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Kelly David -- December 2001 -- Walt Disney World (PORR)This report covers only the planning for Kelly's Upcoming Trip. INTRO
When I negotiated in January 2001 with DH to go for the 3rd year in a row, he made the stipulation that we go when the girls wouldn’t miss any school and not in June (when we usually go). Well, since I wanted to see all of the Christmas decorations, the month was pretty much set! We are very close to our respective families so leaving before celebrating Christmas with them was not an option. In hindsight (read AFTER we bought airfare!), we could have celebrated Christmas early with our families and left earlier (read VALUE season rates!) but, you live and learn! Next time we’ll know better! A little more background into DH and his grudging agreement to go to WDW, he has grandparents living in Clearwater and as a child went to Florida every July to visit them and WDW (personally, I envy him!). He doesn’t hate WDW, he hates crowds and lines and heat! He also feels there are more vacations in the world than that of going to WDW every year (BAH HUMBUG!). My argument is our children LOVE WDW and as long as they have a desire to go, then we shall. DH picks another vacation each year also. Last year we spent a week in Yellowstone National Park (very lovely and fun trip). So don’t feel too bad for him! I bought our airfare back in January of 2001. Roundtrip for $207.75 per person from Detriot Metro Airport (this is a very good rate for our area….the rule of thumb being if it’s under $250, grab it!). We will be flying Northwest and the times could be better but we’re happy with them. So, here’s a look at our itinerary to date: Pre trip Day 00 Sunday, Dec 23, 2001 Spending the evening with DH parents and brother. This is the part of the planning we messed up with. We never considered celebrating Christmas with our families early so that we could take advantage of the Value season rates! Changing airfare is not economically worth it, so we stick with our original plans. We are exchanging gifts with DH’s family so that when we leave from their home on Christmas day, we won’t have a car load of gifts in the airport parking for 8 days. This has other advantages for Christmas day as we won’t have to get up at the awful hour of 5am on Christmas Day to open Santa’s gifts and to hightail it down to Jim’s parents house (1½ hrs away) to do gift exchanging before the rest of his extended family arrives Pre trip Day 0 Monday, December 24, 2001 Spending the day with my parents and brothers and sister and her DH. This is my family’s traditional Christmas celebration. We will be spending the day here and attending the Children’s Mass at our church (another note, my parents and brothers also live 1½ hrs away from us, my sister lives in Texas) We plan on leaving and being home by 10 pm so that DH and I can finish any last minute packing we may have. Day 1 Tuesday, December 25, 2001 Spending the day with DH’s family and our flight to WDW Our kids have never gotten us up at a crazy hour for Santa’s gifts, we’ve always had to wake them up! Well, every other year, that has meant 5 am so that we can get on the road to DH’s parents house to spend the day with them. This year, we’ll have that out of the way already so we can get a later start on our day! Our flight leaves at 9:25 pm from DTW so we plan on leaving DH’s parents home at around 6 pm. Our flight will land at MCO at 11:56 pm. We have reservations with Tiffany Town Car. We are also looking into renting a car as an option. Right now, rental rates are not worth it for the week so we’re sticking with Tiffany. Day 2 Wednesday December 26, 2001 We plan to use EE every morning, having a late breakfast or early lunch and then going back to the resort for a break before going to another park in the evening. This works well for our family and everyone stays happy so why mess with a good thing?! We also plan on making this our only sit down meal of the trip. The rest will be counter service with the exception of the Fantasmic and Candlelight Processional packages. I haven’t planned the evening parks as of yet. I’m waiting for Park schedules to be released for parades and evening entertainment. Today would be EE for Disney Studios. Plan so far is to eat an early lunch at 50’s Prime Time Café. After lunch back to Riverside for rest or swimming (if the weather allows). Day 3 Thursday, December 27, 2001 Today would be EE for Magic Kingdom. Plan so far is to eat a late breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table. After that back to Riverside for rest or swimming (if the weather allows). Day 4 Friday, December 28, 2001 Today would be EE for Epcot. Plan so far is to eat an early lunch at Coral Reef. After that back to Riverside for rest or swimming (if the weather allows). Day 5 Saturday, December 29, 2001 Today would be our morning at Animal Kingdom. Plan so far is to eat a late breakfast at Donald’s Breakfastosaurus. After that back to Riverside for rest or swimming (if the weather allows). Day 6 Sunday, December 30, 2001 Today we are spending the day in Clearwater visiting DH’s grandparents. Plan is to pick up a rental car (tentatively from Alamo in Wyndham Palace in the DD Disney hotels). If we get a good deal for a car for the week, then this will be cancelled. We’re planning on a 9 am breakfast at Kona Café (Tonga Toast) and then off to the coast! Depending on what time we get back, we plan on going to play putt putt and/or Downtown Disney and shopping. Day 7 Monday, December 31, 2001 Today would be EE for Magic Kingdom. Plan so far is to eat a late breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table (if we can’t get in on Thursday) or Whispering Canyon Café in WL. After that back to Riverside for rest or swimming (if the weather allows). With this day being New Year’s Eve, we might change plans depending on what is going on in each of the parks. We’re expecting not to be able to park hop this day due to high attendance. Day 8 Tuesday, January 1, 2002 Today would be EE for Epcot. Plan so far is to eat an early lunch in a country to be determined. After that back to Riverside for rest or swimming (if the weather allows). This is also our last day at WDW. Day 9 Wednesday, January 2, 2002 Our flight home leaves at 7 am from MCO. We’ll be back in Michigan by 9:30 am and home by noon at the latest. The kids start back at school the next day so we’ll do a lot of resting and relaxing for the rest of the day. Kelly David jkdavid@ismi.net Mail a Comment to Kelly David |
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