"But the flights are so good..." An August 2017 PTR! Finished 7/31!

[DisneyMandC]

Money-Saving Tips!

So, as I mentioned, we were trying to make this trip fairly budget-friendly, while still being able to enjoy ourselves. The trip was obviously sort of a last minute decision, so I can't see I really had a lot of money put away in my vacation. Or any money...


Ok, not actually, but you get the picture.

I checked out options like MouseSavers and Undercover Tourist to see what our best ticket-buying options would be, but there aren't really any savings for two-day tickets during peak season (surprise, surprise). We were also obviously way too close to our trip for any Disney Savings Account advantages. As a result, I just booked our whole package through Disney. We have a Disney Visa, so I put the required $200 deposit on the card and then set to work to pay the remainder of the balance through discounted means. Our total for our trip (without airfare) was $990.34 for two nights at Pop, two days of tickets for two adults, and the Disney Dining Plan for two adults.


Pictured, me.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I spend a lot of my time over on the Budget Board where I've gotten a lot of great money saving tips. Even before that, I've been using Swagbucks, Bing Rewards, Shopkicks, and basically any other money saving app/website I can think of to try to rack up some extra dollars. Swagbucks has been my biggest moneymaker though- I paid for our tickets, parking, meals, and all souvenirs at Disneyland last year with gift cards earned through Swagbucks!

So once I booked this trip, I knew I wanted to up my Swagbucks earnings. I follow the method many people use- earn swagbucks points through watching videos/surveys/online purchases, cash out for Target gift cards, put the Target gift card towards Disney gift cards in-store and combine with my Redcard for a 5% discount. I also used Shopkicks and Bing Rewards to accumulate more points towards Target Gift Cards. I know a lot of people consider this too much work for too little reward, but I really enjoy it and like to save money however I can.


Pictured, not me.

I won't get into all the nitty-gritty math here, but suffice to say I worked pretty hard on getting my Swagbucks up so I could cash out more frequently! Basically every time I had enough for at least a $5 gift card, I would cash out and head to Target to pick up another Disney gift card. So usually my purchase would look something like I would use $10 worth of Target gift cards towards a $100 Disney gift card, then use my Redcard for the leftover amount. This meant I would pay $85.50 for a $100 Disney gift card!

I repeated this process multiple times, ultimately paying the entire remaining balance of my vacation with Disney gift cards! So my grand total out of pocket for my vacation, after paying with discounted gift cards, ended up being $880.85!

I saved $109.49 through this process!!

The best part is, I have since saved up another $25 Target gift card since the final payment due date, and used that yesterday to purchase another $100 Disney gift card for $71.25! We will use this gift card towards gratuities and souvenirs on our trip too, so we'll continue to pay a discounted amount on our out of pocket expenses in the park!

While I know this process isn't for everyone, I am fortunate that I had the time to use this earning means in order to help with the budget for our trip. A savings of just over $100 may not seem like a lot to some people, but I like to look at as one of us is getting a day in the park for free. Or almost one night of our hotel stay ($119/night) is free!

And yes, in case you were wondering, I will continue this process for future vacations and plan to continue working hard to save for another vacation in 2019!


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[DisneyMandC]

Fastpasses and Final Update!

It's finally here, everyone!! Tomorrow is the big day!! Our direct flight to Orlando is at 8 AM, my bags are packed (almost!), and I am ready to go!

But before I do... I should probably update you all on Fastpasses since that's the last thing I have to do!

I should start by saying that I LOVE the FP+ system. The first time we used it was for our honeymoon in 2015. I found the DIS shortly before that trip and read a lot of complaints about how the new system was so rigid and didn't leave any room for spontaneity. I was a little nervous going into our 2015 trip to see how we would like it. Well, turns out we really enjoyed it! We both found it to be a very simple process and didn't run into any issues with any of our fastpasses, other than one instance of kiosks being down. Overall, I was generally very happy.

In 2016, we learned that we REALLY loved FP+ after traveling to Disneyland. We were both super irritated by having to run around first thing to all the rides we wanted to go on trying to get paper fastpasses. We arrived at Space Mountain about 30 minutes after rope drop and all of the Fastpasses were already gone until 10:30 that night!! AND the line to get a Fastpass was as long as the actual ride line! So that really cemented our love for FP+.

But, back to this week's trip...

I booked our trip about 70 days out so I didn't have much time to plan our fastpasses out. I asked DH what all he wanted to go on, but he didn't have too many specific requests other than Buzz Lightyear and one of the new Pandora rides.

Now, I hadn't really read up too much on selecting Fastpasses. I remember doing it for 2015 but I sort of just logged in sometime during the 60 day mark and got everything I wanted. This time, I knew I needed to be more prepared and get online fast in order to get a fastpass for the rides in Pandora. So I decided I would go ahead and do the midnight wake-up to get what I wanted.

So there I was. All set. 60 day mark. Alarm set for midnight. I wake up and immediately go to My Disney Experience app to select my fastpasses... and nothing comes up.

It continues to act as though I'm not logged in or my reservations aren't connected. I frustratingly try logging out and back in again with no success. So I decide to consult the all-knowing Google and quickly discovered my answer... They changed the FP+ selection time to 7:00 am... over a year ago.

Oops.

You know, I want to say I am not entirely to blame for this though! Because when I called to book our trip, the CM helping me let me know when my Fastpass selection date was and SPECIFICALLY ASKED if I was going to wake up at midnight to make my selections. And I joked with her that no, I would not be as I didn't have a big desire to see Anna and Elsa! She never said anything about it being moved to 7! But she was still super nice and I should have looked up the time, so it wasn't all her fault.

Anyways, I went back to bed and made sure to be at my computer at 7 AM for Fastpass selections. I had no issues logging in and got everything I wanted! I was dismayed to see Pandora was tiered so I could only get one, but I quickly chose Flights of Passage.

So without further ado, here are our choices!

Animal Kingdom
Expedition Everest- 2:20
Flight of Passage- 3:35
Rivers of Light- 9:15 show

Magic Kingdom
Seven Dwarves- 10:05
Space Mountain- 1:45
Buzz Lightyear- 2:55

I'm still sort of weighing our options on some of these fastpasses (yes, even less than 24 hours out). It seems like the crowds for Rivers of Light are dying down a little bit, so I'm considering changing that fastpass to another ride and then maybe trying to get a 4th fastpass for Rivers of Light, if necessary. I find it highly unlikely I'll be able to get a 4th fastpass for the River Journey ride, but obviously I'll get that if I can.

As to Magic Kingdom, DH and I are discussing swapping Seven Dwarves out for something else, and then just rope dropping Seven Dwarves instead. We also have NEVER ridden Peter Pan though, so we might rope drop that and keep Seven Dwarves. It'll probably be a decision we make Tuesday night or Wednesday morning


Soooo, that's it for this pre-trip report!! Thank you so much for reading along, and as soon as I have the Trip Report up, I'll come back here and post the link!​

 

[DisneyMandC]

Thanks to everyone who read along! I just wanted to let you all know that the new trip report is UP!