She's Raising The Bar, a June 2025 Copper Creek Trip Report (Completed 8/18)

[DaisyDuck001]

Since apparently you hadn't yet booked next year's flight, how did you know for what time to reserve the rental Jeep for next year?

I'm looking forward to reading about your plans for next year's trip.

 

[rdkeim]

Wow, sounds like those flight attendants really had an "off" day! But making it home safe is the important part. I very much enjoy your TR's - so glad you take the time to write and share them. Your pictures, especially of the WL, are so pretty. I'll watch for your wrap up and plans for next year!

 

[Wood Nymph]

We then made our way to the airport and dropped the car off at 3:52 and it was super easy. We have been having great luck with Alamo, and this rental was only $360 for the whole week.

This is a great price. We always seem to pay too much because of add-ons like insurance coverage.

For the first time in the history of ever there was NO ONE in front of us in line at TSA

This was a Monday, right? I would think there would be a lot of people flying somewhere at that time of the day.

Since I had time to kill I played online and wound up booking a rental car for the same week next year.

Is the price guaranteed?

I gladly purchased the wifi then fell asleep while we waited to take off. We sat at the gate until 7:47 when we finally pushed back and took off at 7:58. At least I got in a good little snooze. I always fall asleep as soon as we get on the plane to head home. I guess it all catches up with me.

That was a lot of sitting in a plane. You were lucky to have cozy seats. But the people in the cheap seats were probably miserable. We flew United when we went to California last year. There is no leg room in those seats and my 6'5" son and 6'3" husband were miserable.

That is so slick, no matter what time wound up getting home it was great to have our car sitting right outside the terminal. The drive home wasn't too bad, and we made it there by 1AM.

That was worth every penny.

 

[debedo]

Absolutely love your trip reports! The pictures are amazing, we love Copper creek so much we also just bought more points and closed yesterday. Can’t wait for the points to load. How is your last purchase going so far?

Sorry to hear of the of this last flight experience, it’s seems so off. We are fortunate to have decent prices from Delta here in MN as that’s our usual airline. With American Express the points add up for credits quite nicely!

Can’t wait for the final update. Trip reports are great to read to help pass the time until the next trip.

 

[alohamom]

We have been having great luck with Alamo, and this rental was only $360 for the whole week.

I highly recommend using Costco Travel to reserve a car with Alamo, it’s so simple and the deals are great

WOW! Great tip and excellent price, thank you!

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Since apparently you hadn't yet booked next year's flight, how did you know for what time to reserve the rental Jeep for next year?

We figured we had to start somewhere. We had the dates we liked and figured we would get an early evening flight in and leave in the evening as well. It was backwards, but worked.

I'm looking forward to reading about your plans for next year's trip.

We are looking forward to next year’s trip as well, and while it will be the same length and days of the week as this one, the room will be a little bigger.

Wow, sounds like those flight attendants really had an "off" day! But making it home safe is the important part. I very much enjoy your TR's - so glad you take the time to write and share them. Your pictures, especially of the WL, are so pretty. I'll watch for your wrap up and plans for next year!

Thanks so much, we are glad that you enjoyed following along. It’s hard to complain about a first class flight, but sometimes people jay have an off day. We’ll share plans here as they come together, but we’ll repeat the same days of the week next year.

This is a great price. We always seem to pay too much because of add-ons like insurance coverage.

We have had great luck with Alamo. Once you decide on the extras (or not) at booking then the price you picked is the price you pay at the airport.

This was a Monday, right? I would think there would be a lot of people flying somewhere at that time of the day.

Yes it was, Monday evening. We got lucky.

Is the price guaranteed?

Yes, and you don’t pay until you’re at the airport. We jumped on it because we don’t think we can beat the rate.

That was a lot of sitting in a plane. You were lucky to have cozy seats. But the people in the cheap seats were probably miserable. We fly United when we went to California last year. There is no leg room in those seats and my 6'5" son and 6'3" husband were miserable.

Crowded seats are no fun. I flew Air India for a couple of 14 plus hour flights and gained a new respect for a lack of legroom.

That was worth every penny.

It’s the way to go for LAX. In the past we have used a shuttle service and had to pay extra when the returning flight was delayed. It’s so great to have our car right there for us.

Absolutely love your trip reports! The pictures are amazing, we love Copper creek so much we also just bought more points and closed yesterday. Can’t wait for the points to load. How is your last purchase going so far?

Congratulations! You are about three weeks behind us, as ours closed on July 25th, and the points loaded yesterday on August 14th.

Sorry to hear of the of this last flight experience, it’s seems so off. We are fortunate to have decent prices from Delta here in MN as that’s our usual airline. With American Express the points add up for credits quite nicely!

That’s great. We have gotten to do Delta a few times, but looking for next year it is about 1.5 times the cost of American, and therefore hard to justify.

Can’t wait for the final update. Trip reports are great to read to help pass the time until the next trip.

We love them, and going back to them later to relive the trip and see how much fun we had.

WOW! Great tip and excellent price, thank you!

The pricing varies quite a bit over time, but if a better deal shows up you can always rebook. We have rented through Alamo with Costco many times now and continue to be impressed. It just works like it is supposed to, and the rates can be great.

 

[Stasieki]

Loved your report! I'll keep checking costco travel for alamo. Right now, my week in Feb is about $500 for the week.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Loved your report! I'll keep checking costco travel for alamo. Right now, my week in Feb is about $500 for the week.

Thanks so much. The nice thing about the Costco reservation is you can go ahead and book it for no charge, then cancel without any penalty if you find a better deal. We have had to pay $500 for a week in the past, for one of the Jeep years. We also have seen crazy variation in vehicle classes, where a Large SUV sometimes costs more than a Premium SUV. Minivans are usually a decent deal, but we never have ended up with one.

 

[GrandCalifornian]

Hello, and welcome back as we summarize and wrap up the review of our June 2025 trip to WDW.


This was our third year in a row making very similar trips, but each time we do things a little differently and try some new things to continue to optimize it and see what works best for us.

First up I want to talk about the car rental.


For our long term followers you know we hadn’t ever rented a car until 3 years ago. This has been the biggest change in our trips for sure.

We used to be the biggest proponents of all Disney transportation, and told many frineds and family members that you really don't need a car. (Which was funny since I am always the "car guy" in all other days of my life.) The way we go now, having the car is a huge plus, even though it is not a necessity.

This year we decided to rent a bigger car and it worked out perfect.


It’s what we’re used to at home, cooled down way faster than the jeep, and was plenty big enough for all of our luggage.

Yes. I was probably the last to jump on board with the full size SUV option, since I do like the Jeeps and they got the job done, but I will admit that the full size Expedition worked out perfectly.


So perfectly that we booked it first for next trip, even before airfare or a room. It is kind of funny to rent the same car we drive daily at home, but that made it fit right in.

I was slightly afraid we’d get a newer model than I have and I’d want an upgrade but we didn’t. I still love my “Helen” she is named after Mrs. Incredible. You know my car was another one of those “I’m glad you’re open to it because I already bought it purchases”

Lol that is true, very similar. You saw the ad for it though and said you liked that one, so Marshall and I went and brought it home one Sunday. On the rental car, we just saw the return of the Minnie Van to airport option. It would be a nice alternative, but at $199 each way it is actually cheaper to rent the car for the whole trip than it would be to take the Minnie Van both ways. That means we actually save money AND have the car available for trips to Disney Springs and resort meal reservations, which it worked out great for.

We did use Minnie Van service once on this trip though and that worked out perfectly.


We’ll definitely keep that strategy in mind for next time.

Yes, that was well planned, but in general it is really nice to have the car for ADRs at other resorts, since it allows us to decouple the meal from the rest of our day, because we can get anywhere in about 30 minutes.

Perhaps the biggest new thing for us this year was the after hours party at Hollywood Studios. We had talked about doing this before, but the timing finally worked out and it was great.


We were able to do everything that we wanted to do during the party and not melt in the heat.

It saved us a day of park tickets, gave us time to spend in Disney Springs, and let us do more at HS than we normally would be able to fit in, and yes we did it all without melting. If we have the chance for one of these parties next year we will take it.

Our favorite meal of the trip was Topolino and we all agree that we’d love to repeat this meal.


This was a surprise hit. Yes we had been there before, but this time it just hit perfectly. The steak was exceptional, and each one of us voted it as the best meal of the trip, which is super rare.

Getting the kids to agree on anything right now is just rare.

It was our most expensive meal of the trip, but was totally worth it. The timing was perfect and we all enjoyed the fireworks too.


It makes it worth the cost, as opposed to Biergarten, which was on the other end of the value spectrum and probably won't be a repeat for us, while we will do Topolino again next year.

The food was amazing, the service was excellent and the fireworks topped it off. I do need to remember to pack some nicer clothes for Marshall though, while there isn’t an explicit dress code it is nice to dress a little nicer for a dinner like this. He could use some practice wearing a collared shirt.

I now will have a nice shirt to wear, since I did buy the RSVLTS shirt that night even if it was after the meal.


That did start something, I think I have four of them to choose from...

Maybe we’ll get Marshall one for next trip. He’s growing so fast though we’ll wait until we get closer to the trip to order one.

That probably makes sense. Another aspect of this trip was that the 1 bedroom felt small for the first time. We knew Marshall would not be able to sleep on the floor forever, but I was surprised at how often the one bathroom was an issue. Fortunately we did soemthing else this trip to help with that.

Adding on DVC points at my favorite place anywhere was a definite highlight of the trip. Speaking of which, our purchase is all complete as of August 14th. After making the offer on June 8, we passed Right of First Refusal on July 3rd, closed Escrow on July 25, and loaded points on August 14th. It takes a minute, but we saved A LOT versis buying more points direct from Disney and we still have our direct member benefits from our initial contract.

Yeah you did. To be fair we’ve talked about adding on points for the last couple of years as the kids have gotten bigger. It was a perfect contract for us and an ok time for us to make the purchase. I hope that having more points allows the kids to keep coming with us as they get really big and have more attachments.

That is the big goal. I want to be part of their Disney vacations as they both get older. I am totally fine with being the "DVC Grandparents" in the future who help make the trips happen for their kids and grandkids and sit in the lobby and talk about it.


It makes me feel old, but fortunately we aren't quite that old yet.

Not quite, I’d love a few kid free trips in there first.

There's that to look forward to as well, and more points means more trips.


As usual we had a couple not perfect things about the trip, there is always something that isn’t ideal. The first one that comes to mind is Biergarten. The food was mediocre at best and for the price it just wasn’t worth it at all.


Yeah, I mentioned that one earlier, and yes it was the low meal of the trip, but besides the price it wasn't really that bad. Marshall actually now says he liked the food, but it was the least favorite for the rest of us.

I think he’s misremembering because he didn’t like it when we walked out of the restaurant.

Another perennial negative is the inevitable melt downs, but we really did pretty well this year. I can only think of one big one (Allie at MK) but sometimes that’s just life with a teenager.

I can’t remember what that fight was about but yeah you were both getting a little spicy with each other. I made them sit together for Haunted Mansion to straighten them out.


Finally there’s the flights, but even with the lack of service they weren’t that bad. Yes we were delayed leaving Orlando once again, but that’s par for the course.


Having direct flights was nice, and when we started flight shopping for next year we found that American had a good deal on their LAX-MCO nonstops. A good enough deal that we booked the 2026 flights on the first day they were available. We were able to snag First class tickets under $1000 round trip for each by of us, and we already had the car booked so we went for it, despite not yet having the DVC points for the trip.

We couldn’t pass up the airfare deal and we knew we’d be able to stay somewhere or in some kind of room.

Speaking of DVC points, since our purchase closed and the points loaded through Disney this week, we were finally able to book our room for next year. We got a non-lock off 2 bedroom at Copper Creek.


They should all be refurbished by then, but with the dedicated two bedroom we won’t need a pull down or sofa bed, since everyone will have their own real bed. That will be cool.

The big room is going to be so nice, I don’t think we’re gonna want to come home.

I'm not sure we're going to want to leave the room much either. There will at least be quite a few mid-day breaks at the room.

Having the couch available will be super nice not to mention two bathrooms.


We have gotten to stay in a two bedroom before with our friends, and having the living room open was really nice.


It will be amazing to have the whole thing to ourselves.

Thank you all for following along with us for this years report! We love sharing our trips with you and reliving them ourselves. We’ll be back with a Pre-Trip report prior to our next trip in June but in the meantime, school has started back up and we are getting back into our routine.



Yeah, things are ramping up and we are always busy, but it is great to have another trip booked so we can look forward to doing it all again next time. Thanks again for following along, and we will post here as soon as we kick off the next PTR.

 

[AliceNDinah]

Aarrghhh, I was almost at the end of my reply when it all got erased for some reason! Ok, take two: I'm sad it's all done. This was a great report! I love the family picture at Topolino's!! And when Melissa called you two spicy! Another great picture at the Haunted Mansion, lol! Congratulations on your DVC points. You guys will make awesome "DVC Grandparents " in the very far-off future I sincerely want to thank you for the incredibly detailed reports you always do----I appreciate you taking us along. I was in the Magic Kingdom 3 years ago today, and am literally itching to get back!! Will your friends Jon and Brandy join you again sonetime for a future trip? Speaking of, I can't wait for the next one, I'm already so excited! Thanks again for a great time, and take care!!!!!!!

 

[Moonspinner]

Thanks, awesome report.

 

[ThreeBoyMama]

Thank you for another great report! Your 2026 trip already sounds amazing!