Tower of Terror 10 Miler 2014

[RunDisney Crazy]

Thanks!!

 

[bellanotte10]

Thanks!!

Here's one!

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3237285

 

[ksloane]

Ahh, that makes sense. I didn't think it would be possible to empty the park and return with all those people. But you get to stay, enjoy the parade, fireworks, okay. We'll probably end up purchasing tickets anyway.

As far as food, purchases, does everything need to be magic band or with a bracelet otherwise you could use cash. I'm sure they have this down pat though.

Have you attended the party before and if so, what's the highlights? This will be our first ToT.

I will definitely keep checking. If not, oh well, still going to WDW and running the ToT so it's all good.

You get armbands if you are part of the party. Or did the year we went. If you didn't have the armband, you didn't ride/make purchases.

Previous poster is right...eventually they do start encouraging you to leave, but they don't go crazy at 7. We saw those with no armbands for a while.

We LOVE the party. Shorter lines, cool characters, parade...it's all amazing. We did it twice last time we went in October. We'll be doing it this time I'm sure.

 

[DOOM1001]

I'd keep checking. A lot of people hold rooms temporarily and then will decide they don't want them.

We're doing the party on the 5th I think, but the way it works if you aren't doing the party, is that at party time (7pm?) they stop letting anyone make purchases or ride rides that doesn't have a party ticket. They don't actually kick you out. They just don't let you eat, shop, or ride rides.

They don't kick you out for EMH nights,if its a hard ticket event you do get kicked out.

 

[RunDisney Crazy]

What does that mean exactly?

Thanks

 

[DOOM1001]

What does that mean exactly?

Thanks

EMH hours are the days the parks are open for Disney resort guests after or before regular opening or closing times.If you're staying off site for the evening EMH they don't kick you out of the park but you can't ride the rides without them scanning your bands or showing your Disney hotel card proving you're staying at a Disney resort.Hard ticket events are events that are an extra admission totally separate from the day admission,like the Hallowen and Christmas parties,for those events if you're inside the park during the day but have no party admission you will get kicked out.

 

[RunDisney Crazy]

Wow. Seems like it will be purchase tickets or stealth mode. Which could be fun.

 

[Waiting2goback]

Just booked my hotel. Staying at the All-Star Sports. Got the room only. I am still not convinced the dining plan saves any money. I broke down the numbers last time I went and doing it myself and ordering just what I wanted I spent less than I would have with the package.

The only thing left to buy is park tickets but that can wait. Everything I need to do to get there is done and that is all that matters. I am so excited! Tonight is a running night, hopefully the added excitement will motivate me to push a little harder.

Less than 5 months away. It will be here before we know it.

 

[suedon70]

So, so excited! The 5K that weekend will be my first Disney race, can't wait! We will also be staying at the AoA Resort for the first time

 

[ksloane]

So, so excited! The 5K that weekend will be my first Disney race, can't wait! We will also be staying at the AoA Resort for the first time

I'm doing the 5K as well. We are coming as a bigger group and 2 of us are doing the 5K and 4 are doing the 10 miles. Our first Disney races. I wish more were during school breaks. I think we could easily become addicted, but I can't miss school often.

 

[ksloane]

Just booked my hotel. Staying at the All-Star Sports. Got the room only. I am still not convinced the dining plan saves any money. I broke down the numbers last time I went and doing it myself and ordering just what I wanted I spent less than I would have with the package.

The only thing left to buy is park tickets but that can wait. Everything I need to do to get there is done and that is all that matters. I am so excited! Tonight is a running night, hopefully the added excitement will motivate me to push a little harder.

Less than 5 months away. It will be here before we know it.

I think we'd have saved a little by foregoing the dining plan, but my oldest daughter really wanted it for the convenience so we're doing it. Can't believe how close this trip is.

Anyone else picked out their colors of the magic bands yet? This will be our first trip with them.

 

[RunDisney Crazy]

Just booked my hotel. Staying at the All-Star Sports. Got the room only. I am still not convinced the dining plan saves any money. I broke down the numbers last time I went and doing it myself and ordering just what I wanted I spent less than I would have with the package.

The only thing left to buy is park tickets but that can wait. Everything I need to do to get there is done and that is all that matters. I am so excited! Tonight is a running night, hopefully the added excitement will motivate me to push a little harder.

Less than 5 months away. It will be here before we know it.

But the dining plan is FREE. There is no cost besides the requirment to buy 2 days worth of park tickets. I booked my room, 4 nights at All Stars Music, 2 days of park tickets which I had planned on purchasing any way, and that wasy the total. Got the dining plan for free. I could have used the room discount for one day but only one day fell in the window.

Now I know that you can book park tickets through Run Disney and get a three day pass with hopper for 30% off. But if you're not planning on doing that, why would you not get the FREE dining?? Am I missing something?

 

[RunDisney Crazy]

[Anyone else picked out their colors of the magic bands yet? This will be our first trip with them.[/QUOTE]

I went with Red in January, gonna switch up this October. Word of advice, where it with the Mickey emblem on bottom of writst. Much easier to touch the pads.

 

[ksloane]

But the dining plan is FREE. There is no cost besides the requirment to buy 2 days worth of park tickets. I booked my room, 4 nights at All Stars Music, 2 days of park tickets which I had planned on purchasing any way, and that wasy the total. Got the dining plan for free. I could have used the room discount for one day but only one day fell in the window.

Now I know that you can book park tickets through Run Disney and get a three day pass with hopper for 30% off. But if you're not planning on doing that, why would you not get the FREE dining?? Am I missing something?

Don't know about the previous poster, but when I did the math for us with the RunDisney discount on rooms and tickets, it was going to save us more than what free dining savings was. By my math we'd have saved $100-$200 to have used RunDisney discounts.

 

[RunDisney Crazy]

The park ticket discount from Run Disney was great. Unfortunately they won't let you use that discount and the Free Dining plan. Where are you staying, which resort? I know they had room discounts for Port Orleans and Carribean, but I think the rates for the All Star resorts and Pop was standard rack rates, right?

If not, then oh boy, I'll have to start looking and pricing again.

 

[ksloane]

That's part of the difference for us. We would have stayed at POR with RunDisney and we're staying at Pop for free dining.

 

[RunDisney Crazy]

Ahh, my bad, thought you had booked through Run Disney. Yeah, I was really hoping you could combine two offers but knew better. We just decided to do the value resort and save money there and with the free dining, just couldn't pass up. Actually didn't need 3 days of tickets or the hopper and actually save 50 just going with standard 2 days. There was no availability for checkig in on the 3rd so had to go with the 2nd, but after calling several times, lucky I just was able to grab an open spot and changed reservations to check in on the 3rd about 15 minutes ago. Whewwww.

Sounds like a good running group. First Disney Race?
My wife and I just ran in the Marathon in January, I did the Dopey and she did the 10k and Full.

FAIR WARNING...... It's going to be hard to run other races and look at them the same after the Run Disney races. Just so cool to run through the parks early morning and everything is superb. Then to run at night, can't wait! Good luck.

 

[Waiting2goback]

But the dining plan is FREE. There is no cost besides the requirment to buy 2 days worth of park tickets. I booked my room, 4 nights at All Stars Music, 2 days of park tickets which I had planned on purchasing any way, and that wasy the total. Got the dining plan for free. I could have used the room discount for one day but only one day fell in the window.

Now I know that you can book park tickets through Run Disney and get a three day pass with hopper for 30% off. But if you're not planning on doing that, why would you not get the FREE dining?? Am I missing something?

I went August of 2013. At the time, if I remember correctly now, if you get the free dining you pay full price for the room. So, I chose to just do the room discount and buy my food. When I added up my food costs (not including while I was traveling to Disney) I added it to my room cost and it came out less than the package would have cost me.

Do they now give you the discounted room price AND free dining? I have never seen that.

I don't understand why people are saying you can't get the free dining and the discounted park tickets. You buy the park tickets through a different website. I could have bought them right after I registered and have them already. How would they know if I then registered for my room on Disney's website with free dining?

Here is my other take on it. First of all, the last 2 times I went I CONSTANTLY got stuck behind people at counter service in line having issues figuring out the dining plan. Seemed like a pain in the butt.

Disney is making money on the dining plan. If they weren't they wouldn't do it. They wouldn't lose money on millions of dining plans year after year. Just that fact alone makes me believe I can do it myself cheaper.

Now I am going to go crunch my numbers again and see if the free dining will be cheaper. I don't think it will but I will feel better if I look into it.

 

[RunDisney Crazy]

No, you're right, you either have to chose the room discount or the free dining, can't do both. But the room discounts end on 10-3. The difference with the free dining is as long as your check in date is 10-3 or earlier, you receive the free dining. So we check in on the 3rd. I would have only received a room discount on that one night eventhough I will be there four nights, only the 3rd fall into that window. But with the free dining, since we are checking in on the 3rd, we get it for all four days. So that's why it was cheaper for us.

As far as not being able to buy the tickets separately, in order to get the free dining, you have to book the room with at least 2 days of park tickets. So, if you needed more than two day, yeah, you could get the 2 days through them and the free dining and then buy other tickets at a discount, but we only needed the two.

So for us, it was a matter of booking 4 nights and receiving a discount for just one night with two days of tickets. Or book 4 nights, two days of tickets and free dining for 4 days.


Before this I was totally like you. I thought it was a scam and a waste of my time. But since it went hand in hand with our trip and basically I missed out saving $22 with the room discount to saving probably close to $200 with the free dining.

 

[Waiting2goback]

OK, so I checked my numbers. Here is what I have:


$328.60- Standard room AS Sports
159.75-$184.25- park tickets.
---------
$488.35-512.85 for room and tickets

The only rooms available at the AS with dining package are preferred and that price is $746.17. That leaves me with $233.32 for food.

In August I averaged $10 for breakfast, $15 for lunches, and $20 for dinners as I only did one sit down. Everything else was counter service. That will bring me to $135 for food, roughly. So, I will save around $100-$120 depending on what ticket I buy. Not sure if I am doing 2 day hopper or 3 day basic. Either jam everything in 2 days and relax race day or take it easy all 3 days.

I actually found I spent more money on water bottles last August than anything. This time I think I will bring a reusable Brita bottle. I should be able to get it on the plane if its empty, right?

I didn't book through runDisney because I didn't think their discounts were that great so I exercised some patience, something I am not normally good at. It only saved me $11 but better than nothing.

RunDisney Crazy- I am afraid I will get addicted to these races. I just think it will be so much fun.

As for your last post, which I think you posted as I was typing. I might be wrong but I think the room discount applies for all the night I am there because I checked in while it applied. I am paying $78, $96, and $118. I think that was how it was broken down. 2 of the nights are discounted for the special and I think the third night is only more because it is a weekend but I could be mistaken.