Peeps 2. The Sweaty Asian Strikes Back. Pt 2. Feb '10. 2/21-Final Chapter. Link to TR

[MAGICFOR2]

MK until 3am??? That's really late for us "older" people! Don't fall asleep on SM!

 

[rentayenta]

Loved staying at the AKV. And Boma=

 

[carrieannie]

i'm really digging this spiderman dude. he's got some killer moves. thought you'd get a kick out of him.

OMG!!! Hes awesome!!

 

[WendyO]

Wendy!! I'm so happy to hear you made it safe and sound, and your already having a great time!! Keep us posted when and if you can. I can't imagine all of those people coming into your room greeting you after just getting there! I'm sure it added to the Disney excitment you were already feeling. Be blessed and have fun!

Thanks!! Yeah, it was surreal meeting our "imaginary friends" (as someone said) in real life? So funny... like meeting movie stars or something. Ha ha. But kind of cool how people from all corners of the country (literally - WA, CA, NY, LA... I think...) can get together and have a lot of fun!

..."A rainy day at Disney is better than a sunny day at work!!"

Kathy

So true, so true. But it was darn cold (sometimes 40 degrees w/ 20-30 mph winds...) but better being cold at Disney than home at work anyday!! I just wish I had brought warmer things - hats, gloves, etc. Broke down and bought some gloves for the kids but thinking of all the things I had at home that would have kept us warmer... ha ha ha.

Hi, just got done reading your PTR and your TR for your last trip. It was a really fun way to pass the time. I love how you rate the bathrooms. That's really funny, I guess I'll know which bathrooms to are the good ones (when I'll get to use said bathrooms is questionable). I notice you get excited whenever you see other Asians. My sister was like that too when we were in Disney World. We are 1/2 Asian on my mom's side. You should visit Hawaii some day, it's pretty much all Asians here.

Can I tell you I love your screen name? It must be after you've been DISing for hours. Ha ha ha ha. Especially if you read Jordan's PTR and TRs... Yes, tell Jordan he has to come to Hawaii sometime... that's one place he hasn't gone yet and by all logic, should have (don't all Asians go there?). Hee hee. Once I went to Japan and was all "whoa, there are a lot of Japanese people here...." and then was all, "oh, duh." Hee hee.

Live update!

Just doing a quick check in.

having a GREAT time!

many stories to tell....

drunk and otherwise.....

it's been cold for florida.

had a great time with Winkers, Rosie and Blueyed!

It rained all day today...fortunately for me it ended up being a non-park day for me.....which really wasn't part of the itinerary.....

Photo themes...some have gone well...others not soo good.....you'll just have to see.

I have 5 1/2 days left...

So jealous that you're still there!!! Not that I haven't told you that a bunch of times already. Sigh... now I have to wait until 2012!!!!

for sure. I've taken over 500 pix already....

Derek said he took 14GB of his 16GB card on this trip!! And that wasn't even including my photos. Yowza. ::

We had such a good time! It was a BLAST!!!! Could have done without the cold and rain but still.....we were in DISNEY!! You guys have a great rest of the trip.

I know, I was so sad that your last day was so rainy! It was pouring at DTD and DQ... our last day was picture perfect and what Disney should be (well, without the crazy crowds at MK since it was a holiday weekend....). We were all, "Why wasn't it like this all week????" Sigh. But better there than at home... ha ha ha.

i saw you and wendy and derek on monday feb 8 at epcot WS...not sure where we were. DH and I were running trying to meet my parents at the WS gate and get to our dinner at Le Cellier on time. Hope the rest of your days are warmer...it was a COLD trip!

So funny that you recognized us... (like paparrazi - hee hee)... Erin and I probably just did the Kim Possible mission... and then I think we had Coral Reef ressies that night...

It's so odd to be home already and know that you are still there park hopping. These trips just don't last long enough!! Hope you have a blast tonight!!!!!

I know... so jealous!! Vacations are over way too fast!!!! Hope Colby had a good time... I know Erin and Dylan loved playing with him!!!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Wendy? Are you home already too? If so, Welcome Back! Sorry your trip went by so fast! I'm looking forward to reading about all the Peep adventures!

 

[hlrababy]

Hey Jordan!!!

I hope your having a fabulous time!!!!

 

[WendyO]

Wendy? Are you home already too? If so, Welcome Back! Sorry your trip went by so fast! I'm looking forward to reading about all the Peep adventures!

Hi there... yes, so sad to be back... we got back on Sunday night... I will refrain from saying too much until Jordan's official TR and then I'll chime in as the days are reported on there, but we had loads of fun with lots of funny moments ... so I'm predicting a 3, 4, 5-part TR for this one. Ha ha ha.

So remember to keep liquids out of your mouths and get ready for daily DIS checking or else risk being 10-20 pages behind.... ha ha ha ha. I know I'll probably fall prey to that... thank goodness for Jordan's links to each installment...

 

[Blueyed Girl]

WENDY!!!! Glad you guys made it home safely, but bummed that you had to go home too. Wish we could all just stay there. We had so much fun getting to meet up with you guys again. The kids looked like they were having a good time together.

On Thursday we took a DVC tour! We've talked about it many times but this is the first time we've actually broken down and went on the tour. ha ha ha! So, I gave them yours and Dereks name when they asked. I hope it gets you SOMETHING!!

We didn't buy but we came home with lots of papers and numbers. I called our guide today to ask him how long the incentives last that he spoke about and he told me we had only 3 days. (he did NOT tell us this on Thursday during the tour) He is saying he will "request" an extension for us. I feel like someone may be "pulling my leg" if you know what I mean. Does anyone know if this is true??? We will probably buy but needed to wait a little longer......maybe a week maybe a month but not longer than that.

 

[glennbo123]

We didn't buy but we came home with lots of papers and numbers. I called our guide today to ask him how long the incentives last that he spoke about and he told me we had only 3 days. (he did NOT tell us this on Thursday during the tour) He is saying he will "request" an extension for us. I feel like someone may be "pulling my leg" if you know what I mean. Does anyone know if this is true??? We will probably buy but needed to wait a little longer......maybe a week maybe a month but not longer than that.

The incentives after you take a tour really are only good for the 2 or 3 days they give you, although, like he said, he may be able to get you a little more time. But...there's always some kind of deal they've got going, so you should buy when it makes sense for you. Don't get pressured into it.

What resort are you thinking of buying as your home resort? Who was your guide?

 

[Blueyed Girl]

The incentives after you take a tour really are only good for the 2 or 3 days they give you, although, like he said, he may be able to get you a little more time. But...there's always some kind of deal they've got going, so you should buy when it makes sense for you. Don't get pressured into it.

What resort are you thinking of buying as your home resort? Who was your guide?

The incentive is pretty good right now. Since we will not be financing through Disney I am able to put a down payment this week to lock in the deal. This will buy me a little extra time. Honestly, bottom line I will have it all worked out by tomorrow. I would have it all done today but it's a holiday. I'm feeling better about it all now.

The incentive right now is $15 off per point at AKV or Grand Californian plus they give you last years points. So if I buy 160 points, I get 320 this year.

 

[Blueyed Girl]

The incentive is pretty good right now. Since we will not be financing through Disney I am able to put a down payment this week to lock in the deal. This will buy me a little extra time. Honestly, bottom line I will have it all worked out by tomorrow. I would have it all done today but it's a holiday. I'm feeling better about it all now.

The incentive right now is $15 off per point at AKV or Grand Californian plus they give you last years points. So if I buy 160 points, I get 320 this year.

I forgot to add that we will probably be buying our points with GC because they have really low dues right now.

 

[glennbo123]

The incentive right now is $15 off per point at AKV or Grand Californian plus they give you last years points. So if I buy 160 points, I get 320 this year.

That 'last years points' thing is sooo tempting. They almost got me with that when I toured BLT last year (plus the lower dues at BLT). I resisted because we still have some of our original AKV purchase to pay off.

I forgot to add that we will probably be buying our points with GC because they have really low dues right now.

I understand your thinking, but I'd be careful of that. If you buy a WDW resort you can book your home resort at 11 months and switch at 7, if there's a particular one you want to go to other than your home resort. With GC you can't really do that, being across the country and all....with every WDW trip you'd be trying to get a reservation at 7 months. You'd be fine if you plan on going to Disneyland quite a bit, but if you're not planning on doing that I think I'd avoid it. I'm sure the guide told you it's easy to book at 7 months, but it'll be hard to get a savannah view at AKL, MK view at BLT, treehouse villa at SSR....you get the idea. (Sorry if I'm stressing you out.)

Maybe Wendy owns at GC and can give you some insight?

 

[Blueyed Girl]

That 'last years points' thing is sooo tempting. They almost got me with that when I toured BLT last year (plus the lower dues at BLT). I resisted because we still have some of our original AKV purchase to pay off.



I understand your thinking, but I'd be careful of that. If you buy a WDW resort you can book your home resort at 11 months and switch at 7, if there's a particular one you want to go to other than your home resort. With GC you can't really do that, being across the country and all....with every WDW trip you'd be trying to get a reservation at 7 months. You'd be fine if you plan on going to Disneyland quite a bit, but if you're not planning on doing that I think I'd avoid it. I'm sure the guide told you it's easy to book at 7 months, but it'll be hard to get a savannah view at AKL, MK view at BLT, treehouse villa at SSR....you get the idea. (Sorry if I'm stressing you out.)

Maybe Wendy owns at GC and can give you some insight?

I hadn't thought of the fact that you could book your home resort at 11 then swap at 7. I was just going on the assumption that all of them would be booked at 7 no matter what. Nice trick! I will have to ask him to confirm this. I'm sure you are right, though. I probably wouldn't be able to switch with that resort.

 

[Blueyed Girl]

I hadn't thought of the fact that you could book your home resort at 11 then swap at 7. I was just going on the assumption that all of them would be booked at 7 no matter what. Nice trick! I will have to ask him to confirm this. I'm sure you are right, though. I probably wouldn't be able to switch with that resort.

One more thing.... our original thought was to buy AKV, but the dues are at $792 right now. That was why we switched to thinking about GC. I know taxes and dues will grow each year. I'd like to start off low-ish and build up to that.

 

[englishrose47]

Oh I am sooo jealous .. wish I could afford to buy!! But I am happy for you Blue !!

 

[WendyO]

WENDY!!!! Glad you guys made it home safely, but bummed that you had to go home too. Wish we could all just stay there. We had so much fun getting to meet up with you guys again. The kids looked like they were having a good time together.

On Thursday we took a DVC tour! We've talked about it many times but this is the first time we've actually broken down and went on the tour. ha ha ha! So, I gave them yours and Dereks name when they asked. I hope it gets you SOMETHING!!

We didn't buy but we came home with lots of papers and numbers. I called our guide today to ask him how long the incentives last that he spoke about and he told me we had only 3 days. (he did NOT tell us this on Thursday during the tour) He is saying he will "request" an extension for us. I feel like someone may be "pulling my leg" if you know what I mean. Does anyone know if this is true??? We will probably buy but needed to wait a little longer......maybe a week maybe a month but not longer than that.

Cherie - thanks for the referral! Actually, if you do end up buying I do think we get a little something - I'm not sure what right now but thank you in advance! Everyone we know who bought, we found out after the fact so we never got any referral bonuses... ha ha ha. Yeah, you usually find that in timeshares you get incentives for buying that day - so it's actually less common you have three days to think about it. We deliberated so long when we bought they had to keep checking on us to see if we hadn't fallen asleep or something (we were in there for three hours "thinking" about it). Then we had taken so long that when we did buy, we had like 15 minutes to sign all the paperwork before we had to leave for the airport. It was a mad rushing to sign all sorts of things that we could have been signing away our first born, for all we knew. Ha ha.

The incentive is pretty good right now. Since we will not be financing through Disney I am able to put a down payment this week to lock in the deal. This will buy me a little extra time. Honestly, bottom line I will have it all worked out by tomorrow. I would have it all done today but it's a holiday. I'm feeling better about it all now.

The incentive right now is $15 off per point at AKV or Grand Californian plus they give you last years points. So if I buy 160 points, I get 320 this year.

WHOA, that's cool. Heck, you could go back tomorrow if you wanted now and stay for another week or two. Ha ha ha ha.

I forgot to add that we will probably be buying our points with GC because they have really low dues right now.

I understand your thinking, but I'd be careful of that. If you buy a WDW resort you can book your home resort at 11 months and switch at 7, if there's a particular one you want to go to other than your home resort. With GC you can't really do that, being across the country and all....with every WDW trip you'd be trying to get a reservation at 7 months. You'd be fine if you plan on going to Disneyland quite a bit, but if you're not planning on doing that I think I'd avoid it. I'm sure the guide told you it's easy to book at 7 months, but it'll be hard to get a savannah view at AKL, MK view at BLT, treehouse villa at SSR....you get the idea. (Sorry if I'm stressing you out.)

Maybe Wendy owns at GC and can give you some insight?

So here's my two cents (or probably more, really, I'm a chatty one...): Yes, you do sort of want to "like" your home resort in general, so you can take advantage of the 11 month booking window. However, I also (after having owned several other timeshare properties), see the value of the lowest dues property because we have fallen prey to buying where we like to lock it in, but finding that often we can use our "less desirable" points to stay at the same place, so then we kick ourselves a little for that.

That said, though - for DVC, we own at VWL and VB, and so usually we book at VWL at 11 months out and then try to switch at 7 months, so we're at least guaranteed SOMEWHERE to stay when we go to WDW. So like glennbo said, that wouldn't be necessary for you if you buy at GC since you'll just wait for the 7 month window to book unless you were willing to swap your WDW trip for a DLR trip. Ha. Your ability to book a premium location depends on various things - time of year you travel, size of room you want, etc. I was actually surprised I got BLT on my first try (no waitlist) at 7 months, so you might luck out, but you just have to run that risk. I've traded out our points for BWV, BCV, BLT, SSR, AKL (for Jordan) and only stayed at VWL once on our points. So it CAN be done, depending on what you're looking for and when you travel. For the most part, I have been able to get what I want - generally speaking - so if you're a little flexible, you might be ok.

One other thing to think about in the future though - if you buy additional points, make sure you buy points in your same use year. Otherwise, all your booking windows are all screwy and harder to track. For example, our use year is September, so when we bought later on, the only September use year available was Vero Beach (which we don't necessarily intend on going), but then your 7 month booking window is the same for both properties. So if I wanted to use my entire bulk of points from both properties at 7 months, I could - if they were off by a couple months, I could use one set on X day, and then I'd have to wait to use the rest X months later... so that would cause stress for me so it was important for me to have my booking windows be the same. I can't use the 11 month window for all points though, since they're at two different resorts, so sometimes I do have to just book a portion of the time at one resort and then switch at the 7 month period using all points. If this is confusing - just PM me and we can discuss offline.

Hope this helps and congratulations on joining the family!!! Maybe you WILL have to make a trip out west to stay at the GCV! Fun!!!

 

[Blueyed Girl]

Cherie - thanks for the referral! Actually, if you do end up buying I do think we get a little something - I'm not sure what right now but thank you in advance! Everyone we know who bought, we found out after the fact so we never got any referral bonuses... ha ha ha. Yeah, you usually find that in timeshares you get incentives for buying that day - so it's actually less common you have three days to think about it. We deliberated so long when we bought they had to keep checking on us to see if we hadn't fallen asleep or something (we were in there for three hours "thinking" about it). Then we had taken so long that when we did buy, we had like 15 minutes to sign all the paperwork before we had to leave for the airport. It was a mad rushing to sign all sorts of things that we could have been signing away our first born, for all we knew. Ha ha.

WHOA, that's cool. Heck, you could go back tomorrow if you wanted now and stay for another week or two. Ha ha ha ha.

So here's my two cents (or probably more, really, I'm a chatty one...): Yes, you do sort of want to "like" your home resort in general, so you can take advantage of the 11 month booking window. However, I also (after having owned several other timeshare properties), see the value of the lowest dues property because we have fallen prey to buying where we like to lock it in, but finding that often we can use our "less desirable" points to stay at the same place, so then we kick ourselves a little for that.

That said, though - for DVC, we own at VWL and VB, and so usually we book at VWL at 11 months out and then try to switch at 7 months, so we're at least guaranteed SOMEWHERE to stay when we go to WDW. So like glennbo said, that wouldn't be necessary for you if you buy at GC since you'll just wait for the 7 month window to book unless you were willing to swap your WDW trip for a DLR trip. Ha. Your ability to book a premium location depends on various things - time of year you travel, size of room you want, etc. I was actually surprised I got BLT on my first try (no waitlist) at 7 months, so you might luck out, but you just have to run that risk. I've traded out our points for BWV, BCV, BLT, SSR, AKL (for Jordan) and only stayed at VWL once on our points. So it CAN be done, depending on what you're looking for and when you travel. For the most part, I have been able to get what I want - generally speaking - so if you're a little flexible, you might be ok.

One other thing to think about in the future though - if you buy additional points, make sure you buy points in your same use year. Otherwise, all your booking windows are all screwy and harder to track. For example, our use year is September, so when we bought later on, the only September use year available was Vero Beach (which we don't necessarily intend on going), but then your 7 month booking window is the same for both properties. So if I wanted to use my entire bulk of points from both properties at 7 months, I could - if they were off by a couple months, I could use one set on X day, and then I'd have to wait to use the rest X months later... so that would cause stress for me so it was important for me to have my booking windows be the same. I can't use the 11 month window for all points though, since they're at two different resorts, so sometimes I do have to just book a portion of the time at one resort and then switch at the 7 month period using all points. If this is confusing - just PM me and we can discuss offline.

Hope this helps and congratulations on joining the family!!! Maybe you WILL have to make a trip out west to stay at the GCV! Fun!!!

You're welcome about the referral! Thank you for all the info!! Had I known that we need to buy within only 1-3 days we probably would have deliberated for 2-3 hours too! But at least we'd be signed by now. I just spoke to DH about it again. We really wanted to do AKV but the low cost of GC is what made us look that direction. You made really good points about bookings. I ran the numbers past DH and it's really not THAT much more for the dues at AKL. I was just thinking long term since one starts at $630 and the other at $791. I looked at the price last year vs. this year at AKL and it only went up 9 cents so that's not so bad. Hopefully it stays that way.

Anyhoo....cross your fingers for us! Our guide said I could call him by friday and put a small down payment to "lock in". I hope that is not a choice that Disney could possibly reverse tomorrow!!

Stay tuned Once I get this all straightened out and DS back in school tomorrow, maybe...just maybe....I can start my darn TR!!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Hi there... yes, so sad to be back... we got back on Sunday night... I will refrain from saying too much until Jordan's official TR and then I'll chime in as the days are reported on there, but we had loads of fun with lots of funny moments ... so I'm predicting a 3, 4, 5-part TR for this one. Ha ha ha.

So remember to keep liquids out of your mouths and get ready for daily DIS checking or else risk being 10-20 pages behind.... ha ha ha ha. I know I'll probably fall prey to that... thank goodness for Jordan's links to each installment...

Thanks for the warning

Blue - just pull the trigger and get those extra points - you know once you look, you can't resist!

 

[glennbo123]

Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Magic Kingdom: 9am-10pm. Epcot FW: 9am-7pm. Epcot WS: 11am-9pm. DHS: 9am-8:30pm. Animal Kingdom: 9am-7pm. Typhoon Lagoon: 10am-5pm. EMH AM: MK.

9:00am Up
10:30am Check out
11:30am Board Magical Express
2:35pm Leave for SNA
6:35pm Arrive back home……

I just took a peek at Jordan's schedule and he should be getting up right about now, moping around, and preparing to check out.

But....soon we'll be getting some TR reading material.

 

[RockinDisney]

But....soon we'll be getting some TR reading material.

Yeah for us, so sad for him so , and