Whoa..Annual Pass Increase - Effective 10/4/15

[theluckyrabbit]

I don't think it was because the voucher was purchased in February. Ours were purchased then, too, and we received Signature Plus when we renewed. We did renew within our 40 day window, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it.

The CM at the ticket booth told us that as long as we renewed before our expiration date, there should be a renewal discount. But she also emphasized that Disney is now strict about no longer offering the discount once the pass has expired. There is no more grace period for that.

 

[pudinhd]

Just wondering if anyone has any new info to share. We need to use vouchers to renew our premium APs soon. Thanks!

 

[Kender]

Just wondering if anyone has any new info to share. We need to use vouchers to renew our premium APs soon. Thanks!

I can update in a couple days what I personally experience. Heading down Tuesday and I should be at the ticket booths by mid afternoon (I hope). Although I'm not actually renewing. I let my pass expire and I'm just using the voucher to get a new pass with a different anniversary date.

But I'll post here how it goes

 

[Kender]

My mom and I used our vouchers last night to get our passes. Mostly smooth process except that the cast member had zero idea what the voucher was and he sat there reading the back of it in detail. He was on the grumpier side which turned the whole thing into a game just to get the guy to crack a smile.

He asked if the vouchers had been activated. I said yes, they were activated at the store when I bought them. Did he need to see the receipt to confirm that we'd bought and paid for them at a Disney Store? No. We just needed to give him a minute to figure out how to use it since the Premium no longer existed. I bit my tongue from saying much more after I said previous reports indicated Disney was still honoring the vouchers as passes since the vouchers didn't expire until next year. His response to this made me feel like I'd insulted him and I just wanted to get done and go relax for a little while. And of course not insult the cast member who was just trying to help me.

He finally called over a supervisor to ask what he was supposed to do (truth be told, this really didn't take that long before he finally admitted he needed help... I was just tired from an unnecessarily long drive and wanted to go to bed so anything longer than plugging it in was painfully long). Supervisor immediately knew what it was and told him to enter it as a redemption for "the 1049". In other words: Signature Plus.

He got us all set up and I did confirm on my account and my mom's that we both have Signature Plus passes now complete with Photopass benefit.

Condensed scenario information:

• Bought Premium vouchers for $779 in Disney store after October price increase.
• Had Premium passes that expired in early November.
• Used vouchers late November to get passes.
• Now have Signature Plus.
• Everything took about 10-15 minutes.

We were able to finally get the guy to smile after we asked about the pictures and if we'd have to retake them at the gate. This was because he pulled up my account right as we asked that and he saw that I had my panda stuffy in the picture with me with a huge grin on my face (I love my passholder picture). He understood us a little better in that moment and I felt happy we got him to smile

So yes. The Premium vouchers are supposed to become Signature Plus passes. There was zero hesitation from the supervisor with this process.

 

[pudinhd]

My mom and I used our vouchers last night to get our passes. Mostly smooth process except that the cast member had zero idea what the voucher was and he sat there reading the back of it in detail. He was on the grumpier side which turned the whole thing into a game just to get the guy to crack a smile.

He asked if the vouchers had been activated. I said yes, they were activated at the store when I bought them. Did he need to see the receipt to confirm that we'd bought and paid for them at a Disney Store? No. We just needed to give him a minute to figure out how to use it since the Premium no longer existed. I bit my tongue from saying much more after I said previous reports indicated Disney was still honoring the vouchers as passes since the vouchers didn't expire until next year. His response to this made me feel like I'd insulted him and I just wanted to get done and go relax for a little while. And of course not insult the cast member who was just trying to help me.

He finally called over a supervisor to ask what he was supposed to do (truth be told, this really didn't take that long before he finally admitted he needed help... I was just tired from an unnecessarily long drive and wanted to go to bed so anything longer than plugging it in was painfully long). Supervisor immediately knew what it was and told him to enter it as a redemption for "the 1049". In other words: Signature Plus.

He got us all set up and I did confirm on my account and my mom's that we both have Signature Plus passes now complete with Photopass benefit.

Condensed scenario information:

• Bought Premium vouchers for $779 in Disney store after October price increase.
• Had Premium passes that expired in early November.
• Used vouchers late November to get passes.
• Now have Signature Plus.
• Everything took about 10-15 minutes.

We were able to finally get the guy to smile after we asked about the pictures and if we'd have to retake them at the gate. This was because he pulled up my account right as we asked that and he saw that I had my panda stuffy in the picture with me with a huge grin on my face (I love my passholder picture). He understood us a little better in that moment and I felt happy we got him to smile

So yes. The Premium vouchers are supposed to become Signature Plus passes. There was zero hesitation from the supervisor with this process.

Thank you so very much for your very detailed update!!! I appreciate it!!

 

[Kender]

Thank you so very much for your very detailed update!!! I appreciate it!!

You're welcome . I know I also greatly appreciate when I see the same from others. It's very helpful to be able to come prepared with the experience of others! I felt a lot better going to ticket booth knowing the pass for sure had to be honored as something that was the equivalent of the Premium.

I hope go smoothly for you! I'll be interested to hear your experience.

 

[pudinhd]

You're welcome . I know I also greatly appreciate when I see the same from others. It's very helpful to be able to come prepared with the experience of others! I felt a lot better going to ticket booth knowing the pass for sure had to be honored as something that was the equivalent of the Premium.

I hope go smoothly for you! I'll be interested to hear your experience.

I completely understand what you are saying and agree with you! Will do!

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

This past Wednesday I redeemed my premium annual pass vouchers purchased from the Disneyland.com website back in February before the previous price increase. I had zero problems redeeming the vouchers and was automatically upgraded to the signature plus pass. Our previous set of premium annual passes although not used since July 4 only recently expired on November 17. I started these new ones on November 25 (8 days later). They show up as signature plus with expiration date of November 25, 2016. I was at the ticket booth sometime between 7:15 and 7:20 am on Wednesday. We had four vouchers. We were asked to provide photo i.d.s and our expired AP cards (which I did have with me) for re-use. The whole process took just over 20 minutes and involved three cast members: the lady who handled the transaction throughout, another CM who she asked for help at one point, and a supervisor who had to be called over three times in the process, once for explanation and twice to enter overrides. We were not required to have new photos taken. We used the passes for the last several days, and the only difficulties we encountered were that some photopass pictures did not attach to the account, and that discounts take longer to process at the registers. The CMs said there have been consistent system delays when swiping for the discounts, so just be patient because it will go through eventually which was true. I have zero complaints about the redemption process (I have experienced difficulties in the past), and my family and I are very pleased to have started one more Disney year. There is a chance that we might need to take a break for a while after this, so we plan to enjoy these passes to the max.

 

[pudinhd]

Thanks for the info! We are hoping to renew active passes as we are within the 40 day renewal time frame. I hope everything goes smoothly and that we are able to keep our current expiration date.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Everything should be fine! As mentioned above, be patient and allow extra time for this transaction. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask nicely for a lead. The leads seem to be well informed on this procedure.

 

[Gisele]

I highly doubt I will renew my pass, not because of the price increase, although honestly I don't agree with it either. It's due to a cumlative effect. Movie addins to POTC. Plus HMH. The Court of Angels demise, topped off with the Star wars expansion, that all equals one very unhappy AP holder.
I plan on one more trip, seeing how my attempts have failed in getting out of my contract. So might as well use it once more, then quite possibly never more. At least I may still enjoy other attractions and shows that I do like.

 

[Kender]

This past Wednesday I redeemed my premium annual pass vouchers purchased from the Disneyland.com website back in February before the previous price increase. I had zero problems redeeming the vouchers and was automatically upgraded to the signature plus pass. Our previous set of premium annual passes although not used since July 4 only recently expired on November 17. I started these new ones on November 25 (8 days later). They show up as signature plus with expiration date of November 25, 2016. I was at the ticket booth sometime between 7:15 and 7:20 am on Wednesday. We had four vouchers. We were asked to provide photo i.d.s and our expired AP cards (which I did have with me) for re-use. The whole process took just over 20 minutes and involved three cast members: the lady who handled the transaction throughout, another CM who she asked for help at one point, and a supervisor who had to be called over three times in the process, once for explanation and twice to enter overrides. We were not required to have new photos taken. We used the passes for the last several days, and the only difficulties we encountered were that some photopass pictures did not attach to the account, and that discounts take longer to process at the registers. The CMs said there have been consistent system delays when swiping for the discounts, so just be patient because it will go through eventually which was true. I have zero complaints about the redemption process (I have experienced difficulties in the past), and my family and I are very pleased to have started one more Disney year. There is a chance that we might need to take a break for a while after this, so we plan to enjoy these passes to the max.

So happy I haven't experienced the Photopass issue. Everything seems to show up extremely quickly for me (certainly well below the 24 hour stated time). I still don't feel it was a useful add on for me personally, but I'm definitely going to take advantage of it. I did get at least one picture that I might not have gotten otherwise of Boba Fett booping my panda stuffy's nose.

Have experienced the fun of waiting for the discounts to process, though. A cast member described it to me as it having to search two different systems and that they've noticed it gets faster the more the pass is used. I always feel bad holding up a line just because I really want my merch discount and feel worse for the cast members who likely take some flak for a show system from impatient guests. I'm of course going to keep using my discount, but I still don't like holding up a line because of a slow system.

I did find it funny that the message that popped up was "wait please?". It's like the register wasn't sure if you should wait or not and was very meekly asking you to wait.

I'm now curious how things will go next year when there's still these vouchers floating around since they don't expire until Dec 31, 2016. Will it be even smoother? Will their use have ceased to be frequent enough that one will have a greater chance of running into a cast member who has never seen one before? Or will it be old hat? It'll be interesting to see.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Our issues with PhotoPass, the discounts, and even photos at the turnstiles seem to have cleared up (yes, please!) now that our old passes have completely expired. That period where our premiums overlapped with our signature plus passes was a real headache. So far, since the Disney computers now think we have only one pass, everything is going much more smoothly.

 

[amyg1975]

Can I upgrade my pass over the phone? We only have two days for our next visit, and I would hate to waste time on upgrading there.

 

[mgd]

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but new Universal Studios Hollywood annual passes are out for comparison:

GOLD: $299 - valid 312 days - (blackouts mainly summer weekends, Christmas week)
CA resident PLUS: $199 - valid 244 days - (blackouts most weekends, all summer peak)
CA resident: $139 - valid 182 days - (blackouts except offpeak weekdays)

http://www.universalstudioshollywood.com/annual-pass/

Single day admission has not been updated yet, but expect it to be higher than the $95 current once HP opens.

Pretty dramatic increase compared to the previous no blackout pass, but a lot of value if you go there a lot during the year for its 6 whole rides. Will be interesting to see if costco offers anything. I think their last offering was $85 for something similar to the CA resident PLUS.

 

[pudinhd]

We took our vouchers to DLR on Wednesday of last week. The process went pretty well and the CM only needed to leave the window 2 or 3 times. Since our passes had not expired yet, we have the premium passes until that expiration date, and then they will switch to the signature plus for a year.

As others have reported, the discount did take a little longer than normal to process. I used my pass several times to go in and out of CA on Wednesday without any issues. We were in DL on Thursday morning, but my pass was showing as invalid when I attempted to reenter. I told them I had already been in the park and they asked if I had a hand stamp. I said no because I have an AP and don't normally need them. A CM showed up and took my pass inside one of the little rooms. She came back, had the CM at the gate check the pass, and it worked. I did have a few moments of panic and I will definitely be getting a hand stamp if I leave the park before the pass switches to SP!

 

[dec2009mama]

If we renew, what is the discount on the AP price?

 

[theluckyrabbit]

If we renew, what is the discount on the AP price?

This depends on which level AP you currently have and whether you will be renewing at that same level or going down or up. Which level do you have and which will you be renewing to? (Also, you must renew within your 40 day window or you will forfeit your renewal discount.)

 

[dec2009mama]

I have deluxe and will keep it - I plan to renew on May 3-15 and my pass expires May 4-15! If I renew on May 3 does my new expiry date become may 3-16? Seems like I lose a day unless I would still get a discount even if I renew on May 4?

 

[dina444444]

I have deluxe and will keep it - I plan to renew on May 3-15 and my pass expires May 4-15! If I renew on May 3 does my new expiry date become may 3-16? Seems like I lose a day unless I would still get a discount even if I renew on May 4?

Your expiration day stays the same day when you renew. My pass expires on June 23rd every year and I renew in early/mid May and my expiration date will always become June 23rd of the following year. And you get your discount so long as you renew before the end of the day on the day it expires.