Just booked!

Just book AKV Jambo House, studio savanna view for September 4-10! Soooo excited I can't contain myself! We gave dvcrequest.com a shot again (after not being able to book anything we wanted for our November trip...in their defense, we didn't decide to go but about 3 months beforehand so I wasn't really surprised nothing was available). And it has been so far a quick and painless process! We picked studio accomodations at: 1) Animal Kingdom (savanna view), 2) Boardwalk (standard view), 3) Bay Lake (standard view), and 4) Old Key West. And we got our first choice! :sohappy: My son's birthday is August 9, so this is going to be his birthday present (if I can keep it a secret til August! haha). He is going to be so excited to see animals outside our balcony! So, anyway, our 180 mark is March 8, so let the planning begin!

 

[harveyt0206]

Congrats!! AKL is so amazing. Hope you see lots of wonderful animals outside your room. :wave:

 

[jeffk410]

congrats! what is dvcrequest anyway? A website were owners request where they want to exchange too?

 

[meganw1985]

congrats! what is dvcrequest anyway? A website were owners request where they want to exchange too?

No. It's a site where non DVC owners can rent points from DVC owners who aren't using them, but another person works as a "middle man" and does all the arrangements for you. You pick your top 4 choices of where you want to stay, pay a $39 deposit (refundable if not able to be booked) and then pay the balance if he is able to book it for you. And you save a lot of money that way! For example, our 6 nt. stay in a savanna view studio is costing us just a little over $1000. Booked through Disney, the same nights (rack rate without any special offers applied) would cost $2768. You can also buy the dining plan through the site, and DME. Downside is, accomodations aren't always available and you can't be for SURE what you will get if there are. But if you are flexible (which we pretty much are as long as we haven't stayed at the place before) it's great! So far it has been an extremely quick and painless process. I have even been able to view my reservation on the DVC member website (as a "guest" of a DVC member). Hopefully it will be painless right down to the whole stay :animwink:

 

[meganw1985]

Well, my bff Steph and I were able to get together tonight and do our second favorite part of trip planning...dining picks! Second only to accomodation picks, which we already did. 180 mark is in 13 days, and we probably won't see each other until then, so we knew we needed a plan, as we are planning on eating at some pretty popular places! If all goes according to plan, we will be eating: breakfast @ CRT (a first for all of us), Donald's Breakfast Safari (also a first for all of us), and Chef Mickey's (a must-do breakfast every trip! It just isn't breakfast without swinging napkins above your head!). We are also planning dinners at: Boma (a first for all), Jiko (a first for all), Sci-Fi (my son's #1 pick), Le Cellier (a must for every trip), Ohana (a must for every trip), and Liberty Tree Tavern (a first for Steph, one of my fave's of the past, but haven't done in a while). We DO have back ups of Crystal Palace breakfast (if CRT unable to be booked), and will book CRT for dinner if necessary. Also a back up of Coral Reef if Le Cellier unable to be booked. Hopefully between the two of us booking on 2 different computers @ 5am sharp we will be able to get all ADRs we want! :sohappy: Keeping my fingers crossed, and starting the looooooong countdown til Sept! (all the while giddy with excitement and trying to keep my blabbermouth shut and not ruin the birthday surprise!)

 

[disneygirl1]

Woo hoo!!! How awesome! We are going Dec 3rd to the 11th and this trip is actually an early christmas present for my son, so like you I know the pains of trying to keep a trip a secret! So when are you planning on telling your son about the trip? I am going to try to hold off tell mine till Thanksgiving day, which is a week before we leave. Fingers are crossed that I can keep my big mouth shut! :sohappy:

dvcrequest.com huh? Were you able to book your tickets and everything thru them? I just mine look into them for future trips.

 

[meganw1985]

I'm hopefully not going to tell him until his birthday, 3 weeks before we leave. I plan on getting him a Disney gift card, a 2010 t shirt, maybe a couple other Disney-themed gift. And I'm going to make a "brochure" with all our vacation information: dates, pics of the hotel, an itinerary of all the places we're eating, stuff like that, and wrap it all up in a big box and let him open it as a gift. Steph wants to do it like a scavenger hunt all over the house and let the gift be at the end. She's such a good best friend!

You can book your tickets through there, and they are at a little bit of a discount than if you bought them through Disney. We haven't yet, as a friend of mine from work is looking at getting our tickets for us through AAA. But we still may! And you can have them transferred to your key to the world when you check in too! So its almost like booking through Disney!

 

[disneygirl1]

I'm hopefully not going to tell him until his birthday, 3 weeks before we leave. I plan on getting him a Disney gift card, a 2010 t shirt, maybe a couple other Disney-themed gift. And I'm going to make a "brochure" with all our vacation information: dates, pics of the hotel, an itinerary of all the places we're eating, stuff like that, and wrap it all up in a big box and let him open it as a gift. Steph wants to do it like a scavenger hunt all over the house and let the gift be at the end. She's such a good best friend!

You can book your tickets through there, and they are at a little bit of a discount than if you bought them through Disney. We haven't yet, as a friend of mine from work is looking at getting our tickets for us through AAA. But we still may! And you can have them transferred to your key to the world when you check in too! So its almost like booking through Disney!

Aw what a cute idea!!! He is going to be so thrilled!!! I like the scavenger hunt idea! I'm telling my son on thanksgiving which is a week before we leave. I'm basically going to do the same thing you are doing... This is an early Christmas/birthday gift, so I am going to wrap up our travel info, luggage tags etc... and tie each to a balloon, so when he opens the box the stuff comes flying out... Sort of like the commercial for the what will you celebrate promotion.

I checked out the dvcrequest website and I have to say that I definitely thinking of giving it a trip for a future trip, but first I'm interested to see how it works out for you.

 

[meganw1985]

Well we had a great Disney-fied night! Steph came to spend the night and we had an Ohana themed dinner with honey coriander chicken wings, maui scalloped potatoes, and honey lime dressing salad! :slurp: She and I set our alarms for promptly 4:45am so we could be on the Disney website and ready to book our ADRs @ 5am sharp! She was on her laptop, I on my snail slow desktop (out of 9 ADRs I only did 3 lol). She got CRT breakfast first thing! We are so excited. My job was Le Cellier, got it with no problem. We are also eating breakfast @ Chef Mickey's and Donald's Safari @ AK. Dinners also @ Jiko, Boma, Sci-Fi Dine In, LIberty Tree, and, of course, Ohana. But we are the most proud of CRT breakfast! I've never myself tried to get it, but I know it's difficult. Would have liked an earlier ADR (7-7:30) but we'll take 8:05! :sohappy: Now all we have left is to book our flights @ the end of the month (when Southwest comes out with their fall rates) and then I can book our DME & DDP. After that it will be a loooooong 5 month wait! And still trying very hard to keep my mouth shut and not ruin the surprise! :lol:

 

[tiaragirl]

Whoa, everything seems to be working out great =) I love hearing about people's planning.. updates are fun! Good luck with the secret, and keep us posted!

 

[disneygirl1]

Awesome!!! Glad that you got all the ressies that you wanted!!! :sohappy:

Question for you... Do you fly Southwest alot? We are thinking of flying with them when we go in December. How far in advance do rates come out with them?

 

[meganw1985]

Awesome!!! Glad that you got all the ressies that you wanted!!! :sohappy:

Question for you... Do you fly Southwest alot? We are thinking of flying with them when we go in December. How far in advance do rates come out with them?

I know! I'm so excited for the ADRs! We are eating at a lot of new places this trip, which is VERY adventerous for us, considering we have so many long time favorites!

I have, as far as I can remember, never flown any airline besides Southwest. Bags are free, which is nice, since we each take two. There are no assigned seats, so you want to check in online 24 hours in advance to get an early boarding pass. Other than that, it seems to definately be the cheapest, especially when you add in the free bags. Their schedules come out for about 6 months at a time, and right now they are out through August 13, but will be bringing out their prices through the end of December I think March 27. So that should include both of our trips! :sohappy: Only thing is, you can't check your bags at the resort when you leave. You have to take them to the DME bus yourself, which isnt SUCH a big deal. It just doesn't seem very fair to me

 

[meganw1985]

soooooo...we have a somewhat tentative/somewhat concrete schedule made finally! I'm so so excited I can barely contain myself!

Saturday, September 4: this day is not set in stone, as our flights aren't booked yet. All I know is it will be an early early morning for us, to catch the earliest flight to Orlando we can get! We have pretty much left the day up to how we feel, which means we will probably be ready to hit the MK as soon as we set foot on Disney dirt! Either way, we will fly to MCO, hopefully getting there late morning, early afternoon @ latest, DME to Animal Kingdom Villas, Jambo house, and run as fast as we can to our rooms (only stopping to maybe browse the gift shop and pool if the room isn't ready yet). We have an early evening ADR @ Jiko this evening, and there are no EMH tonight, so we will just go wherever the wind takes us (like I said, most likely to MK )

Sunday, September 5: we have no concrete plans for the AM, everything opens at 9 today. Will probably try to hit Epcot for rope drop, unless we are so tired we can't drag out of bed (yeah, right :lol. QS lunch wherever we happen to be, unless we're starving at use it at the resort for breakfast. Afternoon will be spent animal watching from our balcony (I LOVE that! ) and swimming. We have another early evening ADR @ Boma tonight, and EMH @ MK. Will try to stay out as late as possible, but will probably be 11 @ the latest.

Monday, September 6: 8am ADR @ Tusker House for Donald's Breakfast Safari! Just realized, we are hitting 3 new dining experiences in a row! Will continue the theme with a ride on Kilimanjaro Safari, followed by morning @ AK. Once again, afternoon at the resort. Dinner tonight will be @ Sci-Fi Dine In (Brett's fave) and evening @ HS, inevitably riding RNRC 1,000,000,000 times, with a trip to Star Tours mixed in here and there. He rufuses ToT due to his new fear of heights, so we have to trade off on this one, unless we can bribe him HS has EMH tonight until 10...

Tuesday, September 7: EAAAARLY ADR @ Chef Mickey's this morning! :sohappy: Our fave breakfast of alllllll time! Here we come Mickey waffles and hashbrown casserole! (breakfast is just better with the celebrate song and swinging napkins!) EMH this AM @ Epcot, although we won't make it due to our ADR. We will however hit Epcot, and probably to a trip around the world... Dinner is @ Ohana this evening, fairly late. We will either hit DTD, or just go back to the resort for the evening.

Wednesday, September 8: everything opens at 9 today, so we will just decide where to go that morning. We will probably just do a little AK, as we will have to head to the resort fairly early to make it to MK by 2:30 for....PIRATE LEAGUE! I booked it today, and am so excited about it! He will get his makeover, complete with costume I am going to take with us, and be ready for our MNSSHP that night! We have dinner ADRs @ Liberty Tree Tavern tonight, so we won't have to leave the park before the party. Hopefully it will be more successful than the Christmas party....:ROFLOL:

Thursday, September 9: our last full day in the World . We have 8am ADR @ Cinderella's Royal Table!!! Yes folks, breakfast in the Castle, we did it . I know people say terrible things about it, but we have to do it once for Steph. We will be spending the morning @ MK, resort for the afternoon, and ending the day with dinner @ Le Cellier (prime rib :slurp and Illuminations. This is also Fantasmic night, so if we manage to see Illuminations earlier in the trip, we may hit that, although I was terribly unimpressed by it in November. I just love Illuminations so much... Everything is closing by 9pm tonight, so I guess we'll have no choice but to turn in for tonight.

Friday, September 10: since we don't have our flights booked, I didn't plan anything for today. I'm hoping to have a later flight, so we can do something in the morning. This will be our last day for....9 months until our super family vacation in June 2011, so we have to do SOMETHING. Maybe we can manage a breakfast somewhere. Boma, maybe? Haven't heard much about it. Also wanting to try Kona Cafe sometime, or Lilo and Stitch @ Ohana (Brett loves Lilo and Stitch). So, dependent on the flight time and DME departure, we will plan on this date a little later.

So that's our tentatively concrete plan...if that makes sense :lol:. All our ADRs are made, so is Pirate League. Only thing we're waiting on is MNSSHP and flight times. It's gonna be good!

 

[disneygirl1]

I know! I'm so excited for the ADRs! We are eating at a lot of new places this trip, which is VERY adventerous for us, considering we have so many long time favorites!

I have, as far as I can remember, never flown any airline besides Southwest. Bags are free, which is nice, since we each take two. There are no assigned seats, so you want to check in online 24 hours in advance to get an early boarding pass. Other than that, it seems to definately be the cheapest, especially when you add in the free bags. Their schedules come out for about 6 months at a time, and right now they are out through August 13, but will be bringing out their prices through the end of December I think March 27. So that should include both of our trips! :sohappy: Only thing is, you can't check your bags at the resort when you leave. You have to take them to the DME bus yourself, which isnt SUCH a big deal. It just doesn't seem very fair to me

Oh thank you for all the info!!! I sure hope that December comes out the end of March... That would make my planning come ADR time in June sooo much easier!!!

Oh, and your son is going to absolutely love Pirates League! I took my son there is Sept the night we went to MNSSHP! It was so much fun!

 

[ABigBrassBand]

Lucky! Gah, I came back 2 months ago, and I miss it so much! D:

Have a blast!

 

[meganw1985]

Southwest came out with their fall prices today! So I booked our flights the first chance I got (at work :lookaroun bad me) We are flying out the evening of the 3, which is a friday. I loooooved doing this last time, as we were already there the day our vacation "officially" started. We used a pin to get a $50-something rate @ Pop. I was unsure about doing this this time, as I thought taking Brett out of another 1/2 day of school on Friday to fly to Florida would be COMPLETELY irresponsible, as he would already be missing 4 days the next week. But I was able to get one late enough that we can leave after school and I will only have to leave work an hour and a half early! :sohappy: We will be arriving Orlando somewhere around 10-1030pm. And then we will be there until the following Friday until our flight that evening! 7 days @ the World! All we have left now is to buy our park hoppers, and book our dining plan.

Oh and one other thing, which brings me to my question...we will have to book a pre-night stay somewhere for Friday when we arrive. We chose Pop last time. I liked it. I really did. Although I have become, like so many others a "resort snob" since staying @ the Beach Club, Wilderness Lodge, and this trip, Animal Kingdom Lodge. And my lifetime goal is to stay at every resort on property. That being said, I KNOW we will get there super late. I KNOW all we will do that night is sleep there. I know all this, but my resort obsession has kicked in and said "you already stayed at the Pop." I have also stayed at All Star Movies, and Steph at All Star Sports (or Music I can't remember) so I see that as we have covered all the values. I have also stayed at Caribbean Beach, and we together stayed at Coronado Springs last April. That leaves Port Orleans Riverside and French Quarter as the ones (besides Deluxes) that are left. Even though we will get there just in time to sleep on Friday, we will spend part of the morning Saturday morning eating breakfast and probably swimming at the resort we choose. So, do I suck it up and book Pop? Or do what I REALLY want and book a moderate? :wave:

 

[disneygirl1]

:sohappy: Congrats on booking the airfare!!! Now all I have to do is wait for June I think for SW to release Decembers airfare and I'll be all set!!!