Thoughts on my timetable. Changed AGAIN

[WanderlustNZ]

Edited: Have changed my schedule yet again now that I have a pretty good idea of dates and times. Please feel free to make further suggestions



ARRIVAL

Tue Sep 17th: Go to work for the day. Evening flight out on Air NZ. (All flights now paid for)

Tue Sep 17th: Check into LAX hotel for the night. (Sheraton Gateway - booked and paid)

UNIVERSAL ORLANDO

Wed Sep 18th: Morning flight to MCO with Virgin America. Arrive late avo. Check into HRH (Universal hotel, tickets and transfers booked and paid). Wander around Universal City Walk. Pick a restaurant for dinner.
Dinner: Perhaps Bubba Gump?

Thur Sep 19th: A day at Universal Studios using express passes to explore at our own pace. Will schedule a resort break in the middle of the day. Check out their new water fountain/fireworks spectacular in the evening.
Meals: No plans

Fri Sep 20th: Early entry to Harry Hotter. Start at Ollivanders, then FJ, then spend the rest of the day discovering IOA at leisure. Resort break in the middle of the day.
Breakfast: Probably 3 broomsticks.
Lunch and Dinner: No plans

CRUISE

Sep 21st - Sep 28th: Fantasy Cruise. Have picked the 2 excursions I would like to do and would also like to book a Palo Brunch. Just hoping that as a first time Disney cruiser with a smaller booking window, I can get what I want. (Approx 1/3 of cruise paid for)

DISNEY WORLD

Sat Sep 28th: Morning transfer from Port to BoardWalk Villas BoardWalk view studio booked and mostly paid using rented DVC points. 10 day 'Hopper & Water Park and More' tickets bought from Undercover Tourist, Photopass plus booked and paid for.
Go straight to HS to watch shows and afternoon parade. Back to resort for check-in and rest. Back to HS for dinner and Fantasmic. Stroll back to resort and check out the BW at night.
Lunch: Sci-Fi Diner
Dinner: QS

Sun Sep 29th: Breakfast in Villa (as will be the case for just about every morning from now on). Spend morning resting. Head into Epcot for about 1pm lunch. Continue walking through Epcot doing a ride or two, then catch monorail to Magic Kingdom for Pirates League and MNSSHP
Lunch: Biergarten
Dinner: QS

Mon Sep 30th: Sleep in, then Typhoon Lagoon till early-mid avo. Rest in hotel, then off to Epcot for dinner and Fireworks
Lunch: QS
Dinner: F&W festival snacks

Tue Oct 1st: Epcot day. Get up early for EMH and spend morning in Future World. Have a midday resort break. Go back to Epcot for dinner. Watch Fireworks from BWV balcony.
Lunch and Dinner: Either F&W Festival Snacks or make an Epcot ADR (can't decide on this one)

Wed Oct 2nd: Morning and lunch at HS . Resort Break. Last evening at Epcot. If not too tired, make use of evening EMH
Lunch: 50's Prime Time Diner
Dinner: F&W festival

Thu Oct 3rd: Sleep in and pack bags. Check out mid morning. Go to AK until after the afternoon parade. Check into AKV (Jambo studio booked and paid using rented DVC points) Enjoy pool and resort activities.
Lunch: Perhaps Flame Tree BBQ
Dinner: Mara

Fri Oct 4th: Magic Kingdom till early avo. Catch taxi to Outlet Shopping Mall. Do some shopping. Back to resort for dinner and early night.
Breakfast: Thinking of Chef Mickeys. Will probably just try and grab a booking anyway and then I've got time to decide whether we want to keep the booking.
Lunch: Maybe BOG or another QS
Dinner: QS

Sat Oct 5th: Downtown Disney day. Sleep in. Relax at resort. Go to DTD about lunch time to do some shopping and lunch at T-Rex or WPE. Go to Disney Quest for a few hours, then 6pm La Nouba, then lateish dinner at Raglan Road
Lunch: T-Rex or WPE
Dinner: Raglan Road

Sun Oct 6th: Blizzard Beach in the morning, then free choice after that
Meals: No set plans

Mon Oct 7th: Animal Kingdom for EMH. Leave midday for a rest at the resort. Early dinner at Ohana. Go to MK for electrical light parade, wishes, and Late Magic Hours (if not too tired)
Breakfast; Tusker House (to celebrate my son's birthday - in NZ time zone)
Lunch: QS
Dinner: Ohana Birthday Dinner.

Tue Oct 8th: Today is my son's birthday in US time zone. Sleep in, then son's choice of park
Breakfast: Maybe Boma
Lunch: no plans
Dinner: Early tea at Sanaa while the sun's still up and we can see the animals

FAREWELL

Wed Oct 9th. Magic Express to MCO. Farewell Disney 9:30am flight to LAX (American Airlines) Check into dayroom at LAX hotel for about the next 7 hours to nap, swim and perhaps visit Manhatten Beach. (This dayroom is not booked yet). Overnight flight home to NZ arriving early Friday morning.

So, if you have read this far. Thank you All thoughts appreciated.

[Travel Mum]

Wow, what fun you must have had doing that! I'm just wondering if you have planned your park days around the expected crowds? I highly recommend you check out EasyWDW and use Josh's crowd predictor calendars but I doubt they will be out yet for your dates. For our trip, I subscribed to both Tour Guide Mike and Touring Plans plus used the free EasyWDW - all to work out which parks to visit on which days and what order to do the rides in. In the end, I probably could have just used EasyWDW though. It was quite a bit of work figuring out the daily plan/order (but I enjoyed it) but it was really worth having done it once we were there.

[Dean1972]

Wow , it sounds like you have an awesome trip planned !

My DW & I will be travelling to WDW in December 2013 and have as considered renting DVC points.
Like yourself we are from abroad (Aussies) & DW is worried about the process booking etc. I am looking at a studio either at BLT or BCV. Happy days

[PrincessInOz]

sounds like its all pretty well planned except for one thing.


Where are you planning on scheduling in the DisMeets with some of us fellow Anzacs???

[australiankaren]

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

sounds like its all pretty well planned except for one thing.

Where are you planning on scheduling in the DisMeets with some of us fellow Anzacs???

I'll be there 7-15 sept and 29 sept - 3 oct...... And food and wine festival starts around 28 sept so Epcot dvc villas get full very quickly.

We may skip wdw 29 sept - 3 oct and stay at iOa / ust instead .... Too many choices.....

[Dean1972]

Originally Posted by australiankaren

I'll be there 7-15 sept and 29 sept - 3 oct...... And food and wine festival starts around 28 sept so Epcot dvc villas get full very quickly.

We may skip wdw 29 sept - 3 oct and stay at iOa / ust instead .... Too many choices.....

Ooh two visits..... Heading back to oz between 15th sept & the 29th?

[WanderlustNZ]

Originally Posted by Travel Mum

Wow, what fun you must have had doing that! I'm just wondering if you have planned your park days around the expected crowds? I highly recommend you check out EasyWDW and use Josh's crowd predictor calendars but I doubt they will be out yet for your dates. For our trip, I subscribed to both Tour Guide Mike and Touring Plans plus used the free EasyWDW - all to work out which parks to visit on which days and what order to do the rides in. In the end, I probably could have just used EasyWDW though. It was quite a bit of work figuring out the daily plan/order (but I enjoyed it) but it was really worth having done it once we were there.

I had so much fun. :-) This trip is feeling more and more real all the time.

Thanks for those tips on good crowd calendars. I haven't factored crowds in yet.

My main consideration at present is to do pretty much all our Epcot and Hollywood Studios visits while we're at the BWV and all our AK visits while we're at the AKV. IMO, it would seem silly not to take advantage of the Villa's great locations. Likewise, I figure it's best to visit Typhoon Lagoon while we're at BWV and Blizzard Beach while we're at AKV to cut down on transfer times.

MK and DTD will be reasonably long transfers whichever resort we come from, hence the reason they're the only locations spread out across both halves of the split stay.

Not sure at this stage to what depth I want to plan each day. I think my DH would get really annoyed if I had all our rides planned out in order. I think I know what rides I want to try to head to first (Toy Story, Soaring, Kilamanjaro Safari etc) when we visit parks in the morning. Both otherwise I'm hoping we might be able to take each day as it comes. Has anyone had any success touring the parks in a relaxed, unplanned way? Or do you think ubber-planning is what is needed if we're to avoid spending many extra hours in queues?

[WanderlustNZ]

Originally Posted by Dean1972

Wow , it sounds like you have an awesome trip planned !

My DW & I will be travelling to WDW in December 2013 and have as considered renting DVC points.
Like yourself we are from abroad (Aussies) & DW is worried about the process booking etc. I am looking at a studio either at BLT or BCV. Happy days

I have found the renting process surprisingly easy. I have gone through two different Brokers and both have been excellent in different ways. I probably could have saved another hundred or two by going directly to renters, but I would have felt considerably more nervous about the whole process. Also, because the brokers I'm using have secure payment links where you can input your cc, transferring the money has been easy. I've been able to link my reservations to my WDW login, so I can see that they're there and booked. Now when I log into Disney's website I get a countdown clock and a date for booking ADR's. So exciting!

The most difficult part of the process so far was getting exactly what I wanted. The cheapest DVC rooms (AKV Value Studios and BWV Standard Studios) seem to book out right on the 11 month mark. The popular resorts and rooms with popular views seem to book out pretty quickly as well, and most it seems, before the 7month mark.
Getting them also depends on the Broker being able to find a renter who has these as their home resorts and is prepared to part with the points. I probably would have slightly preferred the BCV for my first 5 nights as it's that bit closer to Epcot and apparently the pool is great. But neither broker had points for this. In fact, I feel really lucky to have got the BoardWalk at 9 1/2 months out, and even luckier that a BoardWalk view studio was still available. I'm pretty much as excited about the BWV now as I would have been about the BCV.

With the exception of Savannah view, the AKV rooms are slightly cheaper than most of the other resorts. This is great for me as this resort (along with the Wilderness Lodge) has, IMO, the best theming of all Disney Resorts. I can't wait to look up at that impressive lobby.

[WanderlustNZ]

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

sounds like its all pretty well planned except for one thing.

Where are you planning on scheduling in the DisMeets with some of us fellow Anzacs???

You make a good point. :-)

[WanderlustNZ]

Originally Posted by australiankaren

I'll be there 7-15 sept and 29 sept - 3 oct...... And food and wine festival starts around 28 sept so Epcot dvc villas get full very quickly.

We may skip wdw 29 sept - 3 oct and stay at iOa / ust instead .... Too many choices.....

I can see your dilemma. F&W or Harry Potter? Tough choice. I must admit, I'm really looking forward to the Universal section of our stay and the relaxed way we're going to be able to tour due to having the express passes and being just a 5 min walk from our hotel. Apart from the WWOHP, we will pretty much just roam around the park and do activities as we come across them.

[WanderlustNZ]

Originally Posted by Dean1972

Ooh two visits..... Heading back to oz between 15th sept & the 29th?

Karen is going to enjoy back to back cruises during this time. So exciting.

Karen, out of interest, have you booked these cruises or are you holding out for last-minute specials? Being September there's likely to be some pretty good reductions after the final payment date. I had this quandry with my Fantasy cruise.

[battymum]

We were in the world September 2011 - we had a plan worked out according to crowd calendars, and like you an idea of where to head first, but not a ride by ride plan. Worked fine for us, crowds are light that time of year and we never queued for very long, although we may have missed some things I'm sure.
It's a good idea to have a park map, so you can tick off the attractions. For all the reading I did, it was easy to get overwhelmed when you are in the parks, with heat and jetlag and forget what is actually there to see.

[WanderlustNZ]

Originally Posted by battymum

We were in the world September 2011 - we had a plan worked out according to crowd calendars, and like you an idea of where to head first, but not a ride by ride plan. Worked fine for us, crowds are light that time of year and we never queued for very long, although we may have missed some things I'm sure.
It's a good idea to have a park map, so you can tick off the attractions. For all the reading I did, it was easy to get overwhelmed when you are in the parks, with heat and jetlag and forget what is actually there to see.

That's a good idea. The WDW website has those printable maps you can make that include all the attractions you're interested in. I might have to make a set closer to the time.

[marvel]

sounds like an awesome trip. Could i ask the price ranges for the rooms you are getting? Thinking of renting points some time in the future if it's feasible.

[australiankaren]

Originally Posted by WanderlustNZ

Karen is going to enjoy back to back cruises during this time. So exciting.

Karen, out of interest, have you booked these cruises or are you holding out for last-minute specials? Being September there's likely to be some pretty good reductions after the final payment date. I had this quandry with my Fantasy cruise.

hey, we have booked already our 2 cruises thru our awesome USA TA , we wanted a certain cabin and since we have sailed on FOS twice before we get a little discount anyway.....and prices were good so we bite the bullet and booked...got out cabin (the same one for both cruises) and we are happy!

We tend to get a junior suite which doesnt have deep discounts like maybe a inside cabin etc..and if the price does drop, my TA lets me know and adjusts accordingly

I am looking forward to it, just waiting for airfares to drop for sept.....