****OFFICIAL August, 2012 (PART 2)****

[LifeIsDis]

Catching up on 10+ pages on this thread. That's what happens when I leave for almost two days.
Thank you for all the Disney podcast suggestions. I'll definitely be listening to those on our drive to wdw.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Here's a question for all you Team August peeps out there. Do you ever come home from Disney with MORE money than you thought you would????

We came home from our Orlando trip at New Years (where we visited Universal, IOA, Discovery Cove, and Seaworld) with enought money left over to pay for our flights for this August trip. We literally booked for August just 11 days after getting back.

Food was much cheaper than we budgeted. We got GREAT shopping deals at the outlet and Florida Mall (maybe we got lucky on the after Christmas sales?) so we didn't spend anywhere near what we had allocated for shopping and souvenirs. For some reason, our rental car ended up being cheaper once we checked in with the agent at the desk (down to $68 for the week, taxes included, AND we got upgraded to a larger vehicle for free.....the desk agent couldn't figure out why my confirmation was coming up with the higher rate) and we even got our onsite stay at the Royal Pacific for half the price we prepaid (they had oversold our room type, so they upgraded us to a hospitality suite and refunded us $100). We saved 10% or better with our CAA card at many restaurants. It actually became the running joke of our vacation, when we went to pay for something, between my husband and son...."gee, I wonder what kind of discount they are going to give mom when she goes to pay?".

 

[Stan Solo]

If you are looking for some great Disney World information in an audio format Lou from WDW Radio has all of his audio guides in one set on sale now for 50% off just use code FRIEND50

http://t.co/bQ8IGXv8

If the link isn't working just search WDW Radio Shop. I'm on the iPad app and things just don't like right on here.

 

[4Joyces]

Just a random tip for saving money for vacations... We take the max amount out for our daycare flex spending ($5K). Then we try to get by every month without getting the flex spending reimbursement. So there's $416 per month saved. Forces us to cut back on our day-to-day stuff (DH's Caribou coffee habit, my & DS's daily donuts, things like that).

 

[NightAngelX]

try D-cot.com. Play the songs you want at any time.

Thanks!

So I signed up for a free sample of some Fancy Feast Mornings for my cats. It came today. A free can of cat food and a packet of Nescafe Memento Mocha! I don't drink coffee and I know how much you all LOVE Nescafe. So if anyone wants it let me know!!

 

[cinnderly]

When it comes to the dining plan I have a suggestion. If you arrive early and leave late you have a whole day of meals to pay for that won't be on the plan or in your case three days. One thing you can do on an evening you don't have anything planned or are at a resort that closes early i.e. AK order a pizza and have it delivered to your room and watch an outdoor movie at your resort while you enjoy your pizza. I also found that Palo ??? The chicken place at DTD had the best chicken I ever ate and was not crazy over priced.

If you have snack credits left over you can use them for snacks at your resorts gift shop. Things like Mickey Mouse Rice Krispie squares make good small gifts for young children's friends.

Pizza night is definitely on our itinerary!

We came home from our Orlando trip at New Years (where we visited Universal, IOA, Discovery Cove, and Seaworld) with enought money left over to pay for our flights for this August trip. We literally booked for August just 11 days after getting back.

Food was much cheaper than we budgeted. We got GREAT shopping deals at the outlet and Florida Mall (maybe we got lucky on the after Christmas sales?) so we didn't spend anywhere near what we had allocated for shopping and souvenirs. For some reason, our rental car ended up being cheaper once we checked in with the agent at the desk (down to $68 for the week, taxes included, AND we got upgraded to a larger vehicle for free.....the desk agent couldn't figure out why my confirmation was coming up with the higher rate) and we even got our onsite stay at the Royal Pacific for half the price we prepaid (they had oversold our room type, so they upgraded us to a hospitality suite and refunded us $100). We saved 10% or better with our CAA card at many restaurants. It actually became the running joke of our vacation, when we went to pay for something, between my husband and son...."gee, I wonder what kind of discount they are going to give mom when she goes to pay?".

That's awesome!

 

[elaine amj]

It took me a little while to catch up. Thanks to all the talk about podcasts and Disney music, I opened up my Jango app and now have Disney songs streaming in the background.

I just spent a couple of hours tidying and doing a little decluttering of my house. I have my Japanese exchange student arriving on Sunday afternoon and I have nothing ready yet! Tomorrow we will be at my son's soccer tournament from 10-6. The Sunday my inlaws are coming for lunch. Ugh... Too much to do and all I want to do is spend time on the Dis.

Oh, and watch the Olympics. Who watched the opening ceremonies? I watched the last half live first, then watched the beginning. I liked it a lot... Except for that musical segment with the teens falling in love. I don't care for much of that music and it took me quite a while to figure out what the whole segment was about. I just got bored with that ( very long) bit.

 

[iDad]

I feel like a minority on this thread because I do not read too many posts from my male friends. I am the only male at my office and it seems like I am one of the few males on the thread.

I am the one in my family that is the planner, scheduler and tour guide for our family. I love every aspect from planning on when we go to where we are going to eat and all points in between.

I listen to WDW today just about every day as well as getting my park music fix each day with D-COT and Mouse World Radio.

My wife and kids love Disney but my wife said she does not need to seek help for her love like I do! She loves to go and so do my kids but they leave all the work for me which is a labor of love.

Any guys out there can relate? If so would love to hear from you.

I know what you mean. Where I work is about 75% female so I have learned the proper manners and ettiquete needed for survival. This is my only my 5th trip to WDW in my life and the third with my DW. This trip has taken hold of DW and I in a way none of the other trips ever did. She is in full gear with creating shirts, dinner plans, and researching everything there is to know about WDW (this site being a big part in the research). I on the other hand am trying to figure out the drive from Southern Ontario, the plans for the days (with full knowledge and acceptance that these may be thrown out the window of our resort on the morning of). DW and and I look at all this preWDW as part of the vaction and we hope that the time WDW will be half as much fun as we are having now planning and learning about it.

 

[DisneyMomFanatic]

Oh, and watch the Olympics. Who watched the opening ceremonies? I watched the last half live first, then watched the beginning. I liked it a lot... Except for that musical segment with the teens falling in love. I don't care for much of that music and it took me quite a while to figure out what the whole segment was about. I just got bored with that ( very long) bit.

I did!!! I am an opening ceremony sappy kinda girl. Love watching them. I thought all of it was interesting and cool. But parade of nations is always what hits me. All those athletes who probably know they really don't stand a chance to win but want to give it a shot anyway for the honor to represent their country is AWESOME!!! But anyone else out there who is as out of touch with the world as I am? So totally never heard of a bunch of those countries... hello??? I know geography was not my best subject in school, but when I went to school there weren't even 200 countries. And now 240 participating in the olympics, you go countries I have never heard of... And SUPER cool that EVERY country that is participating has at least 1 woman athlete. YEAH!!!

 

[elaine amj]

The best part is my brother and SIL live in London. While they didn't get to go to the ceremony, they scored dinner ressies nearby and hung out within a 100m of the stadium all night.

 

[SenecaWolf]

It took me a little while to catch up. Thanks to all the talk about podcasts and Disney music, I opened up my Jango app and now have Disney songs streaming in the background.

I just spent a couple of hours tidying and doing a little decluttering of my house. I have my Japanese exchange student arriving on Sunday afternoon and I have nothing ready yet! Tomorrow we will be at my son's soccer tournament from 10-6. The Sunday my inlaws are coming for lunch. Ugh... Too much to do and all I want to do is spend time on the Dis.

Oh, and watch the Olympics. Who watched the opening ceremonies? I watched the last half live first, then watched the beginning. I liked it a lot... Except for that musical segment with the teens falling in love. I don't care for much of that music and it took me quite a while to figure out what the whole segment was about. I just got bored with that ( very long) bit.

I have it DVR'd, gonna watch it in the morning.

 

[jennyf2]

FYI--

For anyone interested--


TODAY'S ORLANDO GROUPON:
Parasailing at the Contemporary--Sammy Duvall's

Choose Between Two Options
•$57 for a single-passenger parasailing flight (a $95 value)
•$102 for a tandem-passenger parasailing flight (a $170 value)

I'm Sooooooooooo excited for this. I was going to get this as a surprise for my boys & I was planning on spending $170!

Off to book

 

[taylor3297]

I'll take suggestions! Mostly I'm worried about the extra food. We'll be there 3 days without the free dining, plus the dining plan doesn't cover quite everything. I would love to get souvenirs, and I am positive my son will be asking for a lot of things, but if we can't do it, we can't do it. Food though, we can't live without. I'd also really like to do the Behind the Seeds Tour.

What I do in order to make sure my kids are actually buying the souvenirs that they really want, this is what I do. When they see something that they say they want, I write it down in a small notebook I carry with me. When we are getting ready to leave the park, I then ask, if there was anything they wanted to buy, and normally they will only mention one thing they saw that day. I will read the list back to them and normally the one item they remember is the item they really want.

 

[KarmaLady]

What I do in order to make sure my kids are actually buying the souvenirs that they really want, this is what I do. When they see something that they say they want, I write it down in a small notebook I carry with me. When we are getting ready to leave the park, I then ask, if there was anything they wanted to buy, and normally they will only mention one thing they saw that day. I will read the list back to them and normally the one item they remember is the item they really want.

That's a great idea! Along that vein, are we allowed to take pics in the stores? Since my kids are so young, I thought maybe I would take a pic of each thing they want(along with the store sign), then go back later if they still need something.

I'm questioning my ADR's again (what else is new?) and realized every one is a character meal! My kids are 4 & 6 and could even be scared of the characters... I'm wondering if I should scrap something to try to get Tokyo dining or teppan edo... Hmmm but i can't cancel the luau since that's with all 13 of us or CP since FiL picked that one, oh, or CRT since its right after BBB.... Or Tusker since I promised DS6 he could pick one... That leaves Akershus and DD4 is obsessed with princesses!!! Argh! That does it, I need more TB credits! Hmmm anyone know how much the upgrade is to DxDP?

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[Emteach]

What I do in order to make sure my kids are actually buying the souvenirs that they really want, this is what I do. When they see something that they say they want, I write it down in a small notebook I carry with me. When we are getting ready to leave the park, I then ask, if there was anything they wanted to buy, and normally they will only mention one thing they saw that day. I will read the list back to them and normally the one item they remember is the item they really want.

Great idea! I think we will definately use that one!

 

[Megs114]

11 days to go!! I'm so freaking excited lol. It will be our anniversary while we are there (the 13th) and the first year you are supposed to get paper. I'm getting DH either a personalized brick for outside of Citi Field (we are big Mets fans) and tickets to a game or tickets to see the Book of Mormon since he's been wanting to see it. It depends if the bricks are still available next week when I go to order them. I tried dropping hints to DH that I want an "Our Adventure Book" like in up. I saw it on etsy and I think it would be perfect to hold all of our special moments in our life together . I've been leaving the page up on the computer lol.

As far as budgeting, I always bring cereal packs with us for breakfast. We aren't huge breakfast eaters and we save $ this way. We usually only have 3-4 TS meals throughout the trip too so we aren't spending a ton of money each day. I was worried about souvenirs bc we were supposed to go for our honeymoon and I wanted ALL of the Disney wedding stuff lol. However, since we didn't go down for the honeymoon, I got some of the stuff I wanted as gifts from people including our Christmas ornament which was a biggie for me lol. So there isn't too much aside from pins and such that we, well I, really want. I think the biggest expense will be our drinks around the world day lol

 

[pigletto]

FYI--

For anyone interested--


TODAY'S ORLANDO GROUPON:
Parasailing at the Contemporary--Sammy Duvall's

Choose Between Two Options
•$57 for a single-passenger parasailing flight (a $95 value)
•$102 for a tandem-passenger parasailing flight (a $170 value)

I'm Sooooooooooo excited for this. I was going to get this as a surprise for my boys & I was planning on spending $170!

Off to book

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My husband has always wanted to take my son to do this but at full price we always pass on it. When you're already at Disney with a million fun things to do it's hard to spend an extra 200 dollars for something like this.
But I just got them the tandem parasail for 102 all in!!

They are THRILLED!!!!

Do you know if we have to call and book a reservation soon? Or can it wait until they get there?

 

[ginny_lynn]

FYI--

For anyone interested--


TODAY'S ORLANDO GROUPON:
Parasailing at the Contemporary--Sammy Duvall's

Choose Between Two Options
•$57 for a single-passenger parasailing flight (a $95 value)
•$102 for a tandem-passenger parasailing flight (a $170 value)

I'm Sooooooooooo excited for this. I was going to get this as a surprise for my boys & I was planning on spending $170!

Off to book

Are there age retrictions? my DS would love this!

What I do in order to make sure my kids are actually buying the souvenirs that they really want, this is what I do. When they see something that they say they want, I write it down in a small notebook I carry with me. When we are getting ready to leave the park, I then ask, if there was anything they wanted to buy, and normally they will only mention one thing they saw that day. I will read the list back to them and normally the one item they remember is the item they really want.

Great idea! with 4 kids along this should help them use their spending money wiaely...which in turn will save me money b/c I would feel bad and buy them th ething they really wanted in the end.

 

[crostorfer]

What I do in order to make sure my kids are actually buying the souvenirs that they really want, this is what I do. When they see something that they say they want, I write it down in a small notebook I carry with me. When we are getting ready to leave the park, I then ask, if there was anything they wanted to buy, and normally they will only mention one thing they saw that day. I will read the list back to them and normally the one item they remember is the item they really want.

I do something similar with my daughter. I don't let her spend any money on souvineers for the first couple of days, I make her wait until she's been to every park. It cuts down on whining later.

 

[pigletto]

Ginny, I think the minimum age is 6, and there is minimum and maximum weight specs for the tandem. That's the only one I was looking at so I don't know the details of the single sail.
It's listed on the page before you purchase though so you have time to check it out before committing