Ticket Dilemma- In a Pickle

[mmackeymouse]

We have a number of 5 day park hoppers (the old kind that expires 14 days from 1st use) that we had for this trip. We hadn't yet attached them in MDE, for a couple of reasons. For one, there are a couple of people in our party who think they may only go 1 or 2 days to the parks. So, we didn't want to waste a 5 day park hopper in that case. We figured we'd buy a base ticket now and save the hoppers for when they would be more valuable.

In the meantime, this whole crazy virus happened, and we decided to hold off on attaching/using these tickets until we knew what the WDW experience would be. We didn't want to use these valuable 5 day park hoppers on half an experience. So, if worse case scenario happened, we'd buy tickets, and save the 5 day hoppers for a later trip down the road.

Well, as has happened, by the time we got (hard) information about what WDW would be like...the ticket sales have been frozen. So, we can't purchase the basic tickets. I don't really want to use a 5 day park hopper on this upcoming trip. But, they may be our only chance at a park reservation.
It feels like here are the options:

1. Use the PHs and suck it up. Eat the loss in value.
2. Commit to saving the PH for another trip, and purchase date-based tickets where I can (Sam's Club, etc) and if hopping is back when we go, we'll just have to pay to upgrade. The problem with this one is that if news starts coming out on attractions that are or aren't happening or transportation, and we want to just cancel altogether....we'd be stuck with dated tickets.
3. Attach the PH now, and HOPE that ticketing opens back up before our trip, buy the tickets then, and get the PHs unattached, attach the new tickets, and again...hope that it doesn't screw up any park reservations we already have.
4. Hold out for ticket-purchasing to open back up and cross our fingers that park reservations/ADRs will still be available at that point.

To complicate matters, our trip starts with 4 days in which we may or may not be on a cruise. We may or may not be able to get WDW resort reservations for those days. We may or may not need 2 or 3 extra days for parks. And whether we do or don't have those extra days will affect how we approach the strategy for the rest of the days. But...we won't know anything until DCL gives us more information.

Our plan was to just wait it out, and add days to our current tickets if need be. But, now, thanks to the park reservation system, we are in a position we have to make that decision right now. If we don't go for extra days, we won't be able to get those reservations IF we need them. If we do go for the extra days, we may end up not needing them, and will spend the extra money for nothing.







WWYD? Does anyone have any other options that they can think of.

 

[Krystal659]

Did you receive any version of the access to new reservation system emails sent out by Disney this week? This may make me wait to attach versus buying another set of tickets. But if no email, I may buy one from Sam's Club (simply because we go often enough).

If you go often enough, I wonder if it would be better to credit the tickets towards APs? I think everyone has complications or things that others are not thinking about, but wow yours is complicated

 

[mmackeymouse]

Did you receive any version of the access to new reservation system emails sent out by Disney this week? This may make me wait to attach versus buying another set of tickets. But if no email, I may buy one from Sam's Club (simply because we go often enough).

If you go often enough, I wonder if it would be better to credit the tickets towards APs? I think everyone has complications or things that others are not thinking about, but wow yours is complicated

Yes, we did receive the email.


Yeah, pretty sure my situation definitely takes the cake as far as complications go. The cruise thing definitely creates issues; wish we would get info sooner rather than later.

 

[VandVsmama]

We have a number of 5 day park hoppers (the old kind that expires 14 days from 1st use) that we had for this trip. We hadn't yet attached them in MDE, for a couple of reasons. For one, there are a couple of people in our party who think they may only go 1 or 2 days to the parks. So, we didn't want to waste a 5 day park hopper in that case. We figured we'd buy a base ticket now and save the hoppers for when they would be more valuable.

In the meantime, this whole crazy virus happened, and we decided to hold off on attaching/using these tickets until we knew what the WDW experience would be. We didn't want to use these valuable 5 day park hoppers on half an experience. So, if worse case scenario happened, we'd buy tickets, and save the 5 day hoppers for a later trip down the road.

Well, as has happened, by the time we got (hard) information about what WDW would be like...the ticket sales have been frozen. So, we can't purchase the basic tickets. I don't really want to use a 5 day park hopper on this upcoming trip. But, they may be our only chance at a park reservation.
It feels like here are the options:

1. Use the PHs and suck it up. Eat the loss in value.
2. Commit to saving the PH for another trip, and purchase date-based tickets where I can (Sam's Club, etc) and if hopping is back when we go, we'll just have to pay to upgrade. The problem with this one is that if news starts coming out on attractions that are or aren't happening or transportation, and we want to just cancel altogether....we'd be stuck with dated tickets.
3. Attach the PH now, and HOPE that ticketing opens back up before our trip, buy the tickets then, and get the PHs unattached, attach the new tickets, and again...hope that it doesn't screw up any park reservations we already have.
4. Hold out for ticket-purchasing to open back up and cross our fingers that park reservations/ADRs will still be available at that point.

To complicate matters, our trip starts with 4 days in which we may or may not be on a cruise. We may or may not be able to get WDW resort reservations for those days. We may or may not need 2 or 3 extra days for parks. And whether we do or don't have those extra days will affect how we approach the strategy for the rest of the days. But...we won't know anything until DCL gives us more information.

Our plan was to just wait it out, and add days to our current tickets if need be. But, now, thanks to the park reservation system, we are in a position we have to make that decision right now. If we don't go for extra days, we won't be able to get those reservations IF we need them. If we do go for the extra days, we may end up not needing them, and will spend the extra money for nothing.

When is your trip?

I'd go with option #1 and consider the price difference between base tickets and PH tickets to be a sunk cost.

ALSO...
As a plan B for if your cruise gets cancelled, I'd book a 2nd hotel reservation somewhere for those nights. Stay at a Universal resort, stay at a non-theme park off site hotel, or stay at another WDW resort.

And instead of stressing about adding 2-3 extra days to your park tickets, I'd adapt a little bit and do non-park things on those days. Spend 1 day at your resort. Spend 1 day going to Cape Canaveral. Spend another day going to Gatorland. Or go on one of those cool-sounding Everglades/swamp boat tours. Or spend 2 days at Universal.

 

[Donald Duck888]

Unfortunately i don't really have any good advice for you but find myself in a similar situation. We have a scheduled trip for early Aug and currently have a split stay at BC and Dolphin Reserved along with unactivated Annual passes That i bought several months ago. We did receive the email from Disney i am guessing because we have the annual passes.

The original plan was that this would be the first of 3 or 4 trips within the next year but with the situation as it is i dont see that happening now. So i have no intention of activating the annual passes as if left unactivated they are good till 2030. So i may end up cancelling the trip as there is no way for me to buy tickets for this trip with ticket sales halted And without tickets we will have no guarantee of getting park reservations.

Really hoping they release more details soon so i can make the decision.

 

[Sandisw]

People can have more than one ticket assigned to them...i currently have 3.

You can reassign any ticket in your MDE to another person at any time, including to someone who isn’t going right now.

So, I’d link the tickets, and once you have the reservation days, and can buy the base ticket, then reassign the ticket.

GS can always make sure that your tickets are prioritized so when you scan your band, it pulls the right one,

I would be very surprised not to see ticket sales open up as soon as the first rounds of reservations have been secured

p

 

[one_cat]

Unfortunately i don't really have any good advice for you but find myself in a similar situation. We have a scheduled trip for early Aug and currently have a split stay at BC and Dolphin Reserved along with unactivated Annual passes That i bought several months ago. We did receive the email from Disney i am guessing because we have the annual passes.

The original plan was that this would be the first of 3 or 4 trips within the next year but with the situation as it is i dont see that happening now. So i have no intention of activating the annual passes as if left unactivated they are good till 2030. So i may end up cancelling the trip as there is no way for me to buy tickets for this trip with ticket sales halted And without tickets we will have no guarantee of getting park reservations.

Really hoping they release more details soon so i can make the decision.

My understanding is your APs don’t activate until you walk into the park. So you can reserve your park in advance and decide later whether or not to cancel once you have better information. That’s what we are planning to do.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

There is no harm in linking the PH now. If you discover you need or want different tickets for the trip (and you are able to purchase them), you can then link those new tickets to your profiles as well and either ask guest services to "prioritize" the tickets you want to use prior to entering your first park or create dummy profiles in MDE and transfer the PH there to hold them for a future trip. For example, I have a profile in MDE that is my middle name - that is where I used to hold tickets for future trips so they wouldn't be used accidentally used when entering a park using a ticket in my real name profile. I hope that makes sense.

 

[mmackeymouse]

visit.
When is your trip?

I'd go with option #1 and consider the price difference between base tickets and PH tickets to be a sunk cost.

ALSO...
As a plan B for if your cruise gets cancelled, I'd book a 2nd hotel reservation somewhere for those nights. Stay at a Universal resort, stay at a non-theme park off site hotel, or stay at another WDW resort.

And instead of stressing about adding 2-3 extra days to your park tickets, I'd adapt a little bit and do non-park things on those days. Spend 1 day at your resort. Spend 1 day going to Cape Canaveral. Spend another day going to Gatorland. Or go on one of those cool-sounding Everglades/swamp boat tours. Or spend 2 days at Universal.

September

Yeah that was going to be our Plan B....to do a resort day and DS day and maybe visit some restaurants we normally don't have the time to visit. Maybe head over to Fort Wilderness and ride horses. With it being Labor Day weekend, we wanted to avoid the parks anyway.

BUT...with the shortened hours for the parks and extra events cancelled, we feel like we'll probably need to do the parks on those days to get everything done we want to do. It's hard to know.

 

[Krandor]

September

Yeah that was going to be our Plan B....to do a resort day and DS day and maybe visit some restaurants we normally don't have the time to visit. Maybe head over to Fort Wilderness and ride horses. With it being Labor Day weekend, we wanted to avoid the parks anyway.

BUT...with the shortened hours for the parks and extra events cancelled, we feel like we'll probably need to do the parks on those days to get everything done we want to do. It's hard to know.

Honestly I don't think cruises are likely in September.

 

[VandVsmama]

How far out is the trip? If it’s close the cruise is l


Honestly I don't think cruises are likely in September.

I agree.

OP - I think you should get a plan B in place soon.

 

[mmackeymouse]

Honestly I don't think cruises are likely in September.

I agree.

OP - I think you should get a plan B in place soon.

Yeah, we aren't feeling too confident about that either. Just waiting for DCL to call it. We could cancel proactively, but don't want to lose a chance at the 125% credit DCL is offering for cancelled cruises.

As far as Plan B, unfortunately with resort stays frozen, we can't get a resort, just in case. And DVC rooms are pretty much booked solid in September. But, mentally, we definitely have a Plan B in mind.

 

[VandVsmama]

Yeah, we aren't feeling too confident about that either. Just waiting for DCL to call it. We could cancel proactively, but don't want to lose a chance at the 125% credit DCL is offering for cancelled cruises.

As far as Plan B, unfortunately with resort stays frozen, we can't get a resort, just in case. And DVC rooms are pretty much booked solid in September. But, mentally, we definitely have a Plan B in mind.

So your plan B could be to go to Universal for a couple of days and stay 3 nights in a Universal hotel.

 

[mmackeymouse]

People can have more than one ticket assigned to them...i currently have 3.

You can reassign any ticket in your MDE to another person at any time, including to someone who isn’t going right now.

So, I’d link the tickets, and once you have the reservation days, and can buy the base ticket, then reassign the ticket.

GS can always make sure that your tickets are prioritized so when you scan your band, it pulls the right one,

I would be very surprised not to see ticket sales open up as soon as the first rounds of reservations have been secured

p

There is no harm in linking the PH now. If you discover you need or want different tickets for the trip (and you are able to purchase them), you can then link those new tickets to your profiles as well and either ask guest services to "prioritize" the tickets you want to use prior to entering your first park or create dummy profiles in MDE and transfer the PH there to hold them for a future trip. For example, I have a profile in MDE that is my middle name - that is where I used to hold tickets for future trips so they wouldn't be used accidentally used when entering a park using a ticket in my real name profile. I hope that makes sense.

Oh I am totally aware. I have multiple tickets on my MDE account as we speak.

And I know that with FP, it is attached to your account, not to any one specific ticket, so if you get a FP for a certain day, as long as you have any valid ticket, it will remain. But, I guess I worry that Disney will really hunker down and be super strict with the whole park reservations thing and once it is locked in, it is locked in. And if you change your ticket priority, you would lose your park reservation days. I hope that's not the case, and I doubt it would be. But everything is changing so fast, nothing will shock me anymore.

What a great idea on the whole middle name hack. As I said before, I was just worried that if we link them now, get our park reservations with them (assuming every person in the party needs a ticket), then unlink them/reassign them, that our park reservations will be lost with it.