Healing at our Happy Place: making GOOD 2017 memories: Mar, May, Aug, Oct, Dec TRs (3/24 UPDATE)

[ariane37]

OCTOBER TRIP UPDATE: So I glanced at the DVC properties available for our weekend in October.

I think Oct. is tough getting anything decent for DVC with F&W going on, and the increase Oct. has seen in crowds the last couple years. But hey, nothing wrong with SOG and it's still a trip to Disney!!

 

[kittylady1972]

I think Oct. is tough getting anything decent for DVC with F&W going on, and the increase Oct. has seen in crowds the last couple years. But hey, nothing wrong with SOG and it's still a trip to Disney!!

Yes...agreed! There are a few rooms we could book during our timeframe. This morning I saw that I could get a room Wed night and Saturday night at the Polynesian and I'd have to waitlist Thur and Fri night there. The problem is that room would only hold the 5 of us, and we are still thinking about future planning and thinking my FIL might go with us. Then he'd need to get his own room at the Polynesian but if we are staying at SOG like now, we could just sponsor a room for him there as well. I *LOVE* the convenience of walking to the TTC from Polynesian though, perfect for F&W Festival and easy to get to MNSSHP by hopping the resort monorail or catching the express at TTC also.

We still have some time. Supposedly some flight rates dropped according to an alert this morning so I should check on that. I have a target of $80 or less ONE-WAY for us so if a good flight is out for that timeframe I may need to book it!

 

[kittylady1972]

OCTOBER UPDATE: So I got a notification that flight prices for October had dropped, but they are still JUST above where I want to pay one-way for the flight down, though the times are pretty good. If I book through anybody but SWA, I'd have to get insurance just in case we need to change the dates, so I think I'll continue to wait. Besides the flight is still mostly empty, so prices will surely come down eventually in order to fill it. I expect when SWA releases flight for our dates, the prices for other airlines will go down as well in order to compete with them.

I am toying with the idea of booking Wed and Saturday night at the Polynesian and waitlisting Thur and Fri night. Even if the friends that may join us do go, they will be at Shades of Green so within walking distance anyway. I'd still hold onto the SOG reservation in case the Polynesian doesn't come through. If it turns out my FIL wants to also join us, we may just have to find a way to book him a room at the Polynesian via the regular Disney website.

DECEMBER UPDATE: I'm just amazed at looking at availability about how the December dates we want are also filled already. Our thought for December was initially to go down on Thursday and possibly come back Tuesday, meaning kids would miss school Monday and Tuesday. This would be just so we could possibly attend a DVC Members event on Monday night at EPCOT, provided I got the tickets to it. HOWEVER now we may have to rethink the idea of taking kids out of school next year. My daughter starts high school next year and she's entering into a very aggressive program that will allow her to take COLLEGE courses beginning in 9th grade, plus she's taking Honors and AP level classes. We expect her workload will be pretty extensive, but know that of all of the kids she is up for the challenge. This college program would mean she could possibly get her AA degree from the community college BEFORE she gets her HS Diploma! It's a great opportunity but with that workload...missing school may be pretty tough for her, so we may have to just make that a very short weekend for us. I'd still like to attend a Christmas Party maybe, or at least Candlelight Processional at EPCOT though, but we could do that on Thursday or Friday.

 

[xlsm]

October flights have me in a little bit of a panic. We have to pay more than I like if we fly out of our local airport, but the convenience is hard to beat. Unfortunately, the prices for flights for my booked October week are about $80 higher than we usually pay. It will just be me and my mom...since MIL bailed on May's trip, we lost the free companion ticket we had earned. I'm pretty frustrated by that! It would have made everything a non-issue for October pricing. But, I can't do anything to change it so I have to let it go!
I hope the price drops for you or at least stays reasonable and you can book those flights!

And as for your daughter, that sounds like a crazy, but awesome, program. Here, 8th graders have three classes they can choose that count for high school credits, but the dual enrollment with the local community college doesn't begin until junior year, and the kids who complete it get their respective diplomas for each at the same time. Good for her for taking that on, I wish her the best!!

I hope your plans for December work out, too!!

 

[kittylady1972]

October flights have me in a little bit of a panic. We have to pay more than I like if we fly out of our local airport, but the convenience is hard to beat. Unfortunately, the prices for flights for my booked October week are about $80 higher than we usually pay. It will just be me and my mom...since MIL bailed on May's trip, we lost the free companion ticket we had earned. I'm pretty frustrated by that! It would have made everything a non-issue for October pricing. But, I can't do anything to change it so I have to let it go!
I hope the price drops for you or at least stays reasonable and you can book those flights!

And as for your daughter, that sounds like a crazy, but awesome, program. Here, 8th graders have three classes they can choose that count for high school credits, but the dual enrollment with the local community college doesn't begin until junior year, and the kids who complete it get their respective diplomas for each at the same time. Good for her for taking that on, I wish her the best!!

I hope your plans for December work out, too!!

Yes...flight prices have just crept up since gas prices increased...but they never went back DOWN again once gas prices decreased.

Sorry about your MIL bailing at the last minute.

I think we still have plenty of time to worry about October flights and worst case we *COULD* drive if necessary...but as a last resort.

Yes the program for my daughter does sound great. I did something similar in school but only my senior year...I left at noon each day and was able to take college classes and earned a few credits but not enough for a degree.

Thanks for the good wishes for her and for our December plans. Those are the ones furthest from my mind right now but if flights get released that extend to October AND December I may have to book both at once!

 

[kittylady1972]

I wouldn't be me if I didn't second guess everything...and of course make some changes.

We are still a few days away from FP+ reservations...but I decided to rethink my dining plans a bit.

So now we have the following changes in red:

MAKING HAPPY 2017 MEMORIES PLAN 1.0

SATURDAY: We have an early morning flight...it leaves at 6:55am. Now thankfully we live only about 20 minutes max from the airport. Unfortunately my husband and I differ on how much time we really need to spend in an airport before a flight. He has done far more travel, mostly for work, than I have and he has a routine that he enjoys and that includes SITTING at the airport. We've already started the discussions on this and I *THINK* he has allowed us to leave by 4:45am. If you glance back at my Thanksgiving Trip report you'll note that we also had to be in the car at a CRAZY early time...and we did make it for that one. Anyway provided flights are all okay (we are flying Memorial Day weekend) we should arrive just after 9am in Orlando. We'll pick up our rental car (it's so easy to do there) and HEAD DIRECTLY to the Contemporary Resort. I know after a busy travel morning, we'll all be hungry right away. Originally I had Chef Mickey's for a brunch later, but might as well get started with a good meal so we will all be less grumpy! So we have Chef Mickey's Brunch and after that, if the room is ready, we'll head to the Beach Club Resort. We can unpack and perhaps hit the pool if anybody is interested. If we don't have a text about the room being ready, then perhaps we'll head from the Contemporary over to MK for a little while instead.

We have the rest of the afternoon/evening to ourselves, so I'm figuring on dinner somewhere around our resort, maybe Boardwalk area or just quick service, or at a park. If the weather permits, at some point I do expect to take advantage of the pool though.

SUNDAY: Magic Kingdom morning. I'd like to arrive close to opening and do as much as we can as I don't plan to make FPs for this park. So we'll probably do the BIG rides that we didn't get much of last time (the mountain rides) and when crowds get crazy we'll head back to the resort for pool time. We can grab lunch at MK or at our resort. Around 3pm or so, we'll head out to EPCOT probably via boat. I'm hoping to make a few FPs here such as Test Track which we didn't do last time. I'm doing my first DISBOARD meet here ever...having dinner with somebody and her family at Via Napoli which should be cool! Maybe the 7 of us will hang out after dinner at EPCOT for a bit as her son is about the same age as my youngest.

MONDAY: Still hoping this is the day the crazy crowds from opening weekend of Avatarland go away...but not betting on it. I may TRY for a ROL FP for this day, and if so get 3 evening FPs for AK set up. I'd love to ride EE at night, so that would be #2 FP and probably the safari for #3, all around dinnertime or after. Since we have a Beaches and Cream reservation for the late afternoon, I'm not sure what our morning plans will be right now. It would make sense to do EPCOT or HS on this day, but we'd have to do it early and WITHOUT FP+ most likely. I do have Via Napoli reserved for an early lunch this day, so if we end up at EPCOT this would work out great. This is also just in case we ditch our plan for eating there Sunday night, which is still a possibility right now. So park, early lunch, then back to resort for maybe some pool time, then early dinner/late lunch at Beaches and Cream. If we get ROL reserved, then head to AK around 5pm and stay as late as possible.

TUESDAY: If we didn't get ROL for Monday, the same thing will apply to AK for Tuesday night...get a ROL FP and some other rides so this would be our evening. If we already knocked that out Monday, then I'd probably make some FP+ for rides at HS or EPCOT around lunchtime, but we'd try to hit the park as early as possible. However if we were at AK until late the night before, no real rush. We'd do some rides at HS or EPCOT, then head back to our resort for a while for...what else? Pool. Our evening would be either AK (if we didn't do it already) for ROL or we'd head to MK and I have a late dinner at Skipper Canteen for us to try that. So it's either AK/pool/AK for Tuesday or HS/pool/MK for Tuesday.

WEDNESDAY:The dreaded LAST day of vacay for us. If the previous day was MK, then today we'd probably focus on EPCOT and HS since they are both near each other and near our resort. If we didn't do MK the previous day, we may do some early morning to afternoon MK time instead. We have to depart the parks by about 2:30pm for our 5:30pm flight home.

So that's the new plan, and of course once I get FP+ reservations, I could end up changing things around again. I've also added ONE extra person to those new ADRs just in case my FIL ends up joining us. I know it sounds bad to plan for that, but there's just a good chance my MIL won't be around any longer and he may need the escape more than any of us, so I think he would go.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Hi Dina! I know, aren't flight prices ridiculous???? For our flight out on May 31st, I'm paying over $500 round trip for me and my daughter. But, for my end of June trip, I'm paying $850 round trip for 4 people. This flight was originally $1700. But, I stayed patient, and continued to look at SW every day. For my flight out this Tuesday, I paid $420 for me and my husband. Talk about prices being all over the board...

 

[ariane37]

I know what you mean about not taking DD out once she's in high school. We stopped taking Ricky out for a week once he his jr. high since he had honors n and he was glad we did. Now in 9th grade he doesn't even like to miss more than a day, mainly b/c they move so fast in honors math and science and the PE rules are ridiculous (says this non sporty, non coordinated lady who hated PE lol). That's why we started doing family trips in Aug. in 2014 despite my hatred of heat!
That's great DD can start taking college courses as a freshman! Like @xlsm Ricky can't start until junior year.

Hi Dina! I know, aren't flight prices ridiculous???? For our flight out on May 31st, I'm paying over $500 round trip for me and my daughter. But, for my end of June trip, I'm paying $850 round trip for 4 people. This flight was originally $1700. But, I stayed patient, and continued to look at SW every day. For my flight out this Tuesday, I paid $420 for me and my husband. Talk about prices being all over the board...

Whoa! Although I think it only sounds like a lot to me because Steve and I got such awesome prices for our 2 upcoming trip. I know I wrote this in my TR, but we scored flights for $76 each way for next Sat. and then FORTY, yes $40 each way in May But just so you know this never happens out of our NY airports!!! The $40 ones were a mistake by JetBlue and Steve happened to be online at the right time. For our trip last Nov. we paid $1700 which was about $150 more than we paid in Nov. 2105, and we considered that a decent price for 4 of us from around here for that time of year. During summer if all 4 of us can fly fpr between $1000-$1200, we're happy!

 

[kittylady1972]

Hi Dina! I know, aren't flight prices ridiculous???? For our flight out on May 31st, I'm paying over $500 round trip for me and my daughter. But, for my end of June trip, I'm paying $850 round trip for 4 people. This flight was originally $1700. But, I stayed patient, and continued to look at SW every day. For my flight out this Tuesday, I paid $420 for me and my husband. Talk about prices being all over the board...

Yes they truly are insane! We got some pretty good deals for our May flights and I was tracking them for quite some time before booking. Our October flights though...UGH! I'll post about that next since I just booked those on Friday!!

I know what you mean about not taking DD out once she's in high school. We stopped taking Ricky out for a week once he his jr. high since he had honors n and he was glad we did. Now in 9th grade he doesn't even like to miss more than a day, mainly b/c they move so fast in honors math and science and the PE rules are ridiculous (says this non sporty, non coordinated lady who hated PE lol). That's why we started doing family trips in Aug. in 2014 despite my hatred of heat!
That's great DD can start taking college courses as a freshman! Like @xlsm Ricky can't start until junior year.

Whoa! Although I think it only sounds like a lot to me because Steve and I got such awesome prices for our 2 upcoming trip. I know I wrote this in my TR, but we scored flights for $76 each way for next Sat. and then FORTY, yes $40 each way in May But just so you know this never happens out of our NY airports!!! The $40 ones were a mistake by JetBlue and Steve happened to be online at the right time. For our trip last Nov. we paid $1700 which was about $150 more than we paid in Nov. 2105, and we considered that a decent price for 4 of us from around here for that time of year. During summer if all 4 of us can fly fpr between $1000-$1200, we're happy!

Yeah I totally get the not taking them out of school at that point part. My kids are good about making up stuff, and the school is flexible, but next year may really be tough for sure. Good thing our passes are only good until December!

I remember your awesome flight prices...that's great. So a guy on my team at work just sent his daughter off to Florida this morning...she paid $49 ROUND TRIP from MD to FL on Spirit...but he said she had to go to the AIRPORT to book that price. Wow. She's in college so I'm sure she'll be able to handle the crazy stuff that Spirit does but they were already pretty aware of it. If I had known I would have considered going myself!

 

[kittylady1972]

Ok so I meant to update earlier but things just got busy...but I have to tell you the latest news.

Friday I was looking into flights in case my FIL wanted to join us on our trip in May. I don't want to keep harping on that situation, but it's just not great with my MIL but she could still hang around for a few more months. We don't think it's likely, but we really don't know. What we do know is that when her time has come my FIL is going to need to escape for a while most likely. Therefore I wanted to check flight prices for him.

However I never got around to it, since the first thing that popped up on SWA was the NEW rates were out for October...so I scrambled to look into our October flights.

And then I was in shock...because they were REALLY high for having just come out. This must be a very popular time to fly to Florida. It was just downright ugly.

In the end, I settled on flights from Jetblue instead, but I only booked the one-way from here to Florida. I wasn't totally happy with the return flight prices and options so I may just have to keep stalking SWA and other airlines to see if something better comes along. I still have plenty of time. So for now...we are BOOKED on flights to Florida which cost about $80 one way for each of us. I just need to get return flights and I didn't want to pay TWICE as much one-way for the return flight. That's insane.

Hopefully we'll figure something out, but since Jetblue isn't nearly as change-friendly as SWA, let's hope we don't have to make any changes to this because I didn't get any insurance on the flights. We'd end up coughing up the $75 change fee per ticket if something needed to change right now.

 

[kittylady1972]

Just a quick life update here. Yesterday my MIL turned 71 and sadly her health continues to decline, which isn't really unexpected. What's frustrating is the family members who chose to ignore the signs that clearly indicate her time left here is short. The original plan was to go out to dinner, but we convinced my FIL to scrap that idea and we ordered in instead. When the container of food was placed in front of her she barely touched it...she mostly kept her head down, stared at the food, and just seemed confused which is her normal these days. While the rest of us sat around the table after dinner and talked...she put her head down and seemed to be sleeping. At some point she was moved to the next room to her favorite chair to sit...and we did sing happy birthday and give her cake. The cake ended up on a plate on her lap for about 30 minutes, with the fork in her hand, and her not moving most of the time. It was heartbreaking to see. This just is no life for anybody. She responds a bit to people but very, very little. My husband's sister arrived in town yesterday and despite her nursing training I think even she is in denial about everything as well. The only ones who are not are my husband and myself since we just witness my mom's own deterioration which was similar in many ways just two months ago.

Before I went to sleep last night, I can remember asking above if there was just some way we could get a sign of some kind...I don't recall exactly what I asked, but sure enough I woke up in the middle of the night, glanced at my clock and it was 3:33am. Just a quick background...one is that I'm a sound sleeper, it's rare for me to wake in the middle of the night. Secondly, right before my own mom passed last month, my aunt told a story on the day of my mom's passing that she had woken up in the middle of the night (we were all staying at my mom and dad's house since my mom was so ill) and looked at the clock...and it was 3:33am. I also remember waking up in the middle of the night before mom passed...but I never looked at a clock. And to add to that, my aunt said that my grandfather (my mom's dad) used to always wake up at 3:33am and he once told my aunt about it, and she told him it was a sign that angels were looking over you. If you look it up, you'll find the same thing. While I am not a strongly religious person at all, I do believe in signs if you've read some of my other posts, and this was definitely a sign to me. Somebody is looking out for me, or my MIL, or both and that gives me some comfort. I miss my mom all of the time and this sign makes me feel her presence.

So that's where we are, with my MIL now reaching another year and most likely celebrating her last birthday. My son turns 17 in just one week and I'm only hoping we can avoid having to worry about dealing with another death in the family for his birthday. My husband and I both think she still has some time, but probably not more than a few weeks left.

It's going to suck all over again for sure but seeing her suffer like this is just so hard for everybody.

 

[kittylady1972]

Ok time for another Happy Post and PTR update! Especially since (shocking I know) I changed around our dining plans AGAIN for May. So here we go now, the...

...MAY PLAN 2.0

SATURDAY: We have an early morning flight...it leaves at 6:55am. I think right now the plan is to leave the house around 5am for this flight, especially since we are only 20 minutes from the airport. I have reserved a spot at the airport parking facility that we use which is very efficient. Arrival time in Orlando is around 9am and provided we don't sit on the runway for forever like my daughter and I just did on our trip earlier this month, we should be in our rental car and on the road by 9:30am hopefully. I've changed this a few times also (rental car) but I don't THINK it will change again. We will then drive DIRECTLY to the Contemporary Resort. I know after a busy travel morning, we'll all be hungry right away. Originally I had Chef Mickey's for a brunch later, but might as well get started with a good meal so we will all be less grumpy! So we have Chef Mickey's Brunch and after that, if the room is ready, we'll head to the Beach Club Resort. We can unpack and perhaps hit the pool if anybody is interested. If we don't have a text about the room being ready, then perhaps we'll head from the Contemporary over to MK for a little while instead.

We have the rest of the afternoon/evening to ourselves, so I'm figuring on dinner somewhere around our resort, maybe Boardwalk area or just quick service, or at a park. If the weather permits, at some point I do expect to take advantage of the pool though. If it's nice enough, we might just hit HS for a few hours this evening and I've made a Prime Time Cafe reservation for somewhat late...figuring we could even just do milkshakes and appetizers or something.

SUNDAY: Magic Kingdom morning. I'd like to arrive close to opening and do as much as we can as I don't plan to make FPs for this park. So we'll probably do the BIG rides that we didn't get much of last time (the mountain rides) and when crowds get crazy we'll head back to the resort for pool time. We can grab lunch at MK or at our resort. Around 3pm or so, we'll head out to EPCOT probably via boat. I'm hoping to make a few FPs here such as Test Track which we didn't do last time. I'm doing my first DISBOARD meet here ever...having dinner with somebody and her family at Via Napoli which should be cool! Maybe the 7 of us will hang out after dinner at EPCOT for a bit as her son is about the same age as my youngest.

MONDAY: Still hoping this is the day the crazy crowds from opening weekend of Avatarland go away...but not betting on it. I may TRY for a ROL FP for this day, and if so get 3 evening FPs for AK set up. I'd love to ride EE at night, so that would be #2 FP and probably the safari for #3, all around dinnertime or after. It's also an EMH morning to AK so if we are up for it perhaps we'll just hit the park early that morning and head out to see some of the new land in the morning, hang out for a few hours, then head back to the resort for some pool time by early afternoon. We have a Beaches and Cream reservation around 3:30pm, so we'll have to be there for that as this is one of two reservations I won't cancel for sure. We may head back to AK later that night to see all the new stuff at night at AK as well.

TUESDAY: If we didn't get ROL for Monday, the same thing will apply to AK for Tuesday night...get a ROL FP and some other rides so this would be our evening. If we already knocked that out Monday, then I'd probably make some FP+ for rides at HS or EPCOT for this day, hitting one of those parks as early as possible. However if we were at AK until late the night before, no real rush. We'd do some rides at HS or EPCOT, then head back to our resort for a while for...what else? Pool. Our evening would be either AK (if we didn't do it already) for ROL or we'd head to MK and I have a late dinner at Skipper Canteen for us to try that. So it's either AK/pool/AK for Tuesday or HS or EPCOT/pool/MK for Tuesday.

WEDNESDAY:The dreaded LAST day of vacay for us. We usually try to do either EPCOT or HS for our last park day. I have a Via Napoli lunch here in case we want to have a nice meal before our travel that evening, but I almost hate wasting time on a meal on our last day when we could be doing stuff. We have to depart the parks by about 2:30pm for our 5:30pm flight home.

So that's the new plan, and of course once I get FP+ reservations, I could end up changing things around again. I'm taking my FIL into account for several of my new ADRs just in case he has any desire to join us. I know it sounds bad to plan for that, but there's just a good chance my MIL won't be around any longer and he may need the escape more than any of us, so I think he would go. If not I'm sure he'll join us in October.

****************

And one quick OCTOBER update...we still have the flights out but not the return flights because those prices are just soooooo ugly right now. Yet I see the flights I'm looking at aren't even close to full at all, so I expect to see price drops for them at some point, probably this summer. In any case, I also put myself on a waitlist for a DVC Standard Studio at the Polynesian for October JUST IN CASE. We are booked at SOG right now but I love the monorail convenience of the Poly and even if some other friends join us, they may end up at SOG or even All Star Music (they are looking at suites there) so we would just meet up with them every day.

 

[kittylady1972]

So what if.....

...65 days wasn't soon enough for you?

What if you decided to add about 12+ extra hours to your trip and it would cost you another $200?

Would you do it?

Yes that's where I am right now...seriously considering "surprising" the family and leaving the night before our current trip...instead of waking up at 4:30am the next morning.

This means a resort change for sure.

This means flight changes.

This means rental car changes.

All of which are currently possible.

Do I tell my husband?

Do I ask the kids?

Or do I just make the change and they eventually find out about it?

What would you do?

 

[piglet1979]

So what if.....

...65 days wasn't soon enough for you?

What if you decided to add about 12+ extra hours to your trip and it would cost you another $200?

Would you do it?

Yes that's where I am right now...seriously considering "surprising" the family and leaving the night before our current trip...instead of waking up at 4:30am the next morning.

This means a resort change for sure.

This means flight changes.

This means rental car changes.

All of which are currently possible.

Do I tell my husband?

Do I ask the kids?

Or do I just make the change and they eventually find out about it?

What would you do?

I would think I would tell my husband just so he doesn't freak out on me later. I would definitely want to add the time though. I may not tell the kids unless they were going to miss a day of school.

 

[kittylady1972]

I would think I would tell my husband just so he doesn't freak out on me later. I would definitely want to add the time though. I may not tell the kids unless they were going to miss a day of school.

I'm probably going to have no choice but to tell the husband, just because I booked 3 of the flights with his SWA account and I need to login with that same account to change them. Mine and one other kid flight are booked on my SWA account. So I can't truly price compare without logging into his account.

Kids won't miss school at all...well not if we leave earlier. For this trip they are missing just ONE day overall for a 4 night/5 day trip. Although one of the two flights I'm looking at would leave close to when they would get out of school but we'd probably just book the later flight to be safe.

 

[kittylady1972]

So only one response here...and I'm still torn myself on what to do.

I mean really...who honestly sleeps the night BEFORE vacation anyway? Why stay home just to get some extra hours of sleep when we could be on a flight Friday night and in Disney that night and hanging out at a Disney resort to start our trip? It would most likely be a different Disney resort than the rest of our stay...but that's okay.

I had hoped to book a Studio room at Boulder Ridge using our DVC points, but by the time I got home to book it that room was gone. So now I'm not sure I want to use more points to book a room for one night. Perhaps I should just book a nearby (GASP!) NON-Disney resort for that first night? It would be much cheaper than a Disney resort for sure and it's not like we'd need to use any EMH time anyway.

Decisions, decisions.

It's so nice to escape here and think about this fun stuff rather than all of the other stuff I'm currently dealing with in my life.

Did I mention I have a kid turning SEVENTEEN tomorrow? That doesn't seem possible. And yet so far I have nothing planned for him...don't even have a card yet.

It was a busy weekend...took the family to see Beauty and the Beast and it was FABULOUS of course. If you haven't seen it yet...just GO! Even my boys enjoyed it.

Played tennis of course too...always good for me.

Then dealing with a lot of heavy emotional stuff with regards to my husband's health, my MILs health and my dad possibly entering the world of dating already.

Escaping to my happy place cannot come soon enough.

 

[piglet1979]

I went to see Beauty and the Beast this weekend too. I loved it. I couldn't get my husband or son to go. They missed out. I went with my mom and daughter. I found out that my mom has never seen the movie. I can't see how this is possible. Watched it a lot in my kids/teenager years.

 

[kittylady1972]

I went to see Beauty and the Beast this weekend too. I loved it. I couldn't get my husband or son to go. They missed out. I went with my mom and daughter. I found out that my mom has never seen the movie. I can't see how this is possible. Watched it a lot in my kids/teenager years.

I know it was such a beautiful movie!

 

[kittylady1972]

BIG MAY UPDATE!

So despite the lack of responses to my "What Would You Do?" post...I still had a hard time making a decision but I talked it over with my husband, who's response was basically "you know I'm always up for an extra day of vacation".

The updates I've made so far amount to about an extra $235 for us to change our flights and our rental car. The rental car was the toughest as man those rates have REALLY jumped for that weekend. I'm glad I made that change first and I'll still keeping looking in case they drop again but so far that's not looking promising. We have to try a different rental car company so hopefully that will work out okay. I wonder what would happen if I showed up about 12 hours EARLY for my original rental reservation? I've kept both just in case.

Anyway...flight changes were made TODAY...and that was no easy feat since they are on 3 different reservations. I booked an adult change first...my husband's...just in case I didn't get them all. Then I changed the two kids that were booked via SWA rewards tickets. I had to purchase extra rewards points for my husband's account, but that basically amounted to a little bit less than the same flight change I was already making per ticket for the rest of us. Lastly I did my youngest son's and mine which were on the same reservation and it's official....we are now leaving one day (really just over 12 hours) EARLIER!

What does that mean for hotels/resorts? That's still up in the air. I ended up booking a room at Port Orleans Riverside as that was the only Disney Resort option that was reasonable for the five of us...but it's still more than I really want to pay for a room. I also booked a night at Universal's Cabana Bay Resort because we have wanted to try it...but hate that it doesn't allow FOTL access at the Universal Parks. Currently I'm the only one of us with a Universal AP....thus the good rate at Cabana Bay that night. So while I'd love to just get to a Disney property I also thought it might be fun to check out this place. We don't arrive until late on Friday night but I still think we could get some pool and lazy river time at Cabana Bay Resort.

I'm still stalking DVC Member site for a decent (read: low points value) room for Friday night also. So far no luck there. I don't want to shell out the extra 13-18 points for a 1BR that I can get now, even though it would be free. I already have two active waitlists so I can't even add it as a waitlist either.

In even bigger news, because I have Friday night booked at Disney...it means I also booked ALL of my FP+ reservations yesterday as well! I got some great ones INCLUDING one of the new rides at Animal Kingdom - Avatar Flight of Passage! They were tiered so you could only select one, but I figure if things work out as planned we'll do AK as early entry that same day and ride the other ride first (the River Journey) and then come back that evening to do the rest of the rides as well as see the late showing of Rivers of Light.

For the most part, all of my FP+ reservations are after 5pm right now, because I'm hoping to do early park time, resort relaxation, and then back in the evening so most of our ride time should take place during those early hours. We'll see if I end up changing any of that.

That's my current update with regards to trip stuff. We are now OFFICIALLY 60 days away...actually now that we are leaving a day earlier we are now 59 days away!

 

[kittylady1972]

AAAAANNNNND....scratch that stay at Cabana Bay...it's been cancelled.

We are now booked at Shades of Green Friday night!