HermanTriplets+1
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2009
Dear DIS friends,
After a solid 6 months of using this amazing forum to plan our trip (and plan I did!!!) I feel that I have to tell you all about it and give back to the group. Hope it's not too boring - but since you guys are probably like me, I guess it won't be!! SO here goes. Introduction.
We are a family of 6, triplets celebrated 13 on this trip (girl/boy/girl - let's call them DTr1/DTr2/DTr3) younger brother singleton child age 10 1/2 (DS10), and us the parents. I am 45 and American grew up in NJ/NY area, married a South African Israeli - DH (he was raised in Israel) and we have lived in Israel for the past 10 years. We come back to the States every year to visit my family but usually don't take the time or money to travel around much. When the kids were really little and would ask about Disney we would knock it off by saying "Yeah, we'll do that for your bar mitzvah (age 13)". That was sort of like saying "yeah whenever". But they didn't forget, and truth be known neither did I. I've been waiting for this chance since my last visit at age 10 when it was only Magic Kingdom and River Country! So about a year ago I figured out that the kids' Israeli winter vacation would come earlier than the States' Christmas vacation this year - the year of their 13th birthday. It was meant to be!!
At first I was very overwhelmed by the planning. I started with the Disney site and registered to receive their free planning CD, which I actually never used, but that got me on some good mailing lists. I started to read and read, most of all on the official Disney site (www.disneyworld.disney.go.com), and the DIS site, and Mousesavers (www.mousesavers.com). I broke it down for myself into stages, so that's what I'll do here, too:
When to go: I knew when the kids' school break was, and I figured that we wanted to get there before the Christmas holidays. I found the Unofficial Guide (UG) to Walt Disney World to be extremely helpful as well as the other sites. First I figured out when "value season" was from the Disney site. With that in mind, I looked at crowd flow charts on the UG and decided that we would go from Dec 12 - 16 (we needed to be in NJ on the 18th). OK dates decided.
Where to stay: This was, of course, a biggie. First decision was on-site vs. off-site. Off-site broke down further into "really off site", i.e. need to rent a car, vs. "off-site but nearby with shuttles", mostly Downtown Disney area. I looked at some lovely condos with lots of space and their own pool - around 10 - 20 minute drive from WDW. But we decided that we wanted to simplify and not deal with a car (we need a big one) or driving/parking. Next we looked at the DTD and nearby non-official places like Buena Vista Resorts. Also very nice and appealing. Good price (we were looking at suites or 2 rooms). They had a good deal for dining - but only for a family of up to 4, and we are not such a family. Still, attractive. What gave us cold feet was more worrying about the shuttle. It wouldn't be "Disney Transportation" but a private shuttle bus, and not on a super-frequent schedule. Started looking "inside Disney". i.e. onsite. Two rooms seemed too expensive no matter where onsite. If you haven't figured this out yet, we were after good price/not fancy but not "cheapie". Looked at the suite at Coronado Springs Resort - loved it! And the family suite at the All Star Music. THEN, got an e-mail from Disney Destinations (I think I got on their e-mail list by registering with WDW or Mousesavers) with a PIN number for free dining! This was before the Disney free dining became availabe and was not dependent on value/moderate/deluxe designation of the resort. That clinched it for us! On-site, All Star Music Resort family suite, Disney Dining Plan free! YAHOOOOOOO! SO I called Disney Destinations and they were of course lovely and courteous, and I booked Dec 12 - 16 at ASM with free basic dining plan (not quick service). We took the base ticket for the parks, without the park hopper. Figured that in 5 days we'd have enough to see and do with one park a day. And we took the 5 day ticket though we were there for 4 nights because the price difference was almost nothing and that way we could go on arrival day and departure day too.
So now we had lodging and tickets and dining plan. Next up, touring plan and dining reservations.
What to do in Disney: First I went through the sites for each park and read about each ride, familiarized myself with the layout of the parks. I made myself a list of what I thought our family would want to do and what we could probably skip. Then I went online and registered for the Unofficial Guide site. This was very useful to me. Now it costs a small fee but still I would do it. Or TourGuide Mike. You need a touring plan. Because we are all over the age of 10 I took the adults touring plan. For Magic Kingdom I used the "One full day and one half day" plan, for Animal Kingdom the One Day Adult plan, for Epcot the one day "relaxed" adult plan, and for Disney Hollywood Studios the adult one morning plan. More later on how/if we actually followed the TPs.
Dining: We are not huge eaters, not that we don't like food, just that we aren't used to a lot of restaurant food or a lot of big meals. So this was a LOT of food for us! DH eats only kosher food, and WDW was totally easy to work with on this! He'll eat cold dairy foods and fruit/salad/breads that are not stamped "kosher" so he ate at the breakfast buffets with us, choosing to his needs. We ordered some of his meals in advance, others he ordered on site at the food courts. It worked out fine. More later. The kids ate a lot of pizza and chicken nuggets. I ate a lot of grilled chicken salad. With desserts saved from meals, we barely touched the snack credits! As I said, LOTS of food! This is DTr2 with a dessert - chocolate dipped mickey rice krispy treat. It's only a dessert - not even a "snack"!
Flights to Disney:
We booked flights on Jet Blue Airlines, from Newark NJ to Orlando. Very pleasantly pleased with the flights. Cost 89$ per person per flight. And the magical express to and from the airport. EASY! Got our disney luggage tags from Disney, and our yellow luggage stickers in a SEPARATE MAILING from Magical Express before departing.
Extras:
I bought a lot of Disney stuff before the trip. Little trinkets for the kids, light sticks for the evenings, Mickey Mouse t-shirts for everyone, even bought "souveniers" for almost all of the extended family on Disney Store's internet site, on sale. I signed up for a Disney Rewards Visa Card through Chase Bank. Got me an extra 15 - 20% on the Disney Store purchases. And we earned 84 Disney dollars by charging our entire vacation and our Israel-NJ tickets on it. When relatives asked for gift ideas for the kids we suggested Disney Dollars, so each kid had a nice sized wallet for their own spending at Disney. Our out of pocket expenses were really quite minimal! Oh yes, I got the invitation to pre-purchase a photo pass, as we were staying onsite. It comes in a general e-mail before the trip. So I was ready for pics galore!
And on that note.... I officially open our Trip Report!
Stay tuned - next time I'll really start!
After a solid 6 months of using this amazing forum to plan our trip (and plan I did!!!) I feel that I have to tell you all about it and give back to the group. Hope it's not too boring - but since you guys are probably like me, I guess it won't be!! SO here goes. Introduction.
We are a family of 6, triplets celebrated 13 on this trip (girl/boy/girl - let's call them DTr1/DTr2/DTr3) younger brother singleton child age 10 1/2 (DS10), and us the parents. I am 45 and American grew up in NJ/NY area, married a South African Israeli - DH (he was raised in Israel) and we have lived in Israel for the past 10 years. We come back to the States every year to visit my family but usually don't take the time or money to travel around much. When the kids were really little and would ask about Disney we would knock it off by saying "Yeah, we'll do that for your bar mitzvah (age 13)". That was sort of like saying "yeah whenever". But they didn't forget, and truth be known neither did I. I've been waiting for this chance since my last visit at age 10 when it was only Magic Kingdom and River Country! So about a year ago I figured out that the kids' Israeli winter vacation would come earlier than the States' Christmas vacation this year - the year of their 13th birthday. It was meant to be!!
At first I was very overwhelmed by the planning. I started with the Disney site and registered to receive their free planning CD, which I actually never used, but that got me on some good mailing lists. I started to read and read, most of all on the official Disney site (www.disneyworld.disney.go.com), and the DIS site, and Mousesavers (www.mousesavers.com). I broke it down for myself into stages, so that's what I'll do here, too:
When to go: I knew when the kids' school break was, and I figured that we wanted to get there before the Christmas holidays. I found the Unofficial Guide (UG) to Walt Disney World to be extremely helpful as well as the other sites. First I figured out when "value season" was from the Disney site. With that in mind, I looked at crowd flow charts on the UG and decided that we would go from Dec 12 - 16 (we needed to be in NJ on the 18th). OK dates decided.
Where to stay: This was, of course, a biggie. First decision was on-site vs. off-site. Off-site broke down further into "really off site", i.e. need to rent a car, vs. "off-site but nearby with shuttles", mostly Downtown Disney area. I looked at some lovely condos with lots of space and their own pool - around 10 - 20 minute drive from WDW. But we decided that we wanted to simplify and not deal with a car (we need a big one) or driving/parking. Next we looked at the DTD and nearby non-official places like Buena Vista Resorts. Also very nice and appealing. Good price (we were looking at suites or 2 rooms). They had a good deal for dining - but only for a family of up to 4, and we are not such a family. Still, attractive. What gave us cold feet was more worrying about the shuttle. It wouldn't be "Disney Transportation" but a private shuttle bus, and not on a super-frequent schedule. Started looking "inside Disney". i.e. onsite. Two rooms seemed too expensive no matter where onsite. If you haven't figured this out yet, we were after good price/not fancy but not "cheapie". Looked at the suite at Coronado Springs Resort - loved it! And the family suite at the All Star Music. THEN, got an e-mail from Disney Destinations (I think I got on their e-mail list by registering with WDW or Mousesavers) with a PIN number for free dining! This was before the Disney free dining became availabe and was not dependent on value/moderate/deluxe designation of the resort. That clinched it for us! On-site, All Star Music Resort family suite, Disney Dining Plan free! YAHOOOOOOO! SO I called Disney Destinations and they were of course lovely and courteous, and I booked Dec 12 - 16 at ASM with free basic dining plan (not quick service). We took the base ticket for the parks, without the park hopper. Figured that in 5 days we'd have enough to see and do with one park a day. And we took the 5 day ticket though we were there for 4 nights because the price difference was almost nothing and that way we could go on arrival day and departure day too.
So now we had lodging and tickets and dining plan. Next up, touring plan and dining reservations.
What to do in Disney: First I went through the sites for each park and read about each ride, familiarized myself with the layout of the parks. I made myself a list of what I thought our family would want to do and what we could probably skip. Then I went online and registered for the Unofficial Guide site. This was very useful to me. Now it costs a small fee but still I would do it. Or TourGuide Mike. You need a touring plan. Because we are all over the age of 10 I took the adults touring plan. For Magic Kingdom I used the "One full day and one half day" plan, for Animal Kingdom the One Day Adult plan, for Epcot the one day "relaxed" adult plan, and for Disney Hollywood Studios the adult one morning plan. More later on how/if we actually followed the TPs.
Dining: We are not huge eaters, not that we don't like food, just that we aren't used to a lot of restaurant food or a lot of big meals. So this was a LOT of food for us! DH eats only kosher food, and WDW was totally easy to work with on this! He'll eat cold dairy foods and fruit/salad/breads that are not stamped "kosher" so he ate at the breakfast buffets with us, choosing to his needs. We ordered some of his meals in advance, others he ordered on site at the food courts. It worked out fine. More later. The kids ate a lot of pizza and chicken nuggets. I ate a lot of grilled chicken salad. With desserts saved from meals, we barely touched the snack credits! As I said, LOTS of food! This is DTr2 with a dessert - chocolate dipped mickey rice krispy treat. It's only a dessert - not even a "snack"!
Flights to Disney:
We booked flights on Jet Blue Airlines, from Newark NJ to Orlando. Very pleasantly pleased with the flights. Cost 89$ per person per flight. And the magical express to and from the airport. EASY! Got our disney luggage tags from Disney, and our yellow luggage stickers in a SEPARATE MAILING from Magical Express before departing.
Extras:
I bought a lot of Disney stuff before the trip. Little trinkets for the kids, light sticks for the evenings, Mickey Mouse t-shirts for everyone, even bought "souveniers" for almost all of the extended family on Disney Store's internet site, on sale. I signed up for a Disney Rewards Visa Card through Chase Bank. Got me an extra 15 - 20% on the Disney Store purchases. And we earned 84 Disney dollars by charging our entire vacation and our Israel-NJ tickets on it. When relatives asked for gift ideas for the kids we suggested Disney Dollars, so each kid had a nice sized wallet for their own spending at Disney. Our out of pocket expenses were really quite minimal! Oh yes, I got the invitation to pre-purchase a photo pass, as we were staying onsite. It comes in a general e-mail before the trip. So I was ready for pics galore!
And on that note.... I officially open our Trip Report!
Stay tuned - next time I'll really start!
I'm trying to figure it out - has anyone used kodak gallery and then posted pics? I may need to reload my pics to Photobucket. I'm workin' on it! 
