Florida Resident Tickets

[jr105]

I was looking at Florida Resident passes for my family's upcoming trip on Jan 2- Jan 5, 2013.

There two things that were mentioned that I have not seen before:

Florida Resident 3-Day and 4-Days Tickets expire 6 months after first use OR December 18, 2013, whichever comes first and may be upgraded in person. Blockout dates apply.

View 2012 Blockout Dates
View 2013 Blockout Dates

I knew that the passes expire 6 months after first use. This is the first time in all my years as a Florida Resident that I have seen blockout dates apply towards a magic your way ticket.

Does this mean if I want to visit WDW during those dates I will have to pay full price for my pass even though I am a Florida Resident? I am reading this correctly?

Any additional information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Monty]

Yes, that's what it means. Disney seems to have decided that discounting tickets for Florida residents during peak attendance periods no longer makes business sense. They've applied the blackout dates that always applied to Seasonal APs to the 3-4 day Fla Res tickets as well.

 

[ParentsOf4]

I'm not a FL resident but do find the new in-state price increases and restrictions surprising. I would have thought Disney would want to maintain the goodwill of in-state residents. I wonder if Disney would do anything if enough people contact their local representatives. All it takes is one FL state representative to decide to make a name for themselves to blow this up into something ugly for Disney. FL really has given WDW a sweet deal and it seems that the new prices have forgotten that.

 

[MissM]

Some of the special ticket offers used to have limited blackouts; for example the "Wild for 3/4 Days" passes they did from January-May of this year had restrictions. (Blockout dates: Feb. 18 to 20 and April 1 to 13.)

But I've never heard of things like the entire summer months or the days around Christmas/NYE and such being blacked out. That's absurd.

 

[MouseRight]

My friend was told by DVC Rep that if you bought these tickets and didn't activate them at the Parks before June 3, you will not be allowed into the parks. Thus if a family planned their vacation before that date, purchased their tickets, and didn't follow the news they could show up at the Parks and find out they can't get in. Also, suppossedly AAA Tickets purchased before June 18 will be grandfathered and not have the blackout dates. Something to do with AAA Agreement with Disney. Again, this is what he was told. Has anyone else heard anything about this? Thanks.

 

[Visions]

I am a Florida resident and make various short trips to WDW a year, every year. This weekend I visited the WDW I was going to the park one day and then at the beginning of September for two more days. I had planned to purchase a 3 day Florida resident ticket and was informed about the black out dates. Since the regular non resident expires in 14 days and does not provide a non expiration option the only option i had was to purchase a full price 1 day ticket! Needless to say I was upset. This must be effecting Disney's revenue as the park was not busy at all on a Saturday, 15 minutes was the longest I stood in line all day. I sent an email to guest services and received this:
"We are sorry for your disappointment with our current Florida Resident Ticket options. From time to time, we evaluate our offerings and make adjustments to our ticket prices and entitlements. As you know, our current 3-Day and 4-Day Tickets for Florida Residents have block out dates. These specially priced tickets provide Florida Residents an opportunity to visit our Theme Parks during our off peak season. Please be assured that our Guests' impressions are important to us and that your comments will receive careful consideration the next time we review our ticket offerings."

 

[MeandMickey]

I can somewhat understand where TDO is coming from while doing this, and wondered why it took so long actually. That said, I am also disappointed that it has happened. I think the new Florida resident ticket "policy" has been put into place to cover a loophole that allowed "extra", or non-blackout, days to be used when purchasing the Florida Resident 3 and 4 day tickets. In the past, a Florida resident could purchase these 3 or 4 day tickets to go the the parks during the typical blackout period covered by the Florida resident seasonal pass. Before the last day was used on these 3 or 4 day resident tickets, the Florida resident could simply upgrade the ticket to a seasonal resident pass and, "Voila", they got a couple days at the parks during blackout periods and can now come back during the seasonal pass period. Believe me, this made sense if you wanted to go a couple days in the summer and you were going to be buying a seasonal pass anyway at some point during the year. As I said before, the new policy of adding the same blackout dates to the 3 and 4 day resident tickets closes a loophole when upgrading those tickets to a resident seasonal pass. It just appears that TDO was a little slow in figuring this out and have finally started to pay better attention to ticket revenue losses.

 

[tracyandalex]

Hhhmmm this is upsetting to me because we use those tickets a lot.ugh one more thing to plan around. I am interested to see how this plays out because I would think that Disney would not want to off the residents of Florida. I know that use Floridians are not their main business, but surely we up the repeat business by a decent amount. While this doesn't currently affect us (based on what we have planned for 2013) it may soon if it continues because once DD starts school in 2014 we may not always be able to go during low times. If we have to pay full price we may not go at all or surely not as often.