Are we crazy? A first-timer's Disneymoon!!

[fallonkendra]

Joining in! I'm another Canadian, I had a Disney wedding/honeymoon earlier this year! So congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

I haven't read all through this yet, but I'll be back to catch up

 

[Sparklysoph]

Joining in! I'm another Canadian, I had a Disney wedding/honeymoon earlier this year! So congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

I haven't read all through this yet, but I'll be back to catch up

Hi! Welcome! Congratulations on your wedding/honeymoon - getting married at Disney must have been so magical! I am about to binge read all your trip/dining reports!

 

[Sparklysoph]

This totally makes sense, in a weird Disney math kind of way

Disney math is the only kind of math I seem to understand! I have another development I'm about to post about which also involved Disney math!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Guys, I need to be stopped...I keep adding to our trip and I need to stop!

Let's just do a quick recap. Originally we were at a Disney Springs hotel for 7 nights. Then I changed to another (very slightly more expensive) Disney Springs Hotel. Then I switched to All Star Movies (again only slightly more expensive). Then I decided to switch to Pop Century (definitely a bit more expensive). Then I added an eighth night. Now...I've added the Deluxe dining plan but ONLY to our first two night stay at Pop.



As I explained in our last post, because of the very complicated booking process, the most cost effective way to add a night at the beginning of our stay, was to remove a night from our original reservation and create a separate reservation for the first two nights.

That was all fine, I did that and job's done.

But then, as I'd mentioned in my last post, I was contemplating switching our first night Sanaa reservation to Yachtsman Steakhouse and I decided to go ahead and do that. I then started watching some YouTube vlogs of people's experiences and it just so happened that everyone I watched was on the dining plan - their bills all seemed to come to $230+ but being on the dining plan, they just paid the gratuity.

That's when I looked at the ADRs I have booked for the first three days and added up what I had guesstimated we would spend and compared it to the Deluxe Dining plan. I think my estimates may be on the low side and we would actually probably end up spending more than these guesses.

Because our reservation is two nights, we will have 12 table service credits total that we can use on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, because we check out of our first POP reservation on Sunday and check back into POP for our second reservation (which is a different room type) but we can use the credits for the first reservation until midnight of our check-out day (Sunday). So the meals I have planned for these first three days are:

Friday lunch (arrival day): Snack/something small at Disney Springs, maybe Earl of Sandwich (pay oop) ($25)
Friday night dinner: Yachtsman Steakhouse (2 credits pp) ($200)
Saturday lunch: Something small/snacks (oop/snack credits) ($30)
Saturday night dinner: Be our Guest (2 credits pp) ($140)
Sunday breakfast: Tusker House (1 credit pp) ($70)
Sunday dinner: Ohana (1 credit pp) ($130)

Rough total paying oop: $595
Cost of deluxe dining plan for two nights: $465 + $25 oop (+ tips)

The number in brackets is what I had budgeted very roughly for that meal to cost in total - obviously this isn't an exact science because I had tried to imagine what we might order when I did the initial budget. So for instance, for Yachtsman I imagined we would probably share an appetizer and dessert to cut the cost - but with the deluxe dining plan we'll each order our own.

Once we add in the tips, it's probably not a huge saving but we'll get an alcoholic drink with dinner, plus the snack credits and refillable mug and I kind of just wanted to try it!

So I called Disney to see if it was possible to add the deluxe plan and the cast member was so nice! She said it was no problem to switch our first reservation to a package and add the dining plan so she did that and we were sorted. She was just so nice and friendly as well, it was such great customer service.

So now we have the Deluxe dining plan to use on our first three days and of course, that is making me second guess all of my plans!!

I know that Be Our Guest is a terrible value for two table service credits and in an ideal world, I would switch that out for another signature - probably California Grill. But I don't see another opportunity to go to Be Our Guest.

The only day from Monday - Friday during our trip that doesn't have a halloween party is Wednesday and that's my planned Hollywood Studios/Star Wars Dessert party day...although I am on the fence about the SWDP because it seems very expensive and I'm trying to decide if it's worth it.

Unless we spend the whole day on Saturday at Hollywood Studios, instead of going to Magic Kingdom that evening for BOG and go to Magic Kingdom on Wednesday evening instead and try and get a BOG reservation for that night...sorry I'm totally thinking out loud now!

Would love your thoughts on all of this - whether my Disney math makes sense and I did the right thing by adding the DxDP and what you think about my reservations.

It also seems a shame, while we have the snack credits, not to go to Epcot and use them for Food and Wine but I currently don't have that in the plans for Saturday or Sunday...Aargh, so much to think about!

 

[Sailormoon2]

I am about to be such an enabler. LOL

Would love your thoughts on all of this - whether my Disney math makes sense and I did the right thing by adding the DxDP and what you think about my reservations.

I was about to do this exact same thing-because we had to add on an extra night (at POP) to our original reservation, I was totally going to add on the dinning plan, just to really splurge on those first two days. I'm still working on the math, right now to see if it's right for us, but I think because you are staying two nights, it's good for you. Also I think you'll find that the snack credits are sufficient and you won't have to pay oop.

If it's possible to move BOG I would do it, definitely go to California Grill if you're willing to lose the 2 credits per person anyways!! I would actually dissuade you from the SWDP (sorry, personal opinion) as I didn't find it hard to get a good viewing location, and you can always purchase your own drinks and snacks to have while watching the show for much less, and that I would find preferable. In saying that I think dessert partires are very personal decisions.

I love all this planning madness, and it makes me feel a little more sane in that my originally 9 day trip has become 12 with 4 hotels, involving 5 changes. LOL!!!

 

[Sparklysoph]

I am about to be such an enabler. LOL

I was about to do this exact same thing-because we had to add on an extra night (at POP) to our original reservation, I was totally going to add on the dinning plan, just to really splurge on those first two days. I'm still working on the math, right now to see if it's right for us, but I think because you are staying two nights, it's good for you. Also I think you'll find that the snack credits are sufficient and you won't have to pay oop.

If it's possible to move BOG I would do it, definitely go to California Grill if you're willing to lose the 2 credits per person anyways!! I would actually dissuade you from the SWDP (sorry, personal opinion) as I didn't find it hard to get a good viewing location, and you can always purchase your own drinks and snacks to have while watching the show for much less, and that I would find preferable. In saying that I think dessert partires are very personal decisions.

I love all this planning madness, and it makes me feel a little more sane in that my originally 9 day trip has become 12 with 4 hotels, involving 5 changes. LOL!!!

Haha enable away!!

If the stay was longer, I definitely don't think it would be a good choice for us but with just a two night stay and being able to use the credits over the three days it makes it a more attractive proposition!

I think I'm going to have a rethink of my days and try and switch things around and see if we can get a California grill reservation for a night during the dining plan and try and get a BOG reservation for later in the week where we can pay oop. I think that's a way smarter use of the credits. I'll have to take a look and use the touring plans reservation finder again!

I think you're right about SWDP. When we convert to Canadian dollars, it's well over $200 and I just don't think I can justify it for some desserts and drinks!

Haha it's so hard to not make changes, especially in the time between ADRs and Fast passes. I keep looking and things and seeing where I can make adjustments.

I LOVE that you've extended your trip so much and trying four hotels sounds fantastic - why not!? About to go and catch up on your trip report now!

 

[Raeven]

Friday night dinner: Yachtsman Steakhouse (2 credits pp) ($200)

We spent less at Yachtsman, but it really depends on what you order I can easily see it being that much.

Once we add in the tips, it's probably not a huge saving but we'll get an alcoholic drink with dinner, plus the snack credits and refillable mug and I kind of just wanted to try it!

I usually find once I add in tips that I'm not saving anything, and sometimes spending more, but I think you'd more or less break even if you wanted to try it I'd say go for it!

 

[Nakkira]

I have spent hours pouring over menus, my mouth watering as I decided where we should eat and dreaming about what I might order.

Oh, you are so not the only one! I already know what I will be eating at each place and I don't go until September!
Part of the fund for me is thinking (dreaming) about the food.

There is a Facebook group for Disney Foodies. You should check it out

JAMAICA!!

While I would have been happy with options 1 or 2, Andrei really wanted to spend that second week in a luxurious resort, lying on the beach, with a constant supply of food and drink at our fingertips and who am I to argue with that?

I think having that second week for just pure relaxation, especially after Disney, will be SO nice and I'm actually really looking forward to it. The resort looks gorgeous and has amazing reviews and now that it's booked, I'm almost as excited for that week as I am for the Disney week....Almost. We don't plan to leave the resort and will just sleep, read, eat, drink and relax.

Having been to Jamaica, I concur. My trip there was the most relaxed I have been in my Entire life. It's the kind of vacation where you forget to wonder what time it is.

 

[Araminta18]

Oooh good plan! Doing the dining plan for just the two nights is probably a good idea--that's one of the tips I see a lot. Sounds like a win to me!

 

[Sparklysoph]

We spent less at Yachtsman, but it really depends on what you order I can easily see it being that much.



I usually find once I add in tips that I'm not saving anything, and sometimes spending more, but I think you'd more or less break even if you wanted to try it I'd say go for it!

Yes, I'm not predicting huge savings but it's kind of giving me an excuse to keep the splurgey meals so I'm ok with it! If it were for more than two nights I don't think I'd have added it but I'm interested to try it and this seems like a good time!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Oh, you are so not the only one! I already know what I will be eating at each place and I don't go until September!
Part of the fund for me is thinking (dreaming) about the food.

There is a Facebook group for Disney Foodies. You should check it out





Having been to Jamaica, I concur. My trip there was the most relaxed I have been in my Entire life. It's the kind of vacation where you forget to wonder what time it is.

Yes, planning the meals is SO much fun!! I keep changing reservations and checking the menus. I don't know how I'm going to fill my time once we come back!

As much as I'm looking forward to Disney, I'm also really looking forward to Jamaica and a week of pure relaxation!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Oooh good plan! Doing the dining plan for just the two nights is probably a good idea--that's one of the tips I see a lot. Sounds like a win to me!

I hope it works out! I don't think we'll save a lot, but it seems like a good opportunity to try it just for a couple of nights!

 

[amalone1013]

Congratulations! It will be so much fun! We were like, half first timers when we went for our honeymoon last Fall. We had decided to have a small wedding in Orlando, so we did go down to see the places in person and went to MK and Epcot, but DHS/AK were new to us on our honeymoon. And we tried to play park guides for 7 people

So this is the problem (or benefit??) of being a planner and doing things so much in advance and constantly researching - you keep second guessing every decision.

I change things all the time...

Is it bad that the Disney food is like 1/2 of the reason I'm looking forward to going?

The food is so good! We'll be back in September and I'm torn because I want to go back to all the places we loved but try new places too!

I have spent hours pouring over menus, my mouth watering as I decided where we should eat and dreaming about what I might order. Don't judge.

Of all the values, Pop Century appeals to me the most and with the fact that the rooms are renovated and it has its own bus service, it was a no brainer to make the switch. So now I'm even more excited about our trip! I will try not to make any more changes to our hotel...no promises though haha!

I'm still changing our hotels around for September! And this will be out of order but since I read through your PTR to this point, I'm glad the Disney math has worked out for you! We love Pop. I needed one extra night on our trip this September, and right now I have All Star Movies because Pop was coming up booked, but I'm hoping it opens up.

Now last time I wrote, I was mulling over arriving on the Friday or the Saturday. When I first looked at flights, the Saturday flights were way cheaper so that's what I based all our plans on. But I missed those great prices and now the Friday and Saturday flights are about the same. So...I decided to book on Friday! I feel good about this decision. The flight is pretty early on Friday morning and we get into Orlando at about 10:30am. This means we can take Friday to just relax, visit Disney Springs and ease ourselves in.

Yay! I'm a huge fan of getting there the day before, even when it costs more... we often end up flying in somewhere pretty late, after work, but I like to just wake up and be there.

1) Stay at Disney the whole two weeks and have a few resort days and rent a car to do some non-disney day trips, as well as a day or two at Universal, mostly to see Harry Potter as we are both huge fans.

2) Stay at Disney the whole two weeks but do a 3 or 4 night cruise during the middle weekend from Port Canaveral to the Bahamas.

3) Stay at Disney for the first week as planned and do an all-inclusive somewhere other than Mexico for the second week.

Ha, we started with 2 weeks... leave Friday after work and come home the following Sunday, for Disney and Universal. Then we decided to get married down there on Tuesday... still Friday to following Sunday. Then my in-laws paid for a 3 night Disney cruise as a gift, and told us to pick which date worked best... It left on Fridays and came back Mondays, sooooo we booked our flights home on Tuesday instead of Sunday. Then I got a deal for Universal tickets... we were thinking 2 days, and they had 3 day tickets for the same price as 2, so I bought those instead just in case we decided to use the 3rd day. When I told my husband, he was like, so we're going down Thursday night now, right? So we ended up with 3 days at Universal, a day at Disney, wedding day, 3 more days with everyone at Disney, 6 more days just us... then down to Canaveral for the cruise, and when we got back we did Kennedy Space Center before going home!

 

[Sparklysoph]

I change things all the time...

It's a blessing and a curse!! I think I know that I pretty much need to have everything kind of set in stone before our FP+ day because it will be a pain to change around our park plans after that so I'm spending so much time analysing my plans to make sure they make the most sense!

Yay! I'm a huge fan of getting there the day before, even when it costs more... we often end up flying in somewhere pretty late, after work, but I like to just wake up and be there.

I'm so glad that we're flying in the day before - I feel like it allows us to start the trip in a much more leisurely fashion - plus we get a bonus morning in the parks, which is SO nice!

Ha, we started with 2 weeks... leave Friday after work and come home the following Sunday, for Disney and Universal. Then we decided to get married down there on Tuesday... still Friday to following Sunday. Then my in-laws paid for a 3 night Disney cruise as a gift, and told us to pick which date worked best... It left on Fridays and came back Mondays, sooooo we booked our flights home on Tuesday instead of Sunday. Then I got a deal for Universal tickets... we were thinking 2 days, and they had 3 day tickets for the same price as 2, so I bought those instead just in case we decided to use the 3rd day. When I told my husband, he was like, so we're going down Thursday night now, right? So we ended up with 3 days at Universal, a day at Disney, wedding day, 3 more days with everyone at Disney, 6 more days just us... then down to Canaveral for the cruise, and when we got back we did Kennedy Space Center before going home!

Haha! That is amazing!! It's so easy to just want to keep adding days on though - it seems like no amount of time is enough!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Hello my friends - my gosh, it has been a while!

I've been in that lull between ADRs and Fast passes where there isn't really anything concrete to do so I've been doing a lot of rejigging of plans. I've also been pretty busy. Last weekend I was in Boston seeing Taylor Swift with my sister and also my wedding planning is really ramping up now - I can't believe it's next month!!

Anyway, so I've been looking at plans and trying to finalize some things and my first order of business once I added the DxDP to our first two night stay was to try and change our ADRs.

Thanks to Touring Plans reservation finder, I managed to get a California Grill reservation for our second night (while we're on the DxDP). I'm SO happy I managed to get one. It's pretty early and we're usually late eaters at home but it actually works out well - our CG reservation is at 5:20 so we'll have dinner and then head to Magic Kingdom to watch Happily Ever After!

That meant that I cancelled my Be Our Guest reservation for that night and tried to get one for the Wednesday night which meant giving up a Hollywood Studios night to be in Magic Kingdom but I think that's ok. Again, the Reservation Finder came through and we have a BOG table at 6:45. So we'll eat and spend the evening at Magic Kingdom - it's EMH so the park will be open until 11.

The other change I made was that instead of spending the first day at Hollywood Studios (before we go to CG), we are going to Epcot. As food and wine is on, it just seemed a shame to use our snack credits on run-of-the-mill disney snacks when we could put them to good use at the food and wine booths so that's what we'll do for lunch on that day. We'll try and share and keep it light so we still have room for dinner! I am a bit worried about going to Epcot on a Saturday, as I think it will be packed but as long as we know that going in, I think it should be ok.

The only ADR I'm now trying to change is to get an earlier Sci-Fi table on the Wednesday. Originally, that whole day was at Hollywood studios and I thought we might do the Star Wars Dessert party so I booked Sci-Fi at 2pm, thinking if we have a late-ish lunch, it will keep us going until the dessert party. Well now that we are having dinner at BOG at 6:45, I want to move our Sci-Fi lunch to as early as possible. Again, we'll keep it light for that meal, I just really want to visit for the atmosphere! I have a reservation finder set up for it but no luck so far.

Ok I think you're all caught up now!

Here's a funny story . I was all set for my fastpass day being Tuesday. I was planning on spending tomorrow night to finalize my plans and get up early to try and book them all. Except then I got an email from Touring Plans reminding me that my fast pass day is TOMORROW! I had been a complete moron and calculated my 60 days from our first park day, not the day we check in. As we won't be in the parks our first day, I'd kind of discounted it. So I just got back from visiting my hometown for the weekend and immediately jumped on the laptop and about five minutes after that, had a quick nap...

After my brief snooze, I'm now back on the laptop to try and finalize our plans and I am struggling! I have loved the planning so far but am really finding the touring plans aspect very confusing and hard to plan. I know that having a good touring plan is crucial, especially with large crowds, which I'm expecting as it's Columbus Day week. I'm finding so much conflicting touring plan advice and I also want to make plans that make sense and don't have us zigzagging about the parks. I think because we're park hopping a reasonable amount, that also makes it more complicated. Anyway I'm trying to muddle through it and hope I make the right choices!

As a reminder - Here are our general park plans:

Day 1: Epcot daytime - Magic Kingdom evening for fireworks
Day 2: Animal Kingdom
Day 3: Epcot morning - Hollywood Studios evening
Day 4: Magic Kingdom day - Evening Epcot EMH
Day 5: Hollywood Studios Daytime - Magic Kingdom evening
Day 6: Magic Kingdom day - Animal Kingdom afternoon/evening
Day 7: ???

I'm planning afternoon breaks for pretty much every day. Our last day I have no plans but I think I'll try and get a FOP fast pass in the morning, just in case we can't get one for our other animal kingdom days.

So these are the fast passes I'm planning. My general philosophy when planning is that we'll rope drop and do what we can early on, then book FP starting at 10am.

Day 1: Spaceship Earth, Seas with Nemo, Frozen Ever After
Day 2: Kilamanjaro Safari, Expedition Everest, Flight of passage
Day 3: Mission Space, Spaceship Earth, Frozen Ever After
Day 4: SDMT, Big Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan
Day 5: Slinky Dog Dash, Star Tours, Frozen Sing Along
Day 6: SDMT, Enchanted Tales with Belle, Buzz Lightyear
Day 7: Flight of passage, Dinosaur, Kali River Rapids

Thoughts?? I know I'm asking at literally the last minute as I have to book everything in less than 12 hours, eek!

I will come back tomorrow and let you know how I did - wish me luck!

 

[rideswithchrist]

ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY!!!

Make sure you proudly wear your Just Married pins We didn't know about them when we Disneymooned 14 years ago but we had a wonderful time.
I highly recommend Artist Point as well, it was our "fancy anniversary dinner" along with all the other yummy places we ate.
We stayed at the ORIGINAL Pop Century when you could walk out to nothingness that was going to be the 1900s but got turned into AOA instead.

That is our favorite resort but we outgrew it 2 kids ago LOL. We stayed in the 80s at first BUT they gave us a room with two doubles so we went back to customer service and let them know it was our honeymoon and kindly asked if they had rooms with one bed- ****Pixie Dust**** we got "upgraded" to wheelchair accessible room in the 50s because we were there in the offseason. However, when we went back 11 years later, we stayed in Pop with the kids and stayed in the 70s, right outside the pool.

 

[Araminta18]

Aaaah! Hopefully you got everything you wanted--your rejiggered plans sound great. And thank heavens for Touring plans email reminders, right?

 

[rideswithchrist]

How did you do getting your FP? Did you get the ones you wanted?

 

[Sparklysoph]

ENJOY ENJOY ENJOY!!!

Make sure you proudly wear your Just Married pins We didn't know about them when we Disneymooned 14 years ago but we had a wonderful time.
I highly recommend Artist Point as well, it was our "fancy anniversary dinner" along with all the other yummy places we ate.
We stayed at the ORIGINAL Pop Century when you could walk out to nothingness that was going to be the 1900s but got turned into AOA instead.

That is our favorite resort but we outgrew it 2 kids ago LOL. We stayed in the 80s at first BUT they gave us a room with two doubles so we went back to customer service and let them know it was our honeymoon and kindly asked if they had rooms with one bed- ****Pixie Dust**** we got "upgraded" to wheelchair accessible room in the 50s because we were there in the offseason. However, when we went back 11 years later, we stayed in Pop with the kids and stayed in the 70s, right outside the pool.

Yes, I'm so excited to wear the pins!

So nice that you were pixie dusted on your disneymoon! I'm looking forward to staying at POP. I'm going to have to look and figure out which section to request! Thanks for following along!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Aaaah! Hopefully you got everything you wanted--your rejiggered plans sound great. And thank heavens for Touring plans email reminders, right?

How did you do getting your FP? Did you get the ones you wanted?

I did!!! Posting now!