Our First Christmas at WDW Trip/Budget Report

tl_swift · Oct 28, 2007

Okay here it goes. Our first trip, 13 days, in Florida !! :sunny:

I guess I will start with our intro's:

My name is Theresa :wave:

I am 40 years old and we live in Sonoma County California. :chewy:

DH-Tim is 48, :eeyore:

DD- Danielle is 16, :darth:

DS- Patrick will be 15 on 12/15, and :yoda:

Zachary is 9.

We are flying :teleport:

on JetBlue (red eye flight :coffee:

) from Oakland on 12/18 arriving in Fort Lauderdale 12/19 $2,169. RT (charge)

We will be staying at Holiday Inn Express from 12/19-12/22 and again from 12/29-12/30 - $0 (using points)
Renting a minivan from Thrifty 12 days, unlimited miles $603 (charge)
Fuel costs for trip estimating $130.
Food costs while in Fort Lauderdale (both coming and going) $200
While there we want to go to Deerfield Island Park and hike around :flower2:

http://fl-deerfieldbeach2.civicplus.com/index.asp?NID=544 and cruise around on the water taxi's :fish:

http://www.watertaxi.com/FortLauderdale/FLLVirtualRide1.Asp family pass =$39

On the 22nd we will drive up to Kissimmee :car:

and check into Orange Lake Resort http://www.orangelake.com/tour_our_resort/360_views.html from 12/22 - 12/29 [prepaid cost of my home resort yearly maint. fee $420 + RCI exchange fee $169 = $589]

I purchased my tickets from Undercover Tourist, using MouseSaver link, one a month to pay for them in cash. 4 day+ 2 free days total for 5 of us = $1,053.75 :smickey:

Our plan is to go to the parks that don't have EMH's and arrive at the parks at least an hour before opening. Epcot on 12/23, down day on 12/24, Animal Kingdom on :santa:

12/25, on 12/26 some of us may have a down day, (meaning DH if we had a Grumpy smilie I would use one here LOL) and some may go to Magic Kingdom [if we can get in], on 12/27 we go to MGM and 12/28 we may go back to Epcot. 12/29 we drive back to Fort Lauderdale. :beach:

ADR's

Epcot- Biergarten 12/23 $91. and MGM- 50's Prime Time Cafe 12/27 $62. for AK we will probably eat at Pizzafar, no reservations needed $35.00. Using Disney Bucks prepurchased to budget for this. The least amount of times DH needs to dig out his wallet the happier he is

I am planing on about $200 in grocery costs for breakfast in and bringing food into the park. I am going to pick up a backpack cooler from Target for this.http://www.target.com/IGLOO-Maxcold...15867?ie=UTF8&index=target&rh=k:cooler&page=1

I am budgeting about $300 for my mad money :crazy:

to use in the park for ice creams and soveniers. The kids have been told that unless soda's are included in the meal it will be just water. I am packing food for our snacks and dinner. Since we will be eating lunch at a sit down service I am thinking that will be our "heavy" meal and we will pick through what I bring for the rest. DD and DS have jobs so they will also be bringing their own mad money.

We leave for home after a wonderful and memorable trip

ixiedust: on 12/30 to recoup until school starts back up again for us :teacher:

on 1/8/2008

Eeww do I really want to do this part :scared:

grand total both prepaid and whats left to pay :eek:

$5,417.75

Update- Out of the above amount we have paid off $3,611.75 leaving $1,406.

Avivasmom · Oct 28, 2007

We live about 10 minutes from Fort Lauderdale airport...never heard of Deerfield Island Park...it looks really nice. The water taxis are fun...I have never done it but friends have. The waterfront is fun in Fort Lauderdale and Las Olas...some great restaurants and places to check out.

Your Disney plans sound fun...the decorations are great for the holidays.

tl_swift · Oct 28, 2007

Avivasmom said:
We live about 10 minutes from Fort Lauderdale airport...never heard of Deerfield Island Park...it looks really nice. The water taxis are fun...I have never done it but friends have. The waterfront is fun in Fort Lauderdale and Las Olas...some great restaurants and places to check out.

Your Disney plans sound fun...the decorations are great for the holidays.

I can't wait!!! I love the planing part but I am sure glad I found this DISboard to share it all with cause my kids keep telling me "Mom you are going to spoil it for us if you tell us everything. We like the surprise!!" :laughing:

You live 10 min. away and never heard of Deerfield Island Park :scratchin

:

Avivasmom · Oct 28, 2007

You live 10 min. away and never heard of Deerfield Island Park:

Well 10 or so minutes from the airport about 30 minutes from Deerfield Beach...would only go down there when my DH and his band played in some of the restaurants on A1A.

Going to have to check it out one day with DH and DD.

tl_swift · Oct 29, 2007

My kids have a DC trip coming up in April with their HS music department. The school is doing a fundraiser where if you purchase stuff through an online mall they get a % of the sale. (If anybody is intersted in purchasing through there to help out PM me. I have two children going at $850 each just months after our WDW trip. :eek:

)When I checked it out it had the Disney Shopping site on the mall so I just had to buy some shirts for our trip. Besides they didn't have my size in the Disney store at my town mall. All good reasons right?! :thumbsup2

Well, anyway. They arrived today. :woohoo:

Here is a picture of them.

[/IMG]

tl_swift · Oct 29, 2007

Well, that was easy!! Now I have to figure out how to make them smaller. Oh well. One step at a time. Here are a couple of pictures of my family from our trip to Disneyland in the summer of 06.

Zachary and Pluto

[/IMG]

YO-HO it's Captin McPatrick!!

[/IMG]

Danielle having some down time with a good book.

And last but not least- my Darling Hubby- Tim with Zac

[/IMG]

tl_swift · Nov 1, 2007

After going over my pre-trip report I decided that I should make some ADR's for the days that I was concidering my maybe days just in case. So I added :drinking1

Tony's Town Square in Magic Kingdom on 12/26 and for Epcot on 12/28 Marrakesh in Morocco. I soooo can't wait!!!!! :cloud9:

OhMari · Nov 1, 2007

I'm not going to fix your typo, but you have ALR's instead of ADR's. I hope you like the food at Tony's, I heard it can be a hit or a miss. Otherwise maybe take a break and go to Fort Wilderness on the Ferry and eat at Trails End to get away from the crowds. We did and it was a nice 2 hour break when we were there over Easter.

tl_swift · Nov 1, 2007

Thanks for the tip! The reason I was putting ALR was becuase I thought ADR stood for Advance Dinner Reservations. Mine are Advance Lunch Reservations. Is that incorrect?

IloveDMB · Nov 1, 2007

You know what else is fun to do down here in Fort Lauderdale? An airboat ride through the Everglades.

We went on one for the first time about a month ago and we had so much fun! We got to see a bunch of alligators and a 12 foot one came right up to the boat.

It was really interesting and a great time.

tl_swift · Nov 6, 2007

I can't stop thinking about our upcomming trip!! :hyper:

Day and night I am thinking, reading and going over the details of our trip. What is planed. What is planed not to be planed. Obsessed!!!!!!

My daughter went to a garage sell the last weekend and came home with this disney pin for me. :hug:

ooh:

http://www.pinpics.com/cgi-bin/group.cgi?group=636&pin=7095

tl_swift · Nov 20, 2007

I am under a month now in my ticker!!!! I can't wait. I am going to start making my binder this weekend. I picked up some glow sticks from the dollar store. I didn't see anything else that my kids would want. Lots of cute stuff for toddlers but not too much for teens. I also want to go pick up a luggage lock that only the people on the airlines can open to help secure my Christmas stuff.

tl_swift · Dec 2, 2007

The activity schedule for Orange Lake Resort was posted online today. They are offering an Elf tuck in :woohoo:

I e-mailed them to put us down for Christmas Eve :santa:

That will be so cute :cloud9:

I was also able to talk a friend of ours into driving us and picking us up from the airport :car:

That is gong to be a major savings in long term parking ::yes::

Still working on our planning binder. Getting a lot of really good ideas from the Parks & Strategies board. :disrocks:

Monday I am planing on shipping our gifts ahead of time so I don't have to deal with Christams gifts on the plane. I have never shipped stuff ahead of time before so I am keeping my fingers crossed. :tinker:

I am going to sprinkle some pixie dust on them, call the resort let them know to expect them and say a little prayer.

tl_swift · Dec 2, 2007

Did an update of my original post on this thread today. We paid off our plane tickets so I updated to add a line on the bottom to show what has been paid off and what is left. I am going to go pick up some more Disney Bucks today to pay for our ADR's. After I pick that up I will update the amount again to show that the ADR's have been paid. What is left is our car rental and basic out of pocket costs. :thumbsup2

tl_swift · Dec 15, 2007

Leaving in 3 days!!!! I can't believe it is almost here!!!! As suggested above we are going to do the Everglades while we are in Fort Lauderdale. :hmghost:

http://www.evergladesholidaypark.com/airboats.html I recorded every show that the Travel Channel and Food Network had on WDW and Fort Lauderdale and we have been watching them with anticipation for the last couple of days. Rachel Rays $40 a day had a show on Fort Lauderdale and she also had a pit stop at the Everglades Holiday Park it looked like a lot of fun! :cheer2:

IloveDMB · Dec 15, 2007

Have a great time!!!

The weather has been so beautiful down here.

Enjoy your trip, can't wait to read about it when you get back!

tl_swift · Dec 15, 2007

IloveDMB said:
Have a great time!!!

The weather has been so beautiful down here.

Enjoy your trip, can't wait to read about it when you get back!

Thank you , and thanks for the tip about the Everglades!! :thumbsup2

It looks like we are not going to be able to go to the Deerfield Park they only open the park twice a week, once on Wednesday and again on Saturday. Neither day would work for us :sad2:

Any traffic tips for the drive to Kissimmee?

IloveDMB · Dec 17, 2007

The drive is pretty much a straight shot for me.

595 to Florida Turnpike to Osceola Parkway, which leads right into Disney World.

I don't know what there is to do at Deerfield Park but hopefully you guys love the airboat ride.

tl_swift · Dec 18, 2007

It's finally here!!! We leave tonight right after I get off work!!! Did some last minute changes on our ADR's. We changed our schedule to go to Animal Kingdom on 23rd and EPCOT on the 24th. I was able to switch our ADR with Biergarten with no problems thankfully. Now we are on track with all of the green lights on TGM's plan!! We know it will be crowded but might as well do our best to minimize where we can. We will have our down day on Christmas Day. I am all packed and ready to go with just the last minute toiletries to throw in after the family is all done getting ready. It is raining here and it will such a treat to escape the weather. Well time to get ready for work. I think I will put on one of the taped shows I have from the travel channel to listen to as we all get ready to go this morning!! Happy Disney!!!!!