Originally Posted By asianway So I know its a thousand or so, but do you get any side perks like food or merchandise discounts? Thanks!
Originally Posted By Roger55 As long as things haven't changed, the last I heard was there are no perks whatsoever.
Originally Posted By Bob Paris 1 I guess when you provide a premium product, you can charge a premium price and you don't need to offer the white trash discount.
Originally Posted By SuperDry The *only* special perk comes with single-park APs: guaranteed admission to the park on sold-out days. Note that this comes only with the single-park AP - if you have the dual-park AP, then you have no guaranteed admission at either park.
Originally Posted By The Goddess Mara They have no problem selling their product, thus in incentive to discount or offer perks.
Originally Posted By asianway Good info-when you say "sold out" days, is that something that's determined in advance? Or would you be ok as long as you got there like two hours ahead of time?
Originally Posted By SuperDry ^^^ Unlike the US parks, TDR sells admission tickets that are good for a specific date and park. These are called "dated" tickets. Once you buy one of these tickets, you're more or less guaranteed admission on the date specified on the ticket* (except see below). Because of this, there are only so many dated tickets sold for each day for each park, and on busy days, these can sell out several days in advance. You can buy dated tickets in advance at a special window at the park ticket booths, at the Ticket Center in Ikspiari, at most Disney Stores in Japan, or online. You can also buy undated tickets. They work just like dated tickets in that you just walk up to the turnstile and insert them, but they don't reserve you a space on any particular day. On "sold out" days, they stop accepting undated tickets at a certain point. I've heard of this being as early as 10 minutes after opening. So, even if you got to the park 90 minutes before opening on a sold-out day, you might not get into the park as it might take longer than 10 minutes to get to the turnstile once the parks open because of the people that were in line before you. I would think two hours would be enough time in most cases, but there are no guarantees with an undated ticket. The best thing to do is to get a dated ticket in advance. And, even with a dated ticket, if you know the park is going to be sold out that day, getting there at least an hour before opening is a good idea, as those first couple of hours of scrambling to get in a couple of FastPasses as well as a few rides before the standby times get too high will be critical in enjoying the day. *PS = It's possible that something very unusual happens and they mis-calculate or mis-estimate somehow and the park hits its true capacity from a safety standpoint. This can happen if a larger-than-expected number of single-park APs show up. At that point, nobody additional will be admitted until a certain number of people leave. I think this is situation is quite rare, as because of the dated admission policy, they have pretty good control up front to stop sales in advance. And when it happens, it only lasts a few hours until enough people start leaving for the day.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones "I guess when you provide a premium product, you can charge a premium price and you don't need to offer the white trash discount." Generic post compliment goes here. I think TDR does it right. The day passes are a lot more reasonable than the American parks (unless something has changed since I went) but their annual passes command a pretty penny. They even have after 3PM discounts. This is going to attract a lot more casuals and won't favor obsessives over daily parkgoers. As an obsessive myself, I don't think we need cheap APs. I'd rather keep down prices of day passes to attract a different clientele that doesn't treat Disney parks like they are clubs. You can still treat it as a club, but you should pay.
Originally Posted By SpokkerJones Checking ticket prices it sounds like the currency conversion screws you now. It used to be that you knock off two zeros off the price in Japanese yen and you have a rough estimate of the conversion. That's not so true anymore. A one day pass is about $80 in American dollars now. When I went a two-day passport was about $100. It's not all due to price increases. 2007 2-day pass in yen: 10,000. 2012 2-day pass in yen: 10,700. I still hope it's affordable for Japanese day-trippers. I wouldn't know.
Originally Posted By Bob Paris 1 COMPLETELY agreed! I have to say as well, on my last trip I got to the resort later in the day and made use of the after 6pm pass. There were HUNDREDS of people lined up, ready to go in when I got there at 5:45pm. It is a really good idea!
Originally Posted By FerretAfros On my trips to HKDL, I also noticed the daily prices were much more reasonable than in the US. I don't remember the exact breakdown, but it was around 40USD. While the park doesn't compare much to the other parks around the world, I still thought it was a really good value for a full day's entertainment. $80+ (with parkhopping) is really pushing the 'value' of the ticket.
Originally Posted By schnebs <<As an obsessive myself, I don't think we need cheap APs.>> Be careful what you wish for - Disney just might oblige.