One Fabulous Beach and a Magical Tower June 2013 Pre-Trip Report

This is a long overdue vacation. The last trip we made to WDW was back in Dec of 2011 for Christmas, and since, I have had the Disney Blues. I have been living vicariously through everyone elses trip reports. Thanks for sharing and for keeping me from going completely insane. This will be our 8th trip to WDW and our 5th trip as DVC members. I cannot wait to hear Welcome Home.

The Cast:
Shawn (me) Trip recorder and photographer. Loves all things Disney. My favorite characters are Donald and Goofy. Favorite ride is Soarin and I love to collect Vinylmation.

Tina (DW) Trip Planner and ADR extraordinaire. She loves Disney almost as much as I do. Her favorite rides include POTC, BTMRR and HM. Her favorite character is Minnie.

Aaron(16) Secretly he loves Disney, but at 16 will not admit it. When you get him there, he lights up and loves it and becomes a little guy again. His favorite character is Stitch and he loves to ride Test Track.

Allison(11) She is our princess. She has my passion for Disney at 11 years old. She loves Tinker Bell and Eeyore. Her favorite rides are Test Track, BTMRR and Expedition Everest. And she requires one Premium Mickey Ice Cream Bar per day.

Accommodations:
This will be our first split stay as DVC members. Our reservations include 6 nights at Beach Club Villas and 6 nights at Bay Lake Tower in a one bedroom. With a one bedroom, we will have a full kitchen and washer and dryer to make things easier by eating in the room more and packing fewer clothes.

Ticket Media:
Our goal was to simply renew our standard APs in December for another year. When DVC came out with the Premium APs for the special price of $399, it was only $15 per ticket to upgrade. We decided to buy the PAP voucher and activate it when we arrive for our June 2013 trip. I thought this was a good deal, because we will be able to get in a second trip for Spring Break in March of 2014. We do like to go to the water parks and DisneyQuest, so even though they changed the 20% discount to 10%, we still felt this was a good investment.

Dates & Method of Travel:
Once again be driving from Indiana to Walt Disney World. It is about a 16 hour ride and this year I am doing it in one shot. We will be leaving at about 4-5am and arriving in WDW around 9-10pm in the evening. I had a lot of work travel in 2012 and racked up about 180,000 Hilton Honors points. The first two evenings we will be staying at a hotel near Downtown Disney until it is time to check into our DVC resort. Here is the breakdown of our travel dates:

Our vacation dates are: June 14 29. Here is how this trip breaks down:
June 14 Leave for Disney around 4-5am. Arrive at hotel in DTD for 2 nights
June 16 Check in at Beach Club Villas for 6 night
June 22 Check in at Bay Lake Tower for 6 nights
June 28 Begin driving home. Stay overnight in Kennesaw, GA
June 29 Arrive home sometime in the late afternoon or early evening

Dining
Every trip we have done in the past, we had purchased the dining plan. We enjoyed having our meals covered and felt it was a good purchase to do. This year we wanted to try something different. We plan to purchase the Tables in Wonderland Card and share more meals. Tina did an extensive mock dining purchase by selecting the restaurants we wanted to go to, and then picking meals she thought we would all eat. By doing this, we were able to estimate how much we would spend, which also included counter meals and snacks per day. It actually comes out that we will spend less than what the dining plan would cost, plus in my opinion, there seems to be more flexibility. Plus, like I mentioned before, we will eat in our room more since we have a full kitchen.

Trip Plans
We started piecing this vacation together right after or Christmas 2011 trip. We had to wait until school had released the approved calendar for 2012-2013 school year, so we could plan our dates around our sons marching band commitments. They have some practices the week after school lets out and then a band camp two weeks before school starts. This gives us about a 6 week window to take a vacation.

Once we were able to verify our dates, June 16 28, I used the 2012 Disney World Calendar to come up with a tentative plan. I know things will change, but you need some type of starting point. Our first set of plans had us doing a split stay between WDW and Vero Beach. We were going to spend 4 nights at The Villas at Disneys Wilderness Lodge, drive to Vero Beach for 2 nights, and then 6 nights at Beach Club Villas.

We sat down with the kids and told them what the plans were. While they like the ocean, they really wanted to stay at WDW the whole time. That was fine with Tina and me, so we decided to change to a split stay in WDW. We also changed the resorts to 6 nights at Beach Club and 6 nights at Bay Lake Tower. This was set up and ready for booking by August of 2012. Once all this was set, all we could do was wait until it was time to book our trip. The goal was to book our home resort at the 11 month window (in July) and then change the resorts at the 7 month window (in November).

Next, we started working on our dining reservations. Food is important to us while at Disney on vacation. Even though we decided against the dining plan and will be using the TiW card, we still wanted to plan 10-12 table meals, so that we would have one per day. Then, outside of those meals, we would either eat in our room or share counter meals and snacks. After careful review and extreme budgeting, we believe we will spend less than the dining plan by using the TiW card.

By the end of July we had all the table restaurants selected. From here it was a waiting game until December before we could actually make our ADRs. Between July and December, Tina and I would talk about our plans and make minor changes based on reviews or park scheduling. Once the actual calendar for June 2013 was released, we had about a week or so to review our tentative plans and make adjustments before we had to make our ADRs. Again, Tina is awesome in planning, and by using the schedule from the year before, we were not that far off.

In November, I called DVC Member Services at the 7 month window and was able to change our reservations from our home resort to BCV and BLT. The one bedroom rooms were available at each resort, so we were very excited. Then in December, just before Christmas, Tina called and made all of our ADRs. One thing that was weird was that when she called, several of the times we wanted were not available. We had to select a couple hours before or after depending on the meal. Once they got the new reservation system and website up and running, Tina was able to see them online and check times. Every restaurant had the actual time we wanted. Either someone cancelled these after we booked, or the CM was lazy in looking for exactly what we wanted.

This brings us to the current date of January 2013. We have 13 ADRs booked and our PAPs paid for. I do not expect any changes unless something warrants it like a closing/refurb. The next section is a breakdown of park days and ADRs.

June 14 Drive all day from Indiana to WDW. Stay in hotel at DTD for 2 nights.

June 15 Downtown Disney/Magic Kingdom in evening (watch Wishes)

June 16 Check into Beach Club Villas for 6 nights. This is Fathers Day, so we will spend the day at Storm Along Bay, and then head to DHS for evening hours to watch Fantasmic. Also, spend some time on the Boardwalk.

June 17 Epcot Day

June 18 Disneys Animal Kingdom

June 19 Epcot (morning) MK (evening)

June 20 MK (morning) Epcot (evening)

June 21 Disneys Hollywood StudioS

June 22 Check out of BCV and check into BLT. MK in the evening. Mom and daughter going back and doing the Garden View Tea Room again and the guys are going to rent a sea racer at the Contemporary and spend some time on the water.

June 23 MK

June 24 Typhoon Lagoon/DTD

June 25 DHS (morning) / ? Evening (open)

June 26 MK

June 27 Epcot

June 28 This is our departure day. We will go to MK for the morning, until about noon or 1pm and then begin driving home. Tina and Allison will cry as we leave. And Allison will cry all the way until we get on I75. She will be so sad when we leave. We will stay overnight in Kennesaw, Ga.

June 29 Finish the drive home to Indiana

Well, this is what we have planned. I am sure some of this will change between now and the time we get there. Some of it will also change once we get there. It will just depend on crowd level, and how much the heat slows us down. Most of our days will include a park in the morning, return to the resort for a nap and/or a swim, and then a park in the evening. During the summer months, it is always good to get out of the heat and find a way to cool off and relax. I will post any changes that are made between now and June.

Most of our ADRs we have eaten at before, but there are a few that are new. The new locations include: Be Our Guest, Via Napoli, and Ragland Road. We have heard such good things about them, we wanted to try them. I am excited about Fathers Day. We will be eating at ESPN Club for lunch, but getting dessert at Beaches and Cream. We plan on sharing the kitchen sink and I cannot wait for that. It is possible we eat at Beaches and Cream and then get dessert.

Thanks for reading. I will take plenty of pictures and I will write a trip report. The last couple trips, I did not write one. When I look back at the pictures, I have no notes to remember the little magical things that happened. Not this time. I am toying with the idea of doing a real time trip report via a blog. I have created a blog page, and I am still trying to learn about it. I also may look into the blogs here on MousePlanet. There is still some time on this. Well, again, thanks for reading.