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potzbie
01-01-2018, 05:20 PM
Time to do a spreadsheet on ANNUAL PASSPORT cost justification over SINGLE-DAY tickets.
***
"How often" (you go to Disneyland)
will determine
"the cost of dollars-per-day"
you get out of your Annual Passport.

Q. How many visits to Disneyland must you go with your Annual Passport before you start saving money over buying ONE-DAY PARK-HOPPER (ADULT) tickets?

Advice:
You should buy the Annual Passport which represents the best PER-DAY AVERAGE, over a given life of your AP, namely 12 months.
***

REVIEW OF "ANNUAL PASSPORT" PRICES

Here are the current (as of 2017 DECEMBER) Annual Passport prices:

SO CAL SELECT __ = $339.
SO CAL _________ = not avail. to public
DELUXE __________= $619.
DISNEY SIGNATURE = $849.
DISNEY SIG. PLUS = $1049.

(Let's ignore PREMIER for now.)

***

TICKETS

Single-day tickets come in three "market demand" prices:
• VALUE; REGULAR; PEAK.

Single-day tickets come in two "sizes":
• ADULT and CHILD.

The most-expensive (i.e., least-bargain) ticket is the
• ONE-DAY PARK HOPPER (ADULT).
***

Let's review.
Let's look at only the ADULT ticket for our comparisons.

ADULT 1-D PH = $174. (peak)
ADULT 1-D PH = $165. (regular)
ADULT 1-D PH = $157. (value)

***

Let's use DL's "worst-case scenario" as our token "break even point" for our calculations. -- That is, "PEAK".
• "PEAK", ADULT, ONE-DAY PARK HOPPER ($174).

As a secondary comparision, let's use "VALUE":
• "VALUE", ADULT, ONE-DAY PARK-HOPPER ($157).

(i.e., we will ignore "REGULAR" level for our purposes.)
***

AMORITIZATION

Let amortize "the cost of your ANNUAL PASSPORT" over "the number of visits."

Let's limit our spreadsheet depth to six (6) visits.
***

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SELECT AP
(price / per visit)

$339.00 /1
$169.50 /2 (! under PEAK $174)
$113.00 /3 (! under VALUE $157)
$_84.75 /4 "
$_67.80 /5 "
$_56.50 /6 "
***

DELUXE AP
(price / per visit)

$619.00 /1
$309.50 /2
$206.33 /3
$154.75 /4 (! under PEAK $174 and VALUE $157)
$123.80 /5 "
$103.17 /6 "
***

DISNEY SIGNATURE
(price / per visit)

$849.00 /1
$424.50 /2
$283.00 /3
$212.25 /4 (! under PEAK $174)
$169.80 /5
$141.50 /6 (! under VALUE $157)
***

DISNEY SIGATURE PLUS
(price / per visit)

$1049.00 /1
$_524.50 /2
$_349.67 /3
$_262.25 /4
$_209.80 /5
$_174.83 /6

(NOTE: Only on the 7th visit ($149.86) does the per-day breakpoint justify itself over both PEAK and VALUE.)
***

There you have it:
• Six visits to Disneyland, with the price of the lowest-priced Annual Pasports amortized over the number of days, and contrasted with the ADULT ONE-DAY PARK HOPPER.
***

BONUS CONSIDERATION

Annual Passport holders get DISCOUNTS off "DINING" and "MERCHANDISE".

If you will spend money on MERCHANDISE or DINING in a year's time, then you will save:
• 10% (all APs)
or
• 15% (only SIGNATURE dining; SIGNATURE PLUS dining)
or
• 20% (only SIGNATURE merchandise, SIGNATURE PLUS merchandise)

... and thus have $10 or $15 (per $100 spent) more savings toward your "break even" point.

Example:
• You hold an AP of SO. CALIF. SELECT.
• You visit DL only 2x in a calendar year.
• Your amortization works out to $169.50 per vist.
• Not bad. You beat the worse-case PEAK ticket level.
• Ah! But you buy stuff at DL. So ...
• You spent $200 this year on Disneyland souvenirs and DL dining, and used your AP to save 10% on your $200, so you have $20 more in your pocket than you would have over an ordinary (one-day) ticket.
• That drops your per-vist cost by $20, i.e., down to $159.50, which is almost reaching the "VALUE" ticket level (namely, $157)

Summary:
Buying a So. Calif. Select, and going ONLY two times this year, and buying stuff ($200), gives you the equivalent (almost! -- off by $2.50) of buying two ONE-DAY PARK-HOPPER ADULT, VALUE, tickets.
Thus, you will have (just about) broken even on the similar level of DL's least-expensive (best-bargain) ONE-DAY ADULT PARK-HOPPER ticket.
Ah! -- But you have the added perks of the average AP holder, like the DL newsletter, and all the email blasts that come with holding an AP, offering first shot at many offers.

And, needless to say, if you were to go to DL 3x per year, then your AP SO CALIF SELECT definitely beats DL's best VALUE ONE-DAY PARK-HOPPER ADULT ticket (because your $113 beats DL's $157).

***

Nightwing
01-01-2018, 06:53 PM
Great job! ^_^

There are two items forgotten for the Signature's. Parking for both and the MaxPass on the Signature Plus. Both great items. So 20 off on parking and guess 10 per visit on Maxpass.

But not sure if Photopass is still free on Signature and or Signature Plus if purchased new.

Niwel
01-01-2018, 07:10 PM
But not sure if Photopass is still free on Signature and or Signature Plus if purchased new.

Photopass is only included on Signature for renewal.... new Sig are not.

Good breakdown -- but keep in mind, if you can only go Saturdays (like us) - the first two aren't really a good option :)

cstephens
01-02-2018, 02:34 PM
The calculations above would work fine if all days were priced the same, but they're not, so not all days are worth the same. For any APs with blockout days, the "daily price" isn't really correct, because while you *can* get in for 6 days out of the year, if the 6 days you want to go are days when that particular AP can't be used, the AP is still worthless to you.

Maybe you're going to visit for 6 days in one year, but if those 6 days all fall within the time around Christmas and New Year's, none of the APs will be useful to you except for the Signature Plus.

newhdplayer
01-02-2018, 03:13 PM
Nice simple breakdown for folks, potzbie. It's a great start to help plan your visits, to see if you can't take advantage of the various permutations of the AP's,

currence
01-02-2018, 05:05 PM
I used to do this math, not for whether it was cost effective to buy an annual pass, but whether it was better to take the token renewal discount or wait until the pass was expired and buy a new annual on your next visit. For my family, for most years, it was better to wait to renew and that math was even better during that time period when they allowed you to buy vouchers for your next AP at pre-increase prices.

We opted to not renew our annual passes a few years ago. At that time, our logic was that we did not want the So Cal Pass as we try like the plague to avoid the park on days when they aren't blocked out. So we were looking at Deluxe or higher. My son was getting frustrated with the amount of time that we were spending at Disneyland, and would be happier going less frequently. So for the price of a Deluxe, we could buy the 3-day So Cal tickets that are valid for approximately 4 months and go roughly once per month three times, buy a CHOC ticket and go once around Oct (now moved to Sept) and buy a Halloween Party ticket and go once then. Since our normal park habits usually had us avoiding the park in summer due to heat/crowds, we realized that we could go about as much as we wanted and still save money compared to the annual passes.

The math you provided assumes that a person is buying one-day parkhopper tickets each time they visit. If I'm only going for one day, I'm willing usually willing to buy one-park per day at a reduced price.

Now, the So Cal Pass is not guaranteed, nor is the pricing on the CHOC tickets. The Halloween park tickets have actually gone up so dramatically they are no longer the value they once were. We skipped the So Cal Tickets the last few years because we took trips to WDW and DL Paris. Only recently have the kids been making mention that they would like to to to Disneyland again - and we have another WDW trip soon.

We get similar (but not always identical) discounts through being DVC owners and Disney Visa Cardholders.