How soon to start planning?

[DimpledDevil18]

Finally after over 5 years of being away from WDW (our last trip was Aug 2008) my family is shooting for a trip to Disney sometimes next summer. We aren't exactly sure of dates just yet because we have typically taken our trips in mid to late August. Now however I am living down South and am a teacher, so we would probably have to push our trip up a few weeks. As of right now we will definitely be shooting to spend 7 days in Disney with the possibility of adding it to 10 days for us to do Uni and Sea World. We will be planning to say on property just not sure where yet. We have typically stayed at values and gotten three rooms, but if we got a deal for a bigger moderate room it may be better off for us to stay there. We will also most probably be trying out the DDP for the first time.

I know it's still over a year away, but I absolutely cannot wait to begin planning! When is the earliest that you think I should be able to start?

 

[Clamman73]

I'm already planning on taking off work for Epcot 50th. Just got another 19 1/2 yrs to go!

 

[Figgy1]

2 weeks ago sounds about right!

 

[Mikester71]

Haha... Thanks guys! I guess I'm a bit overwhelmed on where to start exactly and I'm afraid of getting my hopes up if it winds up not panning out. My Dad wants to book it through AAA because he says he usually gets the cheapest rates through there. I don't think we can do that until it's a year out, right?

We've booked all four of our trips through CAA up here in Canada (Canada's AAA, that is ) and they don't really work out to be any cheaper in the long run. More convenient for us maybe, but we usually end up getting our agent to apply whatever deal is going on at the time and that always works out to be cheaper than the CAA/AAA deal. But you do end up getting some nice bonuses by booking through them, like the Diamond Parking card and such.

Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on this second part, but I'm pretty sure you can book it something like 499 days out. I know we always end up going in to our local CAA office just over a year out and booking a room-only reservation and putting the deposit down and then go in throughout the year to update the reservation and eventually pay it all off. No better feeling in the WORLD than the day you have your vacation booked and then paid for!!!