September/October 2013 check in

australiankaren said:
good plan.....always start witih epcot, then AK, then hollywood studios and then MK.....although epcot is my fav...

great result re BWV....but remember the boardwalk view is very noisy, so if you/family cant sleep take ear plugs...i enjoy noise, so wouldn't be an issue for me , but DH is a light sleeper and has ear plugs....

your going o love F&W...but expect to spend $$$$$ on the food as you go around..it just smells so good!

Thanks for the tip. :-) I had read somewhere that the Boardwalk view can be noisy, but I think I'm just too excited to care. My husband and son are quite deep sleepers, so the only one who might have a few sleeping issues is me and I'm okay with that. I love the idea that we will be able to sit out on our balcony one evening and watch the hustle and bustle going on outside.

I also just had my AKV booking confirmed. Standard studio (which from what I've read is usually a Pool View) at Jambo House. I'm even more excited now as I had hoped for Jambo rather than Kidani.

I'm just so ecstatic with the way this holiday is falling into place. :banana:
 
NO...her PTR......pirate:

Well that too but particularly her TR because I've never read a report from a fellow KIWI who has rented DVC points for her WDW holiday. That's the way I am leaning if I ever get back but the dining issue worries me because we had free dining and I know OOP prices are very high especially when converting back to NZ$. So now only am I keen to know how Wanderlusts DVC hire goes but also her feedback on the dining and whether they go with buying the dining plan or paying OOP :thumbsup2
 

If you stay DVC you get a kitchen, and some of those have very big fridges, with very big freezers. This means you can easily have breakfast in your unit, have supplies for sandwiches to take to the parks, and freeze juice and water to take to the park if you can be bothered lugging juice and/or water around. You end up buying less snacks/drinks. You have your fridge full of nibbles for when you get back. This all applies whereever you stay with a full kitchen.
This all means you can get away with buying less food in the parks, you can eat kids meals some of the time, and you can do just one splurge every day or two. You can even go as far as cooking a main meal in your unit, but that is getting a bit far from holidays for my liking. Getting one or two microwave meals is about as domestic as I need to get on holidays.
 
Before I was educated in all things disney, I was planning for our stay to be off site, we would order groceries and cook in our kitchen, with the occasional meal out, this is how we have always holidayed previously. I plan a menu, usually simple and fun stuff order the groceries. This was one of our biggest concerns about a theme park holiday - we thought the only options would be bad/expensive fries and burgers - I blame you, movie world!!!
Now I have been spoilt - we loved dining out every day, I think I would have to include it in our budget, but not the dining plan, as you seem to always end up with spare credits. But definitely allow the cash!
Oh and that unit looks huge, but why oh why, can't they put a bunk bed in there somewhere, just an alcove would do- and if the bedrooms is as big as cola says I'm sure there would be room!
 
I can see how they now put a sleeper chair in the living rooms of the One-Bedrooms at OKW - it's not as though the don't have the room! Think I may have to start visiting the OKW thread and perhaps adjust my next WDW dream holiday plans :thumbsup2
 
WanderlustNZ you have one fantastic trip planned! Looking forward to reading all about it.
 
Travel Mum said:
Well that too but particularly her TR because I've never read a report from a fellow KIWI who has rented DVC points for her WDW holiday. That's the way I am leaning if I ever get back but the dining issue worries me because we had free dining and I know OOP prices are very high especially when converting back to NZ$. So now only am I keen to know how Wanderlusts DVC hire goes but also her feedback on the dining and whether they go with buying the dining plan or paying OOP :thumbsup2

Will definitely write up a TR. I'll probably write a few paragraphs each night of our holiday as I find it a really relaxing way of ending a day out touring. I also hope to have some good photos to add as travel photography is a bit of a amateur passion of mine.

At this stage I'm thinking we won't be doing the dining plan. For all the reasons Cola mentioned, but also because we know we'll become a bit sick of the sight of large meals after a 7 night cruise. Also, I really don't like the kids menus on the dining plan. I think it ties kids into eating rubbish food twice a day and I'd rather have the option to buy my son a few adult menu items or have him share meals with us.

With the exception of perhaps one special breakfast on my son's birthday, we'll order groceries and eat all breakfasts in our Villas. I'm guessing that for dinners we'll probably snack or pick up a lite meal to take back to our room (e.g F&W festival food, sandwiches from the Boardwalk bakery etc). I'll make sure I get some snacks from the grocery store to fill the gap if we're still hungry at dinner. I also expect that we'll have a very large supply of sweets to snack on as I intend on doing MNSSHP early in our stay. I read somewhere that you can also get dried fruit at the trick or treat stations and I'm going to try and full a bag with these to use as snacks while we're walking around the parks.
Lunch will probably become the main meal of the day where I book the most table service meals. Lunch often seems to have cheaper menus, plus it's unlikely that all 3 of us will order desserts with every meal (usually we pass because we're too full, or we opt to share), so we'll save some money on eating a bit less at cheaper times. Plus, the cheaper the meal, generally the cheaper the overall gratuity at the end.

So that's my plan at this stage. Who knows what will happen once I properly start researching all the different restaurant options.
 
Minniemum said:
WanderlustNZ you have one fantastic trip planned! Looking forward to reading all about it.

Cheers Minniemum. I just can't believe how wonderfully everything is slipping into place. Admittedly, I am pushing my budget right to it's upper limits, but you only live once right?
 
Hey Everyone! I'm new to this thread and would love to join in. We don't have exact dates yet, but we're looking at October some time. I *really* want to be at WDW for the F&W Festival! :goodvibes
 
Hey Everyone! I'm new to this thread and would love to join in. We don't have exact dates yet, but we're looking at October some time. I *really* want to be at WDW for the F&W Festival! :goodvibes

Welcome to this thread L-Harper.....



(You DO know that you're on the Australia/New Zealand board? But hey......no one notices that 7000 miles on the Dis).



:welcome:
 
so my quick little trip in sept/oct is now growing exponentially...since DH wants to now do universal, then I'll have to add on 2 more days after the cruise @ OKW.......

so heres how we are playing this:
7 sept syd-lax (lax hotel)
8 sept lax-mco..check in BWV 7 nights (AP WDW)
15-29 sept ..B2B cruises on FOS
29-4 oct OKW...(2 days universal, 3 days MYWHP @ WDW F&W)
4 oct mco-lax (LAX hotel & shopping)
5 oct lax-syd
6 oct...........in transit
7 oct arr syd
8 oct back to work

stay tuned, he may change his mind....again!pirate:
 
karen -- and others out there planning a trip -- do you always go back to work right after getting home?

our last trip, we left lax on monday, arrived wed morning and didn't return to work til the following monday.

our 2013 trip, we will be leaving lax on monday, arriving wednesday, carlo's brother goes back to work on the friday & we all don't return to work til the following monday.

for our 2014 trip, i am trying to maximise the experience we have... should i add a few extra days and we not leave until wed, arrive home friday & go back to work monday?

do you find it works out better to go back to work asap, or to take those extra few vacation days to ease back into regular life??
 
Alicia - I normally go back to work within a day or two of arrival. I used to factor in 3 - 4 days; but it is 3 or 4 days extra holiday time that I could be spending somewhere else. I know which one I'd rather do. :thumbsup2
 
Alicia, we have always arrived back in NZ on the Sunday morning, and gone back to work/school the next day. Because we only get 4 weeks annual leave per year I want to maximise the away time as much as possible.
 
Alicia, we have always arrived back in NZ on the Sunday morning, and gone back to work/school the next day. Because we only get 4 weeks annual leave per year I want to maximise the away time as much as possible.

thats us as well.....my DH buys an extra 2 weeks AL a year....so every day is precious, and when you are paying as much as we all do to get there, i want max bang for my buck!

ok, so i'm a tad dopey when i go back to work, but hey.....and in feb i'm hopping off my flight monday at 8 am then catching a train to work....shower, change and be at my desk by around 11 ish...napping by 11.02:rotfl2:
 
alicia1506 said:
for our 2014 trip, i am trying to maximise the experience we have... should i add a few extra days and we not leave until wed, arrive home friday & go back to work monday?

This is what we are doing. We arrive home about 6am Friday and go back to work on Monday, so essentially have 3 full days to readjust. The absolute latest I would want to return home is a Saturday morning. I get a serious case of Post Holiday blues at the end of a great trip, and if I knew on the plane home that I was going to work the next day, I would be seriously depressed.

I always factor in at least one day to do the unpacking, laundry, grocery shopping and jet lag adjusting. Then I need at least one more day to update my TR, sort through some holiday photos, reminisce about what a great time I've had and just relax and unwind so I don't feel like I need a holiday to recover from my holiday.

I agree with PP's however, that getting home too many days early might feel like a waste of precious holiday time.
 
australiankaren said:
....and in feb i'm hopping off my flight monday at 8 am then catching a train to work....shower, change and be at my desk by around 11 ish...napping by 11.02:rotfl2:

Wow, I'm impressed. I don't know how you find the energy after those long flights.
 














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