Hi Randi!
Welcome to planDisney! First and foremost, please thank your husband for his service on behalf of the entire planDisney team!
This is a great question, Randi. I'm actually an Air Force Veteran spouse myself; my husband 'got out' last year after 10 years of service, and while he's in a holding pattern of waiting to get into the Reserves, we're in the same boat (err, he was an Airman, so, um, the same plane?) as your family. While the
Disneyland Military Promotional Park Hopper Tickets (aka the 'Military Salute' tickets) are only available for purchase and use by those who are currently Active Duty, Reservists, Fully Retired after 20(+) years of service, or who have a 100% service-connected disability, there are a few other discounts that your family can take advantage of.
While the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation or Military Ticket Sales locations on bases and posts sell the popular promotional park hopper tickets, they also sell slightly discounted Disneyland theme park tickets. Sadly these don't have a cool name to easily identify them, but they are there. The neat thing about these tickets is that they can be used by anyone and a military member does
not have to be present; when we were stationed in SoCal I would often pick these up for my non-military friends to visit the parks without me. The hard thing about these tickets is that you will need a way to acquire them. If you have friends who still have base access they could absolutely purchase and pass the tickets off to you. Or, if your husband is a POW, a Purple Heart recipient, or has been evaluated by the VA as having a service-related disability rating between 0% -90%, he should be able to qualify for base access thanks to the '
Disabled Veterans Equal Access Act of 2018' which went into place in January of 2020. He will need an updated Veterans Health Identification Card (VHIC) from the VA, but with that card he'll have access to not only the ticket office but also the Commissary and Exchange as well! For a price list to these tickets, Google "Camp Pendleton Latitudes Travel' and once on their homepage, you'll find the downloadable "ITT Price List" pdf on the right.
I will say that there might be better places to look for discounted Disneyland theme park tickets, like through AAA or even the vacation packages at
Costco. My favorite method is to purchase
Disney Gift Cards at Target with my Red Card as the 5% savings still apply; then, I'll use those gift cards to purchase not only my theme park tickets, I'll use them to pay for dining and even my Disneyland Resort Hotel.
Lastly, I have one other hot Disney Military tip, Randi:
Walt Disney World Resort, in Florida, has an Armed Forces Recreation Center hotel located on-property that opens its eligibility to separated Veterans for stays in January and September.
Shades of Green even has a Military Ticket Sales office on-site, and during those months Vets can buy the Walt Disney World Resort version of the slightly discounted military rate no-cool-name tickets with just their DD214.
I hope that this helped to plan some upcoming Disney Days in your summer, Randi. Be sure to follow the
official planDisney Instagram account for even more tips and tricks. And if you have any more questions, We're All Ears!
~Kristen