A Quicker Trip

During a recent discussion about our plan to visit Disney World, we discovered that our timing for getting there and getting back wasn’t going to work with the time we have.  We had to make a choice, do we cut back on the Disney experience, or do we cut back on the getting there experience.  It wasn’t an easy choice, and a middle ground didn’t seem logical at all.

Our original plan was to take 4 or more days to get to and from the parks from Canada.  This would allow us to visit friends, stop at historical places, and generally meander a little between our house and the parks.  This would have probably worked a few years ago when we originally made this plan; however now it seems like our timing is a little tighter.

We spent one evening discussing what we wanted out of this trip, what was the key to an “epic” Disney adventure.  We eventually settled on the idea that Disney was the heart of this adventure, and we shouldn’t rush that at all. So our journey down and back up will have to be much more rushed.  This decision also came from the fact that we are going to want to de-stress a little when we go on this trip (for various reasons) and jumping from hotel to hotel is not a way to do that.  While we’ll have to do a bit of hotel jumping getting to and from the parks, we want to be sure we have a good long break at Disney to calm our nerves.

We also don’t want to rush the parks.  There is a lot to see and do, and we want to relax and take in all of the details.  While a road trip through the US is a lot of fun, it’s not the focus of this particular trip.  As a side note, we’ve also started to plan our cross the US road trip in the years to come; it might involve a stop at Disneyland too.

So now we have to decide where we are going to stop on this adventure.  However, now are stops are going to be on the way, with no side trips.  We’ll still stop and smell the flowers when we can, but we’ll no longer go out hunting for a particular bud.

The Possible Dollar Delay

Every so often I feel like fate is trying to tell me not to go to Disney World. These signs aren't negative or frightening, but positive life things that keep pushing this trip back. The original plan for this trip was for us to go on our tenth wedding anniversary. At the time we were living in Greece and we thought we were coming home (back to Canada) right before our anniversary. Then, out of the blue, we had an opportunity to move somewhere else fun and exciting.

Since our plan for Disney World was to drive there, and the new place we were moving was nowhere near Florida, we decided to postpone. We did manage to find a pretty good compromise though, as luck would have it we were going to be near Paris around the time of our tenth anniversary. So we spent a few amazing days at Paris Disneyland.

Now it looks like we might be going home fairly soon, so we've started to plan the trip again. The delay from our tenth anniversary has only improved things in some ways. We have a little more money saved up, we know a little more about the Parks, and even the parks have improved a bit. But there is one other problem that's come up, the Canadian dollar.

Right now the Canadian dollar has fallen a great deal compared to the American dollar. We technically have to pay thirty percent more for our trip at the current rate. Sure we managed to save a little more money because of the delay, but we have mixed feelings about how this extra savings might be spent. I'd rather have an extra meal or adventure with this money, instead of paying for the exchange rates. The thought of postponing again has crossed our minds.

The decision doesn't simply depend on how our dollar does, Disney could play a role in this too if they wanted to. Years ago when I visited Disney World, our dollar was again well below the American dollar. The difference was at the time Disney offered at par prices for Canadians. So we would pay the same number of dollars, but using our Canadian money instead. If Disney offered this again it would make our choice to go much easier. I'm not saying it's a deal breaker, and we'd cancel our trip if they don't. I'm just saying that an offer like that would certainly swing us in the positive direction again.

Where We Stand in The New Year

With our great life's change, the date of our Epic Disney Vacation has been delayed for a few years. Don't get me wrong, this trip is still going to happen, the change is not a financial problem, nor have Allison and I grown apart.  We've moved the date for great news, and we're not having kids either.  It's simply one of life's changes that make it geographically difficult to get to Florida for our anniversary.

The biggest change that comes with this rescheduling is the chance for a date (time of year) change as well.  The initial plan was to visit Disney World for our 10th wedding anniversary, so our date was fairly locked.  Now that we're not going to make that date for sure, we're more open to the idea of moving the time of year we're thinking of going.  September seems like a good month to go, and we could tie it into Allison's birthday.  We'll have to do a little more research on this topic now that the time of year is open.

Finally with this extension comes the realization that some of the new attractions that would not have been open yet, will be ready to visit.  The new Fantasy Land will be running at full steam, and in three years shouldn't be as busy.  Avatar Land should be finished by then as well, something I was a little disappointed that I thought I might miss.  Disney Springs should also be up and running by then, and that could influence our hotel choice, depending on what they open there.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with this blog.

The Hilton... A Lot Cheaper Than I Expected

It happened again, Allison was reading about accommodations in and around Disney World, and we came across another hotel that peaked our interest.  This time however is was a hotel that wasn't an official Disney hotel, but it had some perks of the classic Disney hotels, the Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista.  We never really gave much thought to hotels outside of the Disney parks because we wanted to enjoy the benefits that come with staying on property.  The problem is, the Hilton is one of the only non-Disney hotels to enjoy some of the benefits of the Disney hotels, including extra magic hours.

The main advantage to the Hilton, the price.  The Hilton hotel can be almost half the price as many of the on site resorts, and from what I've read it's a pretty nice hotel to boot.  It also offers shuttle services to all of the parks, and is walking distance to Downtown Disney.  So it's pretty close to a Disney resort, for a lot less money.  It doesn't offer a few of the perks like free delivery of purchases back to your hotel room, and access to certain facilities, but it still seems pretty good.  Once again Allison and I had to try and figure out if we should change our hotel plans once again.  This time, Allison made a chart featuring the Hilton, the Yacht Club resort, and Port Orleans resort, comparing the advantages and the disadvantages.

Yacht Club	Port Orleans	Hilton
Likely $550/night (high season)	Likely $250/night (high season)	Likely $130/night; $209 comparable to Yacht Club (based on website)
Plus taxes	Plus taxes	Plus taxes
		Plus $22/night “daily resort charge plus taxes
Free parking	Free parking	Parking $13/night
Free wifi	Free wifi	Wifi – part of “Daily resort charge”
Free extended theme park hours	Free extended theme park hours	Extended theme park hours – part of “Daily resort charge”
Free transportation to all parks every 20 minutes or more	Free transportation to all parks every 20 minutes or more	Transportation to the four theme parks only – part of “Daily resort charge”. Schedule unknown.
Onsite movie screenings (+ movies on TV??)	Onsite movie screenings (+ movies on TV??)	Unlimited movie rentals – part of “Daily resort charge”
$15 for unlimited drinks (resort refillable mug) - optional	$15 for unlimited drinks (resort refillable mug) - optional	2 coffees or 2 bottles of water/day – part of “Daily resort charge”
Free parking at parks/water parks/etc.	Free parking at parks/water parks/etc.	$17 (?) to park at water parks or other theme parks
TOTAL: $565 + tax	TOTAL: $265 + tax	TOTAL: $182 + tax TOTAL: $262 + tax
Concierge service for Disney	Concierge service for Disney	Guest services at parks
Purchases delivered	Purchases delivered
“Best pool in park”	Pool with slide	Pool
Gym		Gym (extra $$??)
Coin laundry ($4)	Coin laundry ($4)	Only laundry valet (likely $100-250) or off-site
Near Epcot (monorail to MK), Hollywood Studios	Near Downtown Disney	Near Downtown Disney
Bracelets/card do everything	Bracelets/card do everything	Bracelets plus credit card plus hotel key to carry
Fridge in room	Fridge in room	NO fridge in room

After making this chart and talking it over, we eventually decided that the Hilton probably won't work for us.  While we do like the price, the location is really important to us.  So we've decided that the Yacht club is still our number one pick.  The thing is, after thinking about it some more, and reading a bit on Port Orleans, I'm starting to rethink which hotel we might stay at on the grounds.

Our First Day

Allison asked me on one of our "talk about Disney walks", what the first thing I want to do when we get into Disney World. She's not asking me to plan our first day out, she wants to know what I plan to do in the first hour right after we check in. This is a difficult question to answer for two reasons, first of all we're showing up before check-in, and secondly because there's so many options when it comes to things to do.

Our plan is to spend the night before our first day about an hour or two away from the park. This way we get an extra day at the parks and we don't have to pay for the more expensive Disney hotel. So our plan is to drive into the parks around 10 am and get the ball rolling, the problem is check in time for the hotel isn't until mid afternoon. This means that we might have to give our bags to the front desk and head out on our adventure before unpacking and settling in our room.

The second problem, of there being too much to do, doesn't seem like such a big deal now, but I imagine the minute we get through the Disney gates we're going to be like really excited puppies. We'll have no attention span, and we're going to have a hard time focusing on anything. So everything is going to look shiny and fun, and picking that first thing might be overwhelming. This might be a reason that thinking about our first thing before we get there is a good idea.

So here's my answer, Allison feel free to comment: If we get our room right off the bat, then I think we should take our bags to our room, get into our bathing suits, and jump into the hotel pool. Our hotel of choice (currently the Yacht and Beach Club) has an awesome pool, with an awesome slide. This will allow us to literally dip our toes in the waters of Disney fun a little slower. If the hotel room is not ready yet, and we have to lock our bags up until the room is ready, I think some kind of sweet treat is in order. Maybe a walk to the Boardwalk and a funnel cake would be tasty, or maybe just an ice cream cone. This will again get us going before visiting our first park.

We've decided that most likely our first park will be Disney Studios, but that'll happen more than an hour after we get there.

The Trip Plans Update

Since we started this blog, we've been constantly changing our minds as to which hotel we want to stay at.  Every time we do a little research we figure there's someplace better and we change our minds.  Over the last few months we've been constantly changing from Port Orleans French Quarter to the Disney Yacht and Beach Club.  At this point right now we're leaning heavily towards the Yacht and Beach Club.  The primary reason for this choice is location, it's close to two parks, plenty of restaurants (including the Disney Boardwalk), and it has an awesome pool too.  We're approaching day 500, when we can make our first reservation, and it looks like the Yacht and Beach Club is going to be our pick.

We've also made a small change in our travel plans.  Originally we had planned to make a fairly long stop in Washington DC to check out all of the cool monuments and stuff, but I think we're going to skip that.  If we want to visit both Philadelphia and Washington it's going to make our day very rushed.  So we decided that we don't really have time to visit both... sort of.  We can either visit Washington and skip Philadelphia all together, or visit Philly with only a quick (dinner) stop in Washington.  We've decided to spend the time in Philadelphia with only a quick dinner in Washington.  The choice is for two reasons, first of all there is so much to see in Washington that it makes more sense to make that a trip on it's own at a later date.  Secondly we really don't want to miss the Liberty Bell because of its close association with Disney World.  We will be stopping in Washington, but only for a quick dinner with friends who live there.

Other than that our plans are still pretty much good to go.  Many of our travel plans are still pretty tentative, and may remains so until we leave.  I can tell you that we are looking for a good BBQ place either on the way there or back, but other than that it's fairly open.

More Than Disney, The Stops We’ll Make Along the Way – Cleveland

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but Allison and I are planning to drive to Florida and back as part of our Epic Disney Adventure.  We figure that getting to Disney and back has to be as epic as the visit to Disney itself.  For the next few post I’m going to talk about some of the stops we plan on making on our way to and from Walt Disney World.  Most of these “plans” are works in progress, and we’re constantly changing our minds as we go.  Some stops will be long, others only a few hours, but we want to taste a little bit of the USA before we go visit the House of Mouse.

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Cleveland will be our last stop on our Epic adventure in the USA.  I think it's a very appropriate place to end this journey because it has one of the greatest museums in the entire country, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  I've been to Cleveland a few times, and I've always had an OK time.  There really isn't much to do downtown, other than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but there are a few nice restaurants.  I figure at this point we'll probably be a little burnt out anyways, and happy that we only have one "thing to see".

We'll also take the time in Cleveland to buy any last minute USA products that we couldn't find in Indiana.  Then it's off back to our home and native land.

More Than Disney, The Stops We’ll Make Along the Way – Indianapolis

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but Allison and I are planning to drive to Florida and back as part of our Epic Disney Adventure.  We figure that getting to Disney and back has to be as epic as the visit to Disney itself.  For the next few post I’m going to talk about some of the stops we plan on making on our way to and from Walt Disney World.  Most of these “plans” are works in progress, and we’re constantly changing our minds as we go.  Some stops will be long, others only a few hours, but we want to taste a little bit of the USA before we go visit the House of Mouse.

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I've been to Indianapolis many times, mostly because it's where my father lives.  Allison has also been to Indianapolis before, so it could prove to be difficult to find something new to do.  Our first priority is to visit with family, but after that I was thinking of trying to get tickets to the local AAA baseball team.  The Indianapolis Indians are one of the most successful baseball teams ever.  They have held the record for winning more games than any other baseball franchise.

Our stop in Indianapolis will probably also be a great spot to buy some American stuff.  In Canada there are a few products and stores that we just don't have.  Allison and I want to pick up a few "American" things before we head back over the border.

More Than Disney, The Stops We’ll Make Along the Way – Chattanooga

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but Allison and I are planning to drive to Florida and back as part of our Epic Disney Adventure.  We figure that getting to Disney and back has to be as epic as the visit to Disney itself.  For the next few post I’m going to talk about some of the stops we plan on making on our way to and from Walt Disney World.  Most of these “plans” are works in progress, and we’re constantly changing our minds as we go.  Some stops will be long, others only a few hours, but we want to taste a little bit of the USA before we go visit the House of Mouse.

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I have to be honest, the main reason we chose Chattanooga as a stop on this trip is the song.  I desperately want a photograph of me standing next to some kind of train in Chattanooga.  After a little research on the subject, I've learned that Chattanooga has a few other claims to fame that might be worth exploring as well.  Most recently they've become the first city to have their own font.  Now that might not seem to interesting to most of you, but I'm a graphic designer, and a nerd, so it's pretty darn fascinating.

I've also learned that Chattanooga is the birthplace of the pickup truck.  I've never owned, or even driven a pickup truck, but apparently there's a museum dedicated to this form of transportation.  Why not broaden my horizons a little and learn about a truck that can in fact pick stuff up.

More Than Disney, The Stops We’ll Make Along the Way – St Augustine

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but Allison and I are planning to drive to Florida and back as part of our Epic Disney Adventure.  We figure that getting to Disney and back has to be as epic as the visit to Disney itself.  For the next few post I’m going to talk about some of the stops we plan on making on our way to and from Walt Disney World.  Most of these “plans” are works in progress, and we’re constantly changing our minds as we go.  Some stops will be long, others only a few hours, but we want to taste a little bit of the USA before we go visit the House of Mouse.

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St Augustine is very close to Disney World, you may be asking yourself, why don't you just head straight to the park instead of stopping just short.  There are two reasons we chose St Augustine as a stop right before our trip, and here they are:  First of all we want to have our first day at the park be a full day.  We're planning on staying at St Augustine the night before we're supposed to check in.  Then we're going to head over to our resort first thing in the morning, check our bags, and get ourselves started on the theme parks.

The second reason we want to stop at St Augustine is the city itself.  This is the oldest continuously inhabited city (by Europeans) in the USA, and it shows it.  The architecture in this city looks fantastic, and I think considering our epic adventure it only makes sense to visit a city with such a history.  I also think that this city will give us a little of the Florida vibe before we walk into the Mickey Mouse utopia.

More Than Disney, The Stops We’ll Make Along the Way – Rhode Island

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but Allison and I are planning to drive to Florida and back as part of our Epic Disney Adventure.  We figure that getting to Disney and back has to be as epic as the visit to Disney itself.  For the next few post I’m going to talk about some of the stops we plan on making on our way to and from Walt Disney World.  Most of these “plans” are works in progress, and we’re constantly changing our minds as we go.  Some stops will be long, others only a few hours, but we want to taste a little bit of the USA before we go visit the House of Mouse.

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Two of our stops on this trip are to visit family that live in the USA.  One of the stops with famliy will be in Rhode Island.  I've visited Rhode Island in the past and I visited the Lizzy Borden house.  Other than family, this was the only things I could really think that I'd wanted to visit in this state.  Sure it has nice stores, and it has a nice coast line, but are there any other attractions that one can't miss in Rhode Island?

I decided to look up a few tourist attractions in Rhode Island, and this is what I found:

Apparently Rhode Island is home to the first Synagogue and the first Baptist church in the USA.  While I'm not a huge fan of religion, this might be interesting.

I came across the "Culinary Archives & Museum At Johnson & Wales University", which apparently is a museum dedicated to restauranteuring and the hospitality industry.  It sounds strange enough that it might be worth a visit.

Finally, there's a place called "Benefit Street", that is of some kind of historical value.  I'm not really clear what's there, but Trip Advisor highly recommends it.

I'm not really sad that there doesn't appear to be too much to do in Rhode Island because that will give me more excuse to visit family.

More Than Disney, The Stops We’ll Make Along the Way – Washington DC

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but Allison and I are planning to drive to Florida and back as part of our Epic Disney Adventure.  We figure that getting to Disney and back has to be as epic as the visit to Disney itself.  For the next few post I’m going to talk about some of the stops we plan on making on our way to and from Walt Disney World.  Most of these “plans” are works in progress, and we’re constantly changing our minds as we go.  Some stops will be long, others only a few hours, but we want to taste a little bit of the USA before we go visit the House of Mouse.

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I've been to many capital cities in my life, all over the world, but I have yet to visit the capital of the United States of America.  I also know very little about this city.  I know what I've seen on television shows and movies, so my expectations are pretty much monuments and museums.  Since we have a limited time here, I'm probably going to stick to my expectations as well.  Our time here is so "limited" that I still don't really know how long we'll have here.  It could be an over night, it could be a meal and one quick visit to one or two monuments.

My advantage, monument wise, is I don't have any connection to any particular monument.  The presidents represented were never my president, and the war monuments are to a country that is not mine.  I'm not putting down their importance by any stretch, I'm just saying that I have no particular monument I need to see.  My choice of monument is more based on what films it's appeared in, and artistic merit.  That's why, if I could only choose one monument to visit in Washington DC, I think it would be the Lincoln Monument.  It looks cool, and it's been in many TV shows and movies.

More Than Disney, The Stops We’ll Make Along the Way – Philadelphia

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but Allison and I are planning to drive to Florida and back as part of our Epic Disney Adventure.  We figure that getting to Disney and back has to be as epic as the visit to Disney itself.  For the next few post I’m going to talk about some of the stops we plan on making on our way to and from Walt Disney World.  Most of these “plans” are works in progress, and we’re constantly changing our minds as we go.  Some stops will be long, others only a few hours, but we want to taste a little bit of the USA before we go visit the House of Mouse.

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Our plans for Philadelphia at this point are very quick.  We have a friend in Philly that might help us out because we don't have more than a quick afternoon, and we want to do three things:  We want to eat a Philly cheese steak, we want to climb the stairs from Rocky, and we want to see the Liberty Bell.  The Philly cheese steak seems like the best thing one could eat if you only have one meal in Philadelphia, at least from a nostalgia stand point.  I'm sure there's better restaurants, and maybe we're missing something really tasty, but it just seems wrong to miss this sandwich.  The stairs from Rocky are really just a photo op, actually I haven't seen the movie Rocky in so long, I think you could probably show me any stairs in Philadelphia and I'd believe that they were the stairs from Rocky.

The Liberty Bell on the other hand actually has some connection to our trip.  While reading about Disney, I learned an interesting little fact about Liberty Square in the Magic Kingdom.  In the center of Liberty Square is a copy of the Liberty Bell, in fact, this copy is one of the best copies every made.  At one point they made 50 copies of the Liberty Bell to be distributed to every state, cast directly off of the original.  The thing is, Pennsylvanian already had a Liberty Bell, the real one, so they didn't need a copy.  Walt Disney decided that this copy would be perfect for his all American theme park and bought it for Disney World.  So I'd like to see the original Liberty Bell, and see the copy, to see how similar they actually are.

Buses, Monorails, or Car?

One of the biggest problems Allison and I are having when planning our epic Disney World trip is deciding which hotel we should stay at.  We keep saying that we’ve made up our mind, but at least once a week we investigate another option.  Right now we’re in a really big debate about Port Orleans French Quarter and the Yacht and Beach Club resorts.  There are two factors that are really making this decision difficult, price and location.

While price is a fairly easy term to figure out, paying less money is always better, location is really much more complicated.  The biggest problem we have with location is wondering if the location of our hotel can really make a difference towards improving our visit.  Disney has many different transportation options to choose from, from buses, to monorails, to highways.  You can pretty much get anywhere you’ll need to go from any hotel.  The problem is how convenient are al of these transportation methods.

The Monorails seem like they’re pretty efficient, they run on time, they’re fast, and they seem like they’re big enough to handle some big loads.  The problem with the monorails is the limited places that it goes.  Park wise you basically have Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, hotel wise there’s only 3 directly on the Monorail line.  The buses go everywhere, but I’m told that they can be very crowded.  They also don’t go from one resort to another, only from the resorts to the parks.  So if you want to travel to a resort for a meal, you’ll be transferring.

The other option is our car.  Since we’re driving all the way down from Canada, we’ll have our car with us.  Each of the parks offers free parking for all guests staying on site.  The resorts all offer free parking as well.  With the car we’ll have the flexibility to travel where we want, when we want.  The problem is gas prices, having to walk through crowded parking lots, and the general inconvenience of having a car.

This is why we’re having such a hard time picking a hotel.  Is it worth getting a hotel that’s a little closer to the action, and relying on Disney transportation?  Or is it better to stay in a cheaper hotel and just drive to the parks and resorts.  Just because we’re staying closer to the action, does that mean we won’t be driving at all, or are there still a few things we’ll want to drive to?

Deadlines For Disney

Most people look at how far in advance we're planning this trip and they figure that it's pretty early to be making arrangements.  At this point we have more than 600 day till we should be walking into the front gates.  Planning a Disney trip this far in advance isn't really that unthinkable.  Not only is it fun to plan, not only is there lots to think about, but Disney actually starts its reservation dates fairly far in advance.  You also have to be careful if you have specific plans as certain meals and hotels can sell out long before you arrive.

There are a few important dates one must keep in mind when booking your Disney vacation.  The first is actually starting to creep up on us right now.  500 days before you want to stay at Disney World, you can reserve your resort room.  At this point you can put down a deposit and be sure you'll stay in the resort you want.  I'm not sure, but I think you can change your mind and switch resorts, however there are no guarantees that you'll get the other room.

After the 500th day, you get a bit of breathing room.  The next important day is 180 days before your trip starts.  This is probably the most important day for making your plans and reservations, particularly for popular restaurants and special added attractions.  At the 180th day you can make all of your restaurant reservations and extra attraction reservations.  If you're staying outside of the park grounds then you'll have to call 180 days before each of the days you want to book something.  However if you're staying at an official resort you can make all of your reservations on the same day for up to 10 days into your trip.

I've read stories that many restaurants will fill up within minutes of the phone lines opening for reservations.  So by day 180 you want to have an idea about some of the extra attractions and popular restaurants you might want to visit.  Disney also announces many of the expected closures and extra park hours at the 180 day mark.

After day 180 we really only have to worry about getting there.  Since we're driving from Canada the whole way, we have to plan our route and book hotels accordingly.  Then we just have to leave and make it to Florida on time.

Our Basic Trip Overview

Our plan for this epic trip is simple; we start in Ottawa Ontario, drive to Florida along the east coast, have a spectacular time in the Magic Kingdom, and then return to Ottawa by driving through the Midwest.  This will allow us to visit some family we have in the USA and get over the novelty of being in the USA before we hit Disney World.

Getting over the novelty of a country can make travel to a particular location much more enjoyable.  A countries novelty is that overwhelming newness that comes over you the minute you cross a border.  When all of the food, customs, and regular every day things in that country are new to you.  By spending a few days in the USA before the Disney part of the trip we'll be more impressed by the things that are exclusively Disney, and not just the new American things.

Once in Disney, our plan is to spend eight days and seven nights soaking up the fun.  Our budget is for a midrange hotel on the property.  We've both stayed at and enjoyed Port Orleans in the past, so that's our first choice.  We have a few things we want to do, but for the most part we just want to have an epic time.