She's Making a June Trip, a June 2023 PTR (Updated 4/17)

[GrandCalifornian]

Let's start the planning by talking about how this trip came to be, and how we decided to go in June.

After Hawaii, while we still watched Disney Food Blog videos every Sunday we didn't have a trip to look forward to.

It was majorly depressing. Allie kept talking about how she wanted to go back in September again but we weren’t excited about waiting that long.

We thought about May, since it would be the same use year for our DVC points, and the girls had a great time during their May trip.

May was so nice but we would have to go in late May to avoid missing school in the last part of 7th grade. While Allie is a great student as she gets older taking lots of days off in a row gets more challenging for her so we’ll avoid it if we can.

That led us to look at waiting until just after school got out, so we considered early June. Our only other experience with June was our Honeymoon trip, so going in June would give us the chance to have it be an anniversary trip.

It was worth it to push the trip just a couple of days so we could be there for our 16th anniversary. We’ve never done anyting super extravagant for our anniversaries so this trip will make up for all of the rest of them (and probaby several into the future).

We actually considered getting a night at the Grand Californian for a few past anniversaries, but it never came to be. This concept had definite appeal to us, so we sent a message to Jon and Brandy to see if they wanted to commit to a June trip.

And they definitely did not, between the crowds and the heat we’d be on our own.

We were not deterred by that tough, and were up for having a smaller group. The next question was could we make the DVC points work out, and could we get a 1 bedroom for ourselves...

I was a huge advocate for the 1 bedroom so we could A. Have a king bed, B. Have a giant bathtub, C. Have in room laundry, and D. Have more space
I’m not afraid to say that I’ve become very spoiled.

I really didn't want to have to commit to a studio either, and I was just about as excited as Melissa to figure out that if we did a shorter trip (which works out better for work anyway) we could do the 1 bedroom.

Yes! We situated the trip so we won’t be gone a full work week and I won’t miss a payroll so it should be pretty ideal. It’s the same setup we had for our Hawaii trip and it worked out really well.

This means once the trip report rolls around we’ll have half the days to write about, maybe we’ll double the pictures for ya.

We figured this all out in time to make the reservation in the 11 month window since it's our home resort, so we decided to book it and have a trip on the calendar.

It has been nice to have a trip to look forward to.

It is really great to have a number on the countdown calendar. After all the business of the holidays, as the countdown was under 140 days we decided we better look at airfare.

We had looked once in December but couldn’t find flights or fares that made sense so we just waited, probably forgot about it and then didn’t do anything about it for another month.

We found the usual nonstops from LAX, but they were about $500 a person round trip.

After all of our recent parking issues at LAX, and the high cost of that parking, we looked for other options.

Oy LAX, I was looking at every other airport within a 100 mile radius of us.
Someday that construction will be done and it’ll be better but it’s going to be a while.

We then looked at Ontario, which is way closer to our house and office, so we could avoid parking fees, but there isn't a good nonstop option, so we'd have to deal with a connecting flight.

We looked at Santa Ana, Long Beach, Palm Springs, I don’t think I checked Burbank though.

Nothing looked great, since we wanted to at least save some money if we had to deal with a far airport and/or a connecting flight. Then we decided to check on San Diego, which is about an hour and a half from our house.

It was out of the box but really not that bad. Time wise we can probably get to San Diego quicker than LA and it’s something new.
We found great non-stop flights at great times for a price we could live with.

We like San Diego in general, and the flight times looked great. I think what clinched the deal for me was discvovering that we could reserve parking at the terminal for only $124.

It will be a new way to get to WDW for us, and the flights are booked! We're going to WDW!!!

It always feels official once the flights are booked.

Yes it does. It is also fairly late for us to book the flights, since usually we are closer to the 180 day mark. It feels great to have it all set.

 

[KPeterso]

Off to a great start. One new option to consider at Santa Ana is Breeze Airways. They are offering a daily nonstop to MCO that overall does not look too badly priced. Their daily flights start this month. I have waited too late to use them next month to fly to MCO - plus I have 2 delta credits to use up.

 

[Woth2982]

Joining in! Jumped in late to your last report, so joining for the pre-trip! Your plans look great so far! We are also Copper Creek owners, we just love it there. The laid back relaxing wilderness vibe is the best. I also like that it is a "small" Deluxe resort. I let DH pick between CC and Rivera when we were buying, and he chose right!

LAX is the worst. My sister lives in LA about 8 miles from the airport and it legit takes me an hour to get to her apartment when I visit! I have never flown in or out of San Diego, but I am a huge fan of Long Beach airport! I always try to fly in and out of there if I can!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Off to a great start. One new option to consider at Santa Ana is Breeze Airways. They are offering a daily nonstop to MCO that overall does not look too badly priced. Their daily flights start this month. I have waited too late to use them next month to fly to MCO - plus I have 2 delta credits to use up.

That would be an option to consider sometime. I used to work across from John Wayne airport in Santa Ana, so we are familiar with the area and like that airport, but we didn't find anything that looked good for flights when we searched. We will have to consider Breeze in the future.

Joining in! Jumped in late to your last report, so joining for the pre-trip! Your plans look great so far! We are also Copper Creek owners, we just love it there. The laid back relaxing wilderness vibe is the best. I also like that it is a "small" Deluxe resort. I let DH pick between CC and Rivera when we were buying, and he chose right!

LAX is the worst. My sister lives in LA about 8 miles from the airport and it legit takes me an hour to get to her apartment when I visit! I have never flown in or out of San Diego, but I am a huge fan of Long Beach airport! I always try to fly in and out of there if I can!

Hello neighbor! We just love the feel of Wilderness Lodge, and truly fell in love with it just about 16 years ago on our honeymoon.
Yeah, LAX is a definite pain. We put up with it for many flights because it opens up so many nonstop options, but we are excited to do something different. We did fly out of Long Beach a couple of times in the past back when Jet Blue had a great flight option with a brief connection in Texas. Once the schedule changed and you had to connect at JFK it wasn't as neat of a deal anymore. We do enjoy Long Beach though.

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Wood Nymph]

I was a huge advocate for the 1 bedroom so we could A. Have a king bed, B. Have a giant bathtub, C. Have in room laundry, and D. Have more space
I’m not afraid to say that I’ve become very spoiled.

The advantages to having a villa are huge. I would have done what you did.

It will be a new way to get to WDW for us, and the flights are booked! We're going to WDW!!!

It always feels official once the flights are booked.

It is quite the juggling act to get the cheaper flights to line up with the trip dates. The DVC thing is a lot less flexible and I'm sure it is tricky to get cheap flights.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

Welcome to another one. We'll write about the planning as it happens over the next hundred some odd days.

The advantages to having a villa are huge. I would have done what you did.

Yeah, we were warned when we signed up for DVC that we would be spoiled by the bigger units and not want to stay in a studio. After having the 1 bedroom to ourselves at Aulani, we are looking forward to it at Copper Creek.

It is quite the juggling act to get the cheaper flights to line up with the trip dates. The DVC thing is a lot less flexible and I'm sure it is tricky to get cheap flights.

That is true. We just don't have the flexibility to move trip dates around a bit to optimize airfare. At least we have a long time to watch rates and try to jump on the lows. This definitely isn't our best deal, but we are looking forward to trying a different airport.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

We also made another major travel decision that I’m not sure how I feel about.

It is truly something we haven't done for traveling to WDW since our honeymoon.

We are going stroller less! After some discussion with the kids, mostly Marshall we came to the conclusion that the stroller was staying home.

Yes we are familiar with the passionate stroller debates people have online, and we definitely acknowledge that our kids have used a stroller at WDW long after they would have in any other setting, but we agreed we are all ready to make this trip with all of us on foot.

Marshall said that he might need to take some extra breaks but he was ready to leave the stroller at home. You guys this feels like a huge milestone. We really don’t have babies anymore.

I'm just glad we won't have the two of them fighting over the stroller like we had as recently as last year...

Oh my gosh yes.

I do think we need to take a moment and thank all of the strollers that have traveled with us to Disney. They are the true unsung heroes of the trip.

We have had some great strollers, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend Baby Jogger strollers to anyone considering them for a WDW trip. From our double down to our tour, and our workhorse city mini that has joined us for most of our trips, they have been a big part of WDW trips for us.

It should increase our mobility and agility during the trip, which will add to the fun.

In fact the only stroller we still own is our City Mini that we bought for our first Disneyworld trip with Allie when she was two. I’m not how much longer we’ll hang onto it, it’s gonna be one of those things that might rot in the garage before I’m ready to part with it. I wish I knew how many miles it had on it.

I do know those were some great miles...

They were! I’m not sure where we’re going to stash all of the stuff that normally lives on the stroller but we’re going to have to learn to travel a little lighter.

At least this trip will be warm so we won’t need a ton of layers.

It is gonna be great to just walk right through the security checkpoints.

No kidding! That will save so much time.

We are looking forward to traveling lighter, even if it means spending a little more time sitting and waiting for little legs and feet to rest.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We are looking forward to traveling lighter, even if it means spending a little more time sitting and waiting for little legs and feet to rest.

It will be a lot easier to move through the parks without the stroller. And you can always rent a park stroller, if necessary, although they are expensive.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

It will be a lot easier to move through the parks without the stroller. And you can always rent a park stroller, if necessary, although they are expensive.

Yeah, I think we will be fine in the parks. The one place we may miss it is walking around Disney Springs at night, when he’s tired after a long day and we want to spend longer shopping than he does. Oh well, it will be fine.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Yeah, I think we will be fine in the parks. The one place we may miss it is walking around Disney Springs at night, when he’s tired after a long day and we want to spend longer shopping than he does. Oh well, it will be fine.

My daughter bought a cheap umbrella stroller for her youngest rather than bringing the larger stroller when her youngest was getting old enough for walking through the parks but might need it for Epcot or Disney Springs at night. That worked out.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

My daughter bought a cheap umbrella stroller for her youngest rather than bringing the larger stroller when her youngest was getting old enough for walking through the parks but might need it for Epcot or Disney Springs at night. That worked out.

Yeah, we gave thought to a cheap or smaller stroller, but he's a big boy now and we're gonna give it a shot on his own two feet. That's something we'll have to remember when sitting on a bench waiting for him to nap some night...

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Let's start some real planning for this trip. We started the official planning this time by adding this trip to our spreadsheet. Yep, I have a spreadsheet of our planned and actual activities for each trip.

I like to tease you about your spreadsheets, but it is fun to remember what we did on past trips.

For this one, we are following a similar plan to the girls' May trip, since it is the same length.

The only plans that I had for the May trip were ADRs, and we only had one a day.

ADRs are always the core of our plans, and are what determine what parks we'll go to for the day.

We do like to eat!

With the shorter trip, we don't have as many meals to fill in, which means we mainly will stick to our very favorites.

We only have one new potential restaurant that we're planning for this trip. We want to try Plaza Inn at MK for the burgers and milkshakes.

It's somewhere we have never been to, and we figure it's time to give it a try. As for the rest of the meals, we are planning on Teppan Edo at Epcot, Yak and Yeti at AK, Sci Fi Drive in at HS, and Boathouse at Disney Springs.

We've been trying to get Sci Fi for a couple of trips now, and Marshall would be super excited to eat there.

If we can't get it, we'll go with Brown Derby as a backup.

Not a bad second choice. Marshall doesn't remember Sci Fi though, and we know he'd love it.

One of the things in setting our schedule is deciding if we need park hopper tickets.

Thinking about park tickets in general is something we haven't done for a few trips, since we were fortunate enough to have APs for our last few trips. We let them expire after our last trip, so now we'll be looking for tickets.

We can't guarantee we will make two trips within the year, so it makes sense.

And they don't have the AP option available right now, so we'll get tickets for the length of the trip.

I don't think we'll do a ton of park hopping, but I think having the option to go to a different park will be worth the extra cost. It allows us to be more flexible with the smaller group.

You knew that I would have a hard time committing to a single park for the whole day, and it will allow us to hop from HS over to Epcot, perhaps for a LeCellier dinner.

We are excited to try it again. It has been a while, and is a steakhouse we can enjoy inside a park.

It will be a great excuse to park hop, and staying at WL it will be nice to go over to MK in the evening after other parks if we want.

Yeah, being there closer to the summer we should have longer park hours to take advantage of.

So, that brings us to acquiring said tickets. I figured we'd just book them through Disney.

I had seen that AAA offers Disney packages, so I suggested checking there for ticket only options.

I'd also heard about places like undercover tourist offering discounts, so we did some research. I found that for 5 days of park hoppers, we can save a few hundred dollars over Disney prices with Undercover Tourist, and another couple of hundred dollars or so with AAA.

We haven't bought the tickets yet, but AAA seems to be the best deal. We're open if anybody has any other tips though.

Yes! I'm definitely glad we didn't just book them direct, and we will buy them soon. We also gave thought to 5 vs 6 park days, since it barely costs any more to add a day.

We talked about it, but we didn't want the pressure of feeling like we had to make it to a park on our arrival day.

Since it does save a bit to not have the 6th day, we'll go with five days and a relaxing arrival day.

While we love the parks, the goal of our trips (even more so now) is vacation and relaxation. I don't want to feel like we have to squeeze everything in on a trip.

We had dinner with Jon and Brandy last week, and we all would consider having fewer park days during a trip to make it more relaxing, but with only 5 nights we don't want to cut it down too much.

This should be good for this trip though.

Like true Disney fans, we watched yesterday's Super Bowl to look for the Disney Ad.

Just kidding, it was a good game, but the Disney commercial was fantastic.

It was, and I also liked the recent DVC commercial as well. Disney knows how to get us.

They hit us right in the feels...

I think that's about all for now, but we'll be back with more soon.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Now I want Teppan Edo!


Also the first time my family took me I was 4….apparently the stroller broke and that was the catalyst to never get me in stroller and if necessary my parents would rent one. So this could be a blessing in disguise!

 

[Wood Nymph]

Marshall would really like SciFi so I hope you can get a reservation. It is a little tricky with the shorter trips, though.

We ate at Boathouse for the first time last week. It was a really nice restaurant and we had a great corner table with good views. It is a lot bigger than I expected and had a lot of outdoor seating. My entree was terrible, Grilled Mahi fish tacos, which they apologized for since they knew that the entree needed tweaking (their words). But everyone else liked their food. We will have to go back someday.

There will be some new things for you to do on the June trip, which is always fun. We haven't seen Fantasmic yet, so that is on our to do list.

 

[alpal22]

Great plans so far! I would strongly recommend going with AAA, as they are definitely valid Disney tickets as they have a partnership, and they are the better deal.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

I haven't been to Plaza Inn restaurant, either. Your other restaurant choices look great and it's nice you'll be revisiting some of your favorites. Sci Fi Dine In has such unique and fun atmosphere! It was always a must-do for me. I'd hoped you guys might make it to Space 220 this time. The theming there is a bit hokey, but I still think you guys, at least the geeky among you, would enjoy the space theme. Their food was also much better than I expected.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Now I want Teppan Edo!

It is one of our very favorites, mmmm that filet …

Also the first time my family took me I was 4….apparently the stroller broke and that was the catalyst to never get me in stroller and if necessary my parents would rent one. So this could be a blessing in disguise!

We are excited about it, but are probably more concerned about where we’ll put our stuff than Marshall needing a place to sit.

Marshall would really like SciFi so I hope you can get a reservation. It is a little tricky with the shorter trips, though.

We tried last year and the girls tried in May, so hopefully the third time will be the charm. We enjoyed it before, but Marshall doesn’t remember it.

We ate at Boathouse for the first time last week. It was a really nice restaurant and we had a great corner table with good views. It is a lot bigger than I expected and had a lot of outdoor seating. My entree was terrible, Grilled Mahi fish tacos, which they apologized for since they knew that the entree needed tweaking (their words). But everyone else liked their food. We will have to go back someday.

I’m glad you got to try Boathouse. It wasn’t one I thought I’d enjoy, but I love the variety and the particularly good burgers. It can be a relatively good deal price wise and I love the atmosphere.

There will be some new things for you to do on the June trip, which is always fun. We haven't seen Fantasmic yet, so that is on our to do list.

It is fun to get a little something new each time. We’re glad Fantasmic is back.

Great plans so far! I would strongly recommend going with AAA, as they are definitely valid Disney tickets as they have a partnership, and they are the better deal.

We are pleased with their pricing and don’t think we will do any better. It is neat to save a bit.

I haven't been to Plaza Inn restaurant, either. Your other restaurant choices look great and it's nice you'll be revisiting some of your favorites. Sci Fi Dine In has such unique and fun atmosphere! It was always a must-do for me. I'd hoped you guys might make it to Space 220 this time. The theming there is a bit hokey, but I still think you guys, at least the geeky among you, would enjoy the space theme. Their food was also much better than I expected.

We also tried for Space 220 last time but it was right after it opened and had zero availability. We haven’t ruled out trying for it but we aren’t sure how it would for with our other plans. Jon and Brandy got to eat there a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it as well. It sounds like a must do for the experience, and it is a positive that the food is good too. We’ll make it there sometime.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Hi everyone, we are celebrating our double digit day, with 99 days to go until our trip.

[

I can’t believe it’s that close

It’s pretty exciting. The kids want to do another count down chain, so it is time.

Yes, I gotta get it printed out. We’ve done a chain for almost every Disney trip. I think we got too busy last year and didn’t do one.

Yeah, but we’ve used that same .pdf one for every other trip and it is fun. We’ll have to do that this week.

We haven’t done much other planning lately but recently we’ve been discussing airport transportation.

Since the end of MDE, we have been enjoying using a private car company, black diamond transportation, and have been super happy with them.

It worked so well last trip and was so easy we had assumed we’d book with them again.

You mentioned something last week that got the wheels turning in a different direction, though.

Yes, I had seen a place called Forever Vintage & Surplus that sells Disney Surplus from the parks and resorts. I said that when we decide to rent a car it’d be fun to go down to Winter Haven and check it out.

With free parking at the resort, a rental car wouldn’t add a whole lot of extra cost, so we looked into what a rental would cost. We could get a SUV for about $420 for the trip, which isn’t a whole lot more than having a car take us to/from the airport.

After initially talking about it though we had pretty much decided that we’d still use a car service so we wouldn’t have to deal with the car rental counter.

Yeah, it is so quick to just grab our bags and hop in the car, but today we mentioned the possibility of a rental car to the kids and they liked the idea, but mentioned that it would be cool if we could get a Jeep like we did in Hawaii.

Actually Allie said it had to be a red Jeep.

But we all liked the concept enough to check out the cost, and we found that we could get one for $469.77 for the trip.

It really makes it a tough decision. With tips and the savings from doing our own grocery shopping it really is within about $100 of being a wash either way.

And it would be something new and different for us. We always have just stayed in the bubble and said we visit Disney, not Florida, but it might be time to actually drive in Florida. We would enjoy stopping for some groceries on the way in, and I’m up for a Jeep drive anytime.

Being able to drive to Disney Springs would also be a plus for us. On the other hand it’s a short trip and I don’t want to get to distracted with visiting random places off property.

Yeah, that’s a good point, I don’t want to be too distracted from Disney by other stuff, but not having to take buses to/from Disney Springs would really be something.

It would, and would give us a sense of independence we haven’t had before.

A somewhat serious concern though is that it took me months of looking at Jeeps after Hawaii to calm down and stop shopping for one, and I do wonder if this might reignite that desire, which is not a cheap proposition.

That is definitely a concern of mine, we don’t need a new car right now and once he gets looking at cars it usually ends in us purchasing one.

A Jeep has been on the list for a while, but maybe renting one will quench the desire for a little bit longer.

Maybe… So this is our current dilemma, do we rent a Jeep for the trip or do we hire a car service?

Both have their advantages

Oh so when we first started looking at rental cars you thought that we could fit in a Nissan Rouge.

You should tell them what you think now after you saw one in the Target parking lot today.

Yeah, that isn’t going to happen. I don’t picture being excited about any Nissan, and dragging our luggage behind it would not be fun.

It’s pretty tiny and the whole appeal of the rental car at all is a Jeep at this point so there’s not really an argument about what kind of car we should rent. I think it’s just Jeep or car service.

Yeah, and at that price it sure is appealing. We haven’t booked it yet, but I’m leaning that way.

Stay tuned for resolution on this issue.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Hmmm, renting a car for longer trips opens up lots more opportunities for offsite activities, shopping, and dining. But your next trip is short enough that you'll have just one day in each Disney park with not much time to spare, right? If you do rent a Jeep, will you be able to guarantee you'll get a red one?