Pre-trip Quadrilogy - planning 4 at once? No way! WAY! (9/22 - New Trip Report Link - Post 137)

[amalone1013]

Where in the world would I post an Italy - non-Disney Trip Report?

I would read this, wherever it was... Europe is on our list Also I've read some of your TRs, but I'm not sure if I've ever commented... so

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Whew, back from 11 days in Italy, and I feel like I should be updating here. (Where in the world would I post an Italy - non-Disney Trip Report?)

I have that same problem! I'm going to just post the photos on Facebook when I get home I think. Did you go with a tour group or on your own? We're currently on a Tauck Small Group tour of Amalfi, Capri and Rome.

 

[skier_pete]

Right here on your PTR!!

Except I have like 1200 pictures, I wish I had the time to write a TR. Not sure I do.

I would read this, wherever it was... Europe is on our list Also I've read some of your TRs, but I'm not sure if I've ever commented... so

Hmmm, surprised I am getting so many responses on this. I'll have to think about how to go about satisfying my readers.

I have that same problem! I'm going to just post the photos on Facebook when I get home I think. Did you go with a tour group or on your own? We're currently on a Tauck Small Group tour of Amalfi, Capri and Rome.

We were with Trafalgar. I have posted pictures on Facebook, but I am not too hot on linking everyone here to my Facebook account. We did Rome and also Amalfi/Capri. Enjoyed them both, though I have to say the crowds at Amalfi started to get to me. Actually, everywhere we went there were lots of crowds. We talked about how we are used to the crowds at Disney, but the same crowd levels out in the real world got really, really tiring after a while.

I have been slowly loading select photos onto Flickr - by "select" it'll probably be around 500 photos. Perhaps I will just share the link here and let folks browse through them.

 

[franandaj]

I really need to stop posting from my phone! I actually posted this below on @DisYoda's TR. I came back here and couldn't find my post, so I had to go hunt it down.

Glad all your plans are all coming together. Well it looks like we are just missing each other twice in the next year! Next month we leave two days before you arrive, and then next summer, we will be at WDW over Labor Day weekend. In fact I just booked a Grand Villa at SSR. We are on a cruise the week before so we will arrive in Orlando on the 24th, but we'll be staying at the Hyatt (if we can afford it).

I can't believe that they are charging $400+ per night at the Royal Pacific! It's not worth it at all!

What is this with people not planning their vacations over a year in advance?

 

[skier_pete]

I really need to stop posting from my phone! I actually posted this below on @DisYoda's TR. I came back here and couldn't find my post, so I had to go hunt it down.

Glad all your plans are all coming together. Well it looks like we are just missing each other twice in the next year! Next month we leave two days before you arrive, and then next summer, we will be at WDW over Labor Day weekend. In fact I just booked a Grand Villa at SSR. We are on a cruise the week before so we will arrive in Orlando on the 24th, but we'll be staying at the Hyatt (if we can afford it).

I can't believe that they are charging $400+ per night at the Royal Pacific! It's not worth it at all!

What is this with people not planning their vacations over a year in advance?

Dang it! I was hoping we would at least overlap in August - but we decided it was better for us to stay away from labor day weekend. Oh well, looks like we will have to wait until D23 in 2019 when we are out in Anaheim! (Yep - who plans only 11 months in advance!)

The Universal hotels seem just as bad cost wise as the Disney hotels, but those prices get a pass from a lot of Universal fans because they give you front of the line. This of course ignores the fact that you can get fastpasses at Disney without paying $400+ a night.

I actually am waffling about paying this price. DD repeated again to me last night that the only thing she is interested in is riding the Harry Potter stuff. Of course, the Harry Potter rides are now included in the Front of the Line, including Forbidden Journey, so maybe that alone will be worth it. I am REALLY worried about the crowds this weekend being the long President's Day weekend. OK - I talked myself back into it.

 

[Dis_Yoda]

We were with Trafalgar. I have posted pictures on Facebook, but I am not too hot on linking everyone here to my Facebook account. We did Rome and also Amalfi/Capri. Enjoyed them both, though I have to say the crowds at Amalfi started to get to me. Actually, everywhere we went there were lots of crowds. We talked about how we are used to the crowds at Disney, but the same crowd levels out in the real world got really, really tiring after a while.

I have been slowly loading select photos onto Flickr - by "select" it'll probably be around 500 photos. Perhaps I will just share the link here and let folks browse through them.

I get that. Highlights are on my instagram which is open to all and those I trust here have my Facebook if asked.

Sorry you got bad crowds at Amalfi! I think because we're here this week and next week is end of season it isn't too bad crowd wise. We were in Positano for 4 nights (2 night pre stay) so we got a good feel. Our tour guide had us leave the hotel early so we were the first group to arrive in Amalfi and had no one else in the domo with us. We're in Capri for two nights so that helps the crowd level.

 

[skier_pete]

So - it's not the same as a Trip Report - but I thought I would share my pictures of our Italian trip. Right now about half the trip has been posted on FLICKR. If you are interested in looking at pictures, then head on over there: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm6zjreN

It's only 17 days until we leave on trip #1 (and we are two days away from being within the 1-year window of all 4 trips). However, that doesn't mean that plans can't change. Disney released extended park hours at MK while we are there, and we decided to re-institute our "6 parks in 2 days" plan.

So, on our second day, we dumped the FP+ scheduled in the morning at DHS. We didn't really need them anyways, and weren't even going to get to use them all.

Instead, MK is now listed to be open until 11 PM instead of 9 PM. So, we booked FP+ for Pirates, Big Thunder, and 7DMT starting at 8 PM. The last plan was to head back to the room after our French lunch, and then come back to Epcot for some Food and Wine dinner around 6 PM. Well, I think we'll still do this - but instead, we'll eat some dinner at F&W, and then head over to MK around 8 PM to achieve our "6 parks in 2 days" goal. We'll just hit the rides we want, and try and get out of there.

In other news - they've recently announced that during our trip, they'll be shooting the Christmas Special. The schedule falls like this:
11/3 - DHS
11/4 - DAK
11/5 - 11/7 - MK

Well, of course our evening plans on 11/4, 11/5 and 11/7 fall in the parks that are being used for the filming. Hopefully most of the filming is during the day, and they said it will be CM getting all the tickets for filming, so I am thinking it won't really affect us much. (They don't film the parade anymore either.)

 

[skier_pete]

So, I don't really have anything new to say, but this is my 10,000th post, and I felt like I should immortalize it in some way. Been a member since probably September 2006, so just over 11 years, 900 posts a year, 2.5 posts a day.

OK - that's it.

 

[buteraa]

So, I don't really have anything new to say, but this is my 10,000th post, and I felt like I should immortalize it in some way. Been a member since probably September 2006, so just over 11 years, 900 posts a year, 2.5 posts a day.

OK - that's it.

Congrats on your 10K post. I really enjoy your trip reports even though I don't post often.

 

[skier_pete]

Congrats on your 10K post. I really enjoy your trip reports even though I don't post often.

Thank you! Hopefully they are more exciting than my PTRs - I just don't know how to make PTRs interesting...just a good place to share my excitement.

 

[franandaj]

So, I don't really have anything new to say, but this is my 10,000th post, and I felt like I should immortalize it in some way. Been a member since probably September 2006, so just over 11 years, 900 posts a year, 2.5 posts a day.

OK - that's it.

I must be tired...I read 100,000 posts and I was really impressed, so I started to do the math with my posts and came up with 3982 posts per year and about 11 per day. That really had me scratching my head and then I looked back and it was your 10,000 post. Obviously you don't post on the games board in things as silly as Last to Post or the other games they have there, easy to build up your post count with mindless posts.

Nonetheless congratulations on your 10,000th post!

 

[skier_pete]

I must be tired...I read 100,000 posts and I was really impressed, so I started to do the math with my posts and came up with 3982 posts per year and about 11 per day. That really had me scratching my head and then I looked back and it was your 10,000 post. Obviously you don't post on the games board in things as silly as Last to Post or the other games they have there, easy to build up your post count with mindless posts.

Nonetheless congratulations on your 10,000th post!

Nope - actually I spend a relative little time on the DISboards in general. Mostly I go on the Rumors and News board, visit TRs of friends such as yourself (which I rarely post on) and then sometimes the DVC boards if I have time. I very rarely go to the main board anymore, as it feels like they've been rehashing the same topics for the 10 years I've been here. Either way, I've clearly spent WAAYY to much time on here!

 

[Jenny Sanders]

How exciting!!!! Enjoy every one of those trips!!!!!

 

[skier_pete]

We leave EARLY tomorrow morning. Anyone out there that isn't already a Facebook friend and wants to follow along can send me a Private Message here and I'll add you if I get the chance.

(And any would-be thieves - don't even think of robbing our house it will be occupied full-time while we are away by my mother-in-law and she is way more dangerous than I am!)

 

[franandaj]

I'm jealous. We got back late last night and it wasn't nearly the fun trip we'd hoped it would be. But that's all material for the TR. Have a great time!

 

[skier_pete]

I'm jealous. We got back late last night and it wasn't nearly the fun trip we'd hoped it would be. But that's all material for the TR. Have a great time!

Oh bummer. We are on our first day. It's clearly going to go too fast!

 

[skier_pete]

Almost ready for some updates, but first I finally started my first (of 4) trip reports. Here's the link, please join in won't you?

TR #1 : Stop Talking and Just Smile! November 4 - 8, 2018

 

[skier_pete]

Some more updates:

Trip #1 is over - but don't forget - there's a trip report to read! Here it is. Hope to get another update this weekend.

February 17th – 25th (Trip Blue) is just 87 days away, so less than a month until FP+. We are talking about FP+ plans for now, but there has really not been any recent changes to the plan here. Except I am considering driving down to Pittsburgh on Friday evening while our flight leaves on Saturday - assuming decent weather. I don't really like the idea of such a long drawn out first day.

August 18th to August 26th (Trip Red)

So, we asked DD's BFF's parents if BFF could go with us on the trip. While parent's have not yet said "yes" to US, they have told BFF that "probably" she could go, and DD and BFF have been talking about the trip daily - so at this stage hopefully it's a go. We would really love to have her along. DD doesn't get to hang with other kids often on vacation. However, I anticipate some problems - because she is an only child, when we DO travel with other kids, she gets tired of them quickly and after a few days wants to be left alone. She promises that she will be good if we let BFF join. We shall see. I am hoping we can get a confirmed "yes" from the parents by early December (the time we had asked them to decide) because it would be great to use the DVC "7 day ticket for price of 5" as it would save us about $40.

We are also letting DD have a lot of input into this trip as to what we do. For starters, she has decided she would most like to do Animal Kingdom Villas and Beach Club Villas. Beach Club is always a tricky get - but AKV is of course our home so that's an easy one. We have enough points I think we "treat" ourselves to Savannah View.

Oct 20th – 24th (Trip Green)

BIG news here: Room is Booked! Four nights at Boardwalk Villas during Food and Wine - and we even snagged a STANDARD view room! (This is the cheaper room category and extremely hard to get at this time of year.) We are determined to be more "laid back" with this one, already talking about no DAK at all, MK only on arrival day (because we won't go near Epcot on a Saturday) and a short visit to DHS at some point along the way, but otherwise, entirely a World Showcase centered trip. Sleep in, go to F&W for lunch, return to hotel for pool time, F&W in evening. Can we do it? Can we BE that laid back?

Because we were able to get the STANDARD view room, that left us enough extra points that we also got a room for one of our "local" friends to join us for one night. She lives "nearby" (about an hour) but sometimes books an offsite hotel. We thought we would treat her (and a friend) to a night at Boardwalk. Hopefully she doesn't cancel on us.


That's it for now - Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends, and to everyone else...well Happy Thanksgiving too!

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Happy Turkey Day!!!

 

[skier_pete]

Trip Purple: Update today on the Trip Report - French Family Farm Lunch!

Trip Blue (February):

Fastpasses were booked yesterday. I won't go into the boring details of what I booked, but I will say we successfully got Flights of Passage for the 5th day of our stay, so that's a win!

In addition, we had found out earlier this month there will be no DVC moonlight magic while we are there. This is a bit disappointing, but it made making final plans easier as we didn't have to plan around a late night towards the end of the trip. I feel the trip was already pretty tight - and this "loosened" it up a bit.

Edit: Oh I didn't realize I missed this - but I also bought Blue Man Group tickets for while we are at Universal. None of us have ever seen them, and they had a black Friday sale where tickets were only $29 a piece for really good seats, so I am giving them to DW and DD as a Christmas present.

Finally, I went on-line today to look at hotels at Universal for our one night, and was disappointed to see prices had gone UP! The cheapest hotel of the deluxes was now $499 + tax. I was a little chagrined by this, but decided to call and see what my options might be. Turned out that they COULD give me a discount with my AP, and in the end it turned out that Portifino Bay - usually the most expensive resort - was the cheapest of the deluxes with an AP rate, and we got a room for $379 for the night! This actually has me really psyched, because I honestly was expecting to be looking at $50-100 more, AND having to go with the Royal Pacific resort, which was not really exciting me theme-wise. At that price ($379) I feel like it's getting our money's worth to get the two days of front of the line plus the hotel and having it feel like it is "reasonable". So, this trip is all falling into place, we just have to wait another 7 weeks for it to start.

Trip Red (August):

Well some good news in that we got full comfirmation that DD's BFF can come with us! (Yay!) Bad news is we are seeing that Beach Club is already booking up for our planned nights, which doesn't leave me feeling very happy. Truthfully, I don't care THAT much if we end up at Beach Club, but DD was looking forward to it. January will be looking to book these rooms, so should have some more updates then.