"Wanna go to Disney World?" "Sure!" A budget trip to WDW Dec 2015!

[bluedevilinaz]

Hey guys! Welcome to my first ever WDW Pre-trip report!

The characters of this trip:

Me:

My name is Brett and I'm 28 years old. I've been going to Disney World since I was a kid. I have made many trips but the last one was 19 years ago in October 1996 with my parents during F&W. I have been to Disneyland countless times since then and was even an AP holder. I fell in love with Walt's Original Park. I have dreamed and made fake trips plans for going back to WDW for years but never followed through. Until now that is!


My lovely wife Brittney:

She's 29 years old and had been to WDW once when she was 2. She doesn't remember much from the trip so this is kinda like a first trip for her. She wasn't a big Disney parks fan at first but I successfully converted her! Her first trip to DL we did a commando trip in 2 days and hit a lot of stuff and didn't get to truly enjoy the park as much and she had fun but said next time we were buying AP's. Haha. Even through the craziness of that trip she saw how much I enjoyed the parks and she wound up falling in love with them too!

Next post: How this trip came to be.

 

[bluedevilinaz]

So you're probably asking yourself, "What brought about the title?" Well I'll tell you.

Brittney and I have been talking about going to Disney World since we got married just over 3 years ago but just never had the money to go. When Disney announced that the Osbourne Lights were going away after this year I knew we had to find a way to get there! Both of us have wanted to go see them since we started dream planning our trips.

We looked at prices and were kind of on the fence about it and then a friend of mine who is a travel agent posted about this smokin deal they had going for a family of 4 for 4 nights with park hoppers at All Stars for $1,700. It got me thinking so I reached out to him asking what it would be for just 2 of us to go.

He came back with a really awesome deal so I sent Brittney a text message while she was at work and said "Wanna go to WDW? Here's the cost." I got a reply from her about 2 minutes later that said "Sure! Let's do it!"
This was me when she said that: hahaha

I called up my friend and put the deposit down on the trip and we locked in December 6th through 10th at the All Star resort(not sure which one yet, still waiting on our confirmation email). I couldn't believe it was really happening! Next step we have is to book our flights and a rental car for a day as we are also going to see my grandmother while we're out there.

 

[bluedevilinaz]

Table of Contents:

Who we are

How this trip came about

Tentative plans

Firmed up plans

 

[bluedevilinaz]

We just got our confirmation email! We will be staying at the All Star Sports in a preferred room from December 6th through 10th!

This is both of our first times staying on property so I'm excited to see how that works out. When my family would go we always stayed at my parents time share off property and drove to WDW. Tonight we're going to sit down and start planning out what parks we're doing which days, what rides we want to do FP+ on, and what, if any, ADR's we want to make.

Here is the tentative plan:

12/5
Fly into MCO from Dallas in the evening, pick up a rental car and drive to The Villages to grab a hotel for the night.

12/6
Spend a half day with my grandparents then drive down to see a friend of our who's live just outside WDW.
Drop the rental car at the airport and take DME to All Star Sports
Spend an evening in one of the parks(probably DHS) or at DTD and riding the monorail around to the resorts
If we hit DHS, get FP for ToT at night and possibly RnR

12/7
RD at MK, see the stuff that's not at DL/different from DL
Come back to the resort mid day and take a nap
Spend the evening at Epcot
FP+ ideas:
MK: Space Mtn, SDMT
Epcot: Test Track at Night


12/8
Possible Breakfast ADR at Kona
RD at AK
Come back to the resort mid day and take a nap
Late Afternoon/Evening at DHS

FP+: AK: EE, Safari DHS: RnR, Tot (if avail after using RnR)

12/9
Full day at Epcot
Come back to the resort mid day and take a nap
FP+: Mission Space, Test Track, Soarin'

12/10
Either do a park or DTD/monorail resort tour depending on if we use a day on Dec. 6th
Check out, Take DME to airport and fly home in the evening

So that's our tentative plan for the trip. I may look into adding a 5th day on the park hoppers if it's not too expensive.

Any suggestions on must do restaurants's for a couple of foodies that is not over ~$30pp? We'll mainly be doing our meals at the food court. Also, any suggestions on what rides/shows are must do's? I haven't been in ~19 years and my wife hasn't been in ~27 years so we are basically newbies to WDW. All feedback/ideas are welcome!

 

[MICKEY88]

We just got our confirmation email! We will be staying at the All Star Sports in a preferred room from December 6th through 10th!

This is both of our first times staying on property so I'm excited to see how that works out. When my family would go we always stayed at my parents time share off property and drove to WDW. Tonight we're going to sit down and start planning out what parks we're doing which days, what rides we want to do FP+ on, and what, if any, ADR's we want to make.

Here is the tentative plan:

12/5
Fly into MCO from Dallas in the evening, pick up a rental car and drive to The Villages to grab a hotel for the night.

12/6
Spend a half day with my grandparents then drive down to see a friend of our who's live just outside WDW.
Drop the rental car at the airport and take DME to All Star Sports
Spend an evening in one of the parks(probably DHS) or at DTD and riding the monorail around to the resorts
If we hit DHS, get FP for ToT at night and possibly RnR

12/7
RD at MK, see the stuff that's not at DL/different from DL
Come back to the resort mid day and take a nap
Spend the evening at Epcot
FP+ ideas:
MK: Space Mtn, SDMT
Epcot: Test Track at Night


12/8
Possible Breakfast ADR at Kona
RD at AK
Come back to the resort mid day and take a nap
Late Afternoon/Evening at DHS

FP+: AK: EE, Safari DHS: RnR, Tot (if avail after using RnR)

12/9
Full day at Epcot
Come back to the resort mid day and take a nap
FP+: Mission Space, Test Track, Soarin'

12/10
Either do a park or DTD/monorail resort tour depending on if we use a day on Dec. 6th
Check out, Take DME to airport and fly home in the evening

So that's our tentative plan for the trip. I may look into adding a 5th day on the park hoppers if it's not too expensive.

Any suggestions on must do restaurants's for a couple of foodies that is not over ~$30pp? We'll mainly be doing our meals at the food court. Also, any suggestions on what rides/shows are must do's? I haven't been in ~19 years and my wife hasn't been in ~27 years so we are basically newbies to WDW. All feedback/ideas are welcome!

I think Pirates is a must do ride.. it's even better if you ride it with The Pyrate

 

[bluedevilinaz]

I think Pirates is a must do ride.. it's even better if you ride it with The Pyrate

Oh absolutely! If you'll be there let's make it happen!

 

[bluedevilinaz]

We've spent the last few days deliberating over flights. Do we book a later direct flight out to Orlando or do we arrive a bit earlier but have to change planes somewhere and save some money? Well, saving money won out on that decision and we chose the earlier flight out to Orlando! Yay extra spending money!

On the way back we opted for the later, albeit more expensive, direct flight because we both knew that after spending 4 days in the parks we'd be wiped out. We were going to head home super early on our last day initially but after pricing out an extra day's worth of tickets and it only adding $50 TOTAL(including the additional cost of the later direct flight) to the trip we decided to opt in for a 5th day of hoppers and the later flight! WOO! Bonus park time! haha. We are flying Southwest Airlines since bags fly free and their policy for "persons of size" is much more accommodating than any other airline*cough*spiritandjetblue*cough*!

For those of you who don't know me, I have been struggling with my weight for many years and I just recently tipped the 500lb mark on the scale. It was a rude awakening for me. When we locked in this trip I committed to losing at least 50lbs by the time we leave. Now, I know that sounds like a LOT of weight, but if you think about it, it's only 10% of my body weight. I am going to be doing DDP Yoga to get the weight off. I have done it before and it works really well for me! This time I will be sticking to doing it though! I have to or things could go really bad really fast.

The biggest reason I struggle with my weight currently is due to my job. I work in a call center where I am tethered to a computer for 8 hours a day. Until recently, I didn't really have the opportunity to get up and move around a lot. Since I got promoted last month to a position where I'm off the phones more I've been able to get up and walk around more and I am noticing a difference but it's not enough. My goal is to be able to walk around the parks without needing to stop and rest as much as I have to now walking around the local mall.

Anyways, enough about that. Back to the PTR! I had a friend look over my trip plan and they pointed out I didn't have a night at MK planned! How on earth did I forget THAT?! So I have gone ahead and changed that!

Here's the updated plan for the trip:

12/5
Arrive at MCO at around 5pm, pick up our rental car and drive to The Villages to grab a hotel for the night and Spend some time that evening with my grandparents.

12/6
Spend a half day with my grandparents, then drive down to see a friend of our who's live just outside WDW.
Drop the rental car at the airport and take DME to All Star Sports to check in.
Spend an evening at MK so we can see Wishes and New Fantasyland
FP+ MK: Space Mtn, SDMT

12/7
Possible Breakfast ADR at Kona(I HAVE to try the Tonga Toast!)
RD at MK, see the stuff that we missed the night before and is not at DL/different from DL
Come back to the resort mid day and take a nap
Spend the evening at Epcot
FP+ ideas:
MK: Space Mtn, SDMT
Epcot: Test Track at Night


12/8
RD at AK
Come back to the resort mid day and take a nap
Late Afternoon/Evening at DHS

FP+: AK: EE, Safari DHS: RnR, Tot (if avail after using RnR)

12/9
Full day at Epcot
Come back to the resort mid-day and take a nap
FP+: Mission Space, Test Track, Soarin'

12/10
Spend the morning/afternoon in a park or 2
Check out, Take DME to airport and catch our flight out. Be home around 9:30pm.

That's our plans so far! Let me know what you think!

 

[bluedevilinaz]

Sorry for the lack of updates guys! My wife's brother Chris got sick right after my last update and things went south really fast. He has been in the hospital for the last month in a medically induced coma and we found out that he is in the terminal stages of what the doctors suspect is pancreatic cancer. As you can imagine this has been devastating to them. Your thoughts and prayers during this trying time would be appreciated. I have also set up a gofundme if anyone is interested in donating: gofund.me/pn8gna2c

This family has welcomed me into their hearts and homes with open arms and made me a part of their family. They are very giving people and give back to the community all the time. Chris was a police officer for a number of years and left to pursue being a security contractor ships in the Middle East and Africa. My wife and I are working 50-60 hour work weeks to pay for the hospital bills and are helping pay her moms rent, cellphone bill, parking at the hospital and gas to and from the hospital. When the inevitable happens, her mom will be moving in with us so we can help her gain a new "normal" so to speak. There's a long road ahead and this trip will be the last trip of any kind we take for a good long while. Unfortunately it's all non-refundable so we can't cancel it now or we'd take the money spent on this trip and put it towards these expenses.

In other happier news, we got our Magic Bands last week! WOO!

I tried it on and had to be on the last 2 holes in the band. Oh the joys of having large wrists. haha. We are officially at 19 days!

I am super excited!