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Disney’s Military Salute

Military Disney Tips Turns Three

May 8th, 2011
by Steve.
2 comments

Military-Disney-Tips-Birthday (C) DisneyAt the beginning of this month Military Disney Tips turned three. I wanted to take a moment to say thanks to you my readers. I’m so appreciative of your interest. It’s been my pleasure to try to help you in whatever way that I can to plan for your Disney vacation.

It’s been a big year for MDT, we broke the story on both the extensions of the Disney Armed Forces Salute, both in October 2010 when the offer was renewed for this fiscal year, and again just last month with the extension until September 2012. It’s been a busy year too trying to keep up on the numerous packages and specials offered by Shades of Green throughout the year. Also I was interviewed by AmeriForce Publishing for inclusion in an article about Disney Military discounts. The article is due out later this month in their Reserve & National Guard Magazine.

Over the past year the site has seen fantastic growth. Military Disney Tips now receives nearly 10,000 visitors and 40,000 pageviews per month. Our Newsletter launched last October and has grown to over 390 subscribers. We also started our facebook fan page this past year and now have 220 facebook friends who like it. Just a couple of months ago the Military Disney twitter account was launched too.

The majority of our readers this year have been Stateside, but we also have readers from numerous locations where our military members are stationed: Italy, Germany, Iraq, the UK, Puerto Rico, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Qatar, Afghanistan, the UAE, and Bahrain to name some.

Because of the specialized content on this site, many great Disney sites on the net sent visitors our way. I’d like to thank those sites for their support this year. They are:

Yourfirstvisit.net where I’ve been lucky to do quite a few guests posts
disneyfoodblog.com Where AJ has also allowed me to guest post
universal-parks-military-discounts.com our sister site
disboards.com
wdwradio.com
passporterboards.com
mouseowners.com
dismarks.com
usmclife.com
couponingtodisney.com
westoverafrc.org
coastiechicks.net

You also found the site via search engines. Some of the things you were looking for were: Information on Disney’s Military Salute, Universal Studios Military Salute, Sea World Military Discounts, Shades of Green, and the Armed Forces Vacation Club.

Some of your favorite pages were:

Military Discounts
The Disney Military Salute announcement for 2011
Disney’s Armed Forces Salute
Shades of Green
Universal Military Salute
Shades of Green Military Discounted Ticket Overview
and the Military Disney Tips Blog

This year is our third year partnering with Ears of Experience, an authorized Disney vacation planner and Veteran Owned Business. Over 150 of you asked Amy for help making your Disney reservations this past year.

Again I want to say thanks for the Happy Birthday! It’s been my pleasure to provide content that I think you might find helpful and I’m so glad that the site’s growth shows you are enjoying it. I’m looking forward to an even better year coming up. I’ve got several great new projects like my new series of Patriotic Disney posts and several new partners who I’ll be joining with to produce more great content.

Yours, Steve

 

If you are new to Military Disney Tips Start Here

Disney’s Armed Forces Salute FAQ

Information on Shades of Green – the Military Hotel on Disney World property

For up to the minute news follow us on facebook and twitter.

Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets – Are They Always The Right Choice

Apr 28th, 2011
by Steve.
12 comments

A great question came up recently from Jim one of our new readers who found his way here from the disboards as many have in the last couple of weeks. The question is if you want a longer stay at Walt Disney World than the Armed Forces Salute 4-day military discounted ticket allows, what’s the best ticket option to buy? Also the opposite question would be, if you can’t stay as long a 4 days when should you not buy the Salute ticket.

In essence Jim’s question is; if you want to spend 5, 6, 7, or more days in Disney’s theme parks, what’s the cheapest way to do it. When is it cheaper to combine the Armed Forces Salute tickets with other regularly discounted Disney World tickets, and when is it cheaper to go with a single regularly discounted Magic Your Way ticket? This is a very interesting question and required a bit of research and some Microsoft excel work.

NOTE: the prices quoted in this post are prior to the June 2011 ticket price increase, I’ll update soon.

The key point to Disney’s Magic Your Way tickets is that the majority of the cost is incurred in the first three days of multi-day tickets, while the latter days only cost a few dollars.

There are so many varieties of Magic Your Way Tickets: 1 Park, Park Hopper, Water Park Fun & More, Park Hopper and Water Park Fun & More, and the no expiration option on all but one day tickets. For this discussion I won’t talk about the no expiration option as this adds quite a bit of cost to the tickets and we are assuming that we are talking about one longer vacation at WDW rather than coming back later for a second (which is why you’d get the no expiration).

The results are that almost any time you want to go to the parks for more than 4 days it’s cheaper to just buy a Military Discounted Magic Your Way ticket for the number of days you desire, either through Shades of Green or your base ticket office. You can buy them from Disney but they add sales tax. Only with the Adult 5-Day 1-Park, Park Hopper, and Water Park Fun & More tickets is it cheaper to buy the Salute ticket plus the additional day (a $9 savings). Six days and above go with the Magic Your Way.

Also on the flip side if you are unable to stay for 4 days in the theme parks it’s still cheaper to buy the Armed Forces Salute ticket than it is to buy a 2 or 3 day ticket. There are only 4 tickets that are cheaper than the salute ticket: all 1-Day tickets: the 1-Park tickets (adult and child), the child park hopper, and the child water park fun & more.

You can see my results here (Microsoft Excel file)

Shades of Green Ticket Options
Shades of Green Ticket Prices
On Base Ticket Offices

If you are new to Military Disney Tips Start Here

Disney’s Armed Forces Salute FAQ

Information on Shades of Green – the Military Hotel on Disney World property

For up to the minute news follow us on facebook and twitter.

Free Disney Planning & Reservation Checklist

There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch – At Some Theme Parks

Apr 26th, 2011
by Steve.
No comments yet

Ticket Boothphoto © 2006 Jackie | more info (via: Wylio)As a webmaster/blogger some neat data that I see is search terms that people have used to find my site. The variations of Disney Military Discount mixed with other words are endless. But I’ve noticed a small but steady amount of people searching for “Free Disney Military Tickets.”

While there was a time that Disney and Universal Orlando offered a free theme park ticket to military members, unfortunately free tickets are a thing of the past. Only Anheuser-Busch continues to offer free tickets to their theme parks.

Disney offered free military theme park tickets three times in the past.

In 1990 after Desert Storm Disney World gave members a free 1-day park-hopper ticket.

The next time Disney offered a free military ticket was in 2002 after the events of 9/11, this was one free 5-day park-hopper for the military member. You could then purchase up to 5 additional 5-day tickets for friends and family. Either basic tickets for $99 or park-hoppers for $124.

Since 2009 military members have had to purchase their own Armed Forces Salute Tickets as well as those for their guests and the price has risen.

Universal Orlando’s most recent free admission for military members ended on 30 March 2010. The member received a free multi-day multi-park theme park ticket and could purchase the same tickets for their guests for $88.

Our good friends at Anheuser-Busch are still offering free admission to their theme parks for the military member and their guests (up to 3 guests), an offer they have had every year since 2004. My hat’s off the Busch theme parks!

So as you can see currently the Orlando Theme Parks run the full spectrum in their offers for the military. From totally free admission to no special Military Salute tickets.

To see each Theme Parks current offers see the previous posts in this series
1. Disney Military Discount 2011 – Orlando Military Discounts Series
2. Sea World Busch Gardens Military Salute 2011 – Orlando Military Discounts Series
3. Universal Orlando Military Discount 2011 – Orlando Military Discounts Series

Keep tuned, there will be one more installment in this series – The Ultimate Post Deployment Orlando Vacation.

If you are new to Military Disney Tips Start Here

Disney’s Armed Forces Salute FAQ

Information on Shades of Green – the Military Hotel on Disney World property

For up to the minute news follow us on facebook and twitter.

Free Disney Planning & Reservation Checklist

Military Disney Tips Round-Up 24 March 2011

Apr 24th, 2011
by Steve.
No comments yet
Military Disney Tips Round-Up, Woody (C) Disney

It's a Round-Up Partner

Wow what a surprise this week! With Disney’s surprise announcement that they would be extending their Armed Forces Salute out through September 2012. The current offer ends on 1 October 2011. The follow-on offer should start immediately, rather than having the couple week gap with no ticket offer like we had in October 2010. Military members who used the Disney military discount in FY11 will be eligible to use it again in FY12.

Kudos to Disney for getting this going so early this time. All the details are not out yet such as the end date (I expect 30 Sept ’12), blockout dates (I expect 24-31 Dec ’11, the last 2 weeks of Apr ’12, and perhaps the Fourth of July).

Keep tuned to the MDT Blog for updates.

Disney also posted limited info on its blog and website.

This announcement came on the tails of lots of other great news for the military community. Aol recently had its Military Families Week and there was lots of great stuff on the web.

Aol Jobs has articles on: support for military families, living the military life, and transitioning to civilian life.

The White House unveiled the Joining Forces Campaign, a volunteer initiative to help military families. Coverage by Stars and Stripes.

Challenge America is a national initiative to connect military and their families to resources for transition from the battle front to the home front.

On a lighter note, a salute to Hollywood stars who both served in the military and portrayed military on the screen. And on SyFy’s Blastr vintage posters for Disney’s greatest sci-fi rides.

If you are new to Military Disney Tips Start Here

Disney’s Armed Forces Salute FAQ

Information on Shades of Green – the Military Hotel on Disney World property

For up to the minute news follow us on facebook and twitter.

Free Disney Planning & Reservation Checklist

It’s Official – 2012 Armed Forces Salute

Apr 19th, 2011
by Steve.
2 comments

I just got off the phone with Disney Military Sales and the rep I talked to said that it is official, Disney has extended their Armed Forces Salute until September 2012.

They have not determined blockout dates yet for the October 2011 – September 2012 offer yet.

Ticket options and pricing will remain the same.

And the best news: If you used the ticket offer in FY11 you are eligible for tickets again in FY12.

This is really exciting news for military members trying to plan their Disney vacations and wondering if Military Discounted Theme Park Tickets and Resort Rooms would be available.

See my original post here

I will post updates as soon as I have more info!

UPDATE – The offer keeps getting changing. See here for the most up to date details

If you are new to Military Disney Tips Start Here

Disney’s Armed Forces Salute FAQ

Information on Shades of Green – the Military Hotel on Disney World property

For up to the minute news follow us on facebook and twitter.

Free Disney Planning & Reservation Checklist

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