We've Got The Disney Reservation Blues

Allison and I have noticed that Disney is a bit hypocritical.  Over the last few years Disney has done everything to make Disney World more technologically advanced.  They've made it so you can book restaurants, tours, special events, and even fast passes (basically rides) long before you even step foot in the park.  Don't get me wrong, I don't really have a problem with setting up things in advance.  After all you can still eat at the parks, and you can still go on rides, even if you don't have reservations in advance.  We on the other hand decided to embrace this system and have as much fun as possible with it.  Next week you'll learn about the fun we had making dinner reservations.

The problem we're having right now is fatigue.  On paper Disney gives you two dates that you have to worry about, 180 and 60 days till the start of your trip.  180 days before you're eligible to make dinning reservation (and popular ones disappear quickly) and tour reservations (sort of), and 60 days you can book your fast passes.  I like this idea because it gives you milestones before your trip to get you excited.  The problem is that these two dates aren't are only days we have to worry about. In fact a number of dates that we have to worry about have yet to be announced, and so we're checking daily because they could be at any moment.

The two big announcements that Disney seems to be dragging their heels is the times that Animal Kingdom will be open, and the day tickets go on sale for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween. There are times that Animal Kingdom is scheduled to be open available on the website, however they've been teasing later hours for some special night time events.  The Not So Scary Halloween party is an important part of our plan, and although the dates are out, tickets are still not on sale.

We're also interested in taking a fireworks cruise one night, and the dates that it's available are only slowly creeping up.  There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to when the dates open up either.  Sometimes I week opens up, then a whole month will open up.  We're stuck checking regularly.

I've also noticed that Disney has been in the habit of announcing the opening of attractions well within 60 days of the ride opening date.  This means if you book fast passes, and a ride you're interested in opens all of a sudden, you have to re-arrange everything to fit it in.

My problem here is simple, Disney has asked us to stick to a schedule that they're not willing to keep.  Book some things 180 days before the trip, and others 60, but other things will just be random. I understand there's logistics to these things, but Disney, you're starting to wear us out.  We're getting sick of visiting the site every day checking for tickets and open reservations for certain things.  We booked 2 tours and a boat rental already, why can't you get your act together and let us buy tickets for events at your park at the same time.  Why aren't the Halloween party and the cruise also available 180 days before, like all your other tours and dinner reservations?

Our hotel is booked.

The first thing you need to do when you visit Walt Disney World is book a hotel.  You have many categories to choose from and they can range in quality, and in proximity to the parks.  The first choice you have to make is if you want to stay on property or off of property.  The biggest difference you'll find between staying on or off property is the price.  Staying on property is always more expensive, and not just by a little bit.  Many of the cheapest hotels on property are more expensive than the pricier off property options, and keep in mind that there's a Ritz off property.  Almost all of the hotels on property are owned and operated by Disney, with a few exceptions, and all of the Disney hotels offer some extra perks such as transportation to and from the parks, Extra Magic Hours (extra time at the parks), and a general feeling that you haven't left the parks at all.

We decided that since this was to be an Epic "Disney" Vacation, staying on property was a must, so our next choice was what kind of hotel did we want to stay at.  Disney offers several different qualities of hotels on property, Value, Moderate, Deluxe, Deluxe Villas, and Camping.  We considered all of these options, however we cut out Value first.  We figured that Value resorts would be full of kids and families, and while Disney parks will be full of kids all the time, we thought living with them might be kind of crappy.  Both of us have stayed at Port Orleans before, a Moderate resort, and really enjoyed it.  So we played around with the idea of going back.  Deluxe was a thought, because as mentioned in the name of this blog, this trip is going to be "Epic".  We event thought about getting a cabin in the campground.  Then we came across the Deluxe Villas, or more to the point we discovered DVC.

DVC, or Disney Vacation Club is a timeshare thing.  I'm not too sure exactly how it works, but we learned that in some cases people who own "points" in the DVC sometimes have extra points.  You can buy these points on the open market and stay at a Deluxe Villa for about the same price as a Deluxe room.  Best of all for about the same price as this Deluxe room your villa will have one bedroom, and a kitchen.  This pretty much sold us as Allison is a breakfast monster (she loves breakfast) and we've read that breakfasts at the Magic Kingdom are regularly disappointing.

So when the time came, and we knew for sure that we were going on this trip (no more cancellations), we contacted a travel agent that could organize the purchase of points and allow us to stay at a DVC one bedroom villa.  We had several choices for places we wanted to stay.  Our first was the Yacht and Beach Club, however they had no availability for the time we were going.  Our second choice was right across the lake at the Boardwalk Inn, and it was good.  So we booked our room, bought our points, and we were set.

Once you get your room booked, this is when things start to happen.  Your Disney Experiences account can now be linked to something.  For those unfamiliar My Disney Experiences is basically an account you have on the Disney website that lets you build an itinerary, book restaurant (more on that later), book Fast Passes (more on that later too), and basically see what you may want to do on your trip.  With the hotel booked things started to get rolling.  We immediately got our accounts in order, made sure they were linked to our hotel reservation, and we even started getting mail to prep us for future planning options for our trip.

We're really happy with the Boardwalk Inn as it's in a prime location (walking distance to Epcot and Hollywood Studios), and it has stuff to do around it.  There's even a bakery just in front.  We looked online and thought that the rooms looked pretty spiffy as well.

This was the first step in officially planning our Epic Disney Vacation... Oh did we mention, we've decided to stay for 12 days... Epic.

It's Been A Little While, And A Lot Has Happened

As you may have remembered (or you can just look back on this blog) a few years ago our trip was postponed due to a moving situation.  Well, it's official, we're going to Disney World, and we're going in less than 180 days.  To the average person that doesn't mean very much, but to the Disney Parks nerd that means a lot.

We've been pretty busy the last few weeks and over the next few weeks I'm going to recap what we've been up to.  The thing about Disney is there's a lot to plan way in advance, particularly if you want to eat at certain restaurants, and take certain tours.  There's also been a few announcements and closures over the last few weeks that is going to affect us.  Most interestingly, we've discovered that we're going to be in the parks during two special events, and it looks like we'll be trying them on for size.

So here's what we have to cover:

Our hotel is booked.

Dinning reservations, how we managed to get two Be Our Guest Dinner reservations.

Special tours we've booked, some are simple, one is pretty epic.

What's closed down since we last posted a blog, and what might be open.

Epcot Food and Wine, yup, we're going.

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween, we're likely going.

So the blog is back, and I'll be recapping you on some of the fun we've been up to.