Annual Pass FP+ Dilemma

Walt Disney World
1

When you purchase an Annual Pass and you are not a Disney World resort guest, you are only allotted 7 days of FP+ reservations for each 30-day period. What does one do if you’re in the company of family members who have, say, a 9-day “Magic Your Way” ticket containing 9 days of FP+ reservations? You obviously want to be able to get their two extra days of reservations linked to your Annual Pass. Would either of the following two scenarios work in practice?:

  1. Once you’re in the park and have used up one day of your Pass’s 7 days of FP+ reservations, you can try to make FP+ reservations for “Day 8” (followed by Day 9 the next day you’re in one of the parks), though chances are unlikely you’ll be able to match all of your family members’ reservation windows unless someone at Guest Services is able to leniently link them together. Has anyone had this happen?

  2. Instead of buying an Annual Pass at the outset, what if you purchased 9-day “Magic Your Way” tickets for all attending family members (making sure to find the best discount), then make nine days worth of advance FP+ reservations. Use your “Magic Your Way” ticket for the first two days in the parks, then go to Guest Services to upgrade to one Annual Pass, requesting that they “bridge” the price. Will the remaining 7 days of FP+ reservations on your family’s “Magic Your Way” tickets link to your Annual Pass, or will the Pass only accept the next 5 days of reservations because it “knows” that you already used two reservations when you were a “Magic Your Way” holder? If the transfer idea does work, you’ll want to first crunch the numbers: by sacrificing the use of an Annual Pass during your first two visits, you relinquish free parking and potential discounts at Disney restaurants. However, you might find that the money you saved from the “bridging” (which, in effect, got you your Annual Pass at a discounted rate, depending on how much money you originally saved on your “Magic Your Way” ticket) still has you coming out ahead, especially when you consider that you’ve just gotten two extra days of FastPasses.

2

You will be staying off site? If you are onsite your AP lets you book for your length of stay. You can also book day 8 after day 1 is complete- day 9 after day 2. Copying FP to another person works well for everything except those very rare FPs (FEA, 7DMT).

3

In your situation, I would buy 9 day tickets and then upgrade to an AP once you have entered the parks once (if you buy from a discounted seller). I did this in May, in fact I upgraded to a Premier pass (Disneyland and WDW) with a 6 day WDW ticket and a recently purchased Disneyland Pass. I did not lose any FPP and retained the discount I got when purchasing my WDW ticket from Undercover Tourist.

There is no reason to wait, just enter a park the first day and then upgrade. You will immediately be able to use discounts from the AP.

4

PBI I have been meaning to go to the ticket booths when I am the park(DL), but lately the lines are sooooo looooong. Did I read this right? You purchased a DL pass, also a WDW 6 day ticket THEN combined the pass and ticket toward the cost of the Premier Pass?
TIA!

5

Yes I did. I didn’t know if they would be able to combine them, but it worked out perfectly. I did it at the GS outside of Magic Kingdom. It took a supervisor, a call to GS at Disneyland, and about 30 minutes but they made it happen. It expires the original date of my Disneyland pass (which I bought on a last minute, completely unplanned trip about 3 weeks before my scheduled WDW trip).