Changing my plans to go on April Vacation

[DarthVader]

Ok, so I've decided to see if we can stay at the Poly during our April vacation - as opposed to our vacation already reserved in November. Am I crazy?

The November vacation required pulling my kids out of school in November for 5 1/2 days - as I thought about that prospect, the more it seemed a bit excessive. They'll be in middle school and the demands are higher then before. While I'm a big proponent of creating lasting memories, both the wife and I, wondered if we'd be better off with April.

What sold me in November was the free meal plan Disney offers, however looking back at prior offerings, its evident that they've been curtailing that promotion. This year its running 11/14 - 11/20, so its safe to assume something similar next year and the timing is such we'd miss out. So a big reason to go in November was just removed.

We've done the April vacation before and its been "ok" Luckily Massachusetts, tends to have a later April vacation then many other communities (April 16th this coming year) and Easter is rather early this coming year (April 1). I think for the most part the crowds won't be crushing.

Downside that I see so far.

• Poly, only has the deluxe studio available, a tad more pricey then a standard room. Not a budget buster but every penny counts.
• Flights will be very expensive. I budgeted 1800, yet I'm easily seeing 2,400, all the way up to 4,000. Given my prior experience, I'll not expect those to go down. What we did last time, was drive to Albany NY, which is a 3 hour trip. We saved significant $$ that way.
• No theming or parties at night.

Upsides.

• Less impact to my kids education.
• Both water parks should be open - my kids really want to do that this year.
• Disney is always busy, so a November time frame won't buy us much in terms of decreased crowds
• Warmer weather.

Thoughts/opinions or even recommendations

 

[Weather_Lady]

It sounds like your upsides for April outweigh the downsides, but that's just me. You know your own priorities best.

We're staying at the Poly (split stay with BC) next April/May ourselves in a DVC villa. We rented DVC points from David's Vacation rentals which brought the price down to $408 a night. You might want to investigate that option if the April rack rates would otherwise be a deal-breaker for you.

Also, it might not help on this trip, but for the future, you might consider an airline rewards card. My JetBlue Mastercard saves us enough points for about $900 worth of airfare every year or two, which means that every time we travel to Orlando, we're typically only paying for one of us to fly instead of four -- the other three are traveling on points that we were awarded, just for using the credit card for things we buy anyway.

 

[DarthVader]

It sounds like your upsides for April outweigh the downsides, but that's just me. You know your own priorities best.

Yeah for the most part. I confirmed with the wife this morning that we're locked in for the April vacation. I think overall, while the price and crowds may be higher then I'd want. The impact to their education is minimal compared to November.

We're staying at the Poly (split stay with BC) next April/May ourselves in a DVC villa. We rented DVC points from David's Vacation rentals which brought the price down to $408 a night. You might want to investigate that option if the April rack rates would otherwise be a deal-breaker for you.

We've kicked around that idea, but never pulled the trigger.I think overall the freedom of a Disney resort reservation, wins us over. That is, we were able to easily cancel and add this vacation. I'm not knocking the DVC points and if I did more homework earlier on this, I may have done it.