Connecticut DVC Owners thread?

[RSHEALAND]

Heading down Saturday for a split stay SSR and VBR

 

[crickee]

We're heading down tomorrow for 8 nights at Boulder Ridge. Hopefully not too much construction noise from room refurbishment.

 

[pinkxray]

I need to cut our post Thanksgiving trip a few days. I’m having the hardest time. Flight times are horrible. We were supposed to leave the Friday after thanksgiving and fly home the next Sunday.
I want to switch it to Sunday coming home Sat. Southwest only has a 5pm flight, so we arrive at the kids bedtime. JetBlue has a 12pm flight but it’s over $400 a person.

Im looking at Avelo. The times are decent. Fly out at noon,arrive around 3. At least we get to see our hotel for a few hours before bed. Staying at SSR our first night, so could walk over to Disney Springs.

Southwest is free because I have points. Avelo is $800 total. I have multiple trips in the next year so I’ll have no issue using Southwest Points later. I almost booked Avelo until I got to paying for a carry on. Even if we only bring 2, that’s another $160. Now I am paying almost $1000 when I can go to HartFord and fly free.

We are about 20 minutes from Tweed but usually 1-11/2 depending on traffic to Bradley. Being the Sunday after Thanksgiving should I just go out of Tweed and pay the extra?

 

[stitchsnk]

I need to cut our post Thanksgiving trip a few days. I’m having the hardest time. Flight times are horrible. We were supposed to leave the Friday after thanksgiving and fly home the next Sunday.
I want to switch it to Sunday coming home Sat. Southwest only has a 5pm flight, so we arrive at the kids bedtime. JetBlue has a 12pm flight but it’s over $400 a person.

Im looking at Avelo. The times are decent. Fly out at noon,arrive around 3. At least we get to see our hotel for a few hours before bed. Staying at SSR our first night, so could walk over to Disney Springs.

Southwest is free because I have points. Avelo is $800 total. I have multiple trips in the next year so I’ll have no issue using Southwest Points later. I almost booked Avelo until I got to paying for a carry on. Even if we only bring 2, that’s another $160. Now I am paying almost $1000 when I can go to HartFord and fly free.

We are about 20 minutes from Tweed but usually 1-11/2 depending on traffic to Bradley. Being the Sunday after Thanksgiving should I just go out of Tweed and pay the extra?

I'm a huge fan of paying for convenience, so yes, I'd pay the extra to go out of Tweed.

 

[npatellye]

I almost booked Avelo until I got to paying for a carry on. Even if we only bring 2, that’s another $160. Now I am paying almost $1000 when I can go to HartFord and fly free.

We are about 20 minutes from Tweed but usually 1-11/2 depending on traffic to Bradley. Being the Sunday after Thanksgiving should I just go out of Tweed and pay the extra?

It’s actually cheaper to check a bag with Avelo than it is to take a carryon. If you’re open to checking a bag or two, that may be the way to go.

Personally, we prefer Avelo because of the convenience of Tweed. Bradley is only an extra 20 minutes but the hassle of parking there pushes us back to Tweed even if Tweed is more.

 

[pinkxray]

I'm a huge fan of paying for convenience, so yes, I'd pay the extra to go out of Tweed.

It’s actually cheaper to check a bag with Avelo than it is to take a carryon. If you’re open to checking a bag or two, that may be the way to go.

Personally, we prefer Avelo because of the convenience of Tweed. Bradley is only an extra 20 minutes but the hassle of parking there pushes us back to Tweed even if Tweed is more.

Thank you both! I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy for paying $800 when I could fly free.

I booked Avelo. The flight times are so much better than what we had with Southwest. I am glad I waited the extra day because our flight home had 50% off instead of the 30% when I was looking. That helps with the baggage fee a little.

I am a little nervous DH will think it’s so much easier to fly out of New Haven, he will say we should always do it. I can’t be paying $800-1000 for flight for multiple trips when I have about 3-4 trips worth of Sw and JB points.

 

[buzzrelly]

We fly down from BDL tomorrow at 5 am and I am super anxious about this early morning flight! We plan to get to the airport around 3:30, I assume boarding begins at 4:30? I'm the only one (of the four of us) with TSA pre-check...do you all think this is enough time? I know BDL is small but I'm traveling with my elderly mom and young niece.

I know I'm not getting a minute of sleep tonight!

 

[npatellye]

We fly down from BDL tomorrow at 5 am and I am super anxious about this early morning flight! We plan to get to the airport around 3:30, I assume boarding begins at 4:30? I'm the only one (of the four of us) with TSA pre-check...do you all think this is enough time? I know BDL is small but I'm traveling with my elderly mom and young niece.

I know I'm not getting a minute of sleep tonight!

I think you’ll be fine! We’ve taken super early flights like that before (when the kids were 7 and 5) and arrived around 3:30 and made it through without pre-check easily before boarding. Enjoy!

 

[buzzrelly]

I think you’ll be fine! We’ve taken super early flights like that before (when the kids were 7 and 5) and arrived around 3:30 and made it through without pre-check easily before boarding. Enjoy!

Thank you, I think I just need that reassurance!

We are on the same flight in April, I hate that SW's options are so limited now!

 

[CaptainAmerica]

We fly down from BDL tomorrow at 5 am and I am super anxious about this early morning flight! We plan to get to the airport around 3:30, I assume boarding begins at 4:30? I'm the only one (of the four of us) with TSA pre-check...do you all think this is enough time? I know BDL is small but I'm traveling with my elderly mom and young niece.

I know I'm not getting a minute of sleep tonight!

The Southwest counter probably won't even be staffed until 4:00. 3:30 will be plenty of time.

The Dunkin line will be about 45 minutes so you might want to bring some bagels or something from home.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

We are on the same flight in April, I hate that SW's options are so limited now!

JetBlue is even worse these days. We've been doing American with a stop in Charlotte or just flying out of Providence.

 

[npatellye]

Thank you, I think I just need that reassurance!

We are on the same flight in April, I hate that SW's options are so limited now!

We’ve stopped using SW because of that. We always ended up with multiple flight changes and I got tired of it. But Avelo (which we’ve been using because it’s all non-stop and is a tiny bit closer to us) has really limited options, too.

 

[buzzrelly]

The Dunkin line will be about 45 minutes so you might want to bring some bagels or something from home.

Ughhhh...that's going to be rough without coffee! I assume that McDonald's is still closed? Why did I think they were renovating it? That was always a treat when I got to the airport since I love their coffee.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Ughhhh...that's going to be rough without coffee! I assume that McDonald's is still closed? Why did I think they were renovating it? That was always a treat when I got to the airport since I love their coffee.

McDonald's is there. Opens at 4:00.

 

[buzzrelly]

McDonald's is there. Opens at 4:00.

Excellent! I prefer their coffee anyway and hopefully the line won't be as long!

 

[pinkxray]

Happy Holidays fellow CTers! We were in the Disney the week after Thanksgiving. I ended up with covid the week after and everyone else in the family has been fighting some other cold or something, so Dec. has flown by.

We used Avelo for the first time. We left CT on the Sunday after Thanksgiving which as you can imagine is an extremely busy travel day. I kept getting text messages to arrive super early because of the expected crowds. We arrived way too early. Nothing was open yet.

Otherwise is was a fine experience. The boarding process was kind of strange to me since you are called in a certain order but there are other people standing where you need to be. There is no way to really get in line and people kind of have to be nice and let others in to the line. I am cheap so we were in the back of the plane. We waited until the last group was called since the less time my kids are made to sit the better.

Flight was fine and on time. Once we arrived at McO the luggage belt wasn’t working. So even though the luggage was taken off in a timely matter the carousel wasn’t moving so we couldn’t get our luggage. It took around 45 minutes for it to start moving.

Flight home we had no issues. No water/snacks on the way down. Tiny waters handed out on the way home. We arrived home and it was a very cold, rainy day. Not the best for arriving and deboarding outdoors.

Overall I wasn’t won over by the experience. We live much closer to Tweed but have tons of SW points so I think the free flights will have us choosing BDL for the next trips at least.

 

[Lori Duck]

View attachment 727797

Happy Holidays fellow CTers! We were in the Disney the week after Thanksgiving. I ended up with covid the week after and everyone else in the family has been fighting some other cold or something, so Dec. has flown by.

We used Avelo for the first time. We left CT on the Sunday after Thanksgiving which as you can imagine is an extremely busy travel day. I kept getting text messages to arrive super early because of the expected crowds. We arrived way too early. Nothing was open yet.

Otherwise is was a fine experience. The boarding process was kind of strange to me since you are called in a certain order but there are other people standing where you need to be. There is no way to really get in line and people kind of have to be nice and let others in to the line. I am cheap so we were in the back of the plane. We waited until the last group was called since the less time my kids are made to sit the better.

Flight was fine and on time. Once we arrived at McO the luggage belt wasn’t working. So even though the luggage was taken off in a timely matter the carousel wasn’t moving so we couldn’t get our luggage. It took around 45 minutes for it to start moving.

Flight home we had no issues. No water/snacks on the way down. Tiny waters handed out on the way home. We arrived home and it was a very cold, rainy day. Not the best for arriving and deboarding outdoors.

Overall I wasn’t won over by the experience. We live much closer to Tweed but have tons of SW points so I think the free flights will have us choosing BDL for the next trips at least.

Welcome, fellow Nutmegger!
I've experienced most of what you wrote about, so I empathize, but I'll use Avelo again.
SW tends to cancel and change too much for my nerves. But if I had tons of SW points I'd certainly use them and hope for the best!
Hope you had a good trip. I ended up with Covid due to a wdw trip too (luckily it was a mild case). Happy Holidays

 

[pinkxray]

Welcome, fellow Nutmegger!
I've experienced most of what you wrote about, so I empathize, but I'll use Avelo again.
SW tends to cancel and change too much for my nerves. But if I had tons of SW points I'd certainly use them and hope for the best!
Hope you had a good trip. I ended up with Covid due to a wdw trip too (luckily it was a mild case). Happy Holidays

I was just reading about all of the SW mess this week. That is definitely a good points about their cancellations. DD18 and I are headed to WDW for a quick mother/daughter trip so we’ll see how Avelo pricing works out. Hopefully in May we won’t be walking into freezing rain. Of course, we SW we’ll be lucky to even have a flight that takes off with the chance of freezing rain

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I was just reading about all of the SW mess this week. That is definitely a good points about their cancellations. DD18 and I are headed to WDW for a quick mother/daughter trip so we’ll see how Avelo pricing works out. Hopefully in May we won’t be walking into freezing rain. Of course, we SW we’ll be lucky to even have a flight that takes off with the chance of freezing rain

Even the legacy carriers have been messing with flight schedules quite a bit recently. Obviously nothing as bad as Southwest, but that was pretty much all weather-related so I don't blame them entirely.

We have an Easter week trip currently booked at Vero Beach (which we might change to a cruise, but the same flights will work either way). Our return flight was supposed to be Miami to Hartford direct on American at 1:30, now it's a connecting flight with a two hour layover in DC.

 

[Lori Duck]

Good morning! My sister and her family are in Enfield, pretty close to BDL but asked about my experience with Avelo. I gave her my thoughts and said the wild card seems to be parking at Tweed.
Does anybody have a tried and true strategy for funding parking at Tweed?