WWYD? offered free upgrade

[Davidsmommy]

We leave for the airport in 1 1/2 hours! Can't wait! One night at Pop and we check into SSR Sunday!

 

[lyzziesmom]

Spirit just called to say that our flight next Sat. has been cancelled.
We were able to get on a flight that leaves the day before our scheduled package starts. Now to find a room for the night. I'd like to get a Disney room and then still be able to use ME to get from the airport.
I have a headache and need some chocolate.

Did somebody say chocolate? How's this?

I can't believe they cancelled your flight this close to it, and just now told you! It's a good thing you answered the phone... I have a bad habit of not answering when I don't know who it is, and then I sometimes forget to listen to the voicemail. I hope they didn't charge you to change your flight! After all, it was their fault that you had to. Good luck with finding a room for the night before your package. Maybe something will be open at a value. If not, maybe you could get something close to the airport and then just pick a flight to tell ME you're coming in on that's close to the time you want to go to WDW on Saturday morning, and you should still be able to use it. You'd have to get your own luggage though of course. I've heard of people doing it that way but have never tried it myself, you might want to check the transportation board.

Look at it this way... at least you get to extend your vacation for one day!

 

[M2DD's]

Hey you took the word out of my mouth
I was also going to say the same thing Lizzymom said.You have your ME packet and that allows you round trip ride.You do have to call and give them a time so pick any flight number that gets in that day. I think but I'm not sure there is an hotel attached to the airport or gives free shuttle to one that is close to MCO. Let us know what you end up doing. I think it may be hard to find something on disney thats not booked up or costing alot.What time is your flight in.If its a night flight and you don't have small kids you could hang out at the airport for a couple of hours.Maybe take a nap in one of the chairs.(I've seen this done alot)I'm just throwing out some options.
Laura

 

[blessdmommy]

Look at it this way... at least you get to extend your vacation for one day!

That's what my husband said.

Thanks for the chocolate. I needed that!

I answered the phone because callerID said Spirit Airlines, otherwise I'm not prone to answering the phone unless I know who it is either.

Well they didn't charge us anything extra to change our flight which will arrive 2p on Friday. They offered us several flights to choose from so that was good.

I've been all over the web the last few hours looking at expedia, travelocity, hotel.com I've spoken with Disney Reservations about a room-only reservation, which is still a possibility at full rack rate. I've also ran numbers on combining a hotel + car option for one night. It is giving my type A personality fits. I like things well organized and no surprises.

So I guess either we'll stay at an airport hotel with shuttle then take ME to OKW, or we'll get a hotel + car and drive ourselves to OKW, or we'll stay onsite with a new ME pickup for one day earlier. Gotta go stress somemore.....


Thanks for the sympathy ladies. I knew I could get a pick-me-up by chatting with you.

 

[dreamn_Disney]

Glad to see from some other posts that I am not the only one who cleans the house up extra nice before a vacation. I just am always so tired when we get back and do not want to come home and clean. I love to walk in to a nice clean house and just collapse.
We leave tomorrow for a night at a hotel near the airport then Mon at 10:30 we will be in Orlando. Ya SSR here we come.
I hope everyone has a safe trip and lots of magical moments.

 

[joyerbides]

I haven't been on all weekend, too busy trying to get everything done before we leave on Friday Who's left? I'll be here probably until Thursday night. We leave early on Friday, well, kind of early around 9:00 am for our flight out of Detroit at 12:05 pm. (We live an hour away from Detroit).

 

[blessdmommy]

I haven't been on all weekend, too busy trying to get everything done before we leave on Friday Who's left? I'll be here probably until Thursday night. We leave early on Friday, well, kind of early around 9:00 am for our flight out of Detroit at 12:05 pm. (We live an hour away from Detroit).

Well since Spirit cancelled our flight and rebooked us out on Friday, we will be at DTW on Friday also. Our flight leaves at 11:20a. I haven't exactly figured out what we will do for that first night but I'm less stressed now than I was when they called and surprised me. Definitely not the same feeling as getting an upgrade even though they did offer us vouchers for future travel.

What airline are you taking in?

 

[Xiarra]

Just me asking... but won't spirit help you find lodging if they canceled the flight? Maybe they can get you a discount at a hotel since it is their fault???

Just a suggestion....

Good luck!!!! I sure hope that doesn't happen to us on our trip in September. I too am not good with surprises and when things don't run the way they should!!!!!

 

[M2DD's]

Blessdmommy-What did you decide to do about your first night.Were you able to get a room on disney property or do you have to stay off site?
Lizzymom-How are you I know you usually aren't on the boards on the wkend.I'm usually not unless my DH has hockey on Sunday night.Have you started to pack?

Well we leave in 2 days and I have almost everything packed.Just have to throw in some odds and ends. Can you believe most of us have left I hope everyone is having a great time. I ordered water on friday and they said that it will arrive at OKW today so hopefully they don't mind holding it for me. Other than that I'm just waiting.I have to do some cleaning around the house.
Is there anything that anyone is worried about? For me its the hot weather but mainly that my plane takes off on time and we make our connecting flight (40 min) Anytime on the ground is less time with the mouse
Laura

 

[blessdmommy]

Blessdmommy-What did you decide to do about your first night.Were you able to get a room on disney property or do you have to stay off site?

Looks like we are going to ASMo for that first night! woo hoo
We are paying rack rate but that is ok because we will be at "Woody/Buzz hotel" as my boys call it. They were so happy.

We are still thinking of renting a car from the airport and then driving over to OKW the next day for check-in and after getting a room (hopefully before we have to turn in the car) we can make a grocery run and get a couple of cases of water, Dr. Pepper, etc.

It is all coming together better than I had first feared. Our ride to the airport is good with the change, the dog can go to the kennel a day early, plus lots of other things are making this change more than tolerable. I'm not like I was when they first cancelled our flight.

And, Xiarra, I hadn't thought of asking for room help from the airline. They did offer us 2 flights the same day as our original one but they weren't non-stop and didn't get in until nighttime. I don't know if they would've given us $ towards an earlier day at a hotel or not. It is such a pain to try and speak to someone at the airline that I don't think I'll try that this time. But I will remember your suggestion for the future, if this ever happens again. <crossing fingers that it doesn't>

 

[lyzziesmom]

Hi to everyone who's not at WDW yet! I spent the weekend getting my house cleaned up a bit and catching up on the chores -- yuck, but it had to be done. Now I just have to keep it nice for a few more days. I have to come in to work early tomorrow, so my girls are having a sleepover at my mom's house tonight. Yay, a kid-free night!! You know what I'll be doing... that's right, PACKING! I have everything pretty much ready, I have a huge pile of stuff in the corner of my bedroom floor and my suitcases out of the basement and ready to go, I just have to get everything organized. I am always worried that my luggage will get lost, even though I've flown a ton of times and never lost anything. Once our luggage got delayed because we changed planes and it didn't, but they gave us a loaner suitcase (that they never took back), an overnight toiletries kit and delived the luggage to my grandma's house where we were staying the next morning. So I don't know why I worry about it, but I do! I try to pack a little bit of each person's things in one suitcase just in case, but then it makes it so hard to unpack.

Oops, I'm rambling. Sorry, I'm just so excited! Only FOUR more days to go, I can't believe it's almost here!!

blessdmommy: Xiara had a great suggestion, you should call Spirit and see if they can help you get a hotel discount. Since they gave you a choice of flights, they might not but it never hurts to ask! That's great that they gave you vouchers for future travel too. My last flight was with MidWest and that's the last time I'm straying from SW. They switched my homebound flight from a nonstop to a stop in Milwaukee - going from Orlando to Kansas City, it totally was out of the way! Then our outbound flight was 3 hours late so we didn't get to WDW until 2am, and on the way home our connecting flight from Milwaukee was 3 hours late, and nobody could tell us when or if it was coming. We didn't even leave the airport until midnight, and we had left ASMu at noon! MidWest didn't even apologize or anything, all they did was give us an extra cookie. Big whoop. I was hoping for credit towards future flights because it really inconvenienced us, I had to take 1/2 day off of work the next day and DD had to miss another day of school because we didn't get home until 4am.

So I'll be spending tonight packing and getting all the electronics charged up and rounding up all the little odds & ends, then I'll have three days left to stress out about anything I possibly forgot. You know there's always something!!

 

[lyzziesmom]

Looks like we are going to ASMo for that first night! woo hoo
We are paying rack rate but that is ok because we will be at "Woody/Buzz hotel" as my boys call it. They were so happy.

We are still thinking of renting a car from the airport and then driving over to OKW the next day for check-in and after getting a room (hopefully before we have to turn in the car) we can make a grocery run and get a couple of cases of water, Dr. Pepper, etc.

That's great that you'll be staying onsite! I love ASMo, it's my favorite of the AllStars. It was my first onsite WDW stay, so it holds a special place in my heart. (That sounded really corny, didn't it? But it's true!)

Have you thought about renting from Alamo/National? I think those are the ones that have offices at WDW. You could rent at the airport, and then drop it off onsite the next day so you only have to pay for the rental for one day. At the Car Care Center they will drive you back to your hotel, or at the (I think) Dolphin (or is it Swan? I always get them mixed up) you could just hop a bus from there right to a park. That's a good idea about using the car for groceries since you'll have it anyway.

 

[nanadeb]

I try to pack a little bit of each person's things in one suitcase just in case, but then it makes it so hard to unpack.

Here's a thought that will actually make distributing everyone's clothes in different suitcases easier. Put each person's outfit including underwear and socks into a separate ZipLoc bag. Put one or more days of the whole families clothing in each bag. No matter what suitcase you pull out (or lose!) you still have outfits for at least one day for everyone in the same suitcase. Pack a ZipLoc with one outfit plus a swimsuit in the carry on for use until the bags are delivered to the hotel.
Use the ZipLocs in reverse order for sorted dirty clothes to prevent "suitcase odor." Talk about easy preparaton for wash back home!
Now that's what I call over-organized!

 

[lyzziesmom]

Thanks! I've seen that Ziploc tip before, and I thought it was a great idea so I tried it last year. I really did. It didn't work for me. We pack more tops than bottoms because we rewear shorts or jeans, and I really try to pack as light as possible. Those darn Ziplocs took up more room than just stuffing the kids' undies into the extra shoes, and they were slipping and sliding all over the place and driving me crazy! 3 people x 10 days = 30 Ziploc bags... that's just overkill! I do use Ziplocs for toiletries though, I've had a shampoo bottle burst on the plane before and holy cow, what a mess! So I will use Ziplocs for hair accessories, travel size shampoos, etc. and that seems to work well. For the dirty clothes, we use one suitcase just for dirty clothes and another one for toiletries, souvenirs, stuff we didn't wear and anything else we might be bringing home, so the "suitcase odor" is at least confined to one bag! And I use trash bags from the hotel room to put the dirty stuff in so it doesn't stink up the suitcase too badly.

I can see how the outfits in a Ziploc would work well for larger families with a lot of little kids though. With only 2 kids 6 years apart, it's more trouble than it's worth.

 

[NCardella]

lyzzies mom...we're at ssr in 4 days too!

I haven't packed yet. we're just in tampa and it's a weekend trip for us. Will pack Friday when the kids are in school the ready to drive over when dh gets home.

will look out for your little princess around the resort, we'll stop and say hi!

 

[LauraAnn630]

Originally Posted by lyzziesmom
I try to pack a little bit of each person's things in one suitcase just in case, but then it makes it so hard to unpack.

This is exactly what my in-laws are doing. The last trip to Italy there luggage was lost for 10 DAYS!!

Originally Posted by blessdmommy
Looks like we are going to ASMo for that first night! woo hoo
We are paying rack rate but that is ok because we will be at "Woody/Buzz hotel" as my boys call it. They were so happy.

Im so glad this has worked out for you guys!!

Now my in-laws decided to invite a cousin along! Messed up my ADRS for 2 days!! Will Spoodles let us in with an extra person? What about Chef Mickeys? Ohanas?

I hate when people make changes. If it was so easy, I wouldnt of planned all this 140 days ago!

Will SSR let her park her car there with no ressie?

 

[LauraAnn630]

joyerbides - We leave early on Friday, well, kind of early around 9:00 am for our flight out of Detroit at 12:05 pm. (We live an hour away from Detroit).

We leave late Fri to from Detroit!

 

[lyzziesmom]

Well I got our clothes all packed, but the rest of the stuff is still in a big pile. I'll do that later. I don't know why, but I'm not really feeling a sense of urgency to get it all done. I'm still really excited and can't stop thinking about Disney, but I guess because I've been looking forward to this trip for so long it doesn't really seem "real" yet. It still feels like it's just something exciting to look forward to in the future. Except that future is only 3 1/2 days away!!

 

[cheerforchelsea]

I say take the deal -- not often you get better and don't have to pay any extra!!

 

[extremesoccermom]

I don't really post much here but I have been following this thread closely because DD13 and I will be leaving to tomorrow for our upgraded room at SSR
DD caught a cold last week and just had to share it with me. I have been miserable all weekend. But I did manage to get the house clean (the dog's are shedding like crazy ) Anyway I was able to accomplish that as well as packing.
Right now the only worries I have it that our flight will be on time. I am usually an early morning flyer before things back up. The only 2 times I took later flights they both were late . We are not scheduled to get to WDW until 9:00pm so I really don't want to be much later than we have to be. I also hope I don't get stuck in the Carosel or futher part of the Paddock sections! I am a walker and even power walk everyday but I really don't need to walk that much and we use the refill mugs alot! But I am really excited to be heading to WDW so I guess I will just pack some extra walking shoes.

DD had a great surprise last week when she won $40.00 on a calander lottery that we buy every year. Now she has some decent spending money!

Hope to see some of you there! I have been looking at everyones pictures and prepared my LGMH so that I will hopefully find some of you guys.