Harris Family Anniversary Extravaganza! Pre-trip - Planning and Waiting
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jennyh · 05-28-2006, 09:42 PM

Pre-Trip: Planning and Waiting

Cast of Characters

Me, Jenny, 37, wife of Dave and mother to Mike and Kim
Dave, 40, husband of Jenny and father to Mike and Kim
Mike, 14, our son
Kim, 12, our daughter
Rob, 43, Brother to Dave, aka “Uncle Rob”
Ann, 42, wife to Rob, aka “Aunt Ann”

We have been fortunate enough to be able to go to WDW four times in the past seven years, and I just love it – it’s my favorite vacation destination. So it was natural to think of WDW as a special celebration for our 20th wedding anniversary. Three years ago, I hatched the grand scheme. At that time, the idea involved a number of days at WDW for Dave and me alone (with kids shipped off to Uncle Rob and Aunt Ann), followed by a number of days at WDW for all six of us, followed by a Disney cruise of some duration. I had to start planning early, because the plan was highly dependent upon Rob and Ann being willing participants. At least that’s my excuse – I have taken a LOT of ribbing for planning this vacation so far in advance!

In my dream world, the total length of the vacation would be 3 weeks – with each segment lasting one week. However, reality soon set in. When would we possibly find three weeks in a row to get off of work, and how could we possibly afford it, anyway? But these ideas would simmer and not much would happen for over a year, until April of 2005, when the prices for the Disney Cruise Line for Summer of 2006 were posted. Once that happened, planning was in full swing!

I did research on DCL, covering stateroom tradeoffs, ports of call, and juggling with what we knew about our summer 2006 schedule. We debated over the length of the cruise, we even seriously considered going on a Royal Caribbean instead of DCL (gasp!). Somehow when you look at the cost of a DCL cruise against other lines, it was hard to fathom DCL would be worth the cost (which was considerably higher). I had somewhat convinced myself that the “right thing to do” was to save money and do a 4-night cruise on DCL, rather than the 7-night that I really wanted. But after discussion with Dave, we decided to just go for it and do the 7 night DCL cruise. After all, this vacation is an Extravaganza, right?

So in April 2005 we booked two connecting Category 6 staterooms on the June 24, 2006 sailing of the Disney Magic. This is a special Western Caribbean itinerary that includes Cozumel, Costa Maya, and 2 days at Castaway Cay, but no Key West or Grand Cayman. We had spent a lot of time debating which cruise ports we were interested in. The negotiation between cost and schedule led us to this one. After all, we’ve never been to any of the cruise ports, so we might as well try one grouping as any other grouping. We also felt that the “magic” of the vacation would not be in the cruise ports, but the cruise ship itself, so we were happy to go with the flow.

**Cam22** · 05-28-2006, 09:56 PM

Great start to your TR! Can't wait to read more!

jennyh · 05-28-2006, 10:05 PM

Pre-Trip II: Planning the WDW Portion

So time flies, we buy a Passporter Guide to the DCL and read it cover to cover, but nothing much else happened on this trip planning until Jan 2006. Then I decided I needed to get my rear in gear, so to speak, and get some good hotel reservations set up. After all, we were now in the same calendar year as the trip and so my advance planning obsession could rightfully be explained and defended. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

OK, so let’s skip all the back and forth and multiple plans and schedules, and just give you what we ended up with. Dave and I will have three nights in WDW on our own at the Boardwalk Inn, Concierge level. Woohoo! Then Rob and Ann will bring the kids down to WDW for four more nights. These four nights will be at the Shades of Green Resort (Dave and I are both DoD civilians, so lucky us, we qualify for this great resort at cheap, cheap, cheap prices!). Why move to a non-Disney property? We felt that after all, this is a Wedding Anniversary Extravaganza, we’ve had lots of trips that were kid-oriented in the past, but this one should be about pampering me and Dave for a change. So as part of the cost-balancing, we made this choice to go to SoG with the kids and Rob and Ann. But the resort is really fabulous anyway – right on property, all the perks of being on property, and cheap prices. So no one is really losing out.

So as the plan took shape, this is what we ended up with:

Saturday June 17: Mike and Kim fly together to Providence, where they are picked up by Uncle Rob and Aunt Ann and spend three nights there. Same day, Dave and I fly to Orlando and check in to the Boardwalk Inn, Concierge Level.

Tuesday June 20 – happens to be my 38th birthday - Rob and Ann will bring the kids down to WDW to join us. We’ll check into two (hopefully connecting) rooms at Shades of Green Resort.

Saturday June 24 – we all travel to Port Canaveral to board the Disney Magic for 7 nights.

Saturday July 1 – Disembark the Disney Magic. Rob and Ann fly back home, while Dave and the kids and I stay in Orlando one night at the Marriott Grande Lakes Resort.

Sunday July 2 – We fly home after two weeks of what we hope will be our wonderful vacation Extravaganza!

magic mickey · 05-28-2006, 11:48 PM

Sounds like a wonderful trip. Can't wait to hear how it goes.

ilovedisney0_0 · 05-29-2006, 02:35 AM

It sounds WONDERFUL! Can't wait to read your report! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/zwavin.gif[/img] Amy

debsta922 · 05-29-2006, 07:41 AM

Your plans sound great!

**DrDolphin** · 05-29-2006, 07:43 AM

Sounds like a wonderful trip!! I can't wait to read all about it!

**Colexis Mom** · 05-29-2006, 08:01 AM

What great plans [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/zwavin.gif[/img] I hope you have a magical time [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

Joy J · 05-30-2006, 10:32 PM

Your plans sound wonderful - have a truly magical vacation!

Joy

SHEANA1226 · 05-30-2006, 10:40 PM

Sounds like a great start!

luvnwdwgal · 05-31-2006, 09:13 PM

Looks like you've got an awesome trip planned! Have a wonderful time!!! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

PrincessSharon · 06-02-2006, 12:17 PM

Your plans look great. Have a wonderful time! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/zwavin.gif[/img]

SharonK0527 · 06-02-2006, 02:44 PM

Your vacation extravaganza looks wonderful!!! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Can't wait to read all about it!!

JennyinMD · 06-04-2006, 10:21 PM

Pre-Trip III: How Many Ways Can I Use a Spreadsheet?

So here we are, less than two weeks away from the big trip. We’ve been planning this for over three years, and it seems like it’s still so far away. What has kept us (ok, me) going while we wait? The planning, of course! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/zread.gif[/img]

Microsoft Excel has been my good planning friend and companion for the last few months. [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/zputer.gif[/img] I’ve got one whopper of a spreadsheet going, and it’s a testament (or indictment) to the level of detail with which this trip has been planned. On the first tab I’ve got our daily schedules for both the WDW week and for the cruise portion. The WDW schedule has color-coded blocks that represent what park we’ll be in, and the blocks include the restaurant name, time and ADR# of planned meals. All of the park hours are notated, as well as EMH on the morning and evening ends of things. (BTW, Dave and Jennifer, if you reading this, I would LOVE to have this kind of a chart included as a planning aid in future Passporters… it’s how we have always planned our ADRs.) The cruise schedule is less complicated (mainly because I can’t get my hands on the real, true Navigators until we are aboard), but it does show which days are which ports or at sea, and it indicates the dress code for dinner, all of our shore excursions, and our planned and potential Palo reservations.

Another tab in the spreadsheet shows the budget for the trip. In our young married days, Dave and I learned how to keep a budget down to the penny – I’m not kidding – We wrote down every cent we spent, and then at the end of the month we categorized everything and then reviewed where we “overspent” and had to do better next month. It was a grueling lesson, but one that has served us well. So fast forward twenty years (OH MY GOD I can’t believe it’s been that long --- oh wait, that’s why we’re taking this trip! YES!!!) and now we find ourselves in a much more secure financial position. But old habits die hard, and so I’ve got a budget that goes into a very fine level of detail for this trip. I think one of the main reasons we’re tracking things is that we want to show ourselves how far we’ve come from the younger days when we ate noodles four times a week.

A third tab on the spreadsheet shows all of our reservations, confirmations, and travel details. It shows flight schedules, ground transportation, hotel reservations, cruise excursion reservations, ADRs, etc. Every phone number you ever want to know is listed. Passport numbers and expirations, credit card numbers and expirations, and even the serial numbers for our park hopper passes are there. This is one mega piece of information on this paper!

Finally, the last tab shows the packing list. This is an amazing chronicle of the amount of junk that a suburban middle class family travels with! This is the most complicated trip we’ve ever packed for, even worse than a camping trip. We need everything from swimming trunks to formal dresses – and so I wanted to be sure to get it all. And to complicate matters even further, we are splitting up and need different bags for the kids to take to Boston. Argh! If everything fits, and it’s not too heavy, then we’ll be very well prepared indeed. Once we get all of the stuff on the list laid out, then we’ll see if anything needs to be purged for size/weight limits, but hopefully we’ll be able to bring it all. I mean, we can’t really do without our personal battery-operated hand-held fans, right? It’s summer in Florida after all. And we’ll need that power strip to plug in all of the various cell phone, iPod and battery chargers. And the camcorder, and the still camera, and the laptop, and… Well you see how it is. And don’t forget Pal Mickey! [img]/ubb/images/graemlins/woot.gif[/img]

I guess it’s about time to call the spreadsheet “done”. I can’t think of anything else to put into it, so I will have to turn my obsessive planning energy toward actually packing. Speaking of packing, Dave has already piled up his clothes, as has Kim. I’m wondering how much they will need to take out of the piles to wear between now and then… but whatever! I have a feeling that Mike will dump his stuff into a duffel bag about an hour before heading to the airport, if I leave it up to him. So of course, I won’t be doing that! I’ve started a small pile of non-clothes items, but otherwise have not really started packing. We’ll leave that until next weekend when we’re looking for something to do.

So, until then, thanks for reading and indulging my neurotic planning compulsions!

JennyinMD · 06-04-2006, 10:28 PM

Ok, this is quite bizarre, but apparently I have two accounts here on the Pass Porter boards, and I posted the first part of this thread in one account (jennyh) and the last part of the thread in my other account (JennyinMD). Not quite sure how this happened. Hope it's not too confusing to folks, but jennyh=JennyinMD.