February 2019 for this Canadian family of 10

[xtinelizabeth]

Hi disney fans. This is my family, pictured last Christmas 2017. We're coming from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

TOP ROW L-R
Hubby, 4 year old son, 2 year old niece, big sister, dad, little brother.
BOTTOM ROW L-R
Mama, 12 year old nephew, brother-in-law, and finally me and my 4 month old (2 months in pic)
NOT PICTURED
my 6 week old nephew who my sister is pregnant with in the picture.

Please excuse me jumbled thoughts. Ill be using this as a dumping ground for all the information overload ive attained. Feel free to pipe in with any tips or suggestions!

This will be MY family's first time to Disney. This will be my sister's 4th/5th trip. I don't even know anymore. Our dad will not be coming along but we are planning on surprising our mom the day we fly out! The kids also have no idea either. My sister and I are taking on the full responsibility of planning this trip for our families. Our little brother may or may not come, he's currently in college with no guaranteed income so we'll see how that pans out.

Confirmed travellers, 5 adults, 5 kids - ages at time of travel: 13, 5, almost 3, 1 and 1

TENTATIVE ITINERARY

Feb6 - sister's family of 5 begins drive to Orlando from Winnipeg
Feb10 - my family of 4 + mom fly out from Winnipeg. Sister & fam arrive. We check in to likely a value resort. Sister owns DVC home resort poly. Unwind and relax. Tuck in early.
Feb11 - hollywood
Feb12 - MK
Feb13 - epcott
Feb14 - check out early. Store luggage at resort. animal kingdom. My family rents a car, pick up luggage and drive offsite. Pick up groceries.

CONFIRMED RESERVATION. 8 days, 7 nights in Davenport FL.
Townhouse in Waterstone villas. 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths. $1174 CDN split between two families $587 each.

Feb15-18: SeaWorld, Legoland, beaches, shopping, whatever
Day19 - Universal day 1
Day20 - universal dayb2
Day21 - back to reality

TO DO
Book Disney vacation package for Feb 10-14
complete with resort, tickets & dining plan.
Book flights for 3 adults & 1 child (5)
Book rental car for 8 days (suggestions for reputable and budget friendly car rental places?)


DISNEY PLANNING:
We for sure want to do 3 character dining. Ohana's, Be Our Guest, & Akershus Royal Banquet Hall.
- ANYTHING star wars. Hubby and DS are OBSSESSED
- meet & greets: absolutely must see anyone star wars, baymax, olaf (I'm sure I'll be adding this as my infant daughter gets older and develops interests that don't involve my breasts)

any tips on what order to do parks?

UNIVERSAL PLANNING
Let's be real, this is the reason in going. I have been a huge Harry Potter fan for 20 years. And when I say huge, I mean owning every book in hard and softcover, Full reread of the series once a year, All 8 movies on blu-ray, midnight releases (books AND movies), trivia nights, writes fanfiction kind of huge. My sister thinks we might split up for this day because im probably going to cry and embarrass her.

BUDGETING
Ideally... I'd like to keep the trip to under $6000 CDN but it's not a hard limit. We currently have that much saved up already, with 11 months to save more but we try to be frugal where we can so I'm not looking to be super extravagant with spending. My goal is to have everything except groceries paid off BEFORE we leave.

• Food: only I will be booking dining plan for 3 adults & 1 child. My sister and I will be splitting the cost. We'll be pooling all 20 TS credits for the 3 character dining we want to do. That leaves the 10 of us with 20 QS and 40 snacks credits. Can easily split meals and snacks between us. Sister's family is vegetarian, we are not. Will supplement with groceries (eating breakfast in room and packing sandwiches and easy snacks). Off-site at condo we will do groceries and cook breakfast and dinner. Packed lunches.. if anyone has a sample of their food budget for their trip staying on-site, pleas share away.
• Flights: unfortunately no points whatsoever to offset the cost. Fortunately, my best friend/son's godfather works for wesjet. He regularly gets discount codes to give out to friends so crossing my fingers for a good deal. Hoping to not have to pay more than $2000 CDN for 4 of us. Again, my sister will be splitting the cost of our mom's flights.
• Park tickets: 2.5 adults. 1 child. (Sister will be splitting the cost of mom's tickets). Need at least 4 days disney parks (maybe 5 if we decide to go back to a favorite when staying off-site) also need 2 day park-to-park universal. Hoping for those sweet Canadian discounts they had this year.
• Accommodations: still need on-site resort accommodations for 5 day 4 nights at Disney. Not concerned about quality. Will pick cheapest value resort available as we'll only use it to sleep. Only staying on-site for free transportation and close proximity of parks with 4 little ones.
• Car rental: don't know anything about car rental places, gas prices, etc. Any info regarding best rental companies and how much I should expect to pay would be much appreciated.
• Spending money: I don't even know where to start with this. I'm not big on souvenirs.. might get something small for the 5 year old. Hubby will want all star wars and Jurassic Park merch. I will probably blow my entire spending money budget stuff the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

ESTIMATED BUDGET:


COST OF TRIP SO FAR

ACCOMMODATIONS: $587 CDN (8 days 7 nights condo)

More planning coming your way. Stay tuned folks.

 

[xtinelizabeth]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iH52zriQgSnf9M220KRDvR0shLtX5fqJtRNgLLi-AeU/edit?usp=sharing

I've created a spreadsheet that outlines my plan to utilize our Disney dining plan purchased for 3 adults & 1 child but distributed between 6 adults. 1 child & 3 under 3. The only thing im unsure about is my ability to use a child table service credit for quick service. Has anyone done this?

 

[Andrea1975]

I can't answer your question about the child table service, but at a minimum you should be able to use it for a kid's QS meal.

I looked at your spreadsheet and wasn't sure how you were planning to use snacks for the kids at the buffet/AYCE places. Your under 3s will get a full meal (for free) there so you won't need snacks (and I don't think there's a way to order snacks there anyway.)

 

[xtinelizabeth]

So update.. after much deliberation my sister and I thought it might be better to just each get our own DDP.. THEN we did some math and decided it would be better for us to split the DxDP. Will post my math and spreadsheet when my 4 month old is screaming in my ear.