harddrive
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2016
Hey everyone, I’m Brenton and it’s been almost 11 months since my last Disney Park Day!!
Jokes aside, it didn't quite set in until a few months ago that it had really been that long since we got back from our last Disney trip, AND that I had made no effort to sort through photos, or think about writing a trip report. After our first trip in 2016 (see the trip report HERE), I made a conscious effort this trip to take a lot more photos, and made sure Steve took copious notes throughout the trip so we could bring you a better report this time around. So hopefully we will succeed… I’ll let you be the judges of that!
Alrighty, so quick introductions as a refresher.
This is me and my partner Steve, I’m on the right with the cap and glasses.
I have just turned 30 and Steve 29 and we love Disney! I work in a secondary school as their timetabler and graphic designer, and Steve is studying to become a primary school teacher.
After our big trip in 2016, we didn’t think we’d make it back to Disney for while, due to money and time constraints. Oh how wrong we were! Talk of a potential trip came about when I stumbled across a brochure from a travel agent, that had a special deal for a trip to California and Disneyland. I showed this to Steve, and it perked his interest as the price was very reasonable. I sent off a request to get an official quote for our preferred dates (working around school and university holidays), and as always the quote came back much more expensive than the original offer. We were both a little disheartened, but had psyched ourselves up about going back to Disney so much that we just said, “let’s make it work!”
I suggested the idea of looking at how much it would cost us to visit one of the other international parks (Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai or Tokyo) seeing as we had already been to Disneyland and it would be interesting to go to a new park. Well, after looking at flights, accommodation and park ticket prices for each, there was really only a few hundred dollars difference between all of the different parks (although there was a sacrifice in length of stay at some). So many choices! We both really loved Disney World during our first trip, so at this point I threw in the idea of pricing how much it would cost to go to Disney World too. We hadn’t considered it at this point, presuming it would be way over our budget. Turns out, not so much! While it was a little more expensive than the dearest international park, we’d actually get more time in the parks. So all within the space of about 48 hours we went from not going away at all, to having flights and a WDW package booked and partially paid for! What’s better than spontaneously booking a Disney trip? Nothing!!!
Take my money Disney!!!
It turned out that our trip dates were nearly identical to our time at Disney World the previous year. Only downside to the spontaneity of the trip was that our 180 day ADR booking window had come and gone, and all the (budget friendly) free dining offers for the period appeared to have been snatched up. With this in mind we started booking dining reservations for the places we wanted to dine, intending to pay out of pocket. In a stroke of luck we managed to score a free dining upgrade for our stay a few weeks after initially booking our trip!!! As we had already booked way more table service meals than would fit into the standard dining plan, we decided to pay the difference and upgrade to the Deluxe Dining Plan… because who doesn't love ALL the Disney food!
As a side note, we did do some maths in terms of doing the standard plan upgrade and just paying out of pocket for the extra TS meals; however it was more cost effective for us to go with the DDxDP.
Fast forward a few months and then we booked our fastpasses and before we knew it the time had come to leave for our trip!!
Apologies for the wordy introduction but once we get to Disney I promise that there will be a lot of photos coming!
Stay tuned for the next update and learn why we ended up spending over 32 hours in transit to get to Disney!
Jokes aside, it didn't quite set in until a few months ago that it had really been that long since we got back from our last Disney trip, AND that I had made no effort to sort through photos, or think about writing a trip report. After our first trip in 2016 (see the trip report HERE), I made a conscious effort this trip to take a lot more photos, and made sure Steve took copious notes throughout the trip so we could bring you a better report this time around. So hopefully we will succeed… I’ll let you be the judges of that!
Alrighty, so quick introductions as a refresher.
This is me and my partner Steve, I’m on the right with the cap and glasses.
I have just turned 30 and Steve 29 and we love Disney! I work in a secondary school as their timetabler and graphic designer, and Steve is studying to become a primary school teacher.
After our big trip in 2016, we didn’t think we’d make it back to Disney for while, due to money and time constraints. Oh how wrong we were! Talk of a potential trip came about when I stumbled across a brochure from a travel agent, that had a special deal for a trip to California and Disneyland. I showed this to Steve, and it perked his interest as the price was very reasonable. I sent off a request to get an official quote for our preferred dates (working around school and university holidays), and as always the quote came back much more expensive than the original offer. We were both a little disheartened, but had psyched ourselves up about going back to Disney so much that we just said, “let’s make it work!”
I suggested the idea of looking at how much it would cost us to visit one of the other international parks (Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai or Tokyo) seeing as we had already been to Disneyland and it would be interesting to go to a new park. Well, after looking at flights, accommodation and park ticket prices for each, there was really only a few hundred dollars difference between all of the different parks (although there was a sacrifice in length of stay at some). So many choices! We both really loved Disney World during our first trip, so at this point I threw in the idea of pricing how much it would cost to go to Disney World too. We hadn’t considered it at this point, presuming it would be way over our budget. Turns out, not so much! While it was a little more expensive than the dearest international park, we’d actually get more time in the parks. So all within the space of about 48 hours we went from not going away at all, to having flights and a WDW package booked and partially paid for! What’s better than spontaneously booking a Disney trip? Nothing!!!
Take my money Disney!!!
It turned out that our trip dates were nearly identical to our time at Disney World the previous year. Only downside to the spontaneity of the trip was that our 180 day ADR booking window had come and gone, and all the (budget friendly) free dining offers for the period appeared to have been snatched up. With this in mind we started booking dining reservations for the places we wanted to dine, intending to pay out of pocket. In a stroke of luck we managed to score a free dining upgrade for our stay a few weeks after initially booking our trip!!! As we had already booked way more table service meals than would fit into the standard dining plan, we decided to pay the difference and upgrade to the Deluxe Dining Plan… because who doesn't love ALL the Disney food!
As a side note, we did do some maths in terms of doing the standard plan upgrade and just paying out of pocket for the extra TS meals; however it was more cost effective for us to go with the DDxDP.
Fast forward a few months and then we booked our fastpasses and before we knew it the time had come to leave for our trip!!
Apologies for the wordy introduction but once we get to Disney I promise that there will be a lot of photos coming!
Stay tuned for the next update and learn why we ended up spending over 32 hours in transit to get to Disney!