what types of ticket are there?

[cosmicray]

forgive the silly question but Ive read about ultimate tickets, hopping tickets (what the heck?!) and annual passes and premium passes

Im going mad trying to sort out what they all are.

[Tink]

I can tell you what I know, keeping in mind that I don't know everything about all the options.

I'm an AP holder, so that is what I know best. An AP will get you into any park, any day, and you can go from park to park in the same day (park hopping). A Premium AP is the same thing, but adds water parks (and maybe Disney Quest).

A park hopper is a pass for a certain number of days (unless you purchase the "never expire unused days" option) and allows you to go from park to park within the same day.

Not positive what ultimate tickets feature anymore, but they may be the old length of stay passes. I'll leave that explanation to someone else.

[Taja]

Tink, the Ultimate passes are available to non-US residents. Being a US resident, I don't know much about them, either. :sigh;

The Magic Your Way (MYW) tickets are sorted into levels: base ticket, base ticket with hopper, and base ticket with hopper and Water Parks Fun & More.

All of the MYW tickets begin with the base ticket. It can be purchased for 1 or more days and provides entrance into one of the four main WDW parks per day (may return to the same park on that ticket the same day), regardless of the number of days purchased. All days must be used within 14 days of the first use.

The next level adds park hopping (hopper) privileges to the base ticket. You can enter all four the the main WDW parks as many times as you choose for each day on your ticket. They minimum number of days available on this ticket is three, and all days must be used within 14 days of the first use.

The Water Parks Fun & More level adds visits to the water parks, DisneyQuest and the two miniature golf courses (I think--forgot to confirm that last one!) to the MYW base ticket with hopper. This feature used to be called "pluses," and many of us forget and still use the old terminology. The number of times you can visit these other attractions is controlled by the number of days on your base/hopper ticket. Dsney plays with this periodically, so it varies from about the same number of visits as days on your pass to something less than the same number of days. Whatever is on your ticket when you purchase it is valid when you use it, regardless of changes made by Disney in the interim. As with the other MYW passes, they must be used within 14 days of the first use.

Another option is no-expiration date. This can be added to any of the MYW tickets and may be useful for hedging against future price increases, but the cost is pretty steep. Maximum number of days is 10.

Tink explained the Annual Pass (AP) and Premium Annual Pass (PAP) better than I can! It's valid for one year from the date of activation and can be a very good value if visiting WDW multiple times during that period.

[cosmicray]

Wow thanks Taja and Tink thats a lot of clear information

Does someone from the UK know about the ultimate tickets or is it something I've dreamt up

[sazzledazzle]

Ultimate tickets are what us Brits generally buy for a 1, 2 or 3 week stay. You can hop between parks any number of times, ie. come and go as you please, you can enter both water parks and you can visit Disney quest. They are what can be decribed as 'length of stay passes' ie for a 2 week stay the passes expire 2 weeks (14 days) after their first use. We did hop between the 4 main parks quite a bit but only did 1 day in each - Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard beach and Disney Quest. I'm not aware that you can get on the mini-golf as part of those tickets.
These are the kind of tickets you will find most travel companies sell you.

Hope this helps Cosmc Ray

[wickesy]

I'm not aware that you can get on the mini-golf as part of those tickets.

The Ultimate tickets used to allow entry to the Pleasure Island nightclubs but now they have been closed down the tickets include a round of golf at the "proper" golf courses - Disney might stretch this and allow a round on the mini-golf courses instead but I don't know if anyone has tried that yet.