Is It Time Already?! OKW and POR, November 2013 - Page 6 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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What a huge relief to know our photos weren't lost!
Well, while I deal with getting all my pictures in order, I might as well get the trip report started!
The dates were in flux for a while. At first I had planned the trip around the kids' Veterans Day break from school (they get the holiday off and then 1 furlough day due to budget cuts). That meant they were off the Friday before and the Monday after. I was thinking we could try for a trip either Thursday to Thursday or Saturday to Saturday. Then Laurie surprised me by offering to let me rent her points! So, I asked if she would please see what we can get around that time. Well this was back in the late Spring, so as you can imagine, the pickin's were already slim!
Laurie was able to get us a reservation at OKW, which is a resort I've been wanting to try. I wanted to surprise the kids with two extra nights at a different resort...ok, who am I kidding, I wanted to try out a second resort! I was thinking maybe I could add on two nights at club level at maybe AKL or WL. The other resort I wanted to try was POFQ, because it sounded really good to me. Well, to make a long story a little shorter, life got in the way of my vacation budget, so club level was out. I would just plan on POFQ for two days either before or after OKW.
Fast forward to the middle of summer. Sophia was stressing out about missing so many days at school (she was missing potentially 6 school days with our extended vacation). It took several weeks, but she finally said she really didn't want to miss so many days of school. I look at the calendar again and suggested leaving a few days before Thanksgiving break (the kids get the entire week of Thanksgiving off). I asked her if it would be ok if we left Tuesday afternoon, missing 3.5 days of school, and then returning the following Tuesday. She was fine with that. Back to ask Laurie if she could check on availability. Luckily, she found a studio at OKW during that time, but it would be a few more points. Laurie assured me she had enough for me to rent from her, so that part was done.
Next I had to figure out the extra days. I asked Megan to check on availability of anything in the Moderate category for the two days before Thanksgiving. She found us a room at POR...a Royal room! At this point, the trip was already costing more than I had planned, but I was able to tweak the budget around. I knew there wouldn't be a hope of getting any discounts for those two nights, so POR it was!
Fast forward again to September. I had been watching airfare for a few months now. I liked the idea of flying Southwest with free bags, but I didn't like the idea of splitting the journey into two flights with a layover in the middle and two kids in tow. Knowing my kids, they would be impatient and grumpy. They'd be grateful for the trip, don't get me wrong, but it was just another "hassle" that wasn't really worth it for me. I had been wanting to try Virgin America for quite a while now, so I started watching their fares. Some time in late September, I think, I finally bit the bullet and got our tickets. Flying back on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving wasn't going to work out...the prices weren't coming down at all, and I wasn't expecting them to. I also didn't like the idea of battling the crowds at the airport, especially with Evan not being great with lots of crowds and noise. I asked Sophia if she would be ok to fly back on Thanksgiving. She said she would be fine with it so long as she got turkey at some point that day. Then I asked her if she would be ok with missing 4 days of school instead of 3.5, because the difference in fare was more than $50 per ticket between the morning flight and the evening flight leaving LAX. Sophia said that was fine, so the tickets were purchased! I toyed with the idea of flying Virgin one way and Southwest the other way, but I was willing to pay for baggage and not have to spend 2 hours on a layover.
Now, all we had to do was plan and pack in the two months leading up to our trip. No problem, right?
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Huge Disney Fan...Always Have Been...Always Will Be!
Disneyland 60th Anniversary Celebration TR here!
2013 WDW trip here!
2011 trip to Hawaii here!
It's fun for me reading about all the different steps in planning. I was watching it all unfold with your e-mail updates, but had kind of forgotten all the changes and decisions you had to make. Now I'm really looking forward to hearing all about the actual trip, as this will be brand new to me!
Nice start to the TR and love all the planning you did!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Loved the start to the TR . So glad that they worked out the issues with your Photopass. Did you use the photopass card, or did you use your Magic Band?
So glad they found your Photopass pics! It's interesting to read how your planning came together - I'll be interested to see what you think of Virgin America. I looked at them when we flew to LA last Christmas, but their prices were insane, compared to Southwest.
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Glad they found all your PP pics!
Don't you love having to tweak your plans over and over. That always happens with me too. We were set for May, but had to cancel and push back to Oct. Now we have dates of Oct 16-25, but I just have a feeling those will change again too.
Great start! Can't wait for more!
It's fun for me reading about all the different steps in planning. I was watching it all unfold with your e-mail updates, but had kind of forgotten all the changes and decisions you had to make. Now I'm really looking forward to hearing all about the actual trip, as this will be brand new to me!
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperDave
Nice start to the TR and love all the planning you did!
Quote:
Originally Posted by xwewhisper
Glad it all came together and minimal school was missed!
Yep, even though I feel like I'm always planning for the next trip, when it comes down to it...I end up feeling like I never even planned because so many unexpected things keep coming up!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great start! Glad they found your pictures!
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Originally Posted by Cam22
Glad your PhotoPass pictures were found! Sounds like you had to do some juggling with dates and resorts, but it all worked out.
Laurie brought up an interesting point...it looks like they are using face recognition technology throughout Disney now. She mentioned how they do it on the DCL cruises, and I saw it in action at Spaceship Earth when I went to find my video after the ride, and it automatically brought up our pictures without our even entering any information. I figure either all the remaining pictures "suddenly" appeared the other night, or they used face recognition on the existing pictures in our account to find all the rest. Pretty neat!
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcc0313
Loved the start to the TR . So glad that they worked out the issues with your Photopass. Did you use the photopass card, or did you use your Magic Band?
I used our card every single time. Only once did a photographer scan my card and then ask to scan my Magic Band as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
So glad they found your Photopass pics! It's interesting to read how your planning came together - I'll be interested to see what you think of Virgin America. I looked at them when we flew to LA last Christmas, but their prices were insane, compared to Southwest.
When it came down to it, with the times we wanted to fly, it cost us about US$50-60 more per ticket to go on Virgin America vs. Southwest, plus the baggage fees. The difference would've been an additional 2-3 hours of travel time each way had we gone with Southwest, and I decided it was worth it for us to just fly non-stop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by disneydreamer33
Glad they found all your PP pics!
Don't you love having to tweak your plans over and over. That always happens with me too. We were set for May, but had to cancel and push back to Oct. Now we have dates of Oct 16-25, but I just have a feeling those will change again too.
Great start! Can't wait for more!
I think for me that's part of the fun of planning. I like the idea of having some type of plan in place, but once you have to really think about the logistics, changes start getting made almost every other day!
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Huge Disney Fan...Always Have Been...Always Will Be!
Disneyland 60th Anniversary Celebration TR here!
2013 WDW trip here!
2011 trip to Hawaii here!
OMG HOW am I so LATE to this party?!?! Well I'm here now! I can't wait to read all about this and see the photos!!! I loved the texted photos I did get though!! And I'm so relieved you got your photopass pictures!!! Phew!
OMG HOW am I so LATE to this party?!?! Well I'm here now! I can't wait to read all about this and see the photos!!! I loved the texted photos I did get though!! And I'm so relieved you got your photopass pictures!!! Phew!
Well it's about time you joined the festivities!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tabitha34
Great start! Glad you found all your photopass pics!
Thanks! It felt like I had taken SO many pics while we were there. I guess it wasn't that many, but still, for the longest time we had only 1 pair of pics out of the 20 or so we had done! We got a good amount of ride photos, too, so I'm really glad we did the PhotoPass+!
__________________
Huge Disney Fan...Always Have Been...Always Will Be!
Disneyland 60th Anniversary Celebration TR here!
2013 WDW trip here!
2011 trip to Hawaii here!
Hmm, I just tried to type an update and lost the whole thing! Ugh!
Well, lucky for all of you since I really don't feel like typing out my novel again, I'll give you the brief-er update!
I made a few ADRs about 2-3 months before the trip. I had to check the park hours to see what our general plans would be. I got Boma for dinner (everyone's choice), 50s Prime Time for lunch (Sophia's request), Brown Derby for lunch (Sophia's request), and Yak & Yeti (my choice). I also wanted to surprise the kids with the Wishes Dessert Party. None of us is really into dessert, but on our first trip to WDW I really wanted to see Wishes and never got the chance. This time I had to make sure I saw it!
At this point, real life got in the way, and it was many weeks until I decided to log into MDE to see what else I could plan. Around this time I tried to do online check-in. I tried for both OKW and POR, but both times I got kicked out of the system at the end, so I wasn't sure if I had checked in at all!
It also around this time that I noticed I was able to customize our Magic Bands. I never got an email, and I'm pretty sure the option wasn't on MDE before, so I had figured we weren't in the test group. Well, it turns out we were! I wonder if it was just waiting for us to do online check-in?
I had the option to order bands for POR, but not for OKW. Umm, ok. Well, I quickly got them ordered. A few days later, I logged into MDE again, and this time I had the option to customize for our OKW stay! Does anyone else find it strange that I was able to order the later POR ones first and then the earlier OKW ones? Not complaining, because we got them both! Hooray!
Backtracking a bit, Sophia hadn't been super excited about this trip. She was happy to be going on vacation, but she really didn't care too much about our plans. I kept asking her what she wanted, but she'd tell me she didn't care and I should pick. Well guess what happens about a week before the trip? She decides she wants to do Character Dining! Uh, Sophia, I think those were booked a few months ago! I tried and tried and tried, but unfortunately I never found anything available. Now she knows for next time she'll need to tell me much sooner! I did make some plans for Thanksgiving because I had totally forgotten about how busy it was going to be. I had a hard time finding out what special Thanksgiving meals were being offered, but eventually I figured it out and picked Olivia's at OKW. Of course that was when we were going to be at POR, but we were going to have a turkey feast before we head to the airport!
Fast forward to 2-3 days before the trip. I had been planning on getting packing two to three weeks before the trip (Laurie can attest to this because I kept telling her I was planning on it and then it wouldn't happen!). Well, I was out of time, so I had to quickly figure out what I was bringing and what Evan needed. Sophia was on her own, but thankfully she's responsible enough to take care of it. Of course that didn't stop her from asking me every other day what she needed to bring!
Coming up in a minute...travel day!
__________________
Huge Disney Fan...Always Have Been...Always Will Be!
Disneyland 60th Anniversary Celebration TR here!
2013 WDW trip here!
2011 trip to Hawaii here!
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