How many bottle returns to pay for a week at WDW? November 2011 PTR

[DearPrudence]

I have been lurking for a bit and have enjoyed reading others’ threads (even though I’ve never posted) and I thought that starting my own thread might help me work through my increasing Disney planning obsession! Even if nobody ends up reading this but me, at least I will have an outlet to vent my ever-expanding knowledge and overwhelming excitement.

Here are our stats:
Me: 39, DH: 39, DS: 6 (will be 7 when we go)
We live just outside Detroit.
We’ll be staying at the POFQ from November 1-8, 2011.

A bit of background: I enjoy Disney, but wouldn’t consider myself an expert or anything like that. Kind of your average WDW vacationer -- after all, who doesn’t like Disney World, right?

You know who? My husband, that’s who. He’s more of a read-50-books-while-sitting-on-the-beach-doing-nothing-else-for-an-entire-week vacation kind of guy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that...but I tend to enjoy a bit more activity on our vacations.

Fortunately, once we had our son, DH’s attitude towards Disney changed: He could understand the value of going to the parks with a kid in tow, to see the magic through a kid’s eyes. It would never be his first choice of a vacation, but he wouldn’t say “no” to the idea of taking a trip to DW with our DS (who we call Bug). And so I waited.

I really caught the itch back in January 2009. DS (then 4) and I were going to be spending a week in Florida with my parents. DH couldn’t join us because of work, but I am self-employed so I can travel pretty much any time. Two days before we were scheduled to leave, I said as a joke to my dad, “Hey, we should totally go to Disney World for a day or two while we’re down there.” I hadn’t been since middle school! To my surprise, my dad said “You’re right!” That very night he and I sat down, called Disney and had a 2-night, 3-day trip planned on the spot. We had rooms at the Coronado Springs Resort, dining plan and park tickets within an hour. And we had no idea that we needed to make ADRs or anything (luckily we went during an extremely low-volume crowd time -- first week of January -- so with a couple of well-timed phone calls we were able eat once we got there.)


We spent 1/2 day each at AK and DHS and one marathon, 14 hour day at the Magic Kingdom. It was a blast and we packed a lot of fun into those three short days.

Well, Bug and I had so much fun on that trip that we've wanted to go back ever since...and I’ve been trying to figure out how we can afford to make it happen.

 

[DearPrudence]

Part 2
Last November, DS (he’s now 6) started asking me when we could go back to Disney World. I had gotten a PIN over e-mail and was pricing out trips; I realized that it wasn’t going to be QUITE as expensive as I had originally thought, even without a PIN. But still, we’re not flush enough that a week at WDW is a simple thing to pull off. And I hadn’t quite gotten as crazy about it as I currently am, so I hit on a scheme:

I explained to Bug that planning a vacation takes time and money, and we needed more of both of those things to make a trip to Disney World happen. He said, “Can’t you just work more to make more money for a vacation?” I wish it was that easy! So we came up with an idea to save some extra $$:

We live in MI, where there is a 10 cent deposit on every can or bottle. Usually, Bug helps me do bottle returns when we go to the store and I let him keep half of the cash for his piggy bank. I suggested that instead of doing that, why don’t we save all of our bottle return money and put it towards a “Disney Fund”? We could set a goal for a certain dollar amount, and then reserve the trip when we hit the magic number. DH and I also promised to add all of our spare change to the fund at the end of each day instead of putting it in the jar on our dresser. It became the “teaching moment” of all “teaching moments,” a family project that we have all really been enjoying.

Needless to say, Bug loved this idea. Within a week we had saved a whopping $24. One evening he came to me with the entire contents of his piggy bank (around $40) and said he wanted to add it to the fund! I told him he could, and I matched it. By the end of the month we had around $120, and I was addicted. I got bottles and cans from friends and relatives. My parents had like $50 in cans sitting in bags in their garage. I cashed in nearly $80 from our spare change jar. Tossed in $5 here, $20 there. Bug got some cash from the tooth fairy and added it to the fund. Our local orchestra cancelled its season because of a strike, I got a $200 refund for tickets I had already purchased -- right into the fund. You see how this is going...After three months we had saved more than $500 with no scrimping or sacrificing. We opened a “Disney Fund” savings account and make our deposits to it once a month.

But I hadn’t started seriously looking into our trip...yet.

 

[DearPrudence]

Part 3: An Obsession is Born

When it comes to vacations, I am a natural planner. I am in no way organized like this in any other aspect of my life, but I take my leisure time very seriously. So I decided to purchase a couple of Disney guidebooks when there was a big sale at our local bookstore.

That’s when it really started.

Leafing through the books, I realized there was no way we would be able to go during one of Bug’s school vacations. Yes, we might be able to get a PIN or some other discount for summer, but a) I do not want to be in Florida during the summer; it’s hot and humid enough here in MI and b) I would like to avoid as many crowds as possible. (Also, c) DH said “No way am I going to Florida in the summer.”) After talking with a friend who told me what a great time her family had last year when they went the week after Thanksgiving, I decided that would be our week. Low crowds, good weather, decent enough for disney prices with or without a PIN.

As I read I also realized that there’s no way my husband’s preferred seat-of-your-pants vacation style would work -- I did not want to be sitting in the middle of WDW, looking at a map, trying to figure out where to go next. I also now know that if we hope to do any character dining, sit-down dinners, etc. at the times and places of our choice, I need to make reservations 180 days ahead of time. And so I started to plan. And plan.

Unofficial Guide led me to Touringplans.com. A google search led me here to the dis boards. Soon I was unable to talk about anything else and I was driving my husband crazy. Where should we have our “fancy” dinner? Which park should we visit first? Would it be worth the extra money to stay at a “moderate” versus a “value” resort? (Of course, that was the only thing DH had an opinion on.) I was just so happy to find there were so many people as consumed with planning their Disney trips as I have become!

I gave Disney $200 to book a trip from November 27-Dec 2. We’d have to pull Bug out of school, which I’m not crazy about, but he’s a good student and he will only be in second grade -- this might be the last year we can do something like this.

Then I started looking at airfares. We had considered driving, but it’s a two-day trip each way, and we lease both our cars, so mileage is an issue. I priced out the relative costs and with gas, plus hotels on the way there and back, we were looking at between $500 and $600. Not as cheap as I thought it would be, especially with gas around $3.50/gallon! And that’s for a four-day trip. If we lived close enough where I could drive there in one day, I would do it. But not two. The trip home would break me.

Of course, I hadn’t counted on post-Thanksgiving travel. Airfares from DTW to MCO for the dates we wanted were terrible. Nothing cheaper than $350. Southwest hadn’t released their schedule yet; Delta was ridiculous. And we’re a Delta hub, so almost everything I was finding was Delta. We could save some bucks by flying in REALLY late and leaving REALLY early, which would take our functional days in the park down to three -- not exactly what I had in mind. Time to re-think, and time for my first real planning triumph!

Since we didn’t have a PIN for the dates we wanted and there weren’t any current discounts being offered besides the lower seasonal rate, I decided to look into other weeks in October and November. I had a Free Dining PIN that was good through September, but we don’t start school until after Labor Day and I didn’t want to pull the kid out for a week right after school started. (Not a good way to make an impression on the teacher...) So I started checking airfares again. Best I could find was the first week of November -- $228 non-stop. Not bad, probably the best I was going to find unless I wanted to gamble on SW or hope for a later fare sale. Then I thought of something.

Between us, DH and I have close to 100,000 Delta Sky Miles. No, we don’t travel that much -- in fact, we don’t travel much at all, which is why I didn’t think of doing this first. But we’ve never been able to use the miles we’ve accumulated, because we’re always traveling at peak times and there are never any award seats to be had. So I started plugging in the numbers.

Bottom line: I was able to book all three of our tickets using miles! Total out-of-pocket cost for our plane tickets: $30. (That’s 300 cans and bottles returned. Not so bad.)

The best part is that even if we don’t end up getting a further discount on our Disney package, we’re still coming out ahead in my budget, because I was counting on having to spend at least $750 on airfare.

What to do with the windfall? That was an easy decision. Spend a couple more days at Disney! A quick call to the reservations center and we were switched to Nov. 1 through Nov. 8 at POFQ. We were originally going to have four days at the park, maybe 3 1/2 depending on our travel times. Now we have seven days! Now that we have actual tickets, the whole thing feels very real!

So I’ve got about a month until I can start making my ADRs. I hope someone is out there reading, because I will definitely need some input!!

 

[DearPrudence]

Part 4

Now I’m trying to manage expectations (mine and my son’s) and keep from overdoing it. If I don’t watch myself planning for this seven-months-away trip will completely take over my life! And if I don’t check myself, there’s no way it will live up to our expectations. Nothing could!

We’ll be doing the DDP. My parents and I found that it really worked for us last time -- it was a lot of food, but it made us really think about where and when we were going to eat and because of that, we ate much better than we ordinarily would have. I want to do the same for us on this trip. Nice sit-down meals will be a good respite to being on the go, and I really like the peace of mind that comes from having just about everything paid for in advance. We may not come out ahead, but not having to think about anything but the tip will be wonderful.

Since I have a month to work it out, I’m trying to make lists of the places I think we’d all enjoy, plus one nice “grown up” dinner for DH and me (we’ll send Bug to one of the Children’s Activity Centers for that), plus any special events/packages we’d be interested in. Not sure if we’re going to try to do any of those or not -- not sure if I think they’re worth the extra expense. Still trying to decide if we should get park hopper or not; I might make that a game-time decision when we arrive. At the very least I will base it on when/where we get the ADRs.

Here’s what I’m thinking so far, in no particular order, and on no particular day yet:

Chef Mickey’s for breakfast
Crystal Palace for lunch
Garden Grill for dinner
50s Prime Time Cafe
Liberty Tree Tavern
Akershus
Fantasmic Dining Package (not sure about this, the crowds for Fantasmic might be a dealbreaker for my son and husband)
Victoria and Albert’s for me and DH (would LOVE to do this, not sure about the $$)

That should take care of all of our sit-down meals; the rest will be QS and snacks. We’ll make QS decisions on an as-needed basis -- I don’t feel the need to plan all of those out just yet. I really want to maximize our dining credits. I am also only going to reserve one breakfast because we are most definitely not early risers. If I try to get everybody up and out every morning before 7 I will have a mutiny on my hands. (If I want to make rope drop any morning, I’ll probably be doing it alone!) And I don’t want to waste time with 10 a.m. breakfasts.

Anybody out there have any feedback or recommendations? Any experience with trying to get ADRs for the first week of November?

 

[aprilfoolwed]

Just wanted to say hi! I love the title of your PTR!

How cool that you got your airfare for next to nothing! Extra days in Disney are a good thing.

I've never stayed on Disney property, so I have never had the meal plan either, but your choices look fun. All 3 of my kids LOVED Sci-Fi Drive In, and want to go back this year again.

If you have some extra $$$, the Park Hoppers are a good thing. We're doing without hoppers this year, and I regret not getting them (we have YES tickets which can't be changed). It would allow for you to change plans if they weather doesn't agree with your plans, or if your son gets too tired for Fantasmic one night and you just need to go back to DHS for that one night.

Have a good time planning your trip - you'll have a blast!

 

[DearPrudence]

Thanks for reading! I wasn't sure anyone was out there...

I have read not-so-great things about the food at the '50s sci fi diner, but it just sounds like so much fun. I don't really care if that meal is gourmet. It's all about the atmosphere, right??

After a bit more research, I doubt we'll be able to swing Victoria and Albert's. It sounds INCREDIBLE, but it doesn't look like we can use our meal plan credits on it (we're not on the Deluxe plan) and I don't think I can justify the extra expense, especially considering we'll have to add at least $60 in childcare on top of it. We'll have to find another restaurant for our big night out.

 

[mphalens]

I'm so glad to see a PTR for November! We're doing our big Disney trip with my parents Nov 27-Dec 3rd and I can't wait! Excited to read more about your plans!!!

This will be our first time with the DDP as a family ... DH & I had it once when it was just the two of us ...

 

[DearPrudence]

Hi! Thanks for reading!

We were originally planning on going over those same dates. I am kind of bummed that we won't get the full Disney Holiday experience since we're going way at the beginning of the month. I would LOVE to make the trip closer to the holidays someday.

I'll be really interested to see how the weather is. I'm hoping it's not so hot that walking around the parks is uncomfortable, but not so cool that swimming is a bad idea. It's asking for a lot, I know!

 

[DearPrudence]

Part 5 -- We may have company!

Nothing new to report on the planning front except that I have continued to obsessively read the boards and my travel books and touringplans. My husband now completely tunes me out when I start talking about our trip. It is too far in the future for him to even think about it and he simply does not understand why I continue to obsess this far in advance. Clearly he does not get it!

One person who does get it: my youngest sister. When I started talking to her about our trip she caught the bug and caught it HARD. She also shares DNA with me, so she has also been doing her share of reading and research. She, her DH and their two DS's (will be 5 and 3 at the time of travel) started looking at a potential January 2012 trip. Then she started pricing out trips in November; her birthday is mid-month and she thought it might be fun to be at WDW for it. Then we started talking...
...wouldn't it be fun for the kids if our trips overlapped a bit...
...wouldn't it be nice to have some backup...
...wouldn't it be great to have some traveling companions...
...wouldn't it be easy for her since I have already done all of the planning...
...we know our families get along great, since we spend most of every summer bunking together at our parents' cottage...
...we're all totally on board with not spending every waking minute together at the parks and giving each family its "alone time" as necessary...
...we also know that she and I would totally be the only ones willing to show up for rope drop and stay as late as possible for EMH at night...

So now she's looking at going for 5 of the 7 days we will be there and also staying at the POFQ! Their trip is by no means a done deal but they are seriously considering it -- they're definitely going to go sometime in the next year, it's just a matter of when. Our only less-than-bright-spot is that we don't want to upset our other sister, who definitely would not be able to make the trip for a variety of reasons.

For now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because while we will definitely have a great time. I think having his cousins there with him will be extra fun for Bug, and I know DH and I will have a ball hanging out with my sister and BIL. Keep your fingers crossed that they can make this happen!

 

[DearPrudence]

Oops, tried to post pictures and they wouldn't post...

 

[DearPrudence]

Well, all of this obsessive planning has its downside. I have been thinking and re-thinking about just about every decision I'm making. As of this moment the package we have booked includes the DDP. We don't have a PIN or anything so there is currently no special discount; I just booked it because I assumed it would be a better deal for us and I liked the idea of not having to worry about paying for meals. I really liked the budgetary aspect of having everything pre-paid. And when I did DDP with my folks back in 2009, we thought it was great -- but back then, it included appetizers and tips.

But the more I read about the DDP in its current incarnation the more I wonder if it will work for us and the way we eat. As I have been starting to consider our ADRs, I have been second-guessing the wisdom of taking Bug out to a big sit-down dinner every single day of our vacation. I've crunched the numbers and for us to break even on the DDP, we need to do a whole bunch of character meals (I was thinking we'd do one or two) and make sure they're all dinners. And the rest of our TS meals need to be dinners as well, and we need to order the most expensive items on the menu.

Bottom line: I get that for a lot of people, the meals they have at Disney are almost as big a deal as going to the parks themselves. This will not be the case for us.

I also don't want to be tied down to ADRs every day. And I know DH won't. Once I factor in tips, the occasional beer or wine, and the fact that while I love dessert, I don't want two of them every single day, I am increasingly thinking that we will go OOP for our meals and probably do mainly quick service. I'll make a couple of ADRs (we really want to do Crystal Palace and I'll find one other character dining meal Bug will enjoy, perhaps Garden Grill) and that will be that.

I still want that "pre-paid" freedom, though. So I think what I will do is set aside the $$ I would have been paying for the DDP (Almost $800 for the three of us for 7 days) and put it on a pre-loaded debit card. Then I will use that card for all of our food. At the end of our trip, if I have $$ left over, then I will know it was the right decision. If I run out of $$ before the trip ends, I'll know it wasn't. If I break even, I guess it's a wash.

Of course, if I get free dining all bets are off!

 

[MARsMama]

We have been saving up our bottles and change since our last WDW trip back in '09 in anticipation of this trip!!
How wonderful that you were able to get your airfare with points and allowed you extra days in WDW.
Here's hoping your sister and her family are able to go when you do, it would be so nice to have some Disney time with extended family, atleast ones that you get along with! lol

We are doing the DDP, but we were able to get FD for this trip. Since we're doing 5 character meals, including one at CRT, it was perfect for us

Can't wait to hear more of your plans as they unfold. I plan and discuss Disney all the time myself, can't seem to get enough!!! Could be a long 177 days for those around me! LOL

 

[DearPrudence]

I'm in the same boat, I'm like a high school girl with a crush. I look for every opportunity to bring up Disney in conversations I'm having...I fear I'm starting to drive those around me crazy. I hope my sister and her family join us just so I have someone to discuss planning with for the next 7 months!

As I watched Bug melt down last night because he had a long day at school and then had an afterschool activity from 6:15-7:45 (other than Monday nights, he generally goes to bed around 7:30 -- the kid needs his sleep), it reinforced my conviction that unless we get free dining, the DDP probably won't work for us. I can't imagine trying to get him to sit down for a big meal every single night after spending all day in the parks. He (and we) will be exhausted. And he's not really "into" the characters, so one or two character meals will be fine for him. I have to keep reminding myself that this trip is mainly for the 7 year old we are traveling with, not the 39 year old who is currently obsessively planning for it! Dragging an exhausted kid around and forcing him to eat stuff he doesn't want won't be fun for anybody.

Of course I'll probably change my mind again. I still have till May 5 to make my ADRs!

 

[PixieMama]

Popping in to say hi!

I do think the DP is worth it. Especially on my family's first trip, where we did 3 character meals. Had we not been on the DP, we maybe could have afforded to do one. That being said, the only times I've been on the DP was for FREE dining, so of course it was worth it, LOL!

OK, I am really no help. Sorry.

 

[DearPrudence]

PixieMama, your reply made me LOL.

In the couple of days I've been going back and forth, back and forth about the DDP. I've crunched a bunch of numbers. Based on the ADRs I was planning on at least trying to get, here's what I came up with:

Dinner @ Crystal Palace: $72
Lunch @ Liberty Tree Tavern: $50
Garden Grill: $87
Lunch @ Le Cellier $65
Hollywood and Vine Fantasmic Package: $70
Hoop-de-Do (will use 2 credits) $145
That's a total of $489 for our TS meals.

Then based on averages, I am guessing we'll spend an average of $30 per CS meal, with seven of those for a total of $210.

Again based on averages, I am assuming that each snack we get will be about $4.50. We will get 21 snacks for the trip. That's $94.50.

I am not including tip in there, because we have to pay tip either way.

DDP for the three of us will cost around $750 for seven days.
If we do those exact meals our food value would be around $800. So I guess we would come out slightly ahead, assuming we never paid OOP for breakfast. And it really is only 6 ADRs for a 7 day trip, some for lunch, some for dinner. One of my main concerns was feeling "tied down" to dining reservations if we started feeling worn out, or the kid wasn't in the mood, or we just plain weren't hungry. But now I'm leaning back towards the convenience factor of it. Because unless we truly only eat CS meals the whole time and don't do any character dining, we probably won't come out ahead without doing the DDP. I know how quickly those "cheap" lunches can add up! And without DDP there's no way I would do Hoop-de-do, which I've heard great things about.

Overthinking: I'm doing it!

 

[MARsMama]

Although, like PixieMama, have FD for this trip so is obviously worth it, we did get the dining plan for our last trip and were so glad that we did. It saved from having to worry about what we were ordering, we ordered whatever we wanted, including drinks. That is a luxury to us as when we usually eat out with stick with water as it's a lot cheaper due to the price restaurants charge for drinks alone. We can try things and restaurants that we wouldn't otherwise try due to the price. We love it!

 

[jenneth79]

I cannot get over how clever your idea is with the bottles, etc. I wish I lived in a state that did that! (I have heard rumors about VA doing this, but have never seen a collection location...) I am going to borrow your idea about saving change however, just need to find a little piggy bank I can paint a mouse head on!:

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[DearPrudence]

It's been a while since I've posted simply because there's no news to report. After a lot of back-and-forthing it with myself, I have decided to keep the dining plan. I know there's a lot of argument pro and con if you don't get free dining (and I'm still holding out hope for a FD promotion for November, hey, it could happen), but the bottom line is that we will pretty much break even no matter what we do, and will probably come out a bit ahead on the DP. So I'm doing it for convenience, pure and simple. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The real reason I came to post tonight is this: Today my DS (he's 6) came up to me with his Birnbaum's Guide to Disney for Kids, a notepad and a pencil. "Mommy, I want to plan Disney World with you! We need to decide where we're going to eat!" I about died. I have to give the kid credit, he lasted about an hour looking at DW stuff with me and making notes. We leafed through my Passporter and checked out some photos online of a couple of places and so far, he wants to check out the Crystal Palace, 50s Sci Fi and Chef Mickey's. And he definitely wants to do Hoop-De-Do Revue.

So of course even though 50s Sci Fi and Chef Mickey's were not on my list, I now have to change my list of potential ADRs to include them. I hadn't seriously considered Hoop-De-Do either, though a few people on the DIS mentioned how much their families enjoyed it. So I'll have to add it, too. How can I not? What a kid!

On a semi-related front, we are about halfway to our savings goal -- with no scrimping or pinching as of yet, though that's certainly coming as we get closer to our payoff date...It's amazing how much money we've been able to scrape together with spare change, bottle returns and the occasional $20 tossed in to our special "Disney Fund" container.

 

[DearPrudence]

I tried to post pictures a while ago and it didn't work, so I'm going to try again. I know folks like to put faces with names so I thought I'd share a couple of pics from our last trip to the World back in January of 2009.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61020121@N04/5558720271/in/photostream/
Here's Bug recovering from "Dinosaur" on the "Triceratops Spin." He was so freaked out by Dinosaur that we had to ride this one three times in a row for him to recover. In my defense, I had no idea what Dinosaur even was when we got on it. Otherwise, I would have skipped it that year for sure!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61020121@N04/5558735573/in/photostream/
Here we are meeting Donald at Cape May at 0 dark 30 in the morning. As you can see from his half-closed eyes, Bug was just about asleep at this point.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61020121@N04/5559300362/in/photostream/
And here he is after a marathon 13 hour day at the MK. Yes, he fell asleep with his ears on. He didn't even wake up when I changed him into his PJs.

 

[mphalens]

Yay!!!! I was wondering how your planning was coming along!!!

That ROCKS that Bug wants to help you plan!!! My 6 year old will give opinions, but I don't know that he'd actually sit here with me and help
The 2 year old likes to "help" but really it consists of him bossing me around the internet while he looks at pictures ... it's more of a "Mommy - I want to see _______" photo scavenger hunt than a "helping with the planning"