Disney by Land & Disney by Sea

[Suzanne033]

Let me set the scene for you: We are sitting in the Orlando International Airport (MCO). The crowd is bustling around as we sit dejectedly wait for our flight after another magical vacation in Walt Disney World.

ACTION!

DD: I wish we didn’t have to leave.
Me: You have finals, Sweetie. Plus we have to go get the dog from the kennel.
DD: I know. (insert frown)
DH: We’ll be back.
DD: (Looks excitedly at DH) Really? When?
DH: Ah… (looks as me nervously for agreement) Maybe next year?
Me: (In 2.6 seconds flat I begin planning a killer Disney vacation with all the accoutrements.)

And so it begins. Time to start planning our next Disney vacation... so many choices, so little vacation time. When should we go? Where should we stay? How are we going to get there? Where should we eat this time? Should we add a Disney Cruise… wait, what?! Hmmm… that sounds nice. Let’s go for it! There began our basis for planning “DISNEY BY LAND & DISNEY BY SEA”.

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In the coming months, 181 days, 8 hours, 57 minutes and 48 second to be exact… not that I am counting, I am going to post my on-going trip report. However, instead of writing the report after we return, I am going to write it starting at the beginning of the planning process. I will post about all of the steps it will take to plan a magical (hopefully) Disney Cruise Line/Walt Disney World vacation.

To start in this post we will discuss the basics of our trip: who, what, when, where and how.

WHO:
Cast:
Myself, 45 - Obsessive Disney planner
Hubby, 46 - Favorite saying: “Whatever you think”
Daughter, 16 - Cross between Snow White, Jennie Finch and Kerri Walsh

Family Bio:
Growing up in Maine, or “Vacationland” as it’s aptly named, my family typically didn’t stray too far from home considering we already lived in a bonafide vacation destination. However, we did take long weekends here and there for quick jaunts to Storyland, Santa’s Village and Six Gun City in New Hampshire or Sturbridge Village and Boston in Massachusetts. In 1986, my parents took my brother and I to Walt Disney World for the first time. Hubby, on the other hand, typically headed east from Indiana with his family for their vacations as a large part of their family lives in Boston. (No, we never crossed paths back then.) His Disney adventures started at Disneyland in the late 1970’s while visiting his aunt in California.

Since we got married we have been ten more times with trips #12 and #13 on the books for 2015. Our past trips have included two Grand Gatherings, one Land/Sea vacation and four trips to AAU Volleyball Nationals at Walt Disney World. The two trips scheduled for this year include another trip to Nationals and this trip I will be detailing over the next six months.

We indoctrinated our daughter into the world of Disney very early. Her first visit to Walt Disney World was at the age of 2 when we joined my family for a Grand Gathering during the week of Christmas 2001. Even prior to her first visit she was a huge fan of Disney, especially Snow White. There was no denying with her raven’s black hair and cherub cheeks that she did bear a striking resemblance to her favorite princess.

WHAT:
We are planning an 8-day Disney vacation. The first part of our adventure will be a 3-day Disney Cruise with stops in Nassau, Bahamas and Castaway Cay, quite literally my favorite place on Earth. This will be our second Disney Cruise. In 2005, we took a four-day Disney Cruise on the Disney Wonder. The second leg of our trip will be a 5-night stay at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge. This will be the first time at have stayed at the Wilderness Lodge. On previous vacations to Walt Disney World we have stayed at Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort, Disney’s Polynesian Resort, Disney’s Beach Club Resort, Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge and Disney’s Boardwalk Inn Resort. While we have been to the Wilderness Lodge to eat at Whispering Canyon Café, we are beyond excited to stay here for the first time.

WHEN:
Disney Cruise Line: November 13 – 16, 2015
Walt Disney World: November 16 – 21, 2015

WHERE:
Disney Cruise Line
Port Canaveral
Nassau, Bahamas
Castaway Cay
Walt Disney World
Disney’s Wilderness Lodge​

HOW:
Picking a ‘HOW’ is always a topic for discussion as we are experienced drivers. We have driven the 16-18 hours to Disney four times and plan to do so again for our trip to Nationals in June. This trip, however, falls during the school year (let the debate begin) so we need a quick mode of transportation. Therefore, we are planning on flying in early on November 13th and taking Disney transportation to port. A decision we will have to make in the near future is if we might actually want to come in the night before. This will get us to port earlier and allow us to make spa appointments earlier.

So that’s where we are right now. In upcoming posts I will discuss why we picked these dates, why we picked Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, booking our Disney Cruise, which stateroom we booked and why, choosing and making our Advanced Dining Reservations and FastPass+ selections, booking cruise excursions, options for paying for our vacation and packing as well as follow-up posts when we return.

I encourage everyone to please follow along as we traverse the trials and tribulations of planning “DISNEY BY LAND & DISNEY BY SEA”.

 

[Suzanne033]

Part 2 - Deciding when to go on our Disney vacation
Part 3 - The '180th Day Massacre' or ADR Day
Part 4 - It's Check In Day
Part 5 - Joining a Fish Extender Exchange and a great time waster while waiting for the cruise
Part 6 - A Resort Change and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party
Part 7 - Counting Down & ADR Scalping
Part 8 - FastPass+ Time

 

[Benchley]

I'm watching. Looking forward to your planning. We've still got 15 months to go.

 

[Zarina]

Always neat to see how your planning will progress. Love trip planning so this is very exciting! Enjoy all the possibilities!

 

[Suzanne033]

Part 2

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It’s been a pretty slow time in planning my family’s Land/Sea adventure since I wrote my first post. This is typically the case when planning any type of Disney vacation. It can be easily summed up as: “Hurry up and wait.”

You hurry to book your vacation when/if the discounts come out, then you wait; you get up bright and early at 6:00am on the 180th day to make your Advanced Dining Reservation, then you wait; you are up early again to book your shore excursion, then you wait; you stay up late to make your FastPass+ selection on the 60th day, then you wait. See a pattern here?

Now that we are all booked and our ADRs are made (sort of, more on that in my next post) we are in one of those dreaded waiting period. So instead of playing Frozen Free Fall until our fingers bleed while we wait (oh, is that just me?), let’s go back in time a little. Let’s go back to our decision on when to make our trek south.

When it comes to booking any type of Disney vacation whether it be by land, by sea or both the very first decision that needs to be made is when to go. Any self-respecting Disney-obsessed vacation planner worth their salt scrutinizes the park hours, holiday & special events schedule, historical weather patterns, school calendar, horoscopes, celestial patterns, stock market trends and the Farmer’s Almanac to find the best times to visit.
We chose November because the weather is cooler, the crowds are low, the school calendar is clear and after the first weekend in November the parks and resorts are decked out in their holiday splendor. An added bonus this year is that we will be there for the last day of Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. Since we weren’t able to get the Advanced Dining Reservation we wanted for our first night in Epcot it looks like we will be taking advantage of some of the infamous outdoor kitchen. Can you say Dole Whip topped with Bacardi® Coconut Rum?

So where did we go to find all this information when deciding when to visit Walt Disney World? Well I can tell you it isn’t an easy task. Sure, we could have paid to go to a website which does the work for you but that’s too easy and takes all the fun out of it.

PARK HOURS

I am not sure why park hours are such a highly guarded secret. The official Walt Disney World website is typically the very last to post hours which is around 190-200 days before check-in. To get around this I check two different place. As is expected when you book your vacation one, two or even three years in advance no one will have hours posted yet. In that case I always check the hours for similar weeks from previous years. EasyWDW.com keeps calendars for a year so you can look back and see what the hours have been historically. The second place I look is the travel agent calendar. This is a raw listing of park hours, Extra Magic Hours and the times of major shows and parades such as Festival of Fantasy Parade, Wishes, Illuminations and Fantasmic!. These hours seem to be released about a month prior to the official hours. The best way to find these documents are to Google “Disney Travel Agent Operating Hours (Month)”. The thing to remember about the travel agent calendar is these times are definitely subject to change and often do. Currently, the travel agent calendar is posted through February 29, 2016 while the official WDW site is only available through the beginning of February, 2016.

It’s only when we are within a month or so if our vacation that we check the Walt Disney World website for the official hours. Last year, when checking these hours we found the several parks had actually increased their hours. Yippee for us!

HOLIDAYS & SPECIAL EVENTS

It goes without saying that if school is on vacation your area of the country Walt Disney World is busy. When are schools on vacation? Holidays and summertime. If you want to avoid crowds stay away from these times of year.

Special events such as the Magic Kingdom holiday parties, Star Wars Weekends and Epcot’s Food & Wine and Flower & Garden Festivals can also have a significant impact on not only your touring plans but when you should visit Walt Disney World.

The Magic Kingdom holiday parties are a great time to head to the Magic Kingdom. The crowds are low and wait times are minimal. We were at Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party last year I never saw the wait time on Space Mountain go over 10 minutes. While the crowds at the parties are quite manageable, the daytime hours are slightly busier because regular guests and party guests with theme park tickets are both at the park. My suggestion is if you do not have a ticket to one of the parties, stay away from the park that day.

Star Wars weekends at Hollywood Studios and the special events at Epcot are a different story, since you do not have to purchase a special ticket to attend it draws not only visitors from around the country, they draw in locals as well, especially those with annual passes.

Another thing to consider, while not a typical special event, is special offer times such as when free dining is offered. Disney is not dumb. They know that fall is typically a low time of year for crowds so what do they do in the fall… offer free dining! Ask anyone who went to Disney last fall how the crowds were when free dining was offered. They will tell you it was surprisingly busy.

WEATHER

Weather.com features a great wrap-up of precipitation and average temperature by month. While January is the coolest month of the year, November isn’t too bad at all with average highs in the upper 70’s, lows in the upper 60’s and low humidity. Being from Northern Indiana and originally Maine, I’ll take those temps over average highs in the 90’s and high humidity any day. When it comes to precipitation I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that June, July and August top the chart with average precipitation of 7.6”, 7.3” and 7.1”, respectively. November, on the other hand, has the lowest average precipitation of the year at 2.2”.

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Another weather-related concern is hurricanes. Charley… Frances… Jeanne… Those names sound familiar? They would if you traveled to the Bahamas on Disney Cruise Line in 2004. These storms wreaked havoc Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay. While Disney Cruise Line is very good at having their ships circumnavigate hurricanes by switching ports and staying out of harm’s way, they can’t just pick up and move Castaway Cay. Nor can they stop the storm surge in the Caribbean which creates high waves and a rough seas.

Hurricane season is officially June 1 – November 30. The chart below, prepared by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), shows that most tropical storms and hurricanes happen in August, September and October. While November is the 5th highest month I will take by chances.

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When it comes to Walt Disney World, their hurricane policy state if a hurricane warning is issued within seven days of your arrival you can reschedule and cancel with no cancellation or change fee as long as you booked through Disney. However, if you book with a special offer such as free dining, you will not get the free dining benefit if you re-book at a different time when free dining is not offered. If your trip dates are flexible and you didn’t book using any special offers then booking during hurricane season won’t be a problem.

SCHOOL CALENDAR

Yes, I know, I am being a bad parent and taking my daughter out of school to go to Disney. However, the options to take her out during a break (Thanksgiving, Christmas & Spring Break – too busy; Summer – we were already there for a volleyball tournament) are not appealing at all. When looking at the school calendar, there are no major school functions and the week we picked is in the middle of a semester and over a month before finals. This will give her plenty of time to catch up on any missed work and prepare for finals.

Speaking of missed homework, a great advantage of my daughter’s high school is that it is in a 1:1 school district. This means each student gets an iPad. On these Ipads, the teachers can assign homework. During our vacation last year we scheduled an hour or so each day (if needed) for her to complete any homework assigned on the iPad. This worked out very well, so much so that we are even considering doing the same this year. If last year had been a disaster we would never have considered it this year.

Another thing we needed to consider was her sports schedule. She plays high school volleyball and softball as well as playing on travel teams with both of those sports and beach volleyball. High school volleyball runs June – the first weekend of November, travel volleyball starts after Thanksgiving and goes through the middle of June. High school softball starts in March and ends in May and travel softball is interspersed in there when she is available. The beach volleyball season starts in May and ends when school starts in August. That all leaves this magical week in the middle of November when she has absolutely NOTHING… except a trip to Disney.

CONCLUSION

Again, since most Walt Disney World and Disney Cruise Line vacations are scheduled years in advance you can never know what the exact weather, school calendar or park hours will be on your specific vacation. However, you can get a pretty good idea by doing a little research. Once you have all the data for the times you are considering, you and your traveling party can weigh all the factors above and make the decision that is right for you.

In my next post I will talk about booking our Advanced Dining Reservations. Let’s just say: it wasn’t very magical.

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[condorthb]

bump

 

[Benchley]

Loved your thoughts about planning. I'm with you on working things out to the best for your own family needs.

 

[chunkymonkey]

I love your planning posts! It's always fun to see the through process when other people make ressies. I typically go in the fall too but am planning a 40th bday trip next february with a cruise on the Fantasy and then a week at the Poly. My ADR window opens in about 3 weeks and you're right, the park hours have not yet been officially posted during that time. It's hard to figure out what park to go to and where to make your ADR since you don't know when EMH is and what park to avoid. I've been using the unofficial travel agent calendar as you said, but the times and even EMH are bound to change!

Looking forward to more!

 

[Suzanne033]

As I mentioned in my last post, booking our Advanced Dining Reservation was less than magical.

I don’t think it’s hard to see that I am kind of an obsessive planner. Approximately 220 days prior to our vacation I know where we are staying, what parks we will be visiting each day, how we will be touring each park and where we are going to eat. Therefore, at exactly 5:55am on the 180th day I have every computer in the house and my cellphone logged into My Disney Experience to start making my Advanced Dining Reservations. If that method doesn’t work I start calling the Disney Dining phone line at 6:55am. I have ALWAYS been able to get every reservation I wanted… until now.

We have been to Walt Disney World many times. Therefore, we have been lucky enough to experience a great number of the dining options at Walt Disney World. This means the method for choosing our dining plans have changed slightly. Instead of booking two or more table service meals a day, we have old favorites we like return to and we add in 1-2 new locations each trip. Therefore, we are only planning on one table service meal each day.

This was my plan going into the 180th morning:

Monday – Rose & Crown, 8:00pm – This is an old favorite for us and holds a special place in our Disney memories. When our daughter was 5-years-old we were dining at R&C and she was picked to start Illuminations. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime magical moments. Besides the memories we come back vacation after vacation because of the great food and the amazing view of Illuminations. If you are lucky enough to get one of the coveted verandah seat you will have a front row seat for the show. And even if you aren’t selected to sit on the verandah, they have a super-secret location reserved for their guests only to watch the show. Results: Nothing available

Tuesday – Whispering Canyon Café, 6:00pm – We are planning on spending at least part of this day at Downtown Disney with lunch planned at Earl of Sandwich. (The Holiday sandwich is calling my name… can you hear it?) We thought this would be a great day to have an early evening meal in the resort. After the meal we can either hit the pool (Of course, after the required 30 minutes waiting period, Mom), maybe go to the Polynesian and watch Wishes from the beach or just simply call it a night. Results: Nothing available

Wednesday – Hollywood & Vine Fantasmic! Dinner Package – If you ask my daughter we picked the restaurant because of the pictures of the chocolate fountain on their website. We have seen Fantasmic! before but we always seem to be in the extreme stage right area even with a FastPass+. With the dinner package we will get guarantee seats in one of the center sections. RESULTS: Dinner packages not available yet.

Thursday – California Grill, 9:00pm – How can you beat the view of Wishes from that vantage point… not to mention the wine list. RESULTS: SUCCESS! We got a 9:05pm ADR.

Friday – Be Our Guest, Lunch – We will be attending Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party this day. My daughter and I have been to this restaurant while DH has not. He has to try the Grey Stuff… It’s delicious. RESULTS: NO LUCK!

I came out of the 180th day with ONE Advanced Dining Reservation. How can this be? Dejected, with my Ultimate Disney Planner title on the line, I headed to work with my head hanging low. Several of my Disney friends did their best to console me when I complained. “Don’t worry, just keep checking.” “It must be a glitch in the system.” “It’s the week BEFORE Thanksgiving, there’s no way everything can be gone?” “Try calling again?”

Here we are two month later and the bleak outcome of what I now call the ‘180th Day Massacre’ has turned into a not-so-bad plan.

Since Monday is the last day of the annual Epcot Food & Wine Festival we have decided to ‘eat our way around the world’. Recently the menus for F&W were released and there is no way I would be able to eat a sit-down dinner after eating all the tasty treats which caught my eye. As far as the view of Illuminations: We can always grab something from one of the outdoor kitchens and pull up a bench along the World Showcase Lagoon.

After checking multiple times for a Tuesday ADR at Whispering Canyon Cafe an 8:30pm reservation showed up. This wasn’t ideal but at least we would be able to eat there without a long wait. Using my friend Amy M’s advice I kept checking just in case something more suitable to our plans showed up. Lo and behold a week or so ago a 6:00pm reservation opened up. SCORE! As an added bonus the Garden Grill announced a special character breakfast featuring Chip & Dale. We were going to use Tuesday as a ‘catch up on some sleep day’ so we made a 10:00am ADR. I have been by the Garden Grill many times while making our way to Living With the Land and loved the idea of the rotating restaurant.

With the addition of this ADR and the fact that we are still planning on heading to Downtown Disney that day, we are considering cancelling our Whispering Canyon Café ADR. We have been there several times before so it’s not like we will be missing a new experience and we will probably still be full from the Holiday Sandwich from Earl of Sandwich.

Our Wednesday plans brightened as well. I guess I was always under the impression that the Fantasmic! Dinner Package reservations opened at 180 days like the rest of the reservations. Turns out that isn’t the case. In early July the Disney Parks Blog reported the dinner package was now open for booking. I immediately went over and booked the package at Hollywood & Vine for a late lunch.

There was a little twist to this when the brand new Minnie’s Holiday Dine at Hollywood & Vine opened up for reservations. Not only is this a character meal which features the characters in their holiday best including Santa Goofy, it also offers special seating for Fantasmic!. Again, I was on my computer bright and early… NOTHING. I started calling Disney Dining line at 6:55 a.m… NOTHING! Oh well, I guess we will keep our lunch reservation and keep checking to see if this opens up.

I am still hoping for some pixie-dust to get a lunch reservation at Be Our Guest on Friday but I did learned a few things from this misadventure: (1) Free dining really does have quite an impact of the availability of Advanced Dining Reservations, (2) Just keep swimming – by continuing to check we were able to get a couple of the ADRs we weren’t able to get on the 180th day, and (3) Disney really needs to get their act together BEFORE the 180th day on special dining experiences such as Candlelight Processional and Fantasmic! Dinner Package.

In the next post I will talk about a slight change we made to our Disney Cruise, how we got 8.9% off our Disney vacation and our first foray into the Fish Extender gift exchange.

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[Suzanne033]

Just a short update on our planning this time. We did have a little excitement as we were able to complete our online check-in for the cruise. Woo hoo! It’s getting real.

INSIDE OUT
When we originally booked the Disney Cruise portion of our trip the only staterooms available were inside staterooms. This was just fine with us. I have always been intrigued by the ‘magic’ porthole. Peach from Finding Nemo as well as other Disney characters stopping by to occasionally greet us was a fun idea.

Being the obsessive planner that I am, about a month after I booked our cruise I decided to see how full the ship was by pretending to book another cruise to see what stateroom categories were still available. To my surprise not only was nearly every category of inside stateroom still available, but many of the ocean view and verandah stateroom categories were now open as well, including several of the elusive 8A Double Porthole rooms. Wait, what?! I have only heard legend of these rooms as I have never known anyone that had actually been able to book this category before. There are only 12 on the Fantasy and the Dream.

Had some pixie-dust come my way? I think so. And the extra cost for these larger than average staterooms? $500? $1,000? Nope, with tax the extra cost was $130 total! The time it took me to scoop up one of these rooms could only be recorded in nano-seconds.

So what’s the big deal about these rooms? First, they are larger than average ocean view staterooms at 241 sq. ft. as opposed to 204 sq. ft. for traditional ocean view staterooms. Even though there are only three of us traveling, the thought of 37 extra sq. ft. is quite appealing. Second, they have two large portholes instead of one. I am a huge fan of natural light (I don’t even use curtains in my house) so let the light pour in. The drawback of booking a Category 8A is that they do not have a split bath. Again, since there are only three of us I don’t really see this as a problem.

Here are a couple pictures and YouTube videos of category 8A state rooms on the Disney Fantasy & Dream:


Disney Fantasy, 6514
Disney Dream, 6016
Disney Fantasy, 5522
Disney Dream, 5022

Now can you see why I took advantage of the pixie dust that came my way?

PAYING MICKEY FOR THE VISIT
Disney-philes across the globe have dreamed up unique ways to save and pay for their Disney vacations. Some use the Cartwheel app from Target, others use their Disney Visa card and some use gift card clearinghouse websites like GiftCardGranny.com (you have to be careful of these sites because they sometime sell Disney STORE gift card which do not work in the parks).

I like to use Disney Gift Cards to pay for my vacation. I purchase them at my local Kroger which has gas rewards on purchases. While grocery purchases at Kroger are 1 point for every dollar spent, gift card purchases are 2 points for every $1 spent and a couple times a year they offer 4 points for every $1 you use on gift cards. It’s when you purchase with these 4X fuel point offers that you reap serious savings.

The math looks like this:

$2,000 in Disney Gift Cards X 4 points = 8,000 gas points = $8.00 off gas (in 8 different fill-ups since you are limited to $1/gallon discount per fill-up)
$1.00 per gallon X 8 fill-ups = $8.00 per gallon X 22 gallons = $176 in savings
$176 savings/$2,000 vacation cost = 8.8% savings

Not bad considering I am already shopping at Kroger. No extra trips, no online purchases, no extra credit card (I abhor credit cards). The key is to make sure you are on empty when you fill up. It makes no sense to get 10 gallons of gas using the discount which would only save me $10 when I can do a complete fill-up and save $22.

CHECK-IN DAY

No we are not leaving for our cruise already. We are simply taking advantage of Disney Cruise Line’s online check-in.

To make your embarkation day go quicker you should definitely take advantage of online check-in. The less than 10 minute online check-in process will save you as much as an hour at the port. (And don’t forget to save a few minutes to watch the animated short of Goofy’s attempt to check-in at the port.)
Here are the sections you will be required to complete:

Guest Information – For each guest in your traveling party, you will need to fill in their address and emergency contact. There is a nice little time saver on this screen where you are allowed to copy the information from Guest #1 to the remaining guests if they have the same information.

Identification – On this screen you will be required to either enter your passport number or select that you will be showing a government photo ID and birth certificate. This is only an option if you are sailing on a ‘closed loop’ cruise meaning you are starting and ending your cruise at a United States port.

Pre/Post Cruise – Here you will enter your flight information (if you are flying), how you will be getting to and leaving from the port and where you will be headed after disembarkation. For example, we are flying in the night before the cruise and heading to Walt Disney World after the cruise is over. By entering your flight information, DCL can keep track of passengers who might be late in boarding the ship. While there is ABSOLUTELY no guarantee the ship will be held for you if there is a flight delay, you have a greater likelihood of that happening if you have entered your flight info.

Onboard Account – This screen is for entering the method of payment you will be using to pay your shipboard account. Your choices are credit card, cash or that someone else will be paying for your charges. (For the record, I tried to enter that Mickey Mouse would be paying for me but it didn’t work.) You should know that even if you put a credit card on your account you will still be able to pay your account with cash once you are onboard the ship by heading to Guest Services anytime during your cruise. After your payment information is entered you will be asked if you will be responsible for charges incurred by the other members of your traveling party or you can enter payment information for them as well.

Port Arrival Time – On this screen you will be able to choose the time you plan on arriving at the cruise terminal. I chose 11:45 a.m. Since we are arriving the night before and taking a DCL bus from Orlando International Airport (MCO) we decided to not try and take the first bus out of MCO figuring it would be packed. Instead we are going to shoot for the 10:30 a.m. bus which will get us to port around 11:15 a.m. this will give us time to complete the short check-in process (since we completed everything else online) and take some pictures with the character in the terminal before boarding at 11:45 a.m.

Review Contract – This is where you get to read all the fun legal language that basically says DCL is not responsible if you fall overboard or if you miss the boat. For those who don’t want to sign your life away, you should know that whether or not you sign the contact it is still legally binding according to the first clause in the contract.

Signature Form – The signature page is the most important part of this whole process. This printable form must be signed and brought with you when you arrive at the cruise terminal.


That’s all I have for now. We will see you next time when I write about our first foray into Fish Extenders, a fun way to help the wait go by a little quicker and our decision to attend Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.

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[LLM]

Following along! My family and I are going on the Dream for 3 nights on December 28th, followed by 4 nights in a Cars family suite at Art of Animation. I am enjoying reading how your plans are unfolding!

Lisa

 

[MorganL]

Following! Taking our first Disney Dream cruise in January to Bahamas and CC!

 

[disnygirl55]

Following! I love all your detail. It's getting me very excited for our next cruise in April (225 days... sigh). Having just done WDW last May, and in the last stages of a Disneyland mini-vacation in October, I feel your pain with the ADR process. I hope you love the Very Merry Christmas Party - we've only done that once, but it was fantastic. Looking forward to more plans!

 

[Suzanne033]

WHY DO I NEED TO EXTEND A FISH?

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On our upcoming Disney Cruise we have decided to join a Fish Extender Exchange. This fun gift exchange was created by guests in the early days of the cruise line. The Fish Extender Exchange name comes from the fun little holders on the side of each door which are typically used to hold your Personal Navigator, receipts and correspondences. Depending on which ship you are on and what side of the ship your stateroom is, you might have a fish, a seahorse or a starfish.
Guests ‘extend’ the fish by hanging a bag on it which is where other guests leave their gifts. The bag is a matter of personal preference. You can make your own using some of the patterns available online, buy one of the myriad of options on Etsy or buck the pocket trend go with your own design.

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The first step to become part of a Fish Extender Exchange is to sign up. For most cruises there is a Facebook page and a DisBoards page. Likely, both of these locations will have a sign up as is the case with my cruise. You only need to sign up in one location. However, you are more than welcome to be a part of multiple groups. In most exchanges you will also be asked questions like age and gender of the participants in your cabin, favorite Disney character or movie, if you have any celebrations planned while on board, shirt size and the approximate location of your stateroom.
Once sign-ups are complete the organizer will break all the cabins down into smaller, more manageable groups. This is good news because I don’t think anyone wants to buy gifts for potentially 100s of passengers. For example, the Fish Extender Exchange I have signed up for already has 36 (and counting) cabins participating. Once it was split up we were put into a group of 13 cabins with a total of 45 cruisers.
This is where the hard, but most fun, part begins: What are you going to give as your gift? The great part is that it is completely up to your imagination. Essentially, you are now your own Imagineer! There are two schools of thought when selecting Fish Extender gifts: make it or buy it. Now keep in mind you are potentially buying (or making) these gifts for 40-50 other passengers. This means you will have to take into consideration the time and money you are willing to spend when deciding on a gift. While most exchanges don’t have a monetary limit you will want to check with the organizer just in case. If there is no limit you will need to decide your budget. You can also choose to make one larger gift for the entire stateroom or smaller individual gifts for each person.
During a quick Google search I found these ideas which have been used in the past:

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I have to tell you right now, I found the cutest idea for our Fish Extender Exchange in an online forum. While I completely stole the idea, I will wait until I return to let you know what I gave. I would hate to spoil the surprise for my future shipmates.
PORT WEBCAMS
Speaking of waiting: While I am waiting for the next big milestone which is FastPass+ selection time I thought I would share one of my favorite ways to waste time but still keep my Disney dreaming alive.
Here it is: *Takes a deep breath* Hi! My name is Sue and I am addicted to watching port cams. It’s been TOO LONG since my last Disney Cruise and this is how I pass the time. There, that feels much better to get it out in the open.

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There are several port cams which show Disney Cruise Line ships on a regular basis. The first is the port cam in Port Canaveral, Florida. This camera shows the Disney Cruise Line ships in port as well as leaving port. The Disney Dream gets the most action on the port cams because it comes and goes twice a week. Fridays and Mondays it arrives in port early in the morning and leaves between 4:00pm – 5:00pm. Recently it’s been departing around 4:40pm. If you are watching at just the right time you will even hear her blow her magical horns as she leaves port. You could hear “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”, “When You Wish upon a Star”, “It’s a Small World” or a few other iconic Disney tunes.

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Just after the ship leaves the screen from Port Canaveral I switch over to the Two Palms webcam. A minutes or so later she shows up on that cam. Unlike the constant streaming cam at Port Canaveral, the Two Palms cam only updates every 4-10 seconds depending on your connection speed. This webcam will just be a very quick, but magnificent, view as she sails by.
The fun of watching webcams doesn’t stop there. There are also port cams at each of the Disney Cruise Line home ports such as Barcelona, Galveston, Honolulu, Miami and San Diego. As they say in the commercials, “But wait… there’s more!” A lot of the Disney Cruise line destinations have port cams as well. These include Cannes, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Vancouver. You can check the arrival and departure times on the Disney Cruise Itineraries page and clicking on the individual itineraries.
That's all for now. Next time I will talk about another change to our trip and how we are counting down to the big day.

 

[Suzanne033]

…AND ANOTHER CHANGE

As I have mentioned before, after our 3-day Disney Cruise we are heading to Disney’s Wilderness Lodge for five days of fun in the theme parks. We have always wanted to stay at the Wilderness Lodge as it is one of the few resorts we haven’t had a chance to experience. For this trip we booked a standard woods view, bunk bed room. My daughter was ecstatic. She had already called the top bunk even though it’s just her this time, no friends tagging along.

That all changed a couple weeks ago I was at one of my daughter’s volleyball games and got a call from a (407) number. Anyone who knows anything about Disney knows that calls from a (407) area code can be extra magical. Unfortunately, given the fact that I would never have been able to hear the call I had to let it go to voicemail. Immediately after the voicemail was recorded I went to listen to it. It was a call from Guest Relations to inform me of refurbishments taking place at the Wilderness Lodge during my stay.

I can’t say this call was unexpected. I have known about the refurbishments to the Hidden Springs pool and Villas for months. I have even seen people online regale their stories of getting room upgrades, extra FastPass+ selections and even free theme park tickets being offered to offset the inconvenience of the construction.

When I called back the next day I got, what seemed to be, a prepared speech about the upcoming refurbishments and how they would be taking place during my stay then silence… Ok? So was I supposed to respond, “OK, thanks for the update?” Instead I said, “Well, that’s not very magical.” Joking… sort of. The Cast Member laughed and agreed. I then asked if there were any way to move to a different part of the resort to which she responded no. Then, employing my ‘Go Big or Go Home’ Disney planner attitude, I asked about switching to a different resort. Surprisingly, she responded, “Give me your top two choices and I will see what I can do.”

Go big or go home, right? Taking a deep breath I said, “Grand Floridian Theme Park View or Animal Kingdom Lodge Savannah View.” Yes I know, we have already stayed in the Grand Floridian but never with a theme park view and yes, my daughter and I staying at the Animal Kingdom in a savannah view room last summer but my husband wasn’t able to come. After a short hold, she came back and said the Animal Kingdom Lodge Arusha savannah view was ours.

It goes without saying that Disney will do anything they can to make your stay as magical as possible. While I would have been delighted to stay at the Wilderness Lodge even with the refurbishments taking place, I truly appreciated that they went the extra step to give me the option of switching.

MICKEY’S VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS PARTY
When visiting Walt Disney World during the holidays one of my favorite things to do is Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. I know… I know… I have heard all the naysayers complaining about the special holiday parties. “It’s too expensive.” “Why would I pay for just a couple of more character appearances?” “Some of the restaurants aren’t even open.” None of that matters to us. For us, it’s all about the merry feel of the Magic Kingdom with snow falling down on Main Street, U.S.A. and very low crowds. I mean seriously, how often can you show up in the Central Hub five minutes before Celebrate the Magic and have THIS VIEW?! Not only do you get this view, you aren’t standing elbow-to-elbow with your fellow park goers.


Yes, if you are using the cost of the party as a deterrent your argument is valid… sort of. As I LOVE crunching numbers, here is a comparison of how much a special party ticket cost compared to a regular park ticket. What I have done is compared the cost of replacing one day of theme park tickets with a special party ticket. For example, for a three day visit, instead of buying a three day ticket I have compared the cost of buying a two day ticket and a party ticket. Using this method, you actually save $9.59.


So the next argument might be, “Yes, but these are full day tickets not just for eight hours.” Wait… did I say eight hours?!?! Yes, I did indeed. What people often forget is that with your party ticket you can actually enter the park at 4:00pm, not the 7:00 p.m. time posted for the parties.

As I said before, one of the greatest selling points of the holiday parties for my family, beside the holiday merriment of course, is the low crowd levels. I can experience nearly the same amount of attractions in almost half the time and still have time to enjoy some free hot chocolate and snickerdoodles, see the special holiday parade without being there 45 minutes early to stake out a spot, and also see Celebrate the Magic and Holiday Wishes, also without any spot staking.

I did a little comparison of how much you can get done on one typical mid-crowd level day at the Magic Kingdom with a regular theme park ticket and three FastPass+ selections vs. arriving at 4:00pm with just a holiday party ticket (which you can also use to get three FastPass+ selections between 4:00pm and 7:00pm). This assumes on a regular day you are at the Magic Kingdom prior to park opening for a character meal so you are slightly ahead of the crowd at Rope Drop at 9:00am. It also assumes you won’t take a mid-day break. Conversely, it assumes you if you are attending the party that you aren’t going to wait in line to meet any of the headliner characters who are only out at the parties such as Santa Goofy and the Seven Dwarves. The special meet ‘n’ greets were never a real selling point for us anyway.


As you can see I can have nearly the same experience in that short eight hours as I can on a regular day. Not only am I possibly saving a few buck, I am also saving a day of my regular theme park tickets. But let’s be honest, if you are going to Walt Disney World for more than four days, you are likely going to visit the Magic Kingdom twice anyway. Therefore, all the things you might have missed at the parties, you can pick up when you visit again and make that a much more relaxing day.

That’s all for now. In my next post I will talk about how my family is counting down to the big day and a commentary on Advanced Dining Reservation scalping.

 

[Suzanne033]

LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN

Every time we are head off to the ‘Most Magical Place on Earth’ we do some type of countdown. Doing a fun countdown help ramps up the excitement.

In years past we have done different countdown such as a monorail track. The monorail countdown was fun because along with counting down the days, we put different experiences we were planning on the back of the Mickey head such as Wishes, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Candlelight Processional and Illuminations. It was a blast coming up with all the ideas.


This year we have decided since we are taking a Land/Sea adventure we would take our lead from Pixar’s “Up” where we learned “adventure is out there”. We are doing an Up house with balloons counting us down to our trip.

Our first step was finding a great picture of the actual ‘Up’ house. I didn’t have to go any further than official website of The Real Up House in Utah. However, one looks at the house and I knew regular construction paper with hunter green, dark blue, red, orange, yellow and purple were not going to work since the house is painted in beautiful pastels.

This lead up on a hunt for the right supplies. I am really not sure what I was thinking but our first stop was Joann’s Fabric. I guess I was thinking it was a one stop shop for crafting. Unfortunately, it was a bust. Our next stop was United Arts & Education. This is store typically frequented by teacher for their classroom needs. However, it’s also great for finding the materials to make a pastel “Up” house and balloons. The hardest part of the whole mission was getting my daughter to the checkout line without buying 100s of dollars in unneeded school supplies.

At United Arts we bought a pack of pastel construction paper for the house and balloons and a pack of metallic color Sharpies to write the numbers on the balloons. (This was my daughter’s idea. She though black numbers would be too plain.)

The last purchase was ribbon for the balloons. Since we were already planning to go to WalMart to pick up some pet supplies we headed over to the party/gift section where they have multi packs of ribbon. Again, we went with pastels.

We did consider buying a stencil at United Arts to do the numbers but thought better of it when we saw the price for the stencil which we would likely only use once.


Finally, cutting day was here. It wasn’t easy and I still don’t have the proportions just right but so far I have been able to get most of the house and some of the balloons cut out. This weekend I will be doing the details of the house (ie. windows, framing, etc.), finishing the balloons and attaching ribbon to each balloon.


We have plenty of time to finish up as we aren’t really planning on starting our countdown until the 30 day mark anyway. In future posts I will show you how it came out.

ADR SCALPING

A lot has happened in the world of Advanced Dining Reservations in the last two weeks. I had originally planned to talk about the pop-up industry of ADR scalping/watching in this post. And how I had secured my Be Our Guest reservation by using a reservation watcher.

By way of a little background, in the last several months several companies have popped up either offering the watch for open ADRs or literally selling you ADRs they have secured. All these services come at a price, of course. The services which watched for open ADRs cost on average $8 per reservation while the company selling ADRs cost around $15 per reservation. Disney, being an active protector of their brand, which they definitely should be, put a swift end to these practices last week by sending out a round of cease & desist letter.

I am of two hearts about this. On one hand, I think the reservation “scalpers”, those selling the actual reservations such as Dis Dining Agent, need to be stopped. I believe this practice could easily have contributed to the lack of ADRs going on lately. On the other hand, I don’t believe Disney should have lumped the reservation “watchers” into the same group. They aren’t bogging down the system by taking reservations they don’t plan to use.

I will be the first to admit I paid to have Disney Dining Buddy to watch two reservations I really wanted for this trip. But what I was paying for was the convenience of not checking the Walt Disney World website every five seconds hoping for a reservation to open up.

Either way, I applaud Disney’s quick response to this. This was a problem and it was swiftly remedied.

So my layman’s prediction for the future is this: While I don’t think Disney will ever charge a premium for the hard to get reservations such as Cinderella’s Royal Table, Be Our Guest, etc., I can see them charging a fee to ‘watch’ reservations for you similar to Disney Dining Buddy. Would I pay for this? Good question. It would depend on the situation but I might.

That’s all for now. In my next post I will talk all about our FastPass+ selections. While it was no 180th Day Massacre, it still wasn’t pretty.

 

[jodippls]

I'm so enjoying following along with your planning process! I have 362 days until I sail away on the Fantasy and have been living vicariously through all of the trip reports. I love your Up house countdown and might have to steal a similar idea once I get to closer to my date. It's totally normal for 2 30-somethings with no kids to do countdown arts and crafts, right? I thought so.

 

[afinnteach]

I'm enjoying your pre tp and can't wait to read more. DH and I just got back from an adult only WDW weekend and I am starting to think about planning an extended family cruise for summer of 2017!

 

[Suzanne033]

FastPass+ Selection Day

Just like the day I made my Advanced Dining Reservations, on FastPass+ selection day I was ready and prepared at 11:55 p.m. with computers and cellphones logged in. However, unlike the ”180th Day Massacre” I had a lot more success making my FastPass+ selections. While I wasn’t able to get every selection I wanted, I ended the evening a lot happier then I was when I made my Advanced Dining Reservations.

Here is the line-up and rationale of selections we made:

Monday – Epcot

Spaceship Earth – 11:20 a.m.
Test Track – 12:25 p.m.
The Seas With Nemo & Friends – 1:25 p.m.

For us our first day at Walt Disney World day will start out a little later than most park goers as we will won’t even be arriving at our resort until after 10:00 a.m. The ship doesn’t return to port until 8:30 a.m. and even if we are on the first bus out of port we won’t be at our resort until 9:30 a.m. After checking in and dropping our luggage at Bell Services we will likely not make it to the park until 11ish. Therefore, we made our first FastPass+ selection of the day at Spaceship Earth for 11:20 a.m. – 12:20 p.m. If we arrive at Epcot before the FastPass+ time we will just ride it then and use our My Disney Experience account to change this selection to a different experience.

Test Track is next up. This is one of our favorite attractions in all of Walt Disney World so if I didn’t get a FastPass+ selection for this attraction I would have had a mutiny on my hands.

The next attraction is a toss-up for us. Since the FastPass+ selections are tiered at Epcot there really isn’t a selection we want… or need to round out our three selections. When that is the case we typically pick between The Seas With Nemo & Friends and Living With The Land. While we don’t really need a FastPass+ selection for either of these attractions we can use it if we need it. If not, we can change it to a different attraction.

This is the last day of the 20th Annual Epcot Food & Wine Festival. Therefore, we attempted to make all of our selections clumped together in FutureWorld in the late morning and early afternoon so we can enjoy some of the tasty treats in the World Showcase in the late afternoon and evening. We also decided since we couldn’t get a good Advanced Dining Reservation we will just ‘eat our way around the world’. We will end our day by grabbing something from one of the Outdoor Kitchens before grabbing a spot for Illuminations: Reflections of Earth.

Tuesday – Epcot/Disney Springs/Relax at Resort

Spaceship Earth – 9:20 a.m.
Soarin’ – 11:05 a.m.
Journey Into Imagination – 12:20 p.m.

This day was planned to be a lazy day to catch up on our sleep after the cruise where we would sleep in before hitting the newly revamped Disney Springs. However, that all changed when Chip ‘N’ Dale’s Harvest Feast Breakfast at the Garden Grill in Epcot was announced. We were able snag a 10:00 a.m. ADR so we decided why not add a few FastPass+ selections in that area before heading to Disney Springs for the afternoon. In all likelihood we won’t use our FastPass+ selection for Journey Into Imagination but we have it just in case.

Wednesday – Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular – 11:30 a.m.
Toy Story Midway Mania – 1:20 p.m.
Lights, Motor, Action – 3:30 p.m.

Again, we are planning on hitting the park a little later than the average guests. (This is one of the many reasons I LOVE the new FastPass+ system.) On this day we have an Advanced Dining Reservation to work around. At 2:30 p.m. we will be dining at Hollywood & Vine as part of the Fantasmic! Dinner Package. Everyone has to eat… right? Why not get a great seat to Fantasmic! in the process. By booking the dinner package this frees up a FastPass+ selection and gives us a better spot to watch the show because the dinner package seats are in the center of the stadium whereas the FastPass+ seating is located to stage right (or to the left as you enter the stadium). I am not saying these are bad seats, just off to the side.

Since my hubby and daughter are, shall we say, less than adventurous riders we will not be experiencing Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster or Tower of Terror. This limits our need for FastPass+ selections dramatically. I honestly wish we could just get three Toy Story Midway Mania but alas, no luck.

Thursday – Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Kilimanjaro Safari – 10:30 a.m.
Finding Nemo – 11:30 a.m.
Kali River Rapids – 2:25 p.m.

And yet again, we will be sleeping in a little before heading to the park. See a pattern here? We also have an Advanced Dining Reservation at Yak & Yeti at 1:15 p.m. Hitting Kilimanjaro Safari early is always the best because that’s when the animals are the most active. I think this is going to be a smart move since the weather lately has been unseasonably warm and the animals like to snooze in the afternoon heat.

Our next selection was decision between The Festival of the Lion King and Finding Nemo – The Musical. Due to availability we picked Finding Nemo as there were available times which didn’t conflict with your ADR or our other FastPass+ selections.

The last selection of the day is Kali River Rapids. This was a no brainer. For some reason, I always come off that ride looking like a drowned rat. By making the selection later in the day, hopefully we will get everything done that we want, ride Kali River Rapids then head back to our resort to get ready for our evening which is dinner atop Disney’s Contemporary Resort at California Grill.

Friday – Magic Kingdom

Peter Pan’s Flight – 12:45 p.m.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – 1:45 p.m.
Splash Mountain 3:10 p.m.

This is the day we are going to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. Right now, we have a 10:30 a.m. ADR at Be Our Guest. While we really want to get a later reservation, in the 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. range, we aren’t holding out to much hope of that happening given all the troubles we have had with ADRs. That being said we decided to make our FastPass+ selections assuming we won’t get a better time. We REALLY wanted Seven Dwarfs Mine Train but there was no availability… yet. I am hoping that some open up as time gets closer and day guests decide to leave early since there is a party that night.

All in all, it isn’t a horrible line-up. I have dabbled, played, tweaked with attractions and times since our 60th day and I think I finally have a pretty good line-up.

 

[Princessjenny1225]

Enjoying your planning! Have fun!