PTR - June 2017 - It's never too early to plan!

[ClaraOswald]

New back-up dates?

So my husband thinks we should switch our back-up dates from March to June.

We like to have back-up dates booked with our hotel just in case an emergency comes up. But then we got to thinking that if the Winnie the Pooh ride goes down for refurbishment, we'd be very sad. That's really the only ride we'd be sad about. I know that seems dumb. But Winnie the Pooh is the only character my son has been into so far. We were sad the ride (well, all of Critter Country) was closed last time. Since then, my son has watched the ride on youtube a bunch of times and he LOVES it.

So if it happens to be down for our February dates, we would consider switching our trip (if we could change flights without is costing a bunch.) We have back up dates booked for the first week of March. But then we though if Pooh is down early February...would it be reopened by early March?

If not, we'd book June. But I have absolutely not idea if it would go down for that long or not.

Our hotel hasn't released June yet so we have time to decide. Just not sure what to do.

 

[kaoden39]

Hi,
I have a thought on the bed-rails. Is it possible that the hotel supplies them? Some hotels do. Warning June has been very hot this year. Loving the Pooh ride isn't strange in our house. My adult daughters will ride it over and over again.

 

[Christina-B-Na]

I dont have any personal experience with them, but I have heard of folks using rental companies for cribs, travel beds, pack n plays...might be something to consider instead of lugging one with you. I believe they rent a bed similar to the one you mentioned getting from walmart for around the same price. I think the company is called Traveling Baby Company. Maybe someone here can chime in with some experience.
Sleeping arrangements in a hotel room is one of the things I dread most when we travel. I too have a very wild sleeper who will constantly fall out of the bed without bumpers! He is way too crazy to sleep with us and way too big for a pack n play now. We will be staying at Desert Inn and suites in November with our 4 year old and will be 16mo old. This is our 4th trip with the 4 year old but 1st time with the younger one. We too had the same issue you mentioned with the front room. It was way too noisy and bright for my son. We ended up just using it as a place for me and my husband to hang out and watch tv while my son napped in the back area.
My current plan is for the 4 year old to sleep alone in the 2nd bed and the baby to sleep in a pack n play somewhere in the room. We make DIY bumpers....We roll up sheets/ blankets long ways and put them under the fitted sheet ( this keeps them in place) along both sides of the bed. It works really well for us!
I wish you lots of luck and hope everything comes together smoothly for you!

 

[ClaraOswald]

I just keep going back and forth on this trip. My son has been hard to handle lately. It's been tough. All I keep thinking is - what if this happens on the airplane?

I wish we lived closer so driving would be an easy option. I just don't know if it's a good idea at this point. We would have to take 3 days driving each way. That would be 7 and a half hours of driving each day PLUS breaks. So realistically, each travel day would be at least 10-12 hours of travel. So THREE days of that in a row. Then we'd be in California for maybe 6 days (5 in the parks and 1 break day.) Then we'd have THREE more days for 10-12 hours (each) of travel. I just feel like that is way too much for a 3 year old. Not to mention the extra cost of those days (hotel, food, kenneling our dog.)

I just dread the dirty looks on the plane if he screams the whole time. People are pretty awful. I think when your kid is younger they sort of get a "pass." But since he'll be 3.5, people will expect him to be better behaved. I feel like I'll need to hand out flyers saying he has delays or something.

I also don't want him to get sick or scared. He gets terrified in drive thrus and at the gas station. I have NO idea. I don't think he likes stuff right next to the car. I don't know if being a plane would be the same thing or not. There's no way to 'test' it out either. Except for a local museum that has an old train car you can walk through. It's pretty enclosed so maybe it would be a good "test" or something for him.

Click here for picture - http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YWcL5wNpRjI/T9qoRaPsPpI/AAAAAAAAAeg/e6ObcL1q4eI/s1600/IMG_2167.JPG

I try to tell myself that it's only a few hours of our lives (and the lives of the strangers) but I get so stressed about it. (Not to mention I just hate flying anyway.)

Southwest should be releasing flight info for our dates later this week. I hope they have some decent options for us.

Best case scenario, our longest flight would be 2 and a half hours (Denver to Santa Ana.) The shorter flight is an hour and a half (Omaha to Denver.) So that's a total of just FOUR hours of flight time in 1 day as opposed to 3 full days of driving. Obviously that makes more sense. I just wish we could have the whole plane to ourselves...ha!

 

[ClaraOswald]

Southwest Airlines released our dates. And sadly...nothing too great.

So it looks like our best option leaving home is on United. Leaving at 9am, arriving around 1pm. An hour and a half layover in Denver. It's a bit earlier than I'd like but it's not awful.

Coming home...our options pretty much suck. They all leave super early. Or they have too short layovers. Or they fly though cities out of the way. Or they leave later. So out of all the crap options, I narrowed it down to two....

1. Leaving California around 1pm and getting home at 7:30pm. Downside = only 1 hour layover in Phoenix. Which is really only 30 minutes to eat and let Henry get some energy out.
2. Leaving California at 4pm. Getting home at 11:30. 1 hour, 50 minute layover in Las Vegas. Downside = Last time we also left CA at 4pm and Henry was already sick of everything by the time we got on the first plane. Plus the longest leg of the flight would be the last one....2 hours, 30 minutes. This was easily our worst flight last time. Henry screamed a lot. Didn't want to be in his seat. Tons of turbulence too. (Then again, the PHX flight also has the longer leg 2nd.)

So yeah...not sure what to pick. Booo.

 

[kaoden39]

Have you looked at JetBlue? That's who we fly and it's cheaper than Southwest.

 

[ClaraOswald]

I don't believe JetBlue flies to John Wayne. And I am 99.9% sure they don't fly to/from Omaha either.

 

[ClaraOswald]

Well, my husband was just laid off from a job he's had for over a decade. We went from a single income, to a zero income family. Needless to say...we may not be taking this trip at all now.

 

[Christina-B-Na]

O no! Im so sorry!

 

[ClaraOswald]

I hate this waiting game. I am so stressed out about my husband's job loss. Hopefully it won't take him too long to find something new. Once he does...that will determine if/when we take our Disneyland trip. Thankfully all we've booked so far is the hotel and that can easily be cancelled.

We have no clue what kind of vacation time a new job may have. Or if there is a waiting period before he can take time. Right now...I'm just hoping he can find a decent job!

I will be sad if we have to completely cancel our trip, of course. But that's life, I guess. Maybe at the very least, we could go next June or something. Time will tell.

 

[Monstropolis]

Oh no, sorry to hear about hubby's job! Hopefully you still get to go sometime next year.
If you do make it, I'm hoping your little man surprises you on the plane and is a little trooper. Kids have a amazing knack for surprising us at times. If people do stare then stuff them. He can't help it, he's a little kid!

I was glad to see I was not the only one planning a trip for February however
Hubby, myself, and our b/g twin 7 year olds are flying over from Australia for our 2nd trip on the 24rd Feb till 9th of March.

 

[ClaraOswald]

Fun! Do you have a pre-trip thread over here?

I see you went in 2015 as well. What month?

We have some back-up days booked at our hotel for the first week of March.

 

[Monstropolis]

Fun! Do you have a pre-trip thread over here?

I see you went in 2015 as well. What month?

We have some back-up days booked at our hotel for the first week of March.

No, no pre trip report yet, but might start once I can actually book the hotel (should be in a few days hopefully according to the Disney reservation line!)

We pretty much did the same dates in 2015. It's pretty much the only time hubby can get off work so it's then or never

 

[minneylovesmicky]

Oh no Clara, sorry to hear about the job front. Hopefully things work themselves out soon.

I was glad to see I was not the only one planning a trip for February however
Hubby, myself, and our b/g twin 7 year olds are flying over from Australia for our 2nd trip on the 24rd Feb till 9th of March.

Never too early to plan we are heading back next year too, end of Feb start of March, doing LA, San Diego and ending in Disneyland. We were there end of Jan start of Feb last year too, so looking forward to heading back.

212 days to go!!!

 

[ClaraOswald]

Still no job. Ugh. We might book some dates with our hotel in June...just in case. Still holding out hope we can go in February though!

I am annoyed that Disneyland is getting ride of the nighttime parade. I was looking forward to watching it with our son.

 

[ClaraOswald]

It's been 1 month since my husband was laid off. No job yet so I am beginning to freak out.

It's getting less and less likely that we'll be at Disneyland in February. But maybe March or June would still be possible. If we do manage to go in February...I hope flights aren't too expensive. Normally I'd book by now. We'll see, I guess.

I read that the Main Street Electrical Parade will be back in 2017 so hopefully we can see that when we go. I always loved it growing up.

If my husband finds a job that doesn't have a lot of vacation, we may have to switch up our days a bit. We always like to go mid-week to mid-week. That way the halfway point of our trip falls on a weekend. We like to do our "break" days (non-park days) on the weekend since that's when the park is most crowded. So our trip looks like this....

Wednesday - Travel
Thursday - Parks
Friday - Parks
Saturday - break
Sunday - break
Monday - Parks
Tuesday - Parks
Wednesday - Parks
Thursday - Travel

This means my husband needs to use 7 vacation days. Actually, at his old job, he would have taken that Friday off when we got home too...making it 8 days. But if his new job doesn't offer a lot of vacation (at his old job he got 26 days) then we may have to alter things a bit.

The options to use less vacation days kind of suck though. We can shorten our trip a day...which I'd prefer not to do. We can also arrive on a Saturday and come home on a Saturday or Sunday. He'd only need 5 vacation days. The problem with that scenario is that the half way point of the trip falls on the BEST days to be in the park. I really like the mid-trip break because it does get tiring. Also I now have rheumatoid arthritis so I am nervous about all the walking.

So basically I am crossing my fingers that he finds a job. And that the job has an okay amount of vacation time. Even if it's just 2 weeks...he doesn't really care if he uses most of it in the beginning of the year. We'll see though.

At this point....I just hope we can go at all!

 

[Jaina]

I'm so sorry to hear about the job loss! (I've been a little out of it with the whole having-a-baby thing) I really hope he can find something soon, and that your life can get less crazy and more predictable. The nice thing is, that whenever you -are- ready for this trip, Disney will be there. And hopefully you'll be able to at least make one of your back up dates!

 

[ClaraOswald]

Yeah....we'll get there eventually. If not February, March, or June....then maybe later in the year. We prefer February for the lack of crowds and the weather...but we're pretty open to other times as well. I just hope we can go in 2017 at some point. Our 2018 vacation is going to be non-Disney. And then we want to go to WDW in January or February 2019 (hopefully it's not a big deal to pull our son out of preschool for it.)

Times of the year I'm willing to go to Disneyland....

Late January/early February (Avoiding MLK day and President's Day.)
Early March (Avoiding Easter and Spring Break.)
Mid to late June (Avoiding Grad nights.)
Early September (Avoiding Labor Day.)
Late September/early October (Though now with all of the Halloween parties...I'm not as sure about this.)
Late November/early December (Avoiding Thanksgiving.)

 

[ClaraOswald]

For the heck of it I was looking at flight options in February, March, and June. Can't search Southwest in June yet though. On United, the flight Omaha to Orange county is the same for all three, so that's good.

But then I saw an option on Southwest in February and March that would maybe be better.

Here's the United flight....

9:00 - 9:43am (1 hr, 43 min)
1 hour 32 min in Denver
11:15 - 12:44pm (2 hr, 29 min)

Here's the Southwest flight....

11:30am - 1:20pm (2 hr, 50 min)
1 hour 45 minutes in Phoenix
3:05pm - 3:20pm (1 hour 15 min)

Each flight has it's pros and con.

United pros = Longest leg isn't as bad as SWA flight, arrive in CA at a nice time, layover falls pretty close to lunch time.
Southwest pros = Leaves at a better time for our schedule, longest leg of flight is over first, 2nd leg is pretty short.

So basically the pros of each flight are the cons of the other.

For flights coming home...options are pretty terrible for February. I mentioned our best options earlier in the thread. I searched March and found a pretty great option though.

10:10am - 1:20pm (2 hour, 10 min)
1 hour, 45 minutes in Denver
3:05pm - 5:25pm (1 hour, 20 min)

This flight is seriously so ideal! Leaving earlier in the day would be way better than leaving at 4pm. Leaving at 4pm was rough for Henry. The layover falls around lunch time. Neither flight is super long. So basically, this flight alone makes me want to go in March now!

I wish Southwest would release flights for late June. But it's going to be quite a while before that happens. As soon as my husband finds a job (soon, hopefully!) we may end up booking this March flight and then if needed, we can change to June.

Of course....yesterday I cancelled our March reservation at the Desert Inn. I wasn't sure if I could have THREE reservations with them at once. So I cancelled March and booked late June. I am kicking myself now because it's a few hundred dollars more. (ETA - I contacted the hotel via email and they reinstated my cancelled reservation at the same price as before. Woohoo! So now I have three reservations with them. They said it was fine.)

Though we have also been throwing around the idea of staying at the Homewood Suites in Garden Grove. I'll write about that later.

 

[ClaraOswald]

Car Rental

When we went to Disneyland last year, car rental cost us $240 for an SUV. I decided to search for next year. The prices are insane! The cheapest in-terminal one I could find is $480 (Alamo.) So I am hoping my husband doesn't think it's a hassle to take the shuttle for the car. I found an off-site place (U-Save) that is $288.

Maybe things will go down. But from what I've read...prices are just high for car rentals these days. Lame.

So a while back I posted about car rental prices (above.) And we were considering using Uber to and from the airport. And then just getting a rental car from Downtown Disney for our two non-park days.

I searched car rentals again. I found an Intermediate SUV from Alamo, through Costco travel for just $225! I am pretty sure I have free cancellation so I am likely going to book that later today (after I have my husband make sure I'm not reading it wrong...ha!) $225 is much better than $480. And while not as cheap as the Uber/weekend rental...the extra money is worth it to eliminate having to take a car seat in and out multiple times. As well as having to go to DTD to pick up and drop off. And having to have more items delivered to the hotel.