hes122
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2010
Pre-trip
Last summer I contemplated driving to WDW after the parks re-opened to get out of my house for a few days. I didn't actually do it because 1) I wasn't ready to get on a plane yet, 2) it's too far to drive it myself in one shot, and 3) I just couldn't justify spending the $$ when I knew I'd be spending some of the time working for the hotel room.
So fast forward to the end of January when my friend A mentioned that her husband was pushing her to take a trip by herself to get a break from her job as a front-line healthcare worker. She mentioned that she was thinking about Disney. At that point I was about a week out from having my 1st vaccine shot, so I jokingly said something along the lines of twist my arm and I'll come along if you want! She had some dates in mind and so we asked a mutual friend who has been on 2 other trips with us if she wanted to go as well. Unfortunately, she couldn't adjust her work schedule on that short notice so we had to plan without her.
I had been sitting on a discount code from back in December that was still valid so I dug that out and started looking at prices, hotel options, etc. About a week later we finally sat down and got plane tickets and booked our hotel using my discount code. We decided on a split stay- 2 nights at Pop and 2 nights at Coronado Springs (she got the tickets, I got the hotels and then we'd figure out the food once we got there). We had been looking at the Hotwire deals for our dates prior to booking at pretty much only Pirate rooms at Caribbean Beach were showing up and we didn't really want that even though we love the Skyliner. About another week goes by and I just happened to check the Hotwire deals and both Pop and Coronado show up for our dates to the tune of about a $270 savings. I hurried up and booked those, canceled our original reservations and then added the new ones to MDE. I also purchased a Disney GC for the amount of the savings plus what I still owed her so most of our food was already paid for- woohoo!
We had ordered a set of Magic Bands on the original reservation that arrived on 2/13 (so about 9 days after we originally booked). Around the 20th we decided to order another set (because why not) thinking they'd arrive before our 3/3 departure date. Unfortunately that was not the case. The order wasn't confirmed for several days so I called Disney and asked to have them shipped to the resort instead of my house. I got the order confirmation and shipment notification the next day. They arrived in my state relatively quickly, but they sat at one of the USPS facilities for several days without any movement which was frustrating. They ended up arriving at 1:30 on 3/3 and my flight left at 10:00 that morning. So we didn't get to use the 2nd set.
Last summer I contemplated driving to WDW after the parks re-opened to get out of my house for a few days. I didn't actually do it because 1) I wasn't ready to get on a plane yet, 2) it's too far to drive it myself in one shot, and 3) I just couldn't justify spending the $$ when I knew I'd be spending some of the time working for the hotel room.
So fast forward to the end of January when my friend A mentioned that her husband was pushing her to take a trip by herself to get a break from her job as a front-line healthcare worker. She mentioned that she was thinking about Disney. At that point I was about a week out from having my 1st vaccine shot, so I jokingly said something along the lines of twist my arm and I'll come along if you want! She had some dates in mind and so we asked a mutual friend who has been on 2 other trips with us if she wanted to go as well. Unfortunately, she couldn't adjust her work schedule on that short notice so we had to plan without her.
I had been sitting on a discount code from back in December that was still valid so I dug that out and started looking at prices, hotel options, etc. About a week later we finally sat down and got plane tickets and booked our hotel using my discount code. We decided on a split stay- 2 nights at Pop and 2 nights at Coronado Springs (she got the tickets, I got the hotels and then we'd figure out the food once we got there). We had been looking at the Hotwire deals for our dates prior to booking at pretty much only Pirate rooms at Caribbean Beach were showing up and we didn't really want that even though we love the Skyliner. About another week goes by and I just happened to check the Hotwire deals and both Pop and Coronado show up for our dates to the tune of about a $270 savings. I hurried up and booked those, canceled our original reservations and then added the new ones to MDE. I also purchased a Disney GC for the amount of the savings plus what I still owed her so most of our food was already paid for- woohoo!
We had ordered a set of Magic Bands on the original reservation that arrived on 2/13 (so about 9 days after we originally booked). Around the 20th we decided to order another set (because why not) thinking they'd arrive before our 3/3 departure date. Unfortunately that was not the case. The order wasn't confirmed for several days so I called Disney and asked to have them shipped to the resort instead of my house. I got the order confirmation and shipment notification the next day. They arrived in my state relatively quickly, but they sat at one of the USPS facilities for several days without any movement which was frustrating. They ended up arriving at 1:30 on 3/3 and my flight left at 10:00 that morning. So we didn't get to use the 2nd set.
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