The Eat My Words "I Will Never Go In August" MEGA AUGUST Trip

[QueenDoOver]

Hi Pam! Hi Beth!

Ok, well, I better get on with the show...

I will, really, but right now I have to go fold and put away 3 loads of clothes that are on my bed because dh is coming home tonight and won't be happy if he has no place to lay his head

But before I get to that, I wanted to show you all our new shirt design. I am so excited! We did one of these in 2009 when there was 14 of us and it was really fun.

What do you think?? Our last group picture was at Goofy's Kitchen and the photographer was really great working with us. We are all having dinner at 50's Prime Time Cafe one night. Is there anyplace around there that would work for a great group picture? We could stop on our way to dinner. Or we could do the picture at Saratoga Springs or Bay Lake Towers too. Any ideas??

Ok, I'll be back...

 

[bumbershoot]

That's a fun shirt design!!!


Hey, I saw a post of yours on that "$300 a day" thread, and I wanted to mention another possible expense. Tolls. There are a couple in Orlando (if you go on 417 from the airport it's going to be two tolls of 1.25 and maybe one more of .75 if you go to the last Disney exit on it), but I've heard that many of the roads leading to Miami are toll roads AND require use of the transponder, in other words cashless. If you haven't looked into that already, please do!

 

[smile4stamps]

Hello!!

Wowsa that has to be difficult planning for SO MANY people!!

Congrats on getting the DVC!! I've been searching for months for my October trip. I am a Wyndham member not Worldmark though so it might show different availability. The farthest out I've seen on my searches is the first week of October but of course I need the 2nd and 3rd! I was hoping my week was going to come up this past Friday as every Friday for the last 2 months a new week has been added until this week! I'm so discouraged now!

As far as the dining plan. It gets really tricky trying to figure out if it is worthwhile! I've done spreadsheet after spreadsheet and have finally determined that I am better off paying OOP if I get an AP and TIW card. If I wasn't willing to get an AP and the TIW card than the dining plan would save me something like 1%!! Not exactly a huge savings!

I would DEFINITELY go for HDDR! We loved the show and REALLY want to go in October but have heard that is when the refurb is being pushed back till! I will be so upset if that is the case!

 

[mommaU4]

Love the shirt design! Very cute.

 

[QueenDoOver]

That's a fun shirt design!!!


Hey, I saw a post of yours on that "$300 a day" thread, and I wanted to mention another possible expense. Tolls. There are a couple in Orlando (if you go on 417 from the airport it's going to be two tolls of 1.25 and maybe one more of .75 if you go to the last Disney exit on it), but I've heard that many of the roads leading to Miami are toll roads AND require use of the transponder, in other words cashless. If you haven't looked into that already, please do!

Holy cow! I had no idea and will certainly have to figure this out. Thanks for the heads up!

 

[Trinity524]

We are going in August as well! We go August 18th for a week and then we go on our first Disney Cruise on August 25th! Keep up the chatter on your Pre Trippie because I need someone to talk to. My DH is on perm. ignore mode!!!

 

[QueenDoOver]

We are going in August as well! We go August 18th for a week and then we go on our first Disney Cruise on August 25th! Keep up the chatter on your Pre Trippie because I need someone to talk to. My DH is on perm. ignore mode!!!

Well hello Trinity 524! Geesh, sorry for the late welcome. I have been a bit consumed with life! Is that your darling little kiddo in the picture? Will it be his first disney trip? How exciting is that? And the cruise! Wowza! Now that I would love to do.

I actually just found out that my sister, who is a travel agent, can get really fantastic rates, space available! So my dream is to find last minute space on the Alaska cruise out of Seattle or Vancouver, since that is where we live. Sadly she can only book for 4 people at her rate, which leaves us to decide who to leave home. Think it will be my husband...

My husband is also on permanent ignore mode. I wish I could just remember to keep my plans covert, because it does stress him out. He just thinks about the money I'm spending. I think about the memories we are creating. I feel like my kids are growing up way to fast. My oldest will graduate in 2014. I want as many memorable moments with them as possible. Honestly, growing up, my family never vacationed at all. We did a little bit of camping and those are my best memories for sure. So I want my kids to have a lot of memories with their family. We camp, we vacation. Now if I could get them to spend more quality time cleaning the house with me!

 

[dana0801]

It could even be made into a photo rememberance. By moving the names down under the balloons (after your return trip) place good candid shots on top of the balloons and have it framed for each person as say a Christmas memento of your great trip together!

 

[QueenDoOver]

Grrr...I have done two updates and both have been lost when I hit submit! Why o why don't I just use word and then cut and past?????

 

[QueenDoOver]

Well, we have decided to go with no plan on week one and some of us will do the plan on week two (we have two units so can be a bit strategic about how we register people.

For now, our plans look like this:

8/14/2012 Arrival day
MK 8/15/2012 Tea at Grand Floridian
MK 8/16/2012
Epcot 8/17/2012 Le Cellier-OOP for 9 11:40 AM
ResortDay 8/18/2012
blizzard beach/resort 8/19/2012 None
MK for classes/Epcot 8/20/2012 5:00 Dinner Sci Fi Café Boys Askerhus Princess

DHS 8/21/2012 LunchBrownDerby11:00 Fantasmic Package for 11 OOP
Prime Time Dinner 6:40 PM

Typhoon Lagoon 8:00 AM 8/22/2012 5:15 Poly Luau for 6
AK 8/23/2012 Tusker House Breakfast 8:00

Le Chefs for 4 (Date Night) 7:00:00

Epcot 8/24/2012 Le Cellier lunch
ResortDay 8/25/2012

I am just quoting my self because things have changed and I thought a comparison might help. I had done a big post giving the back ground behind the change, but will have to redo that post, since it dissappeared! But thought I would give you the newest plan first

8/11/2012 Tracey and Nathan Arrive and check into 2BEDROOM BayLake Towers. PM Eat Counter Service unless groceries are delivered.
8/12/2012 Hogans arrive AM after flying Red Eye Nap/Pool/ CS and home food
8/13/2012 Tea at Grand Floridian OOP and home food Boys to Quest?
8/14/2012 Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon OOP and home food Everone else arrives Evening
Shelli and Alex check into Lion King Suite at Art of Animation
Epcot/MK 8/15/2012 12PM Teppan Edo Rodrigues 2 tscredits 2 cs
Planning on eating scallops, steak for dh
MK 8/16/2012 home food and 4 cs credits
Epcot 8/17/2012 8:00PM Tutta Italia Rodrigues/with Shelli 2 ts
Risotto Ai Gamberi E Aragosta-This is a rice, lobster, shrimp creamy cheesy dish, SOUNDS YUM
ResortDay 8/18/2012 Rodrigues/Wards check into SSR 2 Bedroom.
Hogans move to Lion King Suite at Art of Animation for one night.
blizzard beach/resort 8/19/2012 Hogans check into SSR 2 Bedroom
9:30 HoopDeDoo Review Rodrigues w/Shelli, Big Boys, Scott and Jack 6TS
Yeah! So glad we figured out how to squeeze this in!
MK for classes/Epcot 8/20/2012 Crystal Palace Shelli, Maggie, Tracey(no class for us) 1TS5:00 Askerhus Princess 1TS
No Park 8/21/2012 4CS DTD Quest
DHS 8/22/2012 Prime Time Dinner 11:15 AM for 11 OOP ENTIRE GROUP5:15 Poly Luau for 6 Hogans with Nathan- Rodrigues, and Wards Fantasmic?
AK 8/23/2012 home food and CS, 7:00 Le Chefs de France DATE NIGHT 2TS
Trio de fruits de mer au bouillion de homard - sauteed scallops, mahi mahi, and black tiger shrimp served in a lobster broth with gnocchi
Epcot 8/24/2012 CS and home food
ResortDay 8/25/2012 Change Resorts to CBR
8/26/2012 MK Last Park Day
8/27/2012 Leave, either to home or cruise


I added my plate choices for our dining. Can you tell I am a seafood lover?? I did decide to take out Le Cellier. Too many other better choices, and too many bad reviews. Also have minimized the scheduling with other families. Too difficult! I would still like to fit in Whispering Canyon some where, but otherwise I am pretty darn happy with what we have. There are a ton of great counter service places that we are looking forward to as well. I sure have given up on that idea of eating in the condo to save money! But I think it will be great to have some staples there to supplement at any rate!

 

[QueenDoOver]

There have been some changes in the plan…no surprise there, right??
Nathan and I are now going to arrive on the 11th, thanks to my achieving the companion pass status on Southwest. Even though we will have to pay $150 to redeposit our reward miles on Alaska Airlines, we will make part of that back because, since we will now arrive before the Hogans we won’t have to pay the $60 guest check in fee to RCI, and we will be able to bring 4 checked bags on the airplane for free. We knew we would likely have to pay to check at least one and maybe two bags on Alaska. So that is another $50, so really it is only costing about $40 to redeposit! I love doing vacation math! Anything to add a few days on…It did seem a shame to have that beautiful Bay Lake Tower room sitting there, that we were paying for and not using I also think it can only help us if we get arrived and start adjusting to the humidity.

Let me just say, as a long time Alaska Airlines fan, I am loving Southwest! Their program is so flexible. With award travel, you can book it, cancel it, rebook it, change it etc as many times as you want with no penalty! Add to that the free bags, and now the ability to bring someone with me for free for the next 1.5 years and I am a huge fan! Oh and did I mention that you can book any seat at any time! As long as you have the points, which are a direct correlation to the airfare being offered, you can book it! I LOVE it!

But I digress…My sister also has had a change of plans. As I may have mentioned, she is a corporate travel agent. She just recently received a new account to manage which is going to have her traveling right before our trip, helping pay for her airfare and allowing her to arrive in Florida earlier, although the first week she will still have to work all day from her hotel room. So, she received a special offer from Disney to stay at the new resort, Art of Animation, and allowing her to add the dining plan! So she booked it for 5 nights, we put 6 of us in the room and bought dining plan for week one for 6 of us. Woo Hoo! And that is how I ended up with the changed itinerary that I have! I have to say that if we did not have the multiple rooms and the ability to book the dining plan without buying tickets and without buying for all 11 of us, there is no way that we would want to spend that much on the dining plan, nor have that much food and dining commitment. Even with what we have, it seems like a lot! But I am looking forward to it, and I love that it is all paid for ahead of time.

OH, and Capri, you had asked what YES class my kids were taking, and it is the same one your guys did. The Energy and Waves one. It really was the only one that fit our schedule at the time. Although, now that we are arriving a bit earlier, it is possible that there is another one that Nathan could do, so I guess I could look into that.

So I am now ready to move into the “what other experiences do I want to have” phase. Any suggestions??? Just pretend like budget is no matter…

Thinking of Wishes cruise. They say maximum of 10 people, but we have 11, so not sure we could pull that off. Is there any flexibility in that?

What else have you done that has been super memorable?

We are also sort of thinking about canceling our cruise! It is just such a long vacation for us that it seems okay to shorten it up, but then I know we would miss those beaches and the snorkeling…

 

[QueenDoOver]

My other exciting news is that my sister has booked the last two nights of our trip for us at CBR. I am so excited about that. It looks really pretty!

 

[smile4stamps]

Okay... How do you get a free Companion for 1.5 years on Southwest?!?!

Cool you get to go for a few extra days!!

 

[rtfelt]

My family of 7 went the last 2 weeks of August last year--about the same time you'll be there. We planned for the heat and humidity (misters, fan/spraybottles, water bottles) and we were fine. I'm an anal planner, so everything, and I mean everything was planned. I would suggest going to TouringPlan.com and look at their calendar. They have the parks they would recommend you go on any particular day and the parks to avoid on any particular day (like never go to Epcot on Fridays because so many people go there for the restaurants on Friday). We used their recommendations and it worked. I also used ridemax.com to plan each day's itiniary in the parks. You can customize your touringplans for what you want to do. For instance, we wanted to go on Space Mountain more than once but didn't care about going on Dumbo (our youngest was 10, and as DL AP's we wanted to experience attractions that were different from DL). We were there for 10 days and the only time we waited for more than 10 minutes for any ride was TSM. That is the hottest ticket in all WDW--strange for a DL veteran. When you go in DHS, there's a mad rush for TSM fastpass. We were told the queue is way cool compared to DL for TSM, so we bipassed the fastpass, which doesn't let you see the queue, and got right in line, while one of my teenagers ran to get Rock-N-Roller coaster FP. We waited 20 minutes, which was fine because we were having so much fun taking pictures of the cute queue. That was the ONLY ride we waited for for more than 10 minutes, and we NEVER felt rushed. My husband and son even took a moment to rock on porch chairs in MK while the rest of us went on BTMR again.

The heat and humidity doesn't seem so bad when you only wait in line for 10 minutes I recommend TouringPlans and Ridemax to everyone going to WDW, who want to have a plan and not waste time--unless you want to waste time by relaxing. That can also be put into your schedule--even picture taking times

Teppan Edo was one of my family's favorites, so it's good you're going there. Don't miss the amazing Napoleons in the French Pastry.

The one thing that was impossible to plan was the weather. Every morning, I would look at the forecast and it had the percent chance of rain at about 2pm be at 40% onto 60% at 4pm. I mean EVERY SINGLE MORNING. On these days with the exact same forecast we experienced clear and sunny days all day to 4 hour downpours all afternoon. Unfortunately most of the days we had set aside for the water parks were the days we had a downpour with lightening starting at about 2 or 3 pm. The pools all have to be cleared if there's any chance of lightening. On the days when it was sunny ALL day (there were only 3) were days we were staying in the Theme parks the whole day. Oh well--best laid plans

Overall it worked out amazingly well and even my DH didn't complain

 

[bumbershoot]

Checking back in to your plans, and saying hi!

 

[LisaCat]

Lovin the shirt design! Sounds like an AWESOME trip. Wanna plan mine? LOL

 

[QueenDoOver]

Hi Everyone! Thanks for dropping by I have actually tried to do a response several times and darn if I could not get things to work. My laptop is having a problem with overheating which causes the darn thing to freeze up. Probably going to have to send it in, which I am not excited about at all!



Anyhoo...
Rose, so glad to hear that with proper preparation, you survived the august heat. I am hoping it will be bearable. But hey, if I am going to be hot and miserable then where else would I do it??

Hi Molly!

Lisa! I would gladly plan your trip, but I know you wouldn't really want me too

Don't you just love Southwest!

So latest news is that we are definetly cancelling the cruise. Oldest has decided to do showband again, and he will miss camp but if we go back on the 27th, he will still have a week before school starts to attend the last week of band meetings, learn his music and his steps. Good news is that now not only are Nathan and I arriving on the 11th, but Bill and Andrew will too!

Geesh, does that mean I need to rethink my ADR's and my park days??? We will still have our last two days at CBR, and I am thinking those would be great days to just relax and not go to any parks, so we may use our last day to make our first day sooner. Geesh, I never thought 8 days wouldn't seem like enough! And I am sure it will be plenty once we are there.

Though I am super excited about this trip, I have to say I am sad about DLR and missing the familiarity and wanting to see carsland and DCA.


OH, and I am using Touringplans. Haven't messed with it a ton yet though. I have used Ridemax in the past, but found I really didn't need it once I got the lay of the land.

A couple of other things I am excited for the kids to experience are the Agent P thing at Epcot. I think that will be a fun adventure. And then both my boys are excited to check out the new thing at Magic Kingdom.


Note to self: Read the Kingdom Keeper books. I bought them for my son a few years ago and he read them all, and thought they were ok. I tried the first one, but sort of lost interest and put it down. Hm....my youngest my be ready to read those too. He is heavy into reading Harry Potter right now, but it would be great to get him to switch it up!

 

[QueenDoOver]

Okay... How do you get a free Companion for 1.5 years on Southwest?!?!

Cool you get to go for a few extra days!!

Ok, here's what I did:

Apply for credit card when it had 50,000 point bonus. Immedietly also apply for the business card also with 50,000 point bonus. I was denied on the second one, which is typical. I called the reconsideration line and explained why I wanted a business account (I am a Realtor and wanted to track my business expenses seperately. Husband called for himself and said he traveled on business and wanted to track expenses seperately. They don't really care, if the credit history is there, and the income to support the credit) In my case, I have been out of work for a year and half, so they used my projected income based on my 15 year history in field, and then the did not grant me new credit, rather they adjusted my current chase credit lines, which was fine with me.

That gave me 100K points and I needed 110K for the companion pass. So I saw a Marriott Credit Card bonus for 70,0000 bonus points, and I knew that Marriott points converted to Southwest. I applied, called the reconsideration line again, was approved again. 45 days later had my Marriott points, 5 days later had the additional 10K points in my Southwest account, and had qualified for the companion pass. It did cost me $160 in annual fees, which I happily paid!

My pass came in just in time to rebook my trip to Vegas. Both of us went roundtrip for 20k miles. It had been only 14,000, but the smoke was bothering me a lot and so we rebooked our airfare last minute to come home early.

I can't tell you how excited I am about the next year and 1/2!

 

[disney-inspired]

Tracey, I found your PTR.
2 weeks in Disney, so jealous!

So great about where you're staying, too.

 

[QueenDoOver]

Welcome Cristabel! I'm terribly excited! My planning feels way out of control though...