Okay so literally on my way out the door, take a seat and upgrade it through the app, correct? in the Tickets section? Right now it’s not an option (and there is park pass availability right now)
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If you can upgrade thru the app, you could do it in the park. But if you left you might not get back in. I wanted to use gift cards and had loaded $800 on gift cards (from target with 5% discount) for this purpose and the app wouldn’t take it. So I had to leave the park and go to the ticket booth to upgrade.
Random rant - you can use a gift card for literally every other purchase through the app or website but not the Magic Key. Why? Did they really not think that people would want to do that?
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I don’t really think convenience and ease of use is something Disney goes for these days…LOL I mean why do I have to have had used my ticket to upgrade either? and other things are not easy either, park reservations in general are a pain, the fact you cannot park hop till a certain time a pain, boarding groups…I mean we have a full one page doc on here that explains how to do it. You have to be thoroughly researched to visit Disney. It’s not a random fun day. Even in 2019 I wanted to add a day to our tickets…just to avoid the hassle of having to do it the day of at the park gates I bought a separate one day ticket cuz I like to throw money away apparently to save time and hassle*. If I can add a WDW how hard is it to add that feature to Disneyland? I could go on and on and yet I also LOVE it obviously and it’s worth all the hoops! ha ha ha
- I remember now we were staying at GC and I would have had to go to the main gate to do it because I decided to add it last minute which negated the fact that I was staying at GC so I just paid the extra so I could use the back entrance morning of.
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We have many times purchased 3-4 day tickets and then upgraded to a pass while at the parks. The last time we did this was when we purchased Flex passes in 2019 and it was literally on our way out the door because I didn’t want to have to fuss with a reservation while at the park (they were available but one was required for that weekend so I didn’t want to be left in a lurch where when we upgraded the last one disappeared and then suddenly we couldn’t get back in the gate). They offered multiple times to help us get reservations as we were leaving and we explained that we were driving home, but they still double checked during the process & even offered to help us make a future one if we wanted/needed. But that was all 2019.
The reports l am seeing on Facebook groups are very similar to what @Julianne_fki’s experience was unfortunately. That they won’t (or with the limits of their systems can’t) secure a passholder reservation if you upgrade from tickets to a pass mid-trip, even though their count of people in the park hasn’t changed. So it’s a whole new world. If we were staying until Monday (when reservations are more likely to be available and right now still are), we would maybe try to upgrade Sunday night and make a reservation right that minute for Monday morning to be able to use our pass discount for merch purchases on Monday (and save all major purchasing until then), but we’re driving home Sunday so we’re just gonna be discount-less this trip.
Well, not totally. As devoted Disney fans we have the Disney Visa so I believe we get a merch discount if the purchase is $50+ but it’s always been less than the pass discount so we’ve never used it, but will be the trip to really dig that detail up and make use of it if we can. And we’re also deciding to make this a more snack-focused trip so our restaurant discount is less missed.
Pulling out all the stops on our Disney math to make this new pass …uhm…key… work. 
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Pulling out all the stops on our Disney math to make this new pass …uhm…key… work.
ha ha ha
Okay, so to get the 10% discount on food and toys…I mean “very adult and serious” collectibles 
…wait does this apply to lightsabers because that would be fantastic since my son always buys one every trip.,
Doh I squirreled…so I meant to say as a complete thought to get the 10% discount on food and very serious adult collectibles we need to switch immediately but then we have to get in and reserve passes right away (and we should only do this if available)?
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I am almost certain the lightsabers are very much an exception and discount does not apply to them. But would apply to things like extra crystals. When we built droids on our first GE trip it was the case that the droids themselves weren’t eligible for a discount but the personality chips we put in them and if had elected any accessory kits for them (we didn’t) were eligible for the discount. But we also haven’t ever done the light saber (yet- my boys are 10 and 4 so I’m sure we have them in our future) so I could be wrong.
Yes the discount won’t apply until you activate a Key and if you were a previous passholder they no longer have the legacy passholder discount they were doing while the pass program was suspended.
So if the day you are doing the upgrade and any days following it that you want to be in the parks are available for passholders to reserve, yes I would switch and reserve just as soon as you get the pass purchased/upgraded. What this means is that if any of these days for you are a Friday, Saturday or Sunday you’re probably better off not activating/upgrading until you are literally not planning to go back through a gate to re-enter the park. Because right now those are going to be sold out for passholders until the pent-up demand goes away (and I have no way to know when that will be, maybe next year sometime?).
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Okay and yes we’re going Sun Oct 10 (we have Oogie Boogie bash tickets too but I didn’t know they were going to do that this year when we bought park tickets so we’ll just go around lunchtime with the park pass). Monday Oct 11 (Columbus Day so an official holiday) and Tuesday Oct 12 (which is like a 4 on the crowd calendar so I might be able to switch Monday if Tuesday is available still.
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I wanted to buy OBB tickets when they came out but we’d just gotten home from a June trip with 5-day tickets and had prepared ourselves mentally to wait until a pass was announced to plan anything and with the tickets being non-refundable, didn’t want to risk there not being a pass (& we weren’t sure if/when we would be willing to travel again with Delta just starting to rise and 4 kids who are all too young to be vaccinated).
In hindsight we should’ve just splurged and gotten the tickets because the bash looks like so much fun, but it’s called hindsight for a reason!! Your plan seems really solid on when to upgrade. Hope it works out for you & report back if you can on how it goes!
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