How Can I Not Try a PTR?? A Newbie to PTR's for Oct 2013

[Frankiemack]

Hi all! I'm trying out a PTR for the first time. I've been planning our trip for a while now and wanted to share my story with all for your reading pleasure and a little advice along the way.

My family will be spending a week at Disney from October 23th through October 30th! I'll try to keep things organized here as much as possible but like my planning - I'm sure it will be hectic.

Don't mind the chapters or order of display.....they're just about as organized as this trip!!

Chapter 2: The Who
Chapter 3: Why Disney?
Chapter 3: Our Current Plans (I know there are two Chapter 3's...don't ask!)
Chapter 4: The Best Laid Plans are No Plans?
Chapter 5: Flights, Dates, Hotels and Rental Cars, Oh MY!
Chapter 6: Facepalming 101 - Another Change in Plans!

I hope you enjoy and provide some insight or ideas for my adventures in planning!

 

[Frankiemack]

Chapter 2: The Who

Frank (The dad): Hi – I’m the one responsible for suggesting this trip, planning all involved and driving my family crazy! I’ve been to Disney 5 times in my lifetime, all within the last 15 years. I’ve stayed offsite (Holiday Inn Lake Buena Vista, ASMU, ASSP, POR and most recently POP. I had the privilege of going twice on High School trips where we took behind the scenes tours of the parks, including riding Space Mountain with the lights on and going behind the scenes at the Haunted Mansion to see how they make the ghosts come to life. I have a soft spot for Goofy and can’t wait to visit my buddy again soon! I’m a HUGE Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan…this comes in to play in the planning stage.

Lauren (The mom): She has the easiest job ever – show up and enjoy vacation! I love that she sits back and lets me take care of all the planning. I do bounce ideas and options off of her but most of the time she responds by saying “I trust your judgment” (Now – I’m sure you other Disney Dad’s can understand why I love planning vacations – it’s the only time those words ever come out of her mouth!) Lauren loves vacation and all things Disney. She loves turtles so is a Crush/Squirt fan. She has been to Disney 3 times, once with her family (which shouldn’t count as they only visited MK and never made it past the castle on Main Street) and twice with me.

Natalia (The Princess): What can I say about this one…Talia will be 5 in December but you would think she’s going on 19! She’s the motivation for this trip…I’ll get to that a bit later. Natalia loves all things Princess, as most little girls do. (She’s already over Justin Bieber thankfully and now has moved on to loving Big Time Rush….I know…) She’s a big Ariel fan and will be taking her 2nd trip as we last visited for her 3rd birthday and Christmas in 2011. She’s a hardcore thrill seeker and now that she’s 43’’ she’s going to get her fair share of thrills at Disney, that’s for sure!

Linda (The Grandma/Nanny): My mom has been Natalia’s best friend since birth….I swear these 2 are inseparable. My daughter has gone to day care twice a week and spent the others days with her nanny….they have sleepovers often and I don’t mind one bit. My mom has been to Disney once, about 16 years ago. We stayed offsite as a family and I don’t think she appreciates all that Disney has to offer yet. My mom suffers from lower back disabilities caused by a work accident (herniated/bulging discs, etc) but that doesn’t stop her from running circles around all of us when with Natalia. She lights up when my princess is around and will have no problem doing everything Disney has to offer!

Here are a couple of pictures…

(I'm sure my mom will appreciate the not so flattering picture but it was the best I could do!)

 

[Frankiemack]

Chapter 3: Why Disney?

Why not?????! But seriously, theres a good story here:

Natalia and I were sitting at home on a day I had off of work and we were watching some TV together. I was flipping through the channels and breezed past Michael and Kelly broadcasting live from MK. She yelled and said, Dad, put that back on, I want to see Disney! I flipped back and she started rambling on about her memories from over a year ago, from meeting all of the Princesses to the antics of Goofy at our Chef Mickeys dinner. Michael and Kelly flips to a segment where Michael ventures through the world with his daughters. As the segment is playing, I look at Natalia and shes wiping her eyes. So I ask whats wrong and her response is, "I just don't know why I'm crying Daddy, I just miss it there so much!" After wiping the tears from my eyes, I knew our next vacation had to be back at Disney.

In addition to this, every time a commercial comes on she stops and looks and says she wants to go there. She saw a commercial for free dining with the Coral Reef in the background and said she has to eat there one day. She also told her Nanny that next time she goes to Disney shes bringing her with her....It made a whole lot of sense to bring her with us....Now, on to the plans and planning!

 

[Frankiemack]

Chapter 3: Our Current Plans

I still have a little unfinished business here:

1. I still need one more ADR for a TS meal somewhere in here
Since we dont have Park Hoppers I want to see if we can nail down our park schedule before I nail this one down

2. I need to decided on Coral Reef vs Garden Grill on Saturday, 10/26
Ive been to the Garden Grill and have loved it but we have all buffet/family style meals already and I feel like I want a nice sit down  Im just worried about recent reviews&(Plus Natalia saw Coral Reef on TV and was amazed that she can eat in a fish tank)

3. I need to see Fantasmic! and would like to adjust my plans for that somehow but my ADRs keep getting in the way!!

4. I need to choose a day for MNSSHP!
Ive narrowed this down to Friday, 10/25 or Tuesday, 10/29 and need to figure out what works best

Heres what I have so far:

Wednesday, 10/23
" Depart Newark on United Airlines at 7pm, arrive in Orlando 9:54pm
" Hop on the Magical Express to ASMu

Thursday, 10/24
" Check out of ASMu after 1 night and move over to CSR for 5 nights with Free DDP and Base Tickets
" Pick up a rental car from Disney Car Care
" Enjoy a day at any park we wish
" 5pm, Lauren and I drive to Tampa Bay for a Buccaneers vs Panthers Thursday Night Football Game

Friday, 10/25
" Return the rental car to Disney Car Care
" 9:40am ADR at Chef Mickeys
" Animal Kingdom for the day (closes at 5pm)
" Downtown Disney Night

Saturday, 10/26
" Epcot for the Day (9am  10pm)
" 4:35pm ADR at Coral Reef
" 6:40pm ADR at Garden Grill

Sunday, 10/27
" Hollywood Studios for the Day (EMH 9am to 9:30pm)
" 8:10pm ADR at Ohana

Monday, 10/25
" Magic Kingdom for the day (EMH 9am to 11pm)
" 4:50pm ADR at 1900 Park Fare

Tuesday, 10/29
" Check out of CSR and head back over to ASMu for 1 more night at Disney!
" Animal Kingdom (closes at 5pm)

Wednesday, 10/30
" Check out of ASMu and take the ME to the airport
" Depart Orlando on United Airlines at 4:53pm, arrive in Newark at 7:35pm

 

[Frankiemack]

Chapter 4: The Best Laid Plans are No Plans?

The planning was not easy for this one. When we went in December 2011 for Natalia’s 3rd Birthday, we booked with the free DDP upgrade at POP. For 1 week, including flight, we paid $1900 or so - an amazing value for 3 people and a week at Disney. We were lucky enough to check in right before Natalia’s 3rd birthday so she was free for the trip!

DDP: I know the DDP isn’t for everyone but for my family the convenience of it is most important and it has become a must for us. Going forward, we will be looking to book our vacations to Disney around Free Dining. I can’t justify paying for the plan out of pocket but when comparing $2162.42 room only discount rate to $2321 with free dining for the same resort, It’s hard to argue with $150 to include the DDP.

Other than the free dining promotion, there were 2 other must haves, 1: Queen Beds in the room, which means no value….and 2: My only selfish requirement for this trip – make sure the Buccaneers are home so I can go to my first game!

Planning for this trip didn’t start until May. I was originally considering the end of September for our trip due to the free dining promotion but was worried about the tail-end of hurricane season and the weather as my family does not do well in heat. I took a HUGE risk by not booking a Disney Reservation and waiting to see if additional dates were added to the Free Dining promo.

After a lot of debating back and forth I decided on a failsafe plan. I started making ADR’s for late September and Late October. I knew I was already late to the 180 day window and didn’t want to waste anymore time. I’m glad I did this as it worked out very well!

When the Free Dining Promo dates were released for October, I cancelled all of my September ADR’s and got on the phone with Disney to reserve our dates. That was the worst experience I ever had trying to make vacation reservations with Disney. The site couldn’t handle the reservation requests, the phones were tied up for hours, and the system crashed! Luckily, I called around 12:30 on that day when the promo went live and got in right away, just after the system came back.

By the time I got through to make ADR’s, the CM explained that none of the moderates were available on the dates I requested. I gave the CM one simple request: I must have Queen Beds and need to be at Disney on October 24th...I can check in on the 24th but can’t checkout on the 24th but am otherwise flexible with my dates….here’s why the 24th – the Buccaneers play the Panthers on Thursday Night Football! My wife is being a good sport and coming to her first football game – bringing my mom has many advantages – and a built in sitter is one of the biggest!

The CM came back on the line and found a Standard Room at CSR, checking in on the 24th and out on the 29th - I booked it immediately. We will use the ME service and will only rent a car for the football game. After some switching of ADR’s, things were lined up perfectly. That was until I went to book a flight.

 

[Frankiemack]

Chapter 5: Flights, Dates, Hotels and Rental Cars, Oh MY!

Everything was working great until I went on Jet Blue’s website to book our flight. We have traveled Jet Blue before and really enjoy their comfort and service. The Direct TV kept Natalia occupied for the entire flight!

Jet Blue has a bunch of flights from Newark to Orlando with a pretty big variety of times. Trying to get the most of our vacation, I was thinking a bit extreme: I was looking at a 6am flight leaving Newark and a 9:55pm flight returning from Orlando. These times would put a big strain on us as people and I kept getting hung up on the stress of the long days and what that would do to the ladies I’m travelling with.

As I started price shopping, I noticed that for some reason all flights from the 24th to the 29th were $30 to $40 more per person than flights leaving a day earlier and returning a day later. This got me to thinking….How do you get the most out of your time in Disney? Why spend more time there of course!

Just as I was pricing out flights, I received a 50% off email from hotels.com. It was a sign! I jumped on to hotels.com and found Serlago Hotel and Suites Kissimmee, right outside of Disney World for $48 per night. To this point, I only planned on renting a car for the Buccaneers game but now, I priced renting a car from the 23rd to the 25th and from the 29th to the 30th, extending our vacation by 1 day on each end!

Overall, the cost was about $160 for 2 nights at the hotel and 2 days of a rental, pretty much the same as the savings I would get by flying on the earlier and later days. Seemed to make sense to me, so I booked it and booked the hotel and car.

When I went to book air, I found that United Airlines was actually a little bit cheaper than Jet Blue during the time I would travel. We will depart Newark at 7pm on 10/23 and will depart Orlando at 4:55pm on the 30th. The cost of our flight for 4 people was $863 roundtrip.

So for the same price, our trip went from the 6 days to 8 days!

Am I finally done planning?????

 

[Frankiemack]

Chapter 6: Facepalming 101 - Another Change in Plans!

A few days after thinking I was done planning, I was talking to my wife and realized I am crazy. Our flight arrives into Orlando at 10pm…Do I really want to rent a car and drive to the hotel that late at night?? Do we really have to bring a booster seat?

This is where I had my “facepalm” moment…why would I consider staying outside of Disney???

On to the Disney website and check the rates for a value resort using the room only rate discount! Turns out, ASMU is $105 per night!

Changing our original plans again:

Now, we are taking the ME from Orlando to ASMu on 10/23, Spend 1 night there and move over to CSR for our 5 night stay 10/24 – 10/29, then move back over to ASMu 10/29 for the night and take ME back to the airport on 10/30! It costs us about $40 more off the sticker price but when you factor in lugging around a booster seat for the rental, and gas/toll charges to and from the airport, it more than pays for itself!

So now, I don’t need to worry about driving late at night and don’t have to worry about the quality of a cheap hotel as we’ll be staying at a Disney resort for 7 NIGHTS!

 

[leftaslide]

I've done most of the planning for our next trip also. (At least in terms of what park on what days, and which rides to hit first, etc...) Hope you guys have a blast, MNSSHP is awesome. We really enjoyed it.

 

[Frankiemack]

I've done most of the planning for our next trip also. (At least in terms of what park on what days, and which rides to hit first, etc...) Hope you guys have a blast, MNSSHP is awesome. We really enjoyed it.

I look forward to it....my wife actually told me this morning that I should stop planning and just show up and go with the flow!!!

She obviously doesn't appreciate the amount of work involved with getting a Dis trip right!

 

[leftaslide]

I enjoy it also, even though we may deviate from it. It just gives me something to look forward to.