Money Money Money

Vacations cost a lot of money. I pretty much spend all year pinching pennies to be able to go on vacation. Bargaining is my hobby I suppose. Mary from Mousesavers.com announced on her web site ticket prices for Disney would be going up today. I had thought about what type of tickets to buy for Disney for our upcoming year. We have plans to do Disney for Christmas this year and an August vacation. We are taking a group of folks at work in April of 09. Knowing work would have to purchase a ticket, and being unsure of how many days we'd need for the year, I went ahead and bought annual passes for me and Victoria.

The cost of annual passes is pretty steep and they expire in a year. What I like about annual passes is the freedom you have to come and go from all four of the parks. When you have park hoppers, you have to plan your days carefully. Buying a ticket which never expires can be a smart move for someone who isn't sure of their vacation plans. But with the annual passes, we will have the freedom to hop into a park on arrival day, if only for a couple of hours, and not fret over 'wasting' a day. By buying my annual pass vouchers last night, I avoided the 50 dollar increase which begins today.

The cost of the annual passes were about the same price as a ten day park hopper with no expiration. We probably could have managed with a ten day pass for our two trips but it would have meant work buying a ticket for April, and planning the days carefully. You park for free in the parks, which at 11 dollars a day can add up if you stay off site like we do. I was able to use 235 Disney Reward dollars to reduce the sting a bit.