Room, Tickets, and Car Booked...Now What?

[relots]

I just booked my trip for myself and my girlfriend (who has never been) starting on June 7th through the 14th. This will also be my first trip on my own and is doubling as my 21st birthday present to myself since I've been saving up for nearly a year for this. We are staying at the AKL Jambo House with a Savannah view and have a 6 day park hopper ticket. Obviously after they released the deals for the spring I couldn't help but take up every deal I possibly could. I rented a convertible since at least one day I plan to leave the resort and show my girlfriend We are planning to do our dinner reservations either tomorrow or Wednesday. I also poked around on the Disney Experience website and customized the MagicBands. I'm currently looking into booking the flights as well. So...what do I need to do next besides wait for the counter to count down to my trip date?

-Austin

 

[BigTxEars]

Sounds like a heck of trip Should be awesome for both of you. I am not a expert by any means but it seems when you book dinning and air you will be good to go. For you first "solo" trip you are going in style Good for you. Only thing to add is book flights as soon as you can, those prices only go up and up as you get closer. We will be there May 31st thru June 7th, might see you at the airport, I will be the sad looking one having to go home that day!

 

[relots]

Yeah I plan to book the flights tonight or tomorrow which I have been specking for a few weeks. I work hard at what I do and I am paying for most of my college and when I turned 21 I said I wanted to go on a trip someplace and I couldn't think of a better place to go the Most Magical Place On Earth! So I've been saving back since July for this trip and it looks to be all paying off. And I promised myself I wouldn't "skimp" on it if I didn't have to. I was looking at a few of the moderate resorts and my GF wanted to stay at POR:RS but when the deals came out yesterday there was little to choose from and seeing the rates dropped significantly I decided to book our original choice (which my boss recommended as he is a Disney freak too). I've only stayed at Coronado Springs and the Hilton across from DTD in my past 10 years of going I wanted to switch it up a little and splurge on myself for a change.

Since my GF has never been further south then Myrtle Beach I told her I would bring her along to experience not only WDW but also what it is like to fly on a commercial airline and what Florida is like hence getting the rental car to go explore for an afternoon.

My only major question is that I plan to get a massage treatment done on the Friday before we leave to come home, for both her and I of course I have a back that likes acts up from time to time especially after getting jarred around and I know after riding rides all week it's going to cause me some problems if I don't get the muscles relaxed. So I was reading on the site that I should call as soon as possible to book reservations for it.

Do the appointments truly get booked up quickly or is it something I can think about and wait until closer to the time to schedule?

Thanks for your help guys!

-Austin

 

[Betsyboo]

If you have your heart set on a particular restaurant book it now. Your 180 window is already open and you definitely want to make sure you round out the great trip with good meals.

Best of luck with your remaining plans.

 

[lunchbox1175]

Congratulations, I would look at a couple things here, as for the massage, you are better off trying to book in advance, especially if you are trying to get one for each of you, they do offer Tandem Massages, I have had one at Saratoga Springs, Ship Shape (Yacht Club), and Senses (GF). All of them I have been able to make day of, but I would not expect that to be the case, especially if you have a certain time of day in mind for doing it. Also, something most people don't think of is be sure to call your rental car provider about a week before to double check that you will be getting a convertible. Frequently rental car companies run out of them and when you get there do not have one for you, they will provide you with an upgraded vehicle free of charge of course, but this doesn't really help the disappointment. Have fun!

 

[Weather_Lady]

I'd spend an hour or two looking at the projected park hours for each day or your trip and making out a rough itinerary of how you plan to spend your days, with a generalized touring plan to correspond to it. (If your ADRs are made before you do this, obviously it will have to match up with them.) Keep in mind your preferences and that of your girlfriend. Are you early risers or night owls? Do you like thrill rides, shows, tame experiences, meeting characters, watching parades, or all of the above? Is she a shopaholic or will she want to focus on attractions?

Once you have your rough itinerary in order (e.g., on Day 2, we'll spend the morning covering Adventureland and Frontierland in the Magic Kingdom, with a mid-day break and dinner and Fantasmic viewing in Hollywood Studios), you'll know what FP+ you want to make and where. FP+ are best used during times of day with peak crowds, so on our hypothetical Day 2, you might reserve FP+ in the afternoon-evening for Toy Story Midway Mania or Rock 'n' Rollercoaster (but not both, because the FP+ selections in HS are tiered), Tower of Terror and Star Tours.

If you haven't been to WDW in awhile, familiarize yourself with which attractions in each park are "headliners" that need to be done at rope drop / with extra magic hours / with Fastpass+, and which ones can be visited anytime, so you can tour fairly efficiently. (Easy_WDW has great cheat sheets for this: go to easy wdw dot com and scroll down to the December 31, 2013 entry, which has printable guides for each park showing which attractions to prioritize. I'd post the link, but apparently links to that site are blocked from here.)

 

[relots]

Congratulations, I would look at a couple things here, as for the massage, you are better off trying to book in advance, especially if you are trying to get one for each of you, they do offer Tandem Massages, I have had one at Saratoga Springs, Ship Shape (Yacht Club), and Senses (GF). All of them I have been able to make day of, but I would not expect that to be the case, especially if you have a certain time of day in mind for doing it. Also, something most people don't think of is be sure to call your rental car provider about a week before to double check that you will be getting a convertible. Frequently rental car companies run out of them and when you get there do not have one for you, they will provide you with an upgraded vehicle free of charge of course, but this doesn't really help the disappointment. Have fun!

I booked the rental car through Disney when I was pricing the trip. Should I call Alamo or do I call Disney to make sure things are set and ready to go?

And another question that just popped up over lunch. If I wanted to add one person to my party (the room holds 4 so there is room) do I call Disney and have them add one person to the room (obviously they have to have their share of the $$$ by doing this) but is that all I need to do and will it be that easy?

-Austin

 

[luv]

Check with your girlfriend on the convertible. Some women hate them because it messes up their hair.

Start planning where you're going and when! Dinner shows? Where do you want to eat? Which parks at what times? What do you want to make sure you ride? If you want to use the Fastpass thing, learn the rules and start reserving your ride appointments! There's a lot left to do!

Disney will want the address and birthday of every single person in the room. But, yes, you just call them and add a person.

 

[PrincessNelly_NJ]

You should definitely get to booking ADRs as your window opened up almost a month ago, so some popular places might no longer be available. But it sounds like an amazing trip, I wish I could afford it... need a fourth to tag along? jk lol

 

[relots]

Check with your girlfriend on the convertible. Some women hate them because it messes up their hair.

Start planning where you're going and when! Dinner shows? Where do you want to eat? Which parks at what times? What do you want to make sure you ride? If you want to use the Fastpass thing, learn the rules and start reserving your ride appointments! There's a lot left to do!

Disney will want the address and birthday of every single person in the room. But, yes, you just call them and add a person.

Don't worry I already covered the convertible with her and she is just excited as I am to be able to have one for the week I will see whether or not we will be adding one more to the room but either way I'm happy to know it is simple enough to add someone to our party. We'll be booking our flights soon and moving on to getting the dinner reservations taken care of.

-Austin

 

[relots]

You should definitely get to booking ADRs as your window opened up almost a month ago, so some popular places might no longer be available. But it sounds like an amazing trip, I wish I could afford it... need a fourth to tag along? jk lol

I just booked the trip yesterday so I know I'm sort of behind the 8 ball on getting things done but for myself and my GF we really don't care too much about whether or not we eat at the most spectacular place since we know we still have the rest of our lives ahead of us to experience all the Disney has to offer. I wish more people could afford to come along and join us but it looks like it'll either be just the two of us or one of our friends tagging along. I'm just going with the flow because either way I know I'm going