Pre-Trip Eenie...Meenie...Miney...Dough: Booking (and re-booking...and re-booking) our April 2021 Trip ***COMPLETED***

AKA The NeverEnding 'Reservation'​

Hi! My name’s Tom. Welcome to my first-ever (Pre) Trip Report…

To start off, I’d like to thank a few forum members: @Tuvalu , @Darstarr, @fractal , @DisneyGigi , @MickeyCB , @riverside and everyone else who has taken the time to post a trip report (or 2…or 3…). I’ve really enjoyed reading through your very informative (and entertaining!) reports, and was inspired to try my hand at one myself.

 

[Tuvalu]

Easter week.
Been there.
Done that (multiple times).
Going back.

 

[Loco_driver]

I’m here

Looking forward to seeing where you end up. Easter is busy, but I’m sure you guys will still have a good time!

 

[Bullseye1967]

Following along!

 

[NickPytlinski]

I'm in!

 

[Zipadeelady]

Ugh! I understand how you feel. I was actually preparing for an Oct 2-7 trip but realized last week that it's the start of the 50th Anniversary. I really don't think I want to be there during that time. We are now contemplating going the end of March.

 

[Nina1969]

Following!
I was there Easter 2016, the crowds were really bad.
Maybe it won't be as crowded this year.

 

[tommcp516]

I'll be following along. Enjoying so far.

Welcome! And glad you're enjoying it!!

Welcome to trip report writing! You are off to a stellar start and apparently are good at the gif game! Following along...

I'm still new to the gif game, but thanks for the compliment! And I enjoyed your recent TR--it looked like you had a fantastic get-away!!

Looking forward to hearing about your plans! We also had to reschedule trips. So hard!

Ugh--I'll be posting about all the rescheduling next, but I think everything turned out okay in the end. Welcome!

Looking forward to joining in on your adventures!

Glad to have you!

I'm in!

Glad to have another member from the sunny Pacific Northwest!!

I am so glad you decided to do a pre-trip report!

View attachment 525435

Thanks! And I've been enjoying your on-going TR with you and B and Stinker!

 

[tommcp516]

Easter week.
Been there.
Done that (multiple times).
Going back.

Hi Tuvalu! Your many TR's were a big inspiration for me to try one myself. Hopefully it works out that we find ourselves in the same park on one of the days that week!

I’m here

Looking forward to seeing where you end up. Easter is busy, but I’m sure you guys will still have a good time!

Welcome, Loco--I think we'll have a great time too. We'll be at Disney World after all!!

Following along!

Glad to have you along, Bullseye!

I'm in!

Thanks for joining in!

Ugh! I understand how you feel. I was actually preparing for an Oct 2-7 trip but realized last week that it's the start of the 50th Anniversary. I really don't think I want to be there during that time. We are now contemplating going the end of March.

I hope you're able to find some dates that work for you. And I also meant to mention your name on page 1 along with the other members whose TR's I'd read and enjoyed. (I read a lot of past trip reports during the Xmas/New Year holidays). It looked like you've had some great trips with your daughters!

Following!
I was there Easter 2016, the crowds were really bad.
Maybe it won't be as crowded this year.

I'm hoping that Magic 8-Ball says "Signs Point to Yes" but I'm afraid right now its probably "Reply Hazy-Try Again".
Fingers crossed that the crowds are a little less than usual with this year.
Thanks for following!

 

[tommcp516]

And the saga continues...

 

[tommcp516]

Rather than cry over spilt Mickey Bars, Melissa and I discussed it over the course of the next week and we agreed to tack another day onto the end of the trip to account for the extra long lines that we’d be encountering during Easter week. I called American Airlines to make sure we could push our return flight out by one day, and then called Disney to add the extra day to the resort and park hopper tickets.

The only problem was that our room category at CBR (standard view with 2 queen beds) wasn’t available on the 6th day, and all they had were the Pirate Theme rooms, which just had 2 boat-shaped double beds, which would mean a pretty poor sleep for DW and I:

but we went ahead and booked it with the hope that a standard room might eventually become available.

 

[tommcp516]

After several weeks of checking the CBR website each day with no change in the room situation, I started to think outside the box: what if we booked our final day at a different resort altogether? And since it would only be for one night, I expanded our options to include the deluxe resorts as a “one time” splurge.

Although looking back as I write this, I find the use of the phrase "one time" comically naïve...

 

[tommcp516]

The thought of staying at one of the Animal Kingdom rooms with a safari view sounded very cool, so after getting the thumbs up from DW it was back on the phone line for call #3 to Disney to make the upgrade to a Deluxe Studio-Savanna View (with a Queen Bed!) for our last night.

And by this time over the course of multiple 30-minute+ phone calls I was really beginning to feel a special bond with the Call Center Cast Members

 

[tommcp516]

After the new reservation was confirmed, I looked forward to finally sitting back and relaxing about our upcoming trip.

Spoiler

That did not happen.

 

[tommcp516]

With the resort reservation now modified, I went back to reserving Park Passes for each of the six days.

Scouring the forums again, the overwhelming consensus from recent trip reports was that getting to the parks at Rope Drop was the best guarantee of avoiding the massive lines later in the day for the premiere attractions. With the added surge in crowds for a holiday week, I envisioned us having to wake up at ungodly hours just to get in line at the resort to wait for the buses or Skyliner, and then hope that they were operational and running on time.

I became convinced that with the situation we now faced with the reduced capacity of the parks, plus the massive crowds at Easter, our overall approach to our trip required a major

 

[tommcp516]

Back when I had expanded my research into looking at the Deluxe Resorts to add the one extra night onto the end of our reservation, I had seen a lot of comments about how the Yacht Club was in a perfect location for guests to walk to both Epcot and Hollywood Studios. And once I had begun to picture us staying at a Deluxe Resort for one night, it was a slippery slope to convincing myself that, overall, the location and amenities (amazing pool) were going to be worth the extra cost to upgrade our entire stay to the Yacht Club

By this point, I knew the phone number and our confirmation number by heart.

 

[tommcp516]

So now we were booked for 5 nights at the Yacht Club. I started to feel a bit better about our upcoming trip--knowing that we would be able to walk to Hollywood Studios and Epcot in the mornings to get a jump on the crowds, plus we'd have a very cool pool to go back to and relax if the parks got too crowded during the day.

But, this Pre-Trip report has already grown unwieldy, so let me cut to the chase and add that after I became sold on the benefits>the cost to be able to walk to the parks at rope drop, I called back for a 5th time a few weeks later to add an extra day to the park hopper tickets and book a room at the Contemporary so we could walk to the MK.

This also fulfilled a life-long dream of mine from when my parents took me to WDW when I was seven to stay in a hotel that had an actual Monorail running through it!

 

[tommcp516]

You gotta hand it to Disney when it comes to wringing the maximum amount of $$ from guests. When I called to make this latest modification, they quoted me the cost to add the 7th day to our park hopper tickets. It was just $63 total to add an extra day onto all three of our tickets.

They draw you in and make you feel like you’re getting such an amazing deal with the tickets that it kind of guarantees that you’ll then book an extra night stay at their resort (and consequently spend another day eating and buying merch in their parks.)

 

[tommcp516]

What’s the saying—‘In for a penny, in for a pound’?? At this point, we were already in for a metric ton, so it wasn’t too long before I made call #6 to add an 8th day to our tickets and a 2nd day to our Contemporary stay.

And by now the Cast Members weren’t even bothering with small talk anymore and just cut right to the chase

 

[DisneyGigi]

So at this point we were booked for 5 nights at the Yacht Club. I started to feel a bit better about our upcoming trip--knowing that we would be able to walk to Hollywood Studios and Epcot in the mornings to get a jump on the crowds, plus we'd have a very cool pool to go back to and relax if the parks got too crowded during the day.

But, this Pre-Trip report has already grown unwieldy, so let me cut to the chase and add that once I became sold on the benefit of walking to the parks at rope drop, I called back for a 5th time a few weeks later to add an extra day to the park hopper tickets and book a room at the Contemporary (so we could walk to the MK for rope drop).

This also fulfilled a life-long dream of mine from when my parents took me to WDW when I was seven to stay in a hotel that had an actual Monorail running through it!

I think you will love the Yacht Club! I know I did. The walking which we did a lot of to and from Epcot was amazing! (Even if B did judge me because he felt the Beach Club was closer) The morning walks to DHS I enjoyed very much and don’t even get me started on being able to take the skyliner back from DHS or when we hopped there.

The resort itself, I adored. Very quiet and the pool is gorgeous. Our only other previous stay at a deluxe was a 1 br villa at OKW. While the room was gorgeous, I did not care for the layout. Too many parking lots and not enough areas to easily roam around at night. I like to have my scenery and walking paths.

I think you made an excellent choice!

 

[Zipadeelady]

I would've done the same.