Has anyone else heard about the Universal Military Passes this year? Notice that it is a pass and not a ticket. I believe it entitles active duty and military retirees entry for every day of 2021. Assuming this is the case, this is a fantastic offer. For $200 per person, you can get 2 Park (Park to Park) entry for every day of 2021. If you started going to the parks tomorrow each day for the rest of the year (let me start the calculation…) you’d be paying an entry fee of 28.5 cents per park per day. Obviously most everyone could never do that (nor would you want to), but for a family thinking about going a couple/few times this year, the savings is unbeatable.
There is some debate as to whether this once in a lifetime offer extends to DOD civilians. In the end, I’m going to assume it will only be for active duty and retired military. Some bases however are posting information that it includes civilians. I’m waiting for this to shake out with more clarification, but at the same time I’m wondering if any TP folks have heard anything.
I haven’t heard anything, but $200 per person was about the price of the Universal 2020 military promotional ticket (5 day, 2 park, park-to-park)…seems crazy that the same amount would now get you an annual pass?
That isn’t unusual. We bought our annual pass because it was the same price as a 4-day ticket pre-covid.
This was the regular tickets/passes that anyone could get
This is cheaper than every flavor of annual pass that Universal offers, plus there are no blackout dates (that’s the way it’s being advertised anyhow). You have to purchase at least a ‘Preferred’ flavor of pass to get no blackout dates and for non-residents of FL that will run you north of $400 per ticket. For a family of four, this military equivalent saves you more than $800. That’s a significant dollar amount for 99% of folks.
They aren’t on the Shades of Green (SoG) 2021 pdf ticket list yet. I called SoG ticket sales and they have them. They are for DoD civilians, retirees, and AD-Mil. Ticket sales are open at SoG 0800-1900 hrs. They are as you can see from your link 2 or 3 park hopper valid unlimited entry until 2021DEC31. Limit 6 tickets per DoD sponsor number.
In my experience activating military tickets at Disney has always been easier than Universal. Disney has better customer service attitudes in general.
Talked to the ITT office at Patrick AFB, FL today and they have the Freedom tickets and told me that Universal wasn’t holding it to a 6 ticket limit b/c they don’t track the member ID number. So as long as you don’t take more than 6 tickets to one window for activation, at one time, you could get more. So even though the description says ‘limit of 6’ they don’t track it to enforce it.
As former AF and current DoD civilian Ive made a few calls as well about this. My closest MWR office (Scott AFB) specifically calls out DoD civ as included as do about a half dozen other AF and Army bases I’ve looked at. I’ve seen one source that says they are not.
Thanks for the link. From that page, it seems like DoD civilians are not included. However clicking the link on that page http://www.universalorlando.com/military sends you to their ‘Military Ticket Deals and Specials’ page where it clearly states the following:
Eligible Service Members
Active Duty (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, National Guard, Reservists) and spouses
Retired Military service members and spouses
Department of Defense Civilians
This would seem to indicate DoD Civilians are ultimately allowed. Now, I would definitely screenshot both pages before I purchased passes and showed up at Universal’s doorstep… I personally will wait a little while before purchasing these giving myself a little more time for this to shake out. I’d love to hear a success story before committing.
UPDATE
And just like that Military Disney Tips updates their site to say DoD civilians are NOT being allowed to redeem the passes at Universal. I’m glad I didn’t purchase them yet.
I think I still will purchase the passes. I’m going to screenshot Universal’s page which seems to indicate civilians are included. I’ll also screenshot site from where I purchase passes. Then I’ll try to redeem in a Universal resort lobby the day before going. I’ll be ready to pay the difference between tickets and passes should Universal deny their own site’s language. Military Disney Tips site indicates should be able to do that (pay the diff). Does anyone else think that’s how Universal will handle it?