Disney World AP News: Discounts, Refunds & More Park Pass Availability!
We’re back with a Walt Disney World Annual Passholder update, and this time, it’s all good news! We cover the latest about AP hotel & merchandise discounts, refunds, and more Park Pass theme park reservation availability. We’ll also offer some additional commentary about all of that and other Annual Passholder issues of interest. (Updated July 19, 2020.)
Let’s start with the discounts. As we shared last week, Annual Passholders Can Save Up to 40% on Walt Disney World Hotels Now Through September 30, 2020. The best discounts are for the month of September, and includes Contemporary Resort for $272 per night, Beach Club for $265 per night, Saratoga Springs for $225 per night, Pop Century for $110 per night, Fort Wilderness Cabins for $239 per night, and more.
There was initially some confusion about eligibility for this discount. Many Annual Passholders couldn’t get the correct pricing to show, and (mistakenly) believed these “Rediscover the Magic” deals are only available for APs who are also Florida residents. There are separate deals for Florida residents–any Annual Passholder should be able to book them now, so if you couldn’t before, give it another shot. We have more good news on the deals front…
Beginning today, Annual Passholders now receive a 30% discount on merchandise purchases at most Walt Disney World stores. As Walt Disney World has not yet released the official details, we don’t know what the exclusions entail, but we suspect that they include cloth face masks, select Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge locations, national brand products, and select EPCOT locations.
Normally, Walt Disney World Annual Passholders receive a 20% off merchandise discount as part of AP perks, so this amounts to an extra 10% off. Cast Members have also received a bump in their merchandise discount, receiving 50% off. (However, they’re blocked out of the parks.)
While the Cast Member bonus discount expires July 31, 2020, it’s unclear when the added Annual Passholder discount ends. (We inquired with a couple of Cast Members, and there was no clear answer.) With crowds being low and disproportionately locals, our guess is that this will last through the fall. After all, there’s only so much that the fleet of eBay pirates can buy–their ships are relatively small and mostly full of Splash Mountain stuff!
In general, we’d expect a lot more discounts for Florida residents and Annual Passholders, with restaurants likely to be next up. We’ve been harping on this for a while, predicting low crowds and aggressive discounts repeatedly well before the parks even reopened. Until cases start decreasing and out of state quarantine orders are lifted, that’s even more likely–tourists are going to be cancelling their trips or simply not booking.
Which brings us to the next topic: Disney Park Pass availability for Annual Passholders. We’ve been monitoring this over the last couple of weeks since this opened to APs, and things have not been looking good. (See our Park Pass Update: AP Availability & Fresh Frustrations).
As of earlier this week, the earliest an Annual Passholder without a resort reservation could book a visit to Epcot was August 3, 2020. The earliest possible visit to Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom was August 18, 2020. The earliest visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios wouldn’t be until August 25, 2020.
This was despite no shortage of same-day Disney Park Pass availability for resort guests and theme park ticketholders, not to mention both Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom being veritable ghost towns the last two days. (Even less crowded than over the weekend!)
This has been occurring because there are three separate “buckets” for Disney Park Pass reservations, and only the AP bucket has had any degree of serious demand. We’ve been assuming since the beginning that around 24-48 hours before the date in question, Walt Disney World would roll over surplus capacity from the resort and ticket-holder buckets to the AP bucket.
Good news on that front! An email just went out to Annual Passholders (don’t be surprised if you didn’t receive it), indicating that that starting July 16, 2020, additional Disney Park Pass reservation availability will be offered to Annual Passholders for select dates in July and August at Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom. (No dice for Disney’s Hollywood Studios…yet.)
This additional Disney Park Pass reservation availability does not reflect an increase in park capacity, which means that Park Pass inventory from the other two “buckets” is being dumped into the AP bucket.
Here’s a look at the full email in case you didn’t receive it:
Most of the rest of that was already known, but we now also have official confirmation of this:
“Annual Passholders staying at select Disney Resort or other select hotels with valid Theme Park admission are eligible to make Theme Park reservations for each day of their resort stay(s), in addition to holding up to 3 days of Theme Park reservations at a time on a rolling basis. Once you use a Theme Park reservation, you can make another reservation for a future date.”
It’s not a huge surprise that Walt Disney World is reallocating surplus capacity to Annual Passholders, but it’ll be interesting to see how this works in practice. It would make the most sense if this occurred on a rolling basis, as that would allow for resort guests and standalone ticketholders something closer to “guaranteed” entry.
However, it sounds like this is going to be more akin to an inventory dump. (Which also makes sense if bookings are way down for later this summer and sufficient inventory is still held back for those guests.) Either way, good news all around–and something that should help fill the parks a bit more and keep them from looking like eerie ghost towns.
Update #1: Walt Disney World has released more Disney Park Pass inventory to Annual Passholders, so now we know (some of) the answers to these questions.
Above is a look at the Annual Passholder availability calendar for the rest of the month. As you can see, it went from every park being unavailable for the rest of the July to partial availability for the rest of the month. That’s only partial because nothing was added for Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Epcot now all have availability for every single day the rest of this month, as well as August. (The first date that Disney’s Hollywood Studios is available is now August 25, 2020.)
From that email and updates to Walt Disney World’s Annual Pass “Know Before You Go” page, we also have more details about AP cancellation & refund policies. Per that page, Annual Passholders have through August 11, 2020 to cancel their passes by calling V.I.PASSHOLDER Support. (Once submitted, a cancellation request cannot be changed.)
In lieu of the one-month extension, you may choose to cancel your Annual Pass. Your AP will remain valid through August 11, 2020 and will be canceled effective August 12, 2020.
Refunds to original form of payment can be expected by mid to late September. Refunds may take up to an additional month to receive if original form of payment is not available. To request this option, contact V.I.PASSHOLDER Support at (407) 939-7277.
Update #2: Walt Disney World has stated that refunds will be based on your “remaining access days of your annual pass from July 11, 2020 through your pass expiration date (as extended, if applicable).” While there have been rumors that refunds will be based upon actual usage, this is not the case. Meaning an AP is not deemed “fully used” if you’ve visited the parks for 12 or 14 days already (and so forth).
While we still don’t know the specifics as to how refund valuations are made beyond the above quote, we have confirmed that past usage is not a factor. Unfortunately, Disney will not disclose how much of a refund you will receive until you actually submit the refund request–and once that’s made, it cannot be undone.
For those of you who still have unanswered questions or issues with your APs, try the ‘Chat Here’ feature (blue button on the right side of the page) on this page: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/experience-updates/annual-passes/
If you do request and receive an Annual Pass refund, please share the details (amount of refund, level of pass, how much time you had remaining, etc.) so we have more data points that could be helpful to other readers. Thanks in advance!
Finally, if you’ve already requested a cancellation, Annual Passholder refunds are starting to be processed. In its own way, this is good news (albeit of the bittersweet variety) if you opted to cancel your Walt Disney World AP. This has been a common question/issue in the comments to our last Walt Disney World Annual Passholder Update: Charges, Reservations, Extensions & Refunds, so we wanted to quickly address it here.
If you requested a refund, you should’ve received an email late last week or early this week from Disney Destinations with the subject line: “Your refund request has been processed” (see above). Again, don’t fret as Walt Disney World has a known problem with Stitch consuming its communications (cursed alien!). In any case, you might want to check your bank account, credit card statement, or whatever, as we’ve heard numerous reports of these being processed. It’s probably slightly premature to call Walt Disney World if you’ve yet to receive yours, but we thought we’d give an update/heads up on this, as many readers have asked about it.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you an Annual Passholder? Thoughts on the merchandise and resort discounts? Will you be taking advantage of either offer? If you cancelled your Walt Disney World AP, have you received your refund yet? Think the new Disney Park Pass availability policy is fair? Do you agree or disagree with our commentary? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I’m also wondering if AP are available to purchase right now. Does anyone know?? I’ve been on hold on the phone for almost 3 hours and I’m about to give up. TIA
They are not. It’s in the FAQ section on the AP page. Hard to find.
I have 2 unactivated FL resident annual passes, in the process of seeing what Disney will do about possibly getting a refund for those, because I definitely purchased them to use this year. If you need them and are FL resident I would be MORE than happy to figure out how to sell/transfer them to you so I don’t have to deal with Disney ANYMORE.
I’m an AP from NY and actually planning to visit at the beginning of August. I made my 3 reservations but am concerned I won’t even get to visit all 4 parks.
I am considering booking a one-night reservation with a Disney hotel to get the 2 extra day’s worth of reservations.
What’s the cheapest way to do this? Do the Disney Neighbor hotels also get to make reservations in the Disney hotel bucket? If so, what’s the cheapest one anyone can recommend?
So long as you’ve already made your reservation for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you should be fine.
We’d recommend canceling Epcot and making that last. It’s the park that’s almost always going to have next-day availability.
Failing that, the Best Western is the cheapest Good Neighbor option that we recommend: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/best-western-lake-buena-vista-hotel-review/
In response to some of the responses to my email, I don’t really know what Disney’s legal obligations are to me, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. For a company that values its reputation for excellent customer service, it’s in their interest to treat their most loyal customers fairly. I’m my opinion, to consider one six day visit to be equivalent to half the value of your pass is not fair, especially since I was planning several visits this year. And yes, I could just keep my pass, but I live in New York. With the quarantine rules in effect, I can’t go now even if I wanted to. And for the foreseeable future, with small children, I don’t think a trip to Disney is feasible for some time. That’s why Disney is offering this refund in the first place, but I just feel that the refund should more accurately reflect the value that I’ve lost.
Ezra, We’re in the same boat. I still fail to understand why Disney can’t just pause and then restart a particular guest’s AP clock once that guest feels ready to return. It’s not complicated. Instead they will incur a far greater number of cancellations. Bewildering!
Ezra, not trying to upset you just curious, would the cost of 12 single day passes be about what one AP cost you? I’m not saying that makes this deal fair, I’m just curious as to their thinking. I get your frustration. Especially not being a local you would never have been able to use the pass 365 days. We lived a 6 hour drive from Disneyland when we had passes so we couldn’t go nearly as often as the locals, but I would have been bummed to to lose the value we thought we were going to get when we bought the passes:( It’s a shame they can’t just put a hold on all passes until things get back to normal. My guess is that since everyone’s perceived value would be different, they have assigned it a value, which is how they came up with the pass’s price. One more bummer in a year of bummers… 🙁
Well, Nicki, our passes commenced mid January with a five night stay. One night we simply went into Epcot for dinner. For the two of us this becomes a $200 surcharge for the meal. Certainly nothing I would have done without believing there would be numerous opportunities to visit during the year. I think in this unusual situation the pass should be fairly valued at closer to 16 days since out of state folks might reasonably purchase the pass expecting to visit during 3 or 4 separate months,.
rorosen, that sucks! We frequently did short days in the parks too. Not quite that short as Disneyland doesn’t have the food options Epcot has 😉 It really is a shame they don’t just freeze passes until restrictions are lifted (unless you are able and ok with going right now). Seems like that would be easier than this mess!
Trying to figure out how the refund/cancellation will work for two annual passes I bought for my kids on a monthly payment plan just before everything shut down.
We paid $318 down payment and agreed to pay $51/mo at the start of March, but only got to use them a single day.
If I understand this right, I will owe no payments from Aug 12th onward, but I would still be out the $318 we paid up front, plus the $51 additional monthly payment we made?
Has anyone heard what they are doing about Premier APs that expired recently but should have more days added on the FL and especially the Disneyland side? I called Disneyland and they are referring everyone to the FL AP phone number that just rings busy. Thank you!
@Beth: Yesterday, I got the e-mail that mostly everyone else seemed to get, but with a paragraph that was directed just at Premiere Passholders (of which I am one). It says:
“Updates on options to manage your Premier pass
We recognize that Park reservations will change the way that many of our Passholders use their pass. With that in mind, in June, we shared that Annual Passholders will receive a one-month (30 days) extension to their pass. This additional month will automatically be processed and visible in their My Disney Experience account over the coming weeks. A further extension due to theme park closures at the Disneyland® Resort will be applied to your pass 6—8 weeks after Disneyland® Resort Theme Parks reopen. Please note that Disneyland® Resort will have different Park reservation rules and availability for its theme parks. More information about Disneyland® Resort theme park reservations will be shared at a later date.”
So, in other words, If your pass expired after July 11th, it has now been extended 117 days, to cover the WDW closure (March 16th to July 11th), AND it will be extended another 30 days on top of that, AND it will be extended for the additional time that Disneyland/DCA are closed, which will be July 11th until whenever the California parks open. Like, if Disneyland/DCA open on September 9th (I just pulled that date out of the air), then your pass will be extended 60 days, on top of the 117 days and the 30 days. And I assume that for that whole time, it will still be good for both resorts, (within the limitations of the reservation system, the limited hours, entertainment cuts, etc.).
Mine originally expired July 18th. It has now been extended to November 20th, with that date showing up on my WDW MDE account, but the Disneyland app still shows it as expiring July 18th. That must be because the Disneyland reopening date has not been determined (or the NEW opening date, since remember it was going to be July 17th there for a while).
Were you able to follow all of that?
Thank you, Robert, I didn’t get that email. Since the AP expired, it now shows NO AP at all on the Disneyland site. So I’m concerned that if we have AP previews when the Disneyland Resort reopens, we will not be eligible for them or able to use our AP until 6-8 weeks after reopening! But everything else makes sense, thank you Very much for the information.
In my opinion, considering 12 days as completely using up an annual pass is completely unfair, considering that you’ve paid for 365 days. In what universe is 12 equal to 365? I bought my annual passes in February and went on one vacation, spending six days in the parks. So, according to Disney, my passes are half used, even though I only had them for one twelfth of the year. I was planning at least two more trips to Disney, so at minimum I should be getting two thirds of my money back. The point is that when you’re buying an annual pass, what you’re buying is time, not usage. You could go every single day or no days at all and they’re still charging you the same amount. I understand Disney is dealing with financial difficulties, but they also have to live up to their obligations. I paid for a year and I used one month, so my refund should be 11 months worth of the pass. I definitely sense a class action lawsuit coming if Disney does this to their pass holders.
You might be forgetting that Disney doesn’t HAVE to offer refunds or that you’re not being forced to take one. Details are still emerging as to how Disney will value partially-used passes, but if you don’t like what they come up with, then don’t cancel your pass.
this sentence from Disney “You will be refunded for the remaining access days of your annual pass from July 11, 2020 through your pass expiration date (as extended, if applicable)” has no meaning if they are simply considering the pass as a 12 day commodity,..
My guess is if you take the cost of a single day pass and multiply it by 12 that’s about what you paid for your annual pass? I don’t know as I don’t have one but that’s my guess. Seems like then they can say you recouped your investment even though you might have used it more than that. If they charged you for 365 days it would likely be a ridiculous amount (even with the more days you buy the cheaper it gets thinking) so they bank on most people averaging 12 days or less? Again just a guess…
i think the lawsuit would be if Disney treats guests differently in regard to refund amounts. Two commenters on Tom’s original post about AP refunds who requested a refund for the length of park closure indicated they were refunded for 4 months worth of their pass value (and the refunds happened immediately prior to the update about August deadline). Unknown how many days they might have used on their passes but they appear to have been refunded for 4 months/12 months value. Technically, those who requested refund for park closure period prior to July 11 are different from those of us who waited to see what Disney would do. My pass expiration has been automatically extended for the length of park closure already, so Disney can now classify me differently (and refund me differently) than the folk who requested a refund for park closure. i’d be requesting a refund for the rest of my AP, not for the park closure period. Ironically, i might have come out ahead to request a refund for the park closure period!
My pass expires in August so I wonder if I’ll get the extension if they’re not processing it until October. Also, I do we pay for the extension? I think I only have to pay the July and August monthly payments but I don’t think I’ll use the extension and I don’t want to pay for an extra month.
Are new annual passes available to purchase for 2020 yet?
I was confused about the cancellation policy. Being from out-of-state it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to use my pass anytime soon, so the month credit doesn’t help. I’m going to cancel for this year and probably get another pass in 2021. But according to the cancellation link, the cancellation is effective as of July. Does that mean that they would not cancel back to March when they closed? I don’t want to pay for months they weren’t open. I’ve already paid in full and I want credit all the way back to March and I tried to call the VIP passholder line a few times last night and all I got were messages saying that all circuits were busy. I tried to email earlier this week and my email got no response other than the automated ‘we will get back to you’. I get they’re busy.-especially with the mistake they made for monthly annual passholders last week where they charged them in error. But this seems less generous than they’ve done overseas for other pass holders. I’m disappointed the credit is only a month and they are not taking into account pass holders from other states that simply are not in a position to visit Florida right now.
For those who choose to receive the refund- is my refund initiated from Aug 12, the day my passes will expire, or from July 11, as it appears in the email? Am I reading that correctly that my refund will include when the parks have reopened, and I’m getting a month of free access?
I
Was wondering if the 5 k and half marathon in November will or can be refunded?! How do we go about getting a refund on race
And after party
Has Disney released information on how they calculate a refund for an Annual Pass paid in full?
Yes, Louis, this seems to me the important element in deciding for or against the refund and yet the calculation is left mysterious,..
Id have to think they are just dividing out the months? So if you paid $1000 for a 1 yr (12 month) pass, $1000 divided by 12 would be a cost of $83 per month
It would be nice if it was as simple as divide the cost by 12 months and the refund is however many months you’re due back – but I’ve heard reports that Disney is basing it on the number of days you’ve used on your pass and if you’ve used more than 10 – 12, they’re saying you’ve fully used the pass and not issuing a refund. Not sure how accurate it is, just what I’ve seen on some forums.
Krista, that was my worry, too. But that doesn’t quite make sense if someone paying monthly is allowed to cancel no matter how much use they got out of the pass up to that point,..
I asked about refunds at the guest services in Disney Springs yesterday. I renewed 3 platinum passes, paid in full, in June. I was told that they consider an annual pass “used” at 12 visits. So you get the price of your pass divided into 12 and that’s how much you get back. So if a pass cost $12 (for math purposes-lol) you went twice you get back $10. If you went 12 or more times, even if it was in the first month, you get nothing. If you have a new pass or a renewal that you haven’t used you get 100% of purchase price back. I asked because my husband works FT and if there isn’t more availability on weekends we may cancel and wait 6months. She told me we can use our passes thru our extension time and if we don’t use after the new renewal date we would get 100% back. So we paid in full in June but really have till Sep/Oct to decide. Sorry so long-hope this helps!
I don’t know what WDW passes cost these days but we had Disneyland passes several years ago and if we visited x times the pass paid for itself (when compared to buying daily tickets). I’m guessing Disney is using some calculation like that. If you divide your pass amount by a single day ticket you’ll see how many days it takes to cover the cost of the pass. All other days are just “bonus” days if you will. I’m no expert but that’s how we calculated whether a pass was worth it for us in Disneyland. It’s sounding from the comments that 12 single day passes might be about the cost of an annual pass? Therefore if you’ve used those 12 days, Disney is saying you got your money back. I know most Passholders plan to go many more than that (we did in Disneyland) but it would be incredibly hard for them to calculate based on what your planned usage would have been or even by months used as some may have used theirs a lot in the first months and some may have only gone a day, so having a set number of days may be their simplest answer. I’m not saying Disney is right, that’s just my guess as to what calculation they are using. It doesn’t hurt to ask for what you think is fair but I’d brace yourselves for getting minimum value for your passes. I feel really bad for the cast members on the phones for these calls. Please remember they didn’t make the rules.
Yes, I definitely have sent them an email to “ask” for what I think is fair. If you remember, they were still charging peoples who were on the monthly payment plan at the beginning of this saga, and that swiftly changed with the VERY warranted outrage. Disney executives are GROWN men who also know what is like to be a customer in many(likely pricey) establishments. They know what is RIGHT and to convince themselves of anything else is highway robbery…of the guests who were the most loyal. I will NEVER EVER be buying another annual pass from Disney. I unequivocally first not trust their decision making. They know darn well that the highest passes were purchased with the intention of having access 365 days a year, and it is known that Disney hardly EVER sells out so maximum of let’s say 5 days you MIGHT not be able to get in. We can run a multinational company but we don’t know math????? Please. Like someone said, smells like class action….which is really and truly said. Disney owns HALF of the entertainment industry. They can afford to do what is right.
Any ideas or advice on whether Disney will sell new 2020 AP anytime soon? We have a dvc trip booked and won’t buy single day tickets since AP is usually a much better deal for us. Our passes expired last fall so we can’t renew.
Hi Sheila, 🙂 I have 2 unactivated FL resident annual passes that I am in the midst of trying to see if Disney will refund granted I bought them specifically for this year. I would be happy to sell/transfer them to you if you need them and are FL resident. I am NOT going back to Disney anytime soon and would like this saga to be over.
We were told the extra AP discount was good through August 14,2020. That was from several CM in MK today.
I was at Disney Springs today and at Pin Trader the very nice CM checking me out informed me of the 30% off for AP’s. She also told me that they were told that morning (And I was there at 10am) of the increase and that it would be running till August 12th. Not sure if that is 100% true, but thought I would pass it on.
The updated Passholder page says you’ll see the new date over the coming weeks. I would guess they will wait until after the Aug 11 deadline to make the updates.
Any idea when 2021 vacation packages after September will be available for booking ?
I saw that people were getting refunds, but upon calling the WDW pass holder line, was advised that they aren’t able to issue refunds yet and to stand by for the email which will soon go out to all passholders (in the next couple of days).
Are there any instances of pass holders asking for another option besides the extension or the refund? We are out of state and will not be traveling to Florida anytime soon and then when school starts with requirements of 14 day quarantine, we still will be unable to travel. Further, I wouldn’t opt to invest in travel without the certainty that I can have the park days I want. For these reasons and more, I cannot use the extension. However, assuming a 3 month refund has a rough value of $240, and would barely buy 2 park days, I don’t want that either. I’m not going to pretend I’d have visited 100 days during the closure but I actually would have visited about 25. Those were my planned trips for the duration of my pass when renewed last year. I don’t think I’m out of line, wanting to have those days to use when the parks are more normal, cases are down, and restrictions are lifted. Any thoughts??
Well okay, but remember that you asked for my thoughts! I don’t think you’re out of line WANTING to have those 25 days, but EXPECTING that is quite another thing. Good luck on your quest for that, if that’s the path you choose; my prayers are with the castmembers that have to field these sort of requests.
COVID was not Disney’s fault. They are not to blame for any of the problems it caused. Everyone was affected by this, and no one is coming out ‘ahead’. The entire world has changed now, and there’s no way they can provide the same experience you had your sights set on 6 months ago.
While it behooves them to work with guests as much as possible, I think it’s unrealistic to expect that you’ll get what you’re describing above. Take the refund.
I agree with G8rDaver, I can’t imagine you will get anything close to what you suggest. If you have only used the annual pass for a couple of park days so far you might be able to finagle a larger refund, but even that is dubious as I’m sure they are under strict orders from corporate to limit how much money they’re giving out. You can certainly ask nicely but if you get a “no” I would just take the standard refund.
Read my reply above-they consider an annual pass used completely at 12 days. So your refund isn’t based on months but on days used. Guest Services at Disney Springs told me yesterday your only option is take all the extension stuff or get a refund based on your days. Good luck! I think Disney is doing their best but that doesn’t mean some of us won’t be upset. It’s just a weird situation in a crazy world right now.
Disney had said they were extending the AP’s a month beyond the park closure time. (If you did not request a refund.) Will this be reflected in MDE at some point? Mine was changed to ~4 months after it was supposed to expire, but I didn’t get the extra month added on.
I think they said the extra month would be processed in October. Not sure how that works for those with passes that expire sooner. Or if park passes run out for your extension period. Seems odd not to do it sooner.
Thanks, Cliff. I read the email more carefully once I received it. I missed that it said “over the coming weeks”.
Ya looks like they changed that. Missed that in the email. Hopefully coming weeks is faster than October.