DW and I were discussing our trip (again) and mentioned the idea (since we are at 8 days) of potentially getting an annual pass to save money. Now, using today’s prices (which will rise, of course), an 8-day ticket from UT would run $485, while the Annual Pass from Disney would run $905. This makes it $420 more expensive. BUT, with the 20% savings on most Disney purchases and 10% on most dining, plus the fact that it covers the Memory Maker, by my calculations, we pretty much just break even…meaning no real advantage. (The parking advantage doesn’t apply.)
I’m wondering, however, if there are any tricks or hints about the Annual Pass…gotchas, for example that aren’t obvious, or ways to most effectively use it to your advantage.
At this point, I think the only way it would really pay off is if we planned a SECOND trip to Disney (staying off set), perhaps in 2021 before the year is up. We were more likely going to wait until 2022. But then, is that really saving us money if we are going again sooner than we planned.
I do have access to JJT’s handy-dandy calculator, so I’m just curious about the hints/tricks bit if there are any!
If signature dining is a thing for you, or if you drink wine or other alcohol, Having an AP allows you to purchase Tables in Wonderland (an additional $150). That provides a 20% discount at most restaurants and includes alcohol (whereas AP discount does not include alcohol). SO, depending on your eating and drinking habits, that could be a winner. With a family of 4 we easily saved the $$ with TiW. We ate at table service most nights for dinner and at least 4 signature restaurants. Combined with wine and cocktail purchases we easily saved over the $150 it cost for TiW and the additional savings accrued to the cost of the AP.
Obviously a second trip would push the value far up. I think no matter how you dice it, it is always a close call for a single trip, especially if it is a trip with only 2 people.
@JJT is a liner who is a whizz with…well many things! He has a spreadsheet that shows you how much you should pay to upgrade to an AP based on the ticket you have.
Alcohol and Signature dining isn’t really our thing. We’ll do a few Signature dining, but, for example, we do plan to take advantage of our kitchen and make breakfast and/or a few meals. So, our food savings isn’t a lot. We figure the Memory Maker and souvenir shopping (we have budgeted big: $500…so we could save about a $100 there) will be a significant part.
I did notice that JJT’s calculator kind of calculates things assuming you would get the AP for everyone, which makes it not as useful as I had hoped. I can do the calculations myself, though. In our case, it would just be me who would buy the annual pass. I see no benefit to both of us having it!
I agree. I upgraded just my ticket, so we have 1 AP in the family.
We had 9 park days, and the dining. We didn’t actually buy that much stuff (probably less than $200 worth of souvenirs for the week). For me it was: (1) memory maker; (2) Tables in Wonderland; (3) a discount at Hoop De Doo that pretty much made it a better deal for us. Combined with the limited shopping, I think we ended up saving about $300 or so for the week. Not a ton, but, worth it. (Notice I am also going back the weekend
Thanks! I do have a suggestion…you could provide an option to price it out where you only get ONE annual pass for the group to do the price comparison with. Also, I noticed the Memory Maker, if you add it, adds it for everyone as a savings…but really, it should only be counted ONCE as a savings, no matter how many people there are since you wouldn’t pay for Memory Maker per person anyhow.
To run it for 1 annual pass, all you need to do is enter 1 adult - it will price out tickets and savings for that 1 person.
Then, you should still enter what you expect to spend for everyone for food/merch etc, since I’d assume the 1 AP person would be using their discount for everything they could.
I realize that method doesn’t tell you the total outlay for all your tickets, but the intent of the sheet is to figure out if it is worth it to upgrade vs what your total expenses are.
But, once you enter the above for the 1 adult, you can then change the number of adults/children and compare the original savings to the new one to see how much more or less you’d save if you upgraded everyone.
Regarding Memory Maker: it does only count it once regardless of how many people you enter - but it is once per trip. It assumes if you are people who buy MM, you buy it every time. That seems to be the norm and I thought it simpler than adding another setting box where you tell it how many times you want to buy it, or have people turn it on and off for individual trips.
Since there’s already so many things to set, I’ve tried to avoid adding more things and confusing people.
Ah. Okay. That makes sense. Rather than thinking of it as a savings calculator, I was seeing it more as a trip cost comparison. But I get it now.
I see. When it doubled it, I thought it was per person. We would never actually spend money on Memory Maker usually, other than for a single trip, so I guess for me it doesn’t work. But I can just leave it off and then add back in the savings once at the end then.
I believe that that is the case. You can use your TiW card for the additional alcoholic drinks that are not included with the DxDP (remember that starting in 2018 you do get 1 alcoholic drink per adult per meal credit used included with the dining plans).
I have no idea, but I don’t see any reason why what @Jadesfire21 said wouldn’t be true. My understanding is that you can always pay out of pocket for additional items.
THere is no minimum purchase on a TiW card. I have stopped into the Rose & Crown and purchased a beer at the bar (in a to-go cup) and received the discount.
the following is a term: * The Tables in Wonderland discount cannot be used in combination with any other discount.
But I don’t see that as the case you describe because the alcohol you would be buying is non-discounted.
If you have a taste for wine, this could come in handy, we bought a bottle at Cali Grill that was about $160 and got $32 off - thanks to TiW. 20% of the cost of the TiW card right there…
