Post Pandemic Pipe Dreams: Our 2022-23 PTR (Completed)
- Thread starter TheOneWithTheTriplets
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TheOneWithTheTriplets
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Welcome and thanks for joining! I've shied away from Jersey Week in the past because of crowds, but fingers crossed they aren't too bad next year.
TheOneWithTheTriplets
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- Mar 27, 2018
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Big Picture Goals
I’m not sure how to organize a PTR that has so many trips built into it. Chunking by trip doesn’t feel right, as lots of the planning we’re doing now is looking at larger goals for the APs and which experiences we want to slot into which dates. Then, there’s a whole category of things we want to do if they actually come back, which is a different level of confusing. And then, there’s the boring-but-no-less-important budgeting goals that are making all of these trips possible. I think I’ll lay out some big ideas here, as much as a reference for myself as anything else, and then move into individual trip details as they come up.
Budgeting
Lead with the driest material, right? But, for a family of five, how we’re paying for all of this responsibly, without going into debt or tapping emergency savings, is where it all starts.
For us, the foundation is Southwest Companion Passes. For the uninitiated, if you book a metric ton of flights or earn a metric ton of points in a calendar year, then you get a companion who travels with you on every flight for the balance of that year and the next full year, paying only the $5.60 administrative fees. More simply, for each adult in our family who earns 125k in SW points in 2022, a kid flies free for 2022 and 2023, the entire period of our APs.
Earning 125k points would typically be impossible for us. The credit card intro bonus is usually 70k, leaving 55k points to make up in mostly 1 point per dollar spending (there are some 2x and 3x categories, but not nearly enough to account for that difference). There are some creative ways to game the system so that Southwest will let you open two cards and generate two bonuses simultaneously, but I wasn’t down for that. I wanted to see what kind of year-end, new-year promos Chase might run with travel starting to look more like normal.
Lo and behold, this fall, Southwest offered one of their most generous bonuses yet: 100k points after $12,000 spent on the card. That means, you have at least 112k points (depending on if you did bonus categories) with only 13k to go to hit your companion for the year. And, they upped their refer-a-friend bonus to 20k points. So, $12,000 spend and one friend referral gets you a companion pass. Then, if that friend is also your wife, the next card would need to hit $12,000 spend and then 13k in a combination of bonus categories and more spending to get her own companion as well.
We had to time everything just right so that the points would all hit in calendar year 2022, but when his statement closes in January, Hubby will officially have a companion pass for 2022-2023. Our family is usually around $3,000 a month on credit cards, so we had to get creative to hit those numbers. A friend put her airfare on our card and paid us back, Hubby was buying gift cards by the handful when staples offered a week of Visa gift cards with no-fee, and that’s just to hit spend on the first card. My referral bonus knocked him over the top, but I’m going to have to work harder for my points. We’re pre-paying a year of our cable and water bills, several months of the kids’ piano lessons, putting the annual car insurance on there, and (if they ever start selling them again!!) buying the APs on that card, too. Our August flights have plenty of availability now, but I want the companions loaded ASAP so that I know all five of us have seats on that plane. So, *car salesman voice* if you're thinking about opening a Southwest credit card, have I got the referral link for you!?!
While the upfront effort to forcibly spending around $35,000 on credit cards is an incredible hassle, the benefits are going to be totally worth it. Two free kids is a 40% cost savings on every flight we take, and the 250k in points we generated should allow us to fly free for at least two of our out-and-backs.
After the Southwest companions are booked, Hubby and I are going to have some tough conversations to figure out what’s next. He’s already eyeballing other cards with good bonuses and perks, including getting me Global Entry. I’m eyeballing the pile of Visa gift cards in our fireproof safe and wanting to use those until we’ve worked through them. Perhaps we’ll have the debate on a thread here, just to make things fun!
Our other major savings avenue is renting DVC points. They are an incredible deal and bring so many more five-person room options into our budget. That is, if you can get over the ick factor of making nonrefundable payments in full to a stranger on the internet months in advance. (So many red flags in that sentence!) We've locked in a standard view studio at the Boardwalk for our August dates. It's one of the lowest (maybe the actual lowest?) points rooms on property that accommodate five and we love staying on Crescent Lake. So, I cancelled my placeholder CBR reservation that was $3300 and now we're paying $2400 for the Boardwalk instead! We're not booking any more non-refundable travel until we have AP vouchers on the account. If, by some crazy circumstance, we can't get APs, then we'll keep the big August trip as is but figure out other places to fly with our Southwest passes for birthday and Christmas. Without APs, this many visits in a year would just be too much for our wallets. Assuming APs resume in early 2022, I'll be reaching out to the owner I rented from in 2019 to set up Poly for November and be on the hunt for a BWV owner for December.
New-to-Us Experiences
On to the fun stuff! Disney has changed a lot since 2019 and there’s a ton of things we want to try. Some are new to the whole family, while others will be new for our previously height-restricted girls. There are also things we want to do that we expect (hope? wish?) will start or resume some time during our APs.
New to Everyone:
New to Kids:
If It Opens/Re-Opens/Resumes Normal Operation:
I don’t think we’re going to invest in character meals if they don’t come with more interaction than they can currently offer. It’s just too much to spend for us. So, for those, I’d say we’ll hope to book if normal operation resumes.
Ooooof. Considering how things have felt paused since 2020, there’s still a lot to fit in on that list. And, since the plan is to surprise the kids in November with the birthday trip, they’re going to be thinking that August is our one, big, do-it-all visit. One thing we've got going for us is that our girls aren't on social media yet, so they don't know what they may be missing!
What are your favorites that have opened since SW:GE? What should we target for seasonal offerings?
I’m not sure how to organize a PTR that has so many trips built into it. Chunking by trip doesn’t feel right, as lots of the planning we’re doing now is looking at larger goals for the APs and which experiences we want to slot into which dates. Then, there’s a whole category of things we want to do if they actually come back, which is a different level of confusing. And then, there’s the boring-but-no-less-important budgeting goals that are making all of these trips possible. I think I’ll lay out some big ideas here, as much as a reference for myself as anything else, and then move into individual trip details as they come up.
Budgeting
Lead with the driest material, right? But, for a family of five, how we’re paying for all of this responsibly, without going into debt or tapping emergency savings, is where it all starts.
For us, the foundation is Southwest Companion Passes. For the uninitiated, if you book a metric ton of flights or earn a metric ton of points in a calendar year, then you get a companion who travels with you on every flight for the balance of that year and the next full year, paying only the $5.60 administrative fees. More simply, for each adult in our family who earns 125k in SW points in 2022, a kid flies free for 2022 and 2023, the entire period of our APs.
Earning 125k points would typically be impossible for us. The credit card intro bonus is usually 70k, leaving 55k points to make up in mostly 1 point per dollar spending (there are some 2x and 3x categories, but not nearly enough to account for that difference). There are some creative ways to game the system so that Southwest will let you open two cards and generate two bonuses simultaneously, but I wasn’t down for that. I wanted to see what kind of year-end, new-year promos Chase might run with travel starting to look more like normal.
Lo and behold, this fall, Southwest offered one of their most generous bonuses yet: 100k points after $12,000 spent on the card. That means, you have at least 112k points (depending on if you did bonus categories) with only 13k to go to hit your companion for the year. And, they upped their refer-a-friend bonus to 20k points. So, $12,000 spend and one friend referral gets you a companion pass. Then, if that friend is also your wife, the next card would need to hit $12,000 spend and then 13k in a combination of bonus categories and more spending to get her own companion as well.
We had to time everything just right so that the points would all hit in calendar year 2022, but when his statement closes in January, Hubby will officially have a companion pass for 2022-2023. Our family is usually around $3,000 a month on credit cards, so we had to get creative to hit those numbers. A friend put her airfare on our card and paid us back, Hubby was buying gift cards by the handful when staples offered a week of Visa gift cards with no-fee, and that’s just to hit spend on the first card. My referral bonus knocked him over the top, but I’m going to have to work harder for my points. We’re pre-paying a year of our cable and water bills, several months of the kids’ piano lessons, putting the annual car insurance on there, and (if they ever start selling them again!!) buying the APs on that card, too. Our August flights have plenty of availability now, but I want the companions loaded ASAP so that I know all five of us have seats on that plane. So, *car salesman voice* if you're thinking about opening a Southwest credit card, have I got the referral link for you!?!
While the upfront effort to forcibly spending around $35,000 on credit cards is an incredible hassle, the benefits are going to be totally worth it. Two free kids is a 40% cost savings on every flight we take, and the 250k in points we generated should allow us to fly free for at least two of our out-and-backs.
After the Southwest companions are booked, Hubby and I are going to have some tough conversations to figure out what’s next. He’s already eyeballing other cards with good bonuses and perks, including getting me Global Entry. I’m eyeballing the pile of Visa gift cards in our fireproof safe and wanting to use those until we’ve worked through them. Perhaps we’ll have the debate on a thread here, just to make things fun!
Our other major savings avenue is renting DVC points. They are an incredible deal and bring so many more five-person room options into our budget. That is, if you can get over the ick factor of making nonrefundable payments in full to a stranger on the internet months in advance. (So many red flags in that sentence!) We've locked in a standard view studio at the Boardwalk for our August dates. It's one of the lowest (maybe the actual lowest?) points rooms on property that accommodate five and we love staying on Crescent Lake. So, I cancelled my placeholder CBR reservation that was $3300 and now we're paying $2400 for the Boardwalk instead! We're not booking any more non-refundable travel until we have AP vouchers on the account. If, by some crazy circumstance, we can't get APs, then we'll keep the big August trip as is but figure out other places to fly with our Southwest passes for birthday and Christmas. Without APs, this many visits in a year would just be too much for our wallets. Assuming APs resume in early 2022, I'll be reaching out to the owner I rented from in 2019 to set up Poly for November and be on the hunt for a BWV owner for December.
New-to-Us Experiences
On to the fun stuff! Disney has changed a lot since 2019 and there’s a ton of things we want to try. Some are new to the whole family, while others will be new for our previously height-restricted girls. There are also things we want to do that we expect (hope? wish?) will start or resume some time during our APs.
New to Everyone:
- All of SW: GE- we flew home the day the land opened in 2019 so we haven’t stepped foot inside. Both rides, both quick service, Oga’s Cantina, and maybe the Droid experience are on our radar here.
- Mickie and Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Updated Fantasmic
- Sci-fi Dine
- Enchantment
- Harmonious
- Beacon of Magic
- Remy
- Space 220 (Lounge or lunch, I’m undecided)
- Food and Wine Festival offerings
- Club Cool
- Kite Tails (I need to see some crashing Baloos!)
- Kali River Rapids (this was under refurb our first trip and then rained out our AK After Hours visit)
- Typhoon Lagoon
- The Skyliner
- A birthday celebration
- All the Christmas (Our whole December trip will be about targeting holiday-specific offerings. Here’s hoping Winter of ’22 is back to full offerings with an MK party that costs less than my mortgage!)
- Extended family trips including grandparents
New to Kids:
- Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster
- Tower of Terror
- Flights of Passage (C was a hair too short)
- Expedition Everest
- Dinosaur
- Blizzard Beach 48” slides
If It Opens/Re-Opens/Resumes Normal Operation:
I don’t think we’re going to invest in character meals if they don’t come with more interaction than they can currently offer. It’s just too much to spend for us. So, for those, I’d say we’ll hope to book if normal operation resumes.
- Star Wars fireworks: Hubby and I saw a modified version of these because weather earlier in the day had prevented them from clearing the stage in front of the theater. The kids haven’t seen them at all
- Toppolino Terrace Breakfast
- 1900 Park Fare Dinner
- Tron
- Guardians
- Anything else that manages to open at Epcot
- Walt Disney World Railroad
Ooooof. Considering how things have felt paused since 2020, there’s still a lot to fit in on that list. And, since the plan is to surprise the kids in November with the birthday trip, they’re going to be thinking that August is our one, big, do-it-all visit. One thing we've got going for us is that our girls aren't on social media yet, so they don't know what they may be missing!
What are your favorites that have opened since SW:GE? What should we target for seasonal offerings?
We did jersey week in 2018 and didn’t find it bad at all. Except for Epcot on the weekends. We went the last Sunday of F&W and had to leave because it was so uncomfortable and at one point I started feeling claustrophobic. Other than that it was an amazing trip. Hopefully the crowds aren’t too bad this year !
TheOneWithTheTriplets
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That's good to keep in mind! We'll end up there for the beginning of F&W in August and then near the end in November. I'll make sure we're not doing Epcot on a weekend those trips.
trippedup
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I think you meant Boulder Ridge Villas (BRV)? I still have my heart set on that Wilderness Lodge Christmas tree/hearth.
TheOneWithTheTriplets
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lvcourtneyy
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Wow your budgeting is amazing but also makes my head spin lol. Where do you fly out of with Southwest? Philadelphia? I’m so sad they no longer fly out of Newark.
When in December are you planning to go? Resort hopping to check out all the gingerbread houses and Christmas trees is high on my favorites for the holidays. The projections on Tower of Terror for Christmas are something I love way more than I expected to.
Not sure if they’ll bring back Jingle Bell Jingle Bam at any point but that was another surprise love for us and one of our favorite dessert parties.
When in December are you planning to go? Resort hopping to check out all the gingerbread houses and Christmas trees is high on my favorites for the holidays. The projections on Tower of Terror for Christmas are something I love way more than I expected to.
Not sure if they’ll bring back Jingle Bell Jingle Bam at any point but that was another surprise love for us and one of our favorite dessert parties.
StarWarsMomofGirls!
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good for you!!! All that you wrote made my head spin!
Have you seen any of the RoR spoilers? I think you guys will like that for sure, and actually MF will be fun for you guys as most of the "spaceship" will be your family. Even if you don't do the Droid expierence, you can go in and see the area, which is nice.
I am looking forward to this one as well.
I would love to see these again! We saw them in the pooring rain and it was amazing but def not optimal.
I second this! Jingle Bell Jingle Bam is our favorite dessert party by far! Maybe just because it is so festive, but you get a table with chairs!
TheOneWithTheTriplets
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The plan was to fly out of Philly as they had several direct flights every day. Unfortunately, with the most recent schedule extension, there are NO weekday direct flights PHL to MCO. Only a couple on Saturday. We looked at flying out of Philly and connecting, but BWI is only a two hour drive for us. Two hour drive 2:15 flight ends up being less travel time, less cost, and less risk of a missed connection than Philly with a stop. We booked BWI to MCO for August and I'm checking daily to see if SW sneaks more Philly direct flights in there if/when they decide they have the demand and capacity for it.
December will be the 2nd to the 7th. I think they have most of the resorts decorated by then, so resort hopping will be on our list! I hope Jingle Bell, Jingle Bam comes back because I've heard such good things.
I've been trying my best to avoid RotR spoilers, but some things have seeped through. I have to do a little more digging about the whole process of making a droid. I know they were capping it at two people per droid when they started, which won't work for us. I haven't looked at any of the new protocols, though.
Yes, I had it on my list in part because of how much you liked it in your TR. I hope they bring it back!
lvcourtneyy
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Oo that really stinks. Hopefully they bring more flights back into Philly. We went to LaGuardia the last two times we flew to use Southwest but it’s just so inconvenient to get there and deal with the traffic that I’ve had to resign myself to other airlines.
gotcha! I think most resorts will be decorated by then! I only asked because you mentioned MVMCP and I was gonna mention that later in December (Christmas week i believe?) they show the Christmas parade and fireworks during regular park hours
TheOneWithTheTriplets
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Agreed! The direct flights from Philly in general are now few, far between, and pricey. If we'd known Southwest was cutting their schedule so much, we might not have put all of our mileage eggs in their basket. Then again, no other airline is offering even close to the savings we can get from them, so we'd probably be driving to BWI for the free kid flights anyway.
We've talked about doing actual Christmas week, but we don't want to battle the crowds.
The school's conference week is early December, so we only have to miss a couple of half days to go. And, at least before, we've heard it only gets busier as the month goes on, so early December is (sightly?) lower crowds to see the Christmas stuff
TheOneWithTheTriplets
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Wow! You are SO organized! What an interesting read this was. Looking forward to following along.
Welcome!! I couldn't handle undertaking such big expenses if it weren't organized, so here we are
Bama Mom
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Following along. I've read your other reports on the past. The girls have grown so much.
I only got the SW credit card so we could basically fly free. This February trip costs us a whopping $22.00 for round trip direct flights because of fees. We drive to Nashville (an hour and 45 minutes) because the airport an hour from us doesn't service Southwest, but it's worth it.
Can't wait to hear all about your plans.
I only got the SW credit card so we could basically fly free. This February trip costs us a whopping $22.00 for round trip direct flights because of fees. We drive to Nashville (an hour and 45 minutes) because the airport an hour from us doesn't service Southwest, but it's worth it.
Can't wait to hear all about your plans.
TheOneWithTheTriplets
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Thanks for joining in! We have to have lots of adventures to make up for all our time stuck home!!!
Welcome! Yup, we're finding out that we have to drive to get the direct flights with SW, but there's no way for us to beat the cost savings.
Thanks for joining! They have no idea how good they have it, the little stinkers.
Thanks for the reminder! I know WDW has been pretty tight fisted on discounts in the last year, but I haven't looked that closely into Dolphin (Swan is 4 person rooms). I'll be sure to watch for their AP rates if we can't get the DVC rentals we want.
TheOneWithTheTriplets
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August Starting Point
August in Orlando, everyone’s favorite time of year!! There’s just something about a trip that feels like you’ve actually travelled to the surface of the sun…
In all seriousness, there was some back and forth about deciding when to start our year of Disney. If we did it earlier this summer, then we could have had more 2022 trips, including visits with extended family, but the passes would only be good for one 2023 end-of-school year visit. For a few reasons, we decided to wait, start them in August, and reserve our extra summer time for 2023.
Once August was decided, we had to wait for the proposed school calendar. Our district typically starts after Labor Day, but they’ve been toying with the idea of the week before for a few years now. The ’20-’21 school year was slated to start before the holiday but then got delayed they needed more time to implement their covid mitigation strategies. The proposed ’22-’23 calendar has us starting 9/6, so we can push our trip super late into August for 2022 and still have a mid-August 2023 trip.
We knew we wanted a long trip, since we expected we’d be having a lot of down-time midday to escape the heat. I reached out to a DVC renter who was advertising points available and she was able to grab a Boardwalk standard view room for 8/25 to 9/4 (10 nights). It’s a little later than we wanted, as we fly Sunday with school starting Tuesday, but the standard view is unavailable the 24th. The standard is $630 cheaper than the next option, so we’ll just have to deal with only 1 day turnaround before the first day of school.
Southwest flights out of Philly stink for this summer. They only have a couple of expensive direct flights on Sundays, compared to what was always several direct flights a day. Rather than deal with a connection and 5-7 hours of combined airport and flight time, we’re driving to BWI. It’s about two more hours of drive time, but then we’re looking at a 2:15 direct flight. Not only are the BWI flights cheaper, the door-to-door travel time is lower and we don’t have to connect and deal with all the hassle that entails, particularly with Southwest’s boarding policies. I am still checking regularly in case they sneak in more direct PHL flights, but I assume that wouldn’t happen until Omicron is well behind us.
Outbound, we booked BWI 11:55AM - MCO 02:10PM. That allows us to wake up at a normal time, head for the airport, and be in Orlando in time for dinner. Return is going to be an early one (8:10am at MCO) but then we’ll have most of the day Sunday and all of Monday to prepare for the new school year.
We haven’t decided what we’re going about ground transportation yet. It’s about $150 plus tip to use one of the ME replacements from the airport. If we booked a rental car, we’d be looking at $330 with taxes and fees, but we wouldn’t have to pay for resort parking with our DVC rental. The flexibility of a rental sounds great, especially since the kids are hoping for lots of water park time, but I don’t know if it’s worth that much more money. Catching the occasional Uber for a quick trip also doesn’t work for our crew, as five folks need two cars PLUS the kids still use booster seats. We’re probably going to end up just transferring this trip and going the rental route for our shorter visits where the fewer days bring the car cost much closer to the transfer cost. We’re definitely torn on this one. The additional expense starts to feel “drop in the bucket” considering how much this trip will be. BUT, we’re looking at a whole year of Disney spending and those drops add up quickly.
My itinerary feels so wishy-washy right now, compared to the days of 6 month dining and 60 day FPs. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
Thursday, August 25, 2022- arrival, activate APs at IG, grocery delivery/shopping trip, dinner on Crescent Lake. I might try for a Beaches and Cream this night, but is that one still impossible to book at 60 days? (Keep in mind, everything is harder for a party of 5, too)
Friday, August 26, 2022- Definitely MK Rope drop because where else would you start a trip? Pool or waterpark afternoon, maybe Epcot or HS evening, depending on if HS is running fireworks yet. Could also target this evening for Fantasmic.
Saturday, August 27, 2022- HS rope drop, see where the day takes us
Sunday, August 28, 2022- AK rope drop, see where the day takes us
Monday, August 29, 2022- Epcot likely has deluxe evening hours. Not sure where we’d start the morning, but thinking we’d do late lunch at Beaches (if we couldn’t get for arrival), then into Epcot for evening touring, fireworks, and extra evening hours.
Tuesday, August 30, 2022- With a late night before, not trying to drag ourselves up too early. Maybe Just resort and pool time in the morning before going to HS for evening touring and nighttime show (assuming they are running Fantasmic and fireworks, we’d need two HS evenings to see both)
Wednesday, August 31, 2022- MK likely has deluxe evening hours. Nor sure where we’d start the morning this day, either. If I bite the bullet and book an MK dessert party, I’d do it as a pre-fireworks package this evening so we could start our deluxe time with bellies full.
Thursday, September 1, 2022- Assuming EP is still opening later than everyone else, that’s our best chance for a RD after the late night. Maybe slot in Space 220 restaurant lunch or lounge reservation. After a few late ones, we’ll want this to be an early-to-bed night to set ourselves up to finish strong.
Friday, September 2, 2022- AK or HS RD, depending on what we haven’t gotten to do
Saturday, September 3, 2022- MK RD, see where the day takes us. Probably make this a long one and go through to fireworks somewhere to end with a bang. The kids can sleep on the plane!
Sunday, September 4, 2022- Early morning checkout and straight to the airport. I plan to make sure the kids only eat whole grains and other stomach-safe foods, as we’re hoping to make this our first return from Orlando without vomit.
There are several factors I’m still unsure on, including:
August in Orlando, everyone’s favorite time of year!! There’s just something about a trip that feels like you’ve actually travelled to the surface of the sun…
In all seriousness, there was some back and forth about deciding when to start our year of Disney. If we did it earlier this summer, then we could have had more 2022 trips, including visits with extended family, but the passes would only be good for one 2023 end-of-school year visit. For a few reasons, we decided to wait, start them in August, and reserve our extra summer time for 2023.
- We hope the pandemic will be better controlled and more experiences will have re-opened or fully returned by 2023
- We want the November birthday to be a huge, awesome surprise for the girls. If they’ve already had multiple Disney summer trips, then another visit in November doesn’t have quite the impact. Also, if they knew return visits were possible, they would be all over us to do Disney on their school break that coincides with their birthday. Our chances of surprising them would be essentially 0%.
- Real talk: I’m afraid of the extended family trips. Touring with grandparents who have different priorities, speeds, and willingness to parkstorm is going to be a challenge for me. By next summer, we will have had so much Disney that I’ll be ok slowing down and letting them take the lead. Or, the girls will be familiar with the parks enough that they can be in control of the itinerary. That, or I’ll still be twitchy as heck but I’ve put it off as long as possible by pushing those trips out to 2023.
Once August was decided, we had to wait for the proposed school calendar. Our district typically starts after Labor Day, but they’ve been toying with the idea of the week before for a few years now. The ’20-’21 school year was slated to start before the holiday but then got delayed they needed more time to implement their covid mitigation strategies. The proposed ’22-’23 calendar has us starting 9/6, so we can push our trip super late into August for 2022 and still have a mid-August 2023 trip.
We knew we wanted a long trip, since we expected we’d be having a lot of down-time midday to escape the heat. I reached out to a DVC renter who was advertising points available and she was able to grab a Boardwalk standard view room for 8/25 to 9/4 (10 nights). It’s a little later than we wanted, as we fly Sunday with school starting Tuesday, but the standard view is unavailable the 24th. The standard is $630 cheaper than the next option, so we’ll just have to deal with only 1 day turnaround before the first day of school.
Southwest flights out of Philly stink for this summer. They only have a couple of expensive direct flights on Sundays, compared to what was always several direct flights a day. Rather than deal with a connection and 5-7 hours of combined airport and flight time, we’re driving to BWI. It’s about two more hours of drive time, but then we’re looking at a 2:15 direct flight. Not only are the BWI flights cheaper, the door-to-door travel time is lower and we don’t have to connect and deal with all the hassle that entails, particularly with Southwest’s boarding policies. I am still checking regularly in case they sneak in more direct PHL flights, but I assume that wouldn’t happen until Omicron is well behind us.
Outbound, we booked BWI 11:55AM - MCO 02:10PM. That allows us to wake up at a normal time, head for the airport, and be in Orlando in time for dinner. Return is going to be an early one (8:10am at MCO) but then we’ll have most of the day Sunday and all of Monday to prepare for the new school year.
We haven’t decided what we’re going about ground transportation yet. It’s about $150 plus tip to use one of the ME replacements from the airport. If we booked a rental car, we’d be looking at $330 with taxes and fees, but we wouldn’t have to pay for resort parking with our DVC rental. The flexibility of a rental sounds great, especially since the kids are hoping for lots of water park time, but I don’t know if it’s worth that much more money. Catching the occasional Uber for a quick trip also doesn’t work for our crew, as five folks need two cars PLUS the kids still use booster seats. We’re probably going to end up just transferring this trip and going the rental route for our shorter visits where the fewer days bring the car cost much closer to the transfer cost. We’re definitely torn on this one. The additional expense starts to feel “drop in the bucket” considering how much this trip will be. BUT, we’re looking at a whole year of Disney spending and those drops add up quickly.
My itinerary feels so wishy-washy right now, compared to the days of 6 month dining and 60 day FPs. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
Thursday, August 25, 2022- arrival, activate APs at IG, grocery delivery/shopping trip, dinner on Crescent Lake. I might try for a Beaches and Cream this night, but is that one still impossible to book at 60 days? (Keep in mind, everything is harder for a party of 5, too)
Friday, August 26, 2022- Definitely MK Rope drop because where else would you start a trip? Pool or waterpark afternoon, maybe Epcot or HS evening, depending on if HS is running fireworks yet. Could also target this evening for Fantasmic.
Saturday, August 27, 2022- HS rope drop, see where the day takes us
Sunday, August 28, 2022- AK rope drop, see where the day takes us
Monday, August 29, 2022- Epcot likely has deluxe evening hours. Not sure where we’d start the morning, but thinking we’d do late lunch at Beaches (if we couldn’t get for arrival), then into Epcot for evening touring, fireworks, and extra evening hours.
Tuesday, August 30, 2022- With a late night before, not trying to drag ourselves up too early. Maybe Just resort and pool time in the morning before going to HS for evening touring and nighttime show (assuming they are running Fantasmic and fireworks, we’d need two HS evenings to see both)
Wednesday, August 31, 2022- MK likely has deluxe evening hours. Nor sure where we’d start the morning this day, either. If I bite the bullet and book an MK dessert party, I’d do it as a pre-fireworks package this evening so we could start our deluxe time with bellies full.
Thursday, September 1, 2022- Assuming EP is still opening later than everyone else, that’s our best chance for a RD after the late night. Maybe slot in Space 220 restaurant lunch or lounge reservation. After a few late ones, we’ll want this to be an early-to-bed night to set ourselves up to finish strong.
Friday, September 2, 2022- AK or HS RD, depending on what we haven’t gotten to do
Saturday, September 3, 2022- MK RD, see where the day takes us. Probably make this a long one and go through to fireworks somewhere to end with a bang. The kids can sleep on the plane!
Sunday, September 4, 2022- Early morning checkout and straight to the airport. I plan to make sure the kids only eat whole grains and other stomach-safe foods, as we’re hoping to make this our first return from Orlando without vomit.
There are several factors I’m still unsure on, including:
- Food and Wine dates will likely overlap our trip. They started it late August 2017-2019, then bumped all the way to July for 2020 and 2021. If they move back to a later start (doubtful, as Disney rarely shortens festivals), then we’ll want to watch for opening day crowds.
- MK Halloween party or After Hours. Whether they stick to After Hours or return to parties for 2022 is going to have a huge impact on all of our trips. Obviously, if MK is closing early without fireworks for a few days, we’ll need to account for that in the plan. I don’t think we’d book a Halloween after hours event, but we may do the party if it returns in earnest.
- Genie +: without the loophole allowing you to be rebooking two or three ride times throughout the day, I’m not sure we’ll be using Genie +. With so many days and access to deluxe hours, we can probably do fine without it. Depending on how things go, we may do a targeted ILL here or there, but I don’t see us using Genie +. I haven’t gotten too deep on that with @trippedup, though; he may have other ideas.
- Strategy for dining. Our big 2019 trip, we went with long lunches to have a midday break without having to drag young kids and strollers back to the hotel. We were also on the DDP, so we went crazy on character meals, which our then-five-year-olds loved. This time, with waterpark and hoppers, we may be leaving the parks much earlier to swim or slide, then want a solid dinner ADR before we start evening touring. I could make a whole web of reservations and then cancel what we don’t need, but I hate holding slots that other people are looking for.
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