We are going in March!!!

[justgeorgi]

Jordan Pre Trip Report!

Wendy (writer/planner)37
David (husband, luggage carrier) 38

We have been to Walt Disney World too many times to count. We have also been to Disneyland and Parc' Disneyland in France. We have camped, stayed on site and off site.

Planning:
My girlfriends and I had talked about a girls only trip to Disney in January or February of 2010. Unfortunately one is about to be a grandma, one is pregnant with her 7th baby and one is about to move to open a new business so after pouting for 5 minutes I decided...hmmmm maybe I'll go with a BOY! Gasp! After almost 19 years of marriage I think the fear of cooties has worn off...mostly I was at work so I gave David a quick call and suggested the trip. He is just as much a Disney fan as I so he didn't even think about it, he just said OK! (Then something like "Gee thanks for thinking of me!) I ignored that part and got to planning.

I picked March 23-27th because I design hair and makeup for theater and had a show scheduled. I also do hair and makeup for beauty pageants and had a couple of pageants scheduled so my weekends were limited.

I did some research on where we would stay. Normally on budget/short trips like this we stay off site and rent a car. We didn't want to rent a car and started looking for decent places that offered a shuttle service daily but afraid of the horror stories we had heard we played around with staying on site. Our budget is limited for this trip and we wanted the most bang for our buck obviously. After some searching I found out that the Downtown Disney hotels had some great deals. We don't need much....maybe a bed and a coffeemaker? We booked the newly refurbished Holiday Inn in Downtown Disney for $74 a night. WHOO HOO! They reopen in Feb 2010. Sounded perfect. They offer their own shuttle/bus and we knew we could use Disney transportation to park hop, dine, etc. We prefer being on property if we can afford it, we don't need a fancy hotel to get the Disney "experience" because we are PARK people! But we love the "feel" of being in a magical place and knew this would give us what we wanted.

NOW the dilemma. Our daughter is 17. She is spending her senior year in a special internship with a professional theater company and because she only got a 1 week break in December there was never a question that she would have to stay home for this trip. (She wasn't originally invited on the girls only (adult) trip so I just assumed she would stay home with Dad. Now that Daddy will be going on the trip...what to do?? She has to be driven to the internship each morning and either take a bus back or get picked up because she doesn't have a license. This was rectified recently though thank goodness (and Gramma gave her a car too!) BUT did we want to leave her home alone for 4 nights? She has NEVER stayed home alone....plus we have 3 dogs, 2 cats and a guinea pig. Could she handle this responsibility?

Well we talked it through. She had options...her boyfriends mother offered to let her stay in her daughter's bedroom (she is away at college) and this looked promising as her boyfriend is also in an internship at the theater and they could just drive in and out each day together. Surprisingly she WANTS to stay home alone...her theory is that she is at the theater at LEAST 9-5 every day and would just come home, let out the dogs, feed all the animals and watch tv until bedtime anyway. If she stays at her boyfriends that means we need to board the dogs and she will have to come back to feed the guinea pig and cats anyway....so she will be staying home alone.
I'm ok. Really. (Who am I kidding, I'm freaking out!)

So thats settled...now I can plan!

WAIT a second...whats this? Disney is offering a deal that if you stay 5 nights on property you get PAID with a Disney Gift Card? I checked this out! It wasn't a rumor, its true! Disney is going to PAY ME? Hold on...time to do a cost comparison!

Since we originally planned to stay 4 nights from Tuesday-Saturday and we weren’t planning to rent a car we had to weigh the additional night and Mears shuttle fee against 5 nights on property. Well we discovered that by adding the night, cancelling Mears and booking All Star Music we actually will MAKE over $100 with the gift card. NICE. Consider us booked.
Now the plan is to stay March 22-27th. 5 glorious nights. YES! Pop Century is our favorite value resort. We have stayed at All Star as well (Sports a few times and movies a few times) but All Star Music gave us the lowest price (not sure why.) We have always wanted to stay in the Broadway building because lets face it….theater is our favorite pastime. I plan to request the Broadway building as it gets closer….but I’m not terribly concerned if we can’t stay in it.

Ok…now time to book flights right? Because we live in Upstate NY we have several options on flying. We aren’t opposed to driving a few hours to get a great deal either. BUT…because I will work an overnight shift on Sunday and we plan to fly out on Monday I didn’t want to have to use 22 hours of vacation time that will be needed over the summer. I’d rather fly out locally. Well actually I’d rather get a deal on flights but I digress ! I chose to fly out locally and worked it out that I would just leave at 7am to take my 9:25 am flight. (I will be packed and ready to go, hubby will just drop me at work on Sunday and pick me up on Monday!) Our flight arrives at MCO at 2:20 and we have Magical Express planned.

MGM (I know they renamed it ….I prefer to call it MGM) is having evening Extra Magic Hours…so after checking in we plan to head there!

DINING
Well since Disney is giving us $300 when we check in and because we want as MUCH time for the parks as possible we have decided to do counter service for dinners and to bring breakfasts and lunches with us. We made ADR’s for Kona Café for breakfast and dinner at Cape May but other than that we will just do counter service for dinner. We LOVE World Showcase and like to share treats as we walk it…so that will be dinner those nights Breakfast and lunch are simple for us. We will eat breakfast bars and fruit for breakfast and pick up coffee on the way to the bus. I plan to pack things for lunch to bring with us. PB & J, fruit, packaged snacks, etc. We can pick up bottled water in the parks. This has generally been what we have done on all of our trips since our daughter was 18 months old. We don’t like to leave a park or a ride for an ADR. We have done it a few times but it seemed like we spent all our time scheduling around our dining.
I’ve checked the Extra Magic Hours schedules and decided for the first time to really try and make the early morning entry and stay late. I generally do not plan on this because we almost always go to the parks with friends and family in large groups and not everyone stays on property. Plus we don’t like the crowds that happen in the morning after the parks open to the public. With just two Disney veterans on this trip we won’t worry about the crowds. It’s so much easier to go with the flow when its just the two of us!
I purchased a bunch of travel sized hygiene items, pre-cut my moleskin and pulled my sunscreen out of the bathroom cabinet. I took our Disney jackets and backpacks out of storage and put sunglasses and all the stuff we need all together in our guest room. Just have to pack clothes!
We won’t even have to pay for parking because my Nana will drop us off at the airport and our daughter will pick us up!

Now the countdown begins! March can’t get here fast enough!

 

[MainStMandy]

Hi fellow Upstater!!! Your trip sounds great!!! We are going in March too, a little earlier. Hopefully you won't have much crowds!! Can't wait to read more!