Too Many Apps
Ok, I think I may officially be planning too many vacations at once! With the year of APs, it was going to be a bunch of trips but they all required one set of location-based knowledge and planning. Now, I’m researching activities in Grand Cayman, VRBOs in San Diego, and trying not to let slip to the kids that we’re cruising in 5 weeks. It’s too many things!! Even the cookies on my computer are confused: we thought you wanted to search Grand Cayman in April, when did Anaheim in August come into play?
As it stands, I have the
DCL, WDW, and DL apps all together on my phone. I pop into WDW to check wait times, then DL to do the same and get a better feel of the layout, then DCL just to remind myself that vacation is right around the corner.
I think I’m going to keep this PTR open through our
Disneyland trip next summer, since it was always supposed to represent our August 2022-2023 vacations. Maybe I’ll do mini TRs in here for the non-Disney portions of the year.
On the cruise front, I think I’ve ordered everything I need. We got the girls sparkly silver magic bands and then decals that have Mickey wearing a birthday hat in their favorite colors with a “9” in the middle. Birthday shirts have arrived, full face snorkel masks have shipped, and I have to check in with their friend’s mom about pirate night shirts she’s making. I also found clearance pirate costumes for $5 each, so we have lots of bandanas, eye masks, and the like to go around!
The girls just realized this week that their birthday falls on a weekend, which they got very excited about. I reminded them that, any time we’ve tried to throw a birthday party then, attendance was light because so many kids were on vacation with school closed. Plus, I reiterated that we just did a huge unbirthday party over the summer, so maybe we should keep it small this year. Normally we go all out for birthdays, so coming up with a reasonable excuse to stay low-key that wasn’t “We’ll be on vacation,” was challenging. They are on board with a small friends-and-family dinner as long as there is a pinata. (We’ve never had a pinata before; apparently, they’re deprived.) I’m thinking the small dinner the night before we fly is a perfect time to share the surprise, but I need ideas. Is there some way to get the pinata to be the thing that clues them in? I have to be very careful about any clues or hints because I don’t want them to think Disney World and then be disappointed by
Disney Cruise, instead. I know they’re going to love the cruise, but it won’t be the first thing they think of if we put Mickey ears on something…
We booked our VRBO for Grand Cayman, a condo on Seven Mile Beach that includes hotel-like amenities, including a swim up bar and chairs on the beach. None of the actual hotels on the beach have reasonably priced 5 person rooms (is it so hard to put a sleeper sofa in with your two queens???) so VRBO was the best opportunity to be on the water without paying the cost of two rooms. Flights out are booked but SW won’t open the return schedule until later this month. I’ve also been mapping out where various excursions are on the island to see what we should do together on a day. While it’s not large, there are only a few roads that traverse the island, so it’ll take us a good 40 minutes to get to some of the Eastern attractions. We’ll probably load them into one day, rather than driving out a few times over the week.
I’m thinking we’ll VRBO the San Diego portion of our Cali trip, then stay at one of the cheap, walkable hotels for Disneyland. Thankfully, several of the cheap ones, including the Best Western that’s across the street, do have the sofabed in their two queen rooms. Also, it looks like Hubby’s corporate discount has much better perks for a one-way rental than we thought. With the per-mile fee he was quoting me, I was thinking we’d take the train from San Diego to Anaheim. But, it looks like we’ll be able to do the one-way rental without mileage costs, which would be awesome!! Then, we’ll have full control over getting ourselves out of San Diego and can just drop the car in Anaheim. I have managed to hold off on putting money down on anything just yet, but I’m tempted. My Disney World mentality is always to book early when the cheap room views are still there and then cancel or modify if you get a better rate. I understand that’s not the best strategy for traveling just about anywhere else, but it’s still there, deep in my heart. The only thing that’s really stopping me is looking at the checking account balance. Having just paid for the balance of the cruise, a $6k basement waterproofing project, and the Rocking Horse Ranch December deposit, our float is understandably low. I guess I can wait until 8 months out to book Cali lodgings. LOL
Oooo, other hive-mind question: do you think I should do a small grocery order for our Poly stay? With many resort food options not opening until later in the mornings, I think I’d like to have bagels and cream cheese enough for our two mornings on site, but that’s not coming close to a $35 delivery minimum. I can throw in a little fruit and a snack for our park day, but it still seems like too small a list to justify the Instacart order. What do you think?