The trip of 1,000,000 changes I like to call this! I have never made ¼ the number of changes have made this trip on any previous WDW trip. I think 26 days out we are at last set to 100% to what we will stick with.
Why all the changes? Well the 1,000,000 changes were due to 500,000 reasons it seemed like at times. But I am not complaining as all the reason were good ones to be honest.
Before I start I have to say I have called WDW 6 times during this planning marathon and they have been just excellent each time. Those guys and girls are just top notch. And I have used the WDW website countless times. A few glitches here or there but overall it has worked great. And as far as the new stuff (FP+, My Disney Experince etc) those have been very easy to use, make changes and just overall work with. What could have been a stressful experience was not at all. Thanks Mickey, you get lots of my money but you make is so easy to give to you
OK so back in December we decided we wanted to go to WDW again for a week in June 2014. Well to be honest I decided for all of us! But the wife and kids were pretty happy with it. We love to go in Sept or Oct but my daughter is in so many school activities that time of the year we can not anymore. So we picked the day after school gets out this year (May 31st) to head to Orlando for the week of May 31st to June 7th.
We would include me, my wife and two kids, a 11 year old son and 16 year old daughter. My oldest son (19) had always gone with us before but he is in the USAF now so would not be going with us. He is stationed at McDill AFB in Tampa Bay so he will be close to us in Orlando. God Bless all of our service men and women BTW!
We stayed at the Hard Rock last year at Universal for a week but only stopped at WDW for some Beignets at FQ on the way to Universal. So no WDW last year and in 2012 we did a Disney cruise for a week. No WDW for two years is not cool, I am ready to get back!
I booked a week at the CBR with the TS DDP and 7 day tickets. Made all of our ADRs and was ready to stand pat with that. We decided not to rent a car for the first time in Orlando as we just wanted a 100% Disney bubble vacation and I thought we could just kick around WDW using their transportation.
Then Mickey released room discounts for the time we would be there. Well they did for Disney Visa holders, so I applied and got a Disney Visa, the day before the card arrived they released the same discounts for everyone. But either way there were the discounts and so the changes began!
Switched our package to the Boardwalk with the discounts. Since we would now be at the BW instead of the CBR we added Park Hoppers due to being so close to Epcot and DHS. And of course that lead to changing most of our ADRs to take advantage of being next door to Epcot. The only one I kept was Be Our Guest as that one I thought would be hard to get again. Again all was good and I thought we were set.
Then about two months ago or so one of my daughters 15 year old friend stayed with us one night. The next day we invited her on a family day out. I had never met her before that day but was very impressed with here. Very nice, very polite and just fit in with us perfectly that day. I work around a lot of young people and she just really impressed me that day. Now I am rather impulsive so latter that night I suggested to the wife why don't we take her with us to WDW. I was serious but said it like a joke since I was unsure what the wife was going to say. We talked about it and to my surprise she was all for it.
I checked the flight we were booked on and saw we could add her still. No way could we invite her and ask her to pay so I had the wife call her parents and speak to them. She told them we would pay for everything and she would just need to bring money for souvenirs. They talked about it and said that she could. Funny thing is that my daughter latter found out that when my wife had called her house to speak to her parents she thought we were unhappy with the way she acted that day and we were calling to tell her parents. I guess she was pretty surprised to find out we were inviting her to spend more time with us
So now we had the OK from her parents. To offset the cost of adding her airline ticket, park tickets and DDP we decided to convert our TS DDP to a QS DDP. I called WDW and made all the changes, they were excellent as always to deal with. I also booked her airline ticket that night. Of course I lost all of my ADRs, including BOG But she is a great kid and she has never been to WDW so it was so worth it to be able to take her with us. We have had so many people do things for us in our life that this seemed like a way to give back some good karma! And I love the ideal of taking someone to WDW for the first time, the magic is so cool in their eyes the first time they see it.
So again all was set for our trip, or so I thought.
Flash forward 4 weeks or so. We get a check from our escrow company, just at a $900 refund and totally unexpected. So I thought...”Hmmmm...what would the TS DDP cost to add back to our trip?”.....and I checked.....$866 would be the cost.....guess what I did....yep added back the TS DDP to our package. Again WDW was excellent on the phone. Back to adding ADRs again, got everything but BOG this time. So here we were set again!
Then Mr. Impulse hit me again. I was at work one day and got an email from a resale DVC company. I knew what DVC was but never really researched it to much. I found a small contract at SSR that we could afford to pay for in cash, so we made a offer (after the wife signed off on it of course!) and we ended up buying that contract. So now I went back in and altered our plan to spend a morning at SSR on our trip to check the place out since we have never been there. Again all the plans were set!
Then more good news, my son was going to be able to drive down from Tampa and spend a day with us. Again I moved our plans around which made us move some ADRs around as well. We ended up setting up the Wednesday we were there as a no park day to spend with him. Breakfast at SSR and the rest of the day at DTD with him. Ending the day at Ragland Road for dinner, our family favorite
All set up again.....
Then I checked my emails two weeks latter, and a small DVC contract at OKW caught my eye again. After researching DVC after buying the first contract I really thought we needed some more points. We bid on it and I assumed we would end up buying it as well since we bid the asking price. The process can take 6 weeks or so to go thru so I started making plans to see OKW when were at WDW as well. That pushed our Ragland Road ADRs earlier. Then Disney bought the contract out from under us using the right of first refusal. So no reason to go see OKW any longer, a few more changes made. And then all set again!
Here comes the 60 day FP+ window and boom more ADR changes to fit our new FP+s. Made all of them and again were were set! Then the kid called form Tampa, now he is going to come down Tuesday night and stay in Orlando and then spend 1/2 of the day Wednesday with us. Again changed our dinner ADRs Tuesday night from Liberty Tree to the Kouizzna area since he has no park tickets. And since he is leaving ½ day Wednesday we moved up Ragland Road on Wednesday. Which was fine as it allowed us to get FP+ for Fantasmic that night
Tried to take advantage of the sale WDW had on PAPs for DVC members which might have resulted in more changes but it did not work out as expected. We already had 7 day PH tickets as part of our package so I wanted to convert them into PAPs. But the sale ended April 30th and I was told we would have to convert them in person by then to take advantage of the sale price. It was $484 per PAP which is a really good price so I really wanted to do it. So we went ahead and just bought them over the phone. We are using our DVC membership to go back to WDW in Jan 2015 so as long as we redeem those PAPs by Jan 31st 2015 they will be good until Jan 31st 2016 which will mean if we go back to WDW in Jan 2016 we will get two trips out of them But all of this changed nothing this trip so at least our plans were still set!
We made a huge number of small changes along the way to our FP+s and ADRs for various reasons as well
So a few more changes today (7DMT FP+s!) and now we are all set... I hope for good this time. Here is the final plan, let me know what you think!
Saturday ~ Fly into MCO at 3pm, DME to the Boardwalk. We have FP+s for Tower Of Terror at 6:15pm and RnR Coaster at 7:30pm then ADRs at Sci Fi at 9pm.
Sunday ~ Epcot day ~ FP+s at Turtle Time w/Crush, Mission Space and Test Track. Then headed over to MK via the monorail as it is open to 2am that night. Stopping at Wave of American Flavor for ADRs at 6:30pm. Then Wishes that night and lots of rides we hope.
Monday ~ DHS day ~ FP+s at Tower of Terror, Star Tours and Toy Story then over to Epcot for dinner at Akershus at 6:30pm. Plan to see Illuminations that nght as well.
Tuesday ~ MK day ~ FP+s at Splash Mt, Frozen M&G, and Space Mnt. ADRs at Kouzzina that night at 9:25pm with the big kid. I bet you all $1 my wife cries when she sees him
Wednesday ~ Off day ~ Breakfast at SSR to see the resort, then over to DTD for some bowling at Splitsville and ADRs at Ragland Road at 4:30pm. The big kid leaves after Ragland Road so we have FP+s at Tower Of Terror and Fantasmic that night He is our taxi that day BTW!
Thursday ~ Animal Kingdom day ~ FP+s at Safari, Everest and Dinosaur. ADRs at Bitergarden at 7pm. Illuminations again. Then we have the Wind Down event at 9:20pm at Spice Road for me and the wife, the kids are walking back to the BW to swim or whatever they want to do cause I am drinking!!!
Friday ~ Magic Kingdom ~ FP+s at 7DMT, Rapunzel M&G and Belle Enchanted and ADRs that night at La Hacienda at 7:45, hope to catch Illuminations from dinner table
Saturday ~ Getting on the sad bus (DME) back to MCO. Flying out at 11am.
So that's it! We did buy the My Memories package so lots of good pics of this I hope!
Any input welcomed!
Why all the changes? Well the 1,000,000 changes were due to 500,000 reasons it seemed like at times. But I am not complaining as all the reason were good ones to be honest.
Before I start I have to say I have called WDW 6 times during this planning marathon and they have been just excellent each time. Those guys and girls are just top notch. And I have used the WDW website countless times. A few glitches here or there but overall it has worked great. And as far as the new stuff (FP+, My Disney Experince etc) those have been very easy to use, make changes and just overall work with. What could have been a stressful experience was not at all. Thanks Mickey, you get lots of my money but you make is so easy to give to you
OK so back in December we decided we wanted to go to WDW again for a week in June 2014. Well to be honest I decided for all of us! But the wife and kids were pretty happy with it. We love to go in Sept or Oct but my daughter is in so many school activities that time of the year we can not anymore. So we picked the day after school gets out this year (May 31st) to head to Orlando for the week of May 31st to June 7th.
We would include me, my wife and two kids, a 11 year old son and 16 year old daughter. My oldest son (19) had always gone with us before but he is in the USAF now so would not be going with us. He is stationed at McDill AFB in Tampa Bay so he will be close to us in Orlando. God Bless all of our service men and women BTW!
We stayed at the Hard Rock last year at Universal for a week but only stopped at WDW for some Beignets at FQ on the way to Universal. So no WDW last year and in 2012 we did a Disney cruise for a week. No WDW for two years is not cool, I am ready to get back!
I booked a week at the CBR with the TS DDP and 7 day tickets. Made all of our ADRs and was ready to stand pat with that. We decided not to rent a car for the first time in Orlando as we just wanted a 100% Disney bubble vacation and I thought we could just kick around WDW using their transportation.
Then Mickey released room discounts for the time we would be there. Well they did for Disney Visa holders, so I applied and got a Disney Visa, the day before the card arrived they released the same discounts for everyone. But either way there were the discounts and so the changes began!
Switched our package to the Boardwalk with the discounts. Since we would now be at the BW instead of the CBR we added Park Hoppers due to being so close to Epcot and DHS. And of course that lead to changing most of our ADRs to take advantage of being next door to Epcot. The only one I kept was Be Our Guest as that one I thought would be hard to get again. Again all was good and I thought we were set.
Then about two months ago or so one of my daughters 15 year old friend stayed with us one night. The next day we invited her on a family day out. I had never met her before that day but was very impressed with here. Very nice, very polite and just fit in with us perfectly that day. I work around a lot of young people and she just really impressed me that day. Now I am rather impulsive so latter that night I suggested to the wife why don't we take her with us to WDW. I was serious but said it like a joke since I was unsure what the wife was going to say. We talked about it and to my surprise she was all for it.
I checked the flight we were booked on and saw we could add her still. No way could we invite her and ask her to pay so I had the wife call her parents and speak to them. She told them we would pay for everything and she would just need to bring money for souvenirs. They talked about it and said that she could. Funny thing is that my daughter latter found out that when my wife had called her house to speak to her parents she thought we were unhappy with the way she acted that day and we were calling to tell her parents. I guess she was pretty surprised to find out we were inviting her to spend more time with us
So now we had the OK from her parents. To offset the cost of adding her airline ticket, park tickets and DDP we decided to convert our TS DDP to a QS DDP. I called WDW and made all the changes, they were excellent as always to deal with. I also booked her airline ticket that night. Of course I lost all of my ADRs, including BOG
But she is a great kid and she has never been to WDW so it was so worth it to be able to take her with us. We have had so many people do things for us in our life that this seemed like a way to give back some good karma! And I love the ideal of taking someone to WDW for the first time, the magic is so cool in their eyes the first time they see it. So again all was set for our trip, or so I thought.
Flash forward 4 weeks or so. We get a check from our escrow company, just at a $900 refund and totally unexpected. So I thought...”Hmmmm...what would the TS DDP cost to add back to our trip?”.....and I checked.....$866 would be the cost.....guess what I did....yep added back the TS DDP to our package. Again WDW was excellent on the phone. Back to adding ADRs again, got everything but BOG this time. So here we were set again!
Then Mr. Impulse hit me again. I was at work one day and got an email from a resale DVC company. I knew what DVC was but never really researched it to much. I found a small contract at SSR that we could afford to pay for in cash, so we made a offer (after the wife signed off on it of course!) and we ended up buying that contract. So now I went back in and altered our plan to spend a morning at SSR on our trip to check the place out since we have never been there. Again all the plans were set!
Then more good news, my son was going to be able to drive down from Tampa and spend a day with us. Again I moved our plans around which made us move some ADRs around as well. We ended up setting up the Wednesday we were there as a no park day to spend with him. Breakfast at SSR and the rest of the day at DTD with him. Ending the day at Ragland Road for dinner, our family favorite
All set up again.....
Then I checked my emails two weeks latter, and a small DVC contract at OKW caught my eye again. After researching DVC after buying the first contract I really thought we needed some more points. We bid on it and I assumed we would end up buying it as well since we bid the asking price. The process can take 6 weeks or so to go thru so I started making plans to see OKW when were at WDW as well. That pushed our Ragland Road ADRs earlier. Then Disney bought the contract out from under us using the right of first refusal. So no reason to go see OKW any longer, a few more changes made. And then all set again!
Here comes the 60 day FP+ window and boom more ADR changes to fit our new FP+s. Made all of them and again were were set! Then the kid called form Tampa, now he is going to come down Tuesday night and stay in Orlando and then spend 1/2 of the day Wednesday with us. Again changed our dinner ADRs Tuesday night from Liberty Tree to the Kouizzna area since he has no park tickets. And since he is leaving ½ day Wednesday we moved up Ragland Road on Wednesday. Which was fine as it allowed us to get FP+ for Fantasmic that night
Tried to take advantage of the sale WDW had on PAPs for DVC members which might have resulted in more changes but it did not work out as expected. We already had 7 day PH tickets as part of our package so I wanted to convert them into PAPs. But the sale ended April 30th and I was told we would have to convert them in person by then to take advantage of the sale price. It was $484 per PAP which is a really good price so I really wanted to do it. So we went ahead and just bought them over the phone. We are using our DVC membership to go back to WDW in Jan 2015 so as long as we redeem those PAPs by Jan 31st 2015 they will be good until Jan 31st 2016 which will mean if we go back to WDW in Jan 2016 we will get two trips out of them
But all of this changed nothing this trip so at least our plans were still set!We made a huge number of small changes along the way to our FP+s and ADRs for various reasons as well
So a few more changes today (7DMT FP+s!) and now we are all set... I hope for good this time. Here is the final plan, let me know what you think!
Saturday ~ Fly into MCO at 3pm, DME to the Boardwalk. We have FP+s for Tower Of Terror at 6:15pm and RnR Coaster at 7:30pm then ADRs at Sci Fi at 9pm.
Sunday ~ Epcot day ~ FP+s at Turtle Time w/Crush, Mission Space and Test Track. Then headed over to MK via the monorail as it is open to 2am that night. Stopping at Wave of American Flavor for ADRs at 6:30pm. Then Wishes that night and lots of rides we hope.
Monday ~ DHS day ~ FP+s at Tower of Terror, Star Tours and Toy Story then over to Epcot for dinner at Akershus at 6:30pm. Plan to see Illuminations that nght as well.
Tuesday ~ MK day ~ FP+s at Splash Mt, Frozen M&G, and Space Mnt. ADRs at Kouzzina that night at 9:25pm with the big kid. I bet you all $1 my wife cries when she sees him
Wednesday ~ Off day ~ Breakfast at SSR to see the resort, then over to DTD for some bowling at Splitsville and ADRs at Ragland Road at 4:30pm. The big kid leaves after Ragland Road so we have FP+s at Tower Of Terror and Fantasmic that night
He is our taxi that day BTW!Thursday ~ Animal Kingdom day ~ FP+s at Safari, Everest and Dinosaur. ADRs at Bitergarden at 7pm. Illuminations again. Then we have the Wind Down event at 9:20pm at Spice Road for me and the wife, the kids are walking back to the BW to swim or whatever they want to do cause I am drinking!!!
Friday ~ Magic Kingdom ~ FP+s at 7DMT, Rapunzel M&G and Belle Enchanted and ADRs that night at La Hacienda at 7:45, hope to catch Illuminations from dinner table
Saturday ~ Getting on the sad bus (DME) back to MCO. Flying out at 11am.
So that's it! We did buy the My Memories package so lots of good pics of this I hope!
Any input welcomed!
