How Hard Can It Be To Give Away a Trip to WDW? A Spring Break PTR

[angierae]

Hey everyone! I've been meaning to write this for a while but things have been so CRAZY!

This all started back in 2009 when my awesome Mother in Law said she wanted to start taking big family trips with her, my DH and me and our daughter (his step, but we don't think of it that way) and then DH's brother and his wife.

It was pretty quickly decided that the first trip needed to be WDW!

DD and I had never been, and we fell in love immediately. We couldn't have been home six months before I started plotting to go back! First I was thinking a quick June trip for DD and I - we'd drive, stay value, probably do QSDP, something quick and inexpensive.

But then DH said he wanted to go. And we started thinking that maybe DD should bring a friend, since she'd be 17 on this trip.

...and that's when the "fun" started.

But first some introductions!

DD:

Mickey peep by angierae75, on Flickr

She's a junior in high school this year, loves band and music and writing.


I'm Angie. I'm 36, and a paralegal at a medium sized law firm. I never got to go to Disney as a kid and I was so excited to get to go on our trip. I'm the Crazy Planner in the family.

DH is 42. He spent his 40th birthday at WDW (and had a terrible experience at a certain aquatic-themed restaurant that shall not be named.) He's a sportswriter and not a huge Disney fan, but he did like the food! (We'd gone DXDP on our first trip!)


So, we decided that we'd go at Spring Break for a couple of reasons - first, DH does not like the heat, and had a hard time during our early May trip when it was in the mid to high 90's almost every day. Also, pulling DD out of school is not a good thing - we did it once, but she's struggled with school and we didn't want to do it again.

DD's first choice to go with us was her BFF. She mentioned it to her, and the BFF mentioned it to her parents but things kind of languished. Finally I said it was getting to be time to book (2012 packages came out early last year!) and we really needed to talk to her parents and get all the details ironed out. BFF went to her parents to arrange some time for us to get together and talk ... and she got the bad news that they didn't want her to go!

Although they've never been to WDW, they wanted everyone's first trip to be as a family. DD was disappointed, and had no idea who else to ask. We consoled her, and tossed out a few ideas of who we thought would be good.

My (grown) neice has a half-sister that is not technically related to us (my brother's ex-wife's daughter) but Brit considers her a cousin just like she does my niece's kids. She asked S if she wanted to go with us, and she said yes at first. Yay! We had a friend for DD!

Except as it got closer to time to deal with things, she chickened out - she'd never been away from home that long without family, she was afraid to fly..

So she finally thanked us, but said no.

So, my cousin said her SON would like to go, and he and Brit get along well. We figured we'd bring an air mattress and the kids could take turns sleeping on it. Yay! J is coming!

...except he found out he had a band camp thing during Spring Break that he didn't want to miss.

At this point I'm freaking out. It'd be fine if just the three of us went, but we were coming up on our 180 day window for ADRs, and I needed to know if I was making reservations for 3 or 4. Or if DD would want to eat meals with her guest without us! What to do!?

We brainstormed with DD a bit about who we thought would be a good fit, and finally she decided to ask her friend B.

B's parents were all over the idea, and I talked with them on the phone and in person after a band concert and everything was all set! Yay! We finally had our little party. She came over one night and we added her to the reservation and started looking at dinner menus!

DDFriend - she's 15, a sophmore and is in band with DD. She's a vegetarian (eats fish, though) and hasn't been to WDW since she was very tiny and stayed offsite with her grandparents. She's SUPER MEGA EXCITED.

So we finally had our little group. Our trip planning was not going to go any simpler after that, though.. but that's a story for another day.

 

[angierae]

In the months leading up to booking our trip, we were looking at different resorts. DH and I had not enjoyed the double beds at Pop Century during our first trip. DD had shared a room with my MIL, and they put DH and I in a room with two double beds. We ended up sleeping in separate beds all week! Not exactly my idea of a vacation.

So first we looked at Coronado Springs, since I knew that was a mod with queen beds. I was never really thrilled with it, though. It seemed much more a "convention" hotel and while I knew a lot of people loved it, I just didn't really _feel_ it, you know?

We looked at the family suites at the All Stars, and for a while we were thinking about doing that. We liked the idea of separate sleeping areas for the girls and us, we liked having a bit of room to spread out, and we REALLY liked having two bathrooms. But the Easter pricing was going to be over $300 a night, and I hemmed and hawed on it for a long time.

Then, I did some research on the Dis and found out that POFQ was being refurbed, and would have queen beds. I started looking at pictures of the resort and quickly fell in love with it. It was 1/3rd the size of Pop Century, it was gorgeous, we'd have a fridge and a hot tub and the boat to DTD and and and.

By the time we booked in June, I knew exactly where we wanted to stay.

 

[angierae]

Not too long after we booked I saw on the DIS that there was a new free dining deal available for 2012. I was cautiously optimistic, because I knew we were going at Spring Break time. So I clicked through and looked - and lo and behold, the last day to check in was 3/31 - our arrival date!

I grabbed my cell phone and called Disney (I was at work) and during the 45 minutes(!) I was on hold, I called DH and asked him if he wanted me to go ahead and upgrade to DXDP. We had been paying $55/per person per day for DDP, and by my math, the upgrade price to DxDP would be $34/per person per day, so we were still saving $80 a day but could do DXDP, like we'd done on our first trip.

"YES!" he said, excited. I think for DH the food is the best part of Disney. I laughed at him and continued waiting.

I got the best CM ever and she was very nice. She was so excited to tell me that yes, I could get FD, and I could stay at POFQ. We got that all arranged and I hung up the phone.

Now I had a ton of planning to do! What would our meals be? What would we all like? Did we want to eat at all new places? Did we want to try some old favorites?

And remember, at this time we still didn't know if anyone was going with us or not!

Food planning took up most of the next couple months, leading up to our 180 day on 10/3/2011.

Next up: Food planning!