 2, they just spend it instead

 

[DetroitDisney]

Also, bc I'm bored at work, I built a model which calculates the difference in buying tickets today vs putting the money into an investment account.

I used the price of 4, 5-day tickets today as my base case. Can tweak if anyone is curious.

If you put your money into an index fund, and let it sit for 15 years and buy (more expensive) tickets in 15 years, vs buying tickets today and sitting on them, you come out $900 ahead.

You also benefit from having liquid cash for emergencies, and having no risk of losing the tickets you bought today (misplaced, stolen, fire, etc).

This example is based on real market data, historical inflation, historical Disney ticket price growth (used 35 years of data), etc. aka it's correct.

Source: financial analyst that builds complex models all day for work.

 

[SMD]

Unused Disneyland tickets DO have expiration dates. There have been conflicting reports about whether or not people using them past the expiration date have had to pay the difference or weren't allowed to use them at all. In general, I like to keep my money liquid so that I can use it if I need it. There are better things to "invest" in or items with increasing value to speculate on than theme park tickets.

 

[DisneyRunner2009]

Our most recent trip started on October 1, 2015. I took down some non expiring tickets and had them converted to the new RFID hard ticket media. In addition, I took the two day tickets, from the package, off our Magic Bands and had those transferred to another RFID hard ticket. I asked three or four different CM's if the two day tickets would be good in the next year or two, as long as I never started using them. All of them said yes. One CM was the guest service window guy. Another was a ticket window girl.

 

[newageretro]

Hello Jen and Ashwin,
The plan is to have two kids, we have one on the way and plan on another hopefully within two years. The plan is to grab four fully loaded adult passes. 10 Day, PH, WPF&M.
While the prices of everything will also go up, I have not really found a way to pre-pay for those items at this time.
While most people have a hard time with such a long planning process, I have found that I enjoy planning trips and after I took ten years to plan a 6 week return trip to Europe to catch everything I had missed on my first trip, I have no issue with starting to plan a DW vacation this far in advance.
That's why I also like the idea of buying all adult passes, this way should things not pan out, they can always become two trips for two depending on my family needs at the time (my kids might not want to go later, but me and my wife will be counting the days).

As for those on the financial bandwagon, I have been financially responsible, and now I've had the benefit of it, and I want to do something fun.

The pay off for me is that it's much easier for me to go and enjoy my vacation if It's paid off in advance. I'm not the kind of person who just pays deposits on things, I pay in full, and I enjoy the comfort of knowing that it's already taken care of.

When I eventually do decide to go back it will be nice to have one less thing to pay for when the time comes.

My big hope hear was to hear what other peoples experiences were with doing this, and if possible, has anyone had things NOT work out.

 

[DisneyRunner2009]

My DH likes to have his vacation paid off beforehand, as well.

 

[DetroitDisney]

It's good that you want to plan in advance and pay things off in advance. There is no financial professional in the world that would suggest taking a vacation on credit.

My point was just that if you are buying tickets for more than 5 years away, you don't benefit from doing so. Buying tickets for a year or two from now is totally fine, and you are more likely to save a few bucks than to lose. Ultimately, it just shouldn't be viewed as a hack to materially reduce the price of a vacation, as it will have a minor impact if any.

 

[newageretro]

DetroitDisney,
I agree whole heartedly, this is in no way a money savings hack. This is more of a feel warm and fuzzy inside and have something to look forward to idea. And the idea that I might save a couple bucks doesn't hurt.
My main goal was to find out how the actual transactions worked out down the road for folks, and if there was something to watch out for by way of Disney company policy, I want to learn from other peoples problems.
But from what I've read, the only downside seems to be that you might not be able to use it at a fifth gate down the road.

 

[AmyAnne]

I researched this a while ago, and from what I can tell, Disney has always been very good about honoring the terms of tickets. At the beginning of this year, I bought 2 10-day non-expiring tickets because Disney announced that it would no longer be selling non-expiring tickets, and when we go to Orlando, we like the option of doing one or two days at Disney and one or two days at Universal. In my estimation (although financial gurus, please correct me if I am terribly wrong), it was my guess that I would save money primarily because one day of a ten-day non-expiring ticket is (or was) already less expensive than a one-day WDW ticket. Because Disney discounts the multi-day tickets, I don't think it makes sense to buy a four-day (or whatever multi-day) expiring ticket in advance.

 

[DetroitDisney]

DetroitDisney,
I agree whole heartedly, this is in no way a money savings hack. This is more of a feel warm and fuzzy inside and have something to look forward to idea. And the idea that I might save a couple bucks doesn't hurt.
My main goal was to find out how the actual transactions worked out down the road for folks, and if there was something to watch out for by way of Disney company policy, I want to learn from other peoples problems.
But from what I've read, the only downside seems to be that you might not be able to use it at a fifth gate down the road.

The only real non-financial downsides are:

-Likely no 5th gate.
-Potential inability to upgrade or manipulate the tickets
-you lose the tickets or they are damaged beyond repair
-Disney policy changes

The 4th one is the tricky one. Since tickets are not a legal contract, they could cease to validate them at any point. 5 years from now they could say any tickets older than 5 years old expire in 6 months. If you don't think this is possible, consider a company trying to maximize the stock price where they have potentially millions of dollars worth of paid for tickets sitting outstanding in deferred revenue (since they haven't been used yet), and being able to write that all to earned revenue when they expire them. Not a stretch.

The thing is that if Disney keeps doing what they're doing, you won't have any real issues. If they change things, you could be really SOL which isn't fun.

I wouldn't take the risk. Open a vacation savings account or investment account. Set up a direct deposit there. Get the warm and fuzzies as you watch it grow.

 

[newageretro]

Your right, the real bet overall is if they will stop honoring the old tickets.
I just don't see a 5th gate being done in 15 years with the Star Wars & Avatar expansions going into existing parks.

I hate having the side savings accounts, when it's not tied up I get crazy ideas to buy things like Disney Tickets.

 

[DetroitDisney]

Your right, the real bet overall is if they will stop honoring the old tickets.
I just don't see a 5th gate being done in 15 years with the Star Wars & Avatar expansions going into existing parks.

I hate having the side savings accounts, when it's not tied up I get crazy ideas to buy things like Disney Tickets.

Open an account with a bank you dont normally bank with (Ally has 1% return on their savings accounts which is pretty good, Barclays also has a thing called a Dream Account which is designed around saving). Set up a direct deposit to that account from your paycheck.

Then forget about it. You will be very surprised when you check in on it months later.

 

[hsmamato2]

15 years? to plan a trip to disney? you may not even want to go at that point,and your money has been tied up for 15 years in tickets! Disney isn't Europe..it's a theme park,which could get better or worse in 10 years,we have no real way of knowing which at this point.... I would never buy that far out with no intention of going in the next year or so.

 

[newageretro]

It wouldn't just a be a trip to Disney, it would be a whole Florida trip by that point, likely three weeks, Orlando, Miami, Keys.
And I don't full time plan, I just keep an eye on things, pay attention to what other people have done and speak highly of, take rough notes and e-mail them to myself and keep them in a trip folder for further research once I hit the two year mark. While everyone seems to take issue with planning far in advance, you would be surprised how much you can sometimes save if you can make bookings on the first day they are available, especially flights. Its not just ADR's to BOG that are easier, earlier.

I was hoping to get more advice to my actual question rather than my style of planning & travel.

 

[Ava]

I'm considering buying tickets this year for a potential 2017 trip, to take advantage of the AmEx/UT $30 off a $150 purchase deal. My wife and I each have an AmEx card so I could get two tickets at $30 off of each.

I would never buy tickets unless I had the intention of using them within a few years. Too much can happen in 5+ years time to warrant investing $1000's in DisneyWorld tickets that you may or may not end up being able to use.

 

[AmyAnne]

I was hoping to get more advice to my actual question rather than my style of planning & travel.

I think all that anyone will be able to say is that so far, Disney has always honored the terms of tickets at the time they were sold, but nothing is guaranteed for the future.

 

[NeverlandClub23]

I have tickets that were purchased in the 90's when I was a kid (but Disney adult) and still use them from time to time. There's only a couple days left now, but more water park and more extras then I'll ever be able to use (well, *want* to use). We also have a couple 10 day non-expiration tickets that we'll use for long weekend trips here and there. I've thought about purchasing tickets for future trips, but I don't know if the Disney World I grew up with will resemble the same place in 10-15 years so that kind of keeps me from wanting to spend the money. I've also noticed once we have tickets already, we tend to be a bit more free in booking future trips (like just because we have "free" tickets it makes the trip free...).

 

[Sunnywho]

I hate having the side savings accounts, when it's not tied up I get crazy ideas to buy things like Disney Tickets.

So everyone including OP agrees it's a crazy idea?

 

[amylevan]

Looking online I can see that in the last 10 years, the price of admission has just about doubled, so in an effort to keep ahead of the curve, I was thinking about buying 4 adult passes now, to use one day far in the future.

DetroitDisney,
I agree whole heartedly, this is in no way a money savings hack. This is more of a feel warm and fuzzy inside and have something to look forward to idea. And the idea that I might save a couple bucks doesn't hurt.
My main goal was to find out how the actual transactions worked out down the road for folks, and if there was something to watch out for by way of Disney company policy, I want to learn from other peoples problems.
But from what I've read, the only downside seems to be that you might not be able to use it at a fifth gate down the road.

You've gone from saying that you are trying to stay ahead of the curve to admitting it's not a money savings hack.

It's not. You want a warm and fuzzy feeling? Open a "Vacation" mutual fund with the knowledge that that money is for future vacations - Disney or not.

Too much can change in 15 years. There's no guarantee that it will be a 3 week trip to Florida with enough time for 10 day tickets (how do you know what the sports or activities schedule for your children will look like? Or whether you and your significant other will be allowed to take 3 weeks of vacation?). And if you can't use all 10 days of your tickets, you've just wasted more money.