The Gang Of Five's First Trip: Summer 2011

[The Gang Of Five]

Hi folks! This is Stitch from The Gang Of Five, five high school juniors planning our Graduation Vacation! Right now we're in what I'd like to call pre-pre-planning, wherein I am the only member of the Gang to start thinking seriously about this trip. Sigh. Kinda sucks being the only second generation DisFreak in the group. I've spent the evening trying to figure out food/budgeting, which kind of go hand in hand, I believe. If five 18-19 year olds spend six days eating two CS meals a day, with maybe 1 character meal and one fancy shmancy meal (a la California Grill, Jiko's, or Citrico's), what do people think would be the total cost per person? (Not counting snacks and stuff) And no dining plan.

 

[The Gang Of Five]

Well, figured out my budgeting thing and alerted the rest of the gang, and poor Jumba came back with a "No" from her mom . I'm now working on how to change Mrs. Jumba's mom's mind, but we won't be able to have a meeting with the parents until May at least. According to Jumba, her mom's problem appears to be money, but I'd told everyone that we were probably going to pay for the trip ourselves, so unless Jumba's parents don't want her to get a job, then I don't see what the issue is. I guess we're just gonna have to cross our fingers and hope for the best.

In other news, Jumba and I are also arguing about transportation. We agree that driving would be less expensive and more fun, but I'm concerned about the lack of need we're going to have for a car once we get to the World. Despite the hits the Disney bus service has taken recently, I've been using the system every time I've gone since I was five, and my family and I have never had a problem. We'll just have to see.

And we haven't even picked a week yet.

Wish us luck!
Stitch

 

[Pink Mouse Ears]

Subscribing! That would have been my dream Graduation Vacation! Hope your details come together and everyone gets to go.

If its cheaper to take a car, then I say take it. It won't matter whether you use it when you are there or not. Unless you are staying in a monorail resort, I'd say you will probably want to use it. We take ours almost everywhere unless we can take a boat. Its so much faster than bus transportation, especially from value and moderate resorts.

 

[The Gang Of Five]

Thanks to subscribing to my thread! Once I get things well and truly underway, I'm going to see if I can get the rest of the Gang to help write it, especially trip reports (that's why the username is "The Gang Of Five" instead of just a variation of "Stitch"). So you may come on and find that Lilo or Jumba posted instead of me!

In other new, finally heard from Nani, who's been AWOL since last week. She came up with a great idea of taking the train instead of driving or flying. Cheaper than flying, and without the pain of having to worry about a car! I'm now trying to figure out if Disney has any sweet free transports from the Orlando train station, or if we're going to have to get a cab to our hotel (whatever it ends up being!). Let me know if you happen to know something. I'm a novice when it comes to planning stuff like this (I usually leave it up to my mom, who's an expert), so any help would be really, really welcome!

 

[The Gang Of Five]

Hey, Stitch back again! So after hearing Nani's idea and scurrying over here to start a thread about it, I did some checking on Amtrak and Southwest Airlines. The result: $166 per seat for a SEVENTEEN HOUR trip scared1 with no perks and a possibly expensive cab ride, vs. a little over $200 per seat for a two and a half hour trip with free ME. So I alert the Gang, and we agreed that for our money, it was better to fly. Now all we gotta do is figure out a date, decide where we're staying, and raise the money for it! No big, right?

Wish us luck!

 

[The Gang Of Five]

Whew, haven't been here for a while. Sorry for not posting for a while, y'all, it's been kinda hectic around here the past couple of months.

Great news, though. The Gang (minus Nani, who hasn't been seen at school for at least a month-- she's apparently been really under the weather lately) got together Saturday night, and pretty much planned out as much of our trip as we could, considering that we're over a year out. But we've got a date, we've got a hotel, and we've got a park for each day of the week!

So, here's the deal: We decided on the week of July 31st to August 7th (give or take a day or two), 2011, which means that we'd have reasonable crowds. We're staying at Kidani Village (Jumba and Pleakley, who've never been to WDW before, absolutely fell in love with my description of Animal Kingdom Lodge!), and we're going to Crystal Palace for breakfast our first full day, Akershus for dinner our third night, and Kaki Gori for dinner on our last night. Jumba absolutely insisted on having a meal with princesses, and since Cindy's was absolutely out of our price range, we went with Akershus instead. I drew up a tentative schedule, for the sake of Jumba's and Pleakley's parents, who apparently need hard data and proof that we're not just dreaming teenagers. Oy, non believers.

Now, I'm currently waiting for the parade of exams to end before we can unveil our plans before the parents. Although, in all honesty, its not like we're going to need their permission to go. All of us are going to be eighteen by July 2011, so the parental permission is really just a formality. However, I'd rather have their permission and not need it, than need it and not have it. (It might just save me from a kidnapping charge, since I'm the oldest in the gang, and so technically I'd be responsible for everyone.)

Anyway, this post has now become far too long, and I've got an awesome project that I've got to work on for school. Stitch out!

 

[The Gang Of Five]

Hey, y'all! So, with synagogue youth group board elections, the last few No Child Left Untested exams, and my birthday all coming up in the next week to two weeks, I'm gonna have my plate full , so I'm taking the opportunity now to post a pre-planning update.

As has been said, we've figured out when we're going, where we're staying, and pretty much what we're eating, now all that's left is to try to get the parents on board with it. At least four of the Five are meeting next weekend (my eighteenth birthday-- we're going laser tagging!) and finalizing our plans (there's a distinct possibility that we may be changing our week-- details on that later if it happens). I've finally got a date for the parent information meeting I've been promising since April, the day after school gets out. I've also given the rest of the Gang the username and password for this account, and they know their codenames, so keep an eye out (hence the title ) for updates from Lilo, Jumba, Pleakley, and possibly even Nani. These guys are like my sisters, so please treat them kindly, and woe betide you if you don't! (That's the overprotective big sister talking )

Thanks for reading, and I'll be updating again as soon as I can!

Stitch out!

 

[The Gang Of Five]

Hey, y'all, it's Stitch again! Just giving you one or two updates right now, since things are going kind of slow at the moment.

We have not changed our vacation date (7/31-8/7 2011), because any earlier and people might have family coming to stay (mainly Pleakley, who's got family up the wazoo), any later, and we'll be cutting it VERY close to Freshman Orientation week at our respective colleges. My mom was a bit concerned about our going in the middle of summer (it cuts into summer jobs and whatnot), but my feeling is that once August hits, we're going to have to quit anyway because we'll be spending so much time trying to pack and get ourselves organized for college. So it's not that big a deal.

My assignment for the Parents Info meeting (I've got two of the Five coming so far, not including me) is putting together a Powerpoint of what we would be doing at Beach Week, and what we would be doing at WDW. This is to illustrate to Pleakley's and Jumba's parents that going to Disney will be infinitely better than going to Beach Week, which would be our other alternative (although it's not much of an alternative, since my parents refuse to let me go, and I don't want to go, anyway). So if anyone has any great pics of Beach Week insanity, don't hesitate to post 'em here!

I'll try to get someone other than me to post at some point, so keep an eye out!

Thanks for reading!

Stitch out!

 

[The Gang Of Five]

Stitch here with a breaking Gang of Five update: Pleakley, who was one of the Five whose parents were very iffy about our GradTrip, just told me that her parents have given her the green light to come with us! Yeah, I'm currently doing the Happy Dance right now. Pleakley has never been to the World before, and I can't wait to show her around! So now three of our Five are officially go (Nani is on the iffy side simply because of her health, but we're crossing our fingers), and all we have to do now is work on convincing Jumba's mom (Jumba says her dad is all for it).

Wish us luck!

Stitch out!

 

[The Gang Of Five]

Hey, y'all! Stitch here! Been a while, huh? Just a quickie little update, and then I'm off to write a trip report for the vacation I'm currently on, Piglet's Lovin' Eleven Adventure! Go see it! Anyway, since I last logged on, I spent the summer working at a restaurant in my hometown, and managed to raise over a thousand dollars for the GradTrip! I've got a new job now (that one I did this summer SUCKED), and as soon as I get the pair of wireless earbuds I've had my eye on for a while, the rest of my salary (thirty bucks a week) is going to supplement what I've already got for the trip. We've also made our backup reservation at Beach Club, so if for some reason we can't get into Kidani, we'll stay at Beach Club, since my family owns there and we could get a reservation earlier than we can at Kidani. Four out of the Five are all set to go (Nani was up in the air at one point due to her health, but she's on the mend now and coming with us in August), and as soon as Jumba gets the okay from her mom (she has until December), we're gonna get together to get airline tickets! My mom (Certifiable WDW Nut) found that we can get super cheap round trip tickets from an airport a little further away than the one we normally use, and as soon as I broke the news to the Gang, everyone agreed that we needed to get on the ball for this, so I'm hoping that Jumba can get her mom on board so that we can get these tickets for this price ASAP!

Well, that's all I've got for now, hopefully things will pick up in December when deadlines for airline, hotel, and park tickets come up.

Until then, Stitch out!

P.S. Sent in my first college app Early Action (non-binding), and I'll know by December 15 if I'm in or not! I figure I've got about a seventy five percent chance, but wish me luck anyway!

P.S.S. Check out Piglet's Lovin' Eleven Adventure, my first EVER trip report!

 

[moniqueelaine]

I am in.....so excited to see you guys take this trip...i always wanted to do this when I was growing up so I guess I will be livin vicariously through you guys.,.....