****Official August 2015 Check-In Thread****

[pinky]

Counting down to my first DCA vacation, August 23-28. I am a WDW vet and DVC'er that has moved west. Meeting my bestie from MI for a girls only trip to celebrate my 55th b-day. We'll be staying at GC with points as VGC had no availability. Can't wait - I have never been further west than Vegas!

 

[gerilyne]

We will be heading back for our 4th August trip, this time Aug 2-8. It will be myself and DH as it has been for the past 3 times but we will also be taking my step-son. Can't wait!!!!!

 

[wildflower329]

We finally booked our hotel! We will be there August 23 or 24th (depending on flights) through the 29th. Currently, we are booked at the Park Vue Inn, but we will be keeping an eye out for specials at HoJo, as well as what the new hotel prices are when it opens for reservations.

 

[Aladora]

We finally made the decision and we are heading back in August! I booked our flights last night after finding a really great deal. We're going to fly in to Burbank, spend one day at Universal and then take a town car to Anaheim and spend four days at Disney before flying out of SNA.

We're going to get the Southern California Citypass and add an extra day on to the Disneyland part.

Given the state of our exchange rate I am trying to book and pay for as many things in Canadian dollars as possible.

How are everyone else's plans coming?

 

[tiffjoy]

Count me in for August! We bought APs, so we will be taking several short trips all year, but August is our big trip. We will be there for a week, 14-23, to celebrate DD5's birthday. So excited to have APs and go to the parks for a little bit every day!

 

[Aladora]

Count me in for August! We bought APs, so we will be taking several short trips all year, but August is our big trip. We will be there for a week, 14-23, to celebrate DD5's birthday. So excited to have APs and go to the parks for a little bit every day!

Hindsight is always a pain but I wish I had known in February that we were going to go back in August, we would have upgraded our hoppers to APs.

I know that this is our last DL trip for a while since we are heading to WDW in December. I know that upgrading to a Premier AP is definitely not worth it financially for us since i can't see is heading back to WDW anytime soon. The flights are crazy expensive and our dollar is not helping at all.

Also, in order to talk DH into this trip I did have to promise that next summer we would look at doing something different.

 

[tiffjoy]

Hindsight is always a pain but I wish I had known in February that we were going to go back in August, we would have upgraded our hoppers to APs.

I know that this is our last DL trip for a while since we are heading to WDW in December. I know that upgrading to a Premier AP is definitely not worth it financially for us since i can't see is heading back to WDW anytime soon. The flights are crazy expensive and our dollar is not helping at all.

Also, in order to talk DH into this trip I did have to promise that next summer we would look at doing something different.

It was actually my DH who suggested APs since we will be going back in January for DD3's birthday as we are not going to WDW (visit my in laws in FL every other year, and this January will be the off year). I jumped on the suggestion!! I think we might then take a break next year after our APs are up. I have never been able to figure out how the Premeir would be worth it unless you make multiple trips to both parks- even on years when we go to WDW and DLR, it's not worth it.

 

[Luv_Tink]

DH just called me at work to say his dad is going to DLR in August and can we go too. So here we are with tentative plans to be there Aug. 10-14th for our first trip back since 2006. We'll be driving down from the Seattle area in our RV and staying at the Anaheim Resort RV Park with our three daughters who will be 13, 10 and 8.

We're keeping this a secret from our kids for now since everything is so very tentative at this point. We had an amazing 2-week WDW trip this last Christmas and the girls are perfect ages for all the rides, characters and shows. They'll be very excited if we can pull this off.

 

[DaveNinja]

our plans got messed up. For the first time in forever, school starts up before labor day. now we have to try and move around reservation dates

 

[Aladora]

I'm super annoyed that less than 3 days after buying our non-refundable Victoria-Burbank and Anaheim-Victoria tickets as well as booking a non-refundable Universal Studios area hotel and paying for our Universal Studios to Anaheim town car...CityPass comes out with their new Summer pass that no longer includes the one day pass to Universal Studios!!!

So, now we will have to get separate Universal and DL tickets. So very grouchy about that.

 

[gerilyne]

Just booked our flights and hotel so we are official and not just saying we're going. Now to wait the 109 days!

 

[Aladora]

DH just called me at work to say his dad is going to DLR in August and can we go too. So here we are with tentative plans to be there Aug. 10-14th for our first trip back since 2006. We'll be driving down from the Seattle area in our RV and staying at the Anaheim Resort RV Park with our three daughters who will be 13, 10 and 8.

We're keeping this a secret from our kids for now since everything is so very tentative at this point. We had an amazing 2-week WDW trip this last Christmas and the girls are perfect ages for all the rides, characters and shows. They'll be very excited if we can pull this off.

I hate keeping secrets about DL trips! We have two more trips this year that our son does not know about, Universal Studios and DL/DCA in August and then WDW in December. We usually tell DS about the trips in advance but we have surprised him once and I am tempted to surprise him again this August. I'm thinking about not telling him until we get to the airport but might just tell him when he gets up that morning. Our son is autistic so we were pretty scared to try and surprise him, it wasn't until his 4th trip that we finally did. We had a really early morning flight so we had to wake him up at 4:00 am, as soon as he opened his eyes we asked him if he could go anywhere in the world, where would he want to go. His very sleepy answer was "Even Disneyland?" We then told him we were going but he was still mostly asleep so I don't think he really believed us until we were at the airport.

our plans got messed up. For the first time in forever, school starts up before labor day. now we have to try and move around reservation dates

Booooo, that sucks! School here always starts the Tuesday after Labour Day, it would really annoy me if they suddenly decided to change that. Do you have new dates in mind?

Just booked our flights and hotel so we are official and not just saying we're going. Now to wait the 109 days!

YAY! That always feels great, when you finally make the decision and book everything!

 

[dorchrislen]

myself and 14 DS coming for short 2 day trip Aug 16 and 17, from Las Vegas. Staying at Hotel Menage with AAdvantage miles. Anxiously awaiting the schedule to see which park has EMH to see if I need to avoid it. I'm also wondering if I should do DL on the 16th since it's the last day of the block, thinking DCA won't be as crowded on Monday as DL will. Any experts have an opinion on this?

 

[dorchrislen]

sorry, need to sub

 

[Aladora]

myself and 14 DS coming for short 2 day trip Aug 16 and 17, from Las Vegas. Staying at Hotel Menage with AAdvantage miles. Anxiously awaiting the schedule to see which park has EMH to see if I need to avoid it. I'm also wondering if I should do DL on the 16th since it's the last day of the block, thinking DCA won't be as crowded on Monday as DL will. Any experts have an opinion on this?

Are you doing hoppers or one park per day tix? We always get hoppers, it is really nice to be able to jump over to the other park if the one we are in gets crowded.

If hoppers then I would start the day at whichever park does not have early entry. Actually, that advice holds true hoppers or not. I am not a fan of DL early entry although if we are staying onsite I love DCA early entry. I took some pics in February of DCA and it was almost empty.

I guess that was a long winded way to say that my preference is to go for the park that does not have the early entry, regardless of the day of the week.

 

[Luv_Tink]

We have the finances worked out so our surprise trip for our girls in August is a go! We've booked our RV spot at the Anaheim Resort RV Park and DH is working on our driving route. We're thinking we'll leave the Seattle area Friday evening and get to the WA/OR border before turning in for the night. DH plans to do 10 hours or so of driving on Saturday and finish up the trek on Sunday. Our reservations don't start until Monday, so we may end up adding Sunday night too I'm thinking. That way we can get set up and get a good night's sleep so we can hit DL Monday morning.

I'm reading up on our options for Fantasmic and WOC viewing and learning a lot. We'll be getting 4-day park hoppers, so I think we should be good with that. The rest of our group is going to do 3-day tickets I think so that gives our family one day all to ourselves. I can't wait to start hearing about all the 60th anniversary activities so we can work those into our plans.

 

[dorchrislen]

If hoppers then I would start the day at whichever park does not have early entry. Actually, that advice holds true hoppers or not. I am not a fan of DL early entry although if we are staying onsite I love DCA early entry. I took some pics in February of DCA and it was almost empty.

Thanks Aladora. I wasn't planning to get hoppers because I was going to justify splurging on the BB F! meal by foregoing the expense of the hopper. But I have time to mull it over since I haven't bought the tix yet.

 

[Luv_Tink]

I knew it was going to happen, we've already added on a day at the RV resort. Hubby says we can make it there Sunday afternoon/evening instead of Monday. So the plan is to set up our RV space when we get there and I'll probably take the girls to the pool, get our ART passes, etc. then maybe head to Downtown Disney for dinner and shopping before turning in for a good night's sleep so we can hit Disneyland bright and early Monday morning.

We'll have most of Monday to ourselves to tour the parks before the rest of our group arrives Monday afternoon/evening.

 

[Pixie Dust x3]

We'll be there August 3rd and 4th after the water polo Junior Olympics finish up. Just a couple of days in the parks, but we go fairly regularly so we're really most interested in the 60th anniversary fun -- especially the fireworks and parade. We're staying at the Candy Cane Inn because on property is spendy (we will be in hotels for 4 days before hand for water polo, too) and we love the location and accommodations. Looking forward to BTMRR, too. Can't wait!

 

[Aladora]

I keep checking onsite prices since our stay at GCH in February was lovely but I just can't justify spending $400 U.S. per night for PP (way more for DLH and even more for GCH) when we are paying $89 per night for DI&S and only paid $229 in February for GCH.

But I will keep checking!