RachelleBeaney
PrincessShelle
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2012
Our First Disney Cruise – Disney Fantasy Eastern Caribbean – 7 Night Cruise PLUS Universal Orlando – Walt Disney World and Disneyland (and a little New York) Pre-Trip Report
Hi Everyone,
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Rachelle, and this is now my second pre-trip report. I’m from Perth, Australia and I love to travel, with my husband Jared, especially to Disney and Universal theme parks. This trip will be our third to Walt Disney World and Universal and our fourth trip to the wonderful Disneyland Resort. Last year we did a trip to both resorts and hit Tokyo Disney for the first time (you can read my trip report about that trip here). This trip marks our inaugural cruise on the Disney Cruise Line – a 7 night Eastern Caribbean Cruise from Port Canaveral stopping in St Thomas/St John in the US Virgin Islands, San Juan in Puerto Rico and of course Castaway Cay in the Bahamas. Here is a couple of picture of the two of us at Tokyo Disney on our last trip to Tokyo Disney:
Of course after the depression of the end of one Disney holiday we always cheer ourselves by starting to plan the next. Being that we have to travel overseas, and usually quiet far from our location (Perth is far from everywhere even the rest of Australia) we usually try and make a decent trip of it. We usually spend 4 weeks travelling and we will be gone for just over 4 weeks for this trip. The outline of our plans are as follows:
Day 1 – 5 February 2015 – Fly and Arrive in Los Angeles – Visit Long Beach and the Queen Mary – Accommodation – Airport Hotel LAX
Day 2 – 6 February 2015 – Fly to Orlando – transfer to Port Canaveral hotel
Day 3 – 7 February 2015 – Embarkation Day – Disney Fantasy – 7 night Eastern Caribbean Cruise
Day 4– 8 February 2015 – Sea Day – Disney Fantasy
Day 5 – 9 February 2015 – Sea Day – Disney Fantasy
Day 6 – 10 February 2015 – St Thomas/St John, US Virgin Islands
Day 7 – 11 February 2015 – Sun Juan, Puerto Rico,
Day 8– 12 February 2015 – Sea Day – Disney Fantasy
Day 9 – 13 February 2015 – Castaway Cay
Day 10 – 14 February 2015- Disembarkation Day – Kennedy Space Centre – Port Canaveral hotel
Day 11 – 15 February 2015 – Drive to Orlando – check into Hard Rock Hotel, Universal Orlando
Day 12 – 16 February 2015 – Universal Studios Florida
(without WWOHP – Diagon Alley – this is Presidents Day so I feel I should avoid the fray in the most popular part of the park that day but honestly – avoiding the area until the next day is going to be a little torturous – I figured we’d sleep in so the temptation is not even there!)
Day 13 – 17 February 2015 – WWOHP Diagon Alley early entry – WWOHP Hogsmeade and Islands of Adventure
Day 14 – 18 February 2015 – WWOHP Hogsmeade early entry – WWOHP Diagon Alley - REST
Day 15 – 19 February 2015 – WWOHP Diagon Alley early entry – WWOHP Hogsmade and Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure - Check into Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
Day 16 – 20 February 2015 – Magic Kingdom
Day 17 – 21 February 2015 – Walt Disney World resort hopping
Day 18 – 22 February 2015 – Discovery Cove
Day 19 – 23 February 2015 – Animal Kingdom/Hollywood Studios
Day 20 – 24 February 2015 – Fly to New York
Day 21 – 25 February 2015 – New York
Day 22 – 26 February 2015 – New York
Day 23 – 27 February 2015 – New York
Day 24 – 28 February 2015 – New York – Aladdin on broadway
Day 25 – 1 March 2015 – Fly to Los Angeles – check into the Camelot Inn, Anaheim
Day 26 – 2 March 2015– Disneyland
Day 27 – 3 March 2015– Disney California Adventure
Day 28 – 4 March 2014 – Disneyland /Disney California Adventure
Day 29 – 5 March 2014 – Disneyland/Disney California Adventure – Fly Home
Travel and Los Angeles/Long Beach
Our first day of travel is that wonderful ‘ground hog’ day where we feel like we’ve gone back in time leaving Sydney at 12:00pm on the 5 Feb and arriving in Los Angeles the same day only 2 hours later (except that we spent much more than 2 hours on the plane!). We will be booking a car in Los Angeles and touring Long Beach to stay awake until the evening to stive off jetlag, which hopefully won’t be too bad as we’ve managed to use frequent flyer points to upgrade our flights from Perth to Los Angeles and Los Angeles back to Perth on Virgin Australia Business Class – YAY!.
We looked long and hard for something we could do for the day in LA that we hadn’t done before. This will be our third trip and as much as I love Anaheim and Disneyland I don’t LOVE LA. I like it ok, but feel like we’ve done and seen much of what it has to offer. Then I came across information on the The Queen Mary, currently docked in Long Beach. The ship has an interesting history with the Disney company who owned it for a brief period and had planned to build its second west coast Park in Long Beach (these plans would eventually become Disney Seas in Tokyo). It seemed fitting then, especially given our plans to travel aboard the Disney Cruise line, that we visit this historic ocean liner, once owned by the Disney Company. We originally thought we would be arriving in Los Angeles much earlier than what we are so we had hoped to go Whale Watching also but those plans may have to be axed now (besides we have plenty of whales here in WA and so it’s necessarily a unique experience for us).
As mentioned, we have booked business class flights from Perth to Sydney to Los Angeles and return thanks to all the frequent flyer points my husband racks up travelling with his job. Whenever he is away on business I try remind myself all the travel goes towards us being able to travel more comfortably together when we do!
Disney Cruise – Fantasy – Eastern Caribbean – 7 nights
In starting to plan the trip I knew the first thing we had to book and work out was the cruise. Cruises are insanely weird holiday accommodation/tours when you think about it. Most accommodation and tours can only be booked 6 – 12 months in advance of the dates of travel but unless you book your cruise 15 months in advance you may miss out on a room. Well this is certainly true of most cruises, and I’m not if it’s necessarily true of the Disney Cruise Line but I wasn’t taking any chances on getting the room type I wanted or the cruise dates I wanted. I realize rooms are more limited than a hotel and dates are much less frequent but it is hard having to book that far in advance when even your flights are not set in stone yet (it also makes flights and flight dates much less flexible).
When we’d started discussing the idea of a Disney Cruise we thought it would be the perfect way to celebrate my husband Jared’s 30th birthday. He turns 30 on the 27 January and so we looked into cruises and flights during his birthday month. The problem is that January is the middle of the summer school holidays here in Australia and all flights were RIDICULOUSLY expensive. We are now leaving a week and a half after Jared’s birthday and our flights were much more reasonably priced!!
We decided to book an Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with a Verandah , Category 5B. We are Room 8072 which I believe is on the Port or left side of the ship, somewhere in the middle of deck 8. We just decided, given it was a celebration trip (for Jared’s 30th, which is a big one) we wanted to splurge and get a verandah as we thought we’d like a private area to watch the ocean from during the cruise. I hadn’t read anything about views from either side of the ship until after we’d made the booking and didn’t honestly even think about it until after the room was booked, when I discovered the best views of Castaway Cay as you enter on the ship are usually on the starboard (right) side of the ship. Oh well!
I’m super excited about my first Disney cruise, well my first ever cruise really. After researching all the ships we settled on the Fantasy as it was one of the two newer ships and would be running the route we wanted to take through the Caribbean. The Fantasy seemed to have the best variety of entertainment, dining options and activities that would suit us.
We definitely want to try book a couple’s villa massage package but can only book that once we get on board (something that makes me a little nervous!). We also plan to book brunch and dinner at Palo because we’ve heard they are both really good and at $20 per person extra per meal a super cheap fancy dining option! We are also planning a few nights out in the Europa Nightclub/bar area which looks fun, along with seeing all the onboard musical shows (we LOVE LOVE LOVE musicals and are seeing 3 or 4 when we go to New York). We’ve seen Disney’s Aladdin a Musical Spectacular at Disney California Adventure twice now but will still see it again on the ship, and we’re glad we get a chance to see it before seeing Aladdin on broadway, so we don’t compare it unfavorably to that.
Since I’m not really a sit by the pool and relax type of person on holidays I was wondering how a Disney Cruise would suit me, however it seems as though there is plenty on the ship to keep a person busy if they wish to be. One area that I’m definitely making sure I have concrete plans for is out ports of call. I really want to see the best the places we are visiting has to offer and I really think that’s what the activities I plan to book offer, as well as being semi-relaxing too. Here’s what we were thinking thus far (please weigh in with any thoughts/experiences for those who’ve been to these ports)
St Thomas/St John – Champagne Catamaran Sail and Snorkel Tour – 4.5 – 5 hours
I absolutely love being on a boat on the ocean (which is why it’s very surprising I’ve never cruised before) and a relaxing trip with complimentary beverages to a nice white sandy beach sounded great for our first port of call. Though the adventure does offer snorkeling, I won’t really be participating in that. I have a bad nose and hate breathing through my mouth and freak out when I try to snorkel (I used to be able to as a kid so I’m not sure what changed) but it’s nice to know the option is there if Jared wants to or if I decide to be brave and give it a go.
San Juan, Puerto Rico – EL Yunque Rainforrest ATV Adventure – 5 – 5.5 hours
I’m very excited as well as nervous about this port activity. My husband has gone ATVing before on a work conference and loved it, and since this trip is to celebrate his birthday I wanted to book hotels, activities and fun he will enjoy. Of course most of the trip includes sights and activities we will both enjoy a lot together, however I’m not sure about this one. I am not the most confident driver in the world (though Jared tells me driving an ATV’s is nothing like actual driving) but I really want to give this a go for Jared’s sake. And I really want to trek through the rainforest without having to trek through the rainforest (yes I don’t mind a brisk walk or a day in a theme park but I’m not up to hiking!). The concept of this sounds wonderful but I’m just a little nervous about the execution! I wish you could seat 2 people on an ATV and then Jared could drive and I could relax, but alas it’s one person per vehicle. Still, it’s good to push your boundaries every now and then, and I especially want Jared to be able to experience this tour so really that should be the end of my griping!
Castaway Cay
While Castaway Cay is a great place to just sit and relax all day (from what I hear anyway) that’s not really my style so I figured I’d look into activities we could do at the Cay while there. Jared and I have always wanted to go jet skiing (yes terribly afraid of recreational vehicles on land but love the idea of them in the water! I’m weird I guess) and you can enjoy a 1 hour Watercraft Ski Adventure on Castaway Cay so that’s what I plan to book. I also just discovered that parasailing is on offer at Castaway Cay and I’ve always wanted to go parasailing so that’s on the to do list now – and I’m so excited about that one (I’ve seen a trip report with some lovely photos of the views from up on the parasail and it looks amazing!).
Port Canaveral Touring
So that’s basically it for the planned cruise info, I haven’t booked anything much yet as being a first time cruiser I can only book 75 days out but I have all my reminders in place so hopefully that will go off without a hitch.
We are spending a night in Port Canaveral or Cocoa Beach the night before and after the cruise. I think it’s a good idea to orient ourselves close to the port the night before the cruise and on our disembarkation day I really want to visit the Kennedy Space Centre. Well, if truth be told, Jared REALLY wants to visit the Kennedy Space Centre and I am mildly interested to as well. His grandfather lived in Carnarvon in country Western Australia and was an engineer who worked on the satellite dish there that helped catch the images from the moon during the moon landing in 1969, his father even has a medallion made of melted down parts of the eagle Apollo Lunar Module that landed on the moon, given to his father for his participant in the moon landing efforts! So Jared feels a bit of a connection to all this space stuff and really wants to go to Kennedy Space Centre. I’m really excited about the ‘Lunch with an Astronaut’ extra we plan to book and having the chance to chat to someone who has really been to space!
Universal Orlando
So the most exciting part of the trip for me is to be finally staying on property at Universal Orlando, for a trip to see the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter (WWOHP)– Diagon Alley. We will be staying 4 nights at the Hard Rock Hotel (which Jared is really looking forward to, as he is a musician and the theme really appeals to him) and doing 4 days in the parks. Staying on property of course gets us the great perks of being able to enter both sides of the WWOHP 1 hour before the general public each morning (a must I reckon for getting on the Escape from Gringotts Ride which regular has 3 – 6 hour waits!) and unlimited express pass to all the rides that offer that option (which is basically all the attractions bar the Wizarding World of Harry Potter headliner attractions).
We’ve never stayed on property at Universal before, because it is so expensive, but we usually do purchase the unlimited express option with our tickets. With the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley is so new though that I knew that staying on property would likely be worth it to avoid hour long waits just to get into the Diagon Alley area. Obviously the crowds will die down after summer but I do remember how busy the WWOHP - Hogsmeade was when we visited the April after it opened, and we are going the week after Presidents Day so I want to be prepared. Hard Rock Hotel is a great balance of fun, style and comfort, and the pool area looks amazing, hopefully we get a chance to swim in it and it’s not too cold for it!
My plans for attacking the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter are pretty much, avoid going to either area on the Monday of our visit (President’s Day public holiday) and use 2 early entries for Diagon Alley and one for Hogsmeade (we’ve done Hogsmeade plenty of times before), be at the parks 30 minutes before early entry and use the single rider lines at Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringott's whenever we want to ride in the later morning or early evening (we will not be riding in the middle of the day!). I have a few must do’s, other than obviously riding the two headliner attractions as many times as possible while the waits are short. These must do's include a trip each way on the Hogwarts Express, exchanging money at the Gringott’s bank exchange, having some clotted cream icecream from Florean Fortescue Icecream Parlour, trying Gillywater anf the Fishy Green (or whatever it's called) drinks made for Diagon Alley, trying out the interactive wands in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, have=ing some butterbeer in Hogsmeade, getting on BOTH sides of the Dragon’s Challenge coaster (they were only running the blue side on our last trip) and eating at the Leaky Cauldron. I may not have mentioned but I am the HUGEST Harry Potter fan (well fan of the books, I don’t really like the movies) so I am super excited to see one of my favorite fantasy worlds bought to life again at Universal.
Disney World
So this trip to Orlando is a little shorter than our previous trips because of the time taken up by the cruise, which means we are not going to spend a whole heap of time at Disney World. This suits me fine because, though I love Disney World, I love Disneyland much much more and we will be spending 4 days there at the end of our trip, so I won’t lament missing one of the parks at Disney World.
The original plan was to stay off property in Orlando during our visit to Disney World and just spend a day a Magic Kingdom (mainly to see the finished New Fantasyland and Seven Dwarves Mine Train) and a day at Animal Kingdom (my favourite park at the resort). However, we soon were enticed by the perks of staying on property (further advance FastPass + bookings and the ability to book restaurants like Be Our Guest from the start of our whole stay at the world, hopefully meaning we’d be able to get a reservation!). So we started looking at perhaps staying at Art of Animation which, being one of the Value Resorts, was within our price range.
Then, we were able to secure one of our internal US flights on frequent flyer points (which we hadn’t anticipated being able to do) and all of sudden we had the budget for a stay at a moderate hotel. But why stay at a moderate hotel when you can stay at a Deluxe! Jared REALLY wanted to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge (and it is his birthday after all), and so we started to looking at ways we might be able to do it (since we had some spare cash up our sleeves). We discovered the wonder of DVC rentals (which I had always just assumed were only available for US citizens for some reason) and were able to get a Deluxe Studio Villa with Savannah View for around $280 USD per night when I believe the rack rate would be around $541 - $622 per night for that time of year (based on 2014 prices – 2015 prices haven’t been released yet). So we made a HUGE saving (seriously who pays that amount to stay at Animal Kingdom during February – it’s no Miracosta at Tokyo Disney (with views into the Tokyo Disney Sea theme park - which we were happy to pay that $500 - $600 price for).
Originally we asked DVCRentals (the company we went through) to quote us a price on a standard view room (it was about $250 cheaper but we weren’t wanting to stretch our budget too much further) and they originally had availability but by the time we got back to them after the weekend (with dates and times being different here) the availability was gone (beware Australian travellers booking Walt Disney Accommodation through DVC rentals!). In the end though (after deleting a few superfluous activities from the budget) we justified the additional $250 and booked the Savannah view, which after all, as Jared says, is the reason to stay at Animal Kingdom in the first place and the reason why he wanted to! He stated that we better see a giraffe out the window to get our monies worth but considering how much we are saving on the actual rate, I’m not too concerned! A giraffe or too would be nice though!
We managed to get in in just the right time as there are two windows for booking with DVC rental points, about 11 months out from dates of stay (which we had missed – but less rooms are offered at this point) and 7 months out from the dates of travel, which was on the 19 July. Had we missed that date and gotten onto this any later we may have missed out on any room at all, so I would encourage anyone using DVC rentals to make sure to make the bookings with the rental company well before the 7 month date so they can get right on it when rooms become available (if they aren’t already available at the 11 month point). Given that DVC Rentals advise to book Animal Kingdom Savannah views 9 months out I think we have been pretty lucky! And seriously, for all you Aussies out there who like us have not stumbled upon DVC rentals before, do it! It’s so worth the money when you consider that we are now staying at a deluxe hotel for less than what it would have cost to stay at a moderate hotel and only slightly more than what it would have cost to stay at a Value hotel!
Anyway, as mentioned we are only doing 2 days in park at Walt Disney World, one day at the Magic Kingdom and one day at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. I am also hoping to get a Be Our Guest Reservation for dinner (I want some more of that Grey Stuff! Seriously it's so good) but if we don't manage (I will be online exactly 180 days out from the first day of our stay which I think is 182 days out from our MK visit), I've discovered you can now make FP+ bookings for lunch and they are separate from the regular FP+ bookings so you don't have to use one of your three to make them, and that sounds like a good back up option.
We are spending another of our days while on Disney property visiting one of our favorite places in Orlando, Discovery Cove. I love the dolphins, I love the pools and the lush tropical foliage and everything about the place makes me relax, so we love going back to do it again and again.
We are also spending one day on property having a peek in all of the resort hotels, and eating a Beaches and Cream and the California Grill (as we have yet to really try any of the resort restaurants or experience other parts of the resort other than the parks). We are also going to do a helicopter ride over the resort that day which will be great fun! UPDATE - I've also decided to book dinner at Victoria and Albert's. I've always wanted to eat there but have been a little cautious because i'm not really into super fancy food but at the end of the day it's a 5 star rated restaurant, gorgeously decorated and we are going to give it a go as another of Jared's birthday dinners (he's going to get a lot of those!).
Oh and lastly, we've decided to do a helicopter tour over Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld to see it all from the air - i'm super excited about that!
New York
While it isn’t Disney related (bar one small Disney activity) I thought I’d include some information about our plans in New York. We always try to do a little non-Disney activity on our trips (the Caribbean counts a little as non-Disney, though of course the cruise itself is Disney) and we love visiting New York. One of the main draws for visiting New York yet again was to see Aladdin on Broadway. We are HUGE Broadway fans and will be seeing 3 -4 musicals while we are in New York. Because of this we've chosen a hotel right next to Times Square as the majority of the Broadway theaters are located in and around Times Square. The hotel is called Hotel Edison, a little 1920’s art deco hotel, but the rooms have all recently been upgraded and are very modern looking and what’s more wonderfully large for a New York Hotel. I won’t bore you Disney people with all our plans for New York during winter (yes we will be ice skating at Rockerfeller Centre!) but I am super excited about visiting this vibrant and wonderful city again – this will be my first trip there since 2011 (Jared was there on a work trip last year)!
Disneyland
And now to my favorite Disney resort (well it’s possible on par with Tokyo Disney but beats it out slightly in my opinion due to my nostalgia over the fact Disneyland was the first Disney resort Jared and I ever visited). We decided against staying on property at Disneyland. Rooms are super expensive for the on property hotels and, unlike our last trip at Thanksgiving, we are going at a fairly quiet time of year, so we decided to stay off property. Also I don't really feel the on property hotels at Disneyland are as well done as the on property hotels at Disney World (I'm not a huge fan of the Grand Californian, it's a bit dark, and Paradise Pier is very simply if you don't get upgraded to a theme park view - which we amazingly were last trip. The Disneyland Hotel rooms look gorgeous but it's a bit too expensive for what it is).
So we decided to once again stay in a hotel on our beloved Harbor Boulevard (we stayed at a hotel here on our honeymoon and were enchanted by the fairy lit trees). I had a feeling I’d be feeling very lazy at the end of our trip so we have decided to stay at the Anaheim Camelot Inn and Suites as opposed to our usual spot, the Anaheim Plaza Hotel and Suites as it’s literally right across the road from the entrance into the Disney resort from Harbour Boulevard. The hotel is charming in its own way (I love the tudor façade) and hey, we get a King bed and it’s also very reasonably priced! Considering the luxury hotels we are staying at in Orlando and the upcost of staying in a verandah room on the cruise, we felt it better to save our pennies for other things at Disneyland. We’ll be buying 4 day park hoppers and avoiding whatever park has early entry each morning so we aren't at a disadvantage by staying off property.
I’m so excited to see the REAL version of World of Color that I’ll be booking 2 World of Color dining packages for the 2nd and 3rd nights of our stay so we can see it twice (we really disliked the Winter Dreams monstrosity playing when we visited at the end of November last year).
I also plan to finally have a go on all the Fantasyland dark rides, and make them a priority one morning, as we never really have and therefore have never done any except Peter Pan’s Flight, as the lines are always so long. Still we have plenty of mornings this time around so I plan to make them a priority on one.
Of course we will continue to line up super early for a chance to be some of the first on Radiator Racers and since the park hours are likely to be 10am – 8pm this won’t be as hard as our last trip where we had to be up at 6am, and this time we'll only have to be at the park at 9am.
I’m also really looking forward to another delicious flatbread from the Hearthstone Lounge at the Grand Californian and trying Café Orleans pomme frittes for the first time (yes we’ve still never eaten there, it was closed on our last trip). We’re also going to try Napa Rose as I’ve heard great things about this restaurant and would like to give it a go.
Planning Conclusion
And so that is the plan, I’m so super excited (as is Jared who plans to abuse his birthday button as much as possible so he can have a month long birthday like I did on our Disney trip November last year.) Not only are we getting to experience our very first Disney cruise (or any cruise for that matter) we have been able to stay in deluxe accommodation on Disney and Universal property, see the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter, enjoy many fabulous nights on broadway and visit my favourite Disney resort, Disneyland. It’s really going to be an amazing trip and I can’t wait…
Additionally, since the planning of this trip is all well underway now and I am having planning withdrawals (yes I get planning withdrawals just as much as I get Disney withdrawals) I’ve started outlining a possible 2016 Asia trip to Universal Singapore, Shanghai Disney, Universal Japan and of course the marvelous Tokyo Disney Resort, with sightseeing in Singapore Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai and all over Japan (Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo the main points of interest). I’m super excited about the possibility of this trip because, if it all comes together and we go, it means I will have visited every Universal and Disney resort in the world bar Disneyland Paris (which I don’t imagine we will get to until we can finally afford a big trip to Europe – it’s just so much more expensive!)
So I hope you enjoyed this report about our upcoming February trip – I’ll be posting a trip report once we are done.
Hi Everyone,
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Rachelle, and this is now my second pre-trip report. I’m from Perth, Australia and I love to travel, with my husband Jared, especially to Disney and Universal theme parks. This trip will be our third to Walt Disney World and Universal and our fourth trip to the wonderful Disneyland Resort. Last year we did a trip to both resorts and hit Tokyo Disney for the first time (you can read my trip report about that trip here). This trip marks our inaugural cruise on the Disney Cruise Line – a 7 night Eastern Caribbean Cruise from Port Canaveral stopping in St Thomas/St John in the US Virgin Islands, San Juan in Puerto Rico and of course Castaway Cay in the Bahamas. Here is a couple of picture of the two of us at Tokyo Disney on our last trip to Tokyo Disney:
Of course after the depression of the end of one Disney holiday we always cheer ourselves by starting to plan the next. Being that we have to travel overseas, and usually quiet far from our location (Perth is far from everywhere even the rest of Australia) we usually try and make a decent trip of it. We usually spend 4 weeks travelling and we will be gone for just over 4 weeks for this trip. The outline of our plans are as follows:
Day 1 – 5 February 2015 – Fly and Arrive in Los Angeles – Visit Long Beach and the Queen Mary – Accommodation – Airport Hotel LAX
Day 2 – 6 February 2015 – Fly to Orlando – transfer to Port Canaveral hotel
Day 3 – 7 February 2015 – Embarkation Day – Disney Fantasy – 7 night Eastern Caribbean Cruise
Day 4– 8 February 2015 – Sea Day – Disney Fantasy
Day 5 – 9 February 2015 – Sea Day – Disney Fantasy
Day 6 – 10 February 2015 – St Thomas/St John, US Virgin Islands
Day 7 – 11 February 2015 – Sun Juan, Puerto Rico,
Day 8– 12 February 2015 – Sea Day – Disney Fantasy
Day 9 – 13 February 2015 – Castaway Cay
Day 10 – 14 February 2015- Disembarkation Day – Kennedy Space Centre – Port Canaveral hotel
Day 11 – 15 February 2015 – Drive to Orlando – check into Hard Rock Hotel, Universal Orlando
Day 12 – 16 February 2015 – Universal Studios Florida
(without WWOHP – Diagon Alley – this is Presidents Day so I feel I should avoid the fray in the most popular part of the park that day but honestly – avoiding the area until the next day is going to be a little torturous – I figured we’d sleep in so the temptation is not even there!)
Day 13 – 17 February 2015 – WWOHP Diagon Alley early entry – WWOHP Hogsmeade and Islands of Adventure
Day 14 – 18 February 2015 – WWOHP Hogsmeade early entry – WWOHP Diagon Alley - REST
Day 15 – 19 February 2015 – WWOHP Diagon Alley early entry – WWOHP Hogsmade and Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure - Check into Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
Day 16 – 20 February 2015 – Magic Kingdom
Day 17 – 21 February 2015 – Walt Disney World resort hopping
Day 18 – 22 February 2015 – Discovery Cove
Day 19 – 23 February 2015 – Animal Kingdom/Hollywood Studios
Day 20 – 24 February 2015 – Fly to New York
Day 21 – 25 February 2015 – New York
Day 22 – 26 February 2015 – New York
Day 23 – 27 February 2015 – New York
Day 24 – 28 February 2015 – New York – Aladdin on broadway
Day 25 – 1 March 2015 – Fly to Los Angeles – check into the Camelot Inn, Anaheim
Day 26 – 2 March 2015– Disneyland
Day 27 – 3 March 2015– Disney California Adventure
Day 28 – 4 March 2014 – Disneyland /Disney California Adventure
Day 29 – 5 March 2014 – Disneyland/Disney California Adventure – Fly Home
Travel and Los Angeles/Long Beach
Our first day of travel is that wonderful ‘ground hog’ day where we feel like we’ve gone back in time leaving Sydney at 12:00pm on the 5 Feb and arriving in Los Angeles the same day only 2 hours later (except that we spent much more than 2 hours on the plane!). We will be booking a car in Los Angeles and touring Long Beach to stay awake until the evening to stive off jetlag, which hopefully won’t be too bad as we’ve managed to use frequent flyer points to upgrade our flights from Perth to Los Angeles and Los Angeles back to Perth on Virgin Australia Business Class – YAY!.
We looked long and hard for something we could do for the day in LA that we hadn’t done before. This will be our third trip and as much as I love Anaheim and Disneyland I don’t LOVE LA. I like it ok, but feel like we’ve done and seen much of what it has to offer. Then I came across information on the The Queen Mary, currently docked in Long Beach. The ship has an interesting history with the Disney company who owned it for a brief period and had planned to build its second west coast Park in Long Beach (these plans would eventually become Disney Seas in Tokyo). It seemed fitting then, especially given our plans to travel aboard the Disney Cruise line, that we visit this historic ocean liner, once owned by the Disney Company. We originally thought we would be arriving in Los Angeles much earlier than what we are so we had hoped to go Whale Watching also but those plans may have to be axed now (besides we have plenty of whales here in WA and so it’s necessarily a unique experience for us).
As mentioned, we have booked business class flights from Perth to Sydney to Los Angeles and return thanks to all the frequent flyer points my husband racks up travelling with his job. Whenever he is away on business I try remind myself all the travel goes towards us being able to travel more comfortably together when we do!
Disney Cruise – Fantasy – Eastern Caribbean – 7 nights
In starting to plan the trip I knew the first thing we had to book and work out was the cruise. Cruises are insanely weird holiday accommodation/tours when you think about it. Most accommodation and tours can only be booked 6 – 12 months in advance of the dates of travel but unless you book your cruise 15 months in advance you may miss out on a room. Well this is certainly true of most cruises, and I’m not if it’s necessarily true of the Disney Cruise Line but I wasn’t taking any chances on getting the room type I wanted or the cruise dates I wanted. I realize rooms are more limited than a hotel and dates are much less frequent but it is hard having to book that far in advance when even your flights are not set in stone yet (it also makes flights and flight dates much less flexible).
When we’d started discussing the idea of a Disney Cruise we thought it would be the perfect way to celebrate my husband Jared’s 30th birthday. He turns 30 on the 27 January and so we looked into cruises and flights during his birthday month. The problem is that January is the middle of the summer school holidays here in Australia and all flights were RIDICULOUSLY expensive. We are now leaving a week and a half after Jared’s birthday and our flights were much more reasonably priced!!
We decided to book an Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom with a Verandah , Category 5B. We are Room 8072 which I believe is on the Port or left side of the ship, somewhere in the middle of deck 8. We just decided, given it was a celebration trip (for Jared’s 30th, which is a big one) we wanted to splurge and get a verandah as we thought we’d like a private area to watch the ocean from during the cruise. I hadn’t read anything about views from either side of the ship until after we’d made the booking and didn’t honestly even think about it until after the room was booked, when I discovered the best views of Castaway Cay as you enter on the ship are usually on the starboard (right) side of the ship. Oh well!
I’m super excited about my first Disney cruise, well my first ever cruise really. After researching all the ships we settled on the Fantasy as it was one of the two newer ships and would be running the route we wanted to take through the Caribbean. The Fantasy seemed to have the best variety of entertainment, dining options and activities that would suit us.
We definitely want to try book a couple’s villa massage package but can only book that once we get on board (something that makes me a little nervous!). We also plan to book brunch and dinner at Palo because we’ve heard they are both really good and at $20 per person extra per meal a super cheap fancy dining option! We are also planning a few nights out in the Europa Nightclub/bar area which looks fun, along with seeing all the onboard musical shows (we LOVE LOVE LOVE musicals and are seeing 3 or 4 when we go to New York). We’ve seen Disney’s Aladdin a Musical Spectacular at Disney California Adventure twice now but will still see it again on the ship, and we’re glad we get a chance to see it before seeing Aladdin on broadway, so we don’t compare it unfavorably to that.
Since I’m not really a sit by the pool and relax type of person on holidays I was wondering how a Disney Cruise would suit me, however it seems as though there is plenty on the ship to keep a person busy if they wish to be. One area that I’m definitely making sure I have concrete plans for is out ports of call. I really want to see the best the places we are visiting has to offer and I really think that’s what the activities I plan to book offer, as well as being semi-relaxing too. Here’s what we were thinking thus far (please weigh in with any thoughts/experiences for those who’ve been to these ports)
St Thomas/St John – Champagne Catamaran Sail and Snorkel Tour – 4.5 – 5 hours
I absolutely love being on a boat on the ocean (which is why it’s very surprising I’ve never cruised before) and a relaxing trip with complimentary beverages to a nice white sandy beach sounded great for our first port of call. Though the adventure does offer snorkeling, I won’t really be participating in that. I have a bad nose and hate breathing through my mouth and freak out when I try to snorkel (I used to be able to as a kid so I’m not sure what changed) but it’s nice to know the option is there if Jared wants to or if I decide to be brave and give it a go.
San Juan, Puerto Rico – EL Yunque Rainforrest ATV Adventure – 5 – 5.5 hours
I’m very excited as well as nervous about this port activity. My husband has gone ATVing before on a work conference and loved it, and since this trip is to celebrate his birthday I wanted to book hotels, activities and fun he will enjoy. Of course most of the trip includes sights and activities we will both enjoy a lot together, however I’m not sure about this one. I am not the most confident driver in the world (though Jared tells me driving an ATV’s is nothing like actual driving) but I really want to give this a go for Jared’s sake. And I really want to trek through the rainforest without having to trek through the rainforest (yes I don’t mind a brisk walk or a day in a theme park but I’m not up to hiking!). The concept of this sounds wonderful but I’m just a little nervous about the execution! I wish you could seat 2 people on an ATV and then Jared could drive and I could relax, but alas it’s one person per vehicle. Still, it’s good to push your boundaries every now and then, and I especially want Jared to be able to experience this tour so really that should be the end of my griping!
Castaway Cay
While Castaway Cay is a great place to just sit and relax all day (from what I hear anyway) that’s not really my style so I figured I’d look into activities we could do at the Cay while there. Jared and I have always wanted to go jet skiing (yes terribly afraid of recreational vehicles on land but love the idea of them in the water! I’m weird I guess) and you can enjoy a 1 hour Watercraft Ski Adventure on Castaway Cay so that’s what I plan to book. I also just discovered that parasailing is on offer at Castaway Cay and I’ve always wanted to go parasailing so that’s on the to do list now – and I’m so excited about that one (I’ve seen a trip report with some lovely photos of the views from up on the parasail and it looks amazing!).
Port Canaveral Touring
So that’s basically it for the planned cruise info, I haven’t booked anything much yet as being a first time cruiser I can only book 75 days out but I have all my reminders in place so hopefully that will go off without a hitch.
We are spending a night in Port Canaveral or Cocoa Beach the night before and after the cruise. I think it’s a good idea to orient ourselves close to the port the night before the cruise and on our disembarkation day I really want to visit the Kennedy Space Centre. Well, if truth be told, Jared REALLY wants to visit the Kennedy Space Centre and I am mildly interested to as well. His grandfather lived in Carnarvon in country Western Australia and was an engineer who worked on the satellite dish there that helped catch the images from the moon during the moon landing in 1969, his father even has a medallion made of melted down parts of the eagle Apollo Lunar Module that landed on the moon, given to his father for his participant in the moon landing efforts! So Jared feels a bit of a connection to all this space stuff and really wants to go to Kennedy Space Centre. I’m really excited about the ‘Lunch with an Astronaut’ extra we plan to book and having the chance to chat to someone who has really been to space!
Universal Orlando
So the most exciting part of the trip for me is to be finally staying on property at Universal Orlando, for a trip to see the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter (WWOHP)– Diagon Alley. We will be staying 4 nights at the Hard Rock Hotel (which Jared is really looking forward to, as he is a musician and the theme really appeals to him) and doing 4 days in the parks. Staying on property of course gets us the great perks of being able to enter both sides of the WWOHP 1 hour before the general public each morning (a must I reckon for getting on the Escape from Gringotts Ride which regular has 3 – 6 hour waits!) and unlimited express pass to all the rides that offer that option (which is basically all the attractions bar the Wizarding World of Harry Potter headliner attractions).
We’ve never stayed on property at Universal before, because it is so expensive, but we usually do purchase the unlimited express option with our tickets. With the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley is so new though that I knew that staying on property would likely be worth it to avoid hour long waits just to get into the Diagon Alley area. Obviously the crowds will die down after summer but I do remember how busy the WWOHP - Hogsmeade was when we visited the April after it opened, and we are going the week after Presidents Day so I want to be prepared. Hard Rock Hotel is a great balance of fun, style and comfort, and the pool area looks amazing, hopefully we get a chance to swim in it and it’s not too cold for it!
My plans for attacking the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter are pretty much, avoid going to either area on the Monday of our visit (President’s Day public holiday) and use 2 early entries for Diagon Alley and one for Hogsmeade (we’ve done Hogsmeade plenty of times before), be at the parks 30 minutes before early entry and use the single rider lines at Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringott's whenever we want to ride in the later morning or early evening (we will not be riding in the middle of the day!). I have a few must do’s, other than obviously riding the two headliner attractions as many times as possible while the waits are short. These must do's include a trip each way on the Hogwarts Express, exchanging money at the Gringott’s bank exchange, having some clotted cream icecream from Florean Fortescue Icecream Parlour, trying Gillywater anf the Fishy Green (or whatever it's called) drinks made for Diagon Alley, trying out the interactive wands in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, have=ing some butterbeer in Hogsmeade, getting on BOTH sides of the Dragon’s Challenge coaster (they were only running the blue side on our last trip) and eating at the Leaky Cauldron. I may not have mentioned but I am the HUGEST Harry Potter fan (well fan of the books, I don’t really like the movies) so I am super excited to see one of my favorite fantasy worlds bought to life again at Universal.
Disney World
So this trip to Orlando is a little shorter than our previous trips because of the time taken up by the cruise, which means we are not going to spend a whole heap of time at Disney World. This suits me fine because, though I love Disney World, I love Disneyland much much more and we will be spending 4 days there at the end of our trip, so I won’t lament missing one of the parks at Disney World.
The original plan was to stay off property in Orlando during our visit to Disney World and just spend a day a Magic Kingdom (mainly to see the finished New Fantasyland and Seven Dwarves Mine Train) and a day at Animal Kingdom (my favourite park at the resort). However, we soon were enticed by the perks of staying on property (further advance FastPass + bookings and the ability to book restaurants like Be Our Guest from the start of our whole stay at the world, hopefully meaning we’d be able to get a reservation!). So we started looking at perhaps staying at Art of Animation which, being one of the Value Resorts, was within our price range.
Then, we were able to secure one of our internal US flights on frequent flyer points (which we hadn’t anticipated being able to do) and all of sudden we had the budget for a stay at a moderate hotel. But why stay at a moderate hotel when you can stay at a Deluxe! Jared REALLY wanted to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge (and it is his birthday after all), and so we started to looking at ways we might be able to do it (since we had some spare cash up our sleeves). We discovered the wonder of DVC rentals (which I had always just assumed were only available for US citizens for some reason) and were able to get a Deluxe Studio Villa with Savannah View for around $280 USD per night when I believe the rack rate would be around $541 - $622 per night for that time of year (based on 2014 prices – 2015 prices haven’t been released yet). So we made a HUGE saving (seriously who pays that amount to stay at Animal Kingdom during February – it’s no Miracosta at Tokyo Disney (with views into the Tokyo Disney Sea theme park - which we were happy to pay that $500 - $600 price for).
Originally we asked DVCRentals (the company we went through) to quote us a price on a standard view room (it was about $250 cheaper but we weren’t wanting to stretch our budget too much further) and they originally had availability but by the time we got back to them after the weekend (with dates and times being different here) the availability was gone (beware Australian travellers booking Walt Disney Accommodation through DVC rentals!). In the end though (after deleting a few superfluous activities from the budget) we justified the additional $250 and booked the Savannah view, which after all, as Jared says, is the reason to stay at Animal Kingdom in the first place and the reason why he wanted to! He stated that we better see a giraffe out the window to get our monies worth but considering how much we are saving on the actual rate, I’m not too concerned! A giraffe or too would be nice though!
We managed to get in in just the right time as there are two windows for booking with DVC rental points, about 11 months out from dates of stay (which we had missed – but less rooms are offered at this point) and 7 months out from the dates of travel, which was on the 19 July. Had we missed that date and gotten onto this any later we may have missed out on any room at all, so I would encourage anyone using DVC rentals to make sure to make the bookings with the rental company well before the 7 month date so they can get right on it when rooms become available (if they aren’t already available at the 11 month point). Given that DVC Rentals advise to book Animal Kingdom Savannah views 9 months out I think we have been pretty lucky! And seriously, for all you Aussies out there who like us have not stumbled upon DVC rentals before, do it! It’s so worth the money when you consider that we are now staying at a deluxe hotel for less than what it would have cost to stay at a moderate hotel and only slightly more than what it would have cost to stay at a Value hotel!
Anyway, as mentioned we are only doing 2 days in park at Walt Disney World, one day at the Magic Kingdom and one day at Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. I am also hoping to get a Be Our Guest Reservation for dinner (I want some more of that Grey Stuff! Seriously it's so good) but if we don't manage (I will be online exactly 180 days out from the first day of our stay which I think is 182 days out from our MK visit), I've discovered you can now make FP+ bookings for lunch and they are separate from the regular FP+ bookings so you don't have to use one of your three to make them, and that sounds like a good back up option.
We are spending another of our days while on Disney property visiting one of our favorite places in Orlando, Discovery Cove. I love the dolphins, I love the pools and the lush tropical foliage and everything about the place makes me relax, so we love going back to do it again and again.
We are also spending one day on property having a peek in all of the resort hotels, and eating a Beaches and Cream and the California Grill (as we have yet to really try any of the resort restaurants or experience other parts of the resort other than the parks). We are also going to do a helicopter ride over the resort that day which will be great fun! UPDATE - I've also decided to book dinner at Victoria and Albert's. I've always wanted to eat there but have been a little cautious because i'm not really into super fancy food but at the end of the day it's a 5 star rated restaurant, gorgeously decorated and we are going to give it a go as another of Jared's birthday dinners (he's going to get a lot of those!).
Oh and lastly, we've decided to do a helicopter tour over Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld to see it all from the air - i'm super excited about that!
New York
While it isn’t Disney related (bar one small Disney activity) I thought I’d include some information about our plans in New York. We always try to do a little non-Disney activity on our trips (the Caribbean counts a little as non-Disney, though of course the cruise itself is Disney) and we love visiting New York. One of the main draws for visiting New York yet again was to see Aladdin on Broadway. We are HUGE Broadway fans and will be seeing 3 -4 musicals while we are in New York. Because of this we've chosen a hotel right next to Times Square as the majority of the Broadway theaters are located in and around Times Square. The hotel is called Hotel Edison, a little 1920’s art deco hotel, but the rooms have all recently been upgraded and are very modern looking and what’s more wonderfully large for a New York Hotel. I won’t bore you Disney people with all our plans for New York during winter (yes we will be ice skating at Rockerfeller Centre!) but I am super excited about visiting this vibrant and wonderful city again – this will be my first trip there since 2011 (Jared was there on a work trip last year)!
Disneyland
And now to my favorite Disney resort (well it’s possible on par with Tokyo Disney but beats it out slightly in my opinion due to my nostalgia over the fact Disneyland was the first Disney resort Jared and I ever visited). We decided against staying on property at Disneyland. Rooms are super expensive for the on property hotels and, unlike our last trip at Thanksgiving, we are going at a fairly quiet time of year, so we decided to stay off property. Also I don't really feel the on property hotels at Disneyland are as well done as the on property hotels at Disney World (I'm not a huge fan of the Grand Californian, it's a bit dark, and Paradise Pier is very simply if you don't get upgraded to a theme park view - which we amazingly were last trip. The Disneyland Hotel rooms look gorgeous but it's a bit too expensive for what it is).
So we decided to once again stay in a hotel on our beloved Harbor Boulevard (we stayed at a hotel here on our honeymoon and were enchanted by the fairy lit trees). I had a feeling I’d be feeling very lazy at the end of our trip so we have decided to stay at the Anaheim Camelot Inn and Suites as opposed to our usual spot, the Anaheim Plaza Hotel and Suites as it’s literally right across the road from the entrance into the Disney resort from Harbour Boulevard. The hotel is charming in its own way (I love the tudor façade) and hey, we get a King bed and it’s also very reasonably priced! Considering the luxury hotels we are staying at in Orlando and the upcost of staying in a verandah room on the cruise, we felt it better to save our pennies for other things at Disneyland. We’ll be buying 4 day park hoppers and avoiding whatever park has early entry each morning so we aren't at a disadvantage by staying off property.
I’m so excited to see the REAL version of World of Color that I’ll be booking 2 World of Color dining packages for the 2nd and 3rd nights of our stay so we can see it twice (we really disliked the Winter Dreams monstrosity playing when we visited at the end of November last year).
I also plan to finally have a go on all the Fantasyland dark rides, and make them a priority one morning, as we never really have and therefore have never done any except Peter Pan’s Flight, as the lines are always so long. Still we have plenty of mornings this time around so I plan to make them a priority on one.
Of course we will continue to line up super early for a chance to be some of the first on Radiator Racers and since the park hours are likely to be 10am – 8pm this won’t be as hard as our last trip where we had to be up at 6am, and this time we'll only have to be at the park at 9am.
I’m also really looking forward to another delicious flatbread from the Hearthstone Lounge at the Grand Californian and trying Café Orleans pomme frittes for the first time (yes we’ve still never eaten there, it was closed on our last trip). We’re also going to try Napa Rose as I’ve heard great things about this restaurant and would like to give it a go.
Planning Conclusion
And so that is the plan, I’m so super excited (as is Jared who plans to abuse his birthday button as much as possible so he can have a month long birthday like I did on our Disney trip November last year.) Not only are we getting to experience our very first Disney cruise (or any cruise for that matter) we have been able to stay in deluxe accommodation on Disney and Universal property, see the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter, enjoy many fabulous nights on broadway and visit my favourite Disney resort, Disneyland. It’s really going to be an amazing trip and I can’t wait…
Additionally, since the planning of this trip is all well underway now and I am having planning withdrawals (yes I get planning withdrawals just as much as I get Disney withdrawals) I’ve started outlining a possible 2016 Asia trip to Universal Singapore, Shanghai Disney, Universal Japan and of course the marvelous Tokyo Disney Resort, with sightseeing in Singapore Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai and all over Japan (Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo the main points of interest). I’m super excited about the possibility of this trip because, if it all comes together and we go, it means I will have visited every Universal and Disney resort in the world bar Disneyland Paris (which I don’t imagine we will get to until we can finally afford a big trip to Europe – it’s just so much more expensive!)
So I hope you enjoyed this report about our upcoming February trip – I’ll be posting a trip report once we are done.
- How are things in Melbourne? My family lives over there but I haven't been in a while - I assume its cold though 
Rosa
