Even though we have been to WDW a few times over the years, I seem to be a 'planning newbie'. I am not familiar with any of the resorts other than a couple of the Value. There are new rides, new ways of doing things, new characters....it can be overwhelming. So, I will share my trip and planning towards other newbies and hopefully it will help someone else with planning.
We decided in October to go to WDW, in December, because we saw a great deal on a flight. Flight costs are what keep us from visiting WDW more often. I had gotten a pin # offer emailed to me but it wouldn’t allow me to book it online. I usually book WDW trips online but, this time, I had to call in to use the pin # offer. The CM asked me if I needed help with any other part of our booking and I said ‘no’ because I wasn’t thinking it through at the time.
As the days have gone by, I realized I needed to book the Magical Express (ME) bus transportation to and from the airport. I signed into My Disney Experience (
MDE) but I didn’t see a way to book the ME bus online. I happened upon a question on the Disney Moms Board that addressed online booking and the answer provided a link to the online reservation for ME.
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/airport-transportation-reservation/
After finding that answer, I began searching all over online as I thought of questions and reservations I needed to make and I found help in various places. This kept me from calling WDW reservations every day, although I am sure they would have been polite and helped just fine if I had.
I began searching out activities, at the WDW World site, that would need reservations. I made a dinner reservation for the Candlelight dinner and lunch at Trails End easily enough. After looking around the Community board and landing on a thread about the changes in Fast Passes, I realized I needed to look into FP+ more because I didn’t really understand it.
From the looks of it, I cannot add FP to My Disney Experience until I add/link my tickets to my account. We have “old” tickets that are non expiring but we were not sure of how many days were on them after all this time. If they were unused, we could use them for a future trip with our adult children. So, we ordered basic passes from
Undercover Tourist and they will arrive next week. When they arrive, I will add/link them to MDE and look at the FP+ options.
I assumed our MagicBands would be mailed to us automatically but I wasn’t confident in that assumption. I found information at
Allears with a link to order what color we would want. After I customized the MagicBands and saved the information, they were added to MDE account. Now I can see them there when I sign into the account.
I thought we would have to pay for them but I have found that you do not pay for them if you are staying on-property. This is all new to me as it has been a few years since our last trip. I have seen complaints about the new system as “micromanaging” your vacation and I am beginning to feel that way as well.
Some years back, I had been watching for a free dining offer and, when I saw one come up, I booked DH and myself a six day trip with room and free dining, 2 x 2 day park tickets, and airfare for $1,200.00. That was our first trip without the kids. We have a tendency to compare all other trip costs to WDW to that trip. Which is a bad idea because those days are gone.
This trip is booked with a 20% off discount on Value Room Only. I have always wanted to stay at the Pop Century so this is the trip to try Pop. Eight nights will be $965.00. 5 day non-parkhopper tickets are $617.98 from Undercover Tourist. Airfare is $674.40. We were trying to keep this trip at $2,000.00 (not including food and souvenirs) and we are at $2,257.18. I still need to book a park & fly hotel. I will be taking the tickets we have from previous trips to find out how many days we have left on them. I expect we will have one or two days on various old tickets that can be used in future. If we knew, for sure, what we had on those old tickets, we would have probably saved ourselves the $618.00 in tickets this trip, putting us below the $2,000.00 budget. I am not as organized as I used to be.
I have been following a thread by
elaine amj about using Dining Credits and a spreadsheet to keep track of meals. While we won’t be using Dining Credits this trip, I do like how she has kept track of the details of the dining portion of her trip and I will be trying to do this.
So the planning goes on....
