In 2011 the Disney parks are launching a special military discount campaign and to prove their commitment to the idea, the specials actually start now. The official Disney parks blog recently published details on its 2011 military discounts, which are currently in effect and run through September 28, 2011.
The specifics differ a bit between Disney World and Disneyland. Let’s start with the original Anaheim park. At Disneyland active or retired personnel of any branch of the military OR (but not AND) their spouses have the option of purchasing special park-hopper tickets.
The Disney Military Promotional 3-Day Park Hopper Tickets are $99 and allow their holders access to any of Disneyland’s parks for three days. On the East Coast, military guests to Disney World have a few more special options.
They can buy four-day park hopper tickets for $138, four-day non-park-hopper tickets with a water parks option also for $138, or four-day park hopper and water park tickets for $165. Sales tax fees also apply on top of these prices.
The military discount tickets for both domestic Disney parks share similar restrictions. In addition to limits upon who can purchase them, no more than six tickets are available for any one group. Also, one of the six ticket holders must be the military personnel or spouse.
These special tickets are available from now through September 28, 2011, and must be used by October 1, 2011. Each of the parks also has some block-out dates during which the tickets may not be used. At Disneyland the tickets are not available for December 24, 2010 through January 1, 2011, February 18, 2011 through Feb. 21, April 17 through April 23, and July 1 through July 4.
At Disney World the no-go dates are December 27 through Dec. 31 and April 17 through April 23. Additionally, the tickets may not be used only at the Magic Kingdom on July 4.
At first glance I can guess behind the motivation for these block-out dates; clearly high traffic holidays like Christmas and the Fourth of July are out of bounds for special discounts. I wonder what happens in February and April; the February date is around President’s Day, so maybe the parks receive a large volume of long weekend vacationers then. The April dates are around Earth Day, which puzzles me. I know the Animal Kingdom throws a bash for Earth Day, but I can’t imagine that the parks get an overwhelming number of guests then.
Either way, I think it’s fantastic that the parks are offering these special military discounts. I wonder if this is a first step the Disney Parks are taking to offer permanent, if perhaps smaller, military discounts.
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