mjallemand
Est. 1985
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2011
- Messages
- 846
I'm planning a (as much as can be four months ahead of time) impromptu trip to Disneyland and I was hoping you folks would be willing to pitch in and help where possible.
Apologies in advance if this seems long and rambling.
To simultaneously preface and make a long story short all at the same time, I proposed to my wife at Epcot Center back in 2015 and married her in January 2017. It seemed fitting to go to Disneyland for our Honeymoon so we did so on 1/8/17 through 1/13/17 with four park days in the interim.
Well we're midway though 2018 and it occurred to me that we haven't taken any sort of vacation or really had any time off since then, and while I do want to go on grand adventures to places that aren't theme parks, I really just kind of want to scratch that Disney itch again. We considered doing Walt Disney World but at this point with all the construction going on I kinda want to wait for the dust to settle there, so that's looking like a 2021 visit at the earliest, just in time for WDW's 50th anniversary, or maybe 2022 for Epcot's 40th. (With 50th anniversary celebrations likely spilling into 2022 anyway)
So I posed the idea of a quick trip, I figure 3 park days, during the same week as our 2017 honeymoon, which will nicely fill in as a 2nd anniversary trip as well. Hopefully we can miss the torrential rain that occurred during the 2017 trip, but c'est la vie.
Lodging:
During the three Walt Disney World trips I've taken as an adult, I've always said that I have no interest in anything beyond a "value" resort, and it's true. If I'm at a Disney Resort you bet your sweet bippy I'm gonna be in a park, at Disney Springs, or just exploring the various resorts and other recreation areas. Why stay in a hotel room? I can do that anywhere.
The same holds true for Disneyland, and so I'm fine with staying in budget digs. On Sunday I pulled up Google maps and printed up a map of all the Disneyland area hotels along South Harbor. Then I went through and looked up lodging prices for each. The cheapest lodging I found in the area is a Clarion Hotel south of West Katella Avenue at $84 a night, ($412.34 after taxes and fees) which is amazing but is also ruined a bit by distance. Looks like it would be a 25 to 35 minute walk to the park which doesn't sound awful but depending on traffic, weather, and other factors is not ideal, especially on long nights when we're exhausted and ready to collapse.
So it's looking like we're falling back on the Anaheim Desert Inn & Suites, which is where we stayed in 2017. It's a bit more expensive ($109/night, $545.76 total after taxes & fees) but that extra $34 a night is worthwhile for that 5 minute walk to the park.
It's possible I may end up changing my mind on this by the time booking comes around, but we'll see. Any suggestions for other hotels less than $600 total for four nights?
Airfare:
My default airline has always been Southwest, and this trip won't be any different. I'll have to get to the airport a bit early for the 6:30am departure and I'll be getting home late on the return flight, but nonstop flights are the way to go and at $166 per person on the way out and $137 on the way back I certainly won't complain. That's looking like $605 roundtrip for two people and I honestly doubt I'd manage to get it any cheaper outside of shenanigans.
Tickets:
Last time I used Last Minute Travel "Club" to buy tickets and I'd like to use them again because it was so simple to just print the voucher and bring it to the turnstiles to get the "paper" tickets. Unfortunately it appears that tickets aren't available for purchase through them for 2019 yet, so I'll just go by 2018 pricing. Looks like a 3-day park hopper ticket from them is $301.40, which I doubt I'll do any cheaper. Even aRes travel is $301, and that's before they tack on a few bucks for a convenience fee.
Shuttle:
The last piece of this puzzle is the shuttle from LAX to the hotel. I went with SuperShuttle last year and even though I was crammed into a van with six or seven strangers for an hour each way I certainly can't complain, because renting a car would have been vastly more expensive. It's looking like that's gonna be $34 each way, for a total of $68.
As far as I can tell everything else is incidental...food and any nonsense we decide to bring home with us. Anything else I need to be budging for ahead of time? Is MaxPass really worth it?
Thanks.
Apologies in advance if this seems long and rambling.
To simultaneously preface and make a long story short all at the same time, I proposed to my wife at Epcot Center back in 2015 and married her in January 2017. It seemed fitting to go to Disneyland for our Honeymoon so we did so on 1/8/17 through 1/13/17 with four park days in the interim.
Well we're midway though 2018 and it occurred to me that we haven't taken any sort of vacation or really had any time off since then, and while I do want to go on grand adventures to places that aren't theme parks, I really just kind of want to scratch that Disney itch again. We considered doing Walt Disney World but at this point with all the construction going on I kinda want to wait for the dust to settle there, so that's looking like a 2021 visit at the earliest, just in time for WDW's 50th anniversary, or maybe 2022 for Epcot's 40th. (With 50th anniversary celebrations likely spilling into 2022 anyway)
So I posed the idea of a quick trip, I figure 3 park days, during the same week as our 2017 honeymoon, which will nicely fill in as a 2nd anniversary trip as well. Hopefully we can miss the torrential rain that occurred during the 2017 trip, but c'est la vie.
Lodging:
During the three Walt Disney World trips I've taken as an adult, I've always said that I have no interest in anything beyond a "value" resort, and it's true. If I'm at a Disney Resort you bet your sweet bippy I'm gonna be in a park, at Disney Springs, or just exploring the various resorts and other recreation areas. Why stay in a hotel room? I can do that anywhere.
The same holds true for Disneyland, and so I'm fine with staying in budget digs. On Sunday I pulled up Google maps and printed up a map of all the Disneyland area hotels along South Harbor. Then I went through and looked up lodging prices for each. The cheapest lodging I found in the area is a Clarion Hotel south of West Katella Avenue at $84 a night, ($412.34 after taxes and fees) which is amazing but is also ruined a bit by distance. Looks like it would be a 25 to 35 minute walk to the park which doesn't sound awful but depending on traffic, weather, and other factors is not ideal, especially on long nights when we're exhausted and ready to collapse.
So it's looking like we're falling back on the Anaheim Desert Inn & Suites, which is where we stayed in 2017. It's a bit more expensive ($109/night, $545.76 total after taxes & fees) but that extra $34 a night is worthwhile for that 5 minute walk to the park.
It's possible I may end up changing my mind on this by the time booking comes around, but we'll see. Any suggestions for other hotels less than $600 total for four nights?
Airfare:
My default airline has always been Southwest, and this trip won't be any different. I'll have to get to the airport a bit early for the 6:30am departure and I'll be getting home late on the return flight, but nonstop flights are the way to go and at $166 per person on the way out and $137 on the way back I certainly won't complain. That's looking like $605 roundtrip for two people and I honestly doubt I'd manage to get it any cheaper outside of shenanigans.
Tickets:
Last time I used Last Minute Travel "Club" to buy tickets and I'd like to use them again because it was so simple to just print the voucher and bring it to the turnstiles to get the "paper" tickets. Unfortunately it appears that tickets aren't available for purchase through them for 2019 yet, so I'll just go by 2018 pricing. Looks like a 3-day park hopper ticket from them is $301.40, which I doubt I'll do any cheaper. Even aRes travel is $301, and that's before they tack on a few bucks for a convenience fee.
Shuttle:
The last piece of this puzzle is the shuttle from LAX to the hotel. I went with SuperShuttle last year and even though I was crammed into a van with six or seven strangers for an hour each way I certainly can't complain, because renting a car would have been vastly more expensive. It's looking like that's gonna be $34 each way, for a total of $68.
As far as I can tell everything else is incidental...food and any nonsense we decide to bring home with us. Anything else I need to be budging for ahead of time? Is MaxPass really worth it?
Thanks.
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