Planning Advice Needed

[ELSA711]

Okay, so I need some advice from my families of 5 or less. Any advice is helpful
I am working on a trip of 2+ weeks for next summer (2017) and I just don't know what to do
Budget isn't really a big issue, I know I'm going to hit the wallet hard as it is Disney and prices are going up daily. However I am a weird budget girl who wants to be sure I'm crunching my #s and getting the most value for my family. Not just for the money but time spent and best entertainment as well.
Here are a few key points in planning:

• Family of 5, don't care where we stay but would love AKL - Prices are insane
• Kids 13, 9 and 7
• We love WDW
• Is 14 night stay to long? be honest - am I being stupid about Disney
• How to do it without DDP?? , I always here how free dining isn't free but wow, crunching the #s it saves us a ton
• Used spreadsheet on meals and well, it's more than the dining plan would cost?
• How do other families do it without one?
• June or August for heat or doesn't it matter at that point?
• Nervous about DVC rental and lack of flexibility with dates but this would make AKL doable for us
• Mother who hates heat and crowds, lol
• Family used to fall times, late October or early November with low crowds, waits and less heat
• Would you recommend a holiday time instead of summer?
• We just don't want to take kids out of school anymore
• We do like one TS meal a day and then snacking and maybe one QS meal a day

I would appreciate any and all wisdom from the DIS, you guys are the experts.
Just throw it out there even if you have just one or two pieces of wisdom.
Thanks!!!

 

[mrsp1030]

Not sure why you are nervous about renting points...that is what we prefer to do anymore as a family of 5. In fact, you can only do a one bedroom at AKL or more as the regular rooms do not allow 5. If you don't want to do summer, the best holiday time we have found is Thanksgiving as the crowds are easier than Christmas and Easter. We found during the first few days of the week, it was not crowded at all and really manageable towards the end of the week also. In fact, it is one of our preferred times of year now.

 

[ELSA711]

Not sure why you are nervous about renting points...that is what we prefer to do anymore as a family of 5. In fact, you can only do a one bedroom at AKL or more as the regular rooms do not allow 5. If you don't want to do summer, the best holiday time we have found is Thanksgiving as the crowds are easier than Christmas and Easter. We found during the first few days of the week, it was not crowded at all and really manageable towards the end of the week also. In fact, it is one of our preferred times of year now.

Thanks! I am just nervous about renting points because you have to do it so far in advance and most I have read are not flexible with changes or no changes allowed.

 

[kreckl]

Are you planning on free dining? That won't happen on points~
August can be brutal but June can be worse. Sorry!
14 nights is a long trip- hopefully you will have lots of time outside the parks!

 

[ELSA711]

Are you planning on free dining? That won't happen on points~
August can be brutal but June can be worse. Sorry!
14 nights is a long trip- hopefully you will have lots of time outside the parks!

No free dining for us anymore now we are traveling with the rest of the crowds during peak times and that is okay. We have paid for the plan before not a big deal.

As for the 14 days, we usually stay 9-10 nights so adding on because we are driving is to buffer in lots of resort time

 

[kreckl]

The AK resort is gorgeous. If you use points to get a place with a kitchen and have a lot of resort time, you can easily avoid having every meal for 14 days in a restaurant. It is relaxing there and a great place to decompress, imo. We absolutely love it. If I was going for 2 weeks, I would do a split stay, personally. Bay Lake or Beach Club on points would be ideal as far as locations and fun for kids. With a split stay, we often do one resort on the DP, and one without.

 

[Pesky]

As one insane planner to another, welcome! You are absolutely right to be planning ahead. Plus that's half the fun. There are sites like WDWprepschool and **************.net that can help too.

Lodging: For family of 5, as pp pointed out, AKL is tough. Not really geared towards family of 5 unless you are looking at the suites. If you like the deluxe stay though, look at renting points for DVC villas. There are some DVC ones where the studios hold 5 and some where the studios don't. Also, there are ones like OKW where you might be able to get more bang for your buck as well. FWIW, we couldn't resist the lure of AKL either and are doing AKV for a studio and then moving to the Poly. Which sleeps 5 BTW. You are right to be nervous. I had put in to book DVC and our plans changed! Luckily I could change the dates without issue but that was before a contract came through. Much tougher after that. If you do DVC, I'd definitely look into trip insurance or the point insurance some offer.

Length of stay: this is really a personal question. Coming from someone who will be around there 12 nights, sounds good to me! But we're not spending it all at WDW. We are doing 3 days at US/IOA and staying at a US resort for that time. We're also going to check out Gatorland after we land for our reptile-obsessed DS. Plus you can hit the water parks too and have down days. Not a bad thing.

DDP: most people say the dining plan isn't worth it. We eat breakfast in the room generally and like to get our own snacks much of the time so that is why the DVC kitchenette works so well for us. I think it's a personal preference. Most say it is a ton of food but if you have big eaters, might well be worth your while!

Timing: I'd lean towards June. It'll be hot either way but I remember a lot of thunderstorms in August when I went and lived there. Holidays -- depends on the holidays so that's something I would check out by the desired holiday. BTW, if you hate heat, summer won't help you there. August is likely to be hotter. Crowds? Aim for early June or late August. It'll still be crowded but not awful. And then do rope-drop, tour like a maniac and head out when it gets crowded. d

There is no truly right or wrong way to do Disney -- it's all geared towards what you want and expect. Have fun!

 

[mrsp1030]

Certain rental companies do offer trip insurance and cancel for any reason when renting points. I certainly agree that you can't go wrong with AKL. We have stayed there and VWL the most as feel like we are getting away from it all at the end of the day. We've also stayed in the studio units that sleep 5 at Poly, VWL and VGF. All were really nice but i preferred the units that had the closet space the most versus the split bathroom.

 

[monorailsilver]

• Family of 5, don't care where we stay but would love AKL - Prices are insane
• Kids 13, 9 and 7
• We love WDW
• Is 14 night stay to long? be honest - am I being stupid about Disney. I haven't gone for 14. The longest I went for was 10. But we only did 5 park days, 2 travel days were spent at the pool and one was chef mickeys at dinner time. 2 were pool days from 8am-10pm....my kids came out a bit later! One we did the water park, a bit at the pool and then downtown Disney.
• How to do it without DDP?? , I always here how free dining isn't free but wow, crunching the #s it saves us a ton Never did the dining plan and have no desire to ever do it. I proved out meals before we went and gave myself a budget and we stuck to it. We shipped down breakfast and water bottles. We did not buy soda in the park which that alone saved us $15/meal I am sure (family of 5 as well) . We actually saved more not doing the DP but we only ate at 2 sit downs and the rest were CS depending on where we were. I am not one who enjoys paying for park time and sitting in a restaurant when I could be on a ride/show.
• Used spreadsheet on meals and well, it's more than the dining plan would cost? I checked prices on all ears as to where we would eat. Again I don't do sit downs, 2 are the max we can tolerate and we still came out ahead paying OOP
• How do other families do it without one? See above. Breakfast in our room. I won't waste an ADR on eggs! Don't buy drinks in the park and we just drank water (thermos water bottles kept water cold all day).
• June or August for heat or doesn't it matter at that point? Only went in June once and I was 3 so I don't remember it but I prefer August and more so the 3rd week.
• Nervous about DVC rental and lack of flexibility with dates but this would make AKL doable for us
• Mother who hates heat and crowds, lol we so the early entry park and make sure we are there no later then 30 min before opening-this is where eating breakfast in our room makes like easier. Dh and I shower while the kids eat. Anyways, we grab lunch in the park where ever we are. If we have done 6 or 7 rides by 11 we may say lets have an early lunch and the. Head back to our room for a nap/break from heat and another shower. If we had a lunch ADR we'd have to wait which would not be fun! Then we return at night. We don't do more then 2 days of parks in a row and then have a pool day/kids and dh sleep in but not me I can't sleep in so I do laundry at 6 am.
• Family used to fall times, late October or early November with low crowds, waits and less heat on the flip side-wet kids from every possible water spraying device. If we went any other time then summer I'd tell them they couldn't get wet.
• Would you recommend a holiday time instead of summer? Me no because I love to pack light. No coats, pants, long sleeves. We pack 5-6 outfits and laundry detergent,
• We just don't want to take kids out of school anymore
• We do like one TS meal a day and then snacking and maybe one QS meal a day can't help you with that as I prefer just QS because we don't like being tied down to a certain spot.

I would appreciate any and all wisdom from the DIS, you guys are the experts.
Just throw it out there even if you have just one or two pieces of wisdom.
Thanks!!!

 

[ELSA711]

Wow, everyone - thanks! lots of good feedback.
My family loves the character meals but maybe we could do only 2 or 3 and cut the dining plan.
I am with you monorailsilver, we are planning lots of down days, 2-3 days in parks and then 2 days off, etc.
I am looking at a possible split stay with DVC and those options are definitely more enticing money wise. I just want to make sure our resort is worth spending a day at.

 

[keepswimming76]

Good thinking on the split stay. You would get a chance to try different places and perhaps reduce the cost a bit. We're doing our first split stay in May and rented DVC points. We were able to get the exact dates we wanted for both resorts.

Also, I have been going back and forth and back and forth myself about the dining plan. But in the end, all of my calculations show we would save money by paying out of pocket. We just don't need that much food, for example dessert with lunch and dinner.

I wish I could help more but we're a family of four so I don't have any experience with booking larger parties for resort stays!

 

[ELSA711]

Good thinking on the split stay. You would get a chance to try different places and perhaps reduce the cost a bit. We're doing our first split stay in May and rented DVC points. We were able to get the exact dates we wanted for both resorts.

Also, I have been going back and forth and back and forth myself about the dining plan. But in the end, all of my calculations show we would save money by paying out of pocket. We just don't need that much food, for example dessert with lunch and dinner.

I wish I could help more but we're a family of four so I don't have any experience with booking larger parties for resort stays!

Did you do a split stay at 2 DVC rentals? If so do you mind sharing which two you decided on?

 

[jacknsally19]

If you are planning to do 14 days, you might find it useful to have one family member purchase an annual pass. This will give you photopass and then you can purchase a Tables in Wonderland card- which is a lot better than the dining plan. You can also get discounts on purchases and hotel rooms.

I love AKL but I'm not sure I would want to spend a full 2 weeks there. I love the food there but the quick service leaves a lot to be desired. The other thing is that you aren't close to other options. If you are doing the villas, it's a totally different story and In that case, the food wouldn't be an issue.

I find that the biggest difference staying during the hot summer months is that we need a long afternoon break. We just don't have the same kind of stamina and pool time is a priority! The crowds overall are higher but there is more entertainment, longer hours, and so things seem a bit more evenly distributed in terms of crowds.

 

[keepswimming76]

Did you do a split stay at 2 DVC rentals? If so do you mind sharing which two you decided on?

We are doing a split between AKL and BLT. It's four of us so we can fit into a studio.

 

[ElizabethG]

We stayed for 15 nights in August 2014 at AKV. It was wonderful. Last August we stayed for 14 nights at Beach Club. They were both great. I just wanted to relax and not pack and leave mid-way. In 2013, we did a split with AKV and BLT in October. The move is easy, you just have to pack and unpack.

We chose the end of August because crowds are a little lower and my kids school doesn't start until September. It is hot and rains quite a bit. I actually hope for rain just to cool off a bit.

We have purchased a TIW card since our 2 kids passed age 9. The DDP for 9 and under is really cheap, so it can make it worth getting. That way you can do lots of character meals, which are mostly buffets (and expensive) and kids can eat whatever they want. When figuring out the price benefit, make sure you price it based on what you would prefer to order. For example, we wouldn't eat dessert with every table and quick service meal. With a TIW card you get a discount on your entire table service order. I do like having one table service meal each day.

Our whole family has really enjoyed the long trips. My only tip is to make sure you get sleep. I made very few plans in the morning so that most days we could just sleep until we woke up without an alarm. There were a few nights that I slept for 10 hours. You just need the extra sleep. That way, on day 11 you still feel ready to go and everyone is in a good mood.

 

[5stljayhawks]

WOOOOOOOO elsa.... your bringing the freeze... olaf is getting ready to have melt down.. First off if you are value season conditioned, you all will need to readjust to lines and crowds. Not sure if that can really happen. After our last trip in june, we swore never to go back during summer or high season. Look closely at calendars as 1 wk either way can make world of difference.

14 nights at WDW.. No not to long. On longer stays we are 1/2 park 1/2 out. maybe even 1/3 2/3. If you go with park hopper plus? you get DTD arcade, mini golf and water parks. This makes for good fun on "off days" I figured a family of 5 at water parks was $250 or $500. 1 or 2 days. the extra up front ticket cost paid for itself.

Mom... Well bring the Disney stories to life for her. Find out her characters and maybe plan a few FP just for her. If she is grumpy maybe visit snowwhite.

Time to visit, I will always look at value season. best for budget and crowds, the two biggest issues with WDW.
Halloween time or two weeks before xmas are great and meet above criteria.

Check out Fort Wildnerss cabins, in the campground. Its a gem and kids will love IT. (check out FW campground on this site) We also did split stay at AOA and POLY, it was great for family of 5.

 

[pa. dad]

Wow= 14 days is a lot. We stayed at the AK lodge , we arrived late and the room they gave us was by the pool. The only animals we saw were the many homosapiens. Still it was a nice but expensive place.
For a stay that long, i would consider doing some other things like Universal , Sea World, Maybe Busch in tampa, maybe a minor league baseball game and a day or 2 at the beach. Definitely a water park or 2.
And stay away from holidays as all the parks were just mobbed. Even the most minor attractions had long waits. Like rest rooms.
We've gone many times over the years but never more than 6.5 or 7 days and once for just 2 days. I don't know but as the week gets older, just seems that the walking gets a little bit harder and the patience for the lines gets a little thinner. And somebody in the family seems to have a sunburn or a welt in the foot or something that limits them by the end of the week.

 

[ELSA711]

Thanks everyone for the great advice. As for the 14 days, we usually go 10 so I thought the extra 4 would be a nice buffer for rest and other things. We will drive again, another reason for the long stay.
Unfortunately I think we are tied to summer as we just can't take the kids out of school anymore. Way to much homework and make up work. It was to hard to have 'homework' time on vacation last year and my kids need the in school instruction.

We do plan to go off site a few times, one to Tampa/Clearwater to see Winter again. We didn't get enough time there. Rethinking about doing a split stay but doing on site / off site instead of 2 DVC on site.

 

[Tara1988]

Temperature-wise, there's no difference in June and August, it's going to be miserably hot either way. There is more chance of rain in August, so that can either cool you off a little or just make you hot and wet. But you'll get more use out of the pools then than around the holidays. I would stick to summer since really the only time you'll get a long enough break to go as long as you want is around Christmas, so crowds are probably worse then, probably not warm enough for the pool most days and the temperature is so unpredictable packing would be a nightmare. Having someone get an annual pass is a great idea! Or even all of you if there's any chance you could make it back for maybe a shorter visit to see the holiday stuff