pontikes67
Overplanner Underposter
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2011
I must be crazy?! If my wife finds out about this, shell kill me. Wait, shell be going with me...she just doesnt know it yet.
February 14, 2013; 681 days until our first cruise as a family. What the heck have I done?!
Okay, lets go back.
In January of 2011, my wife, looked at me and said We have to go to Disney this year. Our kids, 5 and 3, were Disney movie and tv fans and the latter (my daughter) was a huge princess fan. I want them to go while they're young enough that the excitement of princesses and characters is still magical, she told me that January evening. I had been once to Disney as a child, the first year the park opened. She had never been until we visited as newlyweds with my family on my mothers sixty-fifth birthday in April of 2005. Her pre-initial visit philosophy was I grew up going to Six Flags, I know what an amusement park is!. Fifteen minutes after arriving at Disneys Hollywood Studios (then known as MGM Studios), Oh My God, Ive never seen anything like this. She was, okay, we were hooked!
So in January 2011 she tells me its time. Little did my wife know, shed unleashed a planning nightmare or dream come true in my case. I love to plan. I love planning to plan and Disney is the greatest trip to plan. With important dates for booking ADRs and particular paths to follow to ensure maximum experience time and minimal waiting time, tidbits of information from every chat and board that is Disney oriented I used every resource I could to make my uber commando plan a succinct, ergonomic, albeit malleable planners dream come true. It was perfect and our first experience, in our eyes, was a tremendous success.
In March of 2012, we visited again, trying different accommodations and dining experiences and again, it was a hit. Later that year we decided another trip in June of 2013 would be required so I began to plan that trip as well. When February of 2013 rolled around, I was all in on reading and executing plans, Id made ADRs, and was working on park plans, new approaches to touring without strollers etc., listening to podcasts and reading blogs about park touring. I couldnt get enough data. Then I saw that the 2014 Cruise Calendar was coming out for Disney. The day it hit the internet, I logged on and reviewed what was out there. Dates, prices, itineraries, excursions, kids clubs, parents clubs, Remy, Palo, Fantasy, Magic, Dream, Wonder...on and on. The Disney website had so many ways for me to pick cruises, I played on their site while I should have been working. In my Uber Disney Planning mode I had convinced myself that I had to book as soon as possible to ensure the best price and the perfect cabin. Which side of the ship, how far aft or forward, which deck etc. Though I knew the planning would not be as intense once we were booked, the excitement of poring over these choices was a planner's dream. I was in heaven.
As Valentines Day arrived, I had all but pressed the submit button to make the deal. I had decided this will be a once in a lifetime cruise experience and going top notch was a critical component of this experience. CLICK, I locked in my experience: A seven night cruise on the Disney Fantasy, staying on the Concierge level in a cabin which featured a veranda that was on the bump, which meant that because the ship was designed to bump out in that area we would have a deeper veranda. I chose the Starboard side because when the ship was docked at Castaway Cay you would be able to see the island from the veranda and the Concierge level because of the priority boarding, booking window, and access to the quieter, more service oriented area of the ship as well as the concierge lounge, private sun deck and happy hour. On opening day, literally the first day first time cruisers could book, I locked in our next Disney dream vacation for $13,062.48. WHAT?!! What was I thinking?!! And the kicker, NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE (not even my wife) knew I was planning this trip. I just locked in a $13K vacation and had NO buy in from my spouse. As our dinner for our 10th Valentines together approached I began to wonder if thered be an 11th. My plan was to keep the entire trip a secret until December 25, 2014, just 679 days from today! Either my wife and kids would celebrate me as the greatest super planner, secret keeper, and awesome husband and dad of all time, or my wife would divorce me on the spot and my kids would tell me they wanted to go to Hawaii and gripe about having to float around on a boat. I began to panic a little bit. I knew there was plenty of time to make a change should I chicken out and even though I couldnt get a refund on the deposit, I could at least move it to another cruise if that was necessary. I patted myself on the back for being so organized and quick to book and was so thrilled about my super plan to totally SHOCK my family 679 days from now I decided not to worry and just revel in the moment that was Day 681 before the cruise.
681 Days! What?!! Thats nearly 2 years before this cruise becomes a reality. Still, Im excited for the surprise and for the trip, but we still had our trip to Disney coming in 4 months and plenty of family trips and holidays ahead of the Cruise. Uncharacteristically, I had to put this on the back burner and put it out of my mind for now. Of course I did have to figure out how to pay the behemoth bill. Better late than never, I finally applied for a Disney Visa and set up payments to be made monthly, until the bill was paid. The cool thing about the Disney Visa was that since it was a Disney Vacation, every time I put that monthly charge on my bill, I had 6 months of no interest to pay off that part of the bill. Another idea I had was to join the cruise groups on DISboards and get to meet some of the others on my cruise. I researched FISH Extenders and groups that do that and would occasionally look over Deck Plans and read reviews about Restaurants onboard as well as read old Navigators in an effort to better understand what the cruise experience would be like. My greatest concern was that Julie wouldnt like the idea as we had cruised before (just after our engagement in 2003) and it was not a good experience. The room, the food, the general experience was less than memorable. More concerning to a few wives that I met on the DISBoards was me not telling my wife! These women advised me regularly that Julie would lose it if I sprung this on her 2 days before we were to depart. I never considered, bathing suits (or the workouts required to get to bathing suit condition in the middle of winter), or other details that most women would want. Besides that, who makes a $13K investment on a vacation and doesnt get the thumbs up from their spouse. Me?! I had lots to consider, but I stayed the course that I was going to NOT share this with anyone I knew.
July 20, 2013 was an interesting day to say the least. It had been 5 months and 6 days since I had booked our awesome super secret Christmas surprise New Years Cruise on The Disney Fantasy. I had made a couple of friends through the boards, who were still telling me to tell my wife. I had offered to tell her on her birthday in 2014 (which was only 12 days before the cruise) which of course was shot down, then I suggested maybe I mention it on our 10th Anniversary as an Anniversary Cruise which was received a little better by the women who were standing up for Julie as she was completely unaware of this trip but would now have a 6 month advance notice of my surprise. Well we didnt have to wait that long for the reveal.
Saturday morning, July 20th I was working in the garage. I decided to vacuum out the cars and do some tidying up. As I was cleaning out the car, I pulled a Disney Confirmation folder out of my visor. See I was using an alternate mailing address for all of my mail coming from Disney so that Julie wouldnt see it and catch on. I would occasionally pick up the mail and something would come from Disney and I would of course hide it away. Well as Im vacuuming out the back of the car, I laid this confirmation on the lid of the trash can of course planning to hide it just as soon as I finished vacuuming. My beautiful wife happens to come out to see what Im up to and as we are talking and Im vacuuming she wanders over to the trash can and sees a Disney envelope, Whats this? she says. Disney Cruise?, sounding confused. What have you done?. Normally, Im as cool as the other side of the pillow. I would never intentionally LIE to my wife unless it was for a super secret Christmas surprise New Years Cruise on The Disney Fantasy. Seriously, I wouldnt deceive my wife and family for anything, but for an awesome surprise I felt like it was justified. Oddly, I panicked. Uh, nothing, get out of my stuff, what are you doing? I got upset. Clearly, I would never be a very good cheat. As shes holding the blue cardstock folder in her hand looking at me, I cave. Uh, well, I uh, dammit, why did you look at that?, I started again, well see...man Im really mad at you, you wrecked it. Shes looking at me like, what?! Okay, I was going to surprise everyone with a cool cruise for Christmas in 2014. She was shocked, of course, and yet, knowing me as she does, in the same moment, she wasnt shocked at all. A cruise...in 2014...thats a long time from now. I reply with the you gotta book early . She continued, and you werent going to tell me?...of course my wife knows I love to spring the surprise, but after speaking about it she told me my lady friends were right, she would have been pretty hacked had I sprung it on her 48 hours before the cruise, 12 days before would have not done me any favors, but the Anniversary idea was more appropriate, though Diamond earrings were preferred over seven days on a cruise ship. Ultimately, she got both. So as I stood there stammering and unable to gather my thoughts and explain the plan I finally got it together and gave her the low down. I never mentioned the price, just the exciting journey we would share with our two awesome kids on the Caribbean in December of 2014 and she never asked, so I guess it wasnt a lie, more of a need to know philosophy and I didnt need her to know, yet.
Well the cat was out of the bag and I was disappointed not to have carried off the surprise as well as I had done so many before. In a way though, it was a great relief and now I had a partner in crime to help create a memory for our kids when we planned to reveal our cruise at Christmas...525 days from now...525 days jeez, this will take forever!
Well we made it through our June trip. 10 days at Wilderness Lodge, a great trip. Christmas came and went as well as numerous birthdays and we were coming up on the 9 month mark of the countdown. Wow, you could almost see the Port! But we were about to veer off our plan that had now been in place over a year and Pete Werner was to blame.
Like I said, prior to 2005 Julie had never been to Disney and I had been just the once. When we started planning that 2011 trip we had not listened to Podcasts or some of those other crazy people with their Disney You Tube posts etc. Theyre Disney nerds, right? Uh, well, we were now those nerds and loving everything Disney and even listening to the DISUnplugged when we werent even planning a trip. It was official...DISNerds, that was us. We spent an entire New Years eve discussing the awesomeness of Disney with 2 people (big Disney fans as well) we had never met. The poor couple that introduced us was seeking therapy by the end of the night as our new friends and I discussed the methodology to multiple fast pass collection and the importance of 180 day ADRs. I was quickly becoming immersed in the DISUnplugged watching Pete, John, Kevin, Teresa, Julie, Corey, Kathy, Dustin, Shaun, and Craig weekly. Watching old episodes, studying up on Bob Varley and going so far as to write and record a parody of 99 Problems which was ultimately played on an episode of the DISUnplugged. They had been announcing for some time they would be attending the DISMeet at Fort Worth in March of 2014. It was an event I knew I couldnt attend but I reached out to them anyway to extend an invite to dine with me at one of my restaurants. Crickets. I never heard from anyone. Then one evening, while a buddy and I were enjoying a beer as we were picking up our season tickets to our local AA Baseball team, I saw the DISUnplugged post on their Facebook feed heading to DFW anyone have any suggestions where to eat. I was like HELLO, Ive been telling you forever now to come eat at my place! Which is exactly what I posted back immediately. Of course, I was SHOCKED when several replies came to my FB Mailbox and ultimately Pete and Dustin said Were coming, this better be good! I know Im a DISNerd, because I left my beer and my buddy and told him I have to go get ready Pete Werner and the DISUnplugged team are coming to eat at my place. Whats unplugged? he asked no time to explain, I need to get Texas Beer for the NOOK. The NOOK?, I left my buddy confused and headed to prep the store for the arrival of the Podcast crew.
They arrived at closing, we of course stayed open and had a few surprises in store with special treats that we had created for their arrival. Of course they were all very gracious and genuinely appreciative of our restaurant and the spread we put on for them. After dinner and shakes etc. Pete says to me Dustin and I were just talking, and if youre interested, next time youre in town, why dont you come join us on the show. I was pretty excited about the idea and did my best to temper my enthusiasm, but was excited about the idea of being a part of something that I had really grown to love watching every Tuesday. The team left, I called my wife and gave her the exciting invitation news.
The next day I brought up the subject of the Podcast and being able to be on the show next time we were in town. The issue is that the Podcast is recorded on Tuesdays , we agreed. Well, I could get you guys to the airport and stay over a couple of days for the show, I was pretty sure that was the best idea yet. uh, no, she quickly objected; apparently not the best idea by a long shot. After batting it around we concluded that we just needed to extend our New Years vacation by 4 days and that meant only one thing! Disney World!!!
So after we had a serious discussion on the kids missing the first couple of days of the semester we determined at 3rd grade and 2nd grade it wasnt likely that they would ultimately become drop outs or fail their respective grades. We would extend our vacation to allow me to do the podcast and the fringe benefit would be to enjoy the parks for a few days. Planning mode kicks in for me again and I reach out to Davids DVC Rental for a quote on January 3 - 7, 2015 at Contemporary with a Magic Kingdom view. Studios work for us with the kids at this age and it makes it an awesome value. Considering Id dropped our life savings (kidding) on the cruise, anything I could do to make this trip economical would be an excellent idea. Unfortunately they couldnt find a current member with the right points (we needed someone with BLT as their HOME at this point). We were given the option to wait it out, or refund the money we used as deposit since they couldnt secure a reservation at this time. Being so far out, and having had good luck with DVCRequest in the past, we decided to wait it out. In the meantime I lucked into some planning time!
I anticipated wed be okay with the DVC Rental so I went forward with the dates we were looking at to extend and started to look at flights. Id been following them since they became available at the beginning of the year and at this point they were charging an arm and a leg. Our home airport is DFW so we like using American because of miles and ease of flight times but they can be a little proud on their rates. Early March, they were very proud, to the tune of about $500 a ticket during the holidays. Then March 20, I get a note from AirfareWatchDog that rates have dropped. Round trip is now $274. In addition, I have an American Airlines coupon for $100 which effectively brings my rate to $249 round trip per person. What was a $2,000 airfare is now $1,000. I tweet to Kevin Klose, as Im afraid Im leaving money on the table if I book too soon and he tweets back at that time of year...go for it. I do, and we lock in our flights for December 26th at 5pm. Our plan: we'll have our reveal on Christmas morning and then have most of the next day to prepare for our trip. Well arrive at 8:30pm go to bed and get up the next day and transfer to Port Canaveral via Disneys Cruise Transportation. I see also that Row 17 is available on both flights. For those that dont know, due to FAA regulations the number of seats that are on Americans 737-800 (AA738) exceed the standard number of seats and if they didnt x out a couple of seats they would have to add a flight attendant to their flights. So they cant sell those seats theyve put a large arm rest in there. This means, two people share the row and dont sit by one another. Not that I dont want to sit by my wife and kids but the extra room is nice especially since they have pushed the rows so close together. Im 64 tall and every inch you can spare on a flight is appreciated. Okay, so our flights are locked in and weve got great seats without having to upgrade or pay for First Class. Ready for take off.
Its about a month later, April 27th to be exact, and in my mailbox is that email we love to get from team@dvcrequests.com. Its confirmed. Bay Lake Tower, Studio, Magic Kingdom View, January 3-7, 2015. Another eleven hundred dollars but thats a savings of about fifteen hundred off of Disneys MK View BLT granted thats two beds vs. a sleeper and a queen, but the kids can suffer.
One thing I forgot to mention was Disney Chase Visa Points and travel agent OBCs! So when we got that Chase Visa anything and everything went on that baby and we began to budget POINTS that we would have for the cruise. Paying 100% of the cruise expense and any other charges we could come up with helped us quickly compile a large sum of reward points. Our travel agent was giving us $650 in OBCs, Chase Card was forecasting about $1,100 and Disney gives you $50 for using your Disney Visa to pay for your trip. We estimated about $1800 in OBCs/Points would be available for use for excursions, on board entertainment, a cabana at Castaway Cay, drinks outside the lounge and dinner and brunches and dinners at Remy and Palo. Now if we can just get to December 27th!
Im eager to get booking on things, at this point but its May and weve got a lot of time to go before anything happens with the cruise. Cruise, Airfare, Transportation to and from the cruise, and now the hotel were secure. We have planning going on multiple levels. Parks and Cruise, with some parks issues coming up before cruise issues. Throw on my planning hat because with the addition of Magic Bands and pre-planning your Fast Passes we have some prep work to do. Weve gone ala carte so far with Air, Hotel, and Cruise and now we need to figure out park passes. 9 years ago when Mom and Dad took the family on that awesome Disney Birthday Trip, they bought us 7 Day Non-Expiring Park Passes with Hopper privileges. Julie and I had not used them as of yet, because everytime we booked a Disney trip we were going longer than 4 days and didnt want to waste the value of the tickets knowing that a shorter stay would cost more per day per ticket and wed be theoretically saving money if we used these tickets when we were taking a shorter trip. So wed not used the remaining 4 days on the cards which meant we just had to book the kids tickets. At the suggestion of our friends at The DIS we opted to use the Official Ticket Center. We get them 4 day (5th day free) with a Hopper. When the tickets arrive, soon after we order, we load them on to our My Disney Experience account. Our reservation through DVC is there as well. One issue, Julies and my 7 Day Non-Expiring are so old that they dont work on the new system. You can not call and change them over, you have to be there in person at either a park or Downtown Disney to exchange and they have to be in your possession as they will not let just anyone trade them out. I understood the last part, theyre avoiding people stealing or other wise changing tickets in to another persons name, but this was not convenient. I offered to my wife that I could take a quick trip and exchange them. Youve heard of the analogy of flying like a lead balloon, my idea failed worse than that.
However, another Disney friend of mine was traveling to Orlando for one of her several times a year journeys. I reached out to her, and she was more than happy to take the tickets and exchange. Problem is, she cant, Disney wont exchange them if theyre not your tickets. Well we give one of my over planner ideas a shot. Write a letter, notarize our signatures, include identification, reservation numbers for our cruise and our trip to WDW, and even copies of the original letter the tickets came on (I save everything Disney) showing the original invoice etc and of course the original ticket media with my friend and see if theyll exchange it for her. I think I scare even the Disney people. They were like, Wow, this is very official and a lot of information...it worked. They exchanged the tickets into the new formatted media and a week later I was able to pick up my tickets from my friend and enter the data online, thus giving me the power to connect my tickets with my Magic Bands and my planning for our trip. If nothing else, it gave me a chance to continue working on something Disney and thats really what I enjoy as a hobby anyway. Okay, so Ticket issues are completely settled and were now waiting for the 180 day ADR mark, followed by the 120 cruise check in and excursions mark, then 60 day Fast Pass+ reservations, 27 day Be Our Guest Lunch Reservations and then we actually get to go on the trip! But not without some definitely OVER THE TOP planning left to do.
0400 hours on July 7th, 2014 the alarm goes off. We live in the Central Time Zone so its an hour ahead at the House of the Mouse. I have 1 hour before the online window opens for ADRs 180 days out and I trust no one else to book my reservations. Ive got my coffee, the official world clock app open on my Mac set on Orlando Florida and another tab with the Disney Dining Page up. My list of dining objectives in front of me at exactly 5:00:00 I start to search my Dining requests. At 5:01:14 my email dings with my first confirmation for Be Our Guest Dinner. I might have had it sooner, but I spent 45 seconds trying to figure out why I couldnt book Breakfast at CRT on 1/5/2015. What the heck...I had fallen down on the job...they begin their refurb then. Even the Uber Planner can overlook the details. Never the less, all the ADRs we want at the times we want are sewn up quickly and the adrenaline rush of securing the perfectly planned vacation keeps me up for the rest of the day. By 5:19am CDT Im done. Reading over my confirmation emails I had received like there was some fine print that might void my reservations, I laugh at myself because Im pretty much a planning Disney nerd. Hell the Disney nerds might think Im a nerd. Ive got a sickness, but it sure is fun.
Now Im on a 60 day wait until Concierge booking window opens and I can secure all of our Cruise specialities. Big things to work on...yep; The Reveal!
Truth be told, I had been working on The Reveal since the idea came together some 500 days ago. 500 days...thats not possible. Yes it is! 500 days ago I had an idea for the greatest reveal of all time. I say that alot dont I
I know its hyperbole, but it makes me feel like Im doing something really groundbreaking. So anyway, my reveal goes like this:
Every Christmas Santa Claus leaves a Treasure Hunt for the kids. The hunt is clues the kids can read that take them all over the house to find one of their big gifts. This year Santas not getting all the credit. This is a huge deal and I wanted Julie and I to share a little in the joy that Santa brings and some of the credit too. Sorry, keeping it real. So Santa is going to do a Treasure Hunt that Mom and Dad have asked him to do. The hunt will cover most every room in the house, and some outside spaces too. Ultimately after spending 20 minutes decoding clues and running up and down stairs the plan is for the kids to end up in the kitchen with a 252 piece puzzle that they have to assemble in order to get the last clue! Can you feel the tension building, especially if our Portuguese Water Dog gets a hold of any of those pieces. Now were not so insane we wouldnt give the kids a little help, so rather than dump 252 pieces of puzzle on a table, they get to answer Disney Trivia for each of the 13 bags weve divided the puzzle up into, one that contain the edges, and then twelve, 16 piece sections. We figure weve got an hour of hearts racing and anxiety as we build the reveal to a crescendo. The last 16 pieces of the puzzle will contain the key to the clues and it will direct them to the driveway where they will find a Watermelon shipping box (the 4x4 boxes that you see on display at the grocery), wrapped in Disney paper. The final clue to read before they open the box will be taped to it. Lift the lid (with Dads help Im sure) and out flies 50 helium mickey ear balloons, confetti cannons go off and 6 balloons that are attached to the bottom of the box pop up that read WE ARE GOING ON A DISNEY CRUISE. Tada!
Well, thats the plan at least! Who knows, by Christmas morning it could be a Post It that says Disney Cruise, get packed.
So I ordered the puzzle, its a picture of the kids hanging their stockings at Christmas with the clue written over the picture. It has since arrived and weve assembled and disassembled to match its description above. The big box isnt ordered yet, cause where would I store it, and smile.amazon.com (with proceeds going to Give Kids the World) is all set with an order of balloons, confetti canons, new luggage for all of us (a gift from Santa, hes so smart) and other helpful items for a stateroom, like a 5 port USB connector. All thats left is to hit the submit button and everything will ship in a couple of days. Weve got time.
So while I was waiting for puzzles to arrive and booking windows to open I had two other objectives. First, book a cool way to get to the airport! Its a little cliche but the kids have never done it, so its a stretch limo coming to take us to the airport in style. Its not much more than a bus/van share so why not. The other items is Passports. Well this was the one obstacle I was really concerned about before Julie finding out about the trip. How could I get my wife and kids to get passports if we have no plans to travel anywhere outside the US? Had she not found out, about 3 months ago, her parents gave me an out when they invited us all to take an Alaskan cruise next summer for their 50th Anniversary. Since we fly in to Vancouver we needed passports! Thinking back, if I could have kept this lousy secret I would have now gotten past the passports without a hint of suspicion. A couple of things on Passports, ours only took 4 weeks to secure, if youre kids are under 18, both parents have to go to the Passport meeting and youll need original birth certificates etc for the kids like you do for adults (if its your first passport). One thing that I believe is available everywhere is the Passport Acceptance Office. DO NOT go to the normal Passport facility, itll be a beating! Instead check online or at your local Post Office where they schedule meetings for you in 30 minute intervals and in about 30 - 40 minutes you can complete the process with no lines, no numbers, no hassle. We pre-printed our forms, completed them, had our Passport photos taken at Walmart (Cheap), and our Birth Certificates and it was a 10 minute wait at the post office (because the guy in front of us was not quite as prepared) and a 20 minute meeting from start to finish including payment etc. Take your checkbook, youll have to write 2 checks. 1 for handling and 1 for the actual passport. They dont do renewals there, thats on you, but Original applications are handled there.
So Passports are submitted and now we start to review the Spa Treatments, Hair, Nails, Massages, Rain Forest etc. Even appointments for our little ones. Unfortunately there wont be any Mother / Daughter appointments at the Nail Salon because they dont allow kids under 18 even if theyve got an actual salon appointment. The little ones have to go to Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for any and all of their appointments. Nearing the 120 day mark and weve pre-made all of our selections. Ive been told that Shoreside Concierge Services will reach out to us about the 125 day mark to secure our requests for our entire Cruise! How awesome is that. Worth 13K? well maybe not, but maybe.
About the 129 mark I get a message from Shoreside Concierge. At the 125 day mark you can submit all of your requests to us and well handle those requests on the 120 day mark when Platinum cruisers and Concierge guests can begin booking their activities. I think, it cant hurt for me to simply mail my requests now as I know what I want and theyll just put me in queue. After sending that message I get a nice message back from the concierge thanking me for my eagerness, but to be fair I need to wait until the actual day to submit and from there theyll take our requests in the order they are received. No worries, more planning fun for me, right? Right! During those 4 days though, they are able to share with me some times that are most likely available and that a couple of the items I was considering are not workable (like my 7 year old getting her nails done with mom). This is helpful because Im not wasting requests on things I cant do anyway. Score! The fun part for me is trying to be the first person to submit their requests so that I can be assured a Cabana and some other special items that go quickly. Once again, I pull up the World Clock which has the seconds as well. Lock in on Orlando, Florida EDT and wait for 11:00:00 CDT to submit my request at the exact moment Im allowed. I know Im nuts, but this, like Fastpass planning in the old days or Rope Drop without running and still accomplishing ten times more than the average guests is a GAME to me. So at 11:00:00 CDT on day 125, I click Send and then I WAIT! Im getting good at waiting, but its coming faster now. 120 days! 11am on the 120 day window I get an email (actually I looked online at Midnight EDT) and saw it was there, but everything I had requested was slotted nicely on my activities list. You know, Concierge might be worth every penny.
Were done with activities, working on a packing list from the 8 millions lists out there and waiting for 60 day FP+ windows and BOG Lunch window and then were done.
Its day 108 and passports have arrived, check in has been completed online, kids have been pre-checked in for Kids Club and Ive decided to write a blog (okay a small novel) on my first Disney Cruise Experience. So were up to speed as of September 8. Ill keep you posted as we go from here. WHEW!
October 3, 2014: After deciding not to post this to the DISBoards, I reconsider. Why not, theres bound to be one person who reads this and is entertained. Well, maybe not, but 6,016 words in to this thing I have got to at least see if I get one nibble. So here goes
February 14, 2013; 681 days until our first cruise as a family. What the heck have I done?!
Okay, lets go back.
In January of 2011, my wife, looked at me and said We have to go to Disney this year. Our kids, 5 and 3, were Disney movie and tv fans and the latter (my daughter) was a huge princess fan. I want them to go while they're young enough that the excitement of princesses and characters is still magical, she told me that January evening. I had been once to Disney as a child, the first year the park opened. She had never been until we visited as newlyweds with my family on my mothers sixty-fifth birthday in April of 2005. Her pre-initial visit philosophy was I grew up going to Six Flags, I know what an amusement park is!. Fifteen minutes after arriving at Disneys Hollywood Studios (then known as MGM Studios), Oh My God, Ive never seen anything like this. She was, okay, we were hooked!
So in January 2011 she tells me its time. Little did my wife know, shed unleashed a planning nightmare or dream come true in my case. I love to plan. I love planning to plan and Disney is the greatest trip to plan. With important dates for booking ADRs and particular paths to follow to ensure maximum experience time and minimal waiting time, tidbits of information from every chat and board that is Disney oriented I used every resource I could to make my uber commando plan a succinct, ergonomic, albeit malleable planners dream come true. It was perfect and our first experience, in our eyes, was a tremendous success.
In March of 2012, we visited again, trying different accommodations and dining experiences and again, it was a hit. Later that year we decided another trip in June of 2013 would be required so I began to plan that trip as well. When February of 2013 rolled around, I was all in on reading and executing plans, Id made ADRs, and was working on park plans, new approaches to touring without strollers etc., listening to podcasts and reading blogs about park touring. I couldnt get enough data. Then I saw that the 2014 Cruise Calendar was coming out for Disney. The day it hit the internet, I logged on and reviewed what was out there. Dates, prices, itineraries, excursions, kids clubs, parents clubs, Remy, Palo, Fantasy, Magic, Dream, Wonder...on and on. The Disney website had so many ways for me to pick cruises, I played on their site while I should have been working. In my Uber Disney Planning mode I had convinced myself that I had to book as soon as possible to ensure the best price and the perfect cabin. Which side of the ship, how far aft or forward, which deck etc. Though I knew the planning would not be as intense once we were booked, the excitement of poring over these choices was a planner's dream. I was in heaven.
As Valentines Day arrived, I had all but pressed the submit button to make the deal. I had decided this will be a once in a lifetime cruise experience and going top notch was a critical component of this experience. CLICK, I locked in my experience: A seven night cruise on the Disney Fantasy, staying on the Concierge level in a cabin which featured a veranda that was on the bump, which meant that because the ship was designed to bump out in that area we would have a deeper veranda. I chose the Starboard side because when the ship was docked at Castaway Cay you would be able to see the island from the veranda and the Concierge level because of the priority boarding, booking window, and access to the quieter, more service oriented area of the ship as well as the concierge lounge, private sun deck and happy hour. On opening day, literally the first day first time cruisers could book, I locked in our next Disney dream vacation for $13,062.48. WHAT?!! What was I thinking?!! And the kicker, NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE (not even my wife) knew I was planning this trip. I just locked in a $13K vacation and had NO buy in from my spouse. As our dinner for our 10th Valentines together approached I began to wonder if thered be an 11th. My plan was to keep the entire trip a secret until December 25, 2014, just 679 days from today! Either my wife and kids would celebrate me as the greatest super planner, secret keeper, and awesome husband and dad of all time, or my wife would divorce me on the spot and my kids would tell me they wanted to go to Hawaii and gripe about having to float around on a boat. I began to panic a little bit. I knew there was plenty of time to make a change should I chicken out and even though I couldnt get a refund on the deposit, I could at least move it to another cruise if that was necessary. I patted myself on the back for being so organized and quick to book and was so thrilled about my super plan to totally SHOCK my family 679 days from now I decided not to worry and just revel in the moment that was Day 681 before the cruise.
681 Days! What?!! Thats nearly 2 years before this cruise becomes a reality. Still, Im excited for the surprise and for the trip, but we still had our trip to Disney coming in 4 months and plenty of family trips and holidays ahead of the Cruise. Uncharacteristically, I had to put this on the back burner and put it out of my mind for now. Of course I did have to figure out how to pay the behemoth bill. Better late than never, I finally applied for a Disney Visa and set up payments to be made monthly, until the bill was paid. The cool thing about the Disney Visa was that since it was a Disney Vacation, every time I put that monthly charge on my bill, I had 6 months of no interest to pay off that part of the bill. Another idea I had was to join the cruise groups on DISboards and get to meet some of the others on my cruise. I researched FISH Extenders and groups that do that and would occasionally look over Deck Plans and read reviews about Restaurants onboard as well as read old Navigators in an effort to better understand what the cruise experience would be like. My greatest concern was that Julie wouldnt like the idea as we had cruised before (just after our engagement in 2003) and it was not a good experience. The room, the food, the general experience was less than memorable. More concerning to a few wives that I met on the DISBoards was me not telling my wife! These women advised me regularly that Julie would lose it if I sprung this on her 2 days before we were to depart. I never considered, bathing suits (or the workouts required to get to bathing suit condition in the middle of winter), or other details that most women would want. Besides that, who makes a $13K investment on a vacation and doesnt get the thumbs up from their spouse. Me?! I had lots to consider, but I stayed the course that I was going to NOT share this with anyone I knew.
July 20, 2013 was an interesting day to say the least. It had been 5 months and 6 days since I had booked our awesome super secret Christmas surprise New Years Cruise on The Disney Fantasy. I had made a couple of friends through the boards, who were still telling me to tell my wife. I had offered to tell her on her birthday in 2014 (which was only 12 days before the cruise) which of course was shot down, then I suggested maybe I mention it on our 10th Anniversary as an Anniversary Cruise which was received a little better by the women who were standing up for Julie as she was completely unaware of this trip but would now have a 6 month advance notice of my surprise. Well we didnt have to wait that long for the reveal.
Saturday morning, July 20th I was working in the garage. I decided to vacuum out the cars and do some tidying up. As I was cleaning out the car, I pulled a Disney Confirmation folder out of my visor. See I was using an alternate mailing address for all of my mail coming from Disney so that Julie wouldnt see it and catch on. I would occasionally pick up the mail and something would come from Disney and I would of course hide it away. Well as Im vacuuming out the back of the car, I laid this confirmation on the lid of the trash can of course planning to hide it just as soon as I finished vacuuming. My beautiful wife happens to come out to see what Im up to and as we are talking and Im vacuuming she wanders over to the trash can and sees a Disney envelope, Whats this? she says. Disney Cruise?, sounding confused. What have you done?. Normally, Im as cool as the other side of the pillow. I would never intentionally LIE to my wife unless it was for a super secret Christmas surprise New Years Cruise on The Disney Fantasy. Seriously, I wouldnt deceive my wife and family for anything, but for an awesome surprise I felt like it was justified. Oddly, I panicked. Uh, nothing, get out of my stuff, what are you doing? I got upset. Clearly, I would never be a very good cheat. As shes holding the blue cardstock folder in her hand looking at me, I cave. Uh, well, I uh, dammit, why did you look at that?, I started again, well see...man Im really mad at you, you wrecked it. Shes looking at me like, what?! Okay, I was going to surprise everyone with a cool cruise for Christmas in 2014. She was shocked, of course, and yet, knowing me as she does, in the same moment, she wasnt shocked at all. A cruise...in 2014...thats a long time from now. I reply with the you gotta book early . She continued, and you werent going to tell me?...of course my wife knows I love to spring the surprise, but after speaking about it she told me my lady friends were right, she would have been pretty hacked had I sprung it on her 48 hours before the cruise, 12 days before would have not done me any favors, but the Anniversary idea was more appropriate, though Diamond earrings were preferred over seven days on a cruise ship. Ultimately, she got both. So as I stood there stammering and unable to gather my thoughts and explain the plan I finally got it together and gave her the low down. I never mentioned the price, just the exciting journey we would share with our two awesome kids on the Caribbean in December of 2014 and she never asked, so I guess it wasnt a lie, more of a need to know philosophy and I didnt need her to know, yet.
Well the cat was out of the bag and I was disappointed not to have carried off the surprise as well as I had done so many before. In a way though, it was a great relief and now I had a partner in crime to help create a memory for our kids when we planned to reveal our cruise at Christmas...525 days from now...525 days jeez, this will take forever!
Well we made it through our June trip. 10 days at Wilderness Lodge, a great trip. Christmas came and went as well as numerous birthdays and we were coming up on the 9 month mark of the countdown. Wow, you could almost see the Port! But we were about to veer off our plan that had now been in place over a year and Pete Werner was to blame.
Like I said, prior to 2005 Julie had never been to Disney and I had been just the once. When we started planning that 2011 trip we had not listened to Podcasts or some of those other crazy people with their Disney You Tube posts etc. Theyre Disney nerds, right? Uh, well, we were now those nerds and loving everything Disney and even listening to the DISUnplugged when we werent even planning a trip. It was official...DISNerds, that was us. We spent an entire New Years eve discussing the awesomeness of Disney with 2 people (big Disney fans as well) we had never met. The poor couple that introduced us was seeking therapy by the end of the night as our new friends and I discussed the methodology to multiple fast pass collection and the importance of 180 day ADRs. I was quickly becoming immersed in the DISUnplugged watching Pete, John, Kevin, Teresa, Julie, Corey, Kathy, Dustin, Shaun, and Craig weekly. Watching old episodes, studying up on Bob Varley and going so far as to write and record a parody of 99 Problems which was ultimately played on an episode of the DISUnplugged. They had been announcing for some time they would be attending the DISMeet at Fort Worth in March of 2014. It was an event I knew I couldnt attend but I reached out to them anyway to extend an invite to dine with me at one of my restaurants. Crickets. I never heard from anyone. Then one evening, while a buddy and I were enjoying a beer as we were picking up our season tickets to our local AA Baseball team, I saw the DISUnplugged post on their Facebook feed heading to DFW anyone have any suggestions where to eat. I was like HELLO, Ive been telling you forever now to come eat at my place! Which is exactly what I posted back immediately. Of course, I was SHOCKED when several replies came to my FB Mailbox and ultimately Pete and Dustin said Were coming, this better be good! I know Im a DISNerd, because I left my beer and my buddy and told him I have to go get ready Pete Werner and the DISUnplugged team are coming to eat at my place. Whats unplugged? he asked no time to explain, I need to get Texas Beer for the NOOK. The NOOK?, I left my buddy confused and headed to prep the store for the arrival of the Podcast crew.
They arrived at closing, we of course stayed open and had a few surprises in store with special treats that we had created for their arrival. Of course they were all very gracious and genuinely appreciative of our restaurant and the spread we put on for them. After dinner and shakes etc. Pete says to me Dustin and I were just talking, and if youre interested, next time youre in town, why dont you come join us on the show. I was pretty excited about the idea and did my best to temper my enthusiasm, but was excited about the idea of being a part of something that I had really grown to love watching every Tuesday. The team left, I called my wife and gave her the exciting invitation news.
The next day I brought up the subject of the Podcast and being able to be on the show next time we were in town. The issue is that the Podcast is recorded on Tuesdays , we agreed. Well, I could get you guys to the airport and stay over a couple of days for the show, I was pretty sure that was the best idea yet. uh, no, she quickly objected; apparently not the best idea by a long shot. After batting it around we concluded that we just needed to extend our New Years vacation by 4 days and that meant only one thing! Disney World!!!
So after we had a serious discussion on the kids missing the first couple of days of the semester we determined at 3rd grade and 2nd grade it wasnt likely that they would ultimately become drop outs or fail their respective grades. We would extend our vacation to allow me to do the podcast and the fringe benefit would be to enjoy the parks for a few days. Planning mode kicks in for me again and I reach out to Davids DVC Rental for a quote on January 3 - 7, 2015 at Contemporary with a Magic Kingdom view. Studios work for us with the kids at this age and it makes it an awesome value. Considering Id dropped our life savings (kidding) on the cruise, anything I could do to make this trip economical would be an excellent idea. Unfortunately they couldnt find a current member with the right points (we needed someone with BLT as their HOME at this point). We were given the option to wait it out, or refund the money we used as deposit since they couldnt secure a reservation at this time. Being so far out, and having had good luck with DVCRequest in the past, we decided to wait it out. In the meantime I lucked into some planning time!
I anticipated wed be okay with the DVC Rental so I went forward with the dates we were looking at to extend and started to look at flights. Id been following them since they became available at the beginning of the year and at this point they were charging an arm and a leg. Our home airport is DFW so we like using American because of miles and ease of flight times but they can be a little proud on their rates. Early March, they were very proud, to the tune of about $500 a ticket during the holidays. Then March 20, I get a note from AirfareWatchDog that rates have dropped. Round trip is now $274. In addition, I have an American Airlines coupon for $100 which effectively brings my rate to $249 round trip per person. What was a $2,000 airfare is now $1,000. I tweet to Kevin Klose, as Im afraid Im leaving money on the table if I book too soon and he tweets back at that time of year...go for it. I do, and we lock in our flights for December 26th at 5pm. Our plan: we'll have our reveal on Christmas morning and then have most of the next day to prepare for our trip. Well arrive at 8:30pm go to bed and get up the next day and transfer to Port Canaveral via Disneys Cruise Transportation. I see also that Row 17 is available on both flights. For those that dont know, due to FAA regulations the number of seats that are on Americans 737-800 (AA738) exceed the standard number of seats and if they didnt x out a couple of seats they would have to add a flight attendant to their flights. So they cant sell those seats theyve put a large arm rest in there. This means, two people share the row and dont sit by one another. Not that I dont want to sit by my wife and kids but the extra room is nice especially since they have pushed the rows so close together. Im 64 tall and every inch you can spare on a flight is appreciated. Okay, so our flights are locked in and weve got great seats without having to upgrade or pay for First Class. Ready for take off.
Its about a month later, April 27th to be exact, and in my mailbox is that email we love to get from team@dvcrequests.com. Its confirmed. Bay Lake Tower, Studio, Magic Kingdom View, January 3-7, 2015. Another eleven hundred dollars but thats a savings of about fifteen hundred off of Disneys MK View BLT granted thats two beds vs. a sleeper and a queen, but the kids can suffer.
One thing I forgot to mention was Disney Chase Visa Points and travel agent OBCs! So when we got that Chase Visa anything and everything went on that baby and we began to budget POINTS that we would have for the cruise. Paying 100% of the cruise expense and any other charges we could come up with helped us quickly compile a large sum of reward points. Our travel agent was giving us $650 in OBCs, Chase Card was forecasting about $1,100 and Disney gives you $50 for using your Disney Visa to pay for your trip. We estimated about $1800 in OBCs/Points would be available for use for excursions, on board entertainment, a cabana at Castaway Cay, drinks outside the lounge and dinner and brunches and dinners at Remy and Palo. Now if we can just get to December 27th!
Im eager to get booking on things, at this point but its May and weve got a lot of time to go before anything happens with the cruise. Cruise, Airfare, Transportation to and from the cruise, and now the hotel were secure. We have planning going on multiple levels. Parks and Cruise, with some parks issues coming up before cruise issues. Throw on my planning hat because with the addition of Magic Bands and pre-planning your Fast Passes we have some prep work to do. Weve gone ala carte so far with Air, Hotel, and Cruise and now we need to figure out park passes. 9 years ago when Mom and Dad took the family on that awesome Disney Birthday Trip, they bought us 7 Day Non-Expiring Park Passes with Hopper privileges. Julie and I had not used them as of yet, because everytime we booked a Disney trip we were going longer than 4 days and didnt want to waste the value of the tickets knowing that a shorter stay would cost more per day per ticket and wed be theoretically saving money if we used these tickets when we were taking a shorter trip. So wed not used the remaining 4 days on the cards which meant we just had to book the kids tickets. At the suggestion of our friends at The DIS we opted to use the Official Ticket Center. We get them 4 day (5th day free) with a Hopper. When the tickets arrive, soon after we order, we load them on to our My Disney Experience account. Our reservation through DVC is there as well. One issue, Julies and my 7 Day Non-Expiring are so old that they dont work on the new system. You can not call and change them over, you have to be there in person at either a park or Downtown Disney to exchange and they have to be in your possession as they will not let just anyone trade them out. I understood the last part, theyre avoiding people stealing or other wise changing tickets in to another persons name, but this was not convenient. I offered to my wife that I could take a quick trip and exchange them. Youve heard of the analogy of flying like a lead balloon, my idea failed worse than that.
However, another Disney friend of mine was traveling to Orlando for one of her several times a year journeys. I reached out to her, and she was more than happy to take the tickets and exchange. Problem is, she cant, Disney wont exchange them if theyre not your tickets. Well we give one of my over planner ideas a shot. Write a letter, notarize our signatures, include identification, reservation numbers for our cruise and our trip to WDW, and even copies of the original letter the tickets came on (I save everything Disney) showing the original invoice etc and of course the original ticket media with my friend and see if theyll exchange it for her. I think I scare even the Disney people. They were like, Wow, this is very official and a lot of information...it worked. They exchanged the tickets into the new formatted media and a week later I was able to pick up my tickets from my friend and enter the data online, thus giving me the power to connect my tickets with my Magic Bands and my planning for our trip. If nothing else, it gave me a chance to continue working on something Disney and thats really what I enjoy as a hobby anyway. Okay, so Ticket issues are completely settled and were now waiting for the 180 day ADR mark, followed by the 120 cruise check in and excursions mark, then 60 day Fast Pass+ reservations, 27 day Be Our Guest Lunch Reservations and then we actually get to go on the trip! But not without some definitely OVER THE TOP planning left to do.
0400 hours on July 7th, 2014 the alarm goes off. We live in the Central Time Zone so its an hour ahead at the House of the Mouse. I have 1 hour before the online window opens for ADRs 180 days out and I trust no one else to book my reservations. Ive got my coffee, the official world clock app open on my Mac set on Orlando Florida and another tab with the Disney Dining Page up. My list of dining objectives in front of me at exactly 5:00:00 I start to search my Dining requests. At 5:01:14 my email dings with my first confirmation for Be Our Guest Dinner. I might have had it sooner, but I spent 45 seconds trying to figure out why I couldnt book Breakfast at CRT on 1/5/2015. What the heck...I had fallen down on the job...they begin their refurb then. Even the Uber Planner can overlook the details. Never the less, all the ADRs we want at the times we want are sewn up quickly and the adrenaline rush of securing the perfectly planned vacation keeps me up for the rest of the day. By 5:19am CDT Im done. Reading over my confirmation emails I had received like there was some fine print that might void my reservations, I laugh at myself because Im pretty much a planning Disney nerd. Hell the Disney nerds might think Im a nerd. Ive got a sickness, but it sure is fun.
Now Im on a 60 day wait until Concierge booking window opens and I can secure all of our Cruise specialities. Big things to work on...yep; The Reveal!
Truth be told, I had been working on The Reveal since the idea came together some 500 days ago. 500 days...thats not possible. Yes it is! 500 days ago I had an idea for the greatest reveal of all time. I say that alot dont I
I know its hyperbole, but it makes me feel like Im doing something really groundbreaking. So anyway, my reveal goes like this:Every Christmas Santa Claus leaves a Treasure Hunt for the kids. The hunt is clues the kids can read that take them all over the house to find one of their big gifts. This year Santas not getting all the credit. This is a huge deal and I wanted Julie and I to share a little in the joy that Santa brings and some of the credit too. Sorry, keeping it real. So Santa is going to do a Treasure Hunt that Mom and Dad have asked him to do. The hunt will cover most every room in the house, and some outside spaces too. Ultimately after spending 20 minutes decoding clues and running up and down stairs the plan is for the kids to end up in the kitchen with a 252 piece puzzle that they have to assemble in order to get the last clue! Can you feel the tension building, especially if our Portuguese Water Dog gets a hold of any of those pieces. Now were not so insane we wouldnt give the kids a little help, so rather than dump 252 pieces of puzzle on a table, they get to answer Disney Trivia for each of the 13 bags weve divided the puzzle up into, one that contain the edges, and then twelve, 16 piece sections. We figure weve got an hour of hearts racing and anxiety as we build the reveal to a crescendo. The last 16 pieces of the puzzle will contain the key to the clues and it will direct them to the driveway where they will find a Watermelon shipping box (the 4x4 boxes that you see on display at the grocery), wrapped in Disney paper. The final clue to read before they open the box will be taped to it. Lift the lid (with Dads help Im sure) and out flies 50 helium mickey ear balloons, confetti cannons go off and 6 balloons that are attached to the bottom of the box pop up that read WE ARE GOING ON A DISNEY CRUISE. Tada!
Well, thats the plan at least! Who knows, by Christmas morning it could be a Post It that says Disney Cruise, get packed.
So I ordered the puzzle, its a picture of the kids hanging their stockings at Christmas with the clue written over the picture. It has since arrived and weve assembled and disassembled to match its description above. The big box isnt ordered yet, cause where would I store it, and smile.amazon.com (with proceeds going to Give Kids the World) is all set with an order of balloons, confetti canons, new luggage for all of us (a gift from Santa, hes so smart) and other helpful items for a stateroom, like a 5 port USB connector. All thats left is to hit the submit button and everything will ship in a couple of days. Weve got time.
So while I was waiting for puzzles to arrive and booking windows to open I had two other objectives. First, book a cool way to get to the airport! Its a little cliche but the kids have never done it, so its a stretch limo coming to take us to the airport in style. Its not much more than a bus/van share so why not. The other items is Passports. Well this was the one obstacle I was really concerned about before Julie finding out about the trip. How could I get my wife and kids to get passports if we have no plans to travel anywhere outside the US? Had she not found out, about 3 months ago, her parents gave me an out when they invited us all to take an Alaskan cruise next summer for their 50th Anniversary. Since we fly in to Vancouver we needed passports! Thinking back, if I could have kept this lousy secret I would have now gotten past the passports without a hint of suspicion. A couple of things on Passports, ours only took 4 weeks to secure, if youre kids are under 18, both parents have to go to the Passport meeting and youll need original birth certificates etc for the kids like you do for adults (if its your first passport). One thing that I believe is available everywhere is the Passport Acceptance Office. DO NOT go to the normal Passport facility, itll be a beating! Instead check online or at your local Post Office where they schedule meetings for you in 30 minute intervals and in about 30 - 40 minutes you can complete the process with no lines, no numbers, no hassle. We pre-printed our forms, completed them, had our Passport photos taken at Walmart (Cheap), and our Birth Certificates and it was a 10 minute wait at the post office (because the guy in front of us was not quite as prepared) and a 20 minute meeting from start to finish including payment etc. Take your checkbook, youll have to write 2 checks. 1 for handling and 1 for the actual passport. They dont do renewals there, thats on you, but Original applications are handled there.
So Passports are submitted and now we start to review the Spa Treatments, Hair, Nails, Massages, Rain Forest etc. Even appointments for our little ones. Unfortunately there wont be any Mother / Daughter appointments at the Nail Salon because they dont allow kids under 18 even if theyve got an actual salon appointment. The little ones have to go to Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for any and all of their appointments. Nearing the 120 day mark and weve pre-made all of our selections. Ive been told that Shoreside Concierge Services will reach out to us about the 125 day mark to secure our requests for our entire Cruise! How awesome is that. Worth 13K? well maybe not, but maybe.
About the 129 mark I get a message from Shoreside Concierge. At the 125 day mark you can submit all of your requests to us and well handle those requests on the 120 day mark when Platinum cruisers and Concierge guests can begin booking their activities. I think, it cant hurt for me to simply mail my requests now as I know what I want and theyll just put me in queue. After sending that message I get a nice message back from the concierge thanking me for my eagerness, but to be fair I need to wait until the actual day to submit and from there theyll take our requests in the order they are received. No worries, more planning fun for me, right? Right! During those 4 days though, they are able to share with me some times that are most likely available and that a couple of the items I was considering are not workable (like my 7 year old getting her nails done with mom). This is helpful because Im not wasting requests on things I cant do anyway. Score! The fun part for me is trying to be the first person to submit their requests so that I can be assured a Cabana and some other special items that go quickly. Once again, I pull up the World Clock which has the seconds as well. Lock in on Orlando, Florida EDT and wait for 11:00:00 CDT to submit my request at the exact moment Im allowed. I know Im nuts, but this, like Fastpass planning in the old days or Rope Drop without running and still accomplishing ten times more than the average guests is a GAME to me. So at 11:00:00 CDT on day 125, I click Send and then I WAIT! Im getting good at waiting, but its coming faster now. 120 days! 11am on the 120 day window I get an email (actually I looked online at Midnight EDT) and saw it was there, but everything I had requested was slotted nicely on my activities list. You know, Concierge might be worth every penny.
Were done with activities, working on a packing list from the 8 millions lists out there and waiting for 60 day FP+ windows and BOG Lunch window and then were done.
Its day 108 and passports have arrived, check in has been completed online, kids have been pre-checked in for Kids Club and Ive decided to write a blog (okay a small novel) on my first Disney Cruise Experience. So were up to speed as of September 8. Ill keep you posted as we go from here. WHEW!
October 3, 2014: After deciding not to post this to the DISBoards, I reconsider. Why not, theres bound to be one person who reads this and is entertained. Well, maybe not, but 6,016 words in to this thing I have got to at least see if I get one nibble. So here goes
