I Don't Know What to Do!!

[kristenrice]

Last year, DH and I did our first RunDisney race and we loved it! When I got home with my medal, DD8 wanted to get one too. I showed her the RunDisney website and she fell in love with the Expedition Everest Challenge medal. We told her that we would try to do it in 2015 since she wouldn't be old enough for the 2014 event. Now, there is rumor that this may be the last year that they do this race.

Here's my dilemma...if we can't do the race, we want to take our family trip to HHI over spring break which is April 5-10, 2015. We only have a 50 point contract so we would have to stay in a studio and would use all 2015 points and borrow 20 2016 points. We normally stay in a 1BR and go every third year (using 135 points) but due to the extended family deciding to do WDW in 2016 (our normal HHI year) we need to do HHI in either 2015 or 2017. I really don't want to wait until 2017 and I would rather go in 2015 even if it means we have to do a studio instead of a 1BR. Our next HHI trip would then be in 2018 and we would have our full supply again. Getting back on track...

If we book the HHI trip at 11 months (May 5...the day of the EE Challenge race this year) and find out that there WILL be a race next year, we would still be able to use the points at WDW...but then in 2017, we'd be 5 points short for our 1BR at HHI since we would only have 30 banked 2016 points.

We were really about 95% sure we'd be going back to WDW next year and I have already budgeted for AP's for our October trip, but HHI is a much more budget-friendly trip. If there is no EE Challenge next year, we'd really rather go to HHI. Not that the kids would say no to WDW, but it's definitely not our first choice.

WWYD??? Should I book the HHI trip or should we just wait until 2017 when we can get our preferred room type and our plans are more solid?

 

[Dasha Hermosilla]

Book it! A lot can happen between now and 2017 you want to go now and basically can so go for it!

 

[CarouselOfLands]

I'd say book it. You can always get one time use points if needed at 7 months and hope that works out, but like Dasha said, you never know what will come up between now and 3 years from now. Go and enjoy! And if they keep EE run, then head on back over to that

 

[SuperRob]

I'd say book it. You can always get one time use points if needed at 7 months and hope that works out, but like Dasha said, you never know what will come up between now and 3 years from now. Go and enjoy! And if they keep EE run, then head on back over to that

Exactly. The one-time-use points will bail you out if you come up a few points short. In fact those are fantastic for people like you and me with small point contracts (we only have 60 points total).

 

[DVC Sue]

Here's another vote to go ahead and book it. Book it and don't look back!

 

[bumbershoot]

If we book the HHI trip at 11 months (May 5...the day of the EE Challenge race this year) and find out that there WILL be a race next year, we would still be able to use the points at WDW...but then in 2017, we'd be 5 points short for our 1BR at HHI since we would only have 30 banked 2016 points.

Seems like you have flexibility with the travel plans, and the only thing holding you back would be the need to buy the one-time points in 2017. Doesn't sound like a big problem.

When people talk about no more EE, they talk about a Star Wars themed race instead. That might be a lot of fun, even for her.

And don't forget that there are other 5Ks that rundisney puts on, and those don't have the age limit that EE seems to have. Of course, the ones planned right now are all full, but there's Princess, Tinkerbell (at Disneyland I think), and going forward from there...you don't have to do EE again.

 

[supersnoop]

Seems like you have flexibility with the travel plans, and the only thing holding you back would be the need to buy the one-time points in 2017. Doesn't sound like a big problem.

Except you can only buy one-time-use points at 7 months.

 

[kristenrice]

Except you can only buy one-time-use points at 7 months.

^^^This^^^

The one-time use points are great, except that at 7 months, for a 1BR at HHI over Easter week, I'm sure there would be no availability. Since they can't be used for a waitlist, we would have to get REALLY lucky. Our first trip to HHI, before we bought points, was for spring break 2011, arriving on Easter Sunday. I managed to get all 5 nights in a 1BR at the 7-month mark without waitlisting. I don't expect that to ever happen again, which is why we bought our HHI contract.

 

[GoofyLo]

Book it! You can always rent points from another member if you decide to go to WDW. Or you could add another contract. We did this because we found ourselves consistently needing more points. We bought a resale for our second contract and saved a ton.