Discounted Disney Tickets

A frequent question from friends, family and clients is — what is the best way to get discounted tickets for Disneyland/Disney World:

There are many ways to purchase park tickets for Disney. One of the best ways is to buy them as part of a travel package through your travel agent. Such agencies provide you an excellent return on your investment. We recommend working with a Travel Agent, which works directly with the Walt Disney Travel Company. As an alternative, you can self-book through the Walt Disney Travel Company online. However, any quality travel agency’s price will be exactly the same price as you doing it yourself with the Walt Disney Travel Company — so why do it yourself when you can get professional advice for free?!

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One of our agents at Disneyland

Today if you were to google Disney Travel Agents, you’ll come across thousands of agents who claim to be agents who specialize in Disney, even many local travel agents make this claim. What is the best way to know if they really know what they’re talking about? There is a Disney certification course, which is some basic study courses that even someone who has never been to Disney can pass… So how can you tell?

One of the best tests to see if the agent you are working at really knows Disney, tell them that you’re planning on going on the week specifically between Christmas and New Years… You might ask yourself what is special about that date, especially if you are not really looking to go that week. Well the value a travel professional can bring is to let you know that this is the absolute busiest time of year… In fact, Disneyland Park will often close down to new people before NOON during that week — what that means, is that if you haven’t already made it into the park, you might be left out of luck for that entire day… Something you might not easily learn online, nor would the typical travel agent that doesn’t specialize in Disney know…. So when planning on going to the happiest (and one of the busiest) places on earth, just a professional![/toggle]

If you are looking for the very best deal, speak to your travel professional about a package. However, if you’re just looking for park tickets, and have the time to spend, you can look into the following ways to save money. Be sure to evaluate each of these before selecting what is right for you:

• Check http://www.Disneyland.com for the latest deals and promotions, there are sometimes kids-fly-free, bonus days, etc. Always start here; often the best deals only come directly from the Disneyland website.
• Check http://www.MouseSavers.com for up-to-date promotions and deals from official and third-party sources.
• Examine the benefits of http://www.CityPass.com if you’re interested in visiting other area attractions while in the area.
• Check with your friends who live in the area, who can sometimes purchase at the local Vons or Safeway stores at a discount.
• Check with your affinity groups: work, social group, senior center, library, Costco, AAA, etc.
• Check with your professional/occupational group: military, education, union, etc.
• Check with your Timeshare, hotel points, or other rewards programs to purchase tickets using points/miles/etc instead of cash.
• If you know a park employee they have the ability to sign-in several guests per day.

The greatest discount for tickets only I’ve seen is 26% for 5-day park hopper tickets (certain membership and restrictions applied). If a deal sounds too good to be true for park tickets, it probably is. Also, I have never seen a discount on single-day tickets that are legitimate.

Some typical things to look out for regarding Discounted Disneyland tickets:

• Online auction (e-bay/craigslist/etc) or classified pages, because:
  • Tickets may have near expiring dates.
  • You don’t want to risk your vacation on someone you don’t know.
  • There is no way to assure the tickets are still valid or unused – the worst place to find out is at the park entrance gate.
• The transfer of partially used tickets is prohibited by Disney. This is very, very common online and should be avoided as it can cause problems.
• Beginning in 2013, Disney began a new photo ID system for multi-day park tickets. If you purchase a used ticket from someone and your photo doesn’t match the one on file for that pass, you will be denied entry, without exception.
• Online advertisement for guides that charge you money to “save money” or “save time” — see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJ7Gr5nxAE

Other information about tickets:

• You can upgrade your park pass at any time to a higher valued ticket, such as a single-day pass to a multi-day pass or even an annual pass. Your trade-in value will be the price printed on the ticket. Your ticket will also need to be unexpired, and several other requirements apply. They’re all straight forward, and we’ve had no problems with this.
• The Disney Visa Card (issued by Chase) has been running a long-term promotion of 0% APR for 6 months for Disney Vacations through the Disney Travel Company. While this isn’t specifically a reason to get the card, it is a great perk.

Also read more about Disney from our blog:

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