NOVEMBER 2012 Trip Planners Thread~ Everybody is Welcome~Part 3 already!

[jgbills]

Hi everyone, I've been following this thread for a while but haven't said hello yet. Our family of 4 is taking our first Disney trip November 9-16. I'm running the W&D 1/2 marathon and we're staying at AKL. I just finished our itinerary planning and have a couple of questions:

Nov 9th - Arrival day, no parks. I need to go to the Expo to pick up my packet. Dinner at Boma at 6:15pm.

Nov 10th - Chef Mickey's at 9:35am. AK afterwards, but only to do the shows (FOTL, Flights of Wonder, Finding Nemo) - I don't want to do much walking around the day of the race. See the parade at 3:45 and then go back to get ready for the race.

Nov 11th - Sleep in and start around 11am at DHS. Again, just a couple of shows and maybe a ride or two. Sci Fi Dine-In at 12:50pm, followed by the Pixar & Pals parade. We'll have to leave shortly after that to make it to HDDR for 6:15pm.

Nov 12th - MK RD! Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. Crystal Palace ADR at 1:25pm, followed by the parade. Back to the resort to change (if we have time) then over to the Contemporary for our Pirates & Pals fireworks cruise!

Nov 13th - Epcot, hopefully by 10am (P&P will make it the 12th a very late night). Some FW rides, then Via Napoli ADR at 11:30am, followed by some more FW rides. QUESTION - is that a dumb idea? Should we cancel the ADR and just eat CS in FW somewhere instead of going so far out of our way? Le Cellier ADR at 4:40pm followed by touring the WS (really want to see Mulan, Belle/Beast, and Aladdin/Jasmine) until Illuminations.

Nov 14th - 2nd MK day. Adventureland, Frontierland, Liberty Square. Either return to the hotel to swim/nap or try to chase characters. Might split up (DH and DS, DD and Me). CRT at 5:25pm, followed by MSEP, then Wishes (maybe skip Wishes if we are tired and have had enough fireworks!). QUESTION - Is it really dumb to spend an afternoon chasing down Ariel, Rapunzel and Merida instead of taking my 3yo DD for a nap before another late night? We are going to CRT that evening, but I know she would like to meet these three princesses who won't be at dinner.

Nov 15th - 2nd DHS day. Sign DS up for Jedi Training and do everything we haven't done yet. F! dining package at Mama Melrose at 1:20pm. Pizza Planet for dinner (depending on how hungry we are) and then F! at 6:30, Osborne Lights after that.

Nov 16th - Departure day, AK until about 1pm. Do all the rides and try to meet Pocahontas.

Does anyone have any input on my questions or thoughts in general about our plan? TIA!

Welcome! We will be heading to Disney with our boys for the first time November 11-18. I'm so excited that I'm ready to explode but the boys don't know yet...

 

[mamamini]

Let me know the dates and parks you're looking at and I'll tell you what touringplans says

Yes!!!

Thank you sooooo much for looking into this for me!! Here are the dates I had originally planned:

Friday Nov. 30 - Epcot
Monday Dec. 3 - AK

I appreciate this!

 

[aubreysmom09]

Can you tell me more about restaurant.com certificates to use at WDW?

They aren't at WDW they are out in town, but it's not hard to get in town if you have a car unless its peak season. We drive from VA. We normally rent a townhouse or house. In town. It's less expensive and more room. This time we wanted to stay at WDW to give our exchange student a chance to spend there.

 

[DisneyMom0709]

Is anyone doing Xmas party on their full days of mk or going another night ?

 

[ireneryan]

Is anyone doing Xmas party on their full days of mk or going another night ?

I am. Originally I had it on my AK day but I didn't want to worry about rushing back. This way I'll be at MK in the am and then back to the Poly for an afternoon break and then back to MK for the party. My only problem is I have a 7pm ADR at CRT, and I've been trying to move it earlier, like 5pm. Like I said I thought it was going to be an AK day so I made a late ADR and now I just keep checking for an earlier. I'm thinking if BOG opens, I may drop CRT for BOG earlier there. (I have a CRT breakfast that I'm keeping, so I'm not overly worried about giving it up, just thought we'd like to try breakfast and dinner in the castle )

What about you? What are you doing on your MVMCP day?

 

[LifeIsDis]

Is anyone doing Xmas party on their full days of mk or going another night ?

We are going another night.

 

[Smileybug]

Is anyone doing Xmas party on their full days of mk or going another night ?

Our MVMCP is a down day for us. We have a late breakfast at Ohanas. Then back to the WL to hang out, explore, swim. Then an early supper at CRT at 4:45. Then into the party.

 

[mommyof3princess27]

Our MVMCP day is our AK day too... hope we arent too tired!!! OUr schedule is pretty packed so I am hoping all the ADR's that we have is a good rest w/o coming back to the resort. I DO need to fit in a resort pool day/time but dont know where!!!!

 

[luvallprincesses]

We are planning MVMCP on an AK day too. The next day is our day off. Thanks to jamiesmom for the suggestion from their experience.

 

[mommyof3princess27]

So I have a strong feeling that all my planning, I messed our schedule up. I originally had our waterpark day on wed(mid way through our trip) and then a full MK day with BBB on Thursday and DTD on Friday, well in my need to do the earlier CLP, I moved our water park day to friday getting rid of a full DTD day. BUT I didnt think that the girls have a BBB appointment on Thursday so that hair is only gonna last one day and our 1900PF breakfast the next day! SMH!!! I also didnt schedule any resort swim time!!! ACK!!!!

 

[ireneryan]

So I have a strong feeling that all my planning, I messed our schedule up. I originally had our waterpark day on wed(mid way through our trip) and then a full MK day with BBB on Thursday and DTD on Friday, well in my need to do the earlier CLP, I moved our water park day to friday getting rid of a full DTD day. BUT I didnt think that the girls have a BBB appointment on Thursday so that hair is only gonna last one day and our 1900PF breakfast the next day! SMH!!! I also didnt schedule any resort swim time!!! ACK!!!!

And that was the same thing you caught for me on my schedule, remember we were going to swim after the Tea Party which followed BBB and now we're doing other stuff b/c of that... But we're having our swim day the next day, it's Florida in Nov, won't it be too hard to keep the kids out of the pool longer than 24 hours past the BBB?

Is 1900PF breakfast before waterpark or the day after?

 

[mommyof3princess27]

And that was the same thing you caught for me on my schedule, remember we were going to swim after the Tea Party which followed BBB and now we're doing other stuff b/c of that... But we're having our swim day the next day, it's Florida in Nov, won't it be too hard to keep the kids out of the pool longer than 24 hours past the BBB?

Is 1900PF breakfast before waterpark or the day after?

Is 1900PF breakfast, then waterpark then back to DHS for 50's for dinner and Osbourne lights. DH keps telling me to leave it alone LOL itll be fine. I think Ill move up our arrival day LTT lunch at MK and maybe sneak in a few hours atthe pool before DTD!

 

[ireneryan]

Is 1900PF breakfast, then waterpark then back to DHS for 50's for dinner and Osbourne lights. DH keps telling me to leave it alone LOL itll be fine. I think Ill move up our arrival day LTT lunch at MK and maybe sneak in a few hours atthe pool before DTD!

Yeah, I agree with him, I know BBB is a lot of $$$, esp with 3 girls But you can't expect the hair to last forever, they could get in a torrential downpour right after it gets done, that would be so awful but it could happen... I would just take it as it goes, maybe your waterpark day will be too cold and you'll end up somewhere else but at least their hair will be done up for the BBB day and the 1900PF breakfast the next morning, right?

And I wish you nothing but Pixie Dust for your trip, those horrible ideas were for illustrative purposes only!

 

[mommyof3princess27]

Yeah, I agree with him, I know BBB is a lot of $$$, esp with 3 girls But you can't expect the hair to last forever, they could get in a torrential downpour right after it gets done, that would be so awful but it could happen... I would just take it as it goes, maybe your waterpark day will be too cold and you'll end up somewhere else but at least their hair will be done up for the BBB day and the 1900PF breakfast the next morning, right?

And I wish you nothing but Pixie Dust for your trip, those horrible ideas were for illustrative purposes only!

Oh I know... anything can happen. Then if it is too cold for a water park, we will do DTD/Disneyquest instead

 

[mommyof3princess27]

This thread is moving very slowly lately

 

[tigger30066]

I am back. The week of pet sitting is over. I am back to my normal routine. My niece did so well in her tournament. I am so proud of her. They came in 24th out of 148 teams. Now if I could just stop playing Song Pop I could get some work done. Who am I kidding, maybe I could do some research on the Dis Boards.

 

[ireneryan]

This thread is moving very slowly lately

Yeah, I noticed that too. FB is slower too, maybe everyone's catching up on end of summer activities?

 

[disneychic2]

Yeah, I only like to ask questions when I know I'll like the answer!!

Okay my next bounceback offer question: I'm still new to Disney math, tell me if this makes sense. If I get a Room Discount % off I should go with a Deluxe but if I get Free Dining I should go with a Moderate? There will be one adult and one child travelling. I just want to have it all in place so that I can book this when I get the offer on this trip. I am an uber planner!

Okay, so I did some quick calculations and this is what I came up with. Since I didn't know how long you would stay or how old the child is, I just plugged in two adults. So if the child that is going is under 10, it will be a bit cheaper.

Deluxe - AKL for Dec 4 - Dec 11, 7 nights, 8 days standard room, PH and WP &M tickets no discount, free dining would be $3003. With a 30% discount, price would be roughly $2102. Paying $667 for dining would bring that room to $2769.

Moderate - POFQ same dates, standard room, same tickets no discount, free dining would be $2006. With a 30% discount that room would be $1401. Add $667 for the dining and it would come to $2071

Value - AoA LM room, same dates, standard room, same tickets no discount, free dining would be $1424. With 20% discount it would be $1139. Paying $667 for dining would make it $1806.

I just chose dates and number of days randomly and plugged them in. But the result would be the same basically no matter how many days you planned to stay or what type of ticket you planned to purchase. It clearly would be better to take the room discount at a Deluxe, would be almost a wash at a Mod, and would definitely be better to take fd with the value. As you expected.

We actually stayed at WL last September with a 40% AP discount, then we paid for dining and came out way ahead. Not sure 40% discounts will be around any more.

ETA: Since the mod resorts would probably have less of a discount than the deluxe, I calculated FQ at a 25% discount instead of 30% and came up with: $1504. Adding dining it comes to $2172, so FD would be the slightly better option by about $170.

This thread is moving very slowly lately

Everybody's on FB! I can't go there b/c I want to comment on everything and it consumes my day!!! I'm sticking with the DIS!

 

[princesshope1982]

good morning all,

i feel like i should be working on something but i dont know what

 

[ireneryan]

Okay, so I did some quick calculations and this is what I came up with. Since I didn't know how long you would stay or how old the child is, I just plugged in two adults. So if the child that is going is under 10, it will be a bit cheaper.

Deluxe - AKL for Dec 4 - Dec 11, 7 nights, 8 days standard room, PH and WP &M tickets no discount, free dining would be $3003. With a 30% discount, price would be roughly $2102. Paying $667 for dining would bring that room to $2769.

Moderate - POFQ same dates, standard room, same tickets no discount, free dining would be $2006. With a 30% discount that room would be $1401. Add $667 for the dining and it would come to $2071

Value - AoA LM room, same dates, standard room, same tickets no discount, free dining would be $1424. With 20% discount it would be $1139. Paying $667 for dining would make it $1806.

I just chose dates and number of days randomly and plugged them in. But the result would be the same basically no matter how many days you planned to stay or what type of ticket you planned to purchase. It clearly would be better to take the room discount at a Deluxe, would be almost a wash at a Mod, and would definitely be better to take fd with the value. As you expected.

We actually stayed at WL last September with a 40% AP discount, then we paid for dining and came out way ahead. Not sure 40% discounts will be around any more.

Thank you for doing all of that for me!!! My daughter will 5 by then so it will be a little lower and after reading that I'm really hoping for a room discount!!! 30% would be great! 40% would be even better!! At this point, I'm considering either WL or Contemporary, leaning more towards WL.

Since you stayed there recently may I ask how transportation was? That's my only concern, does it make it hard to take breaks back at the resort when you're relying on buses?

We're thinking Dec 5-15, 2013 and I think WL would be stunning at Christmas! But that's if we get a room discount, otherwise I will try for AoA LM and hope it still won't be blocked if there's a FD'ing offer!