Timing rant on planning a Disney vacation

[msmama]

I'm planning a trip for somewhere mid to end of May for Star Wars weekends (although technically no one knows when SWW will be).

Plus Southwest pushed back their flight release date so I can't even plan exact trip dates.

ADR day for staying onsite (180+10) would be November 8. SW says they're going to release their flights on November 10.

Anybody else see a problem here?

I don't understand how people can plan their trips years in advance. And obviously Disney wants us to plan our trips long in advance but how are we supposed to do that when the rest of our travels can't be set in stone.

Disney announces SWW stuff like a month in advance but you have to figure out what rides you want to ride when 2 months before!!

I don't mind having to plan trips this far out, but it's very frustrating when you don't even have all the information to plan!!! Also, I'm bummed because I got an awesome PIN for my dates, only to realize that it's in my Mom's name. Grrrr.

Anyway, to turn my rant into a question, is there a way to see historic airline prices (they don't need to be exact, but if it's historically significantly cheaper to fly on a Thursday vs Friday, I can adjust dates)?

 

[bjscheel]

In my experience, SW is most likely to be cheapest to fly on a Tuesday, followed by Wednesday. Check out some other months that are up on the site currently and see if there are any patterns. Sometimes all days of the month have the same price so you just don't know.

Also in my experience, you don't HAVE to make your ADRs at 180. I don't know how important your TS meals are to you, but there will still be lots of choices available later on, and the hard to get ones may be had if you stalk the site. I got BOG at about 150 days. Being a party of 2 might work in your favor.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Most other airlines roll out new fares daily, 331 days in advance.

 

[Happyjen27]

Agree!!!

I end up booking my hotel as soon as I know what dates I'm planning. Then, I wait until the discount airline (Jetblue in my case) opens their new dates up for booking. Regular airlines have fares available well ahead, but, discount airlines like to make us wait.

Then, I hope really, really hard that there's a room discount available for when I'm going.

 

[pryncess527]

Most other airlines roll out new fares daily, 331 days in advance.

Yeah, SW is odd with how they wait to release fares. I don't know of another airline that doesn't let you book 9-11 months in advance.

 

[davedmaine]

I feel your pain, but I don't see Disney changing its processes to align with the Southwest schedule..

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I'm planning a trip for somewhere mid to end of May for Star Wars weekends (although technically no one knows when SWW will be).

Plus Southwest pushed back their flight release date so I can't even plan exact trip dates.

ADR day for staying onsite (180+10) would be November 8. SW says they're going to release their flights on November 10.

Anybody else see a problem here?

I don't understand how people can plan their trips years in advance. And obviously Disney wants us to plan our trips long in advance but how are we supposed to do that when the rest of our travels can't be set in stone.

Disney announces SWW stuff like a month in advance but you have to figure out what rides you want to ride when 2 months before!!

I don't mind having to plan trips this far out, but it's very frustrating when you don't even have all the information to plan!!! Also, I'm bummed because I got an awesome PIN for my dates, only to realize that it's in my Mom's name. Grrrr.

Anyway, to turn my rant into a question, is there a way to see historic airline prices (they don't need to be exact, but if it's historically significantly cheaper to fly on a Thursday vs Friday, I can adjust dates)?

Why not just book your hotel and ADRs now? Then if you find that SW prices are spectacular for certain dates that don't correspond to your hotel stay, then just change your hotel res by a few days. I would book my most desired ADRs for mid stay and the ones I could do without near arrival and departure so that if I had to tweak the dates by a few days in either direction, I wouldn't miss out on our favs. FWIW, I don't book many ADRs at 180 days. Heck, I can barely plan 2 months ahead. We're very "go with the flow" people. I can't map out every park visit and which order we should visit each attraction. IMO that wouldn't be a very pleasant trip.
You could always skip SW and book with another airline if their system doesn't work for you. For our area, USAirways also flies non stops to MCO and occasionally is cheaper than SWA or has better flight times that make it worth a slightly higher price. So I always look around.

 

[puffkin]

I am kind of in the same situation, but even worse since we are DVC so have to book usually 7-11 months out. Very few ADR's need to be booked at 180 days. If you are booking one of the very popular ones, I would just book it for the middle part of your trip, that way if you have to shift things around by a few days it won't mess up those ADR's.

I also have the reverse problem. We are doing a more last minute trip. Decided on and booked about 3 months out. Now any other destination I wouldn't consider 3 months to be last minute, but at Disney it is kind of a nightmare since everything is booked up. Luckily we go a lot and can work around things, but it is kind of annoying.

 

[HM]

Just go ahead and make some ADRs for what you want on dates you think you'll be there. You don't need a hotel reservation or flight to do so. Then you can change them around if needed once everything is sorted.

 

[tkitty]

I've been feeling the same frustration. I have'nt yet pinned down exact dates but it will be timeshare resort and will be friday or sat arrival end of March. I was trying to see if it would be worth it to at least arrive on weds. to take advantage of the cheaper fare, but at this point it's still too early to plan for sure. we would just find a super cheap room somewhere to stay till our resort is available.
In the past we would sometimes add a day at the front or end of the trip to get a cheaper flight, even if we spend what we would have saved by staying. More days at Disney is always OK with me. So I would get your accommodations set and hope for the best with flights. They sem to have the best prices 2-3 months out.