MickeyMaz
Always Remember the Magic
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2006
- Messages
- 931
I find trip reports are a good opportunity for me to lay out my trip beforehand to see what I might have missed or what suggestions friends might have to improve on my plans.
We are a family of 4. Myself and the wife, DD11 and DS14. We are 20 minutes outside Philadelphia. Our first cruise will be on the Be Our Guest Podcast DCL Dream Cruise, June 21. I have not looked forward to something so much in such a long time. We signed up for this so long ago. It's almost unreal to see us getting so close to this trip.
While booking the trip, we tried to stay in the budget mode. Booking a stateroom in the Rowers quarters of deck two and deciding to not go to WDW were both decided on early. Our last day of school, I teach and the kids go, is June 15. We had planned to drive down and get to the Port at the Resort on Sunday and stay until Tuesday morning when the ship sails. We'll be keeping the van there for the cruise. I figured we'd hit the beach and get our snorkeling gear situated and just relax.
Well, I've had too long to think about it and we decided that we will now be going to WDW before the cruise. A couple of things played into this decision. First, my annual pass expires on June 22. Nuff siad about that to most of you reading this. Second, once we bit the bullet and decided not to stay on property, we got a highly rated cheap hotel on 192 for three nights. It is right near the hotel I stayed at in January and only about 5 minutes from the parks. The 3 nights total cost was the cost of one night at the Pop at the rack rate of $140. I could not find any of the $84 rates for the Pop and was told to call back this week. I don't think I will though.
We will be leaving the day after school ends and get down to Orlando on the 17th. Staying over one night in Georgia. That's about a 12 hour drive and the wife won't let me go any further. It's just me and the kids doing the drive. She needs to work and will be flying down on the 20th and back on the 27th. I think we'll stop at the Disney Outlet in St. Augustine(we'll see) and make it to the hotel in the early afternoon. I'm thinking riding the resort/epcot monorail and DTD will be on for that day. We could even try Mini-golf.
So the savings on the hotel goes toward tickets for the kids for two days. Sat and Sun which the crowd calendar says are a 6 and 7. We will not get hopper tix so I'm thinking MK (of course) and MGM to see the new Star Tours. Which that and the Haunted Mansion mods were another big factor in doing this. I am a big fan of Star Wars. Still trying to like the Clone wars thing, but I go on a tangent.
We'll check out on Monday and pick up the wife at MCO and drive over to the Resort at the Port for the night. We'll get the shuttle to the port in the morning. When we get back, we are staying at a hotel in Cocoa beach for three days to wait out the Shuttle launch. We'll make it back to Pa in early July just in time for our annual weekend out at Hershey park. We'll be happily vacationed out by then.
More details and cruise plans will be posted as I come up with them.
Oh, I almost forgot, we're not telling the kids. They know about the cruise, but as far as they know, we are driving to Cape Canavarel to wait a couple days for the ship before hand. See if we can make it last until the trip.
We are a family of 4. Myself and the wife, DD11 and DS14. We are 20 minutes outside Philadelphia. Our first cruise will be on the Be Our Guest Podcast DCL Dream Cruise, June 21. I have not looked forward to something so much in such a long time. We signed up for this so long ago. It's almost unreal to see us getting so close to this trip.
While booking the trip, we tried to stay in the budget mode. Booking a stateroom in the Rowers quarters of deck two and deciding to not go to WDW were both decided on early. Our last day of school, I teach and the kids go, is June 15. We had planned to drive down and get to the Port at the Resort on Sunday and stay until Tuesday morning when the ship sails. We'll be keeping the van there for the cruise. I figured we'd hit the beach and get our snorkeling gear situated and just relax.
Well, I've had too long to think about it and we decided that we will now be going to WDW before the cruise. A couple of things played into this decision. First, my annual pass expires on June 22. Nuff siad about that to most of you reading this. Second, once we bit the bullet and decided not to stay on property, we got a highly rated cheap hotel on 192 for three nights. It is right near the hotel I stayed at in January and only about 5 minutes from the parks. The 3 nights total cost was the cost of one night at the Pop at the rack rate of $140. I could not find any of the $84 rates for the Pop and was told to call back this week. I don't think I will though.
We will be leaving the day after school ends and get down to Orlando on the 17th. Staying over one night in Georgia. That's about a 12 hour drive and the wife won't let me go any further. It's just me and the kids doing the drive. She needs to work and will be flying down on the 20th and back on the 27th. I think we'll stop at the Disney Outlet in St. Augustine(we'll see) and make it to the hotel in the early afternoon. I'm thinking riding the resort/epcot monorail and DTD will be on for that day. We could even try Mini-golf.
So the savings on the hotel goes toward tickets for the kids for two days. Sat and Sun which the crowd calendar says are a 6 and 7. We will not get hopper tix so I'm thinking MK (of course) and MGM to see the new Star Tours. Which that and the Haunted Mansion mods were another big factor in doing this. I am a big fan of Star Wars. Still trying to like the Clone wars thing, but I go on a tangent.
We'll check out on Monday and pick up the wife at MCO and drive over to the Resort at the Port for the night. We'll get the shuttle to the port in the morning. When we get back, we are staying at a hotel in Cocoa beach for three days to wait out the Shuttle launch. We'll make it back to Pa in early July just in time for our annual weekend out at Hershey park. We'll be happily vacationed out by then.
More details and cruise plans will be posted as I come up with them.
Oh, I almost forgot, we're not telling the kids. They know about the cruise, but as far as they know, we are driving to Cape Canavarel to wait a couple days for the ship before hand. See if we can make it last until the trip.
