AP--Break even point?

[daisyduckie]

I've been thinking about getting an Annual Pass, but I'm a bit lost when trying to figure out if it is really cost effective or not. How would you go about figuring that out? I'm getting confused thinking about AP room discounts, and park hopper costs per day vs AP costs. And would you figure the Tables In Wonderland discount in too?

I'm really hoping someone can say "Well, if you spend 13 days at a moderate you will break even" or something like that. Or am I crazy?

 

[Chef Mickey]

Not being a Fl. resident - i.e. fly in from Boston - we find the AP to be a great savings. Usually we only stay 7-8 nights, on property. We purchase a pass every 2 years, i.e. get 2 trips south to WDW, which cuts the AP cost in half. We never renew the pass in that it permits us to change our travel dates. We stay at the deluxe resorts and usually visit in December.

How does using an AP twice cut the cost in half? Maybe I'm not understanding your methodology.

 

[MickeyMomV]

Not being a Fl. resident - i.e. fly in from Boston - we find the AP to be a great savings. Usually we only stay 7-8 nights, on property. We purchase a pass every 2 years, i.e. get 2 trips south to WDW, which cuts the AP cost in half. We never renew the pass in that it permits us to change our travel dates. We stay at the deluxe resorts and usually visit in December.

Why are you not a DVC member? If you are staying deluxe and going "yearly" and if you are a DVC member you get the discount on your AP's. It just seems like you would have additional savings this way.

 

[MickeyMomV]

How does using an AP twice cut the cost in half? Maybe I'm not understanding your methodology.

I'm guessing he is talking about spreading the 2 trips at each end of the 365 day window so it is like having 2 years of AP's at one price. Or 1/2 price per year.

 

[sxeensweet]

Why are you not a DVC member? If you are staying deluxe and going "yearly" and if you are a DVC member you get the discount on your AP's. It just seems like you would have additional savings this way.

Great idea but you aren't taking into account yearly dues (which go up every year) and initially buying in which can be very costly up front. Some don't want these extra expenses. We did it and love it but some it's not something they really want to do and be locked into.

 

[Chef Mickey]

I'm guessing he is talking about spreading the 2 trips at each end of the 365 day window so it is like having 2 years of AP's at one price. Or 1/2 price per year.

Oh, that's just psychological then.

 

[DisneyFans4Life]

I get that you said Florida resident, but how often are people going for just 1 day? Maybe people that live an hour or less away would do that? Unless you're a person going for 1 day frequently, factoring in 1 day cost doesn't really apply.

I think it's much simpler to just take the ticket costs for your average length of stay and just do math. I have to believe most people are going 4-8 days at a time.

Again, I understand your example was for a Florida resident. I just don't know how many people actually live close enough to literally just pop over for a day. I'm sure there are people, but it is the overwhelming minority.

To me, if you live in Florida, you should automatically have an annual pass, no analysis needed.

Again...just to keep things simple I used a day ticket as an example. I completely understand that you can buy multiple day tickets and the price per day is cheaper than it would be if you just bought multiple single day tickets. That's why I said in another post that the more you plan to go in a 12 month period, the more an AP makes sense.

For a FL resident, you can buy a 4 day "pass" for $209, plus $32 for park hopper and that brings your total to $243 to get into the parks on 4 separate days. That's a pretty good deal in itself, but if you spend an additional $146...you get the Silver Pass and can go anytime you want as long as you don't go on a black out date (the 4 day pass has black out dates as well).

I agree with your last sentence lol. I've lived in FL all my life and didn't have a pass until a few years ago. For a while there, I was the guy buying the 4 day passes and that was it. I finally got wise and upgraded to a pass so I can go whenever I want!

 

[MickeyMomV]

Great idea but you aren't taking into account yearly dues (which go up every year) and initially buying in which can be very costly up front. Some don't want these extra expenses. We did it and love it but some it's not something they really want to do and be locked into.

Every couple of trips we revisit it. We usually stay moderate so I am quickly reminded why we don't do it. Doing the quick math it just seemed like it would make sense is cases like this.

 

[sxeensweet]

Every couple of trips we revisit it. We usually stay moderate so I am quickly reminded why we don't do it. Doing the quick math it just seemed like it would make sense is cases like this.

It can of course be a good idea I agree completely with you , but for example our dues alone every year are roughly $1400 and keep going up as to be expected. And our buy in of 220 points was as much as an average car! Haha!
But yes if you do moderates mostly then it does not make sense for you to not join DVC I get that.

 

[DisneyFans4Life]

We thought about joining DVC, but even with buying the points outright (I refuse to pay 10% interest on something with perfect credit), the yearly dues were crazy. We enjoy staying a few nights a few times a year at Disney, but we're completely find doing moderates since we're not in the hotel room that much anyway.

 

[Chef Mickey]

Again...just to keep things simple I used a day ticket as an example. I completely understand that you can buy multiple day tickets and the price per day is cheaper than it would be if you just bought multiple single day tickets. That's why I said in another post that the more you plan to go in a 12 month period, the more an AP makes sense.

For a FL resident, you can buy a 4 day "pass" for $209, plus $32 for park hopper and that brings your total to $243 to get into the parks on 4 separate days. That's a pretty good deal in itself, but if you spend an additional $146...you get the Silver Pass and can go anytime you want as long as you don't go on a black out date (the 4 day pass has black out dates as well).

I agree with your last sentence lol. I've lived in FL all my life and didn't have a pass until a few years ago. For a while there, I was the guy buying the 4 day passes and that was it. I finally got wise and upgraded to a pass so I can go whenever I want!

Going multiple days or not is an enormous factor in determining the worth of an AP.

 

[FrostyNaples]

We thought about joining DVC, but even with buying the points outright (I refuse to pay 10% interest on something with perfect credit), the yearly dues were crazy. We enjoy staying a few nights a few times a year at Disney, but we're completely find doing moderates since we're not in the hotel room that much anyway.

Same here, DVC works well if you can buy it outright without financing.

 

[DisneyFans4Life]

Same here, DVC only works if you can buy it outright without financing. Even then, it's a stretch of an "investment"

If there wasn't a yearly maintenance fee...I think I'd be more inclined to join, but I realize that will never be the case. Any kind of timeshare that you purchase is going to have some kind of maintenance fee associated with it. We're also fortunate that most of the time we can use a CM's discount to book our room for us.

 

[FrostyNaples]

If there wasn't a yearly maintenance fee...I think I'd be more inclined to join, but I realize that will never be the case. Any kind of timeshare that you purchase is going to have some kind of maintenance fee associated with it. We're also fortunate that most of the time we can use a CM's discount to book our room for us.

Even with that, don't get me wrong, it makes sense to family's that it makes sense for. This is completely subjective to each personal situation.

IF we could purchase outright, the yearly fee's are less than we spend on resorts currently. It would work for us, just not if we need to finance the timeshare sum.