bettymae1121
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2010
- Messages
- 2,694
DH and I first went to WDW together in '04, and spent 8 nights at the Poly. It was a fantastic trip and we decided to go back on our honey moon in '05, we spent 6 nights at the GF concierge, also a fantastic trip!
Well, as the saying goes "life happens when you're busy making other plans" and we had a lot of challenges since we got married. DH's grandmother died in early '07, my mother died suddenly in fall of '07, I had a miscarriage in early '08. We also had some financial challenges, nothing like what many have gone through in the Great Recession but many more expenses croped up than we expected, so money was pretty tight. Our vacations consisted of either "stay-cations" or tacking on a few days at DLR after flying out to visit my family in AZ, or going to DC for the day when visiting DH's mom in PA.
Well, this year, things have finally settled down some, and financially we've gotten some traction. We have no car payments
and we are on track to pay off our CC debt by June 2012. So looking at the numbers, I decided that a 5 night budget trip to WDW would be doable. We wouldn't be able to spend a full week like we're used to doing, or staying at a Deluxe for that matter. But for a quick trip I figure we won't be at the hotel much anyway, so no real loss there. And we're planing a very long Poly trip in either '12 or '13 to celebrate being debt free. So this little trip will tide us over until then.
So, May 18-23 we are going for 5 nights and staying at POP with the DDP, which means this is our first trip staying at a value AND being on the dining plan.
Due to my work I get a certain number of airline tickets free each year, plus I earn frequent flyer miles on that same airline so I can upgrade from coach to 1st for just $200 (total for both of us round-trip). So our costs for the trip look like this:
$200 - 1st class airfare (also includes free checked bags)
$100 - parking at O'Hare for 5 days
$1085 - Five night package at POP w/DDP and 2 day base park tickets (free dining PIN)
$0 - 3 day non exp. park tickets left over from honeymoon
$100 Dinner at Fultons (oop since not included on plan - hopefully less but I'd rather over budget)
$100 Tips for meals and mousekeeping
$100 Misc. expenses and souveniers
Grand total $1685...not to shabby all things considered!
So here's our plan!
Tuesday - Run last minute errands such as going to the bank for cash, picking up any last minute things we need for the trip, that sort of thing. Cleaning the house, packing for the trip, printing boarding passes, and making my list and checking it twice. Then taking a sleeping pill so I'll get more than 30 minutes sleep, as I can't sleep when I'm excited.
Wednesday - Depart house by 6:30 AM, should be able to drive to O'Hare, park in E lot and take the tram, and be at Security by around 7:30 AM (give or take) for our 9:45 AM flight. Since we're checking bags I'd like to be there extra early!
Assuming the flight isn't delayed, we should land in Orlando at 1:20. We're using DME for the 1st time so I'm not sure how long that will take, but I can't imagine we'd be at our hotel any later than 3:30. We'll check in and be in our room by 4 PM. That should give us enough time to head over to DTD for our first dining reservation at Fulton's at 6 PM. After diner we'll wander around for a while before heading back to the hotel (possibly going to DisneyQuest using one of the "extras" left on our passes from our last trip).
Thursday - Our first full day in WDW! DH likes to sleep in, and our last Disney trip I swore to him that I would NOT insist being at the parks for rope-drop and let the poor man sleep in on vacation. I don't "sleep in" very well even at home, so I figure I'll get up at my usual time and go down to the pool to read for a few hours while DH continues to sleep. He can call me on my cell when he's ready to go, so I can head back to the room, drop off my Kindle, and head out. I figure we'll be in the parks most days by around 11 AM or so. So, our first day will be at MK, where we will play and have fun, have dinner at Tony's Town Square at 7 PM, then stay for Wishes and the evening parade.
Friday - Again, letting DH sleep in late, I figure we'll be at Ecot around 11 AM or so. This is a EMH day and Epcot is open until Midnight! I'll have to check (does anyone here know?) but I assume World Showcase still closes at 9 PM and it's just Future World that is open so late. If that is the case we'll concentrate on WS in the afternoon until our 5:30 at Chefs de France (our 1st time there, I'm excited!) and then play in FW in the evening, only taking a break to watch IllumiNations.
Saturday - DHS day! This day I may see if I can get DH going a little early as the new Star Tours will have just opened a few days prior to our visit AND it's Star Wars weekend, so I know the place will be jammed. We'll play there all day and have dinner at Hollywood Brown Derby at 5:30. Sadly no Fantasmic is showing that night so we'll miss it this trip. But that's okay, we have a busy day planned for Sunday so an early bed time is a good thing.
Sunday - We plan on visiting AK before doing our one and only park hop of the trip (our old passes were park hopers) and heading over to the Poly to eat dinner at the Kona Cafe before taking the monorail over to MK. It's our last night in WDW and we like to try to end our trips at MK. This night MK is open until 2 AM so we'll play, play, play until we're too tired to keep going, and then head back to POP.
Monday - Check out day!
Head back to the airport and fly home. Bye-bye Mickey!!!
Now some of you may be wondering...we have all these dinner plans, where are we having breakfast and lunch? Well, DH and I aren't much for breakfast in the mornings, so we'll likely either just skip breakfast or use our snack credits for something light. For lunch, we'll be using our quick-service credits at the closest quick-service place we happen to be near when we get hungry. Since I'm checking luggage I'll also be bringing some snack foods from home that we'll be taking with us to the parks (we travel with a backpack as DH has medication he needs to have with him at all times so we may as well pack some chips, fruit, and trail mix while we're at it).
So that's the plan! According to my handy-dandy computer we are t-minus 75 days until our trip! I'll write up a trip report once we're back.
Well, as the saying goes "life happens when you're busy making other plans" and we had a lot of challenges since we got married. DH's grandmother died in early '07, my mother died suddenly in fall of '07, I had a miscarriage in early '08. We also had some financial challenges, nothing like what many have gone through in the Great Recession but many more expenses croped up than we expected, so money was pretty tight. Our vacations consisted of either "stay-cations" or tacking on a few days at DLR after flying out to visit my family in AZ, or going to DC for the day when visiting DH's mom in PA.
Well, this year, things have finally settled down some, and financially we've gotten some traction. We have no car payments
and we are on track to pay off our CC debt by June 2012. So looking at the numbers, I decided that a 5 night budget trip to WDW would be doable. We wouldn't be able to spend a full week like we're used to doing, or staying at a Deluxe for that matter. But for a quick trip I figure we won't be at the hotel much anyway, so no real loss there. And we're planing a very long Poly trip in either '12 or '13 to celebrate being debt free. So this little trip will tide us over until then.So, May 18-23 we are going for 5 nights and staying at POP with the DDP, which means this is our first trip staying at a value AND being on the dining plan.
Due to my work I get a certain number of airline tickets free each year, plus I earn frequent flyer miles on that same airline so I can upgrade from coach to 1st for just $200 (total for both of us round-trip). So our costs for the trip look like this:
$200 - 1st class airfare (also includes free checked bags)
$100 - parking at O'Hare for 5 days
$1085 - Five night package at POP w/DDP and 2 day base park tickets (free dining PIN)
$0 - 3 day non exp. park tickets left over from honeymoon
$100 Dinner at Fultons (oop since not included on plan - hopefully less but I'd rather over budget)
$100 Tips for meals and mousekeeping
$100 Misc. expenses and souveniers
Grand total $1685...not to shabby all things considered!
So here's our plan!
Tuesday - Run last minute errands such as going to the bank for cash, picking up any last minute things we need for the trip, that sort of thing. Cleaning the house, packing for the trip, printing boarding passes, and making my list and checking it twice. Then taking a sleeping pill so I'll get more than 30 minutes sleep, as I can't sleep when I'm excited.
Wednesday - Depart house by 6:30 AM, should be able to drive to O'Hare, park in E lot and take the tram, and be at Security by around 7:30 AM (give or take) for our 9:45 AM flight. Since we're checking bags I'd like to be there extra early!
Assuming the flight isn't delayed, we should land in Orlando at 1:20. We're using DME for the 1st time so I'm not sure how long that will take, but I can't imagine we'd be at our hotel any later than 3:30. We'll check in and be in our room by 4 PM. That should give us enough time to head over to DTD for our first dining reservation at Fulton's at 6 PM. After diner we'll wander around for a while before heading back to the hotel (possibly going to DisneyQuest using one of the "extras" left on our passes from our last trip).
Thursday - Our first full day in WDW! DH likes to sleep in, and our last Disney trip I swore to him that I would NOT insist being at the parks for rope-drop and let the poor man sleep in on vacation. I don't "sleep in" very well even at home, so I figure I'll get up at my usual time and go down to the pool to read for a few hours while DH continues to sleep. He can call me on my cell when he's ready to go, so I can head back to the room, drop off my Kindle, and head out. I figure we'll be in the parks most days by around 11 AM or so. So, our first day will be at MK, where we will play and have fun, have dinner at Tony's Town Square at 7 PM, then stay for Wishes and the evening parade.
Friday - Again, letting DH sleep in late, I figure we'll be at Ecot around 11 AM or so. This is a EMH day and Epcot is open until Midnight! I'll have to check (does anyone here know?) but I assume World Showcase still closes at 9 PM and it's just Future World that is open so late. If that is the case we'll concentrate on WS in the afternoon until our 5:30 at Chefs de France (our 1st time there, I'm excited!) and then play in FW in the evening, only taking a break to watch IllumiNations.
Saturday - DHS day! This day I may see if I can get DH going a little early as the new Star Tours will have just opened a few days prior to our visit AND it's Star Wars weekend, so I know the place will be jammed. We'll play there all day and have dinner at Hollywood Brown Derby at 5:30. Sadly no Fantasmic is showing that night so we'll miss it this trip. But that's okay, we have a busy day planned for Sunday so an early bed time is a good thing.
Sunday - We plan on visiting AK before doing our one and only park hop of the trip (our old passes were park hopers) and heading over to the Poly to eat dinner at the Kona Cafe before taking the monorail over to MK. It's our last night in WDW and we like to try to end our trips at MK. This night MK is open until 2 AM so we'll play, play, play until we're too tired to keep going, and then head back to POP.
Monday - Check out day!
Head back to the airport and fly home. Bye-bye Mickey!!!Now some of you may be wondering...we have all these dinner plans, where are we having breakfast and lunch? Well, DH and I aren't much for breakfast in the mornings, so we'll likely either just skip breakfast or use our snack credits for something light. For lunch, we'll be using our quick-service credits at the closest quick-service place we happen to be near when we get hungry. Since I'm checking luggage I'll also be bringing some snack foods from home that we'll be taking with us to the parks (we travel with a backpack as DH has medication he needs to have with him at all times so we may as well pack some chips, fruit, and trail mix while we're at it).
So that's the plan! According to my handy-dandy computer we are t-minus 75 days until our trip! I'll write up a trip report once we're back.
