Let's do this all over again...Update 12/6 7:00 am @ MK

[TeresaNJ]

I think that sounds like a great plan. My DH rents a car many times when he has long car trips for work, so as to save the mileage, wear and tear on his car. I like that you are stopping at NC too, as opposed to driving straight through. I think you'll save lots of energy that way.

We may be heading to Disney for a few days also while you are there. We're suppose to go to Disneyland with my son and daughter-in-law, the end of September into the first week of October, with a stop at the Grand Canyon first for a few days, and I'm trying to sneak in a short trip with DH to WDW the first week of December. We haven't been away alone for quite some time now.

 

[topdog]

Your plan sounds great and very well thought out. I know lots of people who rent cars to travel, so as not to put the miles on their own cars.

My friend does the whole AAA thing every year and never has any trouble.

Have a good weekend.

It's good to know some one had book through AAA without any problem. We just got the AAA info package yesterday and now reading it end to end.

How's the weather at your end of PA? It was fairly warm yesterday, almost hit 45 degrees. We got hit with the cold front today. Rain in the morning and every thing start freezing up by noon.

I think that sounds like a great plan. My DH rents a car many times when he has long car trips for work, so as to save the mileage, wear and tear on his car. I like that you are stopping at NC too, as opposed to driving straight through. I think you'll save lots of energy that way.

We may be heading to Disney for a few days also while you are there. We're suppose to go to Disneyland with my son and daughter-in-law, the end of September into the first week of October, with a stop at the Grand Canyon first for a few days, and I'm trying to sneak in a short trip with DH to WDW the first week of December. We haven't been away alone for quite some time now.

I hope you do get to go WDW that week. I will have my LGMH with me. Look me up or sent me a PM once you confirm. We can certain have a quick DIS meet at MK or something.

That's awesome you get to stop at Grand Canyon. That's on one of our eventually stop by list including Yellowstone Park as well, you know how I felt about Old Faithful Inn. I personally have already went to Mount Rushmore and Devil's Tower.

 

[Planning fanatic mom]

How's the weather at your end of PA? It was fairly warm yesterday, almost hit 45 degrees. We got hit with the cold front today. Rain in the morning and every thing start freezing up by noon.

Pretty much the same as yours. Really wet yesterday. Gorgeous today. Like 50 degrees. My mom said that you guys might get freezing rain last night. Did you??

 

[eandesmom]

That's nice to know about AAA, I assumed you had to prepay for the whole thing as usual.

I can understand why you'd want to rent a car versus putting the miles on yours, are the flights really expensive from where you are? I

 

[eliz991]

.
Before you wonder why I want a rental half way of the trip. I am trying to conserve the mileage on our car. The car is only 4 years old and it's already over 100,000 miles. I am trying to keep it as low as I possibly can and that's DW's daily driver. My daily driver is 3,000 miles short from 400,000 miles so that's not even a consideration for such a long trip.

Wow, what kind of cars do you drive? I'm in the market for a used car and I'm worried about reliability. I'm not looking at something too old, probably a 2008 Saab 93 or Honda Civic. I like the Saab, but I suspect the Honda is better on long term reliability.

I drive a 4 year old car and it has 26,000 miles on it. I only live 3 miles from work, but we are moving and I will have to drive more each day. That said, the catalytic converter has already gone out on my car and the sunroof has been repaired twice! So you can see I am not that lucky with cars.

 

[topdog]

Pretty much the same as yours. Really wet yesterday. Gorgeous today. Like 50 degrees. My mom said that you guys might get freezing rain last night. Did you??

We have some freezing rain on Sunday. Monday was nice then we had some snow this morning and now it's all melted.

That's nice to know about AAA, I assumed you had to prepay for the whole thing as usual.

I can understand why you'd want to rent a car versus putting the miles on yours, are the flights really expensive from where you are? I

From what DW told me, we don't have to prepay the whole thing up front. We can make partial payment every month. Even cancel policy is the same. AAA will just take over the reservation. That's all. If Disney come out with a promote like Aug, AAA will let us take the promote over what we already booked. Let's put it this way, because we already paid $200 deposit for the reservation, we can wait until Oct to pay the whole thing.

Reason why we chose to drive is because we want to visit my SIL at NC for Thanksgiving. Since we already half way there, we might as well drive the rest of the way to the World. Flight is not really that expensive from PA. It's just very cumbersome. The closest airport from me is Allentown but they don't offer direct flight. The only airport that offer direct flight is at Philly. That's another 1.5 hours of driving. Not to mention, baggage fee would cost an extra $100 round trip plus probably another $150 parking fee.

Wow, what kind of cars do you drive? I'm in the market for a used car and I'm worried about reliability. I'm not looking at something too old, probably a 2008 Saab 93 or Honda Civic. I like the Saab, but I suspect the Honda is better on long term reliability.

I drive a 4 year old car and it has 26,000 miles on it. I only live 3 miles from work, but we are moving and I will have to drive more each day. That said, the catalytic converter has already gone out on my car and the sunroof has been repaired twice! So you can see I am not that lucky with cars.

We have a 2005 Subaru Outback. That's the one with 100,000 miles. I bought it new in 2006. It was a left over model. I haven't have much trouble with this car. I change oil and tires regularly. Never have a problem. My wife drove that car daily.

I drive a 99 VW Golf. It has over 397,000 mile now. I bought it new in 1998. I do all the maintenance myself; oil change, timing belt, exhaust and brakes. You name it. I fix them all. My commute used to be 200 miles every day until last March. My company transfer me to a closer office. Now my commute has dropped down to 100 miles per day.

Saab is great car. Unfortunately, GM is shutting it down but you might able to get a good deal on the newer one. Only down side, getting parts can be problematic.

 

[topdog]

I need a little help from my Dis'ers. We are planning to stay over at Jacksonville on Saturday (11/27) night. Does any one has a good hotel recommendation?? I don't mind to pay a little extra like $100 to $140 per night. We are a little hotel-phobic now since our last "incident" if you remember from my last TR. As long as the hotel is clean, quiet and has a decent restaurant, I will give it a shot.

 

[Planning fanatic mom]

Sorry, I've never stayed in Jacksonville. We like any hotel that is part of the Hilton group. They always have very comfy beds. I try to forget that I am contributing to Paris Hilton's trust fund when I stay there.

 

[GreatBiscuit]

Great update topdog. Renting a cars sounds like a good idea for you guys. Can't help you on the hotel recommendations. I've never stayed in that area before.

 

[Pyrate_Pryncess]

TopDog, Let me first start by saying that last night I started reading your disaster report......I bookmarked it on day 4 but then couldn't close the laptop! You are a great story-teller! Your detail was amazing! OK now to what I want to say....I think you are making the right decision by driving instead of flying especially with the new baggage costs...My in-laws Drove down from Pittsburgh in 2008 and actually made it in almost the same amount of time that it took my family to fly! We are in VA but with the early arrivals to the airport and the layovers our flight lasted 11 hours! Horrible for having a 2 year old and a 6 year old at the time! For us to drive it is only about 13 hours so we are going to do a straight through drive. We are going to drive through the night so the kiddos don't drive us to crazy! I have been to Atlanta in the past and can tell you that there are some amazing places to eat there. Even the places that look like "dives" turn out to be amazing. As for the photo scavanger hunt we did this on our last trip...I was fascinated by the little tins of mints (not sure why but I fell in love with them). We started the trip by taking pictures of all that I could find....in the end, I bought them all! Another photo-op would be if you get chased by a duck! Happened to me every day we were down there in 2008.....don't know why but ducks just seek me out to chase me! Anyways, I hope this trip is better than the last and hopefully we will see you there!

 

[eandesmom]

I wish I could help with Jacksonville too but don't have a clue! Other than doing some homework via expedia and checking reviews and AAA rates....I'd be shooting in the dark as well.

 

[topdog]

Sorry, I've never stayed in Jacksonville. We like any hotel that is part of the Hilton group. They always have very comfy beds. I try to forget that I am contributing to Paris Hilton's trust fund when I stay there.

If I remember correctly, the Hilton family already wrote her off a while ago.

Great update topdog. Renting a cars sounds like a good idea for you guys. Can't help you on the hotel recommendations. I've never stayed in that area before.

*sigh* You are no help. I guess I'll have to keep on looking.

TopDog, Let me first start by saying that last night I started reading your disaster report......I bookmarked it on day 4 but then couldn't close the laptop! You are a great story-teller! Your detail was amazing! OK now to what I want to say....I think you are making the right decision by driving instead of flying especially with the new baggage costs...My in-laws Drove down from Pittsburgh in 2008 and actually made it in almost the same amount of time that it took my family to fly! We are in VA but with the early arrivals to the airport and the layovers our flight lasted 11 hours! Horrible for having a 2 year old and a 6 year old at the time! For us to drive it is only about 13 hours so we are going to do a straight through drive. We are going to drive through the night so the kiddos don't drive us to crazy! I have been to Atlanta in the past and can tell you that there are some amazing places to eat there. Even the places that look like "dives" turn out to be amazing. As for the photo scavanger hunt we did this on our last trip...I was fascinated by the little tins of mints (not sure why but I fell in love with them). We started the trip by taking pictures of all that I could find....in the end, I bought them all! Another photo-op would be if you get chased by a duck! Happened to me every day we were down there in 2008.....don't know why but ducks just seek me out to chase me! Anyways, I hope this trip is better than the last and hopefully we will see you there!

Hay! You make it to my PTR too. Now that's a loyal fan. Please feel free to add comment about my TR here as well. I will add your suggestion on my photo scavanger hunt.

I don't mind flying but it's too unpredictable these days between the weather, security and people. Driving can take a lot of energy as well. If next year we are going to Vancouver for the Alaska Disney cruise, I don't think we have much of a choice.

I wish I could help with Jacksonville too but don't have a clue! Other than doing some homework via expedia and checking reviews and AAA rates....I'd be shooting in the dark as well.

Argh!!! The agony of planning. Luckily, DW did most of the searching. Hope I can find something soon.

 

[topdog]

No Disney plan update yet. Just a little personal life event.

I am a little nervous about next week. Mom is going for another MRI next Tuesday so we can visit the neurosurgeon on Thursday for a 3 months follow up. Hopefully, the tumor did not come back.

On a separate note, I did something very unusual this weekend. I decide to look up for my grade school friend. At first, I thought it would be very difficult to find him since he has a very common name. We were friend since first grade. We both left the country about the same time when we were about 13. I moved to US and he moved to Canada. We visited each other a few time and we stayed in contact until the mid 80s. After that, life kinda get in the way and we haven't spoke to each other ever since.

So this weekend, I was in the Google mood. I Google my friend's name to see if anything would comes up. After a couple of try, a site come up with his name. I went to the site and see what I can find. As I navigate through the site, the name came up with a very small picture. I wasn't sure if that is my friend or not since it has been over 20 years. The site do allow visitor to leave a message. I decide to leave a quick message with certain detail that only my friend and I knew from our childhood.

I got an email today and that person is indeed my childhood friend. It's really amazing today with internet and web technology can reconnect our lost friend so quick and so accurate.

 

[Dcanoli]

Wow! That is amazing. What were the chances?

Glad you found him!

 

[Planning fanatic mom]

Good Luck with your mom's MRI. I hope all is OK.

Great news on the long lost friend.

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL!!!!

 

[topdog]

Wow! That is amazing. What were the chances?

Glad you found him!

It was really a shot in the dark and I hit a jackpot.

Good Luck with your mom's MRI. I hope all is OK.

Great news on the long lost friend.

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL!!!!

Thanks PFM.

I never ever thought of the It's A Small World After All. How appropriate!!

 

[topdog]

Once again, I don't have any trip relate update. However, I do have something that is Disney related.

My niece at Vancouver and her DH went to Hong Kong for vacation a week ago with their almost 2 year old DD. Guess where did they spend a day while they are at HK? Yup!! HK Disney!!!

I am so jealous. They didn't have any HK Disney picture post on their FB yet. But they did post a picture of the little one having breakfast one morning wearing the Disney PJ I bought her for Christmas. What a nice uncle huh?! On top of that, she have a new Stitch bib too.

Now that's vacation in style. LOL...

 

[Pyrate_Pryncess]

Once again, I don't have any trip relate update. However, I do have something that is Disney related.

My niece at Vancouver and her DH went to Hong Kong for vacation a week ago with their almost 2 year old DD. Guess where did they spend a day while they are at HK? Yup!! HK Disney!!!

I am so jealous. They didn't have any HK Disney picture post on their FB yet. But they did post a picture of the little one having breakfast one morning wearing the Disney PJ I bought her for Christmas. What a nice uncle huh?! On top of that, she have a new Stitch bib too.

Now that's vacation in style. LOL...

Oh My GOODNESS!!!!! I am in love with that bib!!!!!!!! You are an awsome Uncle! I am so excited to be bring my nephew to Disney this year! He talks about it every single day!!!!!!!

 

[eliz991]

Once again, I don't have any trip relate update. However, I do have something that is Disney related.

My niece at Vancouver and her DH went to Hong Kong for vacation a week ago with their almost 2 year old DD. Guess where did they spend a day while they are at HK? Yup!! HK Disney!!!

I am so jealous. They didn't have any HK Disney picture post on their FB yet. But they did post a picture of the little one having breakfast one morning wearing the Disney PJ I bought her for Christmas. What a nice uncle huh?! On top of that, she have a new Stitch bib too.

Now that's vacation in style. LOL...

She's adorable!

 

[topdog]

Oh My GOODNESS!!!!! I am in love with that bib!!!!!!!! You are an awsome Uncle! I am so excited to be bring my nephew to Disney this year! He talks about it every single day!!!!!!!

I wish I can take my grand niece to the world too. Too bad she lives so far away from me.

She's adorable!

Thanks.