momomonster
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2003
- Messages
- 177
This seems like a great way to organize my thoughts as I organize the trip, and keep myself from obsessing every detail (yeah, right). See, this is the third Disney trip I’ve planned in the last three years and I kept canceling because I kept doing it wrong before. Not this time. This time everything is going to be different.
Long story short, I kept making the mistake of over-planning and justifying upgrades because “We can afford it”. After painstaking agonizing, though, I realized even though I can afford some things, I simply don’t want to pay top-dollar to visit one state over and someplace I’ve visited many times in the past. I told myself staying in a deluxe resort would be worth the price for convenience and atmosphere, but when I weighed all my options (especially trips outside MouseWorld) I realized I couldn’t justify the cost.
I knew I needed a short vacation before our next *big* anniversary trip in December, and I saw $69 per night rates at All-Star Music on a popular travel website. It finally hit me- Disney builds convenience and atmosphere into all of their properties and why be a snob towards the Mouse Motels? We’re going to be spending most of our time in the parks or various resort restaurants, so it’s silly to pay over $200 a night just to feel a little luxury waiting for an elevator or walking past a hot tub we wouldn’t use.
We won’t be purchasing the Dining Plan because DH and I have small(ish) appetites, so we plan to split meals and enjoy breakfast in our room. We’ll have a cooler in tow stocked with soy milk, orange juice, and fruit, plus a few bottles of wine for relaxing in our motel room. I also plan to bring my Senseo coffee maker and pods to caffeinate cheaply.
I’m also not bothering to make any ADRs this time, as we’ll be winging it and I do not want to over-plan like I have in the past. There are so many options when you consider all the resort restaurants, so I plan to find out what’s available a few hours before our meals and decide then. Plus, the last few days of our trip will be the Food & Wine fest, so I look forward to eating my way through Epcot with all those delicious samples. Yay!
I hope I don’t sound like I’m complaining that Disney is too expensive, because I understand that it’s a special and unique place and I’m competing for hotel rooms with the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet so the prices are going to reflect that. (Supply and demand and all that.) I just finally realized my demand wasn’t up to snuff and while Disney is worth $2500 to some, it’s not to me.
OK- that’s my Disney Vacation Philosophy. I don’t know how much I’ll be posting about the planning, but I thought I’d share my story because I see lots of familiar agonizing on these boards about whether to upgrade, how much, etc., and this was what I finally came up with. YMMV.
Happy Travels
Long story short, I kept making the mistake of over-planning and justifying upgrades because “We can afford it”. After painstaking agonizing, though, I realized even though I can afford some things, I simply don’t want to pay top-dollar to visit one state over and someplace I’ve visited many times in the past. I told myself staying in a deluxe resort would be worth the price for convenience and atmosphere, but when I weighed all my options (especially trips outside MouseWorld) I realized I couldn’t justify the cost.
I knew I needed a short vacation before our next *big* anniversary trip in December, and I saw $69 per night rates at All-Star Music on a popular travel website. It finally hit me- Disney builds convenience and atmosphere into all of their properties and why be a snob towards the Mouse Motels? We’re going to be spending most of our time in the parks or various resort restaurants, so it’s silly to pay over $200 a night just to feel a little luxury waiting for an elevator or walking past a hot tub we wouldn’t use.
We won’t be purchasing the Dining Plan because DH and I have small(ish) appetites, so we plan to split meals and enjoy breakfast in our room. We’ll have a cooler in tow stocked with soy milk, orange juice, and fruit, plus a few bottles of wine for relaxing in our motel room. I also plan to bring my Senseo coffee maker and pods to caffeinate cheaply.
I’m also not bothering to make any ADRs this time, as we’ll be winging it and I do not want to over-plan like I have in the past. There are so many options when you consider all the resort restaurants, so I plan to find out what’s available a few hours before our meals and decide then. Plus, the last few days of our trip will be the Food & Wine fest, so I look forward to eating my way through Epcot with all those delicious samples. Yay!
I hope I don’t sound like I’m complaining that Disney is too expensive, because I understand that it’s a special and unique place and I’m competing for hotel rooms with the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet so the prices are going to reflect that. (Supply and demand and all that.) I just finally realized my demand wasn’t up to snuff and while Disney is worth $2500 to some, it’s not to me.
OK- that’s my Disney Vacation Philosophy. I don’t know how much I’ll be posting about the planning, but I thought I’d share my story because I see lots of familiar agonizing on these boards about whether to upgrade, how much, etc., and this was what I finally came up with. YMMV.
Happy Travels
