Upgrade Busch Gardens Pass to include Sea World

[4-me]

We have the two year pass for Busch Gardens. It is up for renewal sometime this summer. We are meeting friends over there next week and would like to possibly add Sea World to our pass - for the 2-year 2-park pass. But we have questions - and customer service was no help. She just said to bring it to the park and they will do it for us - but she couldn't give us any details. Even called back and got the same info.

Does anyone know how they decide on the price that we will be charged? Is there a time frame? if we only have 2 or 3 months left are we still elgible to add a park? She seemed to think so but just kept saying it would be prorated and didn't know how it was prorated.

Does a BG pass get you a discounted Sea World ticket? (If we don't do the upgrade?) If we do the upgrade - can we buy a discounted ticket for my sons friend? A day ticket - BG has a 50% off special going right now but I didn't see anything about SeaWorld. (Possibly because my pass is BG so it doesn't mention SW?)

All these questions! But If the answers are not what I am hoping I'd rather buy them in advance with a discount rather than being stuck at customer service getting all the wrong answers.

Oh - and can I have my husband bring me to the "drop off" area to do the upgrade and then go park with our passes? We may do this the evening before so we won't need to park - so the next day we are not holding up the group.

Thanks! I hope someone knows.

 

[angelmom27]

I don't know about adding another park at then end like that. I do agree the call center know nothing. They are horrible about info. Hope it works out for you.

I do know when you get there if you just want to do the tickets the evening before just tell the person at the gate and they will give you a pass for your vehicle then you can pull up front and your husband can wait in the vehicle while you do what you need to do. We did that when I went to buy the lil girls their passes cause it was the last day for 50% off. They had preschool passes last yr.

 

[mrskay9]

OK,

here's what happened to me and YMMV and whoever you get at customer service may vary. I had maybe 1-2 months left on my BG and water country passes. (Oh and I'm assuming if your pass includes parking it would be ok to be dropped off to take care of this)

So anyway. I did call once and got a run around. I called again a different day and someone took care of it fine. However, she told me that since I only had 1 or 2 months on it, they saw it as pretty much a goner. (Not their words, mine.) I kept using the word renewal, and she didn't even like me saying that. She kept saying there wasn't anything to renew.

Once we got passed that, I was able to put my SeaWorld, BG and watercounty stuff on eZpay. There was no pro-rate for me.

Ok, so then, now that I"m a "member again" I can log into the member section of the sites and buy tickets for friends again provided I'm with them. I was in that section of Aquatica recently and I know there's a deal for discounted tickets for members there (I believe! Don't flame me if I'm wrong people I have short term memory loss cuz I'm an idiot sometimes! LOL)
so maybe you can do that w/ your son's friend for sea world. I think you can show your pass at parks too.
There should be a pass member benefits thing somewhere online too ...

I know I've rambled enough....I hope I've helped. Maybe not what you wanted to hear.

You do get free parking at seaworld w/ the platinum....that helps!

 

[angelmom27]

OK,

here's what happened to me and YMMV and whoever you get at customer service may vary. I had maybe 1-2 months left on my BG and water country passes. (Oh and I'm assuming if your pass includes parking it would be ok to be dropped off to take care of this)

So anyway. I did call once and got a run around. I called again a different day and someone took care of it fine. However, she told me that since I only had 1 or 2 months on it, they saw it as pretty much a goner. (Not their words, mine.) I kept using the word renewal, and she didn't even like me saying that. She kept saying there wasn't anything to renew.

Once we got passed that, I was able to put my SeaWorld, BG and watercounty stuff on eZpay. There was no pro-rate for me.

Ok, so then, now that I"m a "member again" I can log into the member section of the sites and buy tickets for friends again provided I'm with them. I was in that section of Aquatica recently and I know there's a deal for discounted tickets for members there (I believe! Don't flame me if I'm wrong people I have short term memory loss cuz I'm an idiot sometimes! LOL)
so maybe you can do that w/ your son's friend for sea world. I think you can show your pass at parks too.
There should be a pass member benefits thing somewhere online too ...

I know I've rambled enough....I hope I've helped. Maybe not what you wanted to hear.

You do get free parking at seaworld w/ the platinum....that helps!

That is a good idea to do ez pay since it just keeps going doesn't stop til you say so. And it locks you in at that price for the following yr. I forgot about the members section on the website. I do know you can get discounted guest passes just not sure what the discount is.

 

[DOOM1001]

About 10 years ago I had an annual pass for Busch Gardens and Sea World that I paid with EZ Pay,I believe I paid $11.52/mo,don't remember if it was a 1 or 2 year commitment,I think 1 but it was $11.52/mo.About a year later I went on a road trip and were planning to visit Busch Gardens Williamsburg,we visited Sea World on the first day of the trip and upgraded our passes which was called a Silver pass to a Platinum pass,the only thing we had to do to upgrade them was pay the first payment of $12 that day and $12/mo for a two year commitment,.48 cents more a month and we now could get in to all the parks in the chain,both Busch parks,the three Sea World parks,the waterpark in Tampa and Williamsburg and Sesame place in PA.We still have these passes to this day at that locked in price of $12 which is like $20 today,the only thing that's not included is Aquatica as when it opened they wanted us to upgrade our pass to include it and go from paying $12/mo to $16 something,we chose not to as we wouldn't visit that park enough to make it worthwhile,plus $12 monthly just seemed like a deal I wanted to hold on to.

 

[hydrotony]

Wow, a lot of stuff. You already have a pass, so going into the lot and dropping off people near the front doesn't cost anything.

First off, you have a 1-park pass that you can renew at a discounted rate that can only be provided to you in the park at customer service. This policy seemed to start 2 or 3 years ago. It's a pain, I know. All you needed to do was go to CS ahead of time and ask them what it costs. I did and used that on my future renewal decision.

Second, since you do not have a 2-park pass, there is nothing to renew and therefor no discount for renewal. You want to upgrade but the last couple of months on a 2-year pass has little prorated value. I went from a 1-park (BGT) to a 2-park (BGT & SWO) with 1 month left on pass. There was no renewal discount, I just had the last month of the old pass overlapping with the first month of the new pass.

 

[LisaRae87]

This is my personal experience with it..

In 2008 I got a BG pass on EZ pay.. 2 year 1 park pass. I forget what the monthly payment was but it wasn't much..

In September 2009 I wanted to go to SW, so I upgraded my pass at the gate. It essentially started over my 2 year commitment with BG and made my payment a little bit higher.. I still pay that same amount since it auto renews and I don't ever have to worry about it. So I pay $9.78 to this day. And my "renewal date" is in September instead of whenever it had been when I only had BG.

BG and SW both have the deal for 50% off single day tickets for friends and family but that ends on May 24th.

You can also get a discount for up to 6 people at the parks you have a pass to, not sure how much of a discount though.

Hope this helps..