PRE-TRIP REPORT - A Disney Anniversary - DLR, UOR and WDW w Star Wars Galaxy's Edge- Sept/Oct 2019

Of course! It looks great on you!

When I heard the news today, first I got very very annoyed (the whole opening WDW first then DL, which got me on a rant of how they prioritize Florida not California, yadda yadda). Then I realized your trip wouldn’t let you see it! That totally sucks! But yeah, more inspiration for a return trip!

If you do want to attempt a Dismeet out here, let me know! But I also know time is precious and you have plans with your cruise family so definitely don’t want to muck up any plans! Anyways-feel free to reach out via PM!

Thanks Lesley - sweet of you to think of us! I think most people were not expecting it to open at WDW first, so I’m not surprised that people are surprised and grumpy!

Our cruise family will only be meeting up with us at DL for 3 of the 8 days we are there so a Dismeet sounds like great fun - I’ll PM you our schedule if you like and you can see if there might be anytime that would work? Would be fun to meet in person and have a local join us at the park 😀
 
Tokyo DisneySea Interlude

So I know said I was done with the pre-trip report BUT....This last weekend Jared got the opportunity to spend at day at Tokyo DisneySea. He has to travel to Japan a number of times for work, as he works for a Japanese company. The bonus of this is that he can very easily get to Tokyo Disney! He hasn't actually visited Tokyo Disney on a work trip before but this time around I managed to persuade him that going to a Disney park without me was NOT cheating, and he agreed to go (and take lots of pretty photos for us both to enjoy)...

So I'm doing a little "mini" trip report to document his experience in the park (I facetimed in a number of times and stayed in touch via text so mostly know what he got up to). You can read that here (I'm posting it on the Tokyo Disneyland thread)....
 
Tokyo DisneySea Interlude

So I know said I was done with the pre-trip report BUT....This last weekend Jared got the opportunity to spend at day at Tokyo DisneySea. He has to travel to Japan a number of times for work, as he works for a Japanese company. The bonus of this is that he can very easily get to Tokyo Disney! He hasn't actually visited Tokyo Disney on a work trip before but this time around I managed to persuade him that going to a Disney park without me was NOT cheating, and he agreed to go (and take lots of pretty photos for us both to enjoy)...

So I'm doing a little "mini" trip report to document his experience in the park (I facetimed in a number of times and stayed in touch via text so mostly know what he got up to). You can read that here (I'm posting it on the Tokyo Disneyland thread)....
I'll definitely be checking it out! I hope he didn't get too soaked!
 
I hope it's ok to butt in on your pre trip report to ask a question:
I remember you saying you are a points expert , and went to the frequent flyer site you recommended but it's pretty full on.
We are going to China next year, fly in into Beijing and out of Hong Kong, doing parks and 13d in mainland China. I would love to use points to pay for part of the airfare. No lofty goals, economy is fine (2 ppl), if I could get 1 leg paid I would be thrilled. Currently don't have any point earning cards. Don't spend a lot on CC, but will have 8k to spend on private trip and hoping company might let me pay some off each month for min spend. Unsure which card to get, flights look like more Cathay Pacific etc than Qantas or Virgin. Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated . Going Oct 2020.

Your plans look great , hope the crowds behave for you. I am going now to look at your husband's TDR photos- I have never seen such good photos before. Disney should hire you guys and pay you to shoot the park for them !
 


I hope it's ok to butt in on your pre trip report to ask a question:
I remember you saying you are a points expert , and went to the frequent flyer site you recommended but it's pretty full on.
We are going to China next year, fly in into Beijing and out of Hong Kong, doing parks and 13d in mainland China. I would love to use points to pay for part of the airfare. No lofty goals, economy is fine (2 ppl), if I could get 1 leg paid I would be thrilled. Currently don't have any point earning cards. Don't spend a lot on CC, but will have 8k to spend on private trip and hoping company might let me pay some off each month for min spend. Unsure which card to get, flights look like more Cathay Pacific etc than Qantas or Virgin. Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated . Going Oct 2020.

Your plans look great , hope the crowds behave for you. I am going now to look at your husband's TDR photos- I have never seen such good photos before. Disney should hire you guys and pay you to shoot the park for them !

Thanks so much for your wonderful compliments - so kind! I think you'll find there are plenty of FANTASTIC Disney photographers out there (I follow and get inspiration from a lot of them) and so I'm not sure Disney need our pictures, but it would be a dream come true if they contacted us one day to ask to buy one of our shots for that purpose!

RE Frequent Flyer Points: Not sure if we are experts, but we have managed to make significant flight savings using points on past trips. This is because my husband is really good at working out how to do it, and because he travels a lot for work so we do accumulate a lot of points that way. I am not the expert but I will give you some info that hopefully should be helpful! And if you have more questions shoot them my way and I will ask him!

We usually get most of our points for trips from signing up for credit card deals where we get a lot of points to simply sign up for the card. This is usually your best way to make points fast. I've found two links on Finder.com - one with a list of credit cards that give you bonus Velocity (Virgin) points and another with a list of credit cards that give you bonus Qantas points, depending on what airline you want to go with. You can get cards that give you around 100000 - 120000 points which should cover one return leg of your trip at minimum.

Qantas Cards
Virgin / Velocity Cards

You do sometimes have to earn a certain amount to be eligible but hopefully you can find the right bonus credit card for you on that list. We don't use credit cards all that much either. Just note the amount you have to spend on the card to get the points (sometimes there is an amount) or the period the card has to be active in order for you to get the points, and then if you don't need it cancel it after that time/amount.

We did mostly fly Virgin/Singapore Airlines on our last trip - from what I recall we did Perth - Singapore and then Tokyo - Singapore - Perth in Business Class and it cost approx. 230000 Virgin Velocity points. So economy would be a lot less than that. We flew Qantas for the internal Asian flights and used points for these I recall it was about 70000 Qantas Flights for all of these. All of these amounts were for 2 people. However if you want to be sure how many points you’ll need you can use the points calculator on either Virgin or Qantas website. The link to Qantas’ points website I’ve included here and Virgin’s I’ve included here. If you are flying economy you may still need to pay around $250 - $500 in taxes per flight. FYI Carthay Pacific is in with Qantas and One World, so if you are thinking of flying with them you can use Qantas points to book those flights, so that may be the way to go (we flew Carthay Dragon, their more budget airline, using Qantas points on our last trip).

I don't know if you've seen it or it will be helpful but we do have a trip report on our full 4 week Asian Disney Trip that we took in 2017. You can read our full report of our time at Hong Kong and Shangai Disney there. If your interested in reading it you can find it here. You may also wish to check out my pre-trip report here.

Hopefully some of this info is helpful. Good luck with your planning and getting flights sorted.
 
Thanks so much for your wonderful compliments - so kind! I think you'll find there are plenty of FANTASTIC Disney photographers out there (I follow and get inspiration from a lot of them) and so I'm not sure Disney need our pictures, but it would be a dream come true if they contacted us one day to ask to buy one of our shots for that purpose!

RE Frequent Flyer Points: Not sure if we are experts, but we have managed to make significant flight savings using points on past trips. This is because my husband is really good at working out how to do it, and because he travels a lot for work so we do accumulate a lot of points that way. I am not the expert but I will give you some info that hopefully should be helpful! And if you have more questions shoot them my way and I will ask him!

We usually get most of our points for trips from signing up for credit card deals where we get a lot of points to simply sign up for the card. This is usually your best way to make points fast. I've found two links on Finder.com - one with a list of credit cards that give you bonus Velocity (Virgin) points and another with a list of credit cards that give you bonus Qantas points, depending on what airline you want to go with. You can get cards that give you around 100000 - 120000 points which should cover one return leg of your trip at minimum.

Qantas Cards
Virgin / Velocity Cards

You do sometimes have to earn a certain amount to be eligible but hopefully you can find the right bonus credit card for you on that list. We don't use credit cards all that much either. Just note the amount you have to spend on the card to get the points (sometimes there is an amount) or the period the card has to be active in order for you to get the points, and then if you don't need it cancel it after that time/amount.

We did mostly fly Virgin/Singapore Airlines on our last trip - from what I recall we did Perth - Singapore and then Tokyo - Singapore - Perth in Business Class and it cost approx. 230000 Virgin Velocity points. So economy would be a lot less than that. We flew Qantas for the internal Asian flights and used points for these I recall it was about 70000 Qantas Flights for all of these. All of these amounts were for 2 people. However if you want to be sure how many points you’ll need you can use the points calculator on either Virgin or Qantas website. The link to Qantas’ points website I’ve included here and Virgin’s I’ve included here. If you are flying economy you may still need to pay around $250 - $500 in taxes per flight. FYI Carthay Pacific is in with Qantas and One World, so if you are thinking of flying with them you can use Qantas points to book those flights, so that may be the way to go (we flew Carthay Dragon, their more budget airline, using Qantas points on our last trip).

I don't know if you've seen it or it will be helpful but we do have a trip report on our full 4 week Asian Disney Trip that we took in 2017. You can read our full report of our time at Hong Kong and Shangai Disney there. If your interested in reading it you can find it here. You may also wish to check out my pre-trip report here.

Hopefully some of this info is helpful. Good luck with your planning and getting flights sorted.

Thanks for the reply! Very helpful. How easy is it actually to book a flight with points? Our dates will be set, and not negiotable. Do you just book on the normal Qantas etc website, is there a section to put you want to use points, or do you book someplace else? How far in advance do you normally book with points? TIA!
I have already read your TR/drooled over the photos, love it , thanks :D
 
Thanks for the reply! Very helpful. How easy is it actually to book a flight with points? Our dates will be set, and not negiotable. Do you just book on the normal Qantas etc website, is there a section to put you want to use points, or do you book someplace else? How far in advance do you normally book with points? TIA!
I have already read your TR/drooled over the photos, love it , thanks :D

It can be easier to book points flights if you can be flexible with dates, but if your dates are not negotiable (as ours usually are) you need to book as far in advance if possible. We normally try check at 9 months out as that’s usually when flights are released for most airlines. Apparently Qantas releases flights 300 days out so it’s a good idea to check at that point. You’ll obviously need to have the points you need ready to go (and you can use the link I gave you above to see how many you’ll need). For Qantas, you log in to your frequent flyer account (or create one) and search for “classic award” flights. Those are the flights you can book with points - hopefully you’ll see availability for when you fly.
 


It can be easier to book points flights if you can be flexible with dates, but if your dates are not negotiable (as ours usually are) you need to book as far in advance if possible. We normally try check at 9 months out as that’s usually when flights are released for most airlines. Apparently Qantas releases flights 300 days out so it’s a good idea to check at that point. You’ll obviously need to have the points you need ready to go (and you can use the link I gave you above to see how many you’ll need). For Qantas, you log in to your frequent flyer account (or create one) and search for “classic award” flights. Those are the flights you can book with points - hopefully you’ll see availability for when you fly.
Thanks !
 
Will U be doing a trip report?

Yep will definitely be doing a report! We got home yesterday so now I have to edit and organise all our pictures and once that’s done I’ll start. I’ll post the link to the report here in the contents too

For Shanghai DL and HKDL? Or the whole trip? Just over 2w in China. I guess I could, if people were interested.. never done one before :)
I’d love to read any report you write! Let us know if you do one!
 

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