May 18, 2013 MAGIC EBTA - Who is with us?

[MandyGirl]

Can y'all believe this thread is almost a year old? It's been almost a year since several of us booked on opening day?? Craziness!

[MandyGirl]

Originally Posted by belle2011

Thank you,
We usually go to the beach near Nice and it's not sand more rocks so even if it's not white sand I think we are all going to enjoy it.
According to the reviews Boudro's seems really nice.

Sand versus rocks

Yes - Boudro's is good. We reserve ahead, and if good weather sit along the riverwalk. Ducks swim by, the riverboats go by, and the waiter may bring you (or your kiddos) something to throw to the ducks to eat. Great for people watching, too! Plus the food is good.

[Tink1987]

Originally Posted by MandyGirl

Can y'all believe this thread is almost a year old? It's been almost a year since several of us booked on opening day?? Craziness!

I know - I cannot believe it's been almost a year since we booked!

[MandyGirl]

Originally Posted by MandyGirl

We saw more options if flying home from Madrid or Barcelona, and had no issues booking tickets to Barcelona for the WBTA, but ending up in Venice for this trip threw us a curveball with flights home on miles. Gosh darn it, Venice better be worth it

Curiosity (and avoiding a morning workout ) got to me, so I had to see what they had currently for AAdvantage miles.

Venice to come home around our dates:
VCE-LGW, overnight 12-hr layover, LGW-MCO, 3 hr layover, MCO-DFW
$287.50 per ticket because mainly on BA codeshare (only option available with 30k miles)

Milan has a decent flight a few days later on a carrier I've never flown, but it wasn't a carrier option when we booked. $61.30 taxes for 30k miles

And if we were flying home from BCN after the EBTA then there were more days with 30k choices, overnighting in Germany for $152.70

Still feel okay going the Iceland route, although more $$$ out of pocket but somewhere we have never been to do a stopover. Guess I have to like it - they were nonrefundable - but I have already told hubby about the rumblings of a possible 2014 WBTA and we have the miles in the bank

[kaseyC]

We are using United miles for all flights for this trip and even with taxes and fees the savings are substantial especially for a family of 5. We are using 387,500 miles plus $802 in cash for taxes and fees. For our family this is a major savings. This is our breakdown:

3 ORD to IAH - UA Econ-12,500 miles plus $2.50 pp
2 ORD to CPH - LH Business - 50,000 miles plus $35.70 pp
3 BCN to CPH - LH Econ - 12,500 miles plus $48.10 pp
5 CPH to CDG - SAS Econ -12,500 miles plus 27.50 pp
5 CDG to ORD - AC/UA Econ - 30,000 miles plus $88.40 pp

We don't have any funky outrageous connections. As a matter of fact, we have a couple non-stop flights and the others only connect once. I was also able to book so that me and my two youngest DDs will meet DH and DD17 when we all connect in Frankfurt on June 1st. We will all fly to Copenhagen on the same flight.

The good thing is we have a lot of flexibility. We can change or cancel these flights up until the day we fly for no fee with the miles redeposited into DH's account. So I can continue to stalk the website hoping they open up more Saver Awards for a non-stop flight home from Paris.

[Tink1987]

Originally Posted by MandyGirl

Curiosity (and avoiding a morning workout ) got to me, so I had to see what they had currently for AAdvantage miles.

Venice to come home around our dates:
VCE-LGW, overnight 12-hr layover, LGW-MCO, 3 hr layover, MCO-DFW
$287.50 per ticket because mainly on BA codeshare (only option available with 30k miles)

Milan has a decent flight a few days later on a carrier I've never flown, but it wasn't a carrier option when we booked. $61.30 taxes for 30k miles

And if we were flying home from BCN after the EBTA then there were more days with 30k choices, overnighting in Germany for $152.70

Still feel okay going the Iceland route, although more $$$ out of pocket but somewhere we have never been to do a stopover. Guess I have to like it - they were nonrefundable - but I have already told hubby about the rumblings of a possible 2014 WBTA and we have the miles in the bank

Rumblings of a 2014 WBTA? I am behind - tell me tell me

[binkytell]

Originally Posted by MandyGirl

Can y'all believe this thread is almost a year old? It's been almost a year since several of us booked on opening day?? Craziness!

No way!! We're only on thread 1 as well x

[MandyGirl]

Originally Posted by kaseyC

We are using United miles for all flights for this trip and even with taxes and fees the savings are substantial especially for a family of 5. We are using 387,500 miles plus $802 in cash for taxes and fees. For our family this is a major savings. This is our breakdown:

3 ORD to IAH - UA Econ-12,500 miles plus $2.50 pp
2 ORD to CPH - LH Business - 50,000 miles plus $35.70 pp
3 BCN to CPH - LH Econ - 12,500 miles plus $48.10 pp
5 CPH to CDG - SAS Econ -12,500 miles plus 27.50 pp
5 CDG to ORD - AC/UA Econ - 30,000 miles plus $88.40 pp

We don't have any funky outrageous connections. As a matter of fact, we have a couple non-stop flights and the others only connect once. I was also able to book so that me and my two youngest DDs will meet DH and DD17 when we all connect in Frankfurt on June 1st. We will all fly to Copenhagen on the same flight.

The good thing is we have a lot of flexibility. We can change or cancel these flights up until the day we fly for no fee with the miles redeposited into DH's account. So I can continue to stalk the website hoping they open up more Saver Awards for a non-stop flight home from Paris.

Wow - those are AWESOME!! For the 2011 WBTA, we had no issues going DFW-JFK-BCN. Super easy, only one connect, all on American, and the fee per ticket was cheap. In fact, although our littlest one was only 15 months and could have been a lap child (save the 30k miles), we traded in the miles for her to have her own seat. Worked great so we could strap her carseat in and let her sleep on the overnight portion from JFK-BCN... except that she decided to sleep on ME that leg. I looked across the aisle and would see hubby and the 5 year old eating their meal, sleeping peacefully, etc. Figures. AA lets us watch flights as well to change as long as not changing the city-pair.

We have a trip to Costa Rica this spring and were able to a get nonstop flight going there, but no luck using miles coming back so we purchased tickets and have to connect in Florida for the return.

[MandyGirl]

Originally Posted by binkytell

No way!! We're only on thread 1 as well x

Yep. Barely over 4 months away from embarkation at that. Pretty sure we were on Part 4 on the WBTA. Was it Mary that was packing all the shoes on that one?

[MandyGirl]

Originally Posted by Tink1987

Rumblings of a 2014 WBTA? I am behind - tell me tell me

Someone from our 2011 WBTA facebook group started researching ports and their port calendars for 2014 this past week. September is showing some ports that are in line with the crossing that has Disney on them. Speculation is the Wonder because she may be due for the next major dry dock but she did post that it said Disney Magic. Ports in May and September, with St Maarten showing up in September.

Of course we had seen the same for 2013 and it didn't happen... but there is possible home for WBTA 2014

[Tink1987]

Originally Posted by MandyGirl

Someone from our 2011 WBTA facebook group started researching ports and their port calendars for 2014 this past week. September is showing some ports that are in line with the crossing that has Disney on them. Speculation is the Wonder because she may be due for the next major dry dock but she did post that it said Disney Magic. Ports in May and September, with St Maarten showing up in September.

Of course we had seen the same for 2013 and it didn't happen... but there is possible home for WBTA 2014

Oooh interesting news!

Thanks for sharing

[margaretstahl]

Originally Posted by Viking_53

We are also using my United miles to head back from Europe. I'm a million miler flyer on United.

We're flying Southwest from Denver the night before - cheapest option for us (it's actually more that what I paid for the trip back). I'm a little nervous about Southwest, but United's fares just aren't competive down there right now, which is odd since both Denver and Houston are hubs for them. I could have gone to Austin or San Antonio for about the same price, but then would have to rent a car, so that wasn't feasible either. We're taking the DCL transportation from Hobby on Saturday morning.

Chuck

I love flying Southwest Airlines. No bag fees. Southwest has never cancelled a flight I have been on. At times they have been extremely late due to weather along the route earlier during the day but they have always gotten me where I have wanted to go and got me back home. I would pay the extra $10 to get an early number so you will not have trouble getting seats together.

[NancyIL]

Originally Posted by MandyGirl

Someone from our 2011 WBTA facebook group started researching ports and their port calendars for 2014 this past week. September is showing some ports that are in line with the crossing that has Disney on them. Speculation is the Wonder because she may be due for the next major dry dock but she did post that it said Disney Magic. Ports in May and September, with St Maarten showing up in September.

Of course we had seen the same for 2013 and it didn't happen... but there is possible home for WBTA 2014

I posted on another thread why I think the Wonder will go to Alaska and the Magic will go to Europe in 2014 - just as they have done in the past: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.ph...postcount=1508 The Wonder can go through an extensive dry dock on the west coast, just as ships on other cruise lines have done.

[binkytell]

Originally Posted by MandyGirl

Curiosity (and avoiding a morning workout ) got to me, so I had to see what they had currently for AAdvantage miles.

Venice to come home around our dates:
VCE-LGW, overnight 12-hr layover, LGW-MCO, 3 hr layover, MCO-DFW
$287.50 per ticket because mainly on BA codeshare (only option available with 30k miles)

Milan has a decent flight a few days later on a carrier I've never flown, but it wasn't a carrier option when we booked. $61.30 taxes for 30k miles

And if we were flying home from BCN after the EBTA then there were more days with 30k choices, overnighting in Germany for $152.70

Still feel okay going the Iceland route, although more $$$ out of pocket but somewhere we have never been to do a stopover. Guess I have to like it - they were nonrefundable - but I have already told hubby about the rumblings of a possible 2014 WBTA and we have the miles in the bank

VIA SCOTLAND

[MandyGirl]

Originally Posted by NancyIL

I posted on another thread why I think the Wonder will go to Alaska and the Magic will go to Europe in 2014 - just as they have done in the past: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.ph...postcount=1508 The Wonder can go through an extensive dry dock on the west coast, just as ships on other cruise lines have done.

The port calendars she found did show the Magic. Someone on that FB thread had asked about the Wonder, but what you have said makes sense. Either way, a Disney ship doing a possible WBTA...