Donate a Day and Get Stuff at Walt Disney World

By Dave Shute

OVERVIEW: DISNEY’S GIVE A DAY, GET A DISNEY DAY PROGRAM

Note: Disney has met its goal of getting a million people to sign up, and thus is no longer accepting new registrants for this program.

For current Walt Disney World discounts, see this.

Disney’s “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” program provides one day of free theme park admissions (or other goodies) in return for a day of volunteer work at a pre-approved  project or event. 

For some families, this ticket will be worth more than $80 per person. 

Other families won’t be able to use the ticket itself, but can redeem their day instead for a cool special FASTPASS program that will likely limit their waiting the day that they use it.

MORE DETAILS ON DISNEY’S GIVE A DAY, GET A DISNEY DAY PROGRAM

How it works:

• Go to the Walt Disney World website for this program here
• Sign up your family for a listed volunteer opportunity
• Show up for and complete your responsibilites to the project
•  Have your successful completion indicated by the project sponsors back to Disney
• Disney will then email you with instructions on how to print your voucher
• Present your voucher for your goodies to the “Will Call” window at a Walt Disney World resort theme park

There are a number of details and possible questions you might have; 

• Disney’s own FAQ on this program here may answer some, and
• This page at Disney Untangled (a great site, but hard on the eyes) may help even more

WHAT DO YOU GET FROM DISNEY WORLD FOR THE DAY THAT YOU GIVE?

Besides a sense of accomplishment and time well spent? 

There’s a couple of options, but most will seek as their reward either

• a free one day ticket or
• a free special FASTPASS thingy.

If you don’t already have park tickets, then once you have used this free ticket for admission, you can add the rest of the ticket  days of your trip on to it. 

You will then have saved the cost of the first day of your ticket.  This first day is far and away the most expensive, so you will save more than $80 per such ticket, or $250 for a typical family of four.

 See this for more on how Walt  Disney World prices theme park tickets

If you already have park tickets, you have a couple of options. 

• You can save your voucher for a future visit (but by December 15, 2010), and use it just the same way–to be the first day and most expensive day of your ticket
• Or you can exchange it for one of a couple of things, of which the “FASTPASS Special Exchange Card” is the most interesting

The FASTPASS Special Exchange Card details may vary, as they say, but in essence it will allow you to get extra FASTPASSES on the day you use it, which extra FASTPASSES will be usable immediately. 

Unlike the normal FASTPASS program (see details of the normal program here), when you insert your Special Exchange Card into an eligible FASTSPASS machine, your return time will be that moment–you won’t have to wait and come back later.

The number you can get, and for which rides, will vary.  See this page for informed speculation as to how it will likely work and what might be available.

LINKS FOR WHEN TO GO TO WALT DISNEY WORLD

• For when to go to Walt Disney World, see this
• For the next best dates, see this
• For the best and worst times to visit, see this
  • For 2010 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
  • For the 2010 Week Picker App, see this
  • For 2011 weeks to visit, ranked in order, see this
• For forecasting crowds at Walt Disney World, see this
• For seasonal pricing at Walt Disney World, see this
  • For 2010 price seasons, see this
  • For projected 2011 price seasons, see this
• For weather at Walt Disney World, see this

LINKS FOR WHAT TO BUDGET FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD

For the basic December trip recommended by this site,

• See this for what to budget during the basic December trip
• See this if you are on particularly tight budget, for (difficult) ideas to reduce the December trip budget by more than $1,000

If you can’t go the week this site recommends, see Estimating Budgets for Different Trips

For help getting to much lower budget numbers,

• See this for a summary of current Walt Disney World deals and discounts
• See this for basic Disney World budgeting concepts: Planning Your Walt Disney World Budget
• To design a trip around a specific budget target–e.g., what can you do for $2,500–see this
• For reducing your lodging costs,
  • See The Tightwad’s Guide to Where to Stay at Walt Disney World
  • See this for a summary of current Walt Disney World deals and discounts
• For reducing your dining costs,
  • For ideas on cutting your dining costs compared to what this site recommends, see this
  • For a period during which dining is sometimes free, see The Tightwad’s Guide to When to Go to Walt Disney World

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