Cowboy Steve
Well-Known Member
Yes, after a long hiatus I am back. My work after the first of the year went absolutely nuts, and I got out of the habit of cruising the forum. In fact, I never got around to posting a post-trip report for our Dec 2016 trip! I have this year's trip booked and ready to go. This venture into the bubble will just be myself and my Fiancé (previous trips included my mom and sister), and I gotta be honest. It feels a little strange. In 13 trips, I have only ever visited WDW once without my family... and that was my Sr. class trip in 1984. The previous 4 trips, my sister and I were co-planners and had almost as much fun planning the trip as the trips themselves! But this year... it is all me. The little woman is perfectly happy to let me plan to my heart's content having total faith in my planning regiment. It is extensive and thorough. Probably a little overboard (ok, a lot overboard), but alas - I LOVE to plan for Disney! I have spreadsheets. I have itineraries. I have gobs of research data. This will probably be an overly long post... so unless you are starved for entertainment or just love laughing at obsessive Disney planning, you might want to move on 
STEP ONE: Travel dates. This will be the shortest part of the post. LOVE Disney at Christmas. And the crowds are manageable the first couple weeks of December. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Done.
STEP TWO: Resort selection. This was the bulk of the early research. I had a limited budget to work within as I was paying for this trip. Our previous trips had been financed by the Bank of Mom, as it was important to her that we take an annual family vacation together. Without going into too much personal detail, she has a supplemental monthly income outside of her retirement and investments, and the 'Family Vacation' is how she chooses to use it (this year we are taking the Family Vacation to Yellowstone in September).
Comparing the Moderate and Economy resorts, we elected to go with our first Economy resort... Pop Century. I absolutely love POFQ, but in the end couldn't really justify the additional $1000. Given the schedule Disney Fiancé and I are planning to try, there wasn't any reason to spend the extra $$$. If we were spending a little extra time at the resort with a down day or two to lounge around the pool, it would be different. But, due to the budget, it is a slightly shorter trip than in the past, so the room is basically for sleeping and showering. Previously, we had always arrived on a Saturday and departed the following Sunday. This trip, we are flying in early on a Sunday and leaving Saturday. So, 2 days shorter. After crunching numbers like crazy and filling an entire tab on the planning spreadsheet, Pop Century was the winner. I put the down payment on the package in March.
STEP THREE: Daily Park Schedule. Should have been easy, right? Wrong. It never is for us. When are the EMHs? Do we want to attend MVMCP? Are we doing a dinner show? Can't make ADRs until we know what days we will be in which park. Disney, at least for November and December, tends to not post the park hours until a week before we can start making ADRs at 180 days out. The only thing this really affects is if we are attending MVMCP and doing a dinner show. We decided up front we wanted to do both. Since we were arriving in Orlando around noon on Sunday, we opted for doing MVMCP that night. That would give us 4 hours to catch the DME, get checked in at the resort, and hop a bus to the Magic Kingdom. Assuming all goes well, and we get to the MK around 4pm, that gives us 8 hours in the park. While not a significant savings, it does allow us to get one less day on our park tickets. We wanted to catch a dinner show (this year will be the 8:30 Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review). I wanted to pair the dinner show night with a day at Animal Kingdom as AK usually closes at 7pm in December. So the days break out as follows:
Sun - Arrival, resort check in, MVMCP
Mon - HS
Tues - AK & Dinner Show
Wed - MK
Thurs - EPCOT
Fri - 1/2 at AK or HS, and 1/2 at EPCOT
Sat - Departure
STEP FOUR: Dining Plan or Wing It. This is an endless topic of debate on the boards, and I see no need to hash it out yet again. If you can afford it and want guilt free ordering off the menus (at least for table service), it is great. We have done it on all the previous trips - three times with the DDP and once with the DQSDP. The only reason we did the QSDP one year was because we drove 3 days to Universal. After crunching the numbers (another tab on the spreadsheet) I determined that given our normal tendencies when eating out, we could stretch our dollar so much farther just ordering as we go. For example, allowing for 1 table service and 1 quick service meal for each of us, we will be spending about the same as what just the QSDP would cost us. We don't eat dessert at every meal, and most times when eating out we get water... so thus the cost savings. I have $36/day budgeted for 2 QS meals, and $80/day for 2 TS meals. This is only $21 over what the QSDP would add to the package. And, even allowing for an occasional dessert or soft drink with dinner, we will be enjoying the same number of TS meals as the DDP for just over $200 less. To eliminate the menu ordering guilt for TS meals, we will have our entire meal budget set aside prior to the trip to make paying off the credit card a little easier in January. And honestly... if I can't find something I like for $30 plus tip every night... I need to be savagely beaten with a wet noodle. Seriously.
STEP FIVE: 180 days out. Since it is pretty widely known in all my social circles that I am a Disney planning freak, many first time (and experienced) Disney World vacationers come to me for advice. And this one thing gets the most emphasis from me - ADRs. Thanks to today's electronic age, it is an absolute must to plan your meals 180 days out. I know it. You all reading this know it. Ignore this advice at your own peril. I hate eating dinner at 10pm or lunch at 3pm... so I plan ahead!! Not really a whole lot of insight for this step as it is all personal preference. We like to try places we haven't tried before. But as most of you know, a couple of the parks have only a few TS options, while a couple others have a TON. Not to mention all the great restaurants at the resorts and Disney Springs. The resorts (with one exception as you will see later) and DS were out because of the short trip and the number of days we wanted to spend in the parks. The only night we could have realistically ate at a non-park TS joint was the day we visited AK, as it closes the earliest during the winter months. But, that night was already taken for the dinner show. So, park TS it is. The decision process is muddled so I'll be brief:
Sunday - Tony's Town Square, MK, 6pm
Monday - Sci-Fi Dine Inn Theater, HS, 5:45pm (Burgers are the same price as a CS meal!!)
Tuesday - Dinner Show - Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review, 8:30pm
Wednesday - Skipper Canteen - MK - 5:30pm
Thursday - Spice Road Table - Morocco - EPCOT - 6pm
Friday - Cape May Café - Beach Club Resort - 5:30pm
The one exception to all the TS meals being in the parks is the Cape May Café. Disney Fiancé really wanted some seafood... so we decided the Cape May buffet was the way to go. And, as we will be spending that afternoon at EPCOT, and the Beach Club Resort is just outside EPCOT, it worked out great. It's a bit of a walk, but hey. After a week of eating at Disney, we could use the exercise!
STEP SIX: Peripherals. PhotoPass? Park hopper? Uber/Lyft? Hotel near the airport the night before departure? Boarding for the dogs and horses? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and a BIG yes!
PhotoPass/Memory Maker - WORTH. EVERY. PENNY.
Park Hopper? Eh... what the heck. Throw it in.
Uber or Lyft? Yup - easy ride home from the dinner show. Before Uber, it had taken us as long as 90 minutes each way to eat at another resort using Disney transportation. What a HUGE time saver!
As I live exactly 90 minutes from Detroit, Columbus, and Cleveland airports, we have lots of options for air travel. The bad new is... they are all 90 minutes from my house. So early morning flights are a pain in the posterior. Answer - Stay, park, and fly packages. We will be staying at a Hilton Garden Inn the night before we fly, and can leave our car at the hotel. And, they drop us off at the airport. Sold - done deal. It is a pretty good package, and I don't have to try and get Disney Fiancé out of bed at 4am for an 8am flight.
So, only a couple steps left - and I can't do them for a couple months yet. FastPass+ and entertainment schedules. Easy stuff relatively speaking!
As this is the first time I am paying 100% for a Disney trip, I am tracking every cent we spend. Right down to the breath mints I will probably buy in the parks. I'm doing this so I can effectively plan and budget for future trips. There are a lot of expenses I didn't think of until I really started planning out the trip, and they start to add up. This will probably become an annual trip for us, so I need to make it as financially manageable as possible. Put a little back each month and the trips will be paid for in no time! Right now we are floating around $4000 for the entire trip - right down to the boarding costs for the animals. I said I was working with a budget on this trip - never said it would be cheap lol.
If you have stuck with it all the way to the end... thanks! Hope you found it entertaining! Some people criticize such extensive planning as it seems to them to be overly detailed. But for me, it is worth it! We don't have a minute-by-minute itinerary, but we do have enough stuff planned out so when the trip finally comes, I have very few worries or decisions to make. No pressure about where we are going to eat, how long we will wait for a table, when a show starts, how long ride waits are... we can just show up and know when we have to be at dinner and when a couple FastPass times are. Rest is just relax and stroll through the parks! All the big decisions are made.
STEP ONE: Travel dates. This will be the shortest part of the post. LOVE Disney at Christmas. And the crowds are manageable the first couple weeks of December. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Done.
STEP TWO: Resort selection. This was the bulk of the early research. I had a limited budget to work within as I was paying for this trip. Our previous trips had been financed by the Bank of Mom, as it was important to her that we take an annual family vacation together. Without going into too much personal detail, she has a supplemental monthly income outside of her retirement and investments, and the 'Family Vacation' is how she chooses to use it (this year we are taking the Family Vacation to Yellowstone in September).
Comparing the Moderate and Economy resorts, we elected to go with our first Economy resort... Pop Century. I absolutely love POFQ, but in the end couldn't really justify the additional $1000. Given the schedule Disney Fiancé and I are planning to try, there wasn't any reason to spend the extra $$$. If we were spending a little extra time at the resort with a down day or two to lounge around the pool, it would be different. But, due to the budget, it is a slightly shorter trip than in the past, so the room is basically for sleeping and showering. Previously, we had always arrived on a Saturday and departed the following Sunday. This trip, we are flying in early on a Sunday and leaving Saturday. So, 2 days shorter. After crunching numbers like crazy and filling an entire tab on the planning spreadsheet, Pop Century was the winner. I put the down payment on the package in March.
STEP THREE: Daily Park Schedule. Should have been easy, right? Wrong. It never is for us. When are the EMHs? Do we want to attend MVMCP? Are we doing a dinner show? Can't make ADRs until we know what days we will be in which park. Disney, at least for November and December, tends to not post the park hours until a week before we can start making ADRs at 180 days out. The only thing this really affects is if we are attending MVMCP and doing a dinner show. We decided up front we wanted to do both. Since we were arriving in Orlando around noon on Sunday, we opted for doing MVMCP that night. That would give us 4 hours to catch the DME, get checked in at the resort, and hop a bus to the Magic Kingdom. Assuming all goes well, and we get to the MK around 4pm, that gives us 8 hours in the park. While not a significant savings, it does allow us to get one less day on our park tickets. We wanted to catch a dinner show (this year will be the 8:30 Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review). I wanted to pair the dinner show night with a day at Animal Kingdom as AK usually closes at 7pm in December. So the days break out as follows:
Sun - Arrival, resort check in, MVMCP
Mon - HS
Tues - AK & Dinner Show
Wed - MK
Thurs - EPCOT
Fri - 1/2 at AK or HS, and 1/2 at EPCOT
Sat - Departure
STEP FOUR: Dining Plan or Wing It. This is an endless topic of debate on the boards, and I see no need to hash it out yet again. If you can afford it and want guilt free ordering off the menus (at least for table service), it is great. We have done it on all the previous trips - three times with the DDP and once with the DQSDP. The only reason we did the QSDP one year was because we drove 3 days to Universal. After crunching the numbers (another tab on the spreadsheet) I determined that given our normal tendencies when eating out, we could stretch our dollar so much farther just ordering as we go. For example, allowing for 1 table service and 1 quick service meal for each of us, we will be spending about the same as what just the QSDP would cost us. We don't eat dessert at every meal, and most times when eating out we get water... so thus the cost savings. I have $36/day budgeted for 2 QS meals, and $80/day for 2 TS meals. This is only $21 over what the QSDP would add to the package. And, even allowing for an occasional dessert or soft drink with dinner, we will be enjoying the same number of TS meals as the DDP for just over $200 less. To eliminate the menu ordering guilt for TS meals, we will have our entire meal budget set aside prior to the trip to make paying off the credit card a little easier in January. And honestly... if I can't find something I like for $30 plus tip every night... I need to be savagely beaten with a wet noodle. Seriously.
STEP FIVE: 180 days out. Since it is pretty widely known in all my social circles that I am a Disney planning freak, many first time (and experienced) Disney World vacationers come to me for advice. And this one thing gets the most emphasis from me - ADRs. Thanks to today's electronic age, it is an absolute must to plan your meals 180 days out. I know it. You all reading this know it. Ignore this advice at your own peril. I hate eating dinner at 10pm or lunch at 3pm... so I plan ahead!! Not really a whole lot of insight for this step as it is all personal preference. We like to try places we haven't tried before. But as most of you know, a couple of the parks have only a few TS options, while a couple others have a TON. Not to mention all the great restaurants at the resorts and Disney Springs. The resorts (with one exception as you will see later) and DS were out because of the short trip and the number of days we wanted to spend in the parks. The only night we could have realistically ate at a non-park TS joint was the day we visited AK, as it closes the earliest during the winter months. But, that night was already taken for the dinner show. So, park TS it is. The decision process is muddled so I'll be brief:
Sunday - Tony's Town Square, MK, 6pm
Monday - Sci-Fi Dine Inn Theater, HS, 5:45pm (Burgers are the same price as a CS meal!!)
Tuesday - Dinner Show - Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review, 8:30pm
Wednesday - Skipper Canteen - MK - 5:30pm
Thursday - Spice Road Table - Morocco - EPCOT - 6pm
Friday - Cape May Café - Beach Club Resort - 5:30pm
The one exception to all the TS meals being in the parks is the Cape May Café. Disney Fiancé really wanted some seafood... so we decided the Cape May buffet was the way to go. And, as we will be spending that afternoon at EPCOT, and the Beach Club Resort is just outside EPCOT, it worked out great. It's a bit of a walk, but hey. After a week of eating at Disney, we could use the exercise!
STEP SIX: Peripherals. PhotoPass? Park hopper? Uber/Lyft? Hotel near the airport the night before departure? Boarding for the dogs and horses? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and a BIG yes!
PhotoPass/Memory Maker - WORTH. EVERY. PENNY.
Park Hopper? Eh... what the heck. Throw it in.
Uber or Lyft? Yup - easy ride home from the dinner show. Before Uber, it had taken us as long as 90 minutes each way to eat at another resort using Disney transportation. What a HUGE time saver!
As I live exactly 90 minutes from Detroit, Columbus, and Cleveland airports, we have lots of options for air travel. The bad new is... they are all 90 minutes from my house. So early morning flights are a pain in the posterior. Answer - Stay, park, and fly packages. We will be staying at a Hilton Garden Inn the night before we fly, and can leave our car at the hotel. And, they drop us off at the airport. Sold - done deal. It is a pretty good package, and I don't have to try and get Disney Fiancé out of bed at 4am for an 8am flight.
So, only a couple steps left - and I can't do them for a couple months yet. FastPass+ and entertainment schedules. Easy stuff relatively speaking!
As this is the first time I am paying 100% for a Disney trip, I am tracking every cent we spend. Right down to the breath mints I will probably buy in the parks. I'm doing this so I can effectively plan and budget for future trips. There are a lot of expenses I didn't think of until I really started planning out the trip, and they start to add up. This will probably become an annual trip for us, so I need to make it as financially manageable as possible. Put a little back each month and the trips will be paid for in no time! Right now we are floating around $4000 for the entire trip - right down to the boarding costs for the animals. I said I was working with a budget on this trip - never said it would be cheap lol.
If you have stuck with it all the way to the end... thanks! Hope you found it entertaining! Some people criticize such extensive planning as it seems to them to be overly detailed. But for me, it is worth it! We don't have a minute-by-minute itinerary, but we do have enough stuff planned out so when the trip finally comes, I have very few worries or decisions to make. No pressure about where we are going to eat, how long we will wait for a table, when a show starts, how long ride waits are... we can just show up and know when we have to be at dinner and when a couple FastPass times are. Rest is just relax and stroll through the parks! All the big decisions are made.
