Pixie Dust for Me!
Anyone seen tink lately, I'm running a bit low on
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2007
- Messages
- 2,137
In mid-January, I found out that I was going to attend a conference in Southern California and, being from the Midwest AND a Disney nut, I naturally called my DS and got him to conspire with me to convince my DH to turn my unexpected conference trip into a quasi-budget friendly "boon-doggle" and make a small side trip to Disneyland.
Well, naturally the first concern was cost. This was completely unplanned and therefore not in the budget so I knew cost was going to be a factor. With flights running between $320 and $440 per person, I already knew that DH was going to ask about the afforability factor. But I also knew that we had suffered through 94 days of temperatures below 45 degrees and frankly, we were all tired of winter. I was pretty confident that the weather alone would be enough to make DH say let's go! Fortunately, I was rightand it wasn't at al hard to convince DH. Soon we were looking at flights and arrival times, researching hotels and figuring out which passes to buy.
We quickly discovered that although we know A LOT about Disney World....Disneyland is COMPLETELY different! For example, we had no clue that Disneyland only had 3 resorts! What's a Disney nut to do when faced with a choice of fairly expensive, expensive and an eye-popping WOW that's expensive choice when trying to plan an unexpected and unbudgeted trip?!?
Luckily, Disneyland has "Good Neighbor" hotels that are very affordable and Mousesavers helped us with a decent rate for the Howard Johnson's hotel. My initial reaction to HoJo's was...well...oh no. Thank goodness for the Disboards. The kind folks on the Disneyland section (which is way too small), assured me that HoJo's was fine and to go with it. (In fact, many suggested that it was an excellent choice...among their favorites in fact, which was very reassuring. Thanks guys!)
So, with the hotel decided upon, we began looking for tickets. That was very easy. We found a special on the Disneyland website. Four day park hopper passes for the three of us for $483...a savings of about $170! So, between the hotel ($431 for 3 nights) the flights, $313 per person, and the tickets I was up to $1853. Ouch! Not very budget friendly at all. Fortunately, I got a great deal on a one way rental car (since I had to go to San Diego for the conference) and I was able to back $313 out of the cost since my air fare was covered. So, with the rental car (less my airline ticket), the total cost was at $1,669. OK...that was better. It meant that if we didn't splurge too much, I could bring the trip in at less than $2,500 which was the absolute upper limit of my budget!
Next part....oh, the packing and MOM!!!! How can I take my PINS?!
Well, naturally the first concern was cost. This was completely unplanned and therefore not in the budget so I knew cost was going to be a factor. With flights running between $320 and $440 per person, I already knew that DH was going to ask about the afforability factor. But I also knew that we had suffered through 94 days of temperatures below 45 degrees and frankly, we were all tired of winter. I was pretty confident that the weather alone would be enough to make DH say let's go! Fortunately, I was rightand it wasn't at al hard to convince DH. Soon we were looking at flights and arrival times, researching hotels and figuring out which passes to buy.
We quickly discovered that although we know A LOT about Disney World....Disneyland is COMPLETELY different! For example, we had no clue that Disneyland only had 3 resorts! What's a Disney nut to do when faced with a choice of fairly expensive, expensive and an eye-popping WOW that's expensive choice when trying to plan an unexpected and unbudgeted trip?!?
Luckily, Disneyland has "Good Neighbor" hotels that are very affordable and Mousesavers helped us with a decent rate for the Howard Johnson's hotel. My initial reaction to HoJo's was...well...oh no. Thank goodness for the Disboards. The kind folks on the Disneyland section (which is way too small), assured me that HoJo's was fine and to go with it. (In fact, many suggested that it was an excellent choice...among their favorites in fact, which was very reassuring. Thanks guys!)
So, with the hotel decided upon, we began looking for tickets. That was very easy. We found a special on the Disneyland website. Four day park hopper passes for the three of us for $483...a savings of about $170! So, between the hotel ($431 for 3 nights) the flights, $313 per person, and the tickets I was up to $1853. Ouch! Not very budget friendly at all. Fortunately, I got a great deal on a one way rental car (since I had to go to San Diego for the conference) and I was able to back $313 out of the cost since my air fare was covered. So, with the rental car (less my airline ticket), the total cost was at $1,669. OK...that was better. It meant that if we didn't splurge too much, I could bring the trip in at less than $2,500 which was the absolute upper limit of my budget!
Next part....oh, the packing and MOM!!!! How can I take my PINS?!
! We've had occasion to make last minute plans to go to WDW for a week and have done the whole trip for far less than $2,500 so I thought I was done for. Fortunately, the 94 days below 45 degrees was enough to make him say the magic YES 
....so I went and told DS to "let the packing begin!"
