First Time Trip Planner Questions

[britts06]

I am going to be booking a trip for my first time. It's a trip for 2 people and I have a AAA account so I was going to use them to book the trip. I was wondering how to go about planning this, or what ways you all have planned and booked a trip using your AAA account. Do you need a credit card to book? And do you need to pay for it all upfront.

We are planning on spending 11/3/07-11/10/07 in Disney. We would like to stay at the All Star Music resort in a standard room, and plan on getting a 4 day park hopper pass. We were going to also plan on using the transportation that Disney offers to/from the airport instead of getting a rental car. We were thinking of spending about 3000 including spending money and everything else. Is this do able or should we plan on spending more?

What are your thoughts?

Thanks!!

 

[mickeysaver]

Wow, that's a lot of stuff, I will try to help.

If you are not planning to use the dining plan and only need to book a room at WDW with the AAA discount, you can call Disney and book it directly with the AAA discount, if there are any left at the resort for your dates of travel. If you wish to book a package deal with the dining plan, you will need to book your travel through AAA. Package bookings require a $200 deposit since your travel dates are still so far away. If you book a room only, you will pay for one night's stay including tax as your deposit. If you book a package, the entire package price must be paid in full to Disney by the time you are 45 days away from arrival. If you book a room only, you pay the balance of the stay at check out. You will need a bank issued check card or a credit card to pay for the deposits.

You can buy your tickets through Disney or through a 3rd party ticket broker. There are discounted tickets offered through the 3rd party brokers, but it can be a matter of only a few dollars when you are only buying tickets for a low number of days and only for a couple of people, in which case, I usually pay the extra $5 or so and just buy them through Disney.

I think that your budget for food should be at least $800. I usually plan for $100/day and have an additional $100 in case we run over for some reason. Tips usually run about $40 for a week, usually less, but with the use of DME for your travel from and to the airport, you are going to have to tip bell services a couple of times and depending on the number of bags, your tips might increase. We also usually tip the Mousekeepers $4 or more a day when we let them into the room to clean. We do not always let them into the room, but we make a point of offering a tip for them, which they do not always take, but at least I know that I did the right thing or aleast what my parents taught me was the right thing to do for the Mousekeepers. Souvinears always run us about $100 a day or more, but we like stuff and have expensive taste, so your budget may vary. lol

I think your budget is workable. Crunch the numbers and have fun planning! Maggie

 

[jenseib]

I would book through AAA. You can get it all through them with no hassle. (usually LOL) You can pay them with cash if you go to the office directly, I beleive.
I would look into he dining plan. It depends on the person, but if you would like to have a table service meal each day, it really cuts down the expenses. It's jsut under 40 a person, I beleive per day, based on how many nights you stay. You get a snack, a counter service meal, and a table service meal each day. It looks like you are staying 7 nights, so that would be 7 of each per person. But if you only want to eat counter service meals, this won't be the deal for you. We spent close to $100 a day on meals, for two adults (our 2YO shared with us) and we saved alot wit hteh dining plan.

Also I see you are only going with a 4 day pass. Is there a reason why you aren't spending anymore days at the park? I might at least add teh 5th day as it is only a few dollars more and you get a whole nother day. You may want to just go to Extra Magical hours in a evening at a park, after lounging at the pool one day, and then that will be worth it.

It also depends on how expensive your flight is. We spent just about 2000 for our flight, for 3, our hotel (Pop), dining plan (for 2) and tickets,(not hoppers) for 4 nights. We also went at peak season too. So it was a little higher. We did rent a van as well, and that was 200 more. And we spent a couple of hundred on souveighners and bottles of water, etc. It all depends on how you spend, but I might budget a little more for a week long trip.
Food is NOT cheap at Disney. Even a basic counter service meal will run you at leat 7, plus a drink. But just have your AAA agent run some numbers for you. And you can also do it for those dates on the Disney website and see what the full price rate is.