Notices

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old 12 Feb 18, 08:36 PM  
Link to this Post
#1
HelenJNT
Imagineer
 
HelenJNT's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 15
*updated 13/10/18* #USAnumber3 – Helen & Andy -Nov18 - pre-trip report

#USAnumber3 – the 2018 pre-trip report

Update #2: Life, cats and ADR thoughts

Update #3: ADRs - the first attempt

Update #4: Shopping, ADR changes and FP planning

Update #5: Fast Passes

Well hey howdy hey and welcome to my third pre-trip report. It feels as though the ink is barely dry on my 2017 report (it isn’t, I only finished posting it this afternoon) and here we go with a new pre-trip report.

To be honest, so much has happened since we booked this trip that I really wish I had started writing this when we actually booked it. So hang on to your hats, and get a cup of tea (hell, make it a G&T) as this might be a fairly lengthy instalment and there aren’t many photos to keep it interesting.

Who are we?



Helen.
Careering towards the end of my 30s.
Favourite food: Crisps (they are a food group, don’t deny it)
Favourite drink: Margaritas…dry January was a struggle
Favourite ride: Everest
Fun fact: I was once filmed for BBC2’s Great Railway Journeys splashing around in a swimming pool with Michael Portillo (no, it isn’t on YouTube, I have checked).



Andy:
Celebrated his 40th in WDW last year
Favourite food: “Italian”
Favourite drink: Beer (but not Italian beer, sorry)
Favourite ride: Tower of Terror
Fun fact: Tony Blair presented Andy with his GCSE certificate (there is a photo but I daren’t post it). Andy’s first answer to this little survey was “I’ve never vomited after a ride” but I told him that wasn’t a fun fact. He said it was lots of fun watching me vomit after swallowing too much water on Kali River Rapids…so maybe I will dig out that photo of teenage Andy shaking Tony Blair’s hand after all.



This will be my seventh trip to the World, and Andy’s fifth. We weren’t meant to be going back in 2018. But then again we weren’t meant to be going back in 2017 either and look how that turned out… no, look, there’s 96,000 words all about that here.

This is a relatively significant year for me, birthday-wise, as I am going to be 40. And no, I don’t know how that happened either seeing as in my head I am not of legal drinking age in the US. Once we’d booked our 2017 trip for Andy’s 40th, talk immediately turned to what we wanted to do for mine. Actually, that isn’t strictly true…I talked about it and Andy just nodded along. We explored various options such as New York, Vegas and California but I think we both knew in the backs of our minds that returning to WDW was going to be the only option. After all, it would have been a great injustice had he got to spend his big birthday there (OK, so I tagged along so it wasn’t all selfish) and I didn’t.

August 2017
As ever with these things, we don’t muck about and we went from saying “let’s just look at the prices…” to having a trip booked, all in the space of about 20 minutes. Oh. The funniest thing was I was mid-way through a back and forth Whatsapp chat with Brett (HappyHaunt1000 on here) and I was resolutely saying “oh no, we won’t be going back in 2018” and then about half an hour had to send another message about how I was a total liar and we had just booked to return. He takes the credit for enabling us, and as ever with most things, he is probably right.

So… it was a sunny Saturday morning with nothing on the telly and I was trying to avoid going outside and doing the gardening so I decided to have a little browse at prices. As luck would have it, the WDW Travel Company had a deal on that was too good to pass up. 14 nights at Saratoga Springs, full DDP, Memory Maker, Ultimate Tickets and a $100 gift card, departing on 31/10/18 and returning on 14/11/18. We knew we wouldn’t need to fork out for Universal tickets as we were planning on upgrading our 2017 ones to annual passes so we needed to make sure the dates we travelled were inside 12 months of our 2017 trip. Total cost of £4,000. I was a bit gutted that the Beach Club was out of our price range as I had been saying for many years that that was the dream resort and I was hopeful of winning the lottery or something so that we could stay there for my 40th. The lottery had remained un-won and it was just way too expensive so we were happy to compromise on Saratoga Springs as I had read many trip reports raving about it and also we were excited about the proximity to Disney Springs.

Flights weren’t available this far in advance but we were confident of being able to add them on later. We figured we probably wouldn’t be able to afford premium economy this year as we wanted to keep the holiday at roughly the same price as our 2017 trip. Happy days though - £100 deposit was put down and we were able to forget about it for a bit. We did note the comment on the site that as Saratoga Springs is a DVC property, our booking wouldn’t be confirmed until 330 days from our check-out date but given how many people we know who have stayed there without a hitch and assured us it wouldn’t be an issue, we forgot all about it for several months. HA HA.

November 2017
We somehow had a spare few hours in between a mammoth three-park day, and seeing as we were at Disney Springs, decided to hop on over on the boat to Saratoga Springs to have a little potter about and try and get a feel for where we would be staying.





We had a lovely drink by the Grandstand pool and a small wander around.



We immediately liked the place. It was immaculate and the lawns and the lake were lovely and we immediately knew we would feel at home there. I don’t think we expected to like it as much as we actually did – we really liked the old school country club feel of the place, and obviously the location was fab. We were relieved and really excited about staying there.



December 2017
Home from an amazing trip for Andy’s birthday and watching the calendar like a hawk for the day that our flights were on sale. This turned out to be the 18th December – I finished work quite early for Christmas this year but was still in the work routine so I was wide awake and browsing direct flight prices at about 07:00. I looked at Virgin first as we have always flown with them but something was very wrong as economy flights for our dates were coming in at near-on £2,000. I don’t actively follow flight threads on here as we’ve never booked flights separately – we’ve always booked and travelled inside 11 months so had never needed to do this bit before and I was feeling rather nervous.

Luckily my buddies Rachael and Lisa (also Dibbers) were also awake and online and they informed me that Virgin were indeed taking the mick and that I should try BA. I wasn’t sure about this as we had never flown with BA anywhere long haul before and also I know that Toff Princess, one of my other Dibb friends (goodness, I do get around a bit, don’t I?) had had a bad experience with BA last year.

Regardless, I logged onto the BA site and found that their prices were a clear £800 cheaper than Virgin, and also that that was for World Traveller Plus as opposed to the economy seats I’d been quoted for Virgin. Erm, what? And yes! I know no-one’s idea of fun is sitting in a stinky metal box for nine hours so I certainly don’t want to pay more for the experience than I have to. Luckily there were a few threads doing the rounds on here at the time that reassured me that BA were fine and it wasn’t going to be a Flintstones plane and that we’d be fine in World Traveller Plus (less so in economy as this year BA are “upgrading” their planes to fit in another seat per row in economy, making it more cramped than it already is).

I should point out that Andy was still asleep at this point and I didn’t think he would take kindly to me waking him up to blather on about flight prices and making decisions so early in the morning – and not to mention so near to Christmas. I crept downstairs and fished the joint account credit card out of his wallet (you’d think I’d done that before, wouldn’t you? That’s why we only have one card which he looks after as I am blatantly not to be trusted).

After checking a billion times that the dates were correct and our names were input correctly, I had booked it. Non-refundable tickets. Gulp. But it was all fine, right, as Saratoga Springs was due to be confirmed any moment now….right?

There was a slight angry moment of waving my fists at the sky when I saw that BA charge extra to book seats in World Traveller Plus which I thought was pretty sneaky given that Virgin don’t charge extra in Premium Economy so I reluctantly added £180 worth of seat reservations to our credit card bill. Still, as I reasoned with myself, and later with Andy, we’d still got a deal we were happy with that was a lot cheaper than the options (that day) with Virgin. We don’t want to play flight roulette and we haven’t looked at prices since – this was a price we were happy with so that was that. Done.

Fast forward a few days to the day before Christmas Eve and we still hadn’t had our resort confirmed. Very strange as they were a couple of weeks behind. People on here had said that they linked like clockwork on the 330th day but yet we hadn’t heard anything. Here begins a little saga of phone calls to Disney:

Call 1:
“Please don’t worry, Mrs X (that’s not actually my name but it sounds mysterious), we are a few weeks late getting SSR and OKW confirmations out due to a backlog after the Hurricane but you should be linking any day now.”

OK, fine. A week later when I was bored on the very long road trip to see A’s family in the North East:

Call 2:

“Uhhh we don’t appear to be able to find that reference number at all. I’ll take your number and someone will call you back”.
Turns out I had somehow got through to Abraham in IT support for some reason so it’s no wonder he couldn’t help me. This was instantly followed up by me making:

Call 3:
“Please don’t worry – I can see your reservation here and we’ll be able to honour it. I’m sure it’ll link in a couple more weeks – and if it doesn’t, I have a lovely spare room you guys can stay in.” Cheers Marcia, appreciate it.


January 2018
Call 4:
“I can see you’ve called a few times <well, yes I have, and Abraham never arranged for anyone to call me back> and we’re still working through the backlog. Everything will be fine. I’ll make a note here that you have non-refundable flights but to show you our commitment, I’ll book you on the Magical Express to and from Saratoga Springs right now. We’ve never had an issue before, please don’t worry.”

By this point I had seen a few posts popping up on here with a gang of us who were getting rather concerned about the fact that none of us had linked our bookings yet.


Argh!

Call 5:
“We don’t know what’s going on with Saratoga Springs – apparently insufficient inventory was released this year. Would you like to move resorts? There’s a bunk bed room available at AKL, or you can move to Port Orleans Riverside. It’s a surcharge of £1,500 for AKL, or £500 for POR? Madam… madam, are you there…?”

I was on mute and laughing my head off. No way was I going to pay £1500 more to stay in a bunk bed room at AKL given that was the room we had been allocated on our last trip (two adults in a bunk bed room, I still don’t know why) and I wasn’t about to stump up £500 for a resort downgrade either, no matter how lovely the Princess themed rooms are at POR.

Here began a period of stalking the thread on here and also perusing both the Disney UK and Disney US accommodation sites to see what availability there was anywhere. At one point I really thought we were going to make the choice to move to a Value resort as there was no way we were going to pay more to either have an identical holiday to the one we had just got back from (we like staying in different resorts, it’s part of the fun for us) or pay even more for a Moderate resort. Nope. We aren’t snobs about it and had Disney offered us POR and the DDP for free, waiving the £500, then we probably would have taken it out of relief but having followed the Coronado Springs and Caribbean Beach fiasco on here last year, something was telling me to hold firm.

Call 6:
“Hi Mr X, I can see your wife has called a few times <we were resorting to using the passive aggressive approach of getting Andy to call to explain it was a special trip for my 40th and that I would be devastated if they couldn’t help us out>. There are definitely some concerns over availability for Saratoga Springs on your dates and the Guest Services team are working through the bookings. You should receive a call with your options in 48 hours.”

Ooh. The Carousel of Progress was moving again and there was indeed a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.

I’d seen that someone on here had been offered POR with the surcharge waived and we assumed that was going to be the case for us. I’d started researching the resort as we have stayed at POFQ but not POR before and was kind of resigned to the fact that we would be getting the boat to Disney Springs rather than walking.

I’d missed a few calls from an 0203 number and realised thanks to the help of people on here, that it was in fact Disney trying to get in touch and not, as I had suspected, a PPI scammer. But the number wouldn’t take incoming calls so it was torturous having to wait, especially as I had seen on “our” thread that people were starting to be upgraded to Wilderness Lodge, Animal Kingdom Lodge, and dare I dream it, the Beach Club.

Andy and I had a discussion and said we would prefer not to go to AKL and would ideally have the Beach Club but that Wilderness Lodge would be an acceptable (hehe) compromise.

Call 7:
The lovely Crosby, who I think most people in the same predicament here had also spoken with.

“I can confirm that we aren’t able to honour your Saratoga Springs booking but we would like to move you to an alternative resort with no additional costs associated with it. Haha, no, I’m sorry Mrs X, the Grand Floridian is out of budget for the envelope I’ve been given for your upgrade. How about Wilderness Lodge? Oh yes I can try the Beach Club for you….. yes, I can see there is a garden view room available at the Beach Club for your dates, would you like me to confirm that for you? <play it cool, Rodders, play it cool…> Great! That’s all confirmed for you and you’ll receive your amended invoice in the next 48 hours. You should also be able to link to My Disney Experience with the same reservation number too.”



Oh my. The Beach Club dream came through! We honestly couldn’t believe it. I know it was a lot of hassle and a month of stress and phone calls but I was pleased we held firm and were rewarded. I’m not going to lie, it had concerned me that Disney would cite the small print about cash bookings for DVC properties not being confirmed, and we had taken a massive risk booking non-refundable flights but for once things went our way. We feel very lucky and still quite shocked if I am honest.

The new invoice came through the very next day (happily with the £1,300 upgrade cost zeroed out) and we managed to link to MDE straight away. I was so pleased to see that everyone else on that thread was steadily getting sorted as well. Party in the Beach Club in Autumn 2018!

February 2018
I haven’t really started planning in earnest other than a rudimentary list of ADRs I want to make. I am going to save that for another instalment though as I think I have typed quite enough for one post, don’t you? Expect you’re on to the third or fourth G&T by now…

One thing I do need to do is amend my Magical Express bus from Saratoga Springs to the Beach Club otherwise that could be awkward. Our ESTAs are still valid from the last trip so now that my 2017 report is all done and posted I can get on with planning this one. We’re there for the last two weeks of Food and Wine so I’m excited to finally experience that, although flying in on Halloween means we probably won’t get to see those decorations. Andy is desperate to go to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal which rolls on into the first few nights of November but I am feeling a bit wimpy as far as that goes so we’ll have to wait and see on that one. I’ll keep you posted….

Oh and finally – the title of the report…apparently there is no word for “the final instalment of a trilogy” so this is my working title. Readers of the last two trip reports will get it (I hope..)

Thanks for reading!

Helen x

Edited at 08:50 AM.
HelenJNT is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 12 Feb 18, 08:55 PM  
Link to this Post
#2
Redrach1903
Disney Dreaming :)
 
Redrach1903's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 09

Redrach1903's Reviews
DIBB Villa Reviews: 2
Mobile

Woohoooo! I still can’t believe you got upgraded to the Beach Club. Such a result and I am in no way jealous and definitely won’t be blocking you on instagram in November Jokes! I can’t wait to see all the photos! #livingthedream

Looking forward to your ADR list! I suspect there will be a few in Epcot since you can just stroll there

Let the planning commence! Xxx
Redrach1903 is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 12 Feb 18, 09:01 PM  
Link to this Post
#3
Mad Hatters
slightly serious Dibber
 
Mad Hatters's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 17
Mobile

I’m looking forward to reading your latest trip report having just finished reading your previous one.

Upgrade to the beach club is brilliant. It’s such a lovely looking resort.
Mad Hatters is offline Boy Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 12 Feb 18, 09:08 PM  
Link to this Post
#4
disneypars
Imagineer
 
disneypars's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 07
Mobile

Fabulous result when are you publishing a montage of Andy's face when you told him about the upgrade 😁
__________________
2004 - 2014 WDW
2016 - 2019 WDW
disneypars is offline Boy Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 12 Feb 18, 09:11 PM  
Link to this Post
#5
chris123armit
Very Serious Dibber
 
chris123armit's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 08
Mobile

Have loved reading your last reports so can’t wait for this one!
Enjoy the Beach Club after all those calls & stress you both deserve it!
__________________
Christine
chris123armit is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 12 Feb 18, 09:56 PM  
Link to this Post
#6
HelenJNT
Thread Starter
Imagineer
 
HelenJNT's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 15
Mobile

Originally Posted by Redrach1903 View Post
Woohoooo! I still can’t believe you got upgraded to the Beach Club. Such a result and I am in no way jealous and definitely won’t be blocking you on instagram in November Jokes! I can’t wait to see all the photos! #livingthedream

Looking forward to your ADR list! I suspect there will be a few in Epcot since you can just stroll there

Let the planning commence! Xxx
Thank you! Oh, I know, I’d hate me too #sorrynotsorry

Yes, Epcot is definitely going to feature strongly on this trip! It’ll be weird to be back on the full dining plan again - I hope we can do it justice!

Xx
HelenJNT is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 12 Feb 18, 09:57 PM  
Link to this Post
#7
HelenJNT
Thread Starter
Imagineer
 
HelenJNT's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 15
Mobile

Originally Posted by Mad Hatters View Post
I’m looking forward to reading your latest trip report having just finished reading your previous one.

Upgrade to the beach club is brilliant. It’s such a lovely looking resort.
Thank you! You’ll have a bit of a wait but I’m glad you enjoyed the report!

I’m rather excited for the BC - total game changer. We are very lucky.
HelenJNT is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 12 Feb 18, 09:58 PM  
Link to this Post
#8
HelenJNT
Thread Starter
Imagineer
 
HelenJNT's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 15
Mobile

Originally Posted by disneypars View Post
Fabulous result when are you publishing a montage of Andy's face when you told him about the upgrade 😁
Ha ha he was with me as the phone was on speaker. It was a delighted face.
HelenJNT is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 12 Feb 18, 09:59 PM  
Link to this Post
#9
HelenJNT
Thread Starter
Imagineer
 
HelenJNT's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 15
Mobile

Originally Posted by chris123armit View Post
Have loved reading your last reports so can’t wait for this one!
Enjoy the Beach Club after all those calls & stress you both deserve it!
Thank you very much. Pleased to hear you’ve enjoyed the reports! We can’t wait...only 260 days to go. Ha.
HelenJNT is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 12 Feb 18, 10:02 PM  
Link to this Post
#10
Floridaagogo
Imagineer
 
Join Date: Jul 14
Can't believe you got the beach club 😀😀😀😀 we did HHN last year for the first time.we went four times and it was the most amazing thing I have ever donex
Floridaagogo is offline Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 03:32 PM.


Powered by vBulletin - Copyright © 2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
DIBB Savings
AttractionTickets.com

Get £10 off each Disney Ticket with the code ATDIBB10

Get up to £50 off per room at Disney or Universal with the code DIBBHOTELS


theDIBB Blog
One of the the five worlds found in Epic Universe, How to Train Your Dragon... Read More »
Disney announced that a new nighttime show, “Disney Dreams That Soar,” will run nightly at... Read More »
Walt Disney World Resort guests can get ready to have a “glowing’’ good time when... Read More »


theDIBB Menu


Exchange Rates
US Dollar Rates
ASDA  $1.2368
CaxtonFX  $1.2321
Covent Garden FX  $1.2548
FAIRFX  $1.2365
John Lewis  $1.2398
M&S  $1.2191
Sainsburys  $1.2357
TESCO  $1.2364
Travelex  $1.2361
Updated: 14:30 29/03/2024
Euro Rates
ASDA  €1.1447
CaxtonFX  €1.1408
Covent Garden FX  €1.1514
FAIRFX  €1.1468
John Lewis  €1.1477
M&S  €1.1289
Sainsburys  €1.1440
TESCO  €1.1445
Travelex  €1.1469
Updated: 14:30 29/03/2024

DIBB Premium Membership
Did you know you can help support theDIBB with Premium Membership?

Check out this link for more information and benefits, such as...

"No adverts on theDIBB Forums"

Upgrade Now



X