Magic Your Way, Part 1

It’s been a month or so since the new Magic Your Way
ticket program was introduced and it might be a good time to take a closer
look at this program. In this session, let’s look closely into the basic
components of the program and discover what components and combinations
work best for you.

If you are planning a trip to Walt Disney World this year but have yet
to purchase your tickets, this session can help you decide exactly what
you need and hopefully make the most out of your money.

Let’s look at the Magic Your Way tickets and options. They are pretty
simple.

Base Ticket

The base ticket gives you admission to any one of the four Walt Disney
World theme parks for each day of the ticket. The last time I looked,
you could purchase from one to seven days on a ticket, as well as a 10-day
ticket. It’s important to remember that this base ticket is for one park
per day and expires 14 days after the first day of use.

Park Hopper Option

This add-on option changes the base ticket into a park hopper ticket
so you can enjoy all four theme parks for every day of the ticket. The
14-day expiration still exists. The cost is a flat fee of $37.28 (includes
tax) regardless of how many days your ticket is good for.

Magic Plus Pack Option

Here’s a big one. This option gives the guest a certain number of Plus
visits to Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, Pleasure Island, Disney Quest
and Disney’s Wide World of Sports. The number of Plus visits depends upon
the length of the ticket. Guests receive:

• Two Plus visits for 1-, 2-, or 3-day tickets


• Three Plus visits for 4- and 5-day tickets


• Four Plus visits for a 6-day ticket


• Five Plus visits for 7- and 10-day tickets

The cost for the Plus option is a flat fee of $47.93.

No-Expiration Option

This option removes the 14-day expiration so that unused days never expire.
The cost ranges from $10.65 for a 2-3 day ticket to $106.50 for a 10-day
ticket.

Magic Your Way Premium Ticket

This is a base ticket with combination of Park Hopper and Magic Plus
Pack Options. It does not include the no-expiration option. The cost is
a flat rate of $82.50.

See? It’s pretty simple. At least that part. “Base Hopper Plus No
Expiration Premium.” The table below lists the most likely combinations
of base ticket and options. The prices listed, as always, are subject
to change. All prices include taxes.

After I put this table together, I came to the conclusion that most of
the time I personally would use only that portion that contains the base
ticket and park hopper combos. That works for me because I have never
left Orlando with unused days on my ticket and I rarely would have use
for the Plus visits.

So my 10-day Park Hopper pass would cost me $247.08 or just under $25
per day for admission into the parks.

Of course that is best for me. What would be best for you?

For better or for worse

That seems to be on everyone’s mind. Is this new ticket program better
or worse than its predecessor? The answer is yes. Erhh. I mean no. Ahh.
I mean sort of.

Time out. We need to talk.

This program offers guests flexibility in their ticket selection and
also rewards those guests who elect to plan for an extended stay.

The flexibility of customizing tickets (to a point) allows guests to
make some serious decisions on exactly what their admission needs are
and more than ever will help them determine how best to use their admission
budget.

If you look at the table above and do a cost-per-day comparison, you
see how Disney is rewarding guests for staying longer. If you look at
the bottom section of the table with the Base Ticket with Park Hopper,
Magic Plus Pack, and No Expiration Options section you can see how the
cost per day goes down as the length of stay goes up.

You could almost say that for shorter trips the cost per day is prohibitive,
while the cost per day for longer trips is quite palatable. That’s what
the brains behind this program want you to think. There is no doubt that
Disney wants to convince guests to stay longer, and this program promotes
the notion that the longer a guest stays the lower the cost per day.

This is true. However when it comes to a WDW vacation, it’s not the cost
per day that most guests look at, but cost per vacation.

A family of four (children over 10) would pay over $1,300 for 5-day tickets
with the Park-Hopper, Magic Plus Pack, and No-Expiration options, with
the pricetag exceeding $1,600 for 7-day tickets. Sure, the cost per day
for admission is lower, but there is the matter of lodging and
food. I’m sure those two expenses do not drop with extra days.

OK, I’m not saying this new ticket program is bad for guests. But what
I am saying is that you have to put some thought into how to make
the best of it for you. So let’s put on our thinking caps and get right
to it.

Plan, plan, and plan some more

With the Magic Your Way ticket plan and options it is more important
than ever to take a look at your WDW vacation plans as closely as possible
and have a clear understanding of your theme park and “Plus”
touring habits.

Ask yourself these questions before deciding with Magic Your Way ticket
and options to purchase:

How many days will I visit the theme parks? This may seem like
an easy question but if you are throwing in visits to other Central Florida
attractions like Sea World and Universal Studios it can get complicated.
I say this because many guests who stay on the WDW property may visit
these non-Disney parks during the day but then flock to a Disney park
at night. Remember, as soon as you go through a Disney theme park turnstile
you are using one full day on your ticket.

How many times during my stay will I visit places like… Typhoon
Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, Pleasure Island, Disney Quest, and Disney’s Wide
World of Sports? If you are a big fan of these places then the Plus Pack
Option should very well be in you plans. However, if you are planning
to visit only one of these places then you are better off not buying the
Plus Pack option and instead purchasing a separate admission.

Should I buy the No-Expiration option? This should be easy to
answer but let’s think about it. Have you ended up going home with unused
days on your admission media? If so, do you bring those tickets back with
you on your next trip, or do you lose them? This is the $45 question.
My advice is to consider this option only if you are purchasing tickets
for more than 5 days and you have plans to visit other Central Florida
attractions that may alter your theme park touring plans.

Should I use the Park-Hopper option? For most people this is a
no-brainer. However, if I were a young family with a tight budget I might
think about this real carefully before purchasing this option. How would
a young family best tour the parks? One at a time and one day at a time?
For some families with tight budgets, they may forego the hopper route
to save some money. For the older family, couples, and most guests however,
the Park-Hopper option is a sure bet.

Focus on how you envision your vacation and how you see each day. The
better you know your vacation, the better you will know as to what type
of ticket you will need.

AP or not AP? That is the question

So you’re saying, “Wait a minute Mike! What about Annual Passes?”

Thanks for asking. I’m sure this is a thought that has entered many minds.
Would it be better to just purchase an Annual Pass?

Let’s look at the Smith family. We have John and Mary and their two children,
Balthazar and Desdemona, both over 10 years old. They have decided to
go to Walt Disney World for seven days in late February during a school
vacation week. They have decided they will leave on a Thursday night and
start touring the parks on Friday (the next day). They will return home
on a Sunday. Their length of stay is 10 days. They do not plan on doing
any water parks but do plan to visit Disney Quest. Oh, one more thing,
they are seriously thinking about a second trip in late July, probably
7 days with a visit to both Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, and maybe
DisneyQuest again.

They want to stay on-site in February and have chosen to stay at Coronado
Springs.

John and Mary have come up with two scenarios for purchasing tickets:

Scenario #1

John and Mary think they will need at least a 7-day park-hopper pass
for everyone and decide that they could purchase a 10-day ticket with
the park-hopper and no-expiration options. They are thinking that since
they plan to return in July, any unused days will come in handy during
their summer trip. They have also thought about buying their DisneyQuest
tickets separately and not via a Magic Plus Pack option.

The cost of the 4 10-day hoppers is $1,461. Four DisneyQuest tickets
will cost them about $144.84. The cost of the 10-night stay in Coronado
Springs is $1,653 (including tax). The cost of tickets and room comes
to a whopping $3,258.

Scenario #2

If John purchases an annual pass for himself at $428.60 and 10-day hoppers
for the others at a cost of $1,095.90 the cost would be $1,524.50, almost
$75 more than scenario #1. However, the AP gets him discount DisneyQuest
tickets. The DQ tickets now cost about $129. John can also get an AP discount
for the room at Coronado Springs. Their 10-day room cost with this discount
is now $1,154. This scenario totals $2,807. They will save over $400 with
this scenario, which is about the cost of John’s AP. Of course there are
other perks to the AP as well such as discounts at certain WDW restaurants.
so there are more potential savings with this scenario.

John and Mary will likely go with scenario #2.

Of course there are some factors that come into play here. First, since
they are staying on-site the Annual Pass is more attractive because of
the room discount. Would this be the case had they decided not to stay
on the property? That is an important question, and my guess is no.

This question does bring out an important point and circles back to an
earlier issue.

When going through the decision-making process on admission media, you
not only have to consider your park-touring habits but your entire vacation.
Where will you stay? How long will you stay? Will you return within a
year? How about where you will eat?

If anything, the Magic Your Way Ticket Program has really made WDW guests
sit up and take notice. More than ever before the Walt Disney World Resort
now requires you to be an intelligent consumer.

Once this decision is behind you, everything should fall into place including
a great vacation.

Vacations should be stress free, especially WDW vacations. Then you’ll
be able to easily…

Remember the Magic!

Next Time

We have more work ahead of us. Now that we have hopefully cleared up
the Magic Your Way ticket program we might as well take the next leap
and jump head first into a discussion on the Magic Your Way Vacation Packages.
We’ll do that next time.