I have done a lot of updating over the past week
.
First, I took $440 out of the cash budget and bought enough SWA points to cover our flights either to or from Orlando. Right now, there is a perfect flight (price and schedule) available for us on American, but I just can't bring myself to book it because SWA is our preferred carrier and there is always the (slight) possibility that they could offer a non-stop flight or a cheaper option. I've changed our plans around so that now, instead of leaving on Friday night (which is still a possibility), we can now leave on Saturday at any time. That means that if SWA has a non-stop option on Saturday, even if it leaves at 8am, we can take it.
That brings me to my second change...our itinerary. As of now, my plan is to fly down on Friday and stay for 4 nights at Copper Creek. Then, switch over to AKV for 3 nights. We will check out on Friday but spend the day in the park and either take DME back to MCO or just grab an Uber. I have a room booked for us at the MCO Hyatt for Friday night. I had already budgeted for the night at the Hyatt, I just had it added on the front end of the trip, not the back end. I had planned to only stay 6 nights on property, buying a maximum of 3 OTU points, but by doing the 7 night, 4/3 split, I will need to buy 9 points instead. This means I will need $153 instead of $51. I'm OK with adding an extra $100 to get an extra night on property. This is all contingent on availability. I won't know anything until March 19 which is when I can make the reservation changes. If I can't get any of my nights at Copper Creek, we will end up spending the full week at AKV which will save me the $153 in OTU points.
The third change was to my food budget. I realized that $1000 might be a little low. We will probably eat breakfast in the room from our grocery order (if they will eat breakfast at all!) and then snack throughout the day. I'm planning a TS meal every night for dinner which I know is what the girls want too. I plan to make some ADR's (Jiko, Sanaa, Artist Point are all ones that the girls have requested....they have expensive tastes
) and we always eat breakfast at Boma on the day we leave to go home so that has to go in the budget too. In addition, we will be there during the F&W Festival and I have been asked to book the Parisian Luncheon again, if it is offered on the day we are there, so that's another $175 or so. Fortunately, outside of the actual meals, we really don't eat that much. If we stop at a CS restaurant, we usually split a single entree three ways. We can usually get "lunch" for the three of us for around $10 so that helps quite a bit. The bulk of our food budget will definitely be the TS meals so I added another $150 to it. Now I am aiming to bring $1150 for dining expenses.
I still have to deal with the matter of our itinerary. The girls currently have 5-day park passes...we will have 7 possible days in the park...so...that's a problem. I'm tossing around a few options. First off, the obvious solution is to add 2 days to their tickets. That would cost me $85.20. The second option would be to take a day and chill...we've never done that
! We would use the other day and go to
MNSSHP, which would add another $300 or so to the budget. The cheapest option is obviously going to be just to add the extra 2 days to the tickets. I do want to go to the party, though. The girls haven't gone since they were 3 and 5 years old, but they might think they are "too old" for it now...even though I went without any kids last year
. If I don't do anything (no party, no additional days), it still might add to the budget because we've tossed around things like a horseback ride at Ft Wilderness, bowling at Splitsville, or boating out on the lakes. All of that would be stuff that gets decided on at the last minute. We've never really done a "resort" day...maybe we will have two days and I will call them our "Hilton Head days". These are the days that we do what we would do at HHI where there are no theme parks. We would take in the activities that the resorts have to offer. My younger daughter likes the AoA resort...this would give us a perfect opportunity to visit
OK, so to summarize...
GIFT CARDS NEEDED: $1503
GIFT CARDS OBTAINED: $1013.35
STILL NEED...$489.65
CASH BUDGET NEEDED: $1600
CASH OBTAINED: $824.07
STILL NEED...$775.93
I ran into the issue with my plasma donations and I am still on hold. I won't know until next week if my protein test came back within range. If it did, I think I am still going to wait until February to start back up again. I had a cell loss and if I have another before January 28, I cannot donate for 8 weeks. I just need to stay healthy and keep my iron and protein levels within range.