January 2009. . . Calling all Snowbirds ~ Part I !!!

[trixiequilts]

How long does it take to drive from there?

 

[Wish2BTink]

Hi Snowbirds Now that I have booked my room I feel I can offically join. Here is how my trip is shaping up. It will be me, DD6, and my parents. Staying at POR, hoping to stay in the mansions. Staying from Jan 25 to Feb 1st. I think that I will book a package when it is all said and done, but I can't make up my mind about the dinning plans. I have booked our flights with AT. This will be the first trip for my daughter and I.

I have a few questions about our flight that I hope someone can answer for me. Will I need a car seat for my daughter who is six on the plane? This next one is going to sound really strange but will I need her birth certificate to prove she is my daughter? Can you tell we don't get out much!!!!

 

[trixiequilts]

Those are both really good questions Wish2BTink! And I don't know the answer to either of them...we don't get on planes much either lately, in fact, it's DDs'
first flights.

 

[MindyLuvsMickey]

We are also in a small town outside of Butler!

Are you near Hershey? We travel there at least once a year. It takes about 4 hours to get there. This June DH had job training in State College, so we stayed at State College and drove to Hershey for the day! We usually stay at the Hershey Lodge.

What a small world! They are actually in a town called Renfrew. Straight up Rt. 8.

We are VERY close to Hershey. It takes us about 20 minutes to get there. DS loves to go to HersheyPark. We had season passes last year, but chose not get them this year and put that money toward our Disney trip. DH actually works for the Hershey Co. and is able get really cheap tickets, anyway.

Katiebugsmom~you have a good plan. I think I'll be packed plenty early, just in case we have to bug out due to an impending snow storm. Who am I kidding though? We've not had a significant snow in the last couple of years. (Now that I've said that, we're sure to get a couple of feet the day before we are to leave for Disney.

Our drive to Disney is 15 or 16 hours with stops. We drive straight through over night.

 

[star2500]

I'm in Newtown, PA....the past few years we really haven't any snow....watch this January....the big blizzard of the century lol. Anyhows I'm starting my prayers now for no snow I've been watching AirTran....they have some reasonable prices....and I'm really tempted to book our flights. I also have some points which will take off almost $400.00 through American Express....so I might do this tomorrow.

 

[trixiequilts]

After reading about all you Pennsylvanians, I am curious. Anyone else from Michigan?? Also, I have tons of pictures from our last trip. I will try and post my two favorites right now and maybe more later.

I'm from Michigan, Grand Haven to be exact, where are you?

To me, the more pictures the better!

 

[2tinks2pirates]

Hooray, so that is 2tinks2pirates, debbieandroo and us, so four suites during that same time. That absolutely looks like enough for a quick meeting at the pool if we can. Plus Drakes is over at ASMo.

Oooh, this sounds fun! Does anyone have a tally of what gender and ages all the kids are? Where is everyone coming from? There seems to be a lot of PA folks on here and you might be passing through VA on 95 depending on your route. My MIL will be driving down from Pittsburgh to meet up with us and then we'll caravan on down to FL. I'd love to just fly, but 6 plane tickets? Yikes!

 

[kaos928]

Oooh, this sounds fun! Does anyone have a tally of what gender and ages all the kids are? Where is everyone coming from? There seems to be a lot of PA folks on here and you might be passing through VA on 95 depending on your route. My MIL will be driving down from Pittsburgh to meet up with us and then we'll caravan on down to FL. I'd love to just fly, but 6 plane tickets? Yikes!

Yeah I'm so glad there is only two of us. It makes it so much more economical to fly! Not that I didn't do my fair share of Disney road trips growing up. Probably 10 times, about half of them straight through. Our best time ever was 19 hours! (Mom timed our bathroom breaks for optimum performance ) I was spoiled though, we strapped a TV/VCR combo between the front seats of the van plugged into the lighter, before the days of DVDs! (My dad really did strap it in, with tow straps on a milk crate ) The worst times were when we packed 4 adults and 3 kids into the old Chevy Astro all the way down, or when we had 3 teenagers packed in the back on a compact rental from orlando to key west. Yep, I figure I paid my dues

But hey, those are good memories in the making!

 

[spokanemom]

OK, I have updates. I finally settled where we are staying and have converted our room only ressies to packages! That is Packages, with an "S". Ugh, the planning I do for my family!

So, we are now staying:
Jan 17-19 Hard Rock Hotel
Jan 19-24 Pop, 1 room
Jan 24-31 CBR, 2 rooms (we figure that we will be sick of each other by this time and really need some time apart!)

And the dining ressies have been updated too:
Spokanemom
Jan 18 US
Jan 19 US
Jan 20 Crystal Palace 8:05 am
Jan 21 Donald's Breakfast 10:30 am
Jan 22 Sci-Fi 5:20 pm
Jan 23 Goofy's Breakfast 8 am / Teppan Edo 6 pm
Jan 24 Water Park &/or DTD day. Would like to try T-Rex.
Jan 25 50's PTC 5:35 pm
Jan 26 WCC Breakfast / Chef Mickey's 5 pm
Jan 27 Coral Reef
Jan 28 CRT Breakfast / Hoop Dee Doo Review
Jan 29 Unsure at this time.
Jan 30 Favorite Park Day. Le Cellier for Dinner

We would like to add a Grand Gathering thing, either the Illuminations Dinner or the Good Morning Gathering at MK. Trying to fit either of these in. We were going to do the Safari Celebration Dinner, but they are only offering it on the 25th and we did not want to mess up the "schedule" too much. I think we are on planning overload!

 

[debbieandroo]

Wow, it's 200 million degrees today [okay, maybe just 108] and you Yankees are talking about snow! I didn't even think about snow being a problem - it NEVER snows in Memphis, my neck of the woods. I am a little concerned about it snowing in Orlando ... I figure that, as long as it has taken to get me to WDW, there is still a catch and wouldn't be pretty ironic if there was snow at Disneyworld during MY week to be there!

Shelly, I got my Welcome Packet today [and here I had been so jealous that you had gotten one!]. The letter greeted me with the sentence - 'we want you to have the most magical vacation ever -- after all, this is your first trip to the most magical place on earth.' I know they send that to a couple of zillion people every week but I still bought it, hook, line and sinker.

 

[debbieandroo]

Woo Hoo. One more candidate for the All Star Dis Meet!

I love our little board! And Sharadoc, officially, we'll only have one child - a nine-month old. Unofficially, we'll have a few more children - more in the 40-something range, though - don't know if they'll be mature enough to hang out with your crew.
[P.S. I sure hope none of them catch wind of this board!]

 

[debbieandroo]

Holy Cow! Are there going to be any rooms left after we Snowbirds invade Disney in January? That is one LONG list!

Star2500 & Momof2Disneyboys~Where in PA are you from?


I'm searching for ideas to make the time pass faster! Perhaps I should pick up more hours at work! LOL If I mention Disney one more time, my DH is going to leave me.

MindyluvsMickey, I kinda know what that's like - I'll say something about January to my travel buddies and be met with glazed expressions and unintelligible head shakes [yes, you do want the dining plan, no you don't want the park hopper ?!??!?!]. Ugh....so I'll keep the RO and wait til we get into double digit temps [October, most likely] before I make any package decisions, oops, before we make any decisions.

 

[DisneyJoo2008]

Hi there

I saw you asked about the Keys to the Kingdom Tour on this post - sorry it might have been a few days ago and I don't know if anyone answered but thought I'd tell you about our recent trip...

We did the Keys to the Kingdom Tour; we really loved it! There is so much cool stuff they tell you that you might never have known / guessed - loads of things surprised us!

We paid $60pp and it was a max. of 5hrs... ours got cut short though because of very bad weather and it was too wet outside for her to continue (the group agreed!). However, I would say, it was just a bit too long in our personal opinion. Whilst there is more walking, there was more standing around and sometimes that is worse on your feet than walking!

Lunch at Columbia Harbour House was included - delicious!

We got to ride Jungle Cruise and Haunted Mansion - we skipped the big lines!

We got given a special 'Keys to the Kingdom' pin badge which are apparantely quite in demand!

The tour guide was lovely, really nice and we all really enjoyed the tour and would recommend it!

Hope this helps xxx

 

[KatiebugsMom]

According to VZ Navigator it is about 15 1/2 hours from Pittsburgh to Lake Buena Vista, FL. But we are thinking of detouring a bit to Myrtle Beach and see some good friends for a bit.

Mindys......Renfrew I have been there that is where one of the Girl Scout camps are located. But I also work in South Butler county.

 

[SplashMtnCrew]

Hi there

I saw you asked about the Keys to the Kingdom Tour on this post - sorry it might have been a few days ago and I don't know if anyone answered but thought I'd tell you about our recent trip...

We did the Keys to the Kingdom Tour; we really loved it! There is so much cool stuff they tell you that you might never have known / guessed - loads of things surprised us!

We paid $60pp and it was a max. of 5hrs... ours got cut short though because of very bad weather and it was too wet outside for her to continue (the group agreed!). However, I would say, it was just a bit too long in our personal opinion. Whilst there is more walking, there was more standing around and sometimes that is worse on your feet than walking!

Lunch at Columbia Harbour House was included - delicious!

We got to ride Jungle Cruise and Haunted Mansion - we skipped the big lines!

We got given a special 'Keys to the Kingdom' pin badge which are apparantely quite in demand!

The tour guide was lovely, really nice and we all really enjoyed the tour and would recommend it!

Hope this helps xxx

Thanks for the info! My main concern was the 'standing' not really the walking. DS12 can get really bored just standing around waiting for something wonderful to happen....me too I suppose We all are interested in going underground and seeing all the different things. Thanks for the tips DisneyJoo2008!

 

[sarbah77]

Anyone else from Michigan??

I live in Michigan! (But I'm not from here )

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Well, I don't think I'll have to worry about a snow storm getting in the way, but I did book my January trip today - the 12th through the 23rd at BCV. So now I won't come back from my trip in September so depressed. It's nice to have another one in the pipeline!

Hi Snowbirds Now that I have booked my room I feel I can offically join. Here is how my trip is shaping up. It will be me, DD6, and my parents. Staying at POR, hoping to stay in the mansions. Staying from Jan 25 to Feb 1st. I think that I will book a package when it is all said and done, but I can't make up my mind about the dinning plans. I have booked our flights with AT. This will be the first trip for my daughter and I.

I have a few questions about our flight that I hope someone can answer for me. Will I need a car seat for my daughter who is six on the plane? This next one is going to sound really strange but will I need her birth certificate to prove she is my daughter? Can you tell we don't get out much!!!!

to Fla4fun and Wish2btink!!

I will get you added to our list!

Wish2btink - No, you won't need a car seat for your 6 year old. We've never needed one for the plane or WDW transportation. And we've never needed their birth certificates to go to WDW. We did need them to go to Niagara Falls!

Good luck with all your planning and welcome to the Snowbirds!

 

[2tinks2pirates]

Yeah I'm so glad there is only two of us. It makes it so much more economical to fly! Not that I didn't do my fair share of Disney road trips growing up. Probably 10 times, about half of them straight through. Our best time ever was 19 hours! (Mom timed our bathroom breaks for optimum performance ) I was spoiled though, we strapped a TV/VCR combo between the front seats of the van plugged into the lighter, before the days of DVDs! (My dad really did strap it in, with tow straps on a milk crate ) The worst times were when we packed 4 adults and 3 kids into the old Chevy Astro all the way down, or when we had 3 teenagers packed in the back on a compact rental from orlando to key west. Yep, I figure I paid my dues

But hey, those are good memories in the making!

__________________
My MIL was thinking of riding with us and I had to politely ask if she was feeling o.k.! 7 people in a Honda Odyssey on a two day trip to FL So, she's going to be in her Odyssey, us in ours and we'll let the kids trade off riding with grandma to break up the monotony a bit. Of course, she won't have the dvd player so we may have the kids all with us and my DH and I may take turns riding with MIL to help keep us zen .

I forgot to mention that this is also a surprise Christmas present for my kids as well. I know someone else was doing this too, so how are you planning on letting them know? I thought you could order a phone call from Mickey during the holidays so if it's available I would love to do that. Otherwise, the last gift of Christmas morning will be a box with t-shirts, pins, and info about BBB for girls and light saber building for the boys. I was also going to make one of those paper chains numbered with the daily countdown until we leave for the trip.

I also have more planned ADRs to add to the list when I break out my Disney notebook and get around to posting them all. I was up late last night calculating OOP meal costs vs. dining plan and I think we just may do the dining plan. We don't make it to Disney often, and we really enjoy the table service meals as a part of the whole vacation. The only drawback is the oldest is now considered an "adult", but he is a very good eater and would probably not waste much.

 

[2tinks2pirates]

Almost forgot, I'm also going to put the Birnbaum Disney for Kids and Hidden Mickey books I saw at the bookstore in the Disney box along with the planning dvd. I'm hoping to get one of these books tonight with my Borders coupon.

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

OK, I have updates. I finally settled where we are staying and have converted our room only ressies to packages! That is Packages, with an "S". Ugh, the planning I do for my family!

So, we are now staying:
Jan 17-19 Hard Rock Hotel
Jan 19-24 Pop, 1 room
Jan 24-31 CBR, 2 rooms (we figure that we will be sick of each other by this time and really need some time apart!)

Looks like we will both be at CBR at the same time for a few days. You arrive on the 24th, I leave on the 27th!