tundra1
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2019
- Messages
- 461
This trip report has been 18 months in the making so far. Our last trip to WDW was in December of 1998. At that time, our son was 8 and our daughter was 4. We stayed at the Poly and had an amazing time! That was when the Christmas Parade was still filmed at Magic Kingdom and both of our kids were able to be in it! Hollywood Studios was still MGM, and Mulan was the parade at that park. Disney Springs was still Downtown Disney, Discovery Island was my son's favorite "park", and Animal Kingdom was still very new. We had a truly magical time!
Fast forward to 2018, and for Christmas, I told my son and daughter that we were planning a trip to Walt Disney World followed by a Disney Cruise in January of 2021 to celebrate my husband's and my 35th Wedding Anniversary, and to start saving up for the airfare. At the time, he had three boys, ages 1, 2, and 5. In January of 2021, the youngest would be three, and old enough for the Kids Club on the cruise ship, and we could have some "adult time" alongside the family fun! Meanwhile, my daughter was living in New York City, and this would give her a great opportunity to spend some quality time with her nephews.
So... I started doing my research. I don't like to go anywhere without a little knowledge before hand, and OMG, had things changed at Walt Disney World! There was a whole new language I needed to learn, filled with abbreviations, and places that did not exist in 1998. There were new challenges, and the all inclusive pass that we had back then no longer existed! I had to learn about fast passes, the bus system, Disney Springs, and Hollywood Studios! There were many more resort choices, and thankfully, I discovered the DISboards... Thanks to @chunkymonkey, @Jenny Sanders, @disneyAndi14, @pkondz, @Steppesister, @Lesley Wake, @Newsies, and @kastoney plus many others for all the amazing and helpful information!
In the next 6 months, I started doing my research, planning out our agenda, and waiting for the resort and cruise reservations to open up. I was looking up the best way to set up the vacation (Travel Agent vs. DIY), and had everything pretty much lined up for those opening reservation dates. Then, shortly after my birthday in June, my son informed me that baby number 4 was on the way, and due at the end of February, 2020. While I was very happy for them, I also started thinking about how that would impact our trip to WDW! (I know, selfish on my part, right?) That would put the baby at 11 months come the end of January, and if the baby was like his/her brothers, he/she would already be mobile and NOT wanting to sit in a stroller. That also increased our family travel size from 8 to 9, which decreased our choices for resorts. Plus, a baby would bring a whole new set of needs to accommodate!
So, I had a knee jerk reaction, and decided we had to travel sooner than later. The baby would be much less mobile and less likely to be touching everything at 8 months vs. 11 months. I went back to researching, and found the same cruise offered in November of 2020. I missed the all important booking window for the first day the cruise opened up to new cruisers, but saved the difference in that Charlie would still be two, and his cruise fare was that much less expensive. We would be traveling with an 8 month old and an almost three year old, but really, Charlie would be only 2 weeks shy of his third birthday, so he should be mostly past the terrible twos by then, right????? And, because I did not want to wait a minute longer, I booked the cruise myself through Costco. Up to this point, Costco has been wonderful to work with. I was able to get adjoining rooms and balconies, and although we needed the larger family veranda rooms to accommodate 5 people, overall I think we will appreciate the extra space, and we just went with a lower deck (6) to save about $300.
I had decided on Art of Animation, since it was on the Skyliner, and had a great pool, and two family suites would work well for us. But then I read that the Big Blue Pool was going to be closed during our stay, and our plan was to leave the parks after lunch, go back to the resort, swim with the older boys, and let Charlie and the baby take a nap. Without having that pool, I was not sure I still wanted to stay there.
Then, a miracle happened! I was talking to one of the ER Docs at work about our plans, and being unsure about what to do about the trip with the new baby, and where we should stay to accommodate nap times. He offered to sell me some of his DVC ponts for Bay Lake Tower at the cost he would be paid if he sold his points back to Disney! It really was the answer to so many needs, since we could walk to Magic Kingdom, and the cost was significantly less than the price of getting two rooms at a moderate and half the cost of staying in two rooms at a deluxe. So on the 11 month mark exactly, he reserved a two bedroom villa at BLT for us for four nights prior to the cruise.
To sum it up, by December 11th, I had the cruise reserved, the hotel reserved, and was just waiting for the rest of our details to fall into place. It looked like a "GO" at this point!
Next... here comes the baby!
Fast forward to 2018, and for Christmas, I told my son and daughter that we were planning a trip to Walt Disney World followed by a Disney Cruise in January of 2021 to celebrate my husband's and my 35th Wedding Anniversary, and to start saving up for the airfare. At the time, he had three boys, ages 1, 2, and 5. In January of 2021, the youngest would be three, and old enough for the Kids Club on the cruise ship, and we could have some "adult time" alongside the family fun! Meanwhile, my daughter was living in New York City, and this would give her a great opportunity to spend some quality time with her nephews.
So... I started doing my research. I don't like to go anywhere without a little knowledge before hand, and OMG, had things changed at Walt Disney World! There was a whole new language I needed to learn, filled with abbreviations, and places that did not exist in 1998. There were new challenges, and the all inclusive pass that we had back then no longer existed! I had to learn about fast passes, the bus system, Disney Springs, and Hollywood Studios! There were many more resort choices, and thankfully, I discovered the DISboards... Thanks to @chunkymonkey, @Jenny Sanders, @disneyAndi14, @pkondz, @Steppesister, @Lesley Wake, @Newsies, and @kastoney plus many others for all the amazing and helpful information!
In the next 6 months, I started doing my research, planning out our agenda, and waiting for the resort and cruise reservations to open up. I was looking up the best way to set up the vacation (Travel Agent vs. DIY), and had everything pretty much lined up for those opening reservation dates. Then, shortly after my birthday in June, my son informed me that baby number 4 was on the way, and due at the end of February, 2020. While I was very happy for them, I also started thinking about how that would impact our trip to WDW! (I know, selfish on my part, right?) That would put the baby at 11 months come the end of January, and if the baby was like his/her brothers, he/she would already be mobile and NOT wanting to sit in a stroller. That also increased our family travel size from 8 to 9, which decreased our choices for resorts. Plus, a baby would bring a whole new set of needs to accommodate!
So, I had a knee jerk reaction, and decided we had to travel sooner than later. The baby would be much less mobile and less likely to be touching everything at 8 months vs. 11 months. I went back to researching, and found the same cruise offered in November of 2020. I missed the all important booking window for the first day the cruise opened up to new cruisers, but saved the difference in that Charlie would still be two, and his cruise fare was that much less expensive. We would be traveling with an 8 month old and an almost three year old, but really, Charlie would be only 2 weeks shy of his third birthday, so he should be mostly past the terrible twos by then, right????? And, because I did not want to wait a minute longer, I booked the cruise myself through Costco. Up to this point, Costco has been wonderful to work with. I was able to get adjoining rooms and balconies, and although we needed the larger family veranda rooms to accommodate 5 people, overall I think we will appreciate the extra space, and we just went with a lower deck (6) to save about $300.
I had decided on Art of Animation, since it was on the Skyliner, and had a great pool, and two family suites would work well for us. But then I read that the Big Blue Pool was going to be closed during our stay, and our plan was to leave the parks after lunch, go back to the resort, swim with the older boys, and let Charlie and the baby take a nap. Without having that pool, I was not sure I still wanted to stay there.
Then, a miracle happened! I was talking to one of the ER Docs at work about our plans, and being unsure about what to do about the trip with the new baby, and where we should stay to accommodate nap times. He offered to sell me some of his DVC ponts for Bay Lake Tower at the cost he would be paid if he sold his points back to Disney! It really was the answer to so many needs, since we could walk to Magic Kingdom, and the cost was significantly less than the price of getting two rooms at a moderate and half the cost of staying in two rooms at a deluxe. So on the 11 month mark exactly, he reserved a two bedroom villa at BLT for us for four nights prior to the cruise.
To sum it up, by December 11th, I had the cruise reserved, the hotel reserved, and was just waiting for the rest of our details to fall into place. It looked like a "GO" at this point!
Next... here comes the baby!
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that he qualified to purchase tickets from the Recreation Office on the Navy base. The tickets through the Navy were not only discounted, but they also cost only $9.00 more per ticket to go from Park Hopper to Park Hopper Plus, the tickets had no specific use dates (just an expiration date in 2030), and we did not have to pay taxes on them! Then I read that ticket prices usually go up in early February, so I encouraged my husband to buy our tickets by the end of January.
Sure enough, on February 8th, ticket prices went up, so we did end up saving even a bit more money by him braving the snow!
We were able to get the last four rows of double seats along the windows and on the opposite side of the plane from the bathrooms, so there won't be anyone sitting behind us or walking next to us to worry about spreading their germs, and we could put one adult with one child in each row. I was also able to get the exact same seats on our return flight to O'Hare. Better yet, according to Seat Guru, these seats have extra leg room without paying the premium price, which will be appreciated because we are all rather tall with long legs! 
) 
I talked to my daughter-in-law yesterday. She still wants to go. We are going to try to book Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom on our three days in the parks, and hope that since Epcot is the biggest, they will allow the greatest number of guests, and we can still park hop there if they open that up by then. Maybe they will allow a partial day reservation or something, like you can only show up after 4 pm for people with park hoppers. My hope is that with this new reservation system, they will see that the parks pretty much empty out after a certain hour, and additional people can go in! 
Here's hoping for some pixie dust on Monday!
My son and daughter-in-law really want to go to Remy for dinner one night of the cruise, so that has also been added to the list. 
All those vloggers are sending such mixed messages! 
And the CDC keeps extending the length of time ⏲ before cruises can start up again! And now they are repatriating all the crew members! That can't be good news for people with cruise reservations! 
So... I started looking for another resort for the second half of our trip. 
would be super fun for me and the older kids, it would be so far removed for my son and the two little ones if they needed to go back for a nap and to unwind. So staying somewhere within walking or Skyliner reach of Epcot / Hollywood studios would make the most sense. But, do we go with a large multi-building complex like the Caribbean Beach Resort, or stay somewhere a little more compact like a Yacht Club, Beach Club or Boardwalk Inn? And, I started looking. I knew if I booked through Disney, I could easily cancel the reservations if the cruise was still a go, but if they ended up limiting park attendance to AP's and Resort Guests, I should stay on property before everything was sold out. 
So I called my daughter and daughter-in-law to ask what they thought.
I left off last when things were looking okay. I had plans for WDW followed by a cruise, back up plans for WDW BLT followed by WDW BCV, and dining reservations for both trips. 
Once I was at work, I set up my laptop in the ER Manager's office and logged in. I got the pink castle, and every time I went back to check on its status, the castle was still there. Twice, I had the log in page, and I was able to try to log in, but the system would not accept my password and then it would crash and Stitch 
would eat the page before I could get into the system. I even thought I had messed up my password, so I changed it, but that was not the problem. Finally, by mid-afternoon, I had 2 of the three parks booked, and by the time I left work, all 3 parks were reserved. 
Well, let me tell you! 
I could not make any park plans nor could I link my son's room reservation with mine. I had to call the WDW tech line for help. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity (it was really only about an hour and a half, but I made it through the music track a few times!), a very nice CM named Thad spent another hour and 40 minutes with me on the phone, trying to straighten everything out. Finally, except for losing the Disney character icons attached to a few of our names, we are all set.
Yesterday, the CDC pushed back the date for cruise ships to sail by another 2 weeks, so now, no cruises can sail before September 30th. That only gives us 6 weeks before we board for the cruise lines to get up and running. And, they have not released the 2021 fall cruises yet for us to at least hold a spot on the same cruise next year. I just want to know if we are actually going to sail or not, so I can sort out our plans officially.
