Very Merry Christmas Tickets as part of a full week's stay.

[Rasstuss]

Hello Everyone, I'm new to the board and looking for some info on a specific question.

First let me just give a background of our planning so far. We are a family of 4 heading to WDW for 6 days and 6 nights the 2nd week of December 2018. We have been wanting to do a full week at Disney for sometime and our 2 daughters will be 4 and 7 so we felt that this was the perfect age for them to do it. A few years back while visiting some family in Tampa we went to Magic Kingdom for just one day with our oldest daughter when she was still 2. It happened to be in November and we did the Very Merry Party and loved it, when it came time to plan our full week trip we wanted to do it at at time when we could attend the Very Merry Party again.

I usually enjoy travel planning but at the assistance of my wife we went with a certified planner that friends of hers have used previously. We explained our plans and that we wanted to attend the Very Merry party one night of our stay forgoing a full day in the parks that day. Now the planner was able to get us in on the free dining plan during December which she explained required park hopper tickets each day. I was worried that this would cause a problem with the Very Merry party but she said we could trade in the park hopper tickets for one day. We were told that there may be a little extra expense because the park hopper is discounted on the later days of the stay. We our now at the time to start making dining reservations and finally got her to look into the Very Merry Tickets and found out that to trade in our 6th day park hopper would only give us a credit of $46 for the family of 4 and then we would have to buy the Very Merry Tickets at full retail which is $104 per person. This means trading the park hopper tickets in for Very Merry Tickets will cost us a total of about $380 which was shocking and we will probably have to pass on attending the Very Merry Party. I am thankful for the free dining package but I guess that is the root of this problem. I was just curious if anyone else had run into a similar situation or if there was a way around this?

 

[dreamfinder]

I think your planner gave you bad advice. My understanding of the free dining plan this time around is that you simply need a minimum 4 night stay, with a minimum 4 day park hopper ticket. So you could be there for 7 nights, but only buy a 4 day park hopper if you wanted to spend a day at the pool, go to Universal one day, etc. And there is no trading in of tickets in the manner she is describing. You can't use part of a ticket, and then trade it for a different ticket, unless you are upgrading your existing ticket. IE going from a 5 to a 7 day ticket, or a ticket to an AP.

The MVMCP tickets stand alone, and need to be purchased as they are a separate hard ticketed event. Historically you could get in at 4PM with the party ticket, so some people would elect not to get a park ticket for that day, and just use the party ticket from 4-12. Other people would use their multi-day ticket to go to a park in the morning, and then use the party ticket to go to the party in the evening. As you indicated, the cost for that incremental day is usually small, so it wasn't a big deal to pay the $10 or so for 5 hours at Epcot.

If you do choose to go to the party, you will need to buy those tickets separate. And then decide if you want to keep your existing park hopper ticket and go to a park before 4PM, or if you want to go from a 6 to a 5 day ticket, and then just do a pool/Disney Springs day before the party. You would want to make the change in the number of days on the ticket early enough so that the package can be modified by your planner without having WDW hit you with change fees. In theory, if you dropped a day on the hopper and added the MVMCP tickets they shouldn't charge the change fee as the overall package price would be going up, but I'm not 100% if I would trust your agent to handle it properly.

 

[Rasstuss]

I think your planner gave you bad advice. My understanding of the free dining plan this time around is that you simply need a minimum 4 night stay, with a minimum 4 day park hopper ticket. So you could be there for 7 nights, but only buy a 4 day park hopper if you wanted to spend a day at the pool, go to Universal one day, etc. And there is no trading in of tickets in the manner she is describing. You can't use part of a ticket, and then trade it for a different ticket, unless you are upgrading your existing ticket. IE going from a 5 to a 7 day ticket, or a ticket to an AP.

The MVMCP tickets stand alone, and need to be purchased as they are a separate hard ticketed event. Historically you could get in at 4PM with the party ticket, so some people would elect not to get a park ticket for that day, and just use the party ticket from 4-12. Other people would use their multi-day ticket to go to a park in the morning, and then use the party ticket to go to the party in the evening. As you indicated, the cost for that incremental day is usually small, so it wasn't a big deal to pay the $10 or so for 5 hours at Epcot.

If you do choose to go to the party, you will need to buy those tickets separate. And then decide if you want to keep your existing park hopper ticket and go to a park before 4PM, or if you want to go from a 6 to a 5 day ticket, and then just do a pool/Disney Springs day before the party. You would want to make the change in the number of days on the ticket early enough so that the package can be modified by your planner without having WDW hit you with change fees. In theory, if you dropped a day on the hopper and added the MVMCP tickets they shouldn't charge the change fee as the overall package price would be going up, but I'm not 100% if I would trust your agent to handle it properly.

Thanks, I guess I used the wrong terminology by saying trading the tickets. I understood that what we would be doing would be going from a 6 day park hopper to a 5 day and then buying the Very Merry Party tickets on their own, we just didn't understand the incremental cost in doing so. I think we are just going to stick with the 6 day park hopper and forgo the Very Merry Party and try to enjoy as much of the Christmas theme as we can during the regular park hours.

 

[dreamfinder]

Thanks, I guess I used the wrong terminology by saying trading the tickets. I understood that what we would be doing would be going from a 6 day park hopper to a 5 day and then buying the Very Merry Party tickets on their own, we just didn't understand the incremental cost in doing so. I think we are just going to stick with the 6 day park hopper and forgo the Very Merry Party and try to enjoy as much of the Christmas theme as we can during the regular park hours.

Then yes, that would be the only option. Decrease the number of days on the hopper and then buy the separate stand along party hard ticket. It is unfortunate how much the party tickets cost now, but WDW continues to have huge attendance so they feel justified in increasing the cost, as well as increasing the number of parties.

 

[Rasstuss]

Then yes, that would be the only option. Decrease the number of days on the hopper and then buy the separate stand along party hard ticket. It is unfortunate how much the party tickets cost now, but WDW continues to have huge attendance so they feel justified in increasing the cost, as well as increasing the number of parties.

Thanks again for your help. Just to update we decided to go ahead and splurge on the Very Merry tickets and instead of decreasing the number of days on the hopper just use it on the day we checkout.

 

[wannabeBelle]

Thanks, I guess I used the wrong terminology by saying trading the tickets. I understood that what we would be doing would be going from a 6 day park hopper to a 5 day and then buying the Very Merry Party tickets on their own, we just didn't understand the incremental cost in doing so. I think we are just going to stick with the 6 day park hopper and forgo the Very Merry Party and try to enjoy as much of the Christmas theme as we can during the regular park hours.

Yes the cost up or down a day isn't much once you get into the higher number of days, so it does make each day a bit less expensive, but the downside for you is that the reduction value isn't a very high number. I think you will have a wonderful time with the additional park time, both for the party and check out day!! Marie

 

[Missing_Aria]

I've only every been to WDW during the Not so Scary Halloween Party (HIGHLY recommend BTW, best parade ever) but we're going this year during the same week as you actually.

I could definitely see not getting a park hopper one day and instead going for a single park pass that day and then the ticket for the Christmas party, but I don't think it would save you much at all. As Belle mentioned, once you're staying for a week you're already saving a lot on your park hopper so when you do what your travel agent is suggesting a few things happen:
~The price of your other park hopper ticket days goes up a bit per day and that adds up for a family of 4
~You still have to by your single day ticket
~And THEN you have to by the Christmas tickets which are NOT cheap

It might end up cheaper than just keeping your park hopper and getting the Christmas ticket but I haven't done the math. But it looks like you're just wanting to not have a ticket the day you'd go to the Christmas party anyway? That would probably be the best plan at any rate. You could use that day to go to Disney Springs (check out the Coca Cola tasting bar if you haven't, it's got an amazing view too) or hang out around the pool if the weather is alright (pools are heated too I believe).

Having a free day where you aren't going to a park is actually highly recommended by the Disney Tourist Blog and I have to agree with them. We needed our free day to recover last time (my girlfriend fell ill with a 24 hour bug) and if we hadn't planned not to have a ticket that one day ahead of time we would have felt really bad not using it.

As for the party, try to make it if you can. I haven't seen this one but I definitely plan on attending the Christmas party. The Halloween one was absolutely worth every penny and there's just something extra magical about the Magic Kingdom when they're full on celebrating holidays. Especially with you bringing your girls, they always seem to have extra things planned for the kiddos during these events, for example special holiday character greetings if your girls are into that sort of thing.

 

[wannabeBelle]

To clarify, I wouldn't recommend buying a separate 1 day base ticket at all. Either leave the additional day on the park hopper ticket or remove it. Buying a separate 1 day ticket for that day would be ridiculously expensive. Marie