If not by land… then by sea… and maybe land!

[PrncessA]

I can't believe all these changes since I've been gone.

Coronado...it has my heart and always will. Until we started renting points and getting spoiled by DVC Villas, Coronado was our home. We have stayed there ten times and would go in a heartbeat if we were not so spoiled. In those ten stays, we had one bad trip and that had nothing to do with the resort...but with the guests. It was during Pop Warner football/cheerleading and it was them that caused the problem. Feel free to message me any specific questions on CSR...I'll be happy to try to help.

Welcome back! I was following along on Facebook on you trip, I can't wait to read the TR!

I am so glad to hear such good things about CSR! I am a bit nervous, but you are making me feel much better!!!

 

[MissMaryQC]

Yay Ethan!!! That's amazing news! I can't imagine how proud you and DH are of your little man!

Airfare, oof. I always read about the struggle of that cost; we're in South Florida so we always drive. I hope you guys get a good, and convenient, deal.

ADRs looking good! Deciding where to put everything is the hardest part for me. Especially when Disney changes the park hours, events, EMH, etc AFTER you book your ADRs. Le sigh, the struggle is real!

How fun to plan a trip for so many folks! Good luck on the challenge; let us know how it goes!

 

[PrncessA]

Yay Ethan!!! That's amazing news! I can't imagine how proud you and DH are of your little man!

Airfare, oof. I always read about the struggle of that cost; we're in South Florida so we always drive. I hope you guys get a good, and convenient, deal.

ADRs looking good! Deciding where to put everything is the hardest part for me. Especially when Disney changes the park hours, events, EMH, etc AFTER you book your ADRs. Le sigh, the struggle is real!

How fun to plan a trip for so many folks! Good luck on the challenge; let us know how it goes!

Thank you! We are so proud of him!

We have actually been thinking of moving closer to Disney, we are not happy about living in Chicago anymore and we have been seriously thinking of moving south. Almost all of our family is south, so it makes more sense.

All the updates on flights and ADR's are coming soon, today I hope!

 

[KatMark]

Can't wait to read the updates. You should move South. We finally are...October 1 2016 is the day.

 

[PrncessA]

Hello! I'm sorry I have been so long in posting an update, but life has been BUSY and doesn't look to be slowing down anytime soon.

We started our crazy week with a trip to the massive outlet mall in Gurnee. My primary objective being the Disney Outlet of course! Turns out we didn't find anything too great at the outlet though. I did spend enough to get a $10 Mickey cooler, which was the best thing we got. I did however find more than a couple Disney shirts, just not at the Disney store, Kohl’s and Crazy8 had some super cute options.









Then we left Thursday evening and drove to Tennessee to visit my family, including my dad, brother and my grandmother. It was a LONG drive and it is only half the drive that WDW would be. I am very glad we decided to fly. My hat is off to those who drive that distance!

Isn't it pretty!




My grandma:


The kids had a particuarly good time eating Smores:




During the trip we thought about how far it is to drive to Tennessee and how no one ever wants to come to Chicago to visit... I don't really blame them I guess. We have been toying with the idea of moving south for a while. We are looking at options for Tennessee or even Florida. The kids are still young enough that we can get settled before Ethan enters high school, which is important. We will see what comes of it...

The kids have a little over one week of school left and I am looking forward to next Friday, the first official day of summer vacation, with trepidation. AKA as the day when the kiddos start coming to work with me... and then the craziness of summer begins. I love seeing them more, it is just very busy!!

Now on to the good stuff... the Disney stuff!


RIGHT after I wrote my last update I went on Disney's site and for the heck of it looked to see if free dining was available during my stay, since I had been hearing online that they had opened up more rooms and I just wanted to check it out. I did my search and low and behold, Coronado Springs came up and it was cheap. Really cheap. I looked at my spread sheet at my room only cost, plus tickets, plus the amount I had budgeted for dining… and free dining was cheaper, by quite a bit. But maybe my food budget was off… so I went to a dining calculator and added in all of the TS meals that we want, which has a lot of buffets that we have to pay adult price for Ethan, added the QS meals that we will eat. And my budget is right on for dining.


So I took the FD total and added tip cost and extra for any additonal food we might want on top of free dining, and it was still $454 cheaper to do free dining, so I booked it! I haven’t canceled my room only ressie with the travel agent yet, just in case we change our mind. The difference really is the fact that Ethan is now an adult and paying for buffets with him increases our food cost considerably, but we love buffets.

The next day, May 14, was the day that Southwest opened up flights for the rest of the year. My plan had been to wake up when Erik got up for work (4am) and go online. But I overslept...I woke up at 6am, went to the bathroom, made a cup of coffee, took out my laptop and turned on the TV to have some background sound... basically I took my time.


When I finally got to the Southwest website, my goal was to compare flight costs on Nov. 28th with American Airlines. Well the first thing I noticed was that Wanna Get Away flights were CRAZY expensive, and there were no flights on the 29th for that category. So I searched for the flights leaving on the 27th the day after Thanksgiving, cutting our trip by one day, and found the latest flight for $137. So I quickly compared them to American Airlines for that date, and they were significantly cheaper on SW, so I went back to buy. In the few minutes that I was gon the price jumped to $171 a ticket!!!

Needless to say, I jumped on those tickets FAST! I added the early check in because 1. we will be in WDW and who wants to worry about check in at 24 hours and 2. at the rate the flights were selling out they are going to be packed! Whew, that was stressful! We ended up paying a total $84 more for the flights than I had budgeted, but at least we are coming home.... lol. The flight we are on has now sold out of all ticket options except the Business Select.


My next problem was moving my dates at WDW. I knew leaving a day early wouldn’t affect our FD, but I really don’t want to cut our vacation short by a day… so I ask Erik if he could possibly take off the 18th and we would fly out on the 17th, giving us back our day we lost. He said of course!

When I got to work I searched for free dining for the 17th-27th, and nothing came up for CSR and it was a large jump in price to the next resort. It wasn’t the end of the world, I knew I could always do room only if I needed, but I called Disney just in case they could help.I got t a CM who I cannot for the life of me remember his name, he worked some great magic and got us into CSR, with free dining, for $40 cheaper than our previous dates. OH YEAH! Our dates are now November 17th-27th. The CM was a huge fan of CSR, where he stays with his wife all the time and he could not say enough good about it, giving me tips and recommendations.

With our dates officially set I went ahead and used our miles through American Airlines to buy our departure tickets. We are flying out at 6:50pm to MCO, making us arrive late, but that is fine by us, the tickets were free, you can’t beat that!

I am still hoping that by some miracle AA drops their flight prices and we can buy tickets home through them. I would just get credit with Southwest and use it later. I am also continually looking at Southwest hoping they add flights on Saturday and I can add another day to my trip!


I am running a bit long, so I will save my ADR craziness for the next post!!

 

[KatMark]

I'm glad it all worked out with free dining and CSR (and I'm glad the CM told you what I did...CSR is great).

I thought you were only joking about moving south. You'll have to keep us posted.

Oh the trials and tribulations of the airlines.

 

[PrncessA]

I'm glad it all worked out with free dining and CSR (and I'm glad the CM told you what I did...CSR is great).

I thought you were only joking about moving south. You'll have to keep us posted.

Oh the trials and tribulations of the airlines.

I am surprised that we are going with the dining plan to be honest, but after making our ADR's I know it is the right thing to do!

I will keep you posted about moving. We are not in a huge rush, I have another year or so before I finish school, and I don't want to move before that. But we really feel like Chicago isn't for us...

 

[PrncessA]

Duplicate

 

[PrncessA]

The kids are officially out of school now and here at work with me, which means my time becomes more limited as I have not just my children running around, but the children of all the other staff members.


Before I get started on ADR's did anyone see the fantastic sale that Southwest had this week! Flights to and from Orlando from Chicago were $79 each way! I have never seen them that low! I have 4 one day park hopper tickets that we won at a silent auction and I was so tempted in snagging some cheap flights for a quick jump down to WDW! I thought about a weekend away for Erik and I during Food and Wine... but Erik squashed the idea with reality. The reality is that the sale is now over so my life can go on.

I do wish however that we had made our plans for California before the sale ended, because flights to L.A. and San Diego were pretty cheap as well! As it is, it does look like my mom, Lorelai and I will be heading out to California sooner than expected, probably this summer even. My mom is anxious to see my sister and I am anxious to go to Disneyland... oh and see my sister of course! My sister is serious about school and is taking a full load of summer courses, so we will probably look at August as she has a break in between summer and fall semesters. I hope we figure it out soon, I am antsy and need to research!

On to ADR's!!

I was a bit more prepared going into my ADR day than I have been in the past... probably because of the "free dining or not" spreadsheets from the week before. I had my list of ADR wishes in a list, in the order I was going to search for them. The list included a day and time, I didn't actively make a lot of alternate plans though, I had faith in pixie dust.

Here was my list:

ADR Wishlist
Be Our Guest 25-Nov Dinner New to us, we have only had lunch.
Hoop Dee Doo 26-Nov 8:30pm On Thanksgiving
Crystal Palace 25-Nov 8am
Be Our Guest 27-Nov Lunch
Tusker House 20-Nov Late Breakfast
SciFi 24-Nov Dinner
Chef Mickey 18-Nov Dinner
Kona Café 19-Nov Lunch
1900 Park Fare 22-Nov Dinner New to us, we had breakfast in 2009.
Rose and Crown 23-Nov Dinner New to us
Trex Café 20-Nov Dinner

The night before I was nervous about getting anything I wanted... I had been hearing such horror stories about difficulty getting ADR's for November. There were threads on here about it and everyone on my Facebook groups were not having very good luck... what would the next day hold. My thought was that if we couldn't get the ADR's that we wanted, no big deal we would cancel the dinning plan and eat C.S. more. I set my alarm for 4:30 and went to sleep dreaming of Mickey Waffles .


The next morning I woke up and opened up my laptop (no messing around like I did with the airline fiasco). Logged on and was ready to.... wait.... I had an half hour. Erik was laughing at me up that early as he got ready to go to work. I love sleep, but I love Disney more.

At 4:45 I remembered that someone had posted on Facebook about their dates opening up prior to 5am, so I checked and my dates were open!

So I checked with BOG, nothing available. For any day of my stay... Ok HDDR.... nothing available.... CP.... nope... okay something was going on. I decided to wait until 5am.

5am came and I began my searches and low and behold there were times available just when I wanted for BOG!! I clicked the time I wanted and POOF it went back to the search screen...Okay let's try this again. Same results over and over. Tried for other ADR's, the same thing happened. I did happen to get an early ADR for Crystal Palace... 5/21, accidentally. I was really bummed. I kept searching and seeing all my ADR times available, but I couldn't book them.

At 5:59 I called Disney Dining... then again at 6:00am because I was too eager. The CM I got after no wait was fantastic, but again I have problems remembering names. She suggested we start with BOG or CRT at the end of my trip for better odds... uh yeah I know.

We worked down my list:
ADR Wishlist
Be Our Guest 25-Nov Dinner Got it! 5:30pm
Hoop Dee Doo 26-Nov 8:30pm Got it! Thanksgiving Day Woohooo
Crystal Palace 25-Nov 8am Got it! 8m
Be Our Guest 27-Nov Lunch Got it! 12pm
Tusker House 20-Nov Late Breakfast Got it! 10:20am (EMH day)
SciFi 24-Nov Dinner Got it! 5:15 AM

It was here that I said, "We are on a roll!!" and screeech the next ADR wasn't available. I am not even kidding.

Chef Mickey 18-Nov Dinner Nope! Nothing available on the 22nd either when I tried switching 1900 Park Fare with it as well.
Kona Café 19-Nov Lunch Got it! 2:35pm
1900 Park Fare 22-Nov Dinner Got it! 5:05pm
Rose and Crown 23-Nov Dinner Got it! 5:05pm
Trex Café 20-Nov Dinner Not available, but I wasn't worried, I would call them directly.

I was also able to schedule the kids for the Pirate's League on Nov. 25th at 9:30am after our breakfast at CP. I was on !!! Serious Pixie Dust hit me! I told the kids and the first thing they said was, why don't you have TRex on the list.

Now over the next couple of weeks a few things changed of course. But slowly because I STILL couldn't make changes online. I could only change ADR's for days that were 180 days out or less, not my +10, which would have been horrible if I saw an ADR pop up that I needed. I didn't NEED anything so I didn't call for tech support, and they are all available now. I hope that doesn't happen with Fast Passes!!!


So for the few changes I did make:
*I was able to call TRex and get my perfect ADR for dinner.
*I canceled my BOG lunch and changed it to a Ohana breakfast. I was able to give it to someone who really really appreciated it, so that was great!
* I canceled my Kona lunch and changed it to a Chef Mickey's brunch at 2pm. This is perfect because we are going to MVMCP that night and I want to get in right at 4pm!
* We are now eating dinner at Kona the night before.

Now I don't know what to do with myself. I am really happy with my ADR's, which means I feel no need to move them around. The Wishes Dessert Party became available, but I didn't book it because it would be $179 for my family of 4, that is absurd! I am so glad we did it before the price increase. I can not believe that it jumped up over $100 for my family!!!!


Next up: Day One touring plans!

 

[KatMark]

I'm glad it all worked out. But you posted "SciFi 24-Nov Dinner Got it! 5:15 AM"...I hope you meant PM. I like most of your choices (we aren't fans of Chef Mickey's for dinner and haven't done breakfast in a 100 years). I'm glad you got a very helpful CM and that you were able to get it all settled.

 

[MissMaryQC]

Woo! First of all, are the kids bigger?! I swear they've grown a lot since your TR.

The story of your ADR day was like ready a good book! I was riveted!

Im so glad that you got all you dining worked out. I'm sure FP+ won't be such a glitchy experience.

 

[PrncessA]

Wow it has been over a month since I have been back to update and let me tell you it was an action packed month!

Let's start with the end of June, when Erik and I got an entire 4 full days with the kids away at summer camp! This is the first year that Lorelai is old enough to go, and the only year for a while that they will overlap and we will have no kids. For the next two years Lorelai will go for one week and Ethan for two weeks, and they don't overlap.

Along with two other families who had children at camp we decided to rent a cabin at the camp and stay an extra couple of days to enjoy the surroundings, and believe me you have to enjoy the surroundings, because this camp is in the middle of nowhere in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. No cell service and the Wi-fi password is guarded better than the gates as Disney World! Even my best friend who can talk anyone into anything couldn't get it out of the head of the camp. I was glad, because it forced us to really enjoy the outdoors and the peace and quiet... with 7 children running around after camp ended and we were all in one cabin. Add about 50 9th graders the second night playing an intense game of capture the flag and the adults learning a new game called "Bud Ball" and you have yourself a fun weekend.

Here are the kids ready to go!






Here are a few photos of the kids at camp:











And here are a few from our extra long weekend there:

The relaxing view from our cabin.



1
The hugely popular and fun game called Bud Ball. It was the mission of the adults to win against the kids, needless to say it never happened. Those kids are just way to fast


We also went kayaking, which was a lot of fun, but we found out Lorelai's little arms tire out really quickly and she didn't want to paddle back to the shore.





And then we enjoyed some lake time!






The highlight of the trip for me? Watching how proud Ethan was to serve and clean up meals. Three years at this camp have really taught him a lot about community.





So that was our mini-vacation! Next up... BIG NEWS about this year's vacations!!

 

[MissMaryQC]

Camp looks fun!!

Can't wait to hear the big plans!

 

[PrncessA]

So I finally made it back to update! I am trying to read up on a lot of trip reports that I missed, and have added new ones to the list as well!! Plus they keep giving me things to do at work, preventing me from DISing as much as I would like to! I wanted to write some this some this weekend, but surprisingly it decided to turn to summer on a weekend day and we took advantage of it! Here are some photos from it:






















So now on to Disney updates!!!!
Our trip to Disney World is now 119 days away!!! I ran scenarios on all the new deals that were released Monday, but it turns out we really got a great deal with free dining at CSR and nothing even came close to comparing to the savings we got. It really does make a difference with Ethan reaching 10 and us liking character meals. Plus with free dining your dates just have to start during the deal and we are lucky that ours cover Thanksgiving, which no room only deals cover!


I still have to buy our MVMCP tickets, but right now our budget is being stretched with another vacation that is happening very soon… I don’t know how often they sell out this soon, but I don’t think I want to chance it.

Other than buying the MVMCP tickets there isn’t a lot to do, to plan for the WDW trip right now. All our ADR’s are made, they are all perfect, and I don’t want to mess them up by looking at them and finding problems that aren’t there to fix.


Luckily I have had another trip to plan!


I know that I have mentioned it a few times, but we had tentatively been planning a trip to California with my mom, to visit my sister in San Diego. My mom just got a large settlement and decided to treat us to part of the trip as a thank you for helping her out financially for so long, so it is happening sooner than anticipated, August 8 to be exact! Erik can’t go because all of his vacation days are being used during our November trip, so it will just be me, my mom and the kids.


It has been a lot of fun, and slightly stressful trying to plan everything. My sister, who I love to death, is not really a lot of help. She is not a planner like me and it is very hard to get her on the phone at all. Then my aunt Judy and cousin Anne (and her daughter Rylee who is 10),decided that they will drive over from Phoenix and join us for part of the trip. This is great since I haven’t seen my aunt in 10 years and my cousin in like 20. So now we had to coordinate our plans and hotels, etc. My aunt doesn’t want to do Disneyland, but my cousin wants to do one day, as her daughter has never been. They also want to do a couple of days at the beach together.


So I started researching, the dates, the different airport options and lengths, everything moved around a few times while we were watching flight prices, checking with everyone’s schedule, moving dates… then we decided on Aug. 11-16, the best price on flights. I found the flights on a Tuesday, the prices were really good into Orange County, I just needed to okay it with my mom. The next morning I logged on to buy the flights and the prices had jumped $100 per person!! I was confident that I could get a better price, so I didn’t buy. My husband was not so sure, I was determined to show him! On Saturday morning I finally found flights that were only $20 per person more than the original cost, and that was doable. Now we were leaving Aug. 8 and coming back Aug.15 into San Diego International instead of Orange County. Which meant more time in Cali and an easier drive for my sister to pick us up and drop us off! Woohoo!


So far here is our plan:


August 8: We fly out of ORD very late at 8:26pm, this was the best flight cost, but it turned out for best since we have a full day of activities planned for the 8th before we leave. We get into San Diego at 10:46pm, but it will feel like almost 1am to us!


August 9 & 10: Explore San Diego. I am still working on plans, there is just so much to do! I know for sure we will be going to the U.S.S. Midway

and Coronado Beach.

We are thinking about a whale watching cruise as well. We also have to visit the Navy base to pick up the military salute tickets for Disneyland and a discounted ticket for my cousin and her daughter. I will update more when I know what our daily plans will be!!


August 11: Leave San Diego EARLY to make it to Disneyland before opening! Hopefully we can go ahead and check into and park our car at our hotel since it is free parking. After A LOT of research and changing our reservation more than once. We are staying at the Dessert Palms Inn and Suites.

It is right below DCA, and a not a bad walk to the entrances.


It is an EE morning at DL and military salute tickets do not have access to early entry. We are starting our trip in DCA! I have been working on our touring plans, which is so exciting!


We will leave DCA after lunch and head to the hotel for a while, probably swim, then head back to DL for the evening. Our goal is to hopefully see Fantasmic, and the second showing of the Paint the Night parade. As for the rest of our touring plan I’m not sure of yet.


August 12: Since DCA has EE this morning we will be starting our day in DL! We are going to follow a touring plan and hopefully bang out most of the rides we want to ride early! I am thinking that we might stop in DCA first and see if we can get a set of RSR FP’s and World of Color FP’s, but I am not sure if we want to lose that time at DL. Or I might look at eating breakfast at the Plaza with Minnie. It is still up in the air right now.

If we do not get WOC earlier in the day, we will stop by before we head out for our afternoon break to get some.


Obviously our evening is going to be spent in DCA and watching the new WOC or any WOC really. I am very excited to see it in person, since we watched it on Youtube already.


August 13: My cousin and her daughter are joining us at DL. There will be no park hopping today. I hope we get to see the fireworks this night and possibly we will watch the parade again. The only for sure plan is having dinner at the Disneyland Hotel at

and I hope a drink at

After we leave DL for the day we will be driving back to San Diego. We are all staying at a Best Western near Mission Beach together.


August 14: Beach time! We might head up to La Jolla and do some kayaking and snorkeling. Other than that just relaxing!


August 15: More beach and family time!


We fly out of San Diego at 5:36pm and will get home at 11:40pm. At least we have Sunday to rest before we have to go back to real life!!

 

[MissMaryQC]

Cali sounds like it's gonna be a blast!!!

 

[PrncessA]

Cali sounds like it's gonna be a blast!!!

It was! I have a new trip report in my signature for it!

Thanks to anyone who is still hanging on. I don't think I am as good at PTR's as I am at TR's!

We are now down to 89 days!! We started our double-digit dance while we were in California, which was awesome!

As much as I loved Disneyland it made me long for Disney World, it made me so excited for our trip in November. It also gave me a few things to think about in my planning... I tend to over plan our days in the parks. Then while we are there we end up taking an extra morning or evening or two off. Disneyland was such a different experience for us since we had so little time there (three days) and didn't take as many or as long of breaks, it really made me appreciate the breaks that we are able to take in WDW. I am going to re-evaluate our plans next week and make sure I planned enough downtime for us, before our FP+ window comes up!

Next, who else is super excited for all the changes announced for Disney World at the D23 conference? I AM!! After seeing Cars Land, I can only imagine what they can and will do with Star Wars and Toy Story. I know many people aren't that excited about either of them, but they will be amazing I am sure. I am not head over heels for Cars, and neither of my kids are huge Cars fans, but we loved Cars Land. How could you not? The attention to detail is amazing. I am a little sad that they are not including a ride similar to RSR in the expansions. It by far is in the top tier of Disney rides, it is just amazing! I have a little girl who is super excited for more Star Wars attractions and I grew up with Toy Story so I am emotionally attached to it. I can only hope they don't take a decade to finish the work!

In regards to our trip in November I am praying that the Skipper Canteen is open by the time we are there. I would happily trade our Be Our Guest ADR for a meal there! I mean who does not LOVE the Jungle Cruise and the banter that the Skippers have? It is one of my family's favorite rides, and it is absolutely because of the sarcastic humor of the skippers. I can't wait to eat at a restaurant with JC Skippers as servers. One can only hope we can expect a lot of jokes and puns!

Both the kids and I start school next week, so I know by November that I am going to be ready for this vacation! Oh let's be honest, I am already ready for this vacation!