We Don't Need Therapy-THIS is Our Therapy! (Planning our 7-Night NYC to WDW Adventure)

MnkyGirl

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 12, 2015
Let me start by saying any of you who are brave enough to read this, congratulations and welcome to a thread about planning by two compulsive planners! Please jump in with any comments or suggestions! We will definitely be asking questions here and on the main DCL board about our time in New York City.




Introductions

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I'm the one in glasses. Behind me is @jennRR457 We travel together. A lot. A chance meeting at work made us lifelong friends and travel buddies. Even though we live in different states, we still manage to get a trip in just about every year.





Trips Together
  • Germany and Rome
  • 3 Night Halloween on the High Seas Bahamas
  • 7 Night Western Caribbean
  • New Orleans
  • 3 Night Very Merrytime Bahamas
  • Nashville
  • Multiple WDW trips
  • Williamsburg

I'm sure you'll find out more about us as we go along, but for now... let's get to the good stuff!





The Idea


I cruised a very similar itinerary to this when Disney first offered cruises out of New York in 2012. This was also less than a year after we met. Since then, @jennRR457 has wanted to go on a Disney cruise out of NYC. As soon as Disney announced that they would be sailing this itinerary again, we were in planning mode, but unfortunately some stuff came up. Between both of us changing jobs and moving to different states we knew that we couldn't do it in 2016 or 2017. So 2018 became the date! We decided on that almost 2 years ago, but we didn't really settle on a date and start planning until last month.





The Plan


So now that we have a date, the planning begins! Since @jennRR457 already has another cruise booked, we have decided to wait to book the cruise until she is on the boat and can get the discount. We have been watching prices very closely in case they go up, but for now, we wait. While waiting, we have decided to start the campaign with 2 of our friends to join us! Both have come to about 75% commitment. But we really want them to experience this so we keep working at it. Whether or not friends come will bring up a lot of questions on rooms. Should we all stay in one room? Should we get two rooms? What category rooms do we want to splurge on? It's all up in the air, but what we can work on is research about the weather, hotel rooms, and transportation. We have both been to NYC before but the other two haven't. We will also be flying in from 3 different states and staying one night before and one night after. It's going to be a lot of coordination to get everyone there at roughly the same time. But we are up to the challenge!





I'm sure @jennRR457 is going to chime in, and I've got a whole lot more to add, but for now, let's leave this brief introduction. I would love for this to be an asset for those planning NYC cruises, so we'll try to post our solid plans as they are made and our reasoning behind them. When we are done, we will definitely post a trip report!
 
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We are currently stalking the trip reports and Navigators for those cruising our itinerary this year. I'm trying my best to get an idea of what will be going on each day so that when we book onboard activities (I know, still a long way off) we won't miss something that we truly enjoy doing. We LOVE the spa and neither of us has ever done Palo Brunch so we have decided that it is a "must do" this time around since we will have 4 sea days. The obsessiveness about seeing the Navigators comes in because we also LOVE taking in all that the ship offers on sea days! Trivia, Movies, Bingo, Classes, Lectures... we're there. (probably why every cast member who worked these events knew us by name by day 3 on our last 7 night cruise)

So I mentioned we were obsessive planners, right? Here's a taste. We have an entire OneNote Notebook dedicated to this trip. Not a page, notebook. It currently has 20 pages. Here's a sample:
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We used to do this the old fashioned way in a notebook/planner. We worked at the same company so we would eat lunch together every day and bring the notebook along in case we got into planning. Not so easy to do now that we live in different states. OneNote is an amazing invention. It's just our virtual notebook.

We generally split responsibilities, but we each have our areas of expertise. Setting the itinerary is one of mine, but we both love being spontaneous as well. So I build and itinerary that allows us to be spontaneous and still do everything on our wish list, and once we step foot on the boat, I am relieved of responsibility and @jennRR457 takes care of making sure that we follow it. We like to say that I am in charge on land and she is in charge at sea. :rolleyes1
 
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So it looks like we will have 3 people on the cruise! We are pretty sure one of our friends has committed to coming! Also, she sews and wants to make costumes so it looks like we are doing Pirate Night!


With this new information, we have narrowed down the cabin to either a Deluxe Inside or an Ocean View. It will all depend on what is available to book. @jennRR457 and I have decided what decks we want to be on (or more like which decks we most definitely will NOT stay on.) So now it is more waiting…



I’m also still on the fence about hotel stays before and after the trip. Essentially, we are flying in the night before for the sole purpose of getting to the port early. We prefer getting to the port early. After the cruise, we are staying an extra day to catch a play. Everything that we want to do after the cruise is in Manhattan. Hotels are expensive there, but if we stay in the heart of things, we don’t have to worry about transportation. We can easily walk or take the subway. I have lately been tossing around the idea of flying into Newark and staying in New Jersey at the beginning, and then splurging on a hotel in Manhattan for the extra day in the city after the cruise.


One of the other reasons that we are obsessively reading trip reports is that we are debating whether or not we will go to Palo. We are definitely booking brunch at Palo, but are undecided about dinner. We have done it before and enjoyed it immensely, but we also love the MDRs. The main reason we are considering it is because I have an obsession with the soufflés. I’m gluten free, so the only place to get the soufflés gluten free on board is at Palo for dinner. So the debate continues… We would normally book Palo on Pirate Night, but since we are dressing up this time, we can’t really go to Palo in costume.
 
We're getting closer and closer to booking and actually being able to firm up our plans! As soon as that deposit is down we are going to go into planning overdrive. :)
In other news, the price of the cruise went up. :( But at least it only went up by about $1 per person for the rooms we are looking at! Yay! I've also been chatting with a friend who works in the hotel industry and makes frequent trips to NYC. She is full of good advice, so now we just have to make choices... One fantastic thing that @jennRR457 and I have discovered is that since we have moved, each of us can find much cheaper flights. Score one for the budget! :)


I hope you all have a Very Merry Holiday season! I'll be back after with updates!
 


I'm back! I hope you all had a fabulous holiday! Mine was spent at Walt Disney World with my family, so obviously it was wonderful. Although, it was COLD! We have gone to WDW on the same week every year for 30+ years, and while, yes, we do encounter some cold days, we have never been where it was that cold the entire trip. After the first day, the warmest we got was 52*. Anyways, we are just going to count the trip as research for the upcoming cruise! Because... WE ARE BOOKED!
That's right! It's official and the countdown is officially on my phone! I can officially start my happy dance! :cool1: But, in future posts, remember that I mentioned going to WDW in this post, because I totally used it as research for the upcoming park hopping extravaganza that will be our excursion day at the parks while on the cruise.

Our 3rd friend has decided that she probably won't come unless she gets a new job. *fingers crossed she gets one soon* I mean... we still have a while, we can add her if she changes her mind. But for now, it's just @jennRR457 and I. This does clear up some of the planning aspects though. This will be our 4th cruise together (5 each total, hello GOLD!) and we have a system/general itinerary down at this point. So now all of the things we were considering doing for our friend who hadn't done them (i.e. Pirate Night) we can scrap.

Now comes the fun part for me... hotel accommodations. Some of this will tie into our flights, but we now get to decide where we are going to stay and find some good deals. We will fly into either Newark or JFK. Neither one of us wants to go anywhere near LaGuardia right now. LOL We prefer flying in the night before a cruise to avoid any problems with flight delays and we are staying an extra day after the cruise to spend some time in the city and maybe see a play? So the question we are currently pondering...
1. Do we fly into Newark and get a cheap hotel and deal with transportation?
2. Do we fly into JFK and stay closer to the cruise port?
3. Do we fly into Newark and stay at a cheap hotel for the first night, and then stay downtown for the night at the end of the cruise?
So you see? So many questions! LOL But this is what we enjoy, so I'm sure there will be a phone call soon, but for now we research.
 
Well, hotel #1 is booked! We have decided on flying into Newark because:
1. We like to fly Southwest
2. We will NOT be flying into LaGuardia. :snooty:

So, with that decision made, we could start looking into hotels! So after some research we settled on the Springhill Suites near the airport. Free shuttle from the airport, free breakfast, and a price you can't turn down? Sold! Meanwhile, as I'm researching the hotel, I kept thinking it looked awfully familiar... So I looked back at my records and yup, it's the exact same hotel that I stayed in for my 2012 cruise! (can you say creature of habit?) :rolleyes1 I really enjoyed it then, so I'm looking forward to going back! We went ahead and booked because it's free cancellation until 3 days before our stay, so if our flight plans change, no biggie!

In other news, after a phone call to "plan" we have come to the conclusion that we are really well prepared and only had a couple of decisions left to make. This is what happens when you talk about going on a trip for 2 years... you basically don't have to plan it when you pull the trigger and decide to go. I'll have to do a post soon with our plans that I can update, but for now here is the to do list that is left:

1. Book flights (waiting on Southwest to release the fares)
2. Decide where to stay in Manhattan (ugh the money! but it doesn't hurt as bad when I know how much we saved on the room in Newark)
3. Decide what play to see! This is an ongoing conversation... there are so many good ones!
4. Book excursions, spa times, Palo (waiting on the booking window to open)

Soooo if November could just hurry up and get here, we'd be doing good!
 
Following along as we are sailing out of New York in October and have no clue about hotels, etc. in New York. I was wondering how you will be getting to the port from the Springhill Suites?
 


Following along as we are sailing out of New York in October and have no clue about hotels, etc. in New York. I was wondering how you will be getting to the port from the Springhill Suites?
We are planning to take a Lyft/Uber from the airport. We like to be at the port early, so we should be able to avoid surge pricing and obnoxious traffic as well. I’m posting another update soon, but we just booked our hotel for the return and it looks like we’ll use Lyft/Uber to go back to the airport as well.
 
It sounds as if you are saying you will take the Springhill shuttle back to the airport and then Uber to the Port from the airport? I have no idea about location of either Springhill or the airport or the port so I don’t know if it makes more sense to do this or Uber from Springhill to the Port.

We like to board early as well, and this will be our first sailing as Platinum, so I think I can board anytime after they let Concierge board.
 
It sounds as if you are saying you will take the Springhill shuttle back to the airport and then Uber to the Port from the airport? I have no idea about location of either Springhill or the airport or the port so I don’t know if it makes more sense to do this or Uber from Springhill to the Port.

We like to board early as well, and this will be our first sailing as Platinum, so I think I can board anytime after they let Concierge board.
Springhill is right next to the airport, but it can be a little tricky to find. So for us, it just makes sense to make the very quick hop back over to the airport where Ubers are plenteous. :)
 
Man! I can't believe it's been so long since I posted on here! Life got to happening and I just didn't realize how much time passed! Anyways, here we are firmly into the middle of May and plans are firming up rather quickly! So here's where we are at:
  • Flights- @jennRR457 is actually coming for a visit in 2 weeks! Her visit also just happens to coincide with the date that Southwest releases their flights. So we'll be booking flights, shopping for clothes, and putting together Fish Extender gifts (in between the sight seeing, of course)
  • Fish Extenders!- We got into an Adults Only FE Group! Don't get me wrong, I do love to buy for little kids, but we are excited to see the difference that an all adults group brings.
  • Hotels- We are all booked! The night before the cruise we will be staying in Newark (free airport shuttle and free breakfast!) and will take an Uber/Lyft into the city to the port after breakfast. The day we get back from the cruise we will be staying in Manhattan. Our hotel is within walking distance of the port and Broadway. Which segways into...
  • Play- We have finally decided on a play! While we wanted to see everything that is playing, time and finances really got in the way. So after much debate (do we really want to spend ALL DAY watching Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?) and weeks of price checking (Hamilton costs how much? Well... I mean, I don't have to eat for 6 months, right? It would be totally worth it!) we have finally decided on Wicked. It's been on the bucket list for both of us for years, and it fits the budget, and it gives us time to sight see.
  • This week the window opens for us to make dining reservations for our day in WDW. While we haven't 100% made up our minds that we will actually use them, we decided to go ahead and make them. Better to have them and be able to cancel them than to wish we had made them.
So for the most part, we are just in the waiting stage. Which also involves (on my part anyways) planning what to pack. (Yes, I know it's early, but I'm obsessive that way) After we book our flights, we literally just hunker down and wait until our booking window opens for excursions! Thankfully we've got a busy summer ahead of us so the wait shouldn't be too painful. :)

 
Just a check in.. :) We booked our Dining Reservations for our day at WDW! Coral Reef here we come! We are still very much on the fence over whether or not we will actually keep them, but at least we have them for now... I also thought I would post a page from our planning notebook. Here's what our day at WDW is starting to look like:
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We have been to the parks a LOT, and we like to be pretty spontaneous (shocker coming from us, I know) and go with the flow when we visit. But with VIP fastpasses and regular fastpasses to juggle, we have to have *some* structure to the day. :)
 
Following along. We're taking our first cruise in November (out of PC) and if all goes well then we might book a placeholder for a future cruise leaving out of NY since we could drive.

I like the one note notebook you are using. I had to download and I'm trying to figure it out. I'm list obsessive especially with my trips.
 
Following along. We're taking our first cruise in November (out of PC) and if all goes well then we might book a placeholder for a future cruise leaving out of NY since we could drive.

I like the one note notebook you are using. I had to download and I'm trying to figure it out. I'm list obsessive especially with my trips.

Y'all will LOVE it! :) I'm excited for you! PC is really the best port to sail out of for the first time. It's the Disney experience, but NYC is a super easy port as well and very convenient. Also, nothing beats sailing down the Hudson for a sailaway party in my opinion. :worship: We love this specific itinerary though because we get to experience both ports.

OneNote is fantastic. It takes some getting used to, (especially for someone like me who is very adept at Microsoft products) but once you realize that they designed it to work just like your old 5 section notebook from school (remember the ones with the pockets?) :), it's super useful! We have ours separated into larger categories at the top:
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And then tabs and subtabs within the larger categories:
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I do remember the big five star mead notebooks. Used to love them. I use an excel sheet for my Disney itinerary right now and then a separate app for lists like packing and things to do. I like that can do it all in One Note.

I hope you're doing a TR when you get back because I would love to read it.
 
I just wanted to put a suggestion out there for you on dining at WDW. We just came back from a week at WDW and there were two places on our "must dine" list and neither disappointed. We absolutely fell in love with Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' Best fried chicken dinner and best fried chicken sandwich ever. And at EPCOT, we had lunch at Via Napoli. We had eaten at both of these restaurants during our February trip and wanted to eat at both of them again. At Via Napoli, the pizza was very good and the lasagna was the best I have ever eaten in my life, and Italian is my favorite type of food. Not trying to change your mind, just listing some other tried and true options for you. :)

What hotel did you decide on for your stay in Manhattan? Now that our trip to WDW is behind us, we can really start focusing on the cruise and our time in New York in October.
 
I do remember the big five star mead notebooks. Used to love them. I use an excel sheet for my Disney itinerary right now and then a separate app for lists like packing and things to do. I like that can do it all in One Note.

I hope you're doing a TR when you get back because I would love to read it.

Aww Thanks! I really am hoping to get a TR up and running when I get back. I'm planning to put all of the NYC stuff in there as well since most of the TRs that I've found for this itinerary are done by NY locals. :)

I just wanted to put a suggestion out there for you on dining at WDW. We just came back from a week at WDW and there were two places on our "must dine" list and neither disappointed. We absolutely fell in love with Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' Best fried chicken dinner and best fried chicken sandwich ever. And at EPCOT, we had lunch at Via Napoli. We had eaten at both of these restaurants during our February trip and wanted to eat at both of them again. At Via Napoli, the pizza was very good and the lasagna was the best I have ever eaten in my life, and Italian is my favorite type of food. Not trying to change your mind, just listing some other tried and true options for you. :)

What hotel did you decide on for your stay in Manhattan? Now that our trip to WDW is behind us, we can really start focusing on the cruise and our time in New York in October.

Via Napoli did make our short list! But ultimately we settled on Coral Reef because it's easier with my diet restrictions (gf). (also I would have whined about @jennRR457 eating pasta and pizza when I couldn't) :rolleyes1

I would recommend you start looking at the hotel situation in Manhattan soon. The hotels near the port are booking quickly. We opted for Holiday Inn. It's close to just about everything we want to do, but most importantly the theater and the port. Another recommendation from another DISer... We booked both hotels with free cancellation since NYC hotel rates tend to drop drastically the week before the date. This isn't always a guarantee, but we wanted to have the option, just in case something fabulous came up.
 
Flights and Wicked Tickets have been booked! (well, at least my flight has been... @jennRR457 is still looking for the perfect flight) I got a direct round trip flight for under $200 so my part of the budget is looking pretty good right about now. :banana:

So originally, we were really just going to "wing it" for our day of sightseeing in NYC. We've both been before so we figured we would just play it by ear and then go see Wicked in the evening. Well all that changed last weekend when @jennRR457 came for a visit. (come on, you didn't think two people this obsessed with planning could stand to leave an entire day unplanned did you?)
We both have National Parks Passports and while she was visiting we got to go see some of the national parks nearby. Well that got us to thinking about just how many stamps we could potentially get in NYC. (this is the downside of a long car ride, we come up with crazy ideas like this one and then actually figure out how to make it work) So the plan is to try to get to as many of the 10 sites in NYC as we can. Right now with seasonal closures and logistics it looks like we'll probably be able to get about 6 of them in. (while still leaving time for PIZZA. I know, so cliche, but I need my pizza when I'm in NYC)

So for now, I'll leave you with a few pictures from our weekend trip.
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Okay, so @MnkyGirl has been talking for forever and I know that I am actually the one you want to be listening to, not her. Lol. Honestly, she is awesome and probably way more interesting than anything I will talk about. I mean, I have been LOVING reading her posts on this pre-trip report and I already know what’s going on before I even read them.

But, I have been doing planning, too, so it is MY turn.

Now that so much of our planning is over, I have become buried in FE research. :duck:

The first and last time we participated in an FE was in 2015 for our Western Caribbean cruise on the Fantasy. That one was a normal FE group (families, kids, etc.) so this one will be a little different since we have joined an adults only FE group. Some of the things we created for our last FE group were DCL drink bottles (used vinyl DCL labels), pictures frames with a DCL design I created, and some Minnie Mouse drawstring bags. I honestly only remember a few of the items we created for the kids though. I guess it’s good we’re only making gifts for adults this time.

It’s amazing how many different opinions there are about Fish Extenders. But, I found a pretty sweet discussion that has people discussing their favourite/least favourite FE gifts they received. Which, the planner in me is loving. I mean, no one wants to make FE gifts that are lame and people don’t want. But also, I have to think through the size of our luggage, plus what I am making and what is she making (since we live in different states). And figuring out what I am making versus what she is making is hard, because I’m the artist and, as much as I tell her otherwise, she doesn’t think she can doing anything artsy (so there will be a lot of “you can do it”s throughout this process”). :thumbsup2

A couple of ideas we have: Mickey hair ties, hand sanitizer, picture frames, magnets (we LOVED getting magnets on our last FE cruise), Christmas ornaments (who doesn’t want a Christmas ornament??), bookmarks, flashlights, light cards (we have used the one we got on our last FE cruise for every single cruise since), sundae kits, and drawstring bags.

Some ideas that I just learned about this morning that were in the favourite FE list: coasters, catch-all trays (I'm guessing these are those little trays that you throw your keys, coins, chapstick and stuff in?), yacht-sea game (which is basically a portable, cruise version of Yahtzee), regional goodies, regional recipes, mini first aid kits, sleep masks, postcards, “Days Till Disney” countdown.

Ideas that were on the worst list (so, I guess I am not making any of these…): candy, foam craft projects, and stickers. There were a lot fewer gifts in the worst category than I expected, so that was pretty cool.

Plus, this cruise is out of New York! What can we do with that? Disney + New York + FE gift = awesome!

I will leave you with a quick look into our FE section on our OneNote notebook (yes, I love OneNote as much as @MnkyGirl does).

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100!!!
That means... :teacher: 10 days until we can check in! (also it means 11 days until I can start packing, which frankly is just as exciting to me)

In other news, @jennRR457 and I both have birthdays pretty close to our cruise, so following a tradition started on our first cruise, there will be gifts. Lots of them... because we are both givers by nature and we can't help ourselves. So about a month ago, she texts me about my birthday present. I mean, she was EXCITED and kept saying that she would never be able to keep it a secret, but she was going to try. Now, I love surprises, but I also like puzzles and figuring things out so it goes to show you just how busy life has been this month for me. I completely forgot about our whole conversation. That is until yesterday. Yesterday, I logged on to the website to get our room number for a friend. (who thinks she's being slick but we know she's gonna send us snacks or room gifts lol) Instead of showing a room number, it said that we are booked in a GTY 9C. (the 9C didn't sink in quite yet at this point) so I immediately text @jennRR457 in an absolute panic thinking that something crazy happened to our reservation. As soon as I hit send, I realize that 9C is an oceanview room. (we were booked in an inside room) At that point I get a text back saying something along the lines of "Happy Birthday, I'm surprised it took you this long to figure it out." :yay: (actual picture of me in my office when I realized what was going on) @jennRR457 is literally the QUEEN of fabulous gift giving, and I really don't know how she can improve on this. I mean, I feel rather inadequate in the gift giving department comparatively. (and I'm really good. Like, really good. Just to give you an idea of how good she is.)

So needless to say, I'm pretty excited. I've never stayed in anything other than an inside room, so this will be a completely new experience for me! So now waiting is even worse... *sigh*
I'll be checking in here again as soon as check ins are complete with an update on itineraries and a glimpse into my crazy packing process!

Until then... keep counting down!
 

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