I have a few minutes to chat now. My oldest is off to his first Valentine dinner with his *gasp* girlfriend, I know weird huh! They are having a supervised meal at her house and I am to pick him up in a couple of hours. Two of my boys, Cuyler and Cade, are sick with the flu, Cade's fever is gone and he was given clearance to play outside with Geoff (he has cabin fever something feirce!) Cuyler is taking his temp to avoid doing his math (I can feel he has no temp - but Mr. Math brain must see the numbers! 99.3 - not too sick to do math!) Catherine is busy entertaining my 2yo neice so I am free for a little bit.
So nice to sit down with a peaceful home surrounding me and be able to share our life with you all. But I better get on with it - with 3 busy boys the peace is fleeting I am sure!
I promised Disney details. So I will start at the very beginning ~ a very good place to start (are you singing with me yet?) I began the Great Disney Adventure back in November. We needed a place to stay (with a kitchen), tickets to the parks and lots of work done to our van to get there! I spent countless hours researching, reading websites, and seeking out friends who had travelled this road before me. I am posting to thank those who advised me and to pass along what we learned.
Where to Stay: We wanted a condo or house or something with a kitchen and some room to spread out because a week in a hotel room with 5 kids is not only questionably foolish (maybe against the rules even) but totally too cramped. Ebay became my friend and after weeks of patiently searching we finally picked out our home away from home. We chose to stay at Silver Lake Resort. We agreed to listen to a 90min timeshare promotion in exchange for 8 days and 7 nights in a 1bdr condo. We had full access to the entire resort and they really kept us only 90mins. We did not buy the timeshare, they were only mildly upset, oh well, I told them going in we would listen but had no intention of buying before we even booked and they were fine with that. This condo cost us $310.00 (including resort tax and fees) for the week. I spent hours searching for something in this price range and the only other option for under $400 for the week was a Knight's Inn motel about 15 mins from Disney with no kitchen, just 2 queen beds. Similar accomodations without the timeshare speil would have cost in the neighborhood of $1600 for the week, and to stay on Disney property at the Fort Wilderness Resort to CAMP in my own tent (not fun after spending a day at the park but...) would have cost us $479 before tax! Umm no thanks!
Getting the Tickets: We ordered our tickets through Undercover Tourist. Their tickets include tax (most sites do not) The tickets were our biggest expense, 4 adult and 3 children (adult charge applies to anyone 10 and up) 6 days of tickets were $1400.00. I read lots of sites and compared prices and this was the best price I could find from a company that was reputable and recommended by many (and not just by testimonies on their site!) I was tempted to purchase tickets through ebay - someone goes and has leftover days so they sell the extra days at a reduced price. The problem is two fold - first, you are trusting your vacation to their word that they actually have days left on the ticket (there is no way to find out till you are at the gate - not fun!) second, each ticket is registered to ONE individual with a fingerprint - if the prints don't match the ticket may not be accepted. (only adult tickets require fingerprint accuracy).
How we stretched our Dollars: I purchased cups with neckstraps (see this picture) to see the cups. We used those with single serve flavor packets and water from the water fountains to keep everyone hydrated. At $2.50 per bottle of water in Disney I figure we saved $85 each day by refilling our bottles and not buying water on site! (That math makes me shudder - without preplanning we could have easily drank $510 of water that week! WOW!) I also picked up a *treat* for the kids to get in the morning. Instead of buying autograph books at DW, I picked up a pretty flower notepad and 3 Pirates of the Carribean notepads for the little guys to use to get autographs. ($1 each at Dollar Store) They got those on the first morning (and the kid dressed and ready to go first got first pick! worked great to motivate them to get a move on earlier than normal!) I also got them glow sticks and Disney figurines - for a buck each! The light sticks were great for evenings - everywhere you look someone is selling lightup thingies - we just pulled out ours and saved $15 a kid! I got each one of us (except the teenager who MUST be cool!) a fanny pack. Every morning we packed em with 6-7 snacks for each of us, their autograph books, 3-4 flavor packets for H2O, and a clip on "GigaPet" for entertainment in long lines. My back did not hurt at all! No lugging around everyones stuff, each of us was responsible for our own snacks and water - it was glorious! They really self regulated well, I was concerned they would pig out in the am and be starving by evening, but there was so much to see and do, they only ate as they got hungry. (Btw Preston wore a backpack with his stuff - ya know cool - except his back was aching at the end of the day! Beauty hurts!) We went to the grocery in Fla and got easy non perishable dinners (incase they did not get eaten!) and cereal, milk, and sandwich supplies. We spent $200 on food for our pantry, which is typical for a week at our house anyhoo!
The first day we went to Animal Kingdom. It was great. I will tell of the wonders of the parks later - right now I want to stay focused on stretching dollars. So we had not made it to buy groceries yet, we planned on eating at the park once and then shopping that night. We ordered 7 hotdogs (no chili, no mayo -the only way I LIKE hotdogs...) and a bucket of popcorn for $40.00! Thank God we had our own water!!! Hotdogs and drinks would have set us back a C Note! We did not make that decision again! Each morning we made 14 sandwiches - 7 meat and cheese and 7 peanut butter and jelly (or honey! my favorite!). We ate the meat at lunchtime and the pb in the evening. When we left the part we either headed to a fast food joint (I know - so unhealthy! but we are on vacation  ) or back to the condo for a homemade dinner (ok, Pizza Rolls - but I count it if I dirty a pan!) On eating out we spent $580, which is alot for a week, but we were on vacation and wanted to have fun, and it was in the budget so we went for it! Each day at the park we got the kids a special snack, icecream or funnelcake etc which ran from 10-30 bucks a day. However had we eaten lunch and snacks in the park we would have spent double that or more. Growing boys and all ya know!
We hit Downtown Disney where there is a store called Mickey's Mart, all the souveniers are under $10. The kids wandered around and spent their own money (Grammy had blessed them all with spending money right before we left - they all felt so grown up trying to figure out the best buy for their money - although the poor cashier was a bit harried trying to sort out WHY I would ring up 5 seperate orders!) We stopped at one of the many gift shops on Hwy 192 and picked up Mickey Ts for everyone and a couple of other things - we spent about $200 on souveniers which comes to just about 28 bucks each, not too bad! And the shirts are too cute!
Gas and parking ($11x day) round out the rest of our budget and bring us right at the 3000 mark. Definately this was the priciest vacation we have ever taken, yet the memories are so great. God provided, the weather cooperated and the family got along famously.
So maybe it looks something like this...
Room and Board: $1090.00
Tickets: $1400.00
Essentials and extras: $510.00
Memories to last a lifetime: Priceless!
Andre' with Catherine, Geoffrey, Cuyler and Cade in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground at MGM. | 