Disney Word trip report- June 14th -June 29th, 2016
Hello everyone! I am a total lurker and don’t usually sign in or post. This is not due to anti-social tendencies but because you are all so knowledgeable that I don’t usually have anything new or interesting to add. But I thought I would post a trip report for our June 2016 vacation. Hopefully someone will learn something and if nothing else it’s a way to thank everyone for posting all the great trip reports I have enjoyed reading.
Who we are:
Leigh- I’m a kindergarten teacher and the reason we have to travel during the high season.
Keith- would rather be camping but a good sport.
Wyatt (13)- Loves food and has always been up for anything
Felicity (9 but turning 10 during the trip)- laid back and while more reserved than her brother a great kid to vacation with.
Our last trip was in October 2010. Good friends invited us to stay in their grand villa at OKW with them. It was beautiful and we had fun but we realized that we do Disney best when we are by ourselves. As Californians we make it to Disneyland about once a year, but for us Disney World is a very occasional thing. In fact, this trip will probably be the last while Wyatt is home. We are thinking that when our kids think back to childhood trips to Disney this is the trip they will remember.
Since we haven’t been since 2010 this is our first trip with magic bands. Should be interesting.
We are staying at Pop Century. We have stayed at Poly, AKL, OKW in the past. This is our first value stay and I think we know what to expect. Our kids are older and we don’t usually spend much time at the hotel. A value resort is allowing us to stay 15 nights and plan whatever restaurants and activities we want. I’ve gotten lots of comments on other message boards about how people would never stay in a value that long and it’s worth the $900 it would have cost to upgrade to a moderate but we decided to give it a try. We are determined to enjoy the resort. We are ordering a twin air mattress to be delivered to the hotel to help with the bed situation and bringing a door pocket hanger organizer thing to help with storage. I’m sure we will be fine.
We had the deluxe dining plan in 2010 and loved it, but it was a lot of food and a lot of time spent eating. We decided against any dining plan this year. No matter how I ran the numbers I never came out ahead. I only broke even when I added more restaurants then we originally intended. We also don’t care for counter service desserts. I know it has its fans, just not right for us. Instead we took the money we would have spent on the dining plan and put it on gift cards. Now we can eat when and where we want and have that same pre-paid feeling. I’m planning to save receipts and am very interested in how the numbers hold out.
We have lots of meals planned. We are planning one sit down and one table service a day. Our two water park days I made no reservations because I don’t know how tired we will be. We may want to just head back to the hotel. We also have one day in the middle with absolutely no reservations and plans of any kind! The planner in me sees this as an opportunity lost, Keith views this day as an oasis in a desert of organized fun. We are planning to use garden grocer for water and breakfast items. Keith and Wyatt love soda and don’t usually drink it. It’s very much a vacation treat. I like iced tea so the three of us will want refillable mugs. Felicity will only drink water so we aren’t planning to buy her one.
Our dining plans:
T-Rex-
Be Our Guest lunch
Ohana dinner
Garden Grill breakfast
Hoop De Doo for Father’s Day- category 1, one of the reasons we didn’t want dining plan. We really wanted category 1.
Sci Fi Dine Inn
Crystal Palace
Cinderella’s Royal Table- This will be Felicity’s 10th birthday. We ordered the “Her royal highness package”. She’s not especially into princess’s but she doesn’t mind them and it seemed like a very special way to celebrate the only kid birthday we will have at Disney. It includes a birthday cake and I had fun picking it out. We got her the Ariel one because I thought she would like the sea shells and the color. She probably won’t care which princess is on it.
Minnie’s Holiday Dine with Fantasmic seating.
San Angel Inn
Tusker House breakfast
Yak and Yeti
Via Napoli
AMC dine in theater to see “Finding Dory” planning to order tickers as soon as they become available
Since we decided to stay at a value we opened up a lot of money in the budget for extras. We have booked the following:
Wishes dessert party
Illuminations dessert party
Star Wars Galactic dessert party
Cabana for our Typhoon Lagoon Day
Cabana for our Blizzard Beach day
Wild Animal Trek
I’m considering ordering Cirque De Soleil tickets but they would have to be for our no reservation day and that goes against the spirit of the day, lol.
We have been planning and saving for 18 months and are very excited!!
I will update when we get back and thanks for reading!
Hello everyone! I am a total lurker and don’t usually sign in or post. This is not due to anti-social tendencies but because you are all so knowledgeable that I don’t usually have anything new or interesting to add. But I thought I would post a trip report for our June 2016 vacation. Hopefully someone will learn something and if nothing else it’s a way to thank everyone for posting all the great trip reports I have enjoyed reading.
Who we are:
Leigh- I’m a kindergarten teacher and the reason we have to travel during the high season.
Keith- would rather be camping but a good sport.
Wyatt (13)- Loves food and has always been up for anything
Felicity (9 but turning 10 during the trip)- laid back and while more reserved than her brother a great kid to vacation with.
Our last trip was in October 2010. Good friends invited us to stay in their grand villa at OKW with them. It was beautiful and we had fun but we realized that we do Disney best when we are by ourselves. As Californians we make it to Disneyland about once a year, but for us Disney World is a very occasional thing. In fact, this trip will probably be the last while Wyatt is home. We are thinking that when our kids think back to childhood trips to Disney this is the trip they will remember.
Since we haven’t been since 2010 this is our first trip with magic bands. Should be interesting.
We are staying at Pop Century. We have stayed at Poly, AKL, OKW in the past. This is our first value stay and I think we know what to expect. Our kids are older and we don’t usually spend much time at the hotel. A value resort is allowing us to stay 15 nights and plan whatever restaurants and activities we want. I’ve gotten lots of comments on other message boards about how people would never stay in a value that long and it’s worth the $900 it would have cost to upgrade to a moderate but we decided to give it a try. We are determined to enjoy the resort. We are ordering a twin air mattress to be delivered to the hotel to help with the bed situation and bringing a door pocket hanger organizer thing to help with storage. I’m sure we will be fine.
We had the deluxe dining plan in 2010 and loved it, but it was a lot of food and a lot of time spent eating. We decided against any dining plan this year. No matter how I ran the numbers I never came out ahead. I only broke even when I added more restaurants then we originally intended. We also don’t care for counter service desserts. I know it has its fans, just not right for us. Instead we took the money we would have spent on the dining plan and put it on gift cards. Now we can eat when and where we want and have that same pre-paid feeling. I’m planning to save receipts and am very interested in how the numbers hold out.
We have lots of meals planned. We are planning one sit down and one table service a day. Our two water park days I made no reservations because I don’t know how tired we will be. We may want to just head back to the hotel. We also have one day in the middle with absolutely no reservations and plans of any kind! The planner in me sees this as an opportunity lost, Keith views this day as an oasis in a desert of organized fun. We are planning to use garden grocer for water and breakfast items. Keith and Wyatt love soda and don’t usually drink it. It’s very much a vacation treat. I like iced tea so the three of us will want refillable mugs. Felicity will only drink water so we aren’t planning to buy her one.
Our dining plans:
T-Rex-
Be Our Guest lunch
Ohana dinner
Garden Grill breakfast
Hoop De Doo for Father’s Day- category 1, one of the reasons we didn’t want dining plan. We really wanted category 1.
Sci Fi Dine Inn
Crystal Palace
Cinderella’s Royal Table- This will be Felicity’s 10th birthday. We ordered the “Her royal highness package”. She’s not especially into princess’s but she doesn’t mind them and it seemed like a very special way to celebrate the only kid birthday we will have at Disney. It includes a birthday cake and I had fun picking it out. We got her the Ariel one because I thought she would like the sea shells and the color. She probably won’t care which princess is on it.
Minnie’s Holiday Dine with Fantasmic seating.
San Angel Inn
Tusker House breakfast
Yak and Yeti
Via Napoli
AMC dine in theater to see “Finding Dory” planning to order tickers as soon as they become available
Since we decided to stay at a value we opened up a lot of money in the budget for extras. We have booked the following:
Wishes dessert party
Illuminations dessert party
Star Wars Galactic dessert party
Cabana for our Typhoon Lagoon Day
Cabana for our Blizzard Beach day
Wild Animal Trek
I’m considering ordering Cirque De Soleil tickets but they would have to be for our no reservation day and that goes against the spirit of the day, lol.
We have been planning and saving for 18 months and are very excited!!
I will update when we get back and thanks for reading!
