Teknik_DC2
Proud Red Head
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2009
- Messages
- 682
Hey everyone. This is my first ever Pre-trip report so I hope you guys enjoy it and can add some help to any questions I may have. This trip will be taking place from October 7th-18th, 2009. Not really any aspects of this vacation involve Disney. However you have all been so helpful with planning this vacation and cruies that I thought I would share this with you anyways. And since its coming up in less then 20 days this pre-trip report is going to be very long.
Anyways the people you will be seeing in this pre-trip report (as well as the actual trip report when we are done) is me Jeff (26) and my wife Kiera (22).
We were also able to convince some of our friends to make the trip with us. So Tyler and Rachael (both 21) will be making the trip as well. They were even able to get the room 1 door down from us on the cruise so we will have a blast having someone to spend some time on the vacation with.
Kiera and I got married in Febuary of 2008 and have had a love of traveling since. For our honeymoon we went on a mexican rivera cruise on the Carnival Pride to Purto Vallerta, Mazzetlan, and Cobo San Lucas, as well as spending a day in Hollywood and Santa Monica in Southern California.
For Christmas last year we treated ourselves to another vacation to Southern California. This time we hit up Universal Studios Hollywood, Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure, and Knotts Berry Farm as well as a couple nights in Las Vegas. The Trip report for this vacation can be found at the link below:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2071198
Which now brings up to the point of this Pre-trip Report. 6 months ago we bought our first house. And along with our first house we got the $8,000 tax credit from the government. Those who have bought a home before know the stresses that can be envolved with getting a home. And we had plenty of them. So we decided to take $1,000 out of the $8,000 and put it towards another vacation because we desirve it lol.
We have been wanting to go on another cruise since our honeymoon. This time my wife made it very clear that she wanted to go on a caribbean cruise. So after looking around for a few nights i made the first steps to making this happen. I booked us a cruise on the Carnival Glory from October 10th-17th. Ports on the cruise include Nassau, Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. With early booking discounts the cruise only cost around 1,100 after taxes and insurance.
Our plans for the ports include the following. In Nassau We figured we only have 4 hours max to do whatever we would like to do. So we decided we are going to get a taxi and go over to Atlantis and buy some tickets to do "The Dig". Figured we are there so we might as well see it. Depending on time as well we were going to walk from the port to the straw market and maybe to some of the historical sites.
In St. Thomas I booked a island a beach tour with Triple E tours. The tour is 5 hours long and he takes us sightseeing around the island and then gives us 2 1/2 hours at a beach of our choice. I think we are going to go to coki beach as I hear its beautiful and is the best place to go snorkling. Not sure what else we will be doing after the tour is finished.
Honestly we have no clue what we will be doing in St. Maarten yet. I hear this is the best place to do your shopping so thats all we have planned right now. I also want to go to the beach where the airplanes fly right over you.
Since the ship sails out of Port Canaveral near Orlando we decided to add a couple days to the vacation and spend October 7th-9th in Orlando and go to the Univeral Orlando Parks for 2 days. I havn't been to florida since 1994 and my wife since 1997 so I figured we could treat ourselves to a little theme park fun while we are there. We will be getting the 2 day 2 park unlimited tickets. We also decided we would check out the Halloween Horror Nights event as well that Thursday night since the Stay and Scream ticket would only be $30 bucks a person extra.
A couple days after Tyler and Rachael decided to come on the trip we all got together and went and got our passports taken care of. We decided to just get the Passport Cards instead of the Booklet since you don't need the booklet unless your traveling out of the country by air. So hopefully we don't get stuck somewhere on our cruise where we'd have to fly back lol.
With our Airline Tickets I had been watching tickets for a couple weeks and found a non-stop Delta flight to Orlando from Salt Lake City as well as non-stop on the return flight for just under $600 for the 2 of us. We decided we should book this flight so the next morning I checked the costs. Yeah it went up about 30 bucks a person. So as I paniced when I got home I was determined that we needed to book the flights that night. So when I got home from work I pulled it up again to buy tickets. And once again the tickets went up again. This time another $60 bucks a person. My wife really got worried and I went right to work on finding us the cheapest flight to Orlando for our trip.
After about 2 hours of searching I finally found our flight plans. Kiera called up Rachael and walked her thru it as I purchased our plane tickets so they could make sure they are on the same flights as us. Anyways because of the price of tickets we decided that it would be cheaper for us to stay an extra day in Orlando and fly home Sunday instead. So now we have an extra day after the cruise in Orlando to find something to do.
Our flight leaves SLC on October 7th at 7:10am and we will be flying on American Airlines (we will be flying with them the whole trip). We have a stop in Chicago for an hour and then we will continue to Orlando where we will land at 3:55pm. For our return flight we will be leaving Orlando at 2:05pm on the 18th and have a 2 1/2 hour layover in Dallas. We will arrive back in SLC at 8:10pm.
Since we are doing this on the cheap we decided to go with a cheaper hotel as well. To help keep costs down as well we are sharing the room with Tyler and Rachael as well. I ended up booking us at the Days Inn Universal Maingate. I guess its pretty much right across the street from the parking structures at Universal. I ended up getting the room for around $38 bucks a night and we will be staying there from Oct 7th tell the 10th. Theres alot of mixed reviews about this hotel. Just over half the reviews were positive and there were alot of negatives as well. However we decided to take our chances and see for ourselves. I've done this many times and havn't had a bad experiance yet so i'm keeping my fingers crossed lol.
For our rental car I looked around and compared prices of all the major companys and found that Budget would be the cheapest for our trip. I got us a midsize car and we will be picking it up at the MCO airport. Since we have to be in Port Canaveral saturday morning for the cruise we are returning it to the rental agency in Cape Canaveral where there free shuttle will then take us to our cruise ship. The one way rental and 3 day charges came to around $160.
When we get off the Cruise ship a week later we are pretty much doing the same thing again. Picking up a midsize rental car from Budget in Port Canaveral and then driving back into Orlando where we will stay the night and then return the Car at the MCO rental office. This rental is costing us $80. We have to wait tell they pretty much kick us off the ship though cause we can't pick it up until noon. Thats because if we picked it up any sooner then Noon it would have cost us $75 more. So we decided to wait it out lol.
For our one night in Orlando we are just staying down the street from Universal at another Days Inn. This one being the Days Inn Orlando/International Dr. And once again we will be taking a chance with it as the reviews were even with positive and negative remarks. Once again we are also sharing the room as well to keep costs down and this one also cost us $38 bucks for the night.
So thats it for now. We are still finalizing our plans for what to do the night we fly into Orlando. We are thinking of going up to Downtown Disney to at least get some Disney fill on the trip. Also we arn't sure what we will be doing after we disembark from the cruise ship ether. So I will keep you updated when theres stuff to update on.
Anyways the people you will be seeing in this pre-trip report (as well as the actual trip report when we are done) is me Jeff (26) and my wife Kiera (22).
We were also able to convince some of our friends to make the trip with us. So Tyler and Rachael (both 21) will be making the trip as well. They were even able to get the room 1 door down from us on the cruise so we will have a blast having someone to spend some time on the vacation with.
Kiera and I got married in Febuary of 2008 and have had a love of traveling since. For our honeymoon we went on a mexican rivera cruise on the Carnival Pride to Purto Vallerta, Mazzetlan, and Cobo San Lucas, as well as spending a day in Hollywood and Santa Monica in Southern California.
For Christmas last year we treated ourselves to another vacation to Southern California. This time we hit up Universal Studios Hollywood, Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure, and Knotts Berry Farm as well as a couple nights in Las Vegas. The Trip report for this vacation can be found at the link below:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2071198
Which now brings up to the point of this Pre-trip Report. 6 months ago we bought our first house. And along with our first house we got the $8,000 tax credit from the government. Those who have bought a home before know the stresses that can be envolved with getting a home. And we had plenty of them. So we decided to take $1,000 out of the $8,000 and put it towards another vacation because we desirve it lol.
We have been wanting to go on another cruise since our honeymoon. This time my wife made it very clear that she wanted to go on a caribbean cruise. So after looking around for a few nights i made the first steps to making this happen. I booked us a cruise on the Carnival Glory from October 10th-17th. Ports on the cruise include Nassau, Bahamas, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten. With early booking discounts the cruise only cost around 1,100 after taxes and insurance.
Our plans for the ports include the following. In Nassau We figured we only have 4 hours max to do whatever we would like to do. So we decided we are going to get a taxi and go over to Atlantis and buy some tickets to do "The Dig". Figured we are there so we might as well see it. Depending on time as well we were going to walk from the port to the straw market and maybe to some of the historical sites.
In St. Thomas I booked a island a beach tour with Triple E tours. The tour is 5 hours long and he takes us sightseeing around the island and then gives us 2 1/2 hours at a beach of our choice. I think we are going to go to coki beach as I hear its beautiful and is the best place to go snorkling. Not sure what else we will be doing after the tour is finished.
Honestly we have no clue what we will be doing in St. Maarten yet. I hear this is the best place to do your shopping so thats all we have planned right now. I also want to go to the beach where the airplanes fly right over you.
Since the ship sails out of Port Canaveral near Orlando we decided to add a couple days to the vacation and spend October 7th-9th in Orlando and go to the Univeral Orlando Parks for 2 days. I havn't been to florida since 1994 and my wife since 1997 so I figured we could treat ourselves to a little theme park fun while we are there. We will be getting the 2 day 2 park unlimited tickets. We also decided we would check out the Halloween Horror Nights event as well that Thursday night since the Stay and Scream ticket would only be $30 bucks a person extra.
A couple days after Tyler and Rachael decided to come on the trip we all got together and went and got our passports taken care of. We decided to just get the Passport Cards instead of the Booklet since you don't need the booklet unless your traveling out of the country by air. So hopefully we don't get stuck somewhere on our cruise where we'd have to fly back lol.
With our Airline Tickets I had been watching tickets for a couple weeks and found a non-stop Delta flight to Orlando from Salt Lake City as well as non-stop on the return flight for just under $600 for the 2 of us. We decided we should book this flight so the next morning I checked the costs. Yeah it went up about 30 bucks a person. So as I paniced when I got home I was determined that we needed to book the flights that night. So when I got home from work I pulled it up again to buy tickets. And once again the tickets went up again. This time another $60 bucks a person. My wife really got worried and I went right to work on finding us the cheapest flight to Orlando for our trip.
After about 2 hours of searching I finally found our flight plans. Kiera called up Rachael and walked her thru it as I purchased our plane tickets so they could make sure they are on the same flights as us. Anyways because of the price of tickets we decided that it would be cheaper for us to stay an extra day in Orlando and fly home Sunday instead. So now we have an extra day after the cruise in Orlando to find something to do.
Our flight leaves SLC on October 7th at 7:10am and we will be flying on American Airlines (we will be flying with them the whole trip). We have a stop in Chicago for an hour and then we will continue to Orlando where we will land at 3:55pm. For our return flight we will be leaving Orlando at 2:05pm on the 18th and have a 2 1/2 hour layover in Dallas. We will arrive back in SLC at 8:10pm.
Since we are doing this on the cheap we decided to go with a cheaper hotel as well. To help keep costs down as well we are sharing the room with Tyler and Rachael as well. I ended up booking us at the Days Inn Universal Maingate. I guess its pretty much right across the street from the parking structures at Universal. I ended up getting the room for around $38 bucks a night and we will be staying there from Oct 7th tell the 10th. Theres alot of mixed reviews about this hotel. Just over half the reviews were positive and there were alot of negatives as well. However we decided to take our chances and see for ourselves. I've done this many times and havn't had a bad experiance yet so i'm keeping my fingers crossed lol.
For our rental car I looked around and compared prices of all the major companys and found that Budget would be the cheapest for our trip. I got us a midsize car and we will be picking it up at the MCO airport. Since we have to be in Port Canaveral saturday morning for the cruise we are returning it to the rental agency in Cape Canaveral where there free shuttle will then take us to our cruise ship. The one way rental and 3 day charges came to around $160.
When we get off the Cruise ship a week later we are pretty much doing the same thing again. Picking up a midsize rental car from Budget in Port Canaveral and then driving back into Orlando where we will stay the night and then return the Car at the MCO rental office. This rental is costing us $80. We have to wait tell they pretty much kick us off the ship though cause we can't pick it up until noon. Thats because if we picked it up any sooner then Noon it would have cost us $75 more. So we decided to wait it out lol.
For our one night in Orlando we are just staying down the street from Universal at another Days Inn. This one being the Days Inn Orlando/International Dr. And once again we will be taking a chance with it as the reviews were even with positive and negative remarks. Once again we are also sharing the room as well to keep costs down and this one also cost us $38 bucks for the night.
So thats it for now. We are still finalizing our plans for what to do the night we fly into Orlando. We are thinking of going up to Downtown Disney to at least get some Disney fill on the trip. Also we arn't sure what we will be doing after we disembark from the cruise ship ether. So I will keep you updated when theres stuff to update on.
