Very Merry Christmas Trip ~ Pre-Trip Report - UPDATED 12/1 - COMPLETE!! - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Welcome to the pre-trip report for our December trip! I’ll start off with the background about how this trip came to be…
This year was supposed to be “a year without Disney” for us. Back in January DH and I were talking about plans for 2008 and how maybe we should forgo a vacation and channel that money to other things we’ve been putting off, like getting a bedroom set. But then around February we started getting that oh-too-familiar itch. I’m sure you know it well, the Disney itch! I started pricing out a “little trip” for May and before I knew what’d happened we were saying, “the furniture can wait another year” and booking a 5 night stay at the Beach Club (you can read about that adventure here). I called my parents to share my excitement and they were happy for us but bummed that they couldn’t join us (our dates were smack in the middle of their 3-week trip to Hawaii—but hey, if you have to be sad about missing out on a Disney trip I suppose Hawaii is a pretty good place to drown your sorrows, right??).
A few weeks after we’d booked our May trip I got an email from Disney with a PIN code! This was the first time I’d received one of these fabled messages so after I stopped jumping around the room I sat down to read the fine print. The code wasn’t good for the dates we’d booked in May but there were December dates included. My wheels started turning. “Hmm, we’ve always wanted to do Disney at Christmas…and we don’t have many years left to go without taking DD out of school (she starts kindergarten in 2 years)…this would give us a chance to go with my parents.” You can see where this is going! I called my parents and they were immediately onboard so I booked us 4 nights at Wilderness Lodge for the second week in December. Woohoo!
My excitement, however, immediately turned to guilt. How could we plan another trip when we were already going in May? And at another Deluxe no less? I was starting to worry about the finances of it all so we decided if we were to still go in December we needed to scale back the budget and stay at a Value. At the same time I was going through this dilemma we found out that the second week in December is Pop Warner week and the Values would be pretty busy. After talking it out with my parents we decided to switch our plans to the first week of December at Pop.
I called Disney and cancelled our ressie at WL then hopped online and booked us for 4 nights at Pop with the dining plan. The switch saved us a lot of money so I felt much better about booking this second trip for 2008. With that resolved, I could happily start planning with no guilt!!
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I hope that you and your family have a magical time at the world
__________________
Heather - "I'm Tinkerbell's biggest fan!"
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
Great start. Who needs a bedroom set anyway?Looking forward to the next installment
That's what I say (and have said for the past 8 years we've been married)! With all the Disney trips we've taken we probably could've furnished about 6 bedrooms by now but our vacation memories are priceless!
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My choice would have been WDW as well...heck give me a matress and I am good, I much rather spend time at WDW anyway. Great start on the plans...can't wait to hear more.
Me age 36, favorite attraction: tie between Soarin’ and Tower of Terror
DH age 36, favorite attraction: PotC
DD age 3.5, (this is her 5th trip to Disney—lucky little princess!) favorite attraction: IASW
Nana and Grandpa (my parents), I’ll refrain from sharing their ages
--Nana’s favorite attraction: Festival of the Lion King;
--Grandpa’s favorite attraction: World Showcase (or Liberty Square Riverboat, which has become a running joke because it seems to be closed for refurb every time we go to WDW)
My parents have been to WDW even more times than I have. My grandmother was a Florida snowbird for many years so my parents made side trips to the World when driving her car from MA to Florida. Since my Dad retired they’ve been traveling like crazy checking things off their list of "dream trips". Just a couple of weeks before we leave for Disney they’ll be returning from a cruise through the Panama Canal. So while they don’t go to Disney as much as they used to, they jump at the chance for a quick trip with their granddaughter (and us of course—we’re part of the deal).
The last time DH, DD and I traveled to WDW with my parents was in September of 2007 during free dining.
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we're going 12/4-8, staying at AllStar Music (Movies was booked up) and also postponing the purchase of bedroom furniture!!! LOL. last night we re-arranged our bedroom furniture (which I've had since I was 13!!!) and swapped out accessories from other rooms. it made a HUGE difference and I can live with it for another year so we can go to WDW with DD at Christmastime!
As nice as it would be to have new furniture... I wouldn't be counting down the minutes until I got home to see it every day, or posting on threads with other new furniture owners. Our WDW trip is DEFINITELY the better choice!
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