WDW Round Two: Wine & dine 'til you drop!

[bluetenshi55]

We're about a month out from our SECOND trip of the year. I'm so excited I just had to do a PTR.

About Us

We're not competitive at all.

Me
By day, I'm a mild mannered technology librarian, but by night I'm the Disney World vacation super-duper planner. My grandparents started taking my parents as soon as WDW opened and returned pretty much every year depsite the 24 hour drive from Michigan. I was going to Disney before I could walk! Seriously, there are videos!

Our trips were massive family affairs, I'm talking 20+ people and we've stayed in all the Value & Moderate resorts, though my Grandpa liked to stay in Fort Wilderness so he could get his golf cart. My last trip with the family was 2004, the Spring Break before I graduate. Not only did my mom's side of the family come, but my dad's tagged along too. There are pictures out there of us in some ugly family t-shirts that sadly got badly stained right after said pictures.

DH
DH is an interesting character. He's a freelance technology and video game writer/journalist and wasn't lucky enough to grow up in a crazy family like mine.

His first trip to Disney World with me in 2012. He was skeptical about the whole Disney vacation idea, having had some disastrous trips to Disneyland. We ended up going during the Food & Wine Festival and suprise suprise, HE LOVED IT!: He went to his first character meal and got his first picture with Mickey last trip!

Heck, he even bought a fancy camera to take better pictures this time!

 

[bluetenshi55]

I just love ToC... They make it so easy to find things!

Introductions
The Why & How
The Master Plan

• The Preplanning & Budgeting
• Storming the Parks
• Eating ourselves silly

 

[bluetenshi55]

Let me start with the fact that we live out on the West Coast about 5 hours from Disneyland. Despite the driveable distance, we choose Disney World both times this year for three big reason:

• More to do.
• It's cheaper.
• Driving to LA *shivers*.

I plan all of our vacations and I'm normally very good at it if I do say so myself. Except last year... We made the mistake of taking a 7 day Carnival cruise. NEVER AGAIN. The food was awful (except the Steakhouse, which you paid extra for), the room smelled, and it just wasn't fun OR relaxing. Neither of us were able to "recharge" during that vacation and started the new year on a low.

That is until I got a magical email about a very good Disney World deal. We talked it over and decided that we could afford to go in January and that we'd take a different trip in the fall.

That was the plan until we saw the Bounceback deal for our preferred vacation time at WDW (end of October/beginning of November). I believe it was 35% off Deluxe Resorts. It only took showing DH this deal to get him to agree to go back to Disney during the fall. At this point we were lucky to be stable and had no big purchase plans in our future *insert ominious music here*.

It's been a dream of mine to stay in a Savannah view room at the AKL. My husband's favorite park is AK, so getting a room there was a Win-Win. I called one morining and they had a CLUB LEVEL ROOM! WOOHOO!

Overall it would cost us more, but the deal was great. BOOKED!

Remember that ominious music? DH & I have been living in some fairly not nice apartments since moving out here in 2011. We had decided to start looking at houses after we found out that DH qualified for the VA loans, figuring that we'd be able to buy in 2015. Our realtor was just too good and found us our perfect home in a month.

This is where some decisions started to come into play, ones that I was pretty afraid of making. We'd already paid for most of the room, our tickets, and our plane tickets, but we really wanted the house. We needed the space & our dogs deserved a "poopin' yard."

DH decided that we should go for it. We had the opportunity and had been working very hard to save money for a while. He's working hard at multuple jobs so we can have the life he didn't have as a kid. That's why I love him. He balances out my worry-nature fairly well.

We have to tighten up else where for a few years, but we are able to take our dream vacation!

We moved into our first house in June, then found out that the pool needed some major work. The first quote was $10,000 and cancelling the Disney vacation seemed like it was going to have to happen. Once again our Fairy Godmother of a realtor came to our rescue. Turns out that guy, despite being recommended by a co-worker, is a shyster and we got another quote for 1/2 that amount by a great company AND found out that we could put it off to save up for it. No pool parties for a while.

I realize how lucky we are to be able to do all of this in a year and want to thank whatever higher power is currently smiling on us.

 

[bluetenshi55]

I have to admit it, I LOVE SPREADSHEETS. Pretty much make them for anything that could possible need them and like to pretty-fy them too!

When I'm planning I take a look at alot of things when deciding what's the best deal. WDW tends to have similar discounts at similar times over the year. I've created a spreadsheet for the time when we normally go, taking all possible those discounts & added in all the estimated extras (including dining) to compare the results.

Here is an example for this trip. Not shown, all the dining calcuations.

It may be overkill, but I like to know how much money we're going to spend. I actually started this one after our trip in 2012 and updated it when we found out the bounceback in January. It helps me plan a household budget with a vacation spot!

After we decided on our plan of action, Animal Kingdom Lodge Club Level & Dining OOP, I decided to do a more realistic dining estimate. The first one had been planned using the DDP, which is WAY more food than my husband and I comfortable eat.

Because we're staying Club Level, I decided to leave most breakfasts and lunches out because we will most likely eat snacks for lunch or share a meal.

If anyone is actually interested in the Budgeting Spreadsheets, please PM me. I'm always happy to share. I even did a few for a friend that is going.

On a total sidenote: I have a BA in Information Technoloy and a Masters in Information and Library Science. I've taken a LOT of classes over the years. The one that I found the most helpful for real life? Accounting. Even if you just take a basic course, it's great for helping you learn how to handle a household budget. If you're ever thinking about going into business for yourself, it's priceless.

 

[bluetenshi55]

We arrive later in the day and decided not to plan anything for that night. Sometimes it sucks coming in from the West Coast. You lose a lot of Disney hours that way.

I have a handy dandy spreadsheet for planning the park day. Here's a screenshot. I did take out all the reservation information, but it's really handy to have in case the app goes down or the WIFI is spotty. I download it as a PDF on my phone.

Epcot is a two-dayer for us even if there isn't the Food and Wine Festival going on. DH also asked for a "rest day". I interpreted that as a Downtown Disney shopping day!

 

[bluetenshi55]

Honestly, the food at Disney World has also been one of the most memorable for me. Food was a big part of my family life growing up and still is a big part today. DH always tells me that I've ruined him since he now knows what good food tastes like.

Disney rarely disappoints us, though we do sometimes have meal envy. We're not going there this time, but if you go to Kona Cafe at dinner... GET THE PORK CHOP. I dislike most pork, but the pork chop there is just great. It's one of the few times I've had meal envy!

Our plan for this trip was to hit up places we've never gone before or in my case, haven't gone since trips with my family. We're also staying Club Level, so I tried to take that into account with breakfasts and snacks.

One thing DH doesn't like about Disney is all the pre-planning you have to do getting ADRs and FastPasses. He feels it leaves little room for spontaneity. I'm a planner (and THE planner for our trips) and I love it. Before, you never know if you could get into a place to eat or get on a ride OR you had to race through the park to get to a ride. I do think there are things they could fix, but for the most part it works well for me.

However, I did leave some open times and ADR-less meals to please the DH.

October 28th

D: Mara and club level snacks (I REALLY want to get my hands on some Zebra domes. Last time we bought Amarula, DH used it all. I do like it in the dessert so much.)

October 29th (Epcot)

B: Club Lounge

L: Food & Wine Festival (I have a list of foods and drinks I want to try this time. I'm allergic to peppers, which does put a damper on some things. If I can pick them off, I'm normally fine! DH is a bit sad about not being able to get larger beers at the booths anymore.)

D: Biergarten Restaurant (I have a friend who didn't like WDW, but after hearing me rave about it for a while, she dedcided to go wtih he DH & DD(at the time 5). They LOVED it. It is very different to see Disney with a kid. This time they worked with us so we could overlap. We're going to be hitting Biergarten together and working our way though the German food!)

October 30th (Animal Kingdom)

B: Sunrise Safari (So excited we got this before it ends! It seems like Disney is closing a lot of their tours. Hopefuly awesome new ones will pop up!)

L: Up for grabs, but most likely Flame Tree BBQ (I just saw the price of the chicken and rib combo like skyrocketed. We normally share that.)

D: Artist Point (Sadly, I don't think the bacon app that was there last year and early this year will be back. I really wanted to try it. I think we'll have to try the portobello soup everyone raves about.)

October 31st (Hollywood Studios)

B: Club lounge

L: 50's Prime Time Cafe (MILKSHAKES FOR ALL!)

S: Butterfinger cupcake!

D: Currently undecided. See I'm being flexible! (I'm hoping that we can get some ADRs that day, perhaps in DTD. I know you can't walk up to most places, but we can make ADRs with our fancy phones. I guess it depends on how hungry we'll be.)

November 1st (Resort/DTD)

B: Club lounge

L: Sanaa (I'm intrigued by this resturant. DH & I are slowly discovering Indian food and it looked like a good choice. Plus NAAN! I make some at home and I know it is no where as good as the real thing.)

D: Food trucks (CORNDOG!)

November 2nd (Magic Kingdom)

B: Crystal Palace (before rope drop)

L: Undecided (Really depends on how hungry we are.)

D: The Wave... (This is one I've never been to, but have been curious about. The reviews for a long time seemed to be along the meh route, but they seem to have taken an upswing. Fingers crossed!)

November 3nd (Epcot)

B: Club lounge

L & D: Food and Wine Festival, with a bacon roll thrown in there!

November 4th (Heading Home)

B: Boma (We've had Boma for dinner, so we'd thought we'd try it for breakfast too. Don't have to leave the resort until noonish or later, so we do have time to kill.)