We're going and I need help!

[sarahk0204]

Sorry for the serial posting but I want to make sure I address everything that pops out at me.

If I get tickets from Undercover Tourist, can they still be added to my room key? That would be amazing.

Yes, as long as you are staying onsite. We're DVC, and we save money buying tickets through UT. When we get there, it's just a short wait at the concierge desk to add the tickets to the room key. Easy peasy!

 

[Marionnette]

Sorry for the serial posting but I want to make sure I address everything that pops out at me.

If I get tickets from Undercover Tourist, can they still be added to my room key? That would be amazing.

Yes, as long as you are staying onsite. We're DVC, and we save money buying tickets through UT. When we get there, it's just a short wait at the concierge desk to add the tickets to the room key. Easy peasy!

This is true for now. When they roll out the Magic+ wristbands later this year, it may no longer be possible. There are so many changes coming down the pike with Magic+ and FP+ that you really cannot say with certainty that guests will be able to put older passes on their "room key" once this happens.

But older tickets will always be honored by Disney. So if you purchase your passes from UT, there will be no problem using them.

 

[nhmommy]

I found If you are flexible what time you want ADR's and you have a smart phone you can find hard to get ADR's at odd times we were able to eat everywhere we wanted to eat with only one day notice we were just sometimes eating lunch at 2:30 or dinner at 4:00 or 8:00.

 

[photos_101]

Hi! We are in Kansas (southeast on MO border) and we went to Disney twice last year and drove both times. We LOVE to drive. Or I should say my hubby loves to drive. Have been 6 times now, started going when the kids were 3 & 6 years old. Have drove everytime. We have never had any problems with the drive and our kids are now 16 & 20yrs old and still love going. It takes us about 19hrs or so and depending on what time we leave we can make it pretty far. We Like to leave early morning, like around 5am (hubby gets up at 3am for normal work day) and then drive till about 10 or 11pm. Get up the next morning refreshed and ready to roll into disney early afternoon!!

I just priced out flights on the southwest deal and it would be $1483 for 4 of flying out of KC. That is taking the cheapest non-stop flights on both days. We can drive MUCH cheaper than that, even with gas prices as they are. But it is all relative to how you like to travel and how much time you have is another factor.

When we were budgeting we figured $250 for hotel down/back. We spent right at that amount staying at Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton Inn. And we budgeted $400 for gas. We didn't spend quite all of it. BUT that was in Dec when gas was a little cheaper. Food is easy for us as we aren't big eaters. We mostly ate Subway and such and DH and I always split a foot long. lol

We just like having our car to get around to the parks. We had a little fun on our last trip because our DD decided to test out the buses to see if she could beat us back to the resort (Pop century). Now mind you, it was the week leading up to Christmas and each day it got more crowded. But one time she beat us and the second time we were to our room before the bus even got to the resort.

Soo.. I always vote for driving. But I have never flown, DH loves to drive and it is cheaper! And oh those memories we make while couped up in a car for that long are priceless!! Quality discussion time with teenagers, you can't beat that!

As far as resorts, we are on site people! Love POP for a value. Have also stayed in Caribbean which was our all time favorite (was able to stay 2 weeks there last may).
I will stop now. LOL Just thought I would give you my thoughts since we are somewhat close to you and have driven it many times.
Good Luck and Have a wonderful time!

 

[arihillfarm]

From Missouri. So we're looking at four travel days (Two there and two back) if we drive.

It's three of us going-my husband, son and I. Budget is Flexible but I'd like to keep lodging and tickets at around or under $2000. After that we have transportation, food, souveniers and incidentals.
And I'm looking at budgeting about $2000 for that as well.

So I guess $4000 total but spending less would be lovely. Yeah, wishful thinking but a girl can dream!

With your budget, this is totally do-able, even staying on-property. I'm getting $2,808 for 8 nights at Pop, 7 day base tickets and RT airfare from St. Louis to MCO. Other airports may be cheaper. That leaves $1200 (if you fly from STL) for dining and incidentals and with two adults, one child and not wanting many table service meals, I think it's definitely possible.

-Astrid

 

[donkeyandshrek]

Holy cow! That's an amazing deal! How do I tap into that? Is it automatically applied? We'd have to drive the two hours to get to StL instead of flying otu here but it would be SO worth it!

I scored a special with Southwest last week. I drive 2.5 hours to fly out of Birmingham. Much cheaper than flying out of Memphis.

I don't know where you are in Missouri, but if you fly out of Kansas City, you can get flights with AirTran (owned by Southwest) for $219.80 round trip per person for your dates.

 

[Mama Mouse]

Hi! We are in Kansas (southeast on MO border) and we went to Disney twice last year and drove both times. We LOVE to drive. Or I should say my hubby loves to drive. Have been 6 times now, started going when the kids were 3 & 6 years old. Have drove everytime. We have never had any problems with the drive and our kids are now 16 & 20yrs old and still love going. It takes us about 19hrs or so and depending on what time we leave we can make it pretty far. We Like to leave early morning, like around 5am (hubby gets up at 3am for normal work day) and then drive till about 10 or 11pm. Get up the next morning refreshed and ready to roll into disney early afternoon!!

I just priced out flights on the southwest deal and it would be $1483 for 4 of flying out of KC. That is taking the cheapest non-stop flights on both days. We can drive MUCH cheaper than that, even with gas prices as they are. But it is all relative to how you like to travel and how much time you have is another factor.

When we were budgeting we figured $250 for hotel down/back. We spent right at that amount staying at Hilton Garden Inn and Hampton Inn. And we budgeted $400 for gas. We didn't spend quite all of it. BUT that was in Dec when gas was a little cheaper. Food is easy for us as we aren't big eaters. We mostly ate Subway and such and DH and I always split a foot long. lol

We just like having our car to get around to the parks. We had a little fun on our last trip because our DD decided to test out the buses to see if she could beat us back to the resort (Pop century). Now mind you, it was the week leading up to Christmas and each day it got more crowded. But one time she beat us and the second time we were to our room before the bus even got to the resort.

Soo.. I always vote for driving. But I have never flown, DH loves to drive and it is cheaper! And oh those memories we make while couped up in a car for that long are priceless!! Quality discussion time with teenagers, you can't beat that!

As far as resorts, we are on site people! Love POP for a value. Have also stayed in Caribbean which was our all time favorite (was able to stay 2 weeks there last may).
I will stop now. LOL Just thought I would give you my thoughts since we are somewhat close to you and have driven it many times.
Good Luck and Have a wonderful time!

This is really good information! What city do you stop in during the drive there/back?

 

[Mama Mouse]

I scored a special with Southwest last week. I drive 2.5 hours to fly out of Birmingham. Much cheaper than flying out of Memphis.

I don't know where you are in Missouri, but if you fly out of Kansas City, you can get flights with AirTran (owned by Southwest) for $219.80 round trip per person for your dates.

I'm only 2 hours from KC, actually. We're smack dab in the middle of KC and StL on I70. I'll look into this too. I'd been pricing flights from here and out of StL but never even thought about KC yet.

 

[Mama Mouse]

With your budget, this is totally do-able, even staying on-property. I'm getting $2,808 for 8 nights at Pop, 7 day base tickets and RT airfare from St. Louis to MCO. Other airports may be cheaper. That leaves $1200 (if you fly from STL) for dining and incidentals and with two adults, one child and not wanting many table service meals, I think it's definitely possible.

-Astrid

Just curious, how are you finding these numbers? Is this based on everything pieced out separately?

 

[bigmochick]

I'm only 2 hours from KC, actually. We're smack dab in the middle of KC and StL on I70. I'll look into this too. I'd been pricing flights from here and out of StL but never even thought about KC yet.

If you are smack dab in the middle you ought to check out the deals Frontier has from Columbia to Orlando. The only fly a couple days a week but it *might* work for ya!

 

[Mama Mouse]

If you are smack dab in the middle you ought to check out the deals Frontier has from Columbia to Orlando. The only fly a couple days a week but it *might* work for ya!

That's exactly where we are. XD

I've been checking daily and so far Southwest is cheaper.

We are really torn on driving vs. flying, though. This is going to be a tough decision.

 

[photos_101]

Where we stay on the way/back really depends on what time we leave. We have stayed several places and never had any problems. I do plan out my drive and kinda have a an idea of where we would get to before we would stop. I know my family would rather drive as far as possible. This last trip we were not able to leave home until about 2:30pm we went south to little rock and then over towards memphis. We made it to around the Tupelo area (small town past but before Birmingham), spent the night. And made it to disney the next day around 3pm I believe(I would have to look the exact times up).
Coming home we left Disney around noon and made it to a town just before Memphis, spent the night and was able to make it home around 4pm or so.

I really like to leave early morning. When we do that we can make it to Valdosta, GA. We stay at the Hilton Garden Inn there and are to Disney within a few hours the next morning! Really if you don't mind driving, you only lose 1 full day on the road. Granted my kids are older now, but even when they were younger, it would still allow us to spend some time in the parks the day we arrive. Last time we went, we scheduled a room only for the first night. Arrived early afternoon on Sunday and spent the afternoon at the resort/downtown disney. Went to bed fairly early and was ready to go Mon.

The really nice thing is, we have our car to go where we want, when we want. We have even went to the outlet malls on a few trips. No waiting on buses, trying to get out of the parks when they close is crazy and the bus stops are FULL. So it is nice to go right to our car and on our way instead of waiting on a bus and be packed into it for the ride back to resort.

I would just have a talk with your DH and see what he is comfortable with. There are days while we are that we just like to take the buses and give DH a break from driving around. So we do take the buses but only on the non busy days. lol
I think you are about 4hrs closer to disney than us? I wish we were closer. As in, within a couple hrs of Disney...

 

[arihillfarm]

Just curious, how are you finding these numbers? Is this based on everything pieced out separately?

Sorry, I'm just now getting back to this thread! I priced the spring room only offer, added the tickets for the package discount on 4 day or more base tickets and just added the cheapest RT air offered by Disney on the agent's website from STL to MCO to get that quote for 2 adults and one child for the dates that you listed. If you can tweak your dates or departure airport, you may be able to save even more. Adding just the air was about $1,000 from STL to MCO. The room (standard, not preferred) and tickets together are $1735. If you have an agent or call Disney yourself to book, ask for the spring room only discount first and then add the tickets to make a package. If you just book the MYW package, you won't get the discounts on the room and tickets.

-Astrid