DVC Annual Pass

[stwaldman]

if you link your park pass to your AP - it should work

Warning - if you have a dated or unexpired ticket and an AP they still recommend going to GS to make sure the correct one is prioritized.

We had no other tickets on our account, so sounds like this should be straightforward I hope

 

[Lorana]

In hindsight, I probably should’ve called to purchase the APs for our boys, as I have a 3-day and a 4-day ticket sitting on my youngest son for May and September trips. I purchased them before the price increases in December, as I didn’t want to risk APs not coming back and didn’t want to pay extra.

So now I’m wondering if I should still use them for May and September and activate his AP when we go in November.

Will they let us use these unused tickets towards renewals? My husband and I will be in our renewal period when we’re at Disney in November if this requires us to be in person (ours expire 12/17), and I wanted to downgrade next year to Sorcerers Passes as we won’t be going over Thanksgiving in 2024.

Another thought was to use them on our Thanksgiving trip, since I got the boys Sorcerers passes. We weren’t planning to do much in the way of parks, however, after Thanksgiving as we’ll be with extended family and most of them won’t have park admission, and I strongly suspect my boys would rather, say, go play mini golf, do archery, and hang with their cousins.

I bought the tickets; and I entered them into my MDE, but I assigned them to my youngest. He has his own Disney account as he needed it for the Play Disney accounts and Starcruiser, but I have the ability to manage everything for him. However, Disney isn’t allowing me to change the dates or reassign the tickets. Any idea why?

 

[Cody2020]

Sorry for the dumb question that is probably elsewhere. I thought I read elsewhere on the boards that you have to activate an annual pass at guest services, but my annual pass welcome-ish email today said just go to the park entrance as long as you have the app or magic band setup. Can somebody clarify if they've activated their pass already? Our first trip is not until July and it's a travel day, so any time saved is time earned

Relevant screenshot added

I got the same email yesterday. Has anyone tried this yet? Would be nice to be able to bypass GS. Also how would they verify membership this way?

 

[CarolynFH]

I got the same email yesterday. Has anyone tried this yet? Would be nice to be able to bypass GS. Also how would they verify membership this way?

I haven’t seen any reports to confirm, but this is what I think:

Now that purchases go through MS, who confirms eligibility to the Ticketing personnel who take the money and issue the AP, DVC owners/members themselves shouldn’t have to go to GR before entering the park. Renewal APs haven’t had to be activated by GR for a number of months now for the same reason.

Household members age 18+ with new APs probably do need to stop at GR to show photo ID confirming they live in the owner’s household before they enter their first park.

 

[Sandisw]

I haven’t seen any reports to confirm, but this is what I think:

Now that purchases go through MS, who confirms eligibility to the Ticketing personnel who take the money and issue the AP, DVC owners/members themselves shouldn’t have to go to GR before entering the park. Renewal APs haven’t had to be activated by GR for a number of months now for the same reason.

Household members age 18+ with new APs probably do need to stop at GR to show photo ID confirming they live in the owner’s household before they enter their first park.

This is my thinking as well....hopefully we can get some real reports soon!

 

[DVCismyhappyplace]

In hindsight, I probably should’ve called to purchase the APs for our boys, as I have a 3-day and a 4-day ticket sitting on my youngest son for May and September trips. I purchased them before the price increases in December, as I didn’t want to risk APs not coming back and didn’t want to pay extra.

So now I’m wondering if I should still use them for May and September and activate his AP when we go in November.

Will they let us use these unused tickets towards renewals? My husband and I will be in our renewal period when we’re at Disney in November if this requires us to be in person (ours expire 12/17), and I wanted to downgrade next year to Sorcerers Passes as we won’t be going over Thanksgiving in 2024.

Another thought was to use them on our Thanksgiving trip, since I got the boys Sorcerers passes. We weren’t planning to do much in the way of parks, however, after Thanksgiving as we’ll be with extended family and most of them won’t have park admission, and I strongly suspect my boys would rather, say, go play mini golf, do archery, and hang with their cousins.

I bought the tickets; and I entered them into my MDE, but I assigned them to my youngest. He has his own Disney account as he needed it for the Play Disney accounts and Starcruiser, but I have the ability to manage everything for him. However, Disney isn’t allowing me to change the dates or reassign the tickets. Any idea why?

Even though you have the ability to manage his account, you have to log into his account in order to reassign.

 

[Lorana]

Even though you have the ability to manage his account, you have to log into his account in order to reassign.

Thanks! I will have him log in.

Also, the APs I bought for my boys, one of whom is 16 and the other is 19. The 16 year old is the one who has his own account; the 19 year old does not (I manage it). When I look at MDE, my 16 year old's AP is showing up in MDE, but my 19 year old's is not. I don't know if that will end confirming the theory that 18+ have to go to a booth or not, but *should* I be seeing the second AP in MDE? Or do I need my eldest DS to set up his own account first? It did ask me for his email address when I purchased the AP, but he himself did not receive an email confirming purchase nor an email to create his own account.

 

[WxKristin]

After much debate over the last month, I think we finally decided to get 4 APs for this next year. If I want to use Disney gift cards will I need to do four separate purchases? Any issues with buying APs for kids on their own?

Also, I know the prices the same, but on the purchase page it makes you select either adult or 3-9 year old for the pass. My son will turn 10 during the year the pass is active - which pass should I purchase to assign it it to him in MDE?

 

[intamin]

After much debate over the last month, I think we finally decided to get 4 APs for this next year. If I want to use Disney gift cards will I need to do four separate purchases? Any issues with buying APs for kids on their own?

Also, I know the prices the same, but on the purchase page it makes you select either adult or 3-9 year old for the pass. My son will turn 10 during the year the pass is active - which pass should I purchase to assign it it to him in MDE?

They will need to be 4 separate purchases if you plan to use a 1,000 dollar gift card online as it will only accept 1 GC per transaction and then you can pay the remaining 60 something with a credit card for each of them. If you call member services you may be able to pay it all by gift card. For the other pass I would just select adult even though it’s the same price, I doubt Disney will care.

 

[Samita]

In order to qualify for a sorcerer pass with your DVC contract he would need to be able to demonstrate to GS he lives with you, or to qualify as a FL resident he would need to demonstrate he lived in FL. While a driver’s license is one way to demonstrate this there are others ways. The Disney site lists them. They include property titles and multiple recent utility or bank/cc statements.

By any chance do you know if the statements need to be printed/mailed or can they be electronic. Me and my sister live together and our street address match but for some reason we have different zip codes on our IDs.

 

[Sandisw]

By any chance do you know if the statements need to be printed/mailed or can they be electronic. Me and my sister live together and our street address match but for some reason we have different zip codes on our IDs.

My DDs boyfriend brought hard copies of their lease with him to show they Lived together. They looked at them and it was enough. They don’t keep them!

 

[DaveNan]

By any chance do you know if the statements need to be printed/mailed or can they be electronic. Me and my sister live together and our street address match but for some reason we have different zip codes on our IDs.

From all reports right now, new AP holders can just go to the tapstyles without having to visit GS to activate them. I would not count on it, so I would have something that shows her address that matches your driver's license.

 

[DonMacGregor]

From all reports right now, new AP holders can just go to the tapstyles without having to visit GS to activate them. I would not count on it, so I would have something that shows her address that matches your driver's license.

In a Facebook thread I commented in from from last week, it seemed like it was maybe 50/50 or 60/40 regarding who could simply tap, and who had to go to GS. We were able to simply tap in all three of our new AP's at International Gateway on 7/10, but there were others who also purchased online, but had to go to GS, also at IG on the same day. Lot's of people telling me I was wrong when I had literally done it earlier in the day.

When we came back later to get our physical cards (long story), there was a member in GS who simply had to show her digital card that showed DVC-Y, and her ID to prove it was her. I don't know if she tried to tap in and couldn't, or if she just went straight in to GS, but the interesting point was that it didn't look like the CM was comparing her address to anything, it was literally like going through TSA and not much more than a glance.

Some people were suggesting that if you bought your pass over the phone, ticketing can't verify membership eligibility and you need to go to GS to show you're DVC-Y, but if you purchased online, the option to buy the pass doesn't even show up if you're not DVC-Y, so eligibility is already established. That didn't seem to be the case either, and it doesn't work for family members at the same address who would be DVC-N, so who knows.

We definitely were able to tap right in and got our purple "Welcome Home" for all three passes.

 

[pianomanzano]

We’re here now and MIL just activated her DVC annual pass four days ago, they didn’t ask for anything. She just used her MB to enter and they didn’t ask for anything.

 

[Sandisw]

We’re here now and MIL just activated her DVC annual pass four days ago, they didn’t ask for anything. She just used her MB to enter and they didn’t ask for anything.

Has your MIL ever had a Sorcerer or Gold Pass before? Just wondering if the members or household members who haven't had to show the verification have had them before and when the passes were bought the system could see that?

 

[DonMacGregor]

Has your MIL ever had a Sorcerer or Gold Pass before? Just wondering if the members or household members who haven't had to show the verification have had them before and when the passes were bought the system could see that?

Our 3 were all our very first WDW AP's.

 

[Sandisw]

Our 3 were all our very first WDW AP's.

There goes that theory!!!!

 

[DonMacGregor]

There goes that theory!!!!

Chaos theory.

 

[pianomanzano]

Has your MIL ever had a Sorcerer or Gold Pass before? Just wondering if the members or household members who haven't had to show the verification have had them before and when the passes were bought the system could see that?

Sorry been busy with the trip to come back on here until now. She’s never had one before.