Siome42
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2017
Hello!
This will be my first pre-trip report. We're planning a last minute trip to Universal for Easter. Usually, we travel over the Easter weekend to do a narrow gauge train ride, but since I couldn't find any within driving distance that we hadn't done & were open, I started looking at a trip to Orlando.
Our last trip to Orlando fell during hurricane Irma. My 5 day Disney trip turned into an 11 day trip complete with a hurricane. We had discussed whether we thought it was worth the gamble before we left, and it turned out pretty well. We were on our last park day the day before we went under curfew, so I spent the majority of the hurricane sleeping and watching the same 5 Disney movies on a loop in the hotel room. My kids never even noticed the hurricane. We live in tornado alley, so the storm didn't seem that bad to us until we went outside the next morning. I didn't realize that the trees in Florida don't grow roots down- the grow out, so the wind tips them over. It looked like a giant had walked through the resort pushing over the trees. I said that was m last Disney trip. Then after we had been home about a week, I called to see if I could get the bounce back special & booked 14 days for 14 months out in December with free dining.
We had planned to spend 12 days split between Disney, Discovery Cove, & Universal back in December, but I was in a car wreck in September, and that threw our plans out the window. I was very fortunate to walk away from the accident with relatively minor injuries & a totaled car. I ended up with 3 lumbar spinous process fractures, so roller coasters were out the question for me until at least April. Luckily, my kids are still at 48 inches & below and my x-rays are looking good, so I'm pretty confident I can handle the rides they'll want to do.
I was able to get credit for our air fare and get refunds on the majority of our reservations, so I was able to recover without too much stress of lost wages. I was out of work for 6 weeks, but the problem of these airline credits was driving me crazy. I knew they expired in June, so I spent the holiday season trying to find the money to fund a trip that didn't require taking much time off of school or work. I knew I didn't want to try for spring break, and Memorial Day is not my favorite time to travel, so a few weeks ago when I was searching for a new train ride I realized that we might be able to sneak in a trip from 4/19-22. The kids are out of school both of those days, and really, I need a vacation. I didn't realize this until early February, so when I went to check on Disney, I wasn't too surprised to find the majority of the dining booked solid and I knew fast passes were going to be slim pickings. For what I would pay to stay on Disney property & pay for tickets, I realized I could fund a pretty nice trip to either Universal or Sea World.
Discovery Cove was the thing that I wanted to do the most in December. It was going to be my graduation present for finally getting a bachelor degree. I've wanted to swim with dolphins since I was a little girl, but my youngest just turned six, and he wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea. At all. He told me he would watch from the side of the pool. Then I looked at the prices of the cabanas. Even though I'm spending more at Universal, it was really the idea of paying that much $ for a private cabana for one day that soured me on the idea. Strange what makes something seem like a good deal vs a cash grab. Anyhow, Discovery Cove is still on my radar, just not until October 2020 when I hit the big 40.
So after eliminating Discovery Cove and Sea World, I started looking at Universal. Harry Potter is huge at our house. We spend Christmas watching all of the movies, and I shudder to think about how much I've invested in Harry Potter Lego merchandise. My youngest wants to be Harry Potter, while my oldest wants to be a Death Eater. Draco Malfoy is his favorite character. Luna Lovegood is my favorite, and my husband claims to not know anything about the series, but he secretly likes Newt Scamander.
I started comparing prices on multiple websites, realized I could pay for priceline bookings with Paypal credit, and the plan was born. Fly in on Good Friday, check into Cabana Bay, spend Saturday & Sunday at the parks, then fly home on Easter Monday. After I got everything booked, I started looking at touring plans and undercover tourists to get an idea of what we would want to do. Since we had the 2 Day P2P with 2 extra day tickets, I started wondering if I could add a day on the trip and fly on Maundy Thursday. So after spending a weekend comparing prices of the express pass with the cost of 3 nights at Royal Pacific, I asked my boss if I could have 4/18-4/23 off. I got my tentative approval, my husband got his leave approved, and I spent the day undoing everything I had already done.
I changed the dates on the air fare and rental car, swapped out Cabana Bay for Royal Pacific, found a really cheap hotel for the nights of the 18th & 22nd, and went a little crazy ordering wands & robes for the boys, shirts, lanyards, and pins for all of us. We each have stuff to represent our house and my boys have their interactive wands, so we can go straight to spell casting. My youngest picked the Harry Potter wand, while my oldest picked the Death Eater wand. I was really tempted to get me a wand, but we'll just have to share. I also booked us breakfast with the Minions because my boys love them & we've got to eat. It was seeing that bacon was on the menu that sealed that deal. My boys are all about bacon, so I'm sure we'll get our money's worth just on that.
I ended up booking RPR directly with Universal, so I had to pay cash for the deposit while I waited on priceline to refund my Paypal credit. I'm not sure if I want to mess with trying to change the RPR reservation and book part of it through priceline and then deal with the hassle of linking the reservations when I get there, or just paying cash and not worrying about it. I'm leaning more towards just paying Universal and making it easier on myself.
This will be my first pre-trip report. We're planning a last minute trip to Universal for Easter. Usually, we travel over the Easter weekend to do a narrow gauge train ride, but since I couldn't find any within driving distance that we hadn't done & were open, I started looking at a trip to Orlando.
Our last trip to Orlando fell during hurricane Irma. My 5 day Disney trip turned into an 11 day trip complete with a hurricane. We had discussed whether we thought it was worth the gamble before we left, and it turned out pretty well. We were on our last park day the day before we went under curfew, so I spent the majority of the hurricane sleeping and watching the same 5 Disney movies on a loop in the hotel room. My kids never even noticed the hurricane. We live in tornado alley, so the storm didn't seem that bad to us until we went outside the next morning. I didn't realize that the trees in Florida don't grow roots down- the grow out, so the wind tips them over. It looked like a giant had walked through the resort pushing over the trees. I said that was m last Disney trip. Then after we had been home about a week, I called to see if I could get the bounce back special & booked 14 days for 14 months out in December with free dining.
We had planned to spend 12 days split between Disney, Discovery Cove, & Universal back in December, but I was in a car wreck in September, and that threw our plans out the window. I was very fortunate to walk away from the accident with relatively minor injuries & a totaled car. I ended up with 3 lumbar spinous process fractures, so roller coasters were out the question for me until at least April. Luckily, my kids are still at 48 inches & below and my x-rays are looking good, so I'm pretty confident I can handle the rides they'll want to do.
I was able to get credit for our air fare and get refunds on the majority of our reservations, so I was able to recover without too much stress of lost wages. I was out of work for 6 weeks, but the problem of these airline credits was driving me crazy. I knew they expired in June, so I spent the holiday season trying to find the money to fund a trip that didn't require taking much time off of school or work. I knew I didn't want to try for spring break, and Memorial Day is not my favorite time to travel, so a few weeks ago when I was searching for a new train ride I realized that we might be able to sneak in a trip from 4/19-22. The kids are out of school both of those days, and really, I need a vacation. I didn't realize this until early February, so when I went to check on Disney, I wasn't too surprised to find the majority of the dining booked solid and I knew fast passes were going to be slim pickings. For what I would pay to stay on Disney property & pay for tickets, I realized I could fund a pretty nice trip to either Universal or Sea World.
Discovery Cove was the thing that I wanted to do the most in December. It was going to be my graduation present for finally getting a bachelor degree. I've wanted to swim with dolphins since I was a little girl, but my youngest just turned six, and he wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea. At all. He told me he would watch from the side of the pool. Then I looked at the prices of the cabanas. Even though I'm spending more at Universal, it was really the idea of paying that much $ for a private cabana for one day that soured me on the idea. Strange what makes something seem like a good deal vs a cash grab. Anyhow, Discovery Cove is still on my radar, just not until October 2020 when I hit the big 40.
So after eliminating Discovery Cove and Sea World, I started looking at Universal. Harry Potter is huge at our house. We spend Christmas watching all of the movies, and I shudder to think about how much I've invested in Harry Potter Lego merchandise. My youngest wants to be Harry Potter, while my oldest wants to be a Death Eater. Draco Malfoy is his favorite character. Luna Lovegood is my favorite, and my husband claims to not know anything about the series, but he secretly likes Newt Scamander.
I started comparing prices on multiple websites, realized I could pay for priceline bookings with Paypal credit, and the plan was born. Fly in on Good Friday, check into Cabana Bay, spend Saturday & Sunday at the parks, then fly home on Easter Monday. After I got everything booked, I started looking at touring plans and undercover tourists to get an idea of what we would want to do. Since we had the 2 Day P2P with 2 extra day tickets, I started wondering if I could add a day on the trip and fly on Maundy Thursday. So after spending a weekend comparing prices of the express pass with the cost of 3 nights at Royal Pacific, I asked my boss if I could have 4/18-4/23 off. I got my tentative approval, my husband got his leave approved, and I spent the day undoing everything I had already done.
I changed the dates on the air fare and rental car, swapped out Cabana Bay for Royal Pacific, found a really cheap hotel for the nights of the 18th & 22nd, and went a little crazy ordering wands & robes for the boys, shirts, lanyards, and pins for all of us. We each have stuff to represent our house and my boys have their interactive wands, so we can go straight to spell casting. My youngest picked the Harry Potter wand, while my oldest picked the Death Eater wand. I was really tempted to get me a wand, but we'll just have to share. I also booked us breakfast with the Minions because my boys love them & we've got to eat. It was seeing that bacon was on the menu that sealed that deal. My boys are all about bacon, so I'm sure we'll get our money's worth just on that.
I ended up booking RPR directly with Universal, so I had to pay cash for the deposit while I waited on priceline to refund my Paypal credit. I'm not sure if I want to mess with trying to change the RPR reservation and book part of it through priceline and then deal with the hassle of linking the reservations when I get there, or just paying cash and not worrying about it. I'm leaning more towards just paying Universal and making it easier on myself.
