February 3rd
Talked to my husband on February 3rd, and we tossed around the idea of flying. I reminded him that this same thing happened last year. Yes, just last year, we were also going to drive, and made the decision in April to fly. When Frontier cancelled our flight out of Denver, costing us a whole day of vacation, we decided we would never fly again, and if we did, it certainly would not be Frontier. So what is happening? Why are we even thinking about flying? Our plan, for months had been to drive, stop in Vegas, play some blackjack, and enjoy the road trip. We had not been to Vegas since before Alex was born, so I had been looking forward to this. Then, my husband decides maybe we should fly.
Did I tell you I have OCD when doing a Disney vacation? If you do not want to see the horror of my next few days, stop reading now (just kidding, it isn't really that bad. Or is it?)
This discussion happened at 8pm. I have been in bed around 10pm every night since my surgery, still recovering from the anesthetic. Before going to bed, I played around to check out some flights. Yeah, they were expensive, but we had figured that driving, including the stop in Vegas would cost us between nine and eleven hundred dollars, so we could save money by flying. And it would be quicker. And, oh yes, my husband is evil, I tell you. He told me if we fly, we can go in a day early. Spend a night at HoJo's, go to Goofy's Kitchen, swim, shop and just relax before going to Disneyland the next day. Okay, so that sounds fine, but no Disneyland??? And we could even still do Vegas if we fly. Oh, and did I mention I really wanted to see the Mojave Desert? Maybe, just maybe, I could find something that would work for us.
I went to bed at 10pm, as usual. I was still tossing and turning at 2am, because I was obsessing about this, how it could work. After a short 5 hours of sleep (very short with a rambunctious 2 year old at home) I once again sat down at the computer. I had a plan. We could fly to Disneyland, then rent a car to drive home. Great plan, cheap airfare, yeah, that could work. So I spend my day researching possibilities. Any possibilities. I checked every airport within 70 miles of Disneyland. I checked Las Vegas, I checked flying out of Colorado Springs, or Phoenix. Trying to get us cheap tickets. I checked car rental prices in each city. I checked the weekly rate, and I checked the daily rate. Yes I spent my day totally obsessing about how we were now going to accomplish this, because after my husband mentioned going in a day early, there was NO WAY I wasn't going to do this. He is an absolutely wonderful man, and was right on target with his idea of just relaxing for a night. I had to do this, no ifs, ands, or buts.
I call my husband, and I tell him the results of all my searching. I thought it would work great to fly into LAX, and drive home, stopping in Vegas. He thought about it, and decided that maybe we should fly in and out of Vegas, and rent a car. Ok, that could be fun, its not a bad drive between Vegas and Disneyland. So, I go back to laughingplace.com, and post a question about the drive between Vegas and Anaheim. And another topic about Mickey's Morning Madness to have a question answered. Wow, quick results, and shocking results. First, they say, never do it on a Sunday or a Holiday Monday, because a 4 or 5 hour drive can be 7 hours or longer. Oh my, since we don't fly early because of my son, if it takes 7 hours to drive, we will never be able to do Goofy's Kitchen. This is a tragic turn of events for me. But, I was also thrilled, because in my Mickey topic, someone mentioned that she heard the clock I gave up (remember the clock) was going to be on sale at Disneyland. Really??? Oh, that is very exciting. Much less risky, and potentially less expensive that getting my clock on ebay, and definitely something to think about. (Notice how I call it MY clock)
Then, the voice of reason, my husband, suggests that we change our reservation, so that we make the drive on a Monday, instead of a Sunday. Okay, that could work, but did I say I was obsessive? I had been planning on these dates since July 12, 2004. I CANNOT change them now. I guess I may just have to skip Goofy's Kitchen on Sunday night. But I did not give up there. I got on the phone and called Goofy's Kitchen to find out how late they are open in June. 9pm you say, and I can make a reservation for as late as 840? Wow, so if we get into Vegas at 12:40, pick up the car and it takes us 7 hours to drive, that could work. No more obsessing, it was handled. After calling WDTC next to find out if we had to pay for parking at the hotel (no, it COULD NOT wait until morning), I whipped off an email to my travel agent, asking her to cancel our car rental reservation because our plans had changed. I went to bed. It was 11:30. I could not sleep.
February 5th, 2005
Got up this morning, and as usual, went to the computer. My travel agent had emailed, shocking me. I had no idea she worked on Saturday. So, I emailed her back, let her know what was going on, and oh, can you change my reservation for me? I waited 2 hours for her to call or email. I thought maybe she was already gone for the day. While waiting, I pulled out the handy dandy WDTC brochure, and found that it would be $100.00 to change the reservation. Oh well, I had already gotten the Sunday drive to Anaheim reconciled, so this really is no problem. Went to lunch and to the store, and when we got home, there was the email from my agent. She was able to change our reservation with no fee. Wow. I was very excited, but of course, that put me back to work, checking airlines and car rentals with our new dates.
I am now armed with information, and when we get our taxes back, I will confirm our air travel. Of course, we may change our minds 100 times between now and then, starting the obsession all over.
For now, I am going to get to work on our schedule. Oh yes, I do schedule our meals at Disneyland, and yes, I do it 5 months in advance. Then, I can make any additions and subtractions to the schedule before calling to make the reservations 60 days in advance. But I can tell you this much. We will be doing Fantasmic! Balcony seating on July 1st, because I am terrified of the crowds on a summer Friday night on a holiday weekend. So, that is one thing I can put on the schedule with complete conviction.
Okay, so it is still over 5 months away, but I did just get maps and directions printed from Las Vegas Airport to Howard Johnson's. The drive doesn't seem to bad, as long as traffic isn't awful.
February 7, 2005
Well, I spent yesterday working on our dining schedule. I was trying to figure out when and how we would use each of our Disney Dining vouchers, and breakfast coupons. Using the vouchers will be no problem since we will be doing 7 character meals. The big problem is the 2 in the park breakfast vouchers we have. Since we don't tend to eat breakfast, and Alex usually has a banana and milk for breakfast, these 2 vouchers will be very hard to use. As for the character breakfast, we have also worked around that by doing the latest breakfast serving the Goofy's Kitchen has, which is usually 11:30, so we make that an early lunch. The in the park coupons though, we have use between Disneyland opening, and 10:30 in the morning. The problem with that in summer is we normally ride the rides in the morning, so we don't have to wait in long lines later. That is especially important with a 2 year old. So, after figuring all of this out, and realizing it will be a hardship, and possibly a waste of money, I again emailed our travel agent, this time to see if we could cancel the Disney Dining Plan. If we can, I will instead purchase Disney Dollars to have on hand to pay for the meals. If we can't, we will either find a way to use the in the park breakfasts, or give them to a family that looks like they would enjoy having free breakfast.
Hopefully, I will hear back from our travel agent shortly after she starts work at 11:00 this morning.
Finally heard from my travel agent, and she was able to cancel the Disney Dining Plan. Now I don't have to worry about eating breakfast in the park. We will still do the character meals, but now we will pay as we go. Plus, for many of them, we can get a AAA discount of 10% when we do pay.
After finding this out, I sent an email to all of my family, telling them for my birthday, which is 2 weeks away, that I really want Disney Dollars. I can use them to pay for food, or to buy my clock, which will hopefully be on sale when we arrive.
Suddenly, things are really looking up for this trip, and I am not so stressed. I have not even checked the airfare today (yet) lol. There is nothing I can do until tax money comes in anyway.
February 14, 2005
Well, we spent the weekend discussing how we were going to get to the Disneyland Resort. Turns out, both my husband and me were still considering driving. The biggest downfall for us to drive is the distance with a 2.5 year old. He has never been in the car for longer than 3 hours at a time, so we have no idea how many stops we will need to make for him. And as we are both getting older we simply are not sure how we will even handle a drive like that. Since I can't sleep in a car, driving just didn't seem like a good option. So, we considered options such as this: Fly from Denver to Los Angeles or Las Vegas, then rent a car to get to the Disneyland Resort. We could either fly home, or drive home, with a stop in Las Vegas for one night. Even that didn't seem like a great option, because it would be driving straight through from Vegas back home. We have done this before, but that was several years ago, and before our son was born. We both still remember the total exhaustion when we got home from that long drive.
Anyway, we decided that I would check all of our options again, and decided we would fly if it saved us $500.00 or more. I figured the numbers with the amount we had planned on spending in Las Vegas. Also added into the cost for each scenario were expenses such as food, gas, and any hotel stays in addition to our Disneyland hotels. We had definitely decided that we wanted to arrive Anaheim the night before our Grand Californian reservations began, so that we could relax, have a meal at Goofy's Kitchen, and start fresh, at opening the next day. The night at Howard Johnson Anaheim was not figured into any of my totals for travel expenses because of this decision.
Overwhelmingly, after all the figures were checked, all the airline options checked and written down, the best option for us was to fly. Both ways, from Denver and into Los Angeles round trip. Even adding in a whopping $300.00 to ship everything I buy at the Disneyland Resort, the cost was still $500.00 less to fly. So, the decision seems to be made finally. We will fly into LAX, rent a car, and drive to Howard Johnson Anaheim. I have requested our same room that we had last year. When Willie asked me the room number, I could not remember. Instead, I told him where it was, and that we wanted the same view of the Matterhorn that we had last year, minus the tree that was in our way! He has not yet answered that email, so it will be interesting to see how he responds. With our laughingplace.com discount, the room will be $87.12 plus tax. Yes, I know there are cheaper hotels close to Disneyland, but we really like this hotel. The staff is incredible, the rooms are very large, and it is a short 10-minute walk to Disneyland. Since we will not be going to the parks that night, the walk doesn't really even matter this time. We will either make the 20-minute walk to Goofy's Kitchen, or drive, depending on how we feel when we get there.
I hate to fly, with a passion. I worked for the airlines for many years, and hated to fly the whole time. Flying is an even bigger struggle with the new requirement of checking in 2 hours before your departure. With a toddler, this is always tough. I can only hope that we don't have another cancelled flight, like last year. That was real tough with Alex, and by the time we actually took off, he was grumpy, tired, and totally unsure of why we disrupted his schedule so badly. So, once again, this time we have chosen a flight that is timed perfectly for Alex. 12 noon is great because we can feed him before he gets on the flight, and maybe, just maybe, he will sleep. I am still holding out hope that between now and the time we purchase our airline tickets; Frontier will add an early afternoon flight into Orange County. If they do, we will switch to that, as it does cut down on some driving and flying times.
So, that is where we sit right now on our big Disneyland Resort Vacation 2005. I am still counting the days until I can make our Priority Seating reservations for the meals, and of course for Fantasmic! balcony seating.