Our First Magical Disney Christmas PTR 2011

[disneygma11]

Welcome to my first Disney PTR. I hope that I am doing this right. We are planning our first Disney trip EVER! You can imagine our excitement! There will be me, my DH along with DS-18 and our oldest Granddaughter-3 .

I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. Aside from this being our first trip it will be the first time that anyone has flown in an airplane aside from me. So they are in for a treat! I am so glad I found this board.

About me: I am a full time college student and work part time as a text messaging operator. My husband is a retired minister. We will celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary in late October. We had originally planned a trip elsewhere in early November to celebrate. But after crunching some numbers and talking it over we decided to delay the fun and spend an early Christmas at WDW! We plan on going the first week in December, 2011.

I will do my best to update this PTR as often as I can. I am currently watching the airfare rates and planning on buying our plane tickets within a couple to three weeks. Hoping the price may drop a bit between now and then. Cant blame a girl for hoping can you?

Resort Choice: We will be staying at a Value Resort. Hopefully Pop Century. I have looked into all the value resorts and I want something with lots of characters and things so that the Granddaughter will be pleased.

I have been looking over these boards and scouring the Disney World site. I have also been watching lots of videos of the Christmas activities at WDW in 2010. My granddaughter is so excited. Her little eyes just sparkle. She was busy naming off each of the characters in the parade video that we watched earlier.

That is about all I have thus far. Ill do my best to pop in here every now and then to leave an update of where we are in the planning process. I am sure Ill post a few photos as well along the way!

These two little princesses are our granddaughters Lilly and Lexi. We are expecting our third grandchild in January of this coming year. We are hoping to get a grandson this time.

Thanks for viewing my initial entry and check back soon for updates!

 

[disneygma11]

Welcome to my second update to our Disney PTR. Today I have been doing some research on our travel options. I have been pouring over travel sites and weighing our options. Ideally I like the idea of flying and getting there really fast. Which in all actuality will probably be the way that we go. However, I have looked at a cheaper option which is the Greyhound bus lines. I can get there in 24 hours on the bus. The total cost was around $750 for all four of us using Greyhound. I took a look at the Amtrak train as well. Their rates though as just as high if not higher than flying. I just do not think that would be good for the granddaughter. I cannot imagine subjecting her to such a long ride at the age of 3. I will probably fly. Right now, driving is not an option for us.

I have a rewards card with Airtran. The only thing I do not like is they do not offer a Non-Stop flight at a time that would work for us. Ideally we would like to leave St. Louis around 11 in the morning. Since we will have an early flight into STL from CGI that would be about the only flight time that would work for us. I am trying to keep the flight time as short as possible due to my granddaughters age and also my husband and son have never flown before so I would like to have a nonstop flight for their sakes until they get used to flying. I believe that I will go with Southwest Airlines. I wonder if I just bought the one way ticket to Orlando now and wait till later to book the return flight does anyone see any problem with me not being able to find a return flight if I wait?

I am going to be doing some more research and hope to get the room booked. I like the idea of having the Disney Dining Plan at our fingertips, the only thing I do not like right now is the fact that by booking so late I will not have much time to make use of their payment plan. I think that I will just do a room only reservation for now.

Stay tuned! Ill add more later this evening!