Cast:
Me, DH 40 - love to plan vacations and love WDW
DW 40 - loves to let me plan vacations but claims to be sick of WDW (even before our August 05 trip)
DD5 - loves characters but is leery about many rides
DD7 - wants to ride everything but is questioning who the characters really are.
Planning for this trip really began in early 2004 when I started planning a WDW August 2004 trip. I decided to buy annual passes again so that we could also make a 2005 trip without paying for park passes. By the end of our eleven day 2004 trip, DW was questioning why we would return in 2005 and my pat answer was 'why waste $1500 in annual passes?'. That, and the persistent united front of me, DD5 and DD7, made DWs resistance futile.
That said, I knew we would have to do something different this trip to placate DW, and therefore decided to add Universal. I read the Universal boards and did some other research (Kelly Monaghans book Universal Orlando is great). With Universal's FOTL, I knew we would stay at one of their hotels. But I also wanted to get a good deal. The best I could find early on was a stay 4 nights, get 2 free admissions tickets deal. Therefore, I booked this and decided that our trip this time would be a total of twelve nights (4 at Universal and 8 at WDW). This was longer that DW wanted, but I promised this would be a more relaxing trip and that 8 nights at WDW was barely enough.
Once this was decided and the dates were set (we would leave on Friday, August 5 since we needed to be done by 8/17, the date that our WDW annual passes expired and I did not want to miss too much work), I started looking for airfare and rental car deals. Direct flights were pretty expensive when I started looking, but I was persistent and got a great flight on Midwest Airlines for about $170 each. This rate was only available for about a week - Northwest matched it as well. Even after I booked this, I checked airline rates and they never really came down much. I then used credit card points to get $150 vouchers for each of us, so my out of pocket cost was only about $100.
I also booked a rental minivan early on (sometime in April) with National (I love Quick Rent/ Emerald Aisle) and was lucky that I did. We ended up paying $550 for a minivan for 14 days but the rate never got any lower and I checked frequently. Also, I never even saw a better rate for the other on-site rental services. I used the Priceless code from Mousesavers to get this rate.
Then we needed to decide where to stay. We knew that we wanted to stay onsite at Universal to get the FOTL access, so we decided to stay at Portofino Bay. Initial rate was $304 a night but did include two free admission tickets (which otherwise would cost about $220) if we stayed four nights. I booked this deal but kept looking for a better deal. Such a deal came about two weeks before leaving. Universal offered annual passholder rates of $209 a night. Therefore, I bought an annual pass for me and a 2 day/ 3 free admission ticket for DW (DD's also had the 2 day/ 3 free tickets purchased previously). This saved about $150 but was particularly good since the annual pass also provided restaurant and merchandise discounts (15% on many things).
At WDW, we wanted to stay at an Epcot resort since we really like that area. We also decided we would not resort hop since we would be moving once already from Universal to WDW. Therefore, I zeroed in on the YC or the BW. We have stayed at each of the Epcot resorts before and really like these two (really do not like the BC theming as much). Since AP rates did not seem to be that great for the winter and spring dates, I started looking into renting DVC points. I had a serious trust issue with this and was quite reluctant at first. However, I responded to someone who had 147 points to rent (exactly what I needed for 8 nights at BW for a preferred view room) and I was sold. A room that would otherwise have cost me (with AP discount that I might not have received) about $330 a night (BW water view room), was mine for about $180 a night (ten dollars a point). I had to pay this all in advance (actually, another plus) and had to trust the DVC member - but this worked out very well.
I also ordered a DDE card for WDW. I ordered this a little late on or about June 10th but the card arrived by July 15th. Therefore, I did not have to worry about carrying around a letter. I made several ADRs about 45 days out. Since we were not doing CRT or PSB, this was not a problem. I made several changes to our ADRs since WDW changed the EMH hours shortly before we left, but we ended up eating where we wanted, when we wanted.
Therefore, all was set. Now we simply needed to get ready to go. Again, we were very lucky. We have gotten packing down to a science so this did not take very long. I needed to announce my vacation at work (I am an attorney in a large law firm and DW stays at home with the kids) so I started broadcasting my vacation dates about a month in advance. My experience has always been that I have to work like crazy to go on vacation and not take work with me. However, this year was different. I was not very busy leading up to this vacation. I did not have any 20 hour days the week before this vacation and got home by 7:00 the night before our flight (last year I worked until midnight, got maybe two hours of sleep and was lucky to be full of adrenaline).
We all got a good night sleep, I woke up at 3:30 (one hour before the alarm was set to go off), and we had a nice, relaxing trip to the airport (only 25 minutes from my house). Flight took off as scheduled at 7:30am and arrived at Orlando International at 11:05am. We got all of our luggage very quickly and went to National to pick out our car. What I love about National is that you do not have to wait in line and can pick your own car. We ended up with a 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan - a really nice vehicle with only 2200 miles on it. This minivan was huge more than adequate to carry all our luggage, a stroller, car seats, etc.
We packed the van and we were off to Universal for the first part or our trip.
Happy to answer any questions!!
Me, DH 40 - love to plan vacations and love WDW
DW 40 - loves to let me plan vacations but claims to be sick of WDW (even before our August 05 trip)
DD5 - loves characters but is leery about many rides
DD7 - wants to ride everything but is questioning who the characters really are.
Planning for this trip really began in early 2004 when I started planning a WDW August 2004 trip. I decided to buy annual passes again so that we could also make a 2005 trip without paying for park passes. By the end of our eleven day 2004 trip, DW was questioning why we would return in 2005 and my pat answer was 'why waste $1500 in annual passes?'. That, and the persistent united front of me, DD5 and DD7, made DWs resistance futile.
That said, I knew we would have to do something different this trip to placate DW, and therefore decided to add Universal. I read the Universal boards and did some other research (Kelly Monaghans book Universal Orlando is great). With Universal's FOTL, I knew we would stay at one of their hotels. But I also wanted to get a good deal. The best I could find early on was a stay 4 nights, get 2 free admissions tickets deal. Therefore, I booked this and decided that our trip this time would be a total of twelve nights (4 at Universal and 8 at WDW). This was longer that DW wanted, but I promised this would be a more relaxing trip and that 8 nights at WDW was barely enough.
Once this was decided and the dates were set (we would leave on Friday, August 5 since we needed to be done by 8/17, the date that our WDW annual passes expired and I did not want to miss too much work), I started looking for airfare and rental car deals. Direct flights were pretty expensive when I started looking, but I was persistent and got a great flight on Midwest Airlines for about $170 each. This rate was only available for about a week - Northwest matched it as well. Even after I booked this, I checked airline rates and they never really came down much. I then used credit card points to get $150 vouchers for each of us, so my out of pocket cost was only about $100.
I also booked a rental minivan early on (sometime in April) with National (I love Quick Rent/ Emerald Aisle) and was lucky that I did. We ended up paying $550 for a minivan for 14 days but the rate never got any lower and I checked frequently. Also, I never even saw a better rate for the other on-site rental services. I used the Priceless code from Mousesavers to get this rate.
Then we needed to decide where to stay. We knew that we wanted to stay onsite at Universal to get the FOTL access, so we decided to stay at Portofino Bay. Initial rate was $304 a night but did include two free admission tickets (which otherwise would cost about $220) if we stayed four nights. I booked this deal but kept looking for a better deal. Such a deal came about two weeks before leaving. Universal offered annual passholder rates of $209 a night. Therefore, I bought an annual pass for me and a 2 day/ 3 free admission ticket for DW (DD's also had the 2 day/ 3 free tickets purchased previously). This saved about $150 but was particularly good since the annual pass also provided restaurant and merchandise discounts (15% on many things).
At WDW, we wanted to stay at an Epcot resort since we really like that area. We also decided we would not resort hop since we would be moving once already from Universal to WDW. Therefore, I zeroed in on the YC or the BW. We have stayed at each of the Epcot resorts before and really like these two (really do not like the BC theming as much). Since AP rates did not seem to be that great for the winter and spring dates, I started looking into renting DVC points. I had a serious trust issue with this and was quite reluctant at first. However, I responded to someone who had 147 points to rent (exactly what I needed for 8 nights at BW for a preferred view room) and I was sold. A room that would otherwise have cost me (with AP discount that I might not have received) about $330 a night (BW water view room), was mine for about $180 a night (ten dollars a point). I had to pay this all in advance (actually, another plus) and had to trust the DVC member - but this worked out very well.
I also ordered a DDE card for WDW. I ordered this a little late on or about June 10th but the card arrived by July 15th. Therefore, I did not have to worry about carrying around a letter. I made several ADRs about 45 days out. Since we were not doing CRT or PSB, this was not a problem. I made several changes to our ADRs since WDW changed the EMH hours shortly before we left, but we ended up eating where we wanted, when we wanted.
Therefore, all was set. Now we simply needed to get ready to go. Again, we were very lucky. We have gotten packing down to a science so this did not take very long. I needed to announce my vacation at work (I am an attorney in a large law firm and DW stays at home with the kids) so I started broadcasting my vacation dates about a month in advance. My experience has always been that I have to work like crazy to go on vacation and not take work with me. However, this year was different. I was not very busy leading up to this vacation. I did not have any 20 hour days the week before this vacation and got home by 7:00 the night before our flight (last year I worked until midnight, got maybe two hours of sleep and was lucky to be full of adrenaline).
We all got a good night sleep, I woke up at 3:30 (one hour before the alarm was set to go off), and we had a nice, relaxing trip to the airport (only 25 minutes from my house). Flight took off as scheduled at 7:30am and arrived at Orlando International at 11:05am. We got all of our luggage very quickly and went to National to pick out our car. What I love about National is that you do not have to wait in line and can pick your own car. We ended up with a 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan - a really nice vehicle with only 2200 miles on it. This minivan was huge more than adequate to carry all our luggage, a stroller, car seats, etc.
We packed the van and we were off to Universal for the first part or our trip.
Happy to answer any questions!!
We have also added Universal onto our trips in the past. We love the Portofino Bay Hotel.
