To buy AP or not to buy AP

[snowblack]

I am not sure if I should buy an AP or not. Is it worth it to buy just for extra discounts if I only get to go once a year?

[Strmchsr]

No. Definitely not. AP is worth it if you do 2+ trips per year totaling more than 11-12 days. The discounts are nice, but they aren't that big of a deal considering what you pay for the AP.

[DizneyRox]

No. Definitely not. AP is worth it if you do 2+ trips per year totaling more than 11-12 days. The discounts are nice, but they aren't that big of a deal considering what you pay for the AP.
The only correction is the 11-12 day thing. If a 10 day ticket is not enough for one trip, the AP starts to come into play. 11-12 days is the break even point regardless of the number of trips. Usually two trips is enough to justify the pass as well, provided you get equal tickets. Remember park hopping is built into the AP (at least now it is).

But as stated, only buy it based on park admission days only, unless you can bank on the discounts in advance, for example, you have already secured a AP discounted room and the savings makes sense, and/or you can quantify maybe the TiW discount in advance (add the cost of the TiW into your calculation. Any/all discounts can be pulled at any time or not even offered at all. That's why we say park admission days only.

[Dopey's Girl]

I have an AP, because I knew I would get at least 12 days of park time (turned into more than 20, yeah me!) out of it. While the discounts have proved nice, if I hadn't had the park time planned already, I woudn't have gotten the AP just for the discounts.

[CanadianWDWFan]

We have never bought our AP's based on the potential discounts. We felt that it wasn't justifiable to purchase something in the hopes that a discount will be available. Instead, we always plan 2 trips when we purchase our AP's. Usually it will be 2 two week trips over the course of a year. For our current AP's, we bought them last August for our annual trip and in three weeks we will be back for another two week stay. Any discounts that do come out are just an added benefit for us.

Another added plus for the AP holders, as a PP already stated, is the purchase of the Tables in Wonderland (TIW) card. This card gives a 20% discount on table service meals, adult drinks included.

[kakn7294]

Even the resort discounts for the time of my trip weren't enough to justify 4 APs for my family. We got them anyway because we'll get 3 trips out of them but they certainly aren't worth the discounts alone.

[MarkC]

Agree with Canadian that they are worth it and you can easily justify if you do even one trip every year. We usually buy them and, for example, will go the 2nd week of August the first year and then the 1st week of August the following year. The first year is a little pricey but the 2nd year is awesome because your tix are already paid for. We've done this from Nebraska several times and you are within driving distance. If you somehow have the opportunity for a holiday trip you may even squeeze in a 3rd trip. For example, here's what happened for us this year.

September-- planned trip so purchased passes
October-- DW brother decided to go so we tagged along so she could go with her family for once.
January-- Nebraska played in a bowl game in Orlando so that was 3 more unplanned days.
February-- planned cruise and we got to leave a day early due to snow forecast. Another extra day.
August-- planned trip to use passes one last time.

So we bought these knowing we were going twice and will end up using them 5 times.