How do you upgrade to an annual pass?

[Dollysmama]

We going to Disneyworld in June for the second time ever , but plan on going back in Dec 2009 for Xmas, How do we upgrade to the Premium Annual Pass, We will have 7 day park hoppers with water park option, We got the buy 4 get 3 free deal. Do we have to do it on the first day or last? and where?

 

[Master Yoda]

You can do it at any guest service location at the parks or DTD. (Note guest service at your resort can do next to nothing with an AP) You can do it at anytime between the first day you use your ticket up to 14 days after you first use you ticket. You expiration on you AP will be the same as the first day you use you 7 day ticket that you upgrade. Because of this you might want to run some numbers as your AP will be active for 6 months before you get a chance to use it in December. In the long run it might be less expensive to not upgrade in June and buy a full price AP in December of 2009 and have it be good through December of 2010. Based on your present pattern of June and December tips you could do as many as 3 trips on a single AP if you plan it right.

 

[MichWolv]

We going to Disneyworld in June for the second time ever , but plan on going back in Dec 2009 for Xmas, How do we upgrade to the Premium Annual Pass, We will have 7 day park hoppers with water park option, We got the buy 4 get 3 free deal. Do we have to do it on the first day or last? and where?

I upgraded my MYW package tickets to APs in December. As Yoda has said, you can do it any any Guest Service location at a park entrance or DtD up until the expiration of the pass. I was told that resorts can handle regular AP upgrades as well, but not Florida resident Seasonal AP's. Your response may vary on that.

One thing to note is that because you have the water park option, you will have to upgrade to Premium AP's. If you were planning only to upgrade to regular APs, you need to change the tickets on your package reservation to drop off the water park option.

In addition, it isn't clear to me how much credit you'll get toward your APs with the 4+3 tickets. The line I've always been given is that you get as credit exactly what you paid for the tickets. If that holds, you may only get credit for the price of the 4 day ticket, not the 7 day ticket. But, of course, that can change based on however Disney wants to run the promotion.

 

[Rob562]

One thing to note is that because you have the water park option, you will have to upgrade to Premium AP's. If you were planning only to upgrade to regular APs, you need to change the tickets on your package reservation to drop off the water park option.

In addition, it isn't clear to me how much credit you'll get toward your APs with the 4+3 tickets. The line I've always been given is that you get as credit exactly what you paid for the tickets. If that holds, you may only get credit for the price of the 4 day ticket, not the 7 day ticket. But, of course, that can change based on however Disney wants to run the promotion.

You bring up two good points:

1) You don't have the Water Parks & More upgrade info quite right (at least based on the info I've read and heard about in multiple places)
If you have the Water Parks & More option and you *use* any of the options before you upgrade, you can only upgrade to a Premium Annual Pass. But if you haven't used any of the WP&M admissions, you can upgrade to a regular AP. They'll give you a credit toward the AP in the amount you paid for the ticket.

Which leads to....
2) I'm not sure quite how Disney handles things like the "free" days on your tickets in the B4G3 promo, but it'd be worth it to at least use your ticket once for a main theme park admission *before* upgrading them.

When you do this with a discounted ticket broker's ticket, the ticketing system will give you a credit for the current gate-price of the ticket, not what you (or the ticket broker) actually paid for the ticket. It's just a quirk of the system that I've been told by a number of cast members in ticketing about, and they actively encourage it.

It works the same if there are ticket price increases between the time you book your package and your trip. For our trip in September, ticket prices went up before we took the trip. I made sure to use my ticket first, and when I upgraded to an Annual Pass I got an extra $10 credit or so that I didn't actually pay.

Now, after all that's said, I don't know if this will work for tickets that Disney has given you something for free, like the 3 free days on B4G3. But it's at least worth a shot. Worst-case is that you don't get the extra money and you pay about $10 more.

-Rob

 

[coltow]

We did this, this past summer for pretty much the same reason. We had purchased a package and then decided to go back for Christmas. The day we arrived in August, we were having dinner at Ohana so we had to take the bus to MK for monorail any how. There is a guest service window to the right of the turnstiles. There was no one there so it only took a few minutes to upgrade to AP.

You cannot do this at resort only at guest services. What they will do is take the parks ticket portion off of your room key and give you a separate ticket that is your AP.

 

[Tom]

Some very important points. These are fresh in my mind because we JUST went through this process.

1) It doesn't matter how many days your current MYW ticket is good for - they don't care. It can be 1 or 10, and you could have gotten any number of the days for free - they don't care. The only important factor is the difference in price from the AP you're buying and what you actually paid for your MYW tickets. When you upgrade, they'll do simple subtraction and nothing else. If you want an AP, they'll pull up the price of the AP and subtract what their computers say you paid for your MYW tickets, and you'll pay the difference.

2) Whatever you decide, make sure you've gone through a turnstile at least once before you make your upgrade. By going through a turnstile at a theme park, you've "locked in" the price you paid for your MYW ticket. This makes a difference, somehow, in the upgrade price you pay for the AP. I don't want to try the math, but I've been told this by someone on another Forum who works in ticketing - and then it was confirmed by the CM who did my upgrade.

3) Rob is correct: if you use your WPAM option at all, you'll be forced to upgrade to the Premium AP. However, if you don't use any WPAM features, you can still opt to upgrade only to a basic AP.

4) You can make this transaction at the TTC, any of the 4 park Guest Relations windows, or at the International Gateway ticket office at Epcot. Nowhere else. And note that the TTC closes at about 5pm. We found this out the hard way in January.

5) Be SURE to look at your tickets and the information printed on them before you leave the Ticket Window. 3 days into our trip (after we got our APs on the first day) we noticed the EXPIRES ON date printed on them. It was 1 year from the day we bought our MYW tickets!!! Not 1 year from the date of first use!!! Had we gone home with them that way, they would have expired before our next trip in October, meaning we probably would have spent hours at a window trying to have some CM fix it all. Fortunately we saw the error when we were at the International Gateway and a VERY HELPFUL ticket CM got them fixed right away.

6) Yoda made a great point as well: sit down with a calendar and do some math. You can really make an AP work to your advantage, OR you can really screw yourself. If you need some guidance, shoot me a PM. I just worked about 10 scenarios for AP vs. MYW a few weeks ago, so it's fresh in my head.

Have fun!

 

[Rob562]

4) You can make this transaction at the TTC, any of the 4 park Guest Relations windows, or at the International Gateway ticket office at Epcot. Nowhere else. And note that the TTC closes at about 5pm. We found this out the hard way in January.

You forgot the two Guest Relations locations in Downtown Disney (Marketplace and West Side).

-Rob

 

[Dollysmama]

Thanks everyone for your help, I will definately look into all the options.:wave::wave::wave:

 

[Tom]

You forgot the two Guest Relations locations in Downtown Disney (Marketplace and West Side).

-Rob

D'oh!