Military tix at gate

Trip planned in October 2021. Group of 4 people, all arriving on different days and times. One person will be arriving the day before I do (I am spouse of retired military). Can that person use the tickets we bought from SOG without my presence?

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No, you have to be present to activate the tickets. If they are military salute tickets. Once they’re activated then you don’t have to accompany them again

Yes, if you get them through Shades of Green.

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Salute tickets through base rec are not activated, but tickets through Shades of Green are already activated.

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I was just going to clarify.

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(Have SoG FedEx them to you ahead of time)

We’ve picked up Tickets from SoG and Patrick AFB (now SFB) and the tickets from a base ITT needed to be activated at GS or a ticket wdo before using the turnstyle.

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Military Promotional Tickets purchased through Shades of Green are activated before they are shipped to you. If you purchased your Military Promotional Tickets somewhere else, the military member or their spouse must be present at the gate to activate your tickets. Military Promotional Tickets are limited to 6 per service member per year, but there are other military discounted tickets with lesser discounts as well. If you have any questions, you can contact Shades of Green even if you are staying elsewhere.

If your tickets are plastic cards, they’re good to go. Regularly discounted military tickets are the plastic cards. They can be bought at military facilities.

If your tickets are cardstock vouchers, the vouchers have to be activated at a Disney Guest Services - one at each park and one at Disney Springs - by someone with a military ID. After activation, the military person does not have to be present.

The heavily discounted Armed Forces Salute tickets are the cardstock vouchers. Which, if bought at a military facility, will require activation.

They don’t do the paper vouchers anymore, making this a little more confusing. They are plastic cards now. We just went through the process- you do have to present an ID at the window along with all the cards, and they will then assign them to people in your friends and family, and sync them to magic bands, and will OFFER after the fact to give you a plastic entrance card as well. My advice for those activating the vouchers is to get the card. My son’s girlfriend’s sync to her magic band didn’t work, and would have screwed up our first day (DHS) and ROR BG. Luckily I checked MDE, saw her ticket was not listed as activated, and returned to the ticket counter to get it activated (and get her a plastic card as a backup.)

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Also I was activating tickets for 3 family members who were not present with us at the time, as their flights were arriving later. The CM did allow me to activate their tickets as well/exchanging the plastic voucher card for the regular plastic entrance card, which I was able to leave for these family members at their front desk so they could directly enter the parks when they arrived without me having to meet them at all until we met inside the park.

From what I can tell, what is needed is the Active Duty member, or the spouse, and the vouchers that you are activating, whether they are plastic or paper. If you have magic bands and want them synced up, that’s ok but just double check and still request the plastic ticket entrance card as a backup to the phone app and the magic band, just in case.

If you order the tickets through Shades, they are good to go directly to the front gate, as Shades does all the verification of eligibility process for Disney.

It’s always a little less expensive for us to get them at our local ticket offices, and they carry them there so I don’t have to wait for the vouchers. But not everyone has the good fortune to be stationed close to a large base with a large ITT office like that.

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This is required… they have to show their DoD ID card to active the tickets.

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Wow

We had the cardstock vouchers in December but they were the 2020 Armed Forces Salute bought at our local Army post’s ITR office.

Guessing 2021 AFS are the plastic ones?

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Not trying to hijack the tread but thought this could go hand in hand. We have salute tickets for this year. Now we are feeling really nervous about our trip. Anyone had any luck getting a refund or extending length of tickets?

I have not. Last year the tickets where extended. Salute tickets can be tricky depending on where they were purchased.

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It sort of depends on the type. Generaly Salute or Promo as they are now called require someone’s mil ID in exchange for plastic to enter. Other slightly discounted tickets are “vouched” for at purchase and good to go. As others have said the Salute ticket gets more complicated depending where you get them.

You learn something new every day… I’ve always purchased my Mil Salute tix on base before my trip. I knew you could purchase them at SOG, but I didn’t know of this extra “perk”.

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Yeah, and they’ll ship them to you for a small fee. It’s very convenient, and you don’t have to worry about all going to the gate together to get them activated or about the voucher/real ticket swap in MDE.