***Official April 2013 thread*** SEE POST # 4028

[Mousemommy1]

We're coming from CT! Still looking at flights, I've seen SW and JB release through 4/12 but we don't leave until 4/14. Boo! I guess the only good thing is due to our location BDL, HPN, LGA, and JFK airports are all viable options. JFK is a little far but will do it, if it's worth it. Hoping for BDL or HPN.

School started for us today too so officially on the road to April vacation!

Jet Blue is booking through 4/30...I've already booked for 4/18-4/28 - great deal flying out of Boston!

 

[Jen12573]

Sure you belong here! I've got you listed with those whose trips start in March. You aren't the only one! The Flower and Garden Festival is why I want to go in the spring. Dh even suggested the other day that if the dog dies soon, maybe we shouldn't wait until April and go in October or November and I said I'm not giving up the April trip but I'd be glad to do both. (The dog doesn't even seem close to dying yet even though she is 15 years old. She is the reason we cancelled this year's April trip and if she isn't gone by next year, we will have to cancel again. No, I am not going to try to hasten her demise . . . )

Yay, I have a home!! March just didn't seem fitting for this trip, thanks for welcoming me in with open arms!

I hope your pooper perseveres and you unabashedly get to WDW in April with no worries on your mind. Ours is like family, so I understand how it can be.

Happy planning everyone!

 

[DisMom1981]

Yep, right here, lol!

I promised myself I wouldn't make a plan of days and ADRs until the hours came out, but I couldn't help myself and made my beautiful post-it note spreadsheet today

I based it on last years hours, so we will see I guess. All I really care about is avoiding EMH parks, so even if they make a few changes we might be okay. Or I'll get to do the whole thing over which would be fun too.

And of course I still have 50 days to obsess over it and tweak things until our ADR date. Not that I'm, you know, counting or anything

Why avoid EMH parks? I've seen lots of people say that. Are they the most crowded? Is it never an advantage to utilizing the EMH?

 

[Jen12573]

Why avoid EMH parks? I've seen lots of people say that. Are they the most crowded? Is it never an advantage to utilizing the EMH?

We always go to the AM EMH parks and we usually get there at least 25-30 minutes before opening and we love it. We wouldn't do it any other way, I love that on 12/28 we had a photo of an EMPTY PARK at Magic Kingdom during the craziest week of the year. However, we've never done the evening, although that could be because by that time were having a nice dinner, wine and are retiring to our resort to relax so we can be up by 5:30am the next day for that day's AM EMH park! Lol!

 

[TJDisneymama]

Morning EMHs are the best time to go! Empty park for thyat first hour.
PP ~ how'd u get a good deal on JB out of Boston? All I've seen are $700~800 fares and I check almost every day!

 

[gtpoohbear]

Why avoid EMH parks? I've seen lots of people say that. Are they the most crowded? Is it never an advantage to utilizing the EMH?

I would love it if we could actually use the EMH, but with the kids it just doesn't seem to work out. We have done it occasionally, and might do one AM one next time, but in general it isn't worth the lost sleep to get up early or be out late. Plus, it seems that at YV our breakfast options are limited (almost non-existent actually) that early. And we definitely don't want to go to an EMH park if we didn't make use of it because it would tend to be a little more crowded.

 

[wdw4rfam]

Aww, we overlap a bit!

We'll be at POR 4/18-4/20 before moving over to Poly CL for 8 nights!!!

We had POLY booked, then AOA (2 rooms), then decided to go back to POR. Would rather do POLY....but I think we will try that one when we get a better discount ( not likely in April).

 

[wdw4rfam]

Yep, right here, lol!

I promised myself I wouldn't make a plan of days and ADRs until the hours came out, but I couldn't help myself and made my beautiful post-it note spreadsheet today

I based it on last years hours, so we will see I guess. All I really care about is avoiding EMH parks, so even if they make a few changes we might be okay. Or I'll get to do the whole thing over which would be fun too.

And of course I still have 50 days to obsess over it and tweak things until our ADR date. Not that I'm, you know, counting or anything

Yes, me too. We already have our "spreadsheet" made too. We are also planners around EMH. We planned ADR's only on 5 out of our 9 days,so we can still move some days if needed. Plus I think we only have 2 ADR's in the parks. My teenager came in as me and DH had our ADR, budget, and schedule papers all over the table, and rolled her eyes at us (Although I caught all 3 kids watching our DVD from this Aprils trip) Its crazy how obsessed we all are

 

[Mousemommy1]

Why avoid EMH parks? I've seen lots of people say that. Are they the most crowded? Is it never an advantage to utilizing the EMH?

We always visit parks with EMH's - just sayin'. We love to close the park down!

Morning EMHs are the best time to go! Empty park for thyat first hour.
PP ~ how'd u get a good deal on JB out of Boston? All I've seen are $700~800 fares and I check almost every day!

I don't even know. We usually fly out of Manchester-Boston Regional airport, which is 10 minutes from our house. We usually fly Southwest and pay about $1200 for my family of four....well this year, it's looking to be at LEAST $1700, which is crazy. So I started shopping around and ended up finding the Jet Blue airfare for $950 for four of us!!!!! right on their website!!! We did have to add two days onto our trip and fly down on Thursday instead of Saturday, meaning our girls are going to miss 1.5 days of school now before vacation...but we just added the two nights at POR for still less than what the SW airfare would cost. We have APs so didn't need to buy more tickets. It just really worked out!!

We had POLY booked, then AOA (2 rooms), then decided to go back to POR. Would rather do POLY....but I think we will try that one when we get a better discount ( not likely in April).

We do have 40% off on the Poly (mil discount), so we are getting CL for less than rack rate of a regular GV room. Can't say no to that!!!

 

[montugirl]

I'm going to soon join you all, we are about to book our April trip from Virginia, so far it seems like Jet Blue is the cheapest we can find.

 

[pwdebbie]

Yay, I have a home!! March just didn't seem fitting for this trip, thanks for welcoming me in with open arms!

I hope your pooper perseveres and you unabashedly get to WDW in April with no worries on your mind. Ours is like family, so I understand how it can be.

Happy planning everyone!

Well, if she perseveres, we WON'T be going. In the past our dd has dog sat for us, she lives next door. However, our Lady is needing more trips out and our dd can't run over here often enough. It used to be four "outs" a day. Now it is more like six to eight. Plus, our dd expects to be moving and I can't count on her still being here any way to dog sit. Nope, the only option for us to go is for Lady to move to doggie heaven.

 

[pwdebbie]

Why avoid EMH parks? I've seen lots of people say that. Are they the most crowded? Is it never an advantage to utilizing the EMH?

My plan is to hit the morning EMH parks in the mornings. But I also avoid the evening EMH park because they do tend to be more crowded. We do our morning EMH park, leave after lunch, spend the afternoon in our room, and then choose a non-EMH park for the evening. Morning EMH parks are not nearly as crowded in the morning as evening EMH parks are in the evening. We are morning people, so this works great for us. Dh normally heads to bed at 8:00 p.m. (he is disabled) so we would never take advantage of evening EMH any way. I'm wishing Wishes were earlier in April. When we went in November, it was as early as 7:00 p.m.

 

[TJDisneymama]

My plan is to hit the morning EMH parks in the mornings. But I also avoid the evening EMH park because they do tend to be more crowded. We do our morning EMH park, leave after lunch, spend the afternoon in our room, and then choose a non-EMH park for the evening. Morning EMH parks are not nearly as crowded in the morning as evening EMH parks are in the evening. We are morning people, so this works great for us. Dh normally heads to bed at 8:00 p.m. (he is disabled)m.

that's what we do but we either soldier thru and finish the park at like 3:00ish (b/c we start so early and get so much done in the first couple hours), or else we leave after lunch and then go back later around dinner time (we don't get Hoppers), and since that park had morning EMH, it doesn't have evening EMH -- so we don't have to worry about all the evening EMHers crowding the park.

 

[Stefjp]

So today I bought myself a brand new Disney themed notebook (it has Micky & Donald on the front) in which I intend to make all my lists whilst planning my trip yay!

 

[Mousemommy1]

So today I bought myself a brand new Disney themed notebook (it has Micky & Donald on the front) in which I intend to make all my lists whilst planning my trip yay!

Woohoo!!! I always have a Disney themed folder that I keep all of my stuff in!!!

 

[DisMom1981]

that's what we do but we either soldier thru and finish the park at like 3:00ish (b/c we start so early and get so much done in the first couple hours), or else we leave after lunch and then go back later around dinner time (we don't get Hoppers), and since that park had morning EMH, it doesn't have evening EMH -- so we don't have to worry about all the evening EMHers crowding the park.

No hoppers??? Would like this option since the hoppers are significantly cheaper but we are only doing three days sooo we will hop!!

 

[TJDisneymama]

GAH! Now I am totally rethinking AoA (even tho my kids will LOOOVE it) and dreaming about the Poly. My rationale being if they put out a room only discount, I can probably get 30% off Poly vs. only 15% for AoA. We'd be giving up the suite though and IDK if we're ready to share a room with the kids, lol. But I keep looking at the photos of the Poly......... in addition to the monorail......

Of course the Disney site's been down all night so I can't actually run any numbers.

 

[DisMom1981]

GAH! Now I am totally rethinking AoA (even tho my kids will LOOOVE it) and dreaming about the Poly. My rationale being if they put out a room only discount, I can probably get 30% off Poly vs. only 15% for AoA. We'd be giving up the suite though and IDK if we're ready to share a room with the kids, lol. But I keep looking at the photos of the Poly......... in addition to the monorail......

Of course the Disney site's been down all night so I can't actually run any numbers.

How do you get 30% off?

 

[Stefjp]

GAH! Now I am totally rethinking AoA (even tho my kids will LOOOVE it) and dreaming about the Poly. My rationale being if they put out a room only discount, I can probably get 30% off Poly vs. only 15% for AoA. We'd be giving up the suite though and IDK if we're ready to share a room with the kids, lol. But I keep looking at the photos of the Poly......... in addition to the monorail......

Of course the Disney site's been down all night so I can't actually run any numbers.

It's good to try new places though

 

[TJDisneymama]

Dismom - I'm assuming they offer room discounts for that period.

Stef -- you're right though. And upon further thought, the kids will reallllly love AoA so might as well go while they're young and will appreciate the WOW factor of it. I can save Poly for when they're older.