And… You guessed it: another update!
After seeing so many people say CMs at Guest Services are coming up with incorrect numbers for bridging discount tickets to AP, I’ve added a simple printable table to my “Find Max Discount” spreadsheet. Figured it would be useful to have in hand at GS.
Below is a sample of the printable table. You can use the spreadsheet itself by clicking here.
Has anyone told you today how amazing you are? You rock!
Thanks @PrincipalTinker!
FYI All: I’ve added another feature by request:
Right below the Annual Pass Cost box you can click and choose one of the 3 AP types.
The numbers on the other printable sheets should all reference the number of ticket selections and AP type selections on the main sheet and be
I love spreadsheets, and THIS ONE IS AMAZING! Thank you so much.
Do you know if you bridge after entering the park on your first day, do you get reimbursed somehow for your parking?
If you purchased MM, do they add that to your ticket cost when deducting from what you should pay? Or should I just wait on the MM? (I can only do that if it is certain to work from Day 1.)
Glad the sheet is helpful!
I haven’t done either of those, but reading chat I’ve seen people confirm yes to both - they should take those amounts you paid into account. (Might need to show receipt for the parking since that won’t be on MDE like MM?)
I also have seen reports that MM does start on day 1 when you upgrade.
Of course, one also sees reports of glitches in general with MM that are likely not related to upgrading. Most problems with MM seem to get ironed out in the end, though.
Maybe others with direct experience can confirm.
If you did decide to buy MM first, my printable sheets won’t take that cost (or parking) into account so you’ll have to do some math on that. Maybe I can add some selection boxes later so people can choose to add it - but I’m starting to worry there’s too many things for people to select on the sheet and it might get confusing. 
New Feature!
I played around with @starfrenzy’s idea at lunch today and added a spot on the printable info pages where you can select whether you have already purchased a Memory Maker before upgrading tickets to AP:
The options in that box are
The Amount box will automagically fill in with the correct price based on your selection.
(“Starts Immediately” would be a last minute purchase that costs $30 more.)
For Example:
If you were buying 2 adult and 1 child tickets, the biggest savings at the moment is to buy the “6 Day with 1 Day Free” Park Hoppers from Undercover Tourist. If you bought those, then the amount you would need to pay at Guest Services to upgrade to the Platinum Pass would be $918.
If you then selected “Advance Purchase” in the Memory Maker box, the amount of $169 will appear there - and will lower the “AP Upgrade Cost” box down from the original $918 to $749.
The notes for that box will also change to tell you it now includes Memory Maker, and also pops up a yellow box below to that will hopefully remind you to tell the CM at Guest Services about your purchased Memory Maker so you are sure it gets included in the calculation.
Fantastic! I think I’ll call tomorrow and ask about the MM and parking counting towards the price of the upgrade and I’ll report back here when I’m done.
According to the WDW agent I spoke to today,
Great info, thanks! Maybe I should create a FAQ page in the sheet…
I’ve tweaked the spreadsheet a tiny bit more so that the "Total Saved: section now also tells you what percentage of the normal AP price you saved by bridging discounted tickets for an upgrade.
After I did that, I realized something interesting: If you know you are going to upgrade your family to AP and you have children, it might be to your benefit to buy ALL Adult tickets at a discount and use those for the upgrade.
Example for a Family of 4:
Using the current prices at the discounters, if you buy the current cheapest 2 Adult/2 Child tickets you’ll save 6.94% on the AP price when upgrading.
If instead you bought 4 Adult tickets, you’d save 8.35%. That = another $47 saved when upgrading.
Below is a table comparing the two options.
Obviously those numbers change as the discounter prices change, but worth keeping in mind when checking prices in my sheet. (Now, of course, I’m wondering how I might automagically have the sheet do that. There goes my lunch hour, I suspect!)
is there a way to maybe include the DVC/ FL resident prices as a drop down option?
Not to give you more reasons to keep tinkering with it… … but I have been dreaming of a feature like CamelCamelCamel where you can see what was the best bridging amount (amount saved) in the past few weeks/months.
For example, the first time I used the sheet, the savings amount was $48. The next time I checked it it, the amount I would save by buying discounted tickets and bridging was $90! And then two days later it was $68.
Having that info helps me know whether $48 is a good enough deal or I should wait for a ticket with a higher difference between discounted rice and gate price.
Of course if you have to do that manually that will be a lot of work but if you check say once a week or ev. two weeks and jot it down, that would be a nice feature.
Adding those in the selection shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll just think about how to make it both simple and obvious what people are selecting.
I’ve found over the years that When there are more than a few things to select in a list, people get confused.
If I add both DVC discount AP plus renewal prices, that’s 6 new selections. Looks like there are 6 different Florida resident passes, including renewals is 12.
(I assume they still will bridge for renewals?)
Thinking out loud: Maybe another pair of selectors would be best: one for DVC/FL Resident, another for renewal? Hmm.
That’s a good idea. In excel I would just write a macro and stick in a button for me to press that would add the current best prices to the end of a table.
I haven’t looked at scripting in Google Sheets yet, but could be doable there too. Or, I could just type it every time I update the discount prices table…
I just updated the discount ticket prices in my spreadsheet & see that ParkSavers has one drastic change: a 5 Day PH ticket with 2 free days (so a 7 day PH) that just edges out the UT 7 day tix for the most savings.
Maximum Savings: Dum-DA-DUMM! THE PREQUEL
UPDATE (20JUL2017): I’ve made some changes to how the sheet looks and updated the cheat sheet image in this post below…
I haven’t looked into adding the DVC and other possible AP discounts yet, nor some other suggestions, like creating the sheet for whispers… Universal Studios, as I’m trying to round up a lot of things at work and home before we head out on our trip.
But, I did take some time to massage a spreadsheet I had started working on earlier and added it to another tab in the Maximum Savings family of products. This tab is called “Is it Worth It For Me To Upgrade to AP?”
If you are planning on taking multiple trips to WDW within a year, you can enter some basic info about them in this sheet and it will calculate how much you might save (or not) by upgrading to AP on your first trip.
Here’s a simple cheat sheet screen capture for it:
It is a work in progress, so don’t sell old cow Betsy to that weird farmer down the road and take a fistful of proceeds to WDW just yet - but I think it is pretty close to done in the world of Estimationeering.
I think it is important to note: use the ticket type you normally would buy on your trip info - if your family are Base tix kind of people and the thought of hopping from park to park makes your Keens catch on fire, don’t use Park Hoppers here or you will get an artificially positive number in the Savings section.
You can go right to this tab in the sheet using this link: https://goo.gl/p3f5yj
Hope you all find it useful!
POSTSCRIPT: There is a spot in this sheet to enter an estimate for how much your hotel will cost on each trip, and the AP discount can be applied to it. But, with all the possibilities for room discounts at WDW, I am not really convinced that hotel discounts should be a big part of this estimate unless you are booking rooms that are only available at a discount for AP holders at times when there are no other non-AP discounts out there.
But, I left you all a space to enter hotel costs if you like and to make that decision for yourselves, dear readers.
My brain percolated overnight, and I made what I think are some changes to the “Worth It to Upgrade to AP?” sheet that make it a little more easy on the eye. I also updated the cheat sheet image in the post above this one to reflect the changes…
Thanks!
Hi Everyone: Just a quick post this time:
After a question from someone about the price the spreadsheet reports as gate price, I have two things to report:
So, if you try to double check and compare my spreadsheet’s info (as I would do myself!) and see Disney’s ONLINE ticket price doesn’t match, remember you’ll have to add $21.30 to each ticket to get to the GATE price.
I have updated the gate ticket prices and double checked them, and also updated all of the 3rd-party vendor prices earlier in the week.
I’ve added a couple of simpler tables to the AP Bridge Info for Printing sheets that I think may be easier to use when standing at Guest Services.
The main printable sheet has a lot of info and I still think is useful, but I felt it might be better for people to be able to have a simple screen shot of the numbers involved on their phone. I also included a formula for the basic math in case a CM comes up with some wildly different number. (It happens.)
On the sheet there is an option to select whether or not one has already purchased Memory Maker - if selected it takes that amount into account in the upgrade price since the CM should give you a credit for it.
Below are 2 examples of the expected Bridged AP Upgrade cost for someone who entered 3 adults and 1 child in the form and bought (or plan to buy) 7 day Park Hoppers. (Those are the tickets with the highest discount right now.)
One example with the MM option selected, and one without that option selected.
You can click here to go to the spreadsheet and give it a try.
