and we're back. [Walt, Wizards, and....Woolungasaurus?]

[kaoden39]

E is at a hard age. They want so much not to be babies anymore and they still are no matter what they think. How exciting that Robert will be there on Sunday. I am at that point right now in my planning that I just want teh trip to happen.

 

[bumbershoot]

Whew. Got him to nap. It wasn't easy, but I persevered, and was successful. My sweet kid woke up, not the monster that had been throwing crayons (and other things, that was just the last straw) earlier.

Now of course he's asleep again, bedtime, and my sis in law came home exhausted and couldn't watch any TV, so my brother went off in solidarity, and now here I am. Hum dee dum.....



So let's recap.

POSSIBLE, NOT BOOKED YET: Checkin Tues, checkout Thurs, Caribbean Beach Resort, pirate themed room just for the heck of it. NO park time, just relax, enjoy the place, look around, swim in their SIX pools.

BOOKED: Checkin Thurs, checkout Mon, Old Key West, 2 bedroom (dedicated, meaning just one door to exit/enter; it's not a random studio and 1 bedroom connected for that stay). Since family will be there, it will involve one or two "moving" days where we'll likely hit a park.

BOOKED: Checkin Mon, checkout Fri, Old Key West, 1 bedroom. If family leaves earlyearly on Monday, we won't hit a park. If they stick around after checkout and want a park, we'll hit a park. The day of checkout and moving on, we won't go to a park at WDW.

PLANNED, NOT BOOKED YET: Checkin Fri, checkout Mon, Royal Pacific Hotel at Universal. Looking at either the Harry Potter package (just for the hades of it) OR booking hotel through hotels.com (for the "rewards site" credit) and buying tix separately. Spendy, but we DO want to hit Universal, and that whole guest "front of the line" thing is really just too good to pass up, if we can swing it. Day of checkout might be Uni park, or might be no park at all.

BOOKED: Checkout Mon, checkout...Thurs? Animal Kingdom Lodge, Jambo House, 1 bedroom savannah view. WOO! Day of checkin might be Uni or will be no park. Once checked in, will laze about and check out the resort, ahhhhh.




As things stand, there are approx 11 days that I don't already have scheduled as "off" or Universal days. Meaning one day has to get dropped from the parks list, as we'll only have 10-day tickets.

Again with the "only"? Woman, please, this is a huge vacation and we are ridiculously lucky we can take it. My cousin's husband will be taking UNPAID time as he gets NO paid vacation...his normal vacation is the week or two during the year when his boss gets a wild hair to go off to Nascar, and closes the shop.

OK I've now been stuck for absolute ages after writing that, so I'd best just post it.

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

It sounds really good, your plans!! You're going to have a great time. I hate to mention it- but have you thought of any dining reservations? Don't wanna stress you out, if you haven't...

I haven't started planning ANYthing for Universal, yet. We are planning two days there too... sigh. Really wanted to get our freebie tickets purchased first, and now the cost per ticket just went up (# of FF miles). Boo. Hiss.

 

[kaoden39]

Looks great Molly. "Only" ten days, you crack me up.

 

[bumbershoot]

This trip is gearing up to be so long we'll forget what our condo looks like!


*************
I tried to post this last night but the boards went floopy.



Oh, dining....augh.

I definitely need to talk with my cousin, asking her if there are any places she'd like to show us during the family stay. I definitely have places I want to eat, but if I make a big plan for our "alone" time and then she wants to go to a few of those places, well, heck, we could just go there twice, LOL.

Maybe not such a big deal.


I've been writing out the budget. Interesting thing about such a long trip is that you can figure out the percentage of time you'll be away, and then just throw that percentage of the gas and food and dining out budget into the trip! So even if the money being *saved* is lower than you want right now, you know that, knock wood, there will be that money there at that point.

I'm also planning in overages. I've taken 20% of the food budget and set that as a tip budget. But in reality, even though DH likes tipping I've figured out that he rarely goes up to 20%. And not all of our food will be at sit-down places. So it's over what it ultimately will be. Which is good.

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

I did that too Molly for last year's trip. I figured out how much of our grocery bill we wouldn't be using and applied it towards the trip. We used the DDP, so I needed to factor that in, as well as what the tip would be for each meal. I even guessed every meal what i thought we might eat, so that I could see if indeed the DDP would save us any money. (It did, but not a lot- like maybe $100.)This year we are not doing DDP, so I need to figure out again all the money so that I have enough!!

I have made zero dining plans so far. I can't remember Molly, is it still 6 months ahead, or did WDW change it?

 

[bumbershoot]

They changed it, then changed it back. So it's 6 months again.

At least figuring out what we would order is relatively easy, being veggie and all. The wildcard is if we'll be ordering our own meals or sharing. It's a reason why we don't really want to do the dining plan on this first trip, because if it's hot and DH and I aren't hungry (like what happens at DLR) and we've paid, what, 41.99 per day for each of us, well, that's just not good.

We are still discussing it, though, since it's pretty easy to add the plan onto a DVC stay...and just for the heck of it I just looked up a package deal for the CBR possibility...of course that means we're buying at least one not-using-this-trip ticket (since we already bought E's ticket), but that gives us one up on the next trip, right?

 

[kaoden39]

Already planning the next trip?

 

[bumbershoot]

Well, I know we'll love it, and we have family there, etc etc, so sure! But really it's just that with a package of course you have to buy at least a 1 day ticket, and that ticket is valid forever, so buying a package when you already have tickets just puts you ahead for the future.

 

[kaoden39]

Like a savings account almost? It actually makes sense to me.

 

[bumbershoot]

Ooh the disney snowball is strong in you, I see....


I cannot let myself forget the woolongasaurus! Must make time for dinoworld...

 

[kaoden39]

Oh it is very strong in me. I am planning a trip with my BFF either later this year or after the first of the year to Disneyland as well as the one we are going on in less than a month.

 

[bumbershoot]

Sounds good!

 

[QueenDoOver]

Hi Molly!
I see that a lot has happened since last I happened by! What a wonderful trip you all are going to have and how fun to get to share it with family. I am very excited to hear your take on all of the different places and the parks.

Are you going to go to either of the water parks, or do you think it will be too cold?

We had to cancel our trip (again!). I messed up the companion fare and then it expired and I could not justify spending $2000 on airfare. Anyhow, I am trusting that it all happened for a reason, and am moving on for now. I'll get to the world with the fam some day!

For now, I will just live vicariously

 

[bumbershoot]

Hi!

I'm so sorry you had to cancel, but I was lurking in the Divas thread and saw that you were able to help out...I can never remember her real name....gah, you know who I'm talking about...

We're going to make a call on the waterparks when we get there.




We went to the SD Zoo yesterday. I'm not going to say that we've avoided DLR yet, because there is still tomorrow, but I'm thinking that we will indeed do so. And it's odd that I am glad about that, but the goal this year had been to avoid DLR and put all disney money etc towards WDW...so to have gone, unless my sis in law was with us (she pays for everything when she's around), would have been failing at that. There's perhaps some rigidity in my head, don'cha think?

I cannot believe how expensive the zoo here is. And anyone who thinks disney food is expensive hasn't eaten at the zoo. Bought E a kid's meal (with the same mac/cheese that they call "gourmet" and serve to adults, so taht was cool, and the sunchips and cookies it included were Eamon-safe!) and a box of fruit, and it was over $15. gah!

But it was fun, and we had spectacular timing for almost the whole day! Just kept walking up on cool moments, or zookeeper talks. Well, except for the offensive stuff the lion person was saying...hey, did you know that having stillborns means you just don't want to be a mother? Wow, how simple it all is, in lion-world. DH thought I was going to have a little chat with her about that, but I'm just planning a letter to them. That crap should be kept to themselves, not spewed to everyone. I know zookeepers get a bit TMI about their animals (the things I learned about elephant reproduction one day at Woodland Park Zoo still make my ears cringe), but what she was saying was just rude, IMO.

But everything else about the day was good.

I have learned that, for my skin, "sunscreen" means "really expensive lotion that makes me turn red". Ugh. I put the most sunscreen on ME, and I am the ONLY one burned.

DS continues to turn golden (through his sunscreen and hat), with a spattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose. THE cutest thing ever.

I'm already missing this trip, even though we have 2 total days left. Sigh.

 

[Sherry E]

Whew! I finally made it back here to comment!! Molly, as I have told you before, I always read all the updates but actually having time to comment is a different story. I have neglected the entire Trip Report section of the DL part of the DIS (including my own TR!) and I have neglected to comment here for ages. I manage to jump into a few threads on the main DL forum, and then I have to run off and do something else, and then the day is over. Where does the time go?

Anyway, I was actually secretly scheming to try to scrape up money to try to get another AP (or even a Hopper!), and would have attempted to meet you and E at DLR if you had gone there this week...but I wasn't able to scrape up money, so I guess it worked out for the best, as it sounds like you probably will not make it to DLR this trip (though there is still tomorrow, as you said). It seems that whenever I think work will be booming, it is not booming at all, and whenever I think I will have some time on my hands to focus on other things (like trying to get other work coming in or scraping up other money), then I get inundated with work!! So I never know exactly when I will have time on my hands to spare or money to spend!! It's always a play-it-by-ear kind of thing. But I wouldn't have been able to get a ticket or Hopper and deal with transportation money and all that this month. IT's not in the cards for right now.

I think I will go ahead and get the Disney Visa Debit, however. I think it's a good investment - especially if you don't have an AP. Getting the discounts and Rewards points would come in handy. I have a Chase Debit card now, and I guess all I have to do is upgrade online to the Disney Visa Debit and wait for them to charge me the $25 annual fee. Ahhh...but, if I time it right, the Debit Card will be free this year. See, when Chase just recently replaced my old WaMu debit with their own Chase debit card, they offered me some special promo deal where if I "enrolled" my new Chase debit card and paid 3 bills with that debit card by April 30, they would give me $30 (deposited into my account). Well, I enrolled the Chase Debit card, paid my 3 qualifying bills by April 30th and am now waiting for Chase to give me the $30 (it's supposed to be deposited by June 1st). And then, I will upgrade my debit to the Disney Visa Debit, and they can take their $25 annual fee for 2010 out of that $30 - so I am not losing anything, basically!!

I am envious of all the wonderful array of hotels you are going to be staying in during the big WDW/Universal holiday this year! I think the Animal Kingdom Lodge sounds like a great way to end the trip. Plus, AKL is one of the hotels that has a fabulous 'edible' and elaborate holiday display down in the lobby somewhere (made of Marzipan and similar things). You MUST take photos of that display for me!! I think I would love it there - I can't imagine that I wouldn't love AKL. This sounds like it is going to be one big extravaganza of a trip!! I can't wait to see photos upon photos upon photos, and hear your take on the massive entity that is WDW. As I have said before, I am so curious to know if you come back with the same opinion that Marie had - which was that WDW had a lot of great things, but overall, DLR has more "magic."

Have fun while in San Diego!!

 

[kaoden39]

We recently went to the Sacramento Zoo and frankly I thought their prices at the little pathetic zoo were as bad as Disneyland's. Sometimes I wonder.

 

[bumbershoot]

So the Sac zoo is that bad, eh?


Sherry, I'm sad I won't get to see, you, but since I wouldn't get to see you anyway b/c of your money stuff, it all worked out. Sigh.

Heck, I'm jealous of myself for this trip! And I keep forgetting that we're going when everything's all holiday-like. Why do I keep forgetting it? I'm quite sure I will be taking 18 million pictures, if the number of pictures I took at the zoo yesterday give me a glimpse into the WDW future, LOL.



I've been hiding out in the room almost all day. We're all out of sorts today, so I'm just keeping to myself. The guys, including my brother, are out swimming, but I don't want to. However, I don't want to squander my second to last afternoon/evening here, so I'm going to force myself to go out. Will wear a hat and perhaps put some sort of shawl around my burned shoulders, but I shall sit outside even if I don't get in the water (didn't think I could get tired of swimming!).

Have realized that my brother and I are VERY much alike. We both want lots and lots of control over our home lives...we are each "better" and "worse" than each other in different ways. Obviously it comes from our childhood and the instability there...possibly easier in his relationship with his wife b/c she comes from a really stable, loving, awesome home (though it must be said that her mom was such a freak during their wedding that she was on tranquilizers just to get through it, LOL), while my hubby doesn't come from a home like that (though his parents remained married to the end). So my sis in law is stable, while Robert isn't always, if that makes sense.

Anyway, it's interesting.


Gotta get outside. Don't want to waste this sunshine!

 

[kaoden39]

Yes, enjoy the sun while you can.

 

[Brady's Mom]

Molly,

Good for you for being so strong in sticking to your determination about avoiding Disney until your WDW trip. When you add up the money to travel from SD to Anaheim, pay for tickets, pay for food, travel back to SD it all adds up to some change that you could use for WDW. Giving you the big

Right now it wouldn't be hard for me to be close to DLR, and not go, after our last trip I am sort of Disney-ed out and ready for a break until maybe after the first of next year, then all bets are off and we may end up with AP's again.

Our AP's expire on May 25.