Steppesister
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
Here! Back to read tomorrow.
And the fact that Disney just keeps raising prices, we almost felt like we were at the point of making the decision, “is it really worth it?”
For a couple of years, the answer was no.
It became work.
The week before Christmas we booked a trip. 7 Days, 6 Nights at Caribbean Beach Resort.
We told the kids on Christmas day, when each one got a Disney Gift Card and a note saying that they could choose 1 restaurant on our trip and that giftcard would pay for that meal.
We drive down and I typically try to knock out the first big chunk of the drive at night while the kids sleep. We planned to leave around 11 PM Fri – 1 AM Sat. The plan was that I'd leave work at noon to go to sleep, and whenever I woke up and we got the car loaded we were rolling out. DW was going to keep the kids awake until we left so that they'd fall asleep in the car and we could hopefully get south of Nashville before we have to stop.
And I really don’t know what happened when we did this, but it became extremely urgent a few times that we had to stop whatever we were doing and push the button on our Magic Bands (the Mickey Head).
First! ha!
Thanks for following along!I remember you PTR. Looking forward to hearing how your trip went.
It happens, I guess.I remember that.
You're right... they might price me out though. It's getting close. Not that they'll price me out 100%, but our trips seem to be becoming fewer and farther between.<sigh> I'm seriously starting to wonder when they'll price themselves out of business...
And the answer is... never. They know the gate. When it starts falling a bit, they'll adjust. But for now... they're already filled to capacity, so why lower prices?
They were happy, but it wasn't some kind of a big exciting reveal where they flipped out or anything.What were their reactions??
Well, I wasn't sure. We had our plans made so I knew that I wasn't willing to just scrap our park days or FP or anything and that was part of the discussion from the get go. To her credit, she made it very clear from the start that they didn't want to have any kind of negative affect from that aspect. But I also knew that we could use a hand with R. Maybe even more. So I wasn't really annoyed, I wasn't really excited... I'd have been happy either way.Uh, oh.... so... what was your reaction to that? Were you initially annoyed, then thought "hey! free babysitting!" Or... ??
I was fine with that. It just took some of my downtime that I intended to be resting, but if they're going to help with R... well, when is a 3 year old more of a handful than when you want to sit down to dinner?Which I'm sure you didn't want to do, necessarily, but... again... not sure how you felt about it.
Mickey Power, I love it!!! Something he may need to power up his band for your next trip . . .We just color our Mickey's with black sharpies and then coat them with a bit of sparkly nail polish. Can't wait to read the rest of your report!
Thanks for joining!Hi Andy! I'm joining along, I can't wait to read about this trip!
Good to have you here!Hopping over from your PTR . Looking forward to reading more
Thanks, it was just too big of a theme on the trip to not use it!Love the story behind the title! Can't wait to follow along!
Hi, Andy!
Awesome, I'm looking forward to reading about your trip!
Thanks! We have a good one every once in a while.This is a super idea.
It did. We did want to add them to ADRs if we could because having help with R at a meal is HUGE. I'm glad it worked out.That's great! I wondered if you'd have trouble trying to change the plans around to incorporate them, but it sounds like it worked out well.
I guess sometimes there just needs to be a reset.Coming over from your PTR. We've ended up having a much longer break from Disney than we had originally planned.
Thanks!Mickey Power seems like an excellent concept! Looking forward to reading along.
It just became a bit of a theme. I wish we had thought to get video one morning when he got so excited to put it on.I'm here! I love the story about Mickey Power! That's so cute!
Thanks for joining!Awesome title! Joining in!
We'll give it a go... I did take notes, just not pictures.Hooray, you're doing a trip report!
It was funny... for a while. Then we all became nervous that we'd lose our own bands because he was getting so good at it and was so sneaky about it!I'm excited to hear everything about your trip! I LOVE the "Mickey Power" story... what a great way to encourage R to keep on his magic band! (Also, that's pretty hysterical that he tried to take everyone else's bands to get MORE Mickey power... - what a smart kid!)
I'm glad we had extra hands at the dinner table...I'm glad to hear it wasn't too difficult to add your parents to the ADRs! I'm thrilled they were able to join you for even more of the fun.
Thanks for joining!Joining in!! OMG I love the Mickey Power idea! Can't wait to read more about your trip!
Yeah, that's just really too much. Especially when you're the only one using the app or doing any of the planning. I love Disney, but some of the changes they've made have just made planning a trip too much work in some ways.Oh and I get the feeling on keeping up with 11 people and planning for them I had 12 last year!!
Thanks! It was a fun theme that we came up with.Joining in! I love the Mickey Power theme, how fun for your little guy!
Glad you're here!Joining in!
Not much catching up to do yet.I'm here! I'm going to get caught up.
See? I told you!I'm up to speed.
Thanks!So happy you're doing another report. I love the title and the story behind it. This may be what we use on JP too. Brilliant idea.
Thanks for joining!I am here and ready to follow along!
Thanks! It was just one of those things that repeated so much that I had to make it the title.Looking forward to your report- love mickey power!!
Here! Back to read tomorrow.
Thanks for joining!Mickey Power is adorable! Following along!
We've had this discussion a lot. We've got some places we'd like to go, and part of the reason we haven't is that we feel like R is too little to get anything out of it and to let the rest of us enjoy, but we're also getting close to that window when L will be too busy with other activities to be able to plan a lot of long-ish trips.I almost there myself. There are other places I've been itching to get to like the desert SW, Italy, East Africa and a cruise to the Caribbean. We'll see.
And that's when a break is called for.
Thanks! I'm not gonna lie, we didn't take any pictures at the resort, aside from a few DW got at the pool during B's mermaid school.I am so stoked for this TR! I hope you get to the resort part before we leave as that's where we're staying.
It worked really nicely. Especially since we thought at that time we'd be paying out of pocket for any Table Service we had, it was nice to have already "paid" for those meals. Once free dining came out, those gift cards just became the way we paid tips and then bought some souvenirs.That's a really awesome gift giving idea. Love it!
It really did. It can be rough if I don't get some sleep before we leave and get to bed early the evening we arrive, but it has never gone better than it did this time.This sounds brutal, but one that worrks. Hope it went smoothly!
Very endearing in a little one sort of way.
I'm glad you joined us!Mickey Power! Looking forward to reading your report.
Thanks for joining!Joining in! Love the Mickey power story. Can't wait to hear about the trip.
I know the feeling. When I saw the latest pictures of your kids after my hiatus, I couldn't believe it!!!Whew, I became worried when I saw you had a TR linked that I was way behind. Glad I'm here at the beginning. Happy to see you decided to write a report!
Who are those kids in that intro photo? Surely, they're too old to be the same ones from previous reports. Man, time is flying past....
DW came up with it and it really seemed to work. He'd get excited to put it on every morning. He still took it off once in a while, but it wasn't the problem that we expected it to be and it was usually easy to talk up the Mickey Power and get him to put it back on.The Mickey Power story is great. How awesome that you found something that worked with LG and it became an awesome addition to the trip.
I'm glad you're here. Don't feel the need to comment on everything. I've been there... trust me, I get it.Mickey Power! Very cool story behind your title. Looking forward to reading all about your trip. I’ll try to comment now and then but life has been very busy lately and I’ve been clicking “like” more than commenting these days.
Thanks for joining!Mickey Power!! So cute. I'm here and can't wait to hear about your trip!
H&V was tougher. I couldn't find any availability, but I’m a member on touringplans.com so I used their ADR finder tool to watch for an ADR before I went to sleep. When I woke up, I had an e-mail that an 8:15 ADR for 7 had opened up so I snagged it. Really, that part all worked out better than I could have imagined.
We ended up making it all the way to Calhoun, GA as the sun came up.
We hit a little bit of traffic on I-4, but otherwise we never had any problems.
The hotel was on a busy stretch of 535 and was a pain to get in and out of. We had considered going to Disney Springs that afternoon to have dinner, but after getting into the hotel, I really didn’t want to drive through that mess again.
She went on telling us we should sell her our tickets and was telling us she could get us a better price... I don’t know, I was done talking to her or listening when I told her we had our tickets and weren’t interested. She went on this hard sell trying to get us to do something and after telling her “No, thanks” a few times, I just turned my back and walked away.
Sunday would be our first Disney day and our hope was to make it to MK for rope drop!
Via Napoli and Crystal Palace were a piece of cake. I think we had to go like 30 minutes later at VN, but CP we added 2 people and had our same time. H&V was tougher. I couldn't find any availability, but I’m a member on touringplans.com so I used their ADR finder tool to watch for an ADR before I went to sleep. When I woke up, I had an e-mail that an 8:15 ADR for 7 had opened up so I snagged it. Really, that part all worked out better than I could have imagined. We added them to the 3 ADRs we wanted to and it didn’t impact our plans or the times in any significant way.
We booked our stay at the Holiday Inn Reosrt, Lake Buena Vista.
The hotel had an Applebees attached to it so we went there for dinner, again, to avoid driving anywhere. They were WAY understaffed.
She went on telling us we should sell her our tickets and was telling us she could get us a better price... I don’t know, I was done talking to her or listening when I told her we had our tickets and weren’t interested. She went on this hard sell trying to get us to do something and after telling her “No, thanks” a few times, I just turned my back and walked away.
Sunday would be our first Disney day and our hope was to make it to MK for rope drop!