January 2010. . . Anyone else going???

[sillyyankee]

Hello Everyone,
Sooo much information to process. We are booked for the Polynesian (i have never stayed on property before and last trip was 12 yrs ago). First trip for our family of 5, 3 kids under 10.

Question for y'all, should we stay 5 nights at polynesian and then 2 at Animal Kingdom, because we really want to wake up to animals on the savanna, and stay on the monorail too.

Crazy? Help please?

thanks so much! and hope to see everyone there!

 

[pianoronni37]

I'm hoping for 40%! I want to stay in a Deluxe again.

Me too!!! If we don't get a discount, it's a MOD or Value for us - but I'm so so so hoping for a discount so we can for the first time stay Deluxe at the WL!

I fell in love with the photos and it's going to be very very difficult to have to downgrade (although I'd LOVE to stay at CSR!).

 

[Krissy04]

Hello Everyone,
Sooo much information to process. We are booked for the Polynesian (i have never stayed on property before and last trip was 12 yrs ago). First trip for our family of 5, 3 kids under 10.

Question for y'all, should we stay 5 nights at polynesian and then 2 at Animal Kingdom, because we really want to wake up to animals on the savanna, and stay on the monorail too.

Crazy? Help please?

thanks so much! and hope to see everyone there!

We have done split stays before. It's nice to be able to see two resorts. Bell services will move your luggage for you, but it won't be transferred till the afternoon (3:00 I think) so we pack a bag that we carry over with us for the day. In my opinion it is worth it..go for it

 

[BellaSoleil]

Hello Everyone,
Sooo much information to process. We are booked for the Polynesian (i have never stayed on property before and last trip was 12 yrs ago). First trip for our family of 5, 3 kids under 10.

Question for y'all, should we stay 5 nights at polynesian and then 2 at Animal Kingdom, because we really want to wake up to animals on the savanna, and stay on the monorail too.

Crazy? Help please?

thanks so much! and hope to see everyone there!

It's called a split stay and you can find out more about it on the resorts board. DH and I considered a split last January, but decided against it because we booked a package. It you do a split you have to book two different packages- one for each resort. It makes the cost of tickets more expensive, but that's really the only added cost, I believe.

However, Poly and AKL are both amazing and it would be a great vacation!

 

[sillyyankee]

Bella and Krissy - thanks so much! i think we will go for the split, 5 days at Poly and 2 at Animal.
Quick question, have either of you ever done the dining plan? is it worth the money?
Thanks again!!

 

[Momto2PrncChrmgs]

I'm hoping for 40%! I want to stay in a Deluxe again.

I vote for free dining please!!
Actually I'll take whatever I can get.
Let's all cross our fingers that when rates come out in a few weeks, they're not TOO much higher. I wonder what they'll do with the dining plan. It gets a little more expensive and a little more restrictive each year. I love it (mainly because I can justify a TS every day. Without it I'd probably force the family to eat CS all week ...that's just not our style), but if it goes much higher, I can't really justify the cost because it's not THAT great of savings anymore (and I do like the pre-payment of it)!! Hmmmmmmmmm.....what to do.......

 

[BellaSoleil]

Bella and Krissy - thanks so much! i think we will go for the split, 5 days at Poly and 2 at Animal.
Quick question, have either of you ever done the dining plan? is it worth the money?
Thanks again!!

We did it last time and loved it! It's nice not having to worry about paying for food while you are there. My husband doesn't love spending money and so it's nice not to have to hear about the cost of things while on vacation.

 

[Monny2AE]

Dining Plan gets a from me. All our trips in the past were OOP and all week we were worried about how much we were spending. It didn't make for a fun vacation. So this last time we chose the Quick Service Plan and it was nice not having to worry about getting that big room charge bill when we checked out. It was a great meal plan for us since we don't like having to worry about being tied to ressie's every day of the week. We only do 2-3 TS meals. This time we may do only 1-2. I sure hope they don't raise the price for 2010!

 

[Kazooie01]

We did it last time and loved it! It's nice not having to worry about paying for food while you are there. My husband doesn't love spending money and so it's nice not to have to hear about the cost of things while on vacation.

Agreed! We have done the Dining Plan our last two January trips (three counting our next trip later this month) and loved it. It seems to simplify everything and it's nice to order without looking at the price.

 

[sherry8253]

We will be there in Jan. Hoping for a good deal.

 

[robinbutterfly]

I would love some good suggestions for a dining place. We realized at first we were going to go back to all our facortie spots from our last trip, but I wanted to try some new stuff!!
We are a family of 4. DS is 5 and DD is 4.
Here are the places we know for sure we are going to.

California Grill
Chef Mickeys
Whispering Canyon Cafe

We need 2 more places! Any suggestions would be great! Thanks!

 

[jeanylaser]

I can't wait to celebrate my 38th Birthday in Disney and stay in POFQ! and Listen to the jazz music at Scat Cats!

 

[Northern Disney Girl]

Anyone else finding it hard to plan a budget for their trip? I wish I knew whether or not a good package discount will be released or at least what tickets will cost. It's going to be a tight squeeze this trip moneywise but I'm going to make it happen. I just hate not knowing how much it's going to cost me.

TOTALLY! I read on another thread that ticket increases are usually between 5-6% so probably no more than $4-5 for an increase per ticket! Resort rates didn't go up much at all this year so I think we can expect a bit of an increase there for this year, or Maybe not! We will just have to wait and see! I would say though plan out your budget according to this years prices and then add 10%! I would be very surprised if it was more than that! Let's keep hoping for a good deal though! I priced out the difference between the free dining PIN that I got and the 7/4 deal from this year and the difference for our family was only $200! It was actually the free DDP that came out ahead so the $200 gift card from the 7/4 totally evens it out! I haven't figured out what 40% would be yet though, I think I will go and do that now!

 

[Monny2AE]

I would love some good suggestions for a dining place. We realized at first we were going to go back to all our facortie spots from our last trip, but I wanted to try some new stuff!!
We are a family of 4. DS is 5 and DD is 4.
Here are the places we know for sure we are going to.

California Grill
Chef Mickeys
Whispering Canyon Cafe

We need 2 more places! Any suggestions would be great! Thanks!

How about Le Cellier? Are you looking for character or regular dining?

TOTALLY! I read on another thread that ticket increases are usually between 5-6% so probably no more than $4-5 for an increase per ticket! Resort rates didn't go up much at all this year so I think we can expect a bit of an increase there for this year, or Maybe not! We will just have to wait and see! I would say though plan out your budget according to this years prices and then add 10%! I would be very surprised if it was more than that! Let's keep hoping for a good deal though! I priced out the difference between the free dining PIN that I got and the 7/4 deal from this year and the difference for our family was only $200! It was actually the free DDP that came out ahead so the $200 gift card from the 7/4 totally evens it out! I haven't figured out what 40% would be yet though, I think I will go and do that now!

Yikes 10%! If Disney increases that much then they're going to have to give me a great discount for us to make this trip!!!!

 

[Northern Disney Girl]

Yikes 10%! If Disney increases that much then they're going to have to give me a great discount for us to make this trip!!!!

I really doubt it would ever be that much but it is a good rule of thumb to go by! I just crunched the numbers for our family and it looks like that for us the Free DDP is the best deal we will get! Even 40% off resort rates is still more because we would have to pay for tix and DDP at full price! These are my numbers -

for a family of 4 - me, Ken and 2 girls under 9 - 7 nights @POFQ, 7 days MYW, DDP

7/4 - 2247.20usd
free DDP - 2074.68usd
40%off resort R/O - 2307.46usd

don't forget that for my family ALL of this would have to be put into Canadian dollars which usually adds about 15%!

 

[Monny2AE]

Glad I'm not Canadian! Good thing you're good at math since you have to do so many conversions.

Well my Snowbird friends, I'm doing a PTR with a twist of a TR mixed in from my last trip since I never did one when we got back. There's a link in my siggie if anyone wants to pop in and say hello!

 

[Northern Disney Girl]

I was just over on the CODES board and someone over there was reporting that a CM just told them on the phone that 2010 pkgs will be released on Aug 15th!

 

[PrincessDreamer]

I was just over on the CODES board and someone over there was reporting that a CM just told them on the phone that 2010 pkgs will be released on Aug 15th!

That's more than a month away! I'm so impatient when it comes to planning.

 

[Krissy04]

Bella and Krissy - thanks so much! i think we will go for the split, 5 days at Poly and 2 at Animal.
Quick question, have either of you ever done the dining plan? is it worth the money?
Thanks again!!

We sure do! We usually do the basic plan and it's a lot of food, if I wasn't on the dining plan I probably wouldn't get all the desserts, but hey! I'm on vacation! I don't know how much money we actually save, but as others have said it is very nice to have our meals prepaid. We are planning on doing it for our upcoming trips as well.

 

[MelXThree]

I would love some good suggestions for a dining place. We realized at first we were going to go back to all our facortie spots from our last trip, but I wanted to try some new stuff!!
We are a family of 4. DS is 5 and DD is 4.
Here are the places we know for sure we are going to.

California Grill
Chef Mickeys
Whispering Canyon Cafe

We need 2 more places! Any suggestions would be great! Thanks!

My DS5 LOVED tusker house in AK. It was the only TS breakfast we had all trip and I am very glad we did it. We booked it before the park opened so we were done right when the park was opening and we were one of the first people on the safari tour!