I'm sure I'll be able to get an understandable answer here.

In 2016 my family and I are planning on getting Annual Passes for WDW. We have our first trip planned for January. I know you need to get tickets linked to your account prior to making FP+ reservations however how does that work with annual passes? Do we need to get regular tickets and then upgrade them to annual passes when we arrive? Can we link the annual passes and not activate them until we arrive? How do you go about activating them anyway? Additionally, if DVC does offer the discount on annual passes like they did last year, probably after our first trip, how does that work? Would we be able to get the difference refunded to us?

Thanks so much!