Dates: Wednesday, December 25, 2002 - Sunday, December 29, 2002
Players: Kimble (Me), age 30
Cathy (my sister), age 27
My Dad (60) and his wife Johanna (50s)
My Uncle (70)
My sister and I live in Los Angeles and since my Dad had just sold his house in the Boston area, we decided it would be much easier (and more fun!) to all meet at Disneyworld for Christmas.
Cathy and I got a flight leaving LAX at 1am Chistmas morning, with a connecting flight in Dallas for about $280 a person on American Airlines. Not the most convenient flight, but a good deal, and would get us into Orlando by mid-morning.
We normally would stay on-site, but prices were high, availablity low and we would need two rooms, so off-site seemed more practical. After reading reviews on this board and Mousesavers, I decided that the Holiday Inn Family Suites would suit our needs, even though we had no children in our party. Since my Uncle just turned 70, we were able to get a great Senior rate of $115 a night...including buffet breakfasts each day.
We would all be arriving on Christmas Day, so I knew that we would need a priority seating reservation for a special dinner... we wouldn't want to "waste" a day on our hopper passes but still have that Disney feeling, so I made an 8:20pm reservation for Boma. Also, the Candlelight processional was a must, so I reserved the package for Dec. 26th...5pm show and 7pm dinner at Morocco.
With these priority seatings made, I felt confident that we could "wing it" the rest of the trip. We all knew it would be very crowded in the parks, but we have all been to WDW so many times that we felt we could let go of our regular commando attitudes and just enjoy the holiday atmosphere.
We did make a mistake and waited too long to make a car rental reservation (we started looking only 3 weeks in advance, stupid during the holiday season)... many companies were sold out of all cars, so the best we could do was Avis at about $450 for the 5 days (ouch!). We needed the car though, so we got it.
That covers most of the pre-planning... Day One of the trip coming up!
Players: Kimble (Me), age 30
Cathy (my sister), age 27
My Dad (60) and his wife Johanna (50s)
My Uncle (70)
My sister and I live in Los Angeles and since my Dad had just sold his house in the Boston area, we decided it would be much easier (and more fun!) to all meet at Disneyworld for Christmas.
Cathy and I got a flight leaving LAX at 1am Chistmas morning, with a connecting flight in Dallas for about $280 a person on American Airlines. Not the most convenient flight, but a good deal, and would get us into Orlando by mid-morning.
We normally would stay on-site, but prices were high, availablity low and we would need two rooms, so off-site seemed more practical. After reading reviews on this board and Mousesavers, I decided that the Holiday Inn Family Suites would suit our needs, even though we had no children in our party. Since my Uncle just turned 70, we were able to get a great Senior rate of $115 a night...including buffet breakfasts each day.
We would all be arriving on Christmas Day, so I knew that we would need a priority seating reservation for a special dinner... we wouldn't want to "waste" a day on our hopper passes but still have that Disney feeling, so I made an 8:20pm reservation for Boma. Also, the Candlelight processional was a must, so I reserved the package for Dec. 26th...5pm show and 7pm dinner at Morocco.
With these priority seatings made, I felt confident that we could "wing it" the rest of the trip. We all knew it would be very crowded in the parks, but we have all been to WDW so many times that we felt we could let go of our regular commando attitudes and just enjoy the holiday atmosphere.
We did make a mistake and waited too long to make a car rental reservation (we started looking only 3 weeks in advance, stupid during the holiday season)... many companies were sold out of all cars, so the best we could do was Avis at about $450 for the 5 days (ouch!). We needed the car though, so we got it.
That covers most of the pre-planning... Day One of the trip coming up!
