Going in November? Have you secured flights and/or cars?

[Shea&Van]

Hello my fellow November travelers...

Any updates yet? I'm anxiously awaiting the JetBlue and SW releases for flights on/around 11/28. I'm hoping for some movement in the next month or so...

The rental vans for our time period have skyrocketed. At least when I checked last week. YIKES!

So, question...if you are down there on Thanksgiving...do you eat a typical meal? What do you do that day? Are any of the parks more crowded than others? I'm sure they are all pretty packed, but do you have any tips or secrets to share for Thanksgiving day or that weekend following?

I'm nervous that the week after will be exceptionally busy as Pop Warner will be that following weekend (Dec. 7) and that many people will be traveling that first full week of December.

I know this is the transpo board, but, have you all come up with a wishlist of ADRs?

Happy planning to all...

 

[OurDogCisco]

We've only been once during Thanksgiving. We decided to eat at Captain Grille at the Yacht Club (They had a Thanksgiving Buffet) . We spent the day resort hopping and looking at the Christmas decorations. Of course, on that trip we had 10 possible park days so it was easy to have non park day. This time we are only going 8 nights and we want to spend one day at Universal. Also, to add to the confusion my aunt and uncle might move to Orlando. If they do, we'll definitely spend Thanksgiving with them. You can do a search for Thanksgiving Menus as many offer special menus that day. I can't offer park advice but I'd imagine it be crowded and dining reservations a must. In fact, on crowded park days I make 2 sitdown reservations one for breakfast and one for dinner because I can't handle quick service places on crowded days.

 

[Arielle22]

DH and I are going 11/9-11/17. We fly out of Providence and into Boston. I just bought the tickets yesterday. Now I can book our hotel.

 

[schoen]

Just Checking in with my November peeps!

We still have not booked airfare, and it is just going up and up and up. I am getting nervous about it at this point, but my Mother-in-Law offered to pay for it, so I guess I need to relinquish control and just let her decide.

She makes decisions differently than I do, because she can. It is $200 cheaper to fly into Tampa, but she is not interested in that. She is also exceptionally brand loyal with Delta and Hertz, and will book with them, even if they are not the cheapest.

I still have to book a car though, and I have yet to find a decent deal. I am NOT a Hertz-a-holic, and so I'll go with whomever. My Hubby hates Budget though, so we'll see.

We also techniqually have a room, but we are hoping to switch resorts from OKW to BCV and amazingly, our 7 month window is NEXT WEEK! Hopefully we'll be able to make that switch.

How are things looking for others traveling in November?

 

[mrsap]

Hey everyone! We are going for 11 days the end of November into the first week of Dec. This will be our first Thanksgiving dinner in Disney and we are so excited! We usually go the day after Thanksgiving or have Turkey day with family in Fla. We have booked a car rental out of Jersey, which we usually drive every time we go, but the prices are still quite high right now. Hoping some coupons come out soon. I will keep an eye out for better deals! Anyone else driving?

Schoen-we typically use Hertz as well, but will go with whoever has the best price!!! Good luck!

 

[DebbieB]

11/10-11/16 at BWV. Haven't even looked at airfare, probably will do SW. I typically use my corporate rate for the car, so I don't worry about that.

 

[Three cats]

Booked our plane tickets thru Jet Blue for 11/16 - 11/23.
Haven't even looked at car rentals yet.

 

[kristenrice]

I'm eagerly awaiting SWA release dates for the rest of November. I can see the schedule for the week before we go and if it stays similar, I will have a couple of options.

I opened the SWA Visa card and currently have 54,000 points. I can easily book 2 r/t tickets for a minimal OOP cost. Here's the catch: The times for the return flights are REALLY not ideal. The nonstop option departs at 9:40am which is WAY too early. There is a one-stop that departs at 11:20 which is still a little earlier than I would like. The only other option is a one-stop that departs at 4:45 but doesn't land until almost 10pm. Since we will have to pick up our kids from Grandma and Grandpa's house, that is a little too late on a school night.

So, I looked at the possibility of taking a return flight on a different carrier. Delta has one that departs at 12:30 and lands around 5pm which would work better but do I really want to pay $250-$300 for an extra hour of sleep?

I'm really itching to see what the schedule looks like. The flight to Orlando is currently a 7:45am departure which I like...DH, not so much. DH doesn't have a choice as of now because the next flight doesn't land in Orlando until 7pm and that is WAY too late.

I just sit here and wait....

 

[OurDogCisco]

Wow, I'm bummed no discounted airfare from swa for 12/1. I had no idea that they even did that. at first everyone thought it was a computer glitch but someone confirmed no discounted flights that day... :-( not a happy camper.

 

[kristenrice]

I'm eagerly awaiting SWA release dates for the rest of November. I can see the schedule for the week before we go and if it stays similar, I will have a couple of options.

I opened the SWA Visa card and currently have 54,000 points. I can easily book 2 r/t tickets for a minimal OOP cost. Here's the catch: The times for the return flights are REALLY not ideal. The nonstop option departs at 9:40am which is WAY too early. There is a one-stop that departs at 11:20 which is still a little earlier than I would like. The only other option is a one-stop that departs at 4:45 but doesn't land until almost 10pm. Since we will have to pick up our kids from Grandma and Grandpa's house, that is a little too late on a school night.

So, I looked at the possibility of taking a return flight on a different carrier. Delta has one that departs at 12:30 and lands around 5pm which would work better but do I really want to pay $250-$300 for an extra hour of sleep?

I'm really itching to see what the schedule looks like. The flight to Orlando is currently a 7:45am departure which I like...DH, not so much. DH doesn't have a choice as of now because the next flight doesn't land in Orlando until 7pm and that is WAY too late.

I just sit here and wait....

Woo hoo! The non-stops both ways have departures around 2:30pm which is perfect. On top of that, 2 R/T tickets cost under 19,000 points! We still have enough for 4 tickets for next year's trip.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[schoen]

Woo hoo! The non-stops both ways have departures around 2:30pm which is perfect. On top of that, 2 R/T tickets cost under 19,000 points! We still have enough for 4 tickets for next year's trip.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

What airport are you flying out of??? I looked at Southwest, and they are much cheaper from both Flint and GR than Delta is out of Detroit. We're in Lansing, so they are all about the same amount of driving for us.

I would like to book SW out of GR, but my DH wants to fly out much later in the day, as he is leaving after work, and there is a 7:45 Delta flight. The Delta flights are MUCH more expensive than SW. I am hoping they will come down, and it will make sense for us to fly out of DTW.

 

[Shea&Van]

Howdy y'all!

We have booked our flights. Got decent pricing for the trip down (Thanksgiving Day) and very good rates on our return (12/7). I'm really excited. We have a mini-van reserved for the 10 days at a cost of $430 ish. I'm hoping it will go down, but lately they look crazy expensive. Our lodging is set as well.

Trying to hold out until next month to buy the tickets. When can you all start making your ADRs/event reservations?

I think our date is May 31?? I need to figure that out, so I'm ready. So far, I'm thinking Hoop Dee Doo, Pirates and Pals Fireworks Cruise, BBB, Harmony Barber Shop, maybe a sleigh ride, BoG.

Ahhh, so much to do. I can't wait! Anyone going to go to the MVMCP? On the fence on that one...

What's new with the rest of you folks?

Hope all is well and happy planning!

 

[Wood Nymph]

We are going to WDW Nov 30th to Dec 5th, taking advantage of the Bounce back offer we booked when we were there in Feb - it was for 35% off the WL for those dates.

We've never traveled by air on Thanksgiving weekend before. So I've been pretty nervous about that Nov 30th-(the Saturday after Thanksgiving) date. When SWA opened their fares up for that period yesterday, I booked one way tickets for that day only - $172 out of Midway-Chicago. The cost of those two one-way tickets is more than I paid round trip in February, so I plan to haunt the SWA site until something cheaper comes up. I'm sure I can get the Thursday return flight cheap, so I'm sitting on that for now.

Our ADR date is June 3rd, our daughter's birthday. I won't miss that date. We aren't doing MVMCP, but we are planning on BOG, Via Napoli, Liberty Tree Tavern for lunch - all three will be for the first time and Cape May for dinner twice. It was my husband's only request.

We haven't been to WDW for Christmas in about 22 years - too long to even remember it. We are very excited.

 

[jennyjinx3]

Flights are booked! Nov 13 - 23! 3 night Dream cruise first and WDW after. Still have to secure our car rental though....

 

[kristenrice]

What airport are you flying out of??? I looked at Southwest, and they are much cheaper from both Flint and GR than Delta is out of Detroit. We're in Lansing, so they are all about the same amount of driving for us.

I would like to book SW out of GR, but my DH wants to fly out much later in the day, as he is leaving after work, and there is a 7:45 Delta flight. The Delta flights are MUCH more expensive than SW. I am hoping they will come down, and it will make sense for us to fly out of DTW.

We are flying out of Grand Rapids since we live about 5 miles from the airport. In the past, we've driven to Detroit because the flights were so much cheaper and there were non-stop options. Now that AT (SWA as of August) has arrived, we really have no need to drive to Detroit unless there is a group of us going. Last June, there was a non-stop out of GRR but it was almost $100 more than out of Detroit. Since my dad was paying for all 15 people, it still ended up cheaper to drive to Detroit, get a hotel with park n fly rooms and fly out of DTW. The 4 rooms (which included 8 days of parking) came to $450. It would have cost $280 to park the 4 vehicles at the GRR airport so we really only paid an extra $170 to drive to Detroit...but we saved about $1300 in airfare!

 

[Donnask8pro]

We're booked Nov 2nd through the 10th. Flights stunk from SW but I booked them anyway. I totally missed getting them early and they just continued to rise.. aughhhhhh. Oh well, I grabbed them anyway. IF they come down, I will use the credit for our cruise in Feb..

I now need to start looking at rental cars. We are going for "Jersey Week"

 

[antree]

We're booked Nov 2nd through the 10th. Flights stunk from SW but I booked them anyway. I totally missed getting them early and they just continued to rise.. aughhhhhh. Oh well, I grabbed them anyway. IF they come down, I will use the credit for our cruise in Feb..

I now need to start looking at rental cars. We are going for "Jersey Week"

I know I can't believe how high SW is. We are going Nov. 1st-11th. Changed our coming home date because I was not paying over $300 for one way. We also gave in and booked flying in to Tampa, A lot cheaper even with getting the rental car.
Still hoping flights to come home go down just a little more.
DVC members so room is taken care of

 

[michigandergirl]

Hi everyone. We are a family of 5 and we have a Nemo suite booked at AOA for Thanksgiving week (11/23 to 11/30). All our ADRS are set. The last piece is airfare and I am going crazy. The fares seem so much higher than last year. I know it's a holiday but I just don't want to pay $420 a person! Our dates are not very flexible and ideally we would like to take a non-stop SW flight from GRR to MCO. I have always gotten good prices on airfare in the past by booking early, but that doesn't seem to be the case this time around. Do you think prices will come down at all???

 

[disny_luvr]

Hi everyone. We are a family of 5 and we have a Nemo suite booked at AOA for Thanksgiving week (11/23 to 11/30). All our ADRS are set. The last piece is airfare and I am going crazy. The fares seem so much higher than last year. I know it's a holiday but I just don't want to pay $420 a person! Our dates are not very flexible and ideally we would like to take a non-stop SW flight from GRR to MCO. I have always gotten good prices on airfare in the past by booking early, but that doesn't seem to be the case this time around. Do you think prices will come down at all???

We are flying to MCO on Thanksgiving Day. I just checked the AT site today and our flights dropped in price. Now, the drop wasn't huge, but we got a credit of $13/ticket. I'm happy. I'd keep checking the site daily to see if there are any price drops. Good luck!

 

[michigandergirl]

So if I book airfare now and the price drops, I can get a credit? This would be a Southwest flight and I'm not sure if the same rules apply seeing how Airtran was bought by SW.