Free Dining Designing!

[DMGeurts]

Stopping by, trying to make the smallest of attempts to get caught up a little bit each day.

So, have your parents decided yet?

D~

 

[lovedonaldduck]

I can't wait to hear your Parent's decision!

Ohh Cooper in the hotel? I wanna see pictures of that!!!

No decision from my parents yet.

Coooper actually stayed in the hotel over Spring Break. He did pretty well, although DH and Peyton visited him every day, which I think is the only time he'd eat or go potty. Not bad for his first time away from home though.

So happy your Dad will be around for the trip as planned!!! As far as the villa, I think that would be awesome! Have you looked into renting points for the villas instead of going through Disney Travel? Check out Dave's DVC rentals. He has it set up so you can plug in your dates and see what each DVC property needs for points. Each point is $12 or $13 or in that vicinity. Could be a whole lot cheaper option.

Also…hold the phone! You were asking about books to download for trips. I am a member of Travel Zoo and they send me offers all the time. In fact that was how we went on our weekend last week at half price. Anyhow, I just got an offer for books for vacation. Here's the link: http://www.travelzoo.com/entertainm...al:122652&utm_content=1782719&tz_adid=1782719
Joining Travel Zoo is free, so check it out, it may be just what you're looking for! Hope so!

Have a great day!

I am so glad my dad is going to be home too! I'm just happy to know his schedule so we can plan for sure - he won't be home for the December dates I was looking at, so we are essentially locked in. We love to rent points for our trips! We've actually used David's DVC rentals several times. Usually it's a great deal, but I'm not sure when you have to factor in free dining. I'm pricing it out, though.

I actually am already a Travelzoo member, I got the same email yesterday and went ahead and signed up. I figure I can spend $6 to see if this will work for me and then decide if $15/month is worth it. I'm hoping to download books to my iPhone and then I can listen to them while I'm on the treadmill. Maybe having a book to look forward to will give me some motivation to get to the gym!

Stopping by, trying to make the smallest of attempts to get caught up a little bit each day.

So, have your parents decided yet?

D~

Thanks for stopping by! I can not wait for your auction!

No decision from my parents yet, which is my fault since I haven't called on the military discount yet so we don't have all of our options.

I think I mentioned on D~'s report, that I am working from home today waiting on our new dishwasher to be delivered. I think while I'm doing that, I will go ahead and make the calls to price out the military discount for our trip to see if that is a better deal than free dining. I am odd with phone calls, I don't like having an audience while I'm talking on the phone and between working in a cubicle and having 2 kids, I rarely have a chance to make phone calls without an audience.

Right now I am trying to get some ideas for our FP+ planning nights. For our DHS night, I'm going to do either garlic bread or bread with olive oil and chicken parmesan for dinner in honor of Mama Melrose. Maybe cupcakes for dessert and have my mom bring tomatoes and mozzarella for an appetizer. I haven't made any progress on any of the other meals, I just haven't figured out my inspiration yet - although, now I'm thinking maybe I'll just base them on our dining reservation for the day - so a Hoop Dee Do meal for MK planning and a Raglan Road meal for AK planning. We can do international appetizers for our Epcot planning night. I'm also thinking of going through our Disney pictures (there are so many) and finding attraction photos to use in the planning. I'm thinking of putting each attraction on an index card color coding for FP+ or not and Tier 1 and Tier 2 FP+ where they apply. That way everyone can grab their first and second choice attractions and then we can go from there to fill our day. I need to check the calendar to see when we can get together to do this planning so I can decide how much prep time I'll have.

Hope everyone has a great day!

 

[lovedonaldduck]

I finally took a few minutes to call Disney about the Military Discount - the discount hasn't been extended through November yet, according to the CM I spoke to, the discounts are usually extended in July. So, for now, I'll let my parents decide between a 2 bedroom at SSR or a family suite at AoA and then I can reprice things in July.

 

[ljcrochet]

You might want to price renting dvc points and paying for dining. Free dining means you pay rack rate for the room, so renting points and getting dining might be cheaper.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

You might want to price renting dvc points and paying for dining. Free dining means you pay rack rate for the room, so renting points and getting dining might be cheaper.

Thanks for the idea. I checked David's DVC rental yesterday and it would cost a little bit more to rent points and pay for the dining plan. If I could find someone to rent points from, it would probably save us a little bit of money, David's prices are a little high - but I understand why - it's so easy to rent through him. I'm good with AoA for now, unless my parents want to splurge on SSR.

 

[DMGeurts]

Personally - I've found that FD is a MUCH BETTER deal than the military discount. Depending on where you stay... Clearly,the savings is more if you stay in a Deluxe room -but you end up paying more because the room is more expensive. If that makes sense.

For us - the biggest bang for our buck is the Mod resorts with FD... Our March 2012 trip was EPIC... 9 nights at FQ, park tickets, free dining for 3 Disney adults was $1800 (I had my target GC discounts then... Sigh.... really miss those)... I don't think I will ever get to go to Disney that cheaply again. It was wonderful!

D~

 

[Chicago Mo]

Howdy!!!

I love free dining!!! To feed 5 people costs a ton so this is perfect for all of us!!!
I am so glad you have a PTR going!!!

what are your days looking like?

 

[lovedonaldduck]

Personally - I've found that FD is a MUCH BETTER deal than the military discount. Depending on where you stay... Clearly,the savings is more if you stay in a Deluxe room -but you end up paying more because the room is more expensive. If that makes sense.

For us - the biggest bang for our buck is the Mod resorts with FD... Our March 2012 trip was EPIC... 9 nights at FQ, park tickets, free dining for 3 Disney adults was $1800 (I had my target GC discounts then... Sigh.... really miss those)... I don't think I will ever get to go to Disney that cheaply again. It was wonderful!

D~

In the past, when we've used the military discount, we've skipped the dining plan.

I wish they would include PO in the free dining offer in the Fall - that would be perfect! As of right now, they are no other affordable options for us to switch to under free dining - we are locked in at AoA. That 2012 trip sounds amazing! We rented points once and stayed in a studio at Old Key West for my birthday - one night only - for $72.

Howdy!!!

I love free dining!!! To feed 5 people costs a ton so this is perfect for all of us!!!
I am so glad you have a PTR going!!!

what are your days looking like?

I am super excited about free dining! Eating out is so expensive, but Disney takes it to a whole new level.

At this point, our preliminary plan is looking like this:

We will drive down early on Sunday, check in, and check Cooper in. If the room is ready, we will unpack and then head to DHS - I'm thiking of getting there around 2. We'll hit all the rides we want to do and then have dinner at Mama Melrose. After dinner, we'll do Osbourne Lights (my favorite Christmas thing in all of Disney )

Monday will be our MK day. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle our break and dinner this day. I was thinking of taking an earlier break, then doing the 4pm HDDR, and then going back to the park, but since it's a MVMCP night, I'm not sure that's the best plan. I'll have to work on the logistics on this day.

Tuesday will be our AK day. Since the park closes at 5, we will probably take a later break and then do Raglan Road for dinner. Depending on how I work out our Monday logistics, I may switch Raglan Road and HDDR.

Wednesday will be our Epcot day. We won't have any dining reservations this day so we can snack around World Showcase. We may do a slightly late arrival and just stay as late as we can before calling it a day. The adults in our group are very fond of Epcot

Now that I have written this all out for the first time, I'm considering switching our MK and Epcot days. MK is open later on Wednesday so that would give me more time to go back after HDDR. The reason I wasn't going to do Epcot on Monday was because it's the last day of Food & Wine Festival so I figured it would be more crowded.

Still some planning and decision making to be done

 

[disneychic2]

Hey there. Your plans sound good, but switching MK and Epcot would be good too. I do think you're right, that Epcot would be crowded due to being the last day of F&W. It is so hard to decide things!

I agree with D. We have always found that free dining is the best option for us as opposed to room discount. I also wish they would open up the Port Orleans resorts for FD! I would change to one of them in a heartbeat!

Hope you are having a good weekend! And that everyone is well!!

 

[lovedonaldduck]

So, some decisions were made this weekend. We are going to stick with AoA - I thought for a minute dad was going to splurge on the 2 bedroom at SSR but we are all excited to give AoA a try!

We are going to do Mama Melrose, HDDR, and Raglan Road for our dinners. The other adults in the family decided they'd rather do Epcot with smaller crowds, so we will be skipping F&W, which is fine with me since I get to do a girls weekend for F&W in October.

I am at the airport in Jacksonville right now, getting ready to board my flight and head to Richmond, VA for a business trip. This is going to be a long day - I'm already exhausted! And I forgot to pack a hair brush. And I am an incredibly nervous flyer but I can't take any of my anti-anxiety medication since I am flying alone and need to make sure I am awake so I can get to my connecting flight.

 

[DMGeurts]

I think you all will enjoy AoA a lot! I think it's a great decision!

I love all of your dining choices.

Awww... I totally understand your nervousness to fly - I am much the same way. Especially flying alone. BUt I've done it twice now (I know, I know, not much) and I am very proud of myself for doing it. I pray it goes well for you, I'll be thinking of you and sending good thoughts your way today.

I hope you have a good business trip too.

D~

 

[Chicago Mo]

WOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO

AoA!!!! I hope this resort is all that it's cracked up to be.. LOL!!!

Love all your choices for ADR'S!!!

 

[disneychic2]

I think you'll love AoA! It's good to finally be settle on where you're staying. I think the girls will LOVE it!

I'm sorry you had to fly and were nervous about it. I hope it went better than you were expecting and you are now safely home.

We made another change in our plans. I'm going over to my report now to tell all about it, since I know people are just dying to know! lol

Hope you have a great evening tonight.

 

[lovedonaldduck]

OMG! Didn't make it home until 1:30 am! My flight out of Richmond was delayed. I had to run from gate to gate in Atlanta and missed my connection home by just a couple of minutes. They put me on standby for the last flight out of Atlanta to Jax. It took forever for them to clear me so I was on pins and needles waiting to find out if I'd be stuck in Atlanta over night or sleeping in my own bed. I finally got cleared, but then that flight was delayed.

I was supposed to go into work this afternoon, but I ended up taking a 4 hour nap after I got the girls to school this morning so I decided to just work from home for the rest of the day.

I have a lot of work to catch up on but I'll be trying to get caught back up on the DIS over the next few days!

 

[DMGeurts]

Glad you made it home safely... What a mess though. Get some rest and take your time catching up.

D~

 

[disneychic2]

That's just awful! I'm so glad you made it home and got to nap after getting the girls where they needed to go. Flying can be such a nightmare! I was told that if you're flight is delayed they will hold your connecting flight if it's close. Guess they thought it wasn't close enough. So sorry you had to go through that! I hope you are able to relax a bit and have a wonderful weekend.

 

[Chicago Mo]

Oh GOODNESS!! I am so sorry!

Glad you got a nap and everything turned out! What a nightmare!!!

 

[disneychic2]

Just checking in. Miss you being around. Hope you had an awesome weekend!!

 

[lovedonaldduck]

Thanks, Lois! This will be my busiest week at work, probably ever. Month end, quarter end, and I'm taking over responsibilites for someone who is about to go out on maternity leave. I will probably be reading the DIS as a sanity break but won't have time to comment much until next week. I was working until after midnight last night and I'm still completely swamped.

I miss my DIS friends!

 

[Chicago Mo]

Thanks, Lois! This will be my busiest week at work, probably ever. Month end, quarter end, and I'm taking over responsibilites for someone who is about to go out on maternity leave. I will probably be reading the DIS as a sanity break but won't have time to comment much until next week. I was working until after midnight last night and I'm still completely swamped.

I miss my DIS friends!

This is what has been going on here at work too.. totally understand! Take you time we will all still be here!!!