Are We Going to WDW? Yes. No. Yes. No. - A Hopefully December 2013 Pre Trip Report

[aprylann28]

Hi, everybody. Welcome to my first ever pre-trip report. I have read so many trip reports here and have loved them all, so I just had to write one of my own.

This is for my family’s first ever Disney World Vacation. Not only is this our first Disney vacation, it is also our first family vacation of any kind.

It is majorly early since we are not planning on going until December 2013, but I want to write this so much I just couldn’t wait.

I hope you enjoy.

 

[aprylann28]

The Cast of Characters

The Details of Our Trip

The Origin of My PTR Title

From Deluxe Camping to Free Pop

I Got Lost

A Friend Leads Me Back

My Thoughts on FastPass+

The Newest Bump in the Road - 2/17/13

Not Going This Year

 

[aprylann28]

Meet my cast:

This is me and DH, Chris.

I am April, 37 year old wife and mother of four wonderful children. I will be 38 by the time we get to Disney World. I love all things Disney. My most favorite Disney movies are Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan. I was fortunate enough to be able to go the Magic Kingdom with my dad and grandparents three times when I was a child, but I have never gotten to go to any of the other Disney World parks. I did get to go to Disney Land once as an adult, but I did not find it to be as impressive as I remembered the Magic Kingdom to be.

Chris is 36 and will still be 36 by the time we get to Disney World. His birthday is in late December, so we are going to somewhat be celebrating his birthday while we are there. Chris is not a huge Disney fan, but he went to the Magic Kingdom a few times as a child, and he wants our kids to be able to experience it at least once. So this trip was somewhat his idea. He has never been to the other three Disney World parks or to Disney Land. His favorite Disney movie is The Jungle Book (the animated version, not the live action one).

This is Chris Jr. (aka CJ)

CJ is 16 right now but will be 17 by the time we go to Disney World. Hopefully he’ll be able to help with some of the driving. He is your typical teenage boy. He is into football, bowling, and video games. He is a wonderful son and is absolutely great with his younger siblings. His favorite Disney movie is The Lion King.

Here we have Noah.

Noah is 10 but will be 11 by the time we leave. He loves bowling and video games and asks a million questions about a million things every day. Right now he is not too thrilled about going to Disney World. Noah is a huge Harry Potter fan and would much rather go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios than to Disney World. However, some friends of mine went to the World last year, and they used some of their pictures on their Christmas cards. When Noah saw the picture of my friend’s kids in front of Cinderella’s Castle, his eyes got really big and he said “Oh my gosh! We have to go there!” So hopefully by this time next year we will have a new Disney convert. Noah’s favorite movie is ….. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. However, since I made him pick a Disney movie he chose Pirates of the Caribbean.

Now comes my only daughter, Mary.

Mary is 8, but will be 9 by the time we get there. Do you see a pattern forming here? Oh well, that’s what I get for starting a PTR at the beginning of the year. Anyway, Mary is absolutely a girly girl. She loves the Disney Princesses, makeup, frilly clothes, purses, and high heels. Next to me, she is the one who is most excited about this trip. Mary also likes to bowl, but she is not into it as much as her brothers and dad. Her favorite Disney movie is The Little Mermaid.

And last but certainly not least is Nicholas.

Nicholas is 3 and amazingly will still be 3 when we go to the World. He is the light of all our lives. He is just one big ball of energy, constantly on the go, and loves to run. He is very loving and affectionate, and is an absolute joy to be around. He doesn’t watch a lot of TV, but he is totally into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I think that’s part of the reason that Chris decided we should go to Disney World.

Also coming on this trip with us will be:

My MIL, Ann.

Ann is the best mother-in-law a woman could ever ask for – IMHO. We have our share of disagreements, but for the most part we get along really well. She is a wonderful person who is also totally into bowling and she loves watching football. She takes care of Nicholas during the day and the other kids after school while Chris and I are at work. She does this for free and has also helped us out of some bad financial situations a few times. So we decided to invite her along on our trip as a thank you for all she does for us. I don’t think she is really all that into Disney stuff, but she is excited to be going on this trip with us. She also has only been to the Magic Kingdom in Florida, so going to the other parks will be a first for her, too. When I asked what her favorite Disney movie is she told me she doesn’t think she really knows a Disney movie from any other movie. After I explained some of them to her, she chose Pocahontas, even though she’s never actually seen it. She loves Indians and has Indian blood in her.

And my mom, Lynda.

I know this sounds cheesy, but my mom is absolutely my best friend. Due to some problems my mom had when I was little, I was raised by my grandparents. But I started getting close to my mom again when I was around 15 years old, and she is now my best friend. She was even my maid of honor in my wedding (or matron, whatever). My mom has always supported me in anything I do, even if she doesn’t always agree with it. She also has helped Chris and me out a lot, so we invited her along on this trip as well. At this point we are not sure if Mom will be coming with us. She wants to go, but she insisted that she would pay her own way. But she became very ill right before Christmas and even though she is about 90% better now, her doctor doesn’t want her going back to work just yet. So she’s not sure if she will have the money to pay her own way, and she insists that Chris and I are not allowed to pay her way. I’m hoping she changes her mind by the time we are ready to book so I can include her right from the get go. She likes Disney stuff, but not nearly as much as I do. Her favorite Disney movies are Lady and the Tramp and Beauty and the Beast.

So that's our group for Disney World. Up next: Our Trip Details.

 

[aprylann28]

First, I want to apologize for the huge pictures on my last post. I am new to this and need to figure out how to get all my pictures to be the size of the last one of my mom.

Anyway, on with the report:

Our desired dates are November 30, 2013 through December 7, 2013. But we are keeping our dates flexible in hopes of getting free dining. We will be driving from Cincinnati, OH, which I estimate to be a 16 hour drive including stops. My friend who went last year said they made it to Disney World in only 11 hours, but they drove straight through the night. On their way home, they took two days and she said that it took them a total of about 15 hours. So I figure estimating 16 hours gives us a little extra time if we may need it.

We have not decided yet if we are going to drive straight through at night or take two days. I figure that can wait until all our other plans are final.

We are planning on staying at Pop Century. I am hoping to be in the 80’s building because I love the 80’s. However, I know mom and MIL would love the theming in the 50’s or 60’s buildings, so I will be satisfied with those, too.

Why are we going on this trip?

1. Because we want to.
2. To celebrate Chris’s birthday, which is in late December.
3. To celebrate Nicholas’s birthday, which is in mid-January.
4. To celebrate mine and Chris’s fifth wedding anniversary, which is in
August.
5. To celebrate Christmas. We won’t actually be celebrating Christmas at
Disney World, but we are excited about getting to see the Christmas
decorations on our first trip.

Dining Plan: We are hoping to get the free dining promotion that is usually offered around the time that we are planning on going. We are staying at Pop Century so if free dining is offered it will be the quick service plan, but we will pay the difference to upgrade to the regular plan. There are a few TS restaurants we want to eat at.

 

[aprylann28]

We have been planning this trip since March of 2011. DH shocked the heck out of me when he sat at the dinner table one night and made the announcement that we were going to Disney World in 2012. Of course, this got all the kids very excited.

We could not afford to go to Disney World. So after dinner I sent the kids to their rooms to talk to DH in private. He had decided that if we buckled down and saved for one year, we could go to Disney World. I didn’t think we’d be able to save the money, but I agreed to at least check out prices.

At that time he wanted to camp at the KOA campground in Kissimmee that his family had stayed at when he was a kid.

After a lot of research we decided to stay at Disney’s Ft. Wilderness Campground and buy the Deluxe Dining Plan so we could eat like royalty without having to cook the food and clean the dishes ourselves.

We decided to go the week before President’s Day in 2012 based on a crowd calendar we had found online.
We booked the trip, paid the deposit, and then made another $200 payment about a month later.

Two weeks after I booked all the ADR’s for our trip, my husband found out he had a severe hiatal hernia. So severe that they got him into surgery the very next day. He was off work for six weeks, which put a strain on us financially. We weren’t going to be able to save enough money to make our final payment that was due in December 2011.

After some discussion we decided to see if we could reschedule our trip for the first week in December 2012 instead of cancelling it altogether. Our travel agent said we could, so we did. Of course, I had to cancel all the ADR’s I had made and wait several more months before I would be able to make them again.

Things were good going into 2012. We had managed to save up a little more than half the money we needed for our trip, and our new ADR date was getting close. But about a month before I could make our ADR’s again, my car broke down and it cost us $5,000 to fix it. Where did we get that money from? You guessed it – our Disney savings. At this point we would not have time to resave that money and save the rest of it by the time our final payment was due. So we had to change our trip again.

At this point we did decide to cancel the trip completely because it was pointless to keep a trip booked if we couldn’t pay for it. We are going to try to save enough money to go in December 2013. But we are not booking the trip this time until we have at least 75% of the money already saved. So, hopefully we are going to Disney World in December 2013.

 

[aprylann28]

So, how did we get from staying at Ft. Wilderness with the DxDP to staying at Pop Century with Free Dining?

After we had to cancel our trip and decided not to book again until we had 75% of the money saved, we started looking for ways to make our vacation cheaper. I had heard about the free dining promotions that are often offered in November and December, but I also knew we could not get that if we were staying at Ft. Wilderness.

So, just out of curiosity, I decided to price out our vacation if we stayed at one of the value resorts and got the free quick service dining plan. Of course, I had to price it out with 2 rooms since we are going to have eight people.

After looking at pictures of all the value resorts, I decided Pop Century looked like the most fun. So I calculated the room rates and added the cost of our tickets in, and guess what! This would actually be a cheaper option. Plus, if we don’t have to tow the camper, it should save us on gas, too.

I talked it over with Chris, and he was okay with staying in a hotel, but he wasn’t sure about the QSDP. He was willing to give up the DxDP to save money, but he at least wanted the Regular Dining Plan so we could have a few nice sit down dinners.

So I did some research and found out that you can upgrade from one plan to another during free dining by paying the difference between the two plans. So, I calculated what it would cost us to go from the QSDP to the Regular plan and from the QSDP up to the DxDP.

We decided that the DxDP was just too much money, even if we did only have to pay for the difference. We also decided that eating like kings everyday would take up too much valuable ride time. So we decided to just pay the fee to upgrade to the Regular Dining Plan and stay at Pop Century.

I had also priced out staying in 2 rooms at a moderate resort or getting a villa at one of the deluxe resorts, so that we could get the Regular Dining Plan for free, but Pop Century with the dining upgrade turned out to be the cheapest option.

I still want to stay at Ft. Wilderness someday because I think it looks absolutely beautiful there. But we will save that for a future trip when we may not be so mesmerized by all the Disney restaurants.

 

[happybelle]

You need a reader. Hi.

 

[aprylann28]

You need a reader. Hi.

Welcome and thanks for joining in. Hopefully more people will come along soon.

 

[SarahSlink]

Hello! Gonna follow along with your PTR as we are hoping to go at the same time!

 

[Alysa]

Hi April, What a great cast of characters - sounds like you will have a great time! Can't wait to hear your details! Sending pixie dust that your mum will be able to make it!

 

[happybelle]

I am still here. Keep writing, others will join.

 

[aprylann28]

Hi to all of you who have joined and are reading along. I am so grateful you have decided to follow along on my journey.

Now, on with the update:

At some point after we moved our trip from February 2012 to December 2012 I decided that if we were going to shell out the money to go to Disney World, then we needed to make the most of our time there, and it was up to me to make sure that happened. After all, I was the one who had been doing all the planning and research even though it was Chris’s idea to go to Disney World.

I got a thought in my head that this would be a once in a lifetime trip, and we may never get to go back. So I decided that we were going to see every single show and ride every single ride in all four parks. And we were going to have to do all this in five days.

Those of you that know better, please feel free to laugh at me now.

For the first half of 2012, I did almost nothing in my spare time except try to plan out every single minute of every single day that we were going to be at Disney World. I had started by trying to make my own itineraries, but then I discovered touringplans.com. I paid the fee to get a full subscription and found the information offered on their site to be invaluable. I ended up with several customized touring plans for each park that, believe it or not, would allow us to do everything.

But then I took a closer look at those plans that seemed so perfect at first, and I realized something. Everything was so jam packed, that there was no room for relaxing. There were breaks of 5 minutes here or 10 minutes there, but then we had to rush on to the next thing. This was not exactly what I wanted. I wanted some flexibility in the plans to allow for restroom breaks or meals that took longer than expected. I wanted flexibility to be able to stop for a snack if we got hungry in between meals. But, I also did not want to miss one single attraction. But would our elderly moms and the kids be able to keep up such rigid schedules?

So I went back to trying to make my own itineraries that included all attractions plus more relaxing time. That was proving to be impossible, so I decided we needed one more park day. Then two more park days. Then three more park days. At one point I was convinced that we were going to have to find a way to go to Disney World for 2 weeks and have at least 10 full days in the parks. This was the only way to make my plans work.

Now don’t get me wrong. I would love to go to Disney World for 2 weeks and spend 10 days in the parks, but it just wasn’t possible. We didn’t have that kind of money. We also don’t get enough vacation time from our jobs to spend that long at Disney World.

Over the next few months I continued to obsess over this. I started crossing things off the list. The kids weren’t really interested in that ride, I wasn’t really interested in that show, there’s a rumor that attraction is going to be shut down permanently. But I kept changing my mind and adding things back in and taking other things off, only to go back to the original plan in the end. Then I saw the light thanks to one of my dearest friends.

 

[aprylann28]

A dear friend of mine was taking her family (herself, husband, and 3 kids) to Disney World in June 2012. We had talked about our plans and what all we wanted to do while we were there. I was shocked by the fact that the only things she had planned out were which days they were going to which parks, and where and when they were going to eat. And that was all she was going to plan. This was her family’s first Disney vacation, too, and I just could not believe they weren’t going to try to get everything in. I even told DH that they weren’t going to get to visit most of the attractions because they did not have a plan. He said their vacation already sounded more fun than the strict drill sergeant routine I had been working on. Oh, well. He just didn’t understand.

Well, my friend’s family went on their vacation, and our families had lunch together when they got back. My friend’s entire family, even the kids, just could not stop gushing about how much fun they had at Disney World. The girls got makeovers at the BBB and the boy became a pirate at The Pirate’s League. They rode this, this, and this. They rode that, that, and that. Then they rode tons of other things. Then they rode this or that again.

I asked my friend how many things they did actually get to ride, and her answer was “a lot”. Did they get to do every single thing? No. And they knew they had not gotten to do every single thing, but they were all okay with that. They were happy with the things they had gotten to do, and they all had a wonderful time. So much so, that my friend was already trying to talk her husband into going back in 2014.

I realized my friend just had the vacation that I wanted. They had time to relax. It wasn’t hectic and chaotic. It wasn’t rushed and scheduled. If they didn’t make it to a show on time, they just tried to catch the next one. And if they didn’t catch that show at all - no big deal. But at the same time, they felt like they had done everything, even knowing that they hadn’t.

This is where I put a stop to my OCD planning. I made myself stay off Disney websites and touringplans.com for about 2 months. When I did start visiting those sites again, it was just to look for new information, not to try to squeeze ten days’ worth of stuff into five days. I still have a few plans for the parks, but they are much more relaxed. I have accepted the fact that we will not be able to do everything on this trip, and that is okay. Another plus to this is that I will be able to ask my family “What do you want to do now?” instead of telling them this is what we are going to do now.

And we will have fun.

 

[aprylann28]

I know there isn’t much official information for FastPass+ right now, and a lot of people have differing views on whether or not it will be a good thing. But as someone who has been an OCD planner and is now trying not to be, I just wanted to throw out my thoughts about FastPass+.

Personally, I am excited about FastPass+ and look forward to using it if and when we finally get to go.

At first, the part of me that still wants to be an OCD planner reveled in the idea of being able to schedule ride and show times months in advance. During those OCD days, this would have given me the outlet I needed to plan every single minute of every single day. My OCD personality is especially thrilled at the idea of being able to walk up to a spot for parades or fireworks five minutes ahead of time, instead of wasting valuable ride time by being camped out in a good spot for 30 to 60 minutes.

However, based on official information that has been released, it sounds like guests are only going to get to pick 3 attractions for FastPass+ at each park, and only one will be allowed for an E-Ticket attraction. This does not go along very well with the OCD planning (imho) because there are then several other attractions that you still have to fit in somewhere, and would now have to fit in around your FastPass+ times. So if the 3 attractions part is officially true, then my OCD personality is no longer thrilled with this new system.

But, the part of me that is trying to be relaxed loves the idea of only having to pick three attractions at each park. This will allow me to schedule some of the more popular attractions without having to get to the park super early to ride it or get a FastPass (think TSM). My family is not really morning people, so I’m not sure we could even make it to Rope Drop. But, with only having to schedule three attractions that leaves the rest of the day free and open, which goes along very well with relaxed touring.

I know there are OCD planners that will probably disagree with my views, and I know there are probably relaxed non-planners that will disagree with my views, but I just wanted to throw this out there to give my perspective.

Hopefully when all this is official and in place, it will be a good thing.

 

[aprylann28]

Hello! Gonna follow along with your PTR as we are hoping to go at the same time!

Hey, welcome aboard. I just found your PTR, so I will follow along with you, too. I hope we both can make it this year.

 

[aprylann28]

Hi April, What a great cast of characters - sounds like you will have a great time! Can't wait to hear your details! Sending pixie dust that your mum will be able to make it!

Thanks.

 

[aprylann28]

Okay, so last Monday I threw a load of clothes in the washing machine before I left for work. When I came home, that load was still sitting in the washing machine in a tub full of water. So I messed with the knob for a while thinking that perhaps I had not completely turned it on that morning. No luck. Chris had to look at it when he got home. He jacked up some sort of temporary fix so that I could at least get that load of clothes washed, but he said it would not work permanently.

He has tried all week to get the machine back to working order but has had no luck. He thinks he figured out what was wrong by looking online (I'm not sure if he actually figured it out or not). But somehow he also determined that it would cost us $500 to get it fixed.

So instead we went out and bought a new washer and dryer for $900. We had to buy a new dryer, too, because our old machine was a stackable, and we don't have room for the old stackable and a new washer. Otherwise, we might not have had to buy a new dryer, too.

Anyway, I have been sick this past week, and so has Nicholas, so by Saturday morning when we went to buy a new washer and dryer, I was not thinking clearly. It wasn't until we got home and Chris was hooking everything up that I realized it would have been cheaper to have the old one fixed.

So, I asked Chris how buying two new machines was a better deal than paying to have the old one fixed. His theory is that since our old stackable was already used when we got it, it probably wouldn't be long until the dryer quit working, too, or something else on it quit working. Since the machines we bought Saturday are brand new, they come with a 10 year warranty, and will last us much longer than the stackable. This is how he figures buying new machines was a better deal.

I guess he's right, but I just keep thinking that extra $400 could have been our deposit on our two rooms at Pop Century. Not that we had that much to put towards our vacation yet anyway. We had to borrow the money from my mother in law for the washer and dryer. So now we will be working on paying her back instead of saving for Disney.

So we are now back to square one with not knowing if we are going to get to go this year or not.

Still hopeful, but trying to get over the latest bump in the road.

 

[happybelle]

I am sorry, I know how hard it is to have bumps in the road. Your DH is right though, it was smarter to get the new machines. Now you will not have another repair bill in the foreseeable future. Plus, these are bound to be more energy efficient (they always are), so you will save on some of your utility payments.

 

[aprylann28]

For in case anybody is still following along on this thread, I am sorry for not posting in so long. I have been extremely busy.

Anyway, we are not going to make it to Disney World this year. It's not because of the money, although I doubt we would have been able to save it anyway.

At Nicholas's three year check up, the pediatrician said that he was showing some signs of possible autism. My husband has a nephew who is autistic, so based on what we know about him and autism and some of the similarities between him and Nicholas, we had already suspected that Nicholas might be autistic.

So for the last several weeks we have been going through screenings, evaluations, and testings, and this past Tuesday we got the official diagnosis of autism. He has a severe speech delay and several other mild delays. The good news is the doctors said since we caught it at such a young age and most of his delays are mild, with the right treatments/therapies, he could grow up to live a fairly normal life.

But, due to the time I have had to take off work for all these screenings, I am down to only having two days of vacation time left. So even if we could come up with the money, I won't be able to take off work to go this year.

We are now hoping for a December 2014 trip, but that may depend on how treatments and therapies affect our finances and time.

So thanks for following along on my super early hopeful trip report. If we do get to go next year, I'll try to start another trip report, but not so early this time.

Thanks.

 

[Alysa]

I'm so sorry to hear about Nicholas. I know how frustrating it is when there are wiring problems with your little ones. That's great that you caught it early and that it is only a mild case. He sure is a sweetheart. Sending lots of pixie dust for getting all the help you need and a wonderful Christmas trip next year.