Upgrade to an Annual pass or not? What to do

[mvbuch]

We have a trip planned for the end of May for me , my wife, daughter and son (all adult tickets) . We have 8 day park tickets bought through Disney.

After everything was locked in we found out my daughter is going to be in the Disney college program in the fall. Yeah!
The problem is should we upgrade all our tickets to ap? Me and my wife will go with my daughter to drop her off and will arrive a few days before she starts. Then in January me my wife and my son will go to pick her up so we will be there for a few days.

Should each us get ap or should only me and my wife get them? What would the price increase be from an 8 day to an ap? We bought the tickets around the time of the increase but I am not 100%sure if it was before the increase

 

[MichelleWDWfan]

If you plan to go to the parks at least 14 days or more it might be worth it to upgrade to annual passes.
If your son won't be going every time, just get AP's for you and your wife and buy discounted tickets for your son
Undercover Tourist is a place I use for tix for my son when he goes with me. (I am an AP holder)
I'm not sure how much it would cost to upgrade your 8 day ticket
Also might want to check...would your daughter get guest passes being in the DCP?
I'm sure CM's on here could give you better insight.

I can say that the perks of having an annual pass are very good.
Room discounts higher than the general public discounts, merchandise discounts and dining discounts, among other discounts as well.

 

[mustinjourney]

8 day park tickets are $420+tax.
Park hopper tickets are $495+tax.

APs are $780+tax.

So if you upgrade to APs, it will cost you about $285+tax per ticket above the park hopper price.

The nice thing is that APs come with photopass -- which would cost $200 anyways, so the first AP is really only $85 more. Plus you get discounted rooms/merchandise/food and other benefits.

If you're planning on going one other time -- then the APs are the way to go.

Of course -- as someone else said, you daughter should be able to get you in for free using their CM passes. Don't know how that works -- but I know they get a certain number of passes to use for friends and family. I think they have to be with you at the gate though -- so it might not be practical for your purposes.

 

[Accident]

So the interesting thing about this is you may not need tickets for your daughter. The rough part about this is your talking fall college program when there is more blockout dates that might line up with when you can visit. You are going to want to pay attention to when your daughter can't get into the parks for your prices but you might get lucky and don't need to upgrade her..

Now for everyone else, even if you don't know exactly when your visit what is your rough idea for the next 12 months? Right now you have 8 day tickets, as pointed out earlier, we'll call that $420. Let's say you are going to take 2 more trips that you will use 3 day tickets for. that's 280 per ticket per trip so you are up to 980 in tickets, it's a huge savings to upgrade everyone but your daughter to APs which only cost 780.

Where else you can save money is: no parking costs if your not staying at disney. no need to buy memory maker as you already get a better version of it included with ap. if your getting the meal plan, you probably can remove it from your package as you'll get roughly 10-20% off food out of pocket (you'll need to check where to see if it lines up with where you like to eat). however this is all a wash because if your going to come down once for more than 3 days or twice with any number of days you've already saved money, this is just gravy and extra savings.. you'll just have more options to make disney even cheaper with an AP. rooms I wouldn't count on in your costs, i rarely saw anything that really helped save more than a few bucks a night.

 

[edk35]

I would upgrade because you might find yourself going MORE OFTEN while she is there. LOL Our dd did the program in Jan. 2012. We went in early Jan. to get her settled in. We went the end of Jan. for a planed DVC trip, then we went back over Easter/spring break week. We also went back the end of May for Star Wars weekend and to help her get packed up for her return home.......THEN my son and I went back in July. LOL She will be able to get discounted rooms while on program.