Last night at dinner, Peter said the magic words:

Oh, by the way, I cannot WAIT to check out AOA!! We plan to go to check out the Food Court, and from what I've seen it looks amazing!

 

Ok, if you change your mind, even in the parks, just get a photopass and let us know later.

Have a great trip!

 

Silverspoon. we leave in 16 days

While I'm there, do you want me to send a postcard to your sister, from the characters at Disney, anticipating your trip?? I know this sort of thing is usually aimed at younger kids, but I bet she would get a kick out of it. I always arrange it for my kids, and we always love getting that postcard-- ours came this weekend.

 

Alice... hope you have a great time and GREAT weather...
I have a friend who I found out was down there when that tropical depression passed over... I so hope that they had a good trip despite the weather... first trip with girls waiting to meet the princesses!!!

 

Bad weather means lower crowds. Here's hoping your friends had some real quality interaction with the princesses.

 

Peter just reminded me to order our Disney Visa rewards card!! We earn back 1% of everything we charge, and when we plan trip coming up, we charge everything we can. We've been planning this one for a year and a half

So that's $580 that will be heading our way in the next week or so.

I'm so glad Peter remembered!!!I'm sure we could have done it at Disney, but I'm all in favor of doing whatever I can ahead of time!

 

Yay! What a nice bonus.

 

Can you explain how this works? My mom got the card but I don't think she is going with us. So does she use her points to basically order something like a gift card? And can I use that towards the hotel and stuff?

 

She can go to www.chase.com/disney to redeem her card, or call 1-800-300-8575.

I'm not sure whether or not you have to show ID to use the card... to tell you the truth, I would be surprised if you did. (Can you imagine me having to show ID each time I spent each of those $580???)

It's basically like a Disney gift card-- you can use it for hotel, food,shopping, anything on property.

 

Thanks. I was trying to look at her pamphlet and it wasn't very straight forward.


I am still torn between going a little early and getting the dining plan or going when I had originally planned. I will have 5 personal days at the beginning of the year, but I only wanted to use 4 (so that I would have 4 to use next year when I get married). The only way I would be able to do it now is to go mid week to mid week - and I think it would suck to have to come home on a Wednesday and have to go back to work on Thursday. It might be good for my sister though, because she has off on Friday, so she could go back on Thursday and get anything else she missed (we are going to try to get a lot before) and then she would have 3 days to get caught up.

hmmm. Just thinking out loud.

 

Doing the happy dance.

We just got back from the mall. We've been collecting Disney gift cards for every occasion we could think of for the last year and a half...birthdays, Christmas, Mother's Day, Easter... We're usually pretty careful to put the amount on them, but we wanted to check the amounts on 3 cards at the Disney store.

They were $25, $50, and $100!!!

That brings our total up to $1200 in gift cards. That should come pretty close to covering our meals for a week, even with one table service meal a day

The points from our Disney Visa should cover spending money.

And the money in our Vacation club will cover our stay at the Beach Club. Everything else-- flights, park tickets, insurance-- is all paid for already

So we should come home with little to nothing on the credit card.

 

Yay, Alice!

 

Awesome, Alice!

 

That's cool!!!

 

Have I mentioned that we leave in
13 days???
:2up::clap:

 

I hope you have GREAT weather!!! Give Mickey a hug!!!

 

Thanks Diz!

 

Dd and I just came back from a shopping trip at Old Navy. We both needed tops that are tanks or straps so we don't melt too badly in the Florida August sun. Got 3 tops for her and 4 for me (and 2 pair of boxers for ds) for $65 after the $30 off coupon we earned earlier in the summer when I went shopping for much needed shorts and T-shirts.

 

tomorrow I am going to the bank with our collected change to see how much we saved that is our current excitement! we leave in 20 days!

 

YAY!! We're doing that one day next week

Tell me again-- where are you staying? (No reason, just curious.)

 

We leave in 12 days!!!

We just had a massive Pin Trade, with the 3 kids taking turns choosing from the 38 pins we have. (I ended up with the last 2).

Suitcases are airing out. The kids are starting to think about carryons and park bags.

It's getting close!!

 

LOVE beach club....I think its my favorite! I'm jealous!

 

we are staying at the Art of Animation in a Nemo room!! they are so excited!! we are doing pin stuff here too. For every good deed that I see, I give them a new pin, and they declare it good or trader. so far they are pretty happy with all the pins. I bought a couple of lots of mixed pins from Ebay and a couple of lots of specific sets of pins ( Tinkerbell, http://www.disneystore.com/pins-pin...-and-friends-pin-set-7-pc/mp/1298063/1000211/ those, and some 2012 dated pins)

It is so cute to see how excited they all are. Today in the rain, i want to go to the Disney store to buy them matching shirts for the first day there. It is Hailey's 1/2 birthday so that is as good of an excuse as any other for shopping!

 

I swear, the anticipation is almost as much fun as the trip itself!!

AOA looks fabulous!!!

Tomorrow I can do online checkin at the Beach Club!!!!

Something else just occurred to me, after re-reading this entire thread.

THose of you who haven't been to WDW before and are planning a trip, go to the library and check out a copy of the Passporter Guide http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pas...ld-jennifer-marx/1102043442?ean=9781587711039 It doesn't matter which year you get.

The park maps in that book are the BEST!!! Hit Staples and use their color copiers to copy a map or two to each park. The Passporter maps include the restaurants, the bathrooms, everything!!

Last summer, the Passporter site put the 2010 editions on sale for $1. So I ordered 3 to use when friends ask me about Disney. (At work, I'm one of the 2 gurus.) I'm planning to take the maps out of one of my copies.

Realize, though, that Fantasyland is currently under construction, so that part of the map will be touch and go.

 

Look what I found you:
http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...rimp-tandoori-abs-bro-the-entirety/#more-8564

http://www.easywdw.com/uncategorize...-surf-and-surf-burger-art-of-animation-61412/

 

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Alice...we just started planning our trip to Disney for June 2013, thank you so much for all the information! I haven't booked yet as I've signed up for all the websites you mentioned and ordered the DVD...hoping to get some discounts first.
Thanks again!

 

.

 

That's an excellent idea. I work part time at Disney and one of the things they teach us is to ask a lost child if they have a phone number to reach someone they are traveling with.

 

Great idea about the contact info. My girls share a phone so I'll get them something just in case.

 

My suggestion is to book as soon as you know which resort you want. You can always change the reservation, while keeping the rooms you have. (our travel agent applied out 30% PIN to our Beach Club reervation in January, after making the reservation last June. If you're interested, I'll be happy to give you her contact info.) Here's a good place to start looking: http://www.mousesavers.com/roomrates2012.html

 

Alice that would be great. Right now we are deciding whether or not to fly or drive. I would love to fly so trying to find the best deals now...for some airlines it's still too early to book the flight

 

We stayed at the Carribbean beach resort last time and it was great...after reading this thread I'm not sure where the best value is. I checked the Swan and Dolphin but didn't see a huge discount for June. I also checked out the YES program, still too early to book my girls. So I'll be checking frequently
**on a side note, I'm working on my masters just started my second to last class with a paper due tomorrow and all I can think about is DISNEY!!

 

What about this kind of bag for Brian? A lot of the boys here use them instead of a bigger backpack.

 

I ended up getting him this: http://www.ebags.com/product/everest/deluxe-sling-backpack/207661?productid=10118993

I had planned to ask him, but he's out on his friend's boat for the afternoon/ early evening. I didn't want to lose the day to order it since we're leaving on the 1st.

The size looked good... smaller than a typical backpack... and the reviews were decent. It should easily hold a water bottle, mister, sunglasses, cell phone and a snack.

If he hates it, I can return it or just use it around the house for something. At $12 and change, I can live with the risk.

 

Another tip for traveling with children...take a picture of them (possibly with a camera phone) every morning with the outfit that they are wearing. In that small instance that they do get lost, you will have an up-to-date picture of them.

Also, another tip for traveling with children is to pack all of their clothes ahead of time into gallon size ziploc bags for each day of your vacation. That way you do not have to waste your mornings figuring out what they are going to wear, rather they pull out a bag, get dressed, and you are good to go.

Sorry if any of these tips have been posted before, but when we went last year for our honeymoon one of our Disney aficionado friends gave us 2 pages of typed up tips!

 

I use the ziploc method when packing my girls for GS camp but hadn't thought about it for vacation...great idea! Love the idea of taking a picture of them every morning too!

 

Well we are booked for the beginning of October! So excited! We are staying in good old Pop Century - I figure with just 2 of us in the room, and not planning on being in the room much, a value hotel was good enough for me. I mean, let's face it - A Disney "value" hotel is still 10x better than a value hotel anywhere else!

 

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Here is a question - what type of ID or documents should I have for my sister, particularly for flying?