Is there any option to do this? Can you add days at a set price? If not, what do people do? 5+1? 3+3? I haven’t done the math, hoping there’s an easy answer
There is no option for more than a 5 day ticket. You can either upgrade to an annual pass, or buy a 1 day ticket in addition to your 5 day. To make it more cost effective, only get a 1 park per day, 1 day ticket and plan on not hopping that day. Or take the day off in the middle of the trip and go to the beach, or to hang out at the pool or something else. 5 days will be plenty of park days.
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Normally it’s not an issue. My daughter has a dance competition there and may want to go to the park(s) with her friends before the rest of the family comes to start the family part of the trip.
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Gotcha. An AP may be the best bet then.
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It would be less than $100 (if I figured this out correctly - $395 for 5 day park hopper and $129 for a regular one day hopper = $524) to get the new flex passport ($600), but then you could get all the discounts and I am sure that would more than make up for the additional costs. You would need to double check and see if that worked for your dates, but if it does, it seems like a good deal.
Adding a 1-day non-hopper is definitely the most cost effective, that guarantees your daughter can enjoy time with friends and family but would force one of the groups to not hop for a day. If it’s an option, perhaps she & her friends can do Downtown Disney/pool time together & skip out on the parks.
However, the AP price for not much more is very tempting to be able to hop all days without worry & then get some discounts (your daughter would have to be present and if she’s over 14 would have to have ID to verify she’s the passholder to receive the discounts AND they may give you a hard time paying with a method of payment in not her name- using Gift Cards as method of payment is a very simple way to get around this).
One other cost-consideration on the AP vs. 5+1 day tickets is if you’ll be using MaxPass. If you will be then 6 individual days of MaxPass for her is cheaper ($90) than adding it to the pass ($100) so something to weigh in as well if you’re considering. You could also forgo adding MaxPass to the AP & just have MaxPass purchased day by day if you decide to go the AP route.
If you go the Flex AP route, you would have to watch out for how many of your days are “Good to Go” vs. what days you would need to reserve in advance. If you have only 2 days you need to reserve in advance then it’s a solid plan to get the AP and you can purchase ahead of time, get the 2 days reserved 30 days before your trip and have the discounts for the whole trip.
If you have 3 or more days you need to reserve in advance, that’s where it gets tricksy. Long story short, since you can only reserve 2 days at a time there will be a certain amount of risk/uncertainty involved on if all the days you need reservations for can be days your daughter can enter. I personally am risk-adverse especially since we travel so far to get there & I would rather know I can get into the parks or definitely plan not to be there if I’m blocked out.
But if you don’t mind the risk here are a few ways to go about it:
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If one of the reserve in advance days is the very first day of your dates then you can purchase the 5 day ticket (with the intent to upgrade to the Flex AP) & use the 1st day of the 5-days to avoid the need of a reservation for that day. Then that night as you leave the parks (would have to be before guest relations/ticket booths are closed) you can upgrade to the Flex AP and make your reservations for the other 2 days that require them. With this scenario you wouldn’t have your discount available for the first day but could hold off on merchandise purchases & focus on the snack locations to eat at that don’t get a discount to avoid missing out. The other bigger downside with this scenario is that not getting the Flex AP until this day, you’ll be really close to the dates you need to reserve & run the risk of the other 2 days not being available. It’s a really big unknown as to how reservation availability will fill up at any given time, since this is the first year of this kind of pass.
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Another, equally risky (IMHO) way to go about it with more than 2 days to reserve is to get the pass in advance, reserve the 2 earliest of the days that you need to reserve that you reserve, then once you’ve entered on your first reserved day, make a reservation for your next day you need to reserve as you can hold 2 reservations at a time and once you use one it frees up your availability to grab another so as long as the date is available, you can pick it up even on short notice.
If it were me & my daughter, I would probably have her work in some way to earn that extra day (either through extra allowance by doing extra things around home or by earning money doing baby-sitting/yard-work jobs for friends/family). She can decide how much she puts forth to be able to earn enough for just the 1 park/day or do more to earn the hopper with her friends. But that’s just my 2 cents!!
I just had the idea to go to universal for one of the days. How much Harry Potter is there? How many “headliner” rides? Is it lame compared to Orlando? I haven’t been to either but that seems to be the flagship. Is there anywhere on this board that talks about universal California?