Hello all,
I've decided to start on the pretrip report as a way organize my thoughts and write out the current plan. and rant. Let's be honest...mostly rant because this process is turning out much more crazy than I thought it was going to
So let's getting started with a little background. My sister (S) and I and our best friend (BFF) since we were kids have been wanting to go to Disney together since...well...since we were kids
however, our parent's couldn't afford it, then she moved, then college got in the way, then she moved to Spain...you get the idea. Life got in the way. Now that we're all getting older and marriage and family is all going to happen very shortly S and I decided to actually do a Disney girls trip as one last hurrah...one last chance to be a kid and pretend we don't have responsibilities before going back to the grind of paying school loans and rent and all the rest of the stuff. Do something we've been wanting to since forever before we feel the need to hold off for a few more years.
and thus a plan was born....we decided to go 2018! So onto price checking and deciding the best time to go and price checking to see if we could splurge on a mod or deluxe.
Decided on Mid September 2018 and a Mod for hopefully free dining (not the most cost effective discount… it’s something and the all-expense paid feeling would be super cool and not something we’ve had before)
It seemed perfect, S and I both have steady jobs, BFF was moving back to the states as her teaching job had ended, we had been talking about this for years, it was going to be great! Now to tell BFF!
BFF told us she was joining the Peacecorp.
Okay..so..rework budget to see if S and I can pay for BFF (yay for the budget board!!!) tight but doable. I should point out at this point that S and I were already planning on paying for BFF for most things (Spain doesn't pay very well in US terms...and you don't plan a surprise trip without helping the other person out a little) but with the Peacecorp she's really not going to be able to pay for anything. so re-working had to be done.
However we still aren't sure if she can get off or not (it's really hard to get ahold of her...Peacecorp does have vacation days but they need to be approved and depending on what you're doing there's certain times you can and cannot take off ). But S and I figure if she can't go then we will either do a sister trip or take the boyfriends along and make it a couples trip. The boys, while not super excited, are willing to go. S and I think they will really enjoy it much more than they think they will...they'll at least get a kick out of S and I making a full out of ourselves.
So dates are set; Sept 11-22 2018 at POR! WHOOP! Budget is tentatively set. I’m currently working with three different budgets; two people, three people, and four people. We figured we’ll stick with a Mod mostly for the free dining plan (which may or may not happen) and if the budget needs a little wiggle room we’ll switch to Pop (better to save more than less) and we opened up a DVA so that both S and I could contribute the same amount every month.
Then the DVA closed, which was super disappointing. I know there’s better saving accounts out there but this one was working well for us…but we did get some free Disney money out of it so I can’t complain too much. Just a little inconvenient is all.
Started tentatively planning what ADRs and FP we should try for…which involves two different trips; girls trip (BFF gets motion sick and doesn’t like coasters…soo no star tours, ToT, or RR FP…but Tea, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and all those good things) or boys trip (star tours a must! ToT, etc.)
At this point the Free Dining for 2017 came out…which had Mods and Value resorts both on the QS plan….which again was rather disappointing because I know there’s some TS places we’ve got to try. So we’ll have to see what 2018 brings….if it’s just QS then we’ll probably switch to Pop and pay the upcharge for the regular dining plan.
Still have not heard from BFF about whether or not she can go, although I know that she is having a great time at PC so that’s great! I’m just a planner (couldn’t tell could you) so I need to know.
Now I just found out that some good friends have set their wedding date (S and I are in the Wedding) for Sept 21…so now we’ve got to figure out if we want to just shorten the trip, move it to the week after, or move it to a different season or maybe 2019. As of right now I’ve got:
Dates:
Maybe September 2018, maybe not
People:
3 or 4
Resort:
POR or Pop
There’s a lot of questions right now.
Anyway. Thanks for the rant. I’ll keep you all posted about the next craziness that occurs because apparently S and I going to have to work much harder for this trip then we thought. I should point out that once we’re there things are going to be fine…S and I are very flexible and go with the flow once we’re actually at something. It’s the planning part before we actually go that we try to get as set as we can. We just really need to know who it going and what the dates are going to be.
I've decided to start on the pretrip report as a way organize my thoughts and write out the current plan. and rant. Let's be honest...mostly rant because this process is turning out much more crazy than I thought it was going to
So let's getting started with a little background. My sister (S) and I and our best friend (BFF) since we were kids have been wanting to go to Disney together since...well...since we were kids
however, our parent's couldn't afford it, then she moved, then college got in the way, then she moved to Spain...you get the idea. Life got in the way. Now that we're all getting older and marriage and family is all going to happen very shortly S and I decided to actually do a Disney girls trip as one last hurrah...one last chance to be a kid and pretend we don't have responsibilities before going back to the grind of paying school loans and rent and all the rest of the stuff. Do something we've been wanting to since forever before we feel the need to hold off for a few more years. and thus a plan was born....we decided to go 2018! So onto price checking and deciding the best time to go and price checking to see if we could splurge on a mod or deluxe.
Decided on Mid September 2018 and a Mod for hopefully free dining (not the most cost effective discount… it’s something and the all-expense paid feeling would be super cool and not something we’ve had before)
It seemed perfect, S and I both have steady jobs, BFF was moving back to the states as her teaching job had ended, we had been talking about this for years, it was going to be great! Now to tell BFF!
BFF told us she was joining the Peacecorp.
Okay..so..rework budget to see if S and I can pay for BFF (yay for the budget board!!!) tight but doable. I should point out at this point that S and I were already planning on paying for BFF for most things (Spain doesn't pay very well in US terms...and you don't plan a surprise trip without helping the other person out a little) but with the Peacecorp she's really not going to be able to pay for anything. so re-working had to be done.
However we still aren't sure if she can get off or not (it's really hard to get ahold of her...Peacecorp does have vacation days but they need to be approved and depending on what you're doing there's certain times you can and cannot take off ). But S and I figure if she can't go then we will either do a sister trip or take the boyfriends along and make it a couples trip. The boys, while not super excited, are willing to go. S and I think they will really enjoy it much more than they think they will...they'll at least get a kick out of S and I making a full out of ourselves
. So dates are set; Sept 11-22 2018 at POR! WHOOP! Budget is tentatively set. I’m currently working with three different budgets; two people, three people, and four people. We figured we’ll stick with a Mod mostly for the free dining plan (which may or may not happen) and if the budget needs a little wiggle room we’ll switch to Pop (better to save more than less) and we opened up a DVA so that both S and I could contribute the same amount every month.
Then the DVA closed, which was super disappointing. I know there’s better saving accounts out there but this one was working well for us…but we did get some free Disney money out of it so I can’t complain too much. Just a little inconvenient is all.
Started tentatively planning what ADRs and FP we should try for…which involves two different trips; girls trip (BFF gets motion sick and doesn’t like coasters…soo no star tours, ToT, or RR FP…but Tea, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and all those good things) or boys trip (star tours a must! ToT, etc.)
At this point the Free Dining for 2017 came out…which had Mods and Value resorts both on the QS plan….which again was rather disappointing because I know there’s some TS places we’ve got to try. So we’ll have to see what 2018 brings….if it’s just QS then we’ll probably switch to Pop and pay the upcharge for the regular dining plan.
Still have not heard from BFF about whether or not she can go, although I know that she is having a great time at PC so that’s great! I’m just a planner (couldn’t tell could you) so I need to know.
Now I just found out that some good friends have set their wedding date (S and I are in the Wedding) for Sept 21…so now we’ve got to figure out if we want to just shorten the trip, move it to the week after, or move it to a different season or maybe 2019. As of right now I’ve got:
Dates:
Maybe September 2018, maybe not
People:
3 or 4
Resort:
POR or Pop
There’s a lot of questions right now.
Anyway. Thanks for the rant. I’ll keep you all posted about the next craziness that occurs because apparently S and I going to have to work much harder for this trip then we thought. I should point out that once we’re there things are going to be fine…S and I are very flexible and go with the flow once we’re actually at something. It’s the planning part before we actually go that we try to get as set as we can. We just really need to know who it going and what the dates are going to be.
