One of the core components to the cost of a Walt Disney World trip is tickets to the theme parks.\u00a0 The tickets can easily be one fourth the cost of the trip.\u00a0 What can you do to reduce this cost?\u00a0 Let’s examine it in detail.<\/p>\n
Prices to the tickets are set on a per day basis.\u00a0 I won’t go into specific prices right now, since they always seem to be going up, but talk in generic terms.\u00a0 One day tickets are the most pricey on a per day basis.\u00a0 As you purchase more days’ worth of tickets, the price per day goes down.\u00a0 Generally, after day four, you aren’t paying very much more to increase your trip from 4 days to 10 days (perhaps just an additional $10 a day).\u00a0 This is why we tend to take longer trips when we go; since we’ve already paid transportation costs to get to Florida and adding extra days doesn’t substantially increase ticket costs, we just end up with additional lodging and dining costs.<\/p>\n
One item to keep in mind when adding days to your tickets is that all of the days must be used within fourteen days of the first use of the tickets.\u00a0 This means you can’t carry over unused ticket days from one trip to another (no more non-expiring ticket days).\u00a0 So, there isn’t any use in adding on extra days that you know you can’t use.<\/p>\n
Another item to consider when buying tickets is the purchase of the Park Hopper add-on for your tickets.\u00a0 The Park Hopper option will allow you to visit two or more parks in a single day.\u00a0 You can spend the morning at one park and another park in the evening.\u00a0 Without this option, you won’t be allowed to visit two different parks in one day on a single ticket.\u00a0 For example, you can’t purchase ten days of tickets and use one ticket to go to Magic Kingdom in the morning and Epcot in the evening.\u00a0 I don’t know why, but I suspect Disney would like you to pay for the Park Hopper option.\u00a0 We’ve made great use of the Park Hopper to visit a park with Extra Magic Hours in the morning, then hop over to a slower park in the afternoon.\u00a0 They also come in very handy if you want to visit one park for most of the day, but perhaps eat dinner in another park.\u00a0 One way to save money is to do some hardcore planning so you don’t need to take advantage of park hopping.\u00a0 Get your dining and activities to line up so you can spend all day in one park.<\/p>\n
Another option that can expand the fun at Disney is the Water Parks and More Option, another add-on for your tickets.\u00a0 This option gives you the ability to visit one of Disney’s two water parks (Blizzard Beach and Typhoon lagoon), one of the mini golf courses (Fantasia Gardens or Winter Summerland) before 4 PM daily, the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex, or the Oak Trail Golf Course.\u00a0 The number of visits corresponds to the number of days of tickets you bought; for example, 4 day tickets gets you 4 visits, 10 day tickets gets you 10 visits.\u00a0 The only exception is that 1 day tickets gets you 2 visits.\u00a0 These are a great addition, especially if you are going on longer trip.\u00a0 You can break up visit to the parks with some water park days as well as some mini-golf.\u00a0 These tickets used to include a visit to DisneyQuest, but that has been closed recently.<\/p>\n
One strategy we’ve used to save money in ticket purchases is to build “rest days” into our trip — one or more days when you aren’t planning to visit one of the parks.\u00a0 With this strategy, you can reduce your ticket costs — for example, by buying 8 days’ worth of tickets for a 9 day trip, and spending the extra day outside of the parks.\u00a0 We’ve found that rest days are a great opportunity to explore the Disney resort hotels.\u00a0 We’ve spent a day or two just going to visit the other resort hotels to see what they are like.\u00a0 While you can’t use the pools there, you can certainly look around to see what they have to offer — each Walt Disney World resort has a unique theme, which manifests itself in everything from the architecture and landscaping to the restaurants and shopping.\u00a0 Perhaps you will find the next place you want to stay.\u00a0 Also, taking full advantage of the current place you are staying is certainly a great way to spend a day or two on vacation.\u00a0 We love hanging at the beach at Wilderness Lodge, just soaking in the sun or watching a movie at night.\u00a0 All of the resorts offer similar fun, from watching fireworks on the Polynesian beach to dancing with the entertainment staff of the Pop Century Pool.<\/p>\n
There are some places to get cheaper tickets, but we have never explored them.\u00a0 The only ones that seem like they are worth a chance is Undercover Tourist<\/a>.\u00a0 We’ve always ordered tickets or Annual Passes as park of a package purchased through Walt Disney World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"