GrumpyOne
Stresspuppy
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2000
- Messages
- 525
Thought I'd do a "planning the trip" report. The trip reports about the trips will appear after the trips. 
Dates:
Orlando: May 19 through 25
California: June 2 through 4
We had 1/2 planned on going to WDW in May 2001 but it didn't become fixed in stone until March. We arranged for seven nights in a Fort Wilderness cabin and got the screaming AP deal of $160 a night. Of course, this meant I had to buy an Annual Pass but since we saved $700, the savings more than made up for the little extra the AP cost. We have previously stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort and while it was nice, it was too hotelish. I prefer suites when I travel so the resorts I would book at was cut significantly.
Now that we have a place to stay, we need to get there. I have no urge to drive to Orlando from Phoenix so it's off to the travel sites. I had been watching a flight leaving Friday at mid day for $220 each round trip but that was before we knew for sure we were going. When I check that flight now, it's $100 more per person! Gak! More poking around shows that I can get the same non-stop flight back it's just the part going out that is more expensive.
I finally decide that we wouldn't be able to do much if we arrived at 8pm and there's a red-eye going through Vegas for the original price. I give America West a call and they say there are plenty of seats. "But wouldn't you want to leave 1 minute earlier and have a direct flight?" Huh? The itinerary I was trying to get had us change planes in Vegas but that day they were making a change. Now, the plane going to Orlando starts in Phoenix, then goes to Vegas. I, of course, agree that the direct flight is much better. My wife is happy because she wants to lose some money in the slots at the airport during the hour layover.
Once the flight is set up, I use some of my hoard of miles to upgrade us all to first class on the way back. I upgrade myself on the way out because while DW & DD can sleep in coach, I can't. This way we'll all get some sleep.
Now that we have a place to stay and a way to get there, now what? "Okay, we're here. Wave at all the nice people going into the park." My wife would kill me if we didn't get tickets! We have seven days we can visit the parks but will we all seven days? We eventually settled on six days in the WDW parks and one "other". I'm going to go to Islands of Adventure and DW & DD are going to go to Disney Quest.
I call AA, "We only have five day Park Hopper passes." Like everyone goes for the same amount of time and never wants to go to a water park? I finally go over to the Disney store and get an adult and child 6-day Park Hopper Plus pass. I don't claim to be a Disney Club member but they give me the discounted price. The clerk catches it before I do, I'm not paying too much attention, but they decide since it's their fault, they're not going to charge the difference. They give me the passes and I'm off.
*Slap upside the head*
How the heck are we going to get around? I won't wait for Disney buses so that means we rent a car. Avis has a nice deal going on for web reservations for central Florida and I end up with an intermediate sized car for $150 plus tax and fees. For literally a few more dollars I could also have had a full sized car but DW isn't used to driving a car that big and she'll be driving some. I'm aware Dollar and Budget have better deals but I shop on convenience, courtesy then money. I prefer to not be hassled about buying the insurance or getting a less than clean car. I only rent from the agencies that target business travellers.
We can get to Orlando? Check! Get to the park? Check! Get into the park? Well, two of us can, I'm buying my AP when we arrive. Have a place to stay? Check! Can we eat? ... Hello? Hmmm, we need food!
On our trip in May '99, we liked the 50s Prime Time Cafe in MGM and Akershus in Norway in Epcot. From the boards we decided we also want to try Tony's (Breakfast PS), the Villians Dinner at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian, the Hoop Dee Doo Revue and Teppanyaki in Japan at Epcot. I also arrange for the Pirate Cruise for DD on Thursday. When I first called, they were all booked up but when I called 30 days out, they had room. I also arranged for the Family Magic tour as well and we're going to arrange the Fantasmic Dinner and try for Mama Melrose.
So far, the planning has been exacting because we want to meet some people there on specific days as well as do as much as possible. I'm trying to be flexible about what we do so that when we go to AK, we know what we want to do first but we don't have a commando schedule. Without this level of planning we wouldn't have been able to fit everything together as easily.
I knew that the FCC had released certain frequencies for public use and read with interest how people were using the two-way FRS radios in the parks. I considered getting the license for the GMRS radios but decided that the "5 mile" range wasn't worth the extra cost of the radios or hassle of getting an operators license and there's no license required for FRS. After reading a lot of technical material and reading reviews I finally tested some and decided to buy the Cobra 315 radios. Many people seem happy with their Motorolas but the Compander stinks if you're talking to non-MOT devices. The Cobras I bought have the 14 channels, 38 subchannels, scrambling, call tone alert, vibration, weather reports & weather alerts. They had every feature every other radio claims to have and they work with other brands. They were also the cheapest ($130 for the two of them at the cobra web site http://www.cobra.com) of the high end devices and I would have had to go to licenced devices (GMRS) to do better. I really thought about the Cherokees with their 47 subchannels but they didn't have the voice scrambling or weather features. If it starts getting cloudy I can listen and see when it's going to rain. I only wish there was encyrption, even simple DES, but the FCC doesn't allow it yet.
I also bought a digital camera. I'm not someone who likes to have stacks of pictures, like DW, or shoots professional level photos like my mother. I want pics and hate dealing with film. I did a lot of research here as well and ended up with the Olympus 490. A 2.1 megapixel camera with lots of features. I figure I'll do a lot of "point & shoot" pics at 640x480 resolution and then for the important pics I'll do a better resolution. As long as the shot isn't blurry, I should be able to make 8x10 prints out of shots taken at high resolution. In order to take the pictures, I found Egghead.com had a sale on SanDisk (a name brand in memory) memory so I bought 2 64mb chips. They were $140 with tax but I can now store over 1300 pictures at 640x480 or 260 at 1600x1200 resolution.
I thought about a GPS unit but we had an pet get hurt and need surgery. Maybe for the next trip. I did remember my pocket tape recorder so I can take notes while in the park. I'd like to put together a trip report when I'm done, the problem is remembering the details. I tried keeping notes when we went to Disneyland last year and that didn't work out well.
Now, with all of this, I find out I'll be spending two weeks in San Diego once we get back. We come home from WDW on Saturday and I'm off to SD on Monday. I decide to drive out, saving the company money, and bring DW along. Now that I have three days off what am I going to do? Head to LA and hit the parks! <My credit card will hate me!> We've never been to DCA and I've never been to Magic Mountain. How we're going to mix those two with DL on a Saturday, Sunday and Monday remains to be seen. But I'm kind of looking forward to doing eight parks in ten days.
Dates:
Orlando: May 19 through 25
California: June 2 through 4
We had 1/2 planned on going to WDW in May 2001 but it didn't become fixed in stone until March. We arranged for seven nights in a Fort Wilderness cabin and got the screaming AP deal of $160 a night. Of course, this meant I had to buy an Annual Pass but since we saved $700, the savings more than made up for the little extra the AP cost. We have previously stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort and while it was nice, it was too hotelish. I prefer suites when I travel so the resorts I would book at was cut significantly.
Now that we have a place to stay, we need to get there. I have no urge to drive to Orlando from Phoenix so it's off to the travel sites. I had been watching a flight leaving Friday at mid day for $220 each round trip but that was before we knew for sure we were going. When I check that flight now, it's $100 more per person! Gak! More poking around shows that I can get the same non-stop flight back it's just the part going out that is more expensive.
I finally decide that we wouldn't be able to do much if we arrived at 8pm and there's a red-eye going through Vegas for the original price. I give America West a call and they say there are plenty of seats. "But wouldn't you want to leave 1 minute earlier and have a direct flight?" Huh? The itinerary I was trying to get had us change planes in Vegas but that day they were making a change. Now, the plane going to Orlando starts in Phoenix, then goes to Vegas. I, of course, agree that the direct flight is much better. My wife is happy because she wants to lose some money in the slots at the airport during the hour layover.
Once the flight is set up, I use some of my hoard of miles to upgrade us all to first class on the way back. I upgrade myself on the way out because while DW & DD can sleep in coach, I can't. This way we'll all get some sleep.
Now that we have a place to stay and a way to get there, now what? "Okay, we're here. Wave at all the nice people going into the park." My wife would kill me if we didn't get tickets! We have seven days we can visit the parks but will we all seven days? We eventually settled on six days in the WDW parks and one "other". I'm going to go to Islands of Adventure and DW & DD are going to go to Disney Quest.
I call AA, "We only have five day Park Hopper passes." Like everyone goes for the same amount of time and never wants to go to a water park? I finally go over to the Disney store and get an adult and child 6-day Park Hopper Plus pass. I don't claim to be a Disney Club member but they give me the discounted price. The clerk catches it before I do, I'm not paying too much attention, but they decide since it's their fault, they're not going to charge the difference. They give me the passes and I'm off.
*Slap upside the head*
How the heck are we going to get around? I won't wait for Disney buses so that means we rent a car. Avis has a nice deal going on for web reservations for central Florida and I end up with an intermediate sized car for $150 plus tax and fees. For literally a few more dollars I could also have had a full sized car but DW isn't used to driving a car that big and she'll be driving some. I'm aware Dollar and Budget have better deals but I shop on convenience, courtesy then money. I prefer to not be hassled about buying the insurance or getting a less than clean car. I only rent from the agencies that target business travellers.
We can get to Orlando? Check! Get to the park? Check! Get into the park? Well, two of us can, I'm buying my AP when we arrive. Have a place to stay? Check! Can we eat? ... Hello? Hmmm, we need food!
On our trip in May '99, we liked the 50s Prime Time Cafe in MGM and Akershus in Norway in Epcot. From the boards we decided we also want to try Tony's (Breakfast PS), the Villians Dinner at 1900 Park Fare in the Grand Floridian, the Hoop Dee Doo Revue and Teppanyaki in Japan at Epcot. I also arrange for the Pirate Cruise for DD on Thursday. When I first called, they were all booked up but when I called 30 days out, they had room. I also arranged for the Family Magic tour as well and we're going to arrange the Fantasmic Dinner and try for Mama Melrose.
So far, the planning has been exacting because we want to meet some people there on specific days as well as do as much as possible. I'm trying to be flexible about what we do so that when we go to AK, we know what we want to do first but we don't have a commando schedule. Without this level of planning we wouldn't have been able to fit everything together as easily.
I knew that the FCC had released certain frequencies for public use and read with interest how people were using the two-way FRS radios in the parks. I considered getting the license for the GMRS radios but decided that the "5 mile" range wasn't worth the extra cost of the radios or hassle of getting an operators license and there's no license required for FRS. After reading a lot of technical material and reading reviews I finally tested some and decided to buy the Cobra 315 radios. Many people seem happy with their Motorolas but the Compander stinks if you're talking to non-MOT devices. The Cobras I bought have the 14 channels, 38 subchannels, scrambling, call tone alert, vibration, weather reports & weather alerts. They had every feature every other radio claims to have and they work with other brands. They were also the cheapest ($130 for the two of them at the cobra web site http://www.cobra.com) of the high end devices and I would have had to go to licenced devices (GMRS) to do better. I really thought about the Cherokees with their 47 subchannels but they didn't have the voice scrambling or weather features. If it starts getting cloudy I can listen and see when it's going to rain. I only wish there was encyrption, even simple DES, but the FCC doesn't allow it yet.
I also bought a digital camera. I'm not someone who likes to have stacks of pictures, like DW, or shoots professional level photos like my mother. I want pics and hate dealing with film. I did a lot of research here as well and ended up with the Olympus 490. A 2.1 megapixel camera with lots of features. I figure I'll do a lot of "point & shoot" pics at 640x480 resolution and then for the important pics I'll do a better resolution. As long as the shot isn't blurry, I should be able to make 8x10 prints out of shots taken at high resolution. In order to take the pictures, I found Egghead.com had a sale on SanDisk (a name brand in memory) memory so I bought 2 64mb chips. They were $140 with tax but I can now store over 1300 pictures at 640x480 or 260 at 1600x1200 resolution.
I thought about a GPS unit but we had an pet get hurt and need surgery. Maybe for the next trip. I did remember my pocket tape recorder so I can take notes while in the park. I'd like to put together a trip report when I'm done, the problem is remembering the details. I tried keeping notes when we went to Disneyland last year and that didn't work out well.
Now, with all of this, I find out I'll be spending two weeks in San Diego once we get back. We come home from WDW on Saturday and I'm off to SD on Monday. I decide to drive out, saving the company money, and bring DW along. Now that I have three days off what am I going to do? Head to LA and hit the parks! <My credit card will hate me!> We've never been to DCA and I've never been to Magic Mountain. How we're going to mix those two with DL on a Saturday, Sunday and Monday remains to be seen. But I'm kind of looking forward to doing eight parks in ten days.
