Annual Pass Questions

[MrsAuthorLady]

Hi!

I'm based in the UK, we're doing an offsite 21-day stay in January 2020 and we booked the UK only 21-Day tickets through a vendor back in May when we booked this.

We've now decided we're also going to do a week onsite in September 2020. We booked through WDW direct and added the 7-day ticket.

Looking at it now, if we refund the 21-day ticket and ask Disney to remove the 7-day ticket from our upcoming booking in September, then we would be better off with an annual pass.

My questions are this:

Firstly, is there an annual pass hike due soon as far as we know?

Secondly, if I cancel my tickets and then get the annual pass, I understand I have to pick this up from WDW in person. Would I have to pay parking when I go to pick up the annual passes on that first day? Because one of the reasons I would want the annual passes is for the free parking.

Lastly, if I have to pick the annual passes up at the gate, will I be able to book any FastPasses in advance? I'm offsite and currently have the 21-day tickets on my MyDisneyExperience account, if I remove them and I'm effectively ticket-less, can I book FastPasses 30 days out of my stay?

Any help would be appreciated, this is the first time we're travelling from the UK twice in a year and might be able to save some money by being annual pass holders.

Thank you!