Can you plan a trip and go in a matter of weeks??

[marcyinPA]

My husband has been laid off since May, but there is a good chance he might be getting a new job in the next couple of weeks. I keep telling him that if he gets the job, and he doesn't start for 2 weeks or so, I want to make some quick reservations and head down with the kids for a few days. This would require room resies, airfare, Tiffany TC resies, park tickets, etc. I think my Disney Club card is still good.

How hard would this be? Could I actually make the resies and leave within a week?? Would it end up costing me more because we didn't have resies far in advance? We've been before but always planned at least 6 months in advance.

We really need this vacation...we have been through way too much crud these last several months.

Thanks for any advice!!
Marcy

 

[jmkst58]

I started booking this trip in mid January (trip Feb. 1-8). I had no trouble getting a Disney Club discount at the Poly, and am renting points from a DVC'er for the BWV. I have had no trouble getting any PS that I have wanted (Crystal Palace, CRT for Breakfast, California Grill on a Sat. night). I couldn't believe how easy this whole thing has been to plan...in such a short amount of time. It never hurts to try!!! Stay optimistic.

 

[Mitla96]

I just set up a vacation for our family going Feb.13-18, but I was able to use the nurse's discount at the Swan. There are several air fare deals going on right now-I will attempt a link Click here: Frommers.com : Book a Trip : Deal : Airfare -if the link doesn't work they are on Southwest, US Airways (good from PA ) and America West. We got a decent fare on a flight on Delta from Detroit to Tampa.

Almost every trip my family has taken has been spur of the moment, so I know it is doable! You may have to fly into a different airport than you wanted, though. We once flew into Birmingham, AL to get to Florida!

The car rentals in FL were very expensive for my time period-I ended up renting the car from Nova Rent-a-Car in Europe (!), saving almost $200-they gave me an Alamo reservation.

There were still Disney Resort rooms available on my dates-no discounts, however, unless you have AAA.

Good luck!

 

[Scoootch]

Check www.mousesavers.com for any discounts that may apply to you. They have discounts that anyone can use as well as for AP's. Also when you book ask what kind of discounts that they take such as AAA or DC-- there may be discounts for things you wouldn't realize without asking. Also I would check out the official Disney web site www.Disneyworld.com and see if they are advertising any good deals. Many times they are advertising for if you want to go within the next month or 2. If I'm not mistaken, Y & B club resorts right now are running a special for around $160 a night compared to their normal $240 a night. And they run specials for the value & moderate resorts too. So you never know. As for airfare, usually as long as you are at least 2 wks out from when you will need to fly, you can get a decent rate. The difference between 2wks out and 1wk can be hundreds per ticket if you can try for booking this vacation 2weeks ahead instead of 1week.

As for availibility though,you shouldn't have any problems there. There's always someplace to stay either on propery or off.

Best of luck and hope it all works out for you.

 

[stacy6552]

we did it last year. it was no problem although we had to switch planes, when we usually go direct. Watch lastminutedeals.com, too thats always a good place to look.

 

[ceecee]

I could plan the trip on the way to the airport!!! If you need to fly that may cost, although call around. You can do it...Good-Luck!

 

[Jen D]

You may have to Priceline your tickets to get a decent fare- it means you lose control over what time of day you fly, but you'll be able to get a good rate. If you've never done Priceline, do your research first at www.BiddingforTravel.com

 

[Lyon_King]

Hi,
On this past Monday my girlfriend and I decided it would be fun to go for a couple days before the spring break rush happens. Tuesday morning I was on the phone making reservations at AKL for next weekend. I see you're from PA. We got a 7am flight from Philly Saturday morning and a return leaving Orlando at 7pm on Tuesday for $250 a piece (including tax) and I found it on USAir's web page. I could have gone a little cheaper out of another airport, but Philly is my "local" airport, so the extra $ didn't bother me. I think www.travelocity.com is a good, no-hassles, no person info required web site. We already had an annual pass, so tickets were a non-issue. All I have to do is set up a ride to the hotel from the airport.

 

[mom2of2]

Not sure where you are in Pennsy either, but ABE has a great rate flying Southeast. www.flyseal.com They don't fly everyday but you can always do a Thursday to Thursday trip, that's what we are doing and saved $$ that way. It also flies into Sanford which is 45 min away from WDW. A town car is a little more expensive then MCO so we just rented a car for $40.00 and are going to drive ourselves, stop for groceries and return the car to the Dolphin. I say go for it!!!

 

[MinnieGi]

Our upcoming Feb. trip is last minute for us as well. DH found out two weeks ago that he would not accrue anymore vacation time at his company unless he took some more soooooo we decided very quickly a trip to Disney would be in order!

Its been fun doing the trip planning so fast and not having to sit around for months anticipating the trip. Since it was short notice and didn't want to pay for higher airfare and we have extra time to take we decided were going to drive. Helps with the $ situations also.

I got an AP rate at AKL for Feb. 1st - 8th. I used mousesavers.com to find out about the rates. I've been scheduling my ps's ever since. I even got a Hoop Dee Doo Reservation for us. I've been trying to get CRT's for breakfast, haven't been able to secure it yet, but I'm hoping something will open up. I've been able to reserve all my other ps's at the times I wanted to very easily.

Have fun planning if you get to go!!!!

 

[CRCrazy]

Definitely go for it! The airfare may get tricky if you have fewer than two weeks warning, but you can get last minute deals on most airline's website - Delta does this a lot!

Expedia often has last minute room deals, and Disney Club and AP discounts don't usually expire, as the codes do. The DC rate may not be much less, but every little bit helps.

Also, you could try Priceline as other posters have suggested, but I would feel a little out of control buying something without knowing what it was.

As far as tickets go, I believe you can call and order tickets with your DC discount and pick them up at your resort!

 

[eshannon]

We too just planned a "quick" trip. My husband starts a new job and I plan on teaching next fall so we decided to go ahead and pull our two boys out of school and go Feb 2nd-7th. It helped too, that United was offering double miles (we live in Idaho so that means 6,000 miles each!) and that our annual passes expire Feb. 11th. We only like to go when it is slower in the parks. I do see that it is really cool there, but we like that. Haven't told the boys yet. We are just going to wake them up and take them to the airport. They are 7 and 11. They are really into pin trading and I went to the disney store today and bought about 30 pins for $31!!! OUr store had tons of them and they are good for trading. I also got the AKL for $109/night. Just a standard, but that is ok for us. HOpe this helps! Elaine

 

[Tina]

We did it with less than 24 hours notice. Our friends stopped by our house to spend the night on their way down to WDW. Over dinner, they convinced us to go with them. They were taking the Autotrain, which is near our home. We took them to the train station and we hopped on a flight the next morning. They picked us up and the airport and we were all in AK by 9am.

We were able to get a DC discount on All Star Movies and got the room for $59 per night. We picked up our tickets before we left at TDS and used the DC discount there. The only extra cost was the airfare. Normally, we would pay $150-200 each for a flight to MCO. With the short notice, we paid $300 each.