Disney World Annual Passholder Summer Specials: Discounts & Star Wars Land Previews
Walt Disney World has announced a number of Annual Passholder special offers for this summer…all of which have been overshadowed by confirmation that there will be AP previews for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. We’ll cover that, plus the ticket deals, dining discounts, exclusive merchandise, and more in this rundown of Annual Pass deals.
We’ll start with the return of the popular Bring-a-Friend offer, which will allow Gold, Platinum, Platinum Plus, and Premier Annual Passholders to purchase up to six 1-day Park Hopper tickets for the special price of $89 plus tax, available for purchase and use from June 18, 2019 until August 8, 2019. Tickets will be available for purchase at theme park ticket booths and must be used only on the date of purchase.
Beginning July 5, Annual Passholders will be able to purchase the new “Summer Splash Pass” to receive unlimited visits to Walt Disney World’s two water parks, Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon. This pass will be valid during the heart of water park season–from July 5 through September 7, 2019. The pass will cost the same amount as a non-discounted 1-day water park ticket, which is $69 plus tax.
AP discounts are also available for this summer’s hard ticket events. Sticking with the water parks, the first of these is the H2O Glow Nights party held at Typhoon Lagoon. Annual Passholders can save $15 off the price sold at the ticket booths when purchasing in advance for this nighttime hard ticket event on select nights. (Typhoon Lagoon is awesome at night, but I’m not sure why Passholders would purchase tickets to this party over the Summer Splash Pass–to each their own, though.)
Annual Passholders can also purchase discounted tickets to Disney Villains After Hours, which is exactly what we did last week. (You can read all about the event in my Villains After Hours Review & Tips post.) This special event is held on select nights this summer at Magic Kingdom, and APs can save $30 off the price sold at the ticket window when purchasing tickets in advance. While at the event, Annual Passholders will also receive a complimentary Villains After Hours ornament featuring Hades.
Last week, Walt Disney World announced that select table-service restaurants will offer Passholders a 20% discount on lunch between now and July 2, 2019. These restaurants include the following:
Magic Kingdom
- Skipper Canteen
- Liberty Tree Tavern
- Crystal Palace
- Diamond Horseshoe
- Tony’s Town Square Restaurant
Epcot
- Akershus Royal Banquet Hall
- Biergarten
- Coral Reef Restaurant
- Rose & Crown
- Garden Grill Restaurant
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
- Hollywood & Vine
- Mama Melrose’s Ristorante Italiano
- The Hollywood Brown Derby
Animal Kingdom
- Tiffins Restaurant
- Tusker House Restaurant
Resort Hotels
- Ale & Compass Restaurant at Disney’s Yacht Club Resort
- ESPN Club at Disney’s Boardwalk Inn
- Grand Floridian Cafe at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
- Kona Cafe at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort
- Olivia’s Cafe at Disney’s Old Key West Resort
- Sanaa at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
- The Wave… of American Flavors at Disney’s Contemporary Resort
- Whispering Canyon Cafe at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
This discount applies to the non-discounted price of food and non-alcoholic beverages, and excludes applicable tax and gratuity. The lunch meal period is offered on seatings between 11:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., and is valid for the Passholder and up to 3 guests.
Based upon all of these ticket offers and discounts, our guess is that there’s a pre-Star Wars summer slump happening right now at Walt Disney World. That’s the simple explanation, but there could be more to these discounts than that. Third party hotels near Disneyland are experiencing similar post-Star Wars softness and Disney Cruise Line is offering more discounts this summer.
This makes us question whether this is part of a larger slowdown trend–either with Disney or the travel industry, more broadly. It’s premature to comment on that based simply on these anecdotal observations only a few weeks into the summer travel season, though. Nevertheless, this is something we’ll be keeping an eye on.
Finally, the most exciting news of all is that there will be Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge previews for select Annual Passholders! Walt Disney World has confirmed that Platinum, Platinum Plus and Premier Annual Passholders will be among the first to experience Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios with special preview opportunities planned before the land’s opening on August 29, 2019.
Walt Disney World has not revealed how this will work, aside from indicating that capacity to enter Star Wars Land is limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Disney has stated that more information and registration details for the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge AP previews will be shared at a later date.
If recent history with Pandora – World of Avatar, Toy Story Land, or the V.I.Passholder Nights is any indication, Walt Disney World will send out emails with a registration link to eligible APs the moment previews go live. Typically, these emails go out to about ~33% of eligible Annual Passholders, with no rhyme or reason as to who receives the email. (We’ve found this to be the case with all Walt Disney World correspondence, mailed or emailed.)
We can make no guarantees, but if one of us receives this email or if we see people talking about it via social email, we’ll send an email blast to our newsletter subscribers (you can sign up for free here). We’ve done this for all of the past AP events, and know many of you who didn’t receive the official correspondence were able to register thanks to our heads up. These events often fill up fast, so we’ll do our best to get that notification out quickly. (Again, no guarantees–we might miss it ourselves!)
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
What do you think of all these Annual Passholder discounts at Walt Disney World this summer? Excited at the prospect of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge previews for Annual Passholders, or are you not holding out any hope of being able to register? Do you agree or disagree with our thoughts here? 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!
Looks like Star Wars land Passholder preview will be August 17-21. Updated info on My Disney Experience website in the Passholder benefits:
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passholder-program/star-wars-galaxys-edge-passholder-previews/
Which is 3 days short of our visit Aug 24-29. Dang!
Thanks for your informative blog!! Please send me future blogs, as this one was forwarded to me, by a friend.
As w’re going August 11th – 17th I’m wondering if it would be worth it to get an annual pass for one of us in our party (it’s 3 of us) to go to the previews. We won’t be able to make it to SWGE at Disneyland for awhile. But my God the price hike is insane.
Hey E.D. If you or someone you know, have a Sam’s Club membership or Tickets At Work, you can purchase an annual pass on those sites, at the old price! Just got my Platinum Pass for $924.28 including tax, through Sam’s Club, & used my daughter’s membership! They email the voucher to you & then you exchange it for the actual annual pass once you get to Disney! The vouchers do not expire until December 2030, so you have until then to exchange it. Just thought if you decide to get an annual pass, that you might want to save some money!
FYI. If you purchase the annual pass you must activate it first prior to making the reservation. We are from NY and will be down there Aug. 14-23 but our passes will not be “activated” until our first day at a park. Because of this we are not entitled to make a reservation for the preview. Being DVC & Annual Passholders we were hoping for a little more leeway. Oh well!
I am an annual passholder for several years now. But, almost never get any emails from the Disney passholder address. ( I rarely get any from DVC or other sites either). I have been in touch with the IT dept several times going through the steps they recommend on the preferences page of MDE/account. Still radio silence!
Tom, do you know of anyway to correct this? I would love to make sure I get that preview email!
Also, if we don’t get the email and you are able to get that info out to us, where do we go to try to reserve a date/time?
Thanks for any help in advance.
We are in a similar spot…we were planning to upgrade while on property in Aug & are even scheduled to be in HS on the rumored preview date (fastpasses for that park, that day are set already), but we can’t upgrade before then without losing our free dining package. Trying to reconcile in my mind if we will even upgrade anymore, given the $ increase and also that we will be there, but will not likely be able to get into the SWGE preview. It would be ideal if WDW would offer the preview to those who can’t upgrade until they are onsite at that time, but I’m not holding my breath for that….
I bought an AP and will be there in August to activate it. Any chance non activates AP holders would get an email? Or just wishful thinking lol
I just read on another site that the expected date of early entry will begin August 11th. We have reservations for Aug 15-25th and are Weekday Select passholders. We are due to renew our passes before they expire on August 22nd. Weekday select is only $319 whereas Platinum is $749…No way am I paying that much per person for a possible early entry. I will however try my hardest to get a sneak peak in somehow…LOL.
Last summer they did an add-on in the summer that allowed silver and weekday select APs to pay some amount (seems like it was around $90) to lift the blackout restrictions through the summer at all parks except for Hollywood Studios. Has there been any news of anything similar to that?
Hey Tom,
Any chance that this announcement (and the 5-10 hour wait for Hagrid down the road) will encourage Disney to adopt some sort of virtual line system (like at Disneyland) for the first few days of the opening to SWGE? Would love to hear your opinion on the potential of this becoming a reality?
Thanks
i’ve been hoping for an announcement of some kind along these lines. everything i can physically cross is crossed.
First time Annual Passholder here! I’m really excited to hear about the SWGE passholder preview. We have a trip planned for early August already, so I was curious about how early (in your previous experience) these previews happen. Any chance it might be as early as the first week of August and we could take advantage? Also, having never been to a Disney water park, would it be worth it to stay a couple of extra days and get the splash pass? I wasn’t sure how they compared to other water parks in your opinion. Thanks!
We are going to be at WDW 8/10-8/19 on the Free Dining promotion. We will also be signing our DVC paperwork while we’re down there (paid our deposit 2 months ago, but due to some interstate regulations, they cannot send final paperwork to our state – wanh wanh – so it’s being held and waiting for us when we get down there). We will be upgrading our tickets to the Gold AP once we get down there and sign everything. I would actually consider getting the Platinum Pass if it meant we could get into a SWGE preview, but unfortunately it doesn’t really matter, since we’ll have to do our upgrade in person once we’re there, and obviously it will be far too late by then. Oh well.
this is some good news. not that i’m a passholder, but if they allow passholders early entry where they don’t have to deal with the chaos, those people most certainly will. hopefully that helps, even just a smidge, for those of us regular joes coming a week after it’s officially opened if those people were able to experience it before official opening and will then stay away. at least, in my mind, i would certainly want to take advantage of an early offering and then avoid it like the plague when the masses arrive.
I wouldn’t be surprised if consumer confidence is starting to soften. Trade war alone is enough to make me worry.
That was my first thought, as well. We’re starting to see cracks in the global economy, but usually there’s a lag time between a decline in consumer confidence and effects on tourism (since people book trips several months in advance).
We’ll see if that’s actually the case, though.
Thank you! I’ll watch for your email, we’re definitely in the never receive emails category. Well be there 8/24 to 8/31 some I hope the dates fall sometime in there!
We are Gold AP holders and planning to vacation in August. i already purchased a one day water park pass for the week we’re there. Do you know if Disney will convert this to the summer splash pass for us?
It feels like they should have the room/package discounts out by now for after Star Wars comes out. What are your thoughts on this? Is it too early still (only 10-11w from now)? Do you think they will even have any?
Last year, late August through October room discounts were released on June 26.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney waits even longer after that in the hopes of selling as many full price rooms as possible thanks to Galaxy’s Edge. Then again, they’ve probably gotten all of the positive PR they’re going to get from Disneyland’s opening, so perhaps we can expect a release around the same time.
Awesome. Thanks for the reply. I’m definitely nervous (b/c we all count on those discounts) and all of my FB feed is full of things about them raising prices.
I have an AP and have bought a two day ticket for my husband for our trip next week
I would love to get hoppers instead and for an even better price! Is there any way we can switch to the AP bring a friend promo and keep that money for another trip?
And would the FP we booked still work?