My Most Recent Trip of a Lifetime

Pre Trip Report

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Okay here I am 40 days away from our trip that we’ve been planning for two years, back-to-back cruises on the new Disney Dream and a short stint at Disney World. All the planning is now done and it is just a wait until the vacation starts. Here’s what I have planned:

Leaving Home: Trying to keep the kids out of school a minimum about of time. So they’ll actually spend a half week in school before we go. Wednesday afternoon we pick them up to head out to Sacramento. I’ve reserved a Park-Sleep-Fly hotel for our first evening. I strongly recommend this start to a vacation. For us, it’s a 90-minute drive to Sacramento and since we’re flying across country we have need an early morning flight. So, an 8am flight means that you have to be at the Airport around 6 am and leave the house no later than 4:30 am. Also means that you’re waking kids, showering, dressing and packing all from 3:00 to 4:30 am. That’s an early morning and the likelihood that you’ll forget something is great. The Park-Sleep-Fly hotel means that I can leave the day before my flight and leisurely pack while the kids are at school. The cost was about $170. A bit steep for a hotel room for one night but remember, that this includes parking for the duration of my vacation. Parking at SMF (Sacramento International) will run $90 in long term parking. Now add to this, the hotel that I chose serves a decent breakfast which saves me $30 minimum. That makes the hotel room cost me a more manageable $50. Besides, I sleeping rather than driving.

Flying: Here’s where I made my biggest tactical error. I’m an extremely early planner. This allows me to search out the best deals for our vacations. And when I have airfare that is to my liking… I want to lock it in now rather than wait for it to increase in price. Well, I cashed in a whole lot of air miles and got two free tickets and searched out a great deal on airfare for the other two tickets. The flights were to cost about $700 total for four people to fly from Sacramento to Orlando. This savings was not without a cost however. Two tickets on the same flight as the free tickets were gonna cost me big. As a result Laura and Leah are flying the free skies, while Stuart and I are on another airline with a more reasonable price. I figured “That’s a deal!” and I locked it in. No sooner did I secure my airfare, my company changed some of its policies regarding vacation. The meant that I now had to change my travel plans. The airlines do not look kindly upon anyone needing to change the dates of their travel. Fortunately, the free tickets were easily changed without a penalty. The cheap seats that Stuart and I had however were not so easy to alter and it ended up costing me another $700 to alter their dates. Now I was back to pretty much paying full price for flying cross country. Grrrr!

Night before the Cruise: Now the more you read about me the more that you will come to realize that I hate stress during travelling. And nothing is more stressful than flying on the same day as your cruise. One small delay or missed flight will derail your whole trip. The best insurance is leaving early. You’ll need a stay at a hotel pre-cruise though. You could stay at MCO (Orlando International). They have a great Hyatt right there on-site. But it is somewhat expensive and it is about an hour from the Port. There are a lot of hotels in the port area and I recommend heading out that way. We secured a night at Ron Jon’s Cape Caribe resort. I did so because they have a great pool and you can watch the cruise ships glide past your hotel on their way to port if you want to wake up at 5am. Since I booked I found out that the pool will be closed by the time we get there and much of the luster of staying there wore off. I’m now kicking around securing some cheaper accommodations. Friends of mine have suggested “Pricelining” a two and a half star hotel in Port Canaveral for $50-60. You’ll usually end up at Comfort Inn and Suites which has a low cost shuttle to the port and will save us quite a bit.

The Cruise: Like I said, I’ve planned a Back-to-Back cruise on the Disney Dream. The first leg will be three days with an itinerary of “Port-Nassau-Castaway Cay-Port” and the second leg being “Port-Nassau-Castaway Cay-Day at Sea-Port.” This will give us a seven day cruise and lots of time to explore the new ship while also giving us two days at Castaway Cay which is currently my favorite place on earth. We’re not planning much as far as excursions go. I’m really not expecting much from Nassau. On the first day there we’ll be going on a snorkeling excursion. The second day will be spent enjoying an empty cruise ship. I also decided to change things up a bit during the cruise. Of course the most convenient thing to do would be to keep the same stateroom for both cruises. That way you would not need to pack up at the end of one cruise just to unpack at the beginning of the next. While I often question my decision not to do this, I did it for one really cool feature. On the Disney Dream the inside rooms have “Virtual Portholes” which are essentially video screens that show a view from the outside of the ship. They’ve also “Disney-ified” these portholes with the occasional Disney Character making a guest appearance at your porthole during random times. Sounded cool, but I really didn’t want an inside room so I selected one of these rooms for the 3 day portion of the cruise then went to a Verandah room for the second leg. And what a verandah I got! On the Dream, the cheapest verandah room is a category 5E. It’s located on the lowest verandah deck. But because of the unique construction of the ship, the verandah on these cheap rooms is actually about double the size of the more expensive verandahs located directly above.

Transportation: I secured transportation from a local company called FLTours. They do everything from towncars to mini-busses to Limos. Since there are 7 of us in our party we could have easily fit in the Limo but our luggage wouldn’t have. So we went for a Luxury Van. It will take us from the airport to the hotel on the night before the cruise and then after the cruise, It’ll take us from the Port to Disney World. After splitting the cost, this transportation will have been the cheapest of any sort that I had been able to find.

Disney World: Again, I was trying to keep my kids out of school the smallest amount of time. So, we’re only going to be in Disney World for 3 days. If this is your first time and you are not with someone experienced with WDW I would strongly recommend that you spend more time in WDW. We’ve been there twice before so we didn’t need to spend quite so much time. Besides, most of us can take or leave Epcot so we’ve picked that as the park to skip. I was able to secure an excellent deal. Free Dining! One of the benefits of travelling in off-season is that you can usually pick up really great deals. With WDW free dining is a BIG savings (food is very expensive when you have no other alternative) We’re staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge (our first time in a deluxe) and have some great plans lined up for the parks. First day: It’ll be about 10am when we first arrive at WDW. I’ve secured tickets to Mickey’s-Not-So-Scary-Halloween-Party (MNSSHP) for that first day. Even though the party is not set to begin until 7pm, people with tickets to the party can arrive at 4pm. That’s a half day stay at the Magic Kingdom Park. Not enough time for newbies but enough for this abbreviated trip. We’ll get checked into the hotel, then swim a bit (to tire out our children) then head off for a nap. Once we wake we’ll grab a quick late lunch and head out to MNSSHP. It’ll be a late night so we’ll want to make sure that we’re adequately rested up. The next day we’re planning Disney’s Hollywood Studios. And our last will be spent at the Animal Kingdom. Animal Kingdom closes at 5pm so we’ll have a lot of time to enjoy the finale of the trip… Hoop-dee-doo! This is a dinner show that will keep you laughing and stuff you full as it is all you can eat. Think Old West and sprinkle in Vaudeville and you have a good idea of the type of show that it is.

Well, there it is. My plans for our trip. I’ll keep you informed on how it all plays out.