Hey, planning upcoming trips are half the fun!!!!
Absolutely! We love the planning almost as much the trips themselves. Well, not quite, but it is a good way of passing the time between trips.
So excited to hear about your cabin stay! It is fun that you have a group to share your travels. We will have just over a year between our DVC purchase and our first stay, too. Can't wait to visit our new "home" resort for the first time as owners.
I hadn't even thought about the purple tap-stile issue for our daughter. She is too young to notice (and she doesn't even have to so the tap-stiles for a few more months), but she will be sad when she gets older and notices!
Planning is such a fun way to live the magic from a distance. I have a document where I put my dream trips and I have thoughts through 2020 and I think 2019 is pretty solid at this point. It is so fun to dream about how we will use our points on future trips. We did a split stay last year and it wasn't as bad as we thought it might be. I think it will be even easier as our toddler gets older.
We really do feel that planning is a big part of the fun. If we did a trip on shorter notice there’s so much that we would miss out on. We are already working on picking our 2019 ADRs too.
Your trip should be great with your daughter being under three. We loved bringing our daughter for her first trip at that age. Marshall will be just a couple of months younger this time.
We love sharing our Disney planning with our friends. They heard about our first few trips and thought it sounded like fun. Now they are sharing DVC with us. Having Grandma and Grandpa join in is fun too.
We can’t wait for our first visit “home”, and we know you know the exact feeling. Have a great first trip.
So fun to read your planning about your stay--I love the style with both of you chiming in.

Hope your trip is wonderful--certainly sounds like it will be!
Thanks! We both like to talk, so it works out there share our conversations.
We can’t wait to share the details of this trip.
I think that Marshall was a pretty good Disney traveler for your last trip. Except for his crash at Geyser Point, he seemed to have fun.
I love the DVC tote bag. It is very cute. That is nice that you get a 10% discount at all the table service restaurants. That will come in handy. We used Disney gift cards for our trip with the family last month. I had bought enough gift cards to pay off two rooms and pay for most of the meals. The 5% Target savings plus our 20% Tables in Wonderland discount really helped with costs. But then on the last night of our trip I had forgotten to go down to the front desk to pay off the balance. Oh well, now I have almost $400 left in gift cards for our trip next month.
I'm going to have to watch for DVC members when we go through the tap posts at MK. I never knew that the Mickey heads turned purple for DVC members. That is a nice little perk. It seems like Disney has tried a little harder to "appreciate" the DVC members. The Epcot lounge is a nice addition to the benefits they get.
Marshall did have a ball during both of his trips to WDW. Allie hadn’t even been by the time she was this age, and he will have been three times. Lucky kid.
Your story about the gift cards is a good warning. We’ll make sure to make our payment well before the last day in each room. At least you have another trip coming up, and a good start at spending money. You gotta love the Target 5%. We did our AP upgrade with a bunch of $50 gift cards a few years ago because that’s all we could get at our Target.
I think the electronic turnstiles at all the parks are supposed to light up purple for DVC members. There have been lots of reports of it being inconsistent though.
I think they do a good job of having perks for DVC members. The discounts are pretty similar to APs, but that’s still pretty good. We will try out the lounges and see what they are like.