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[Swoosh]

Wow some of you guys really get around.

For me, it's all about saving up airline and hotel points and then cashing them in.  I live cheap during the year so that I can play.  With our trip to Ohio and Canada we will be exclusively visiting Cedar Fair parks so we will use our Platinum Passes and dining plan which will help cut down on overall costs. 

The WDW trip in November will has some major comping as I am checking out a couple of performance opportunities for my performing ensembles. 

[chittlins]

Wow some of you guys really get around.

For me, it's all about saving up airline and hotel points and then cashing them in.  I live cheap during the year so that I can play.  With our trip to Ohio and Canada we will be exclusively visiting Cedar Fair parks so we will use our Platinum Passes and dining plan which will help cut down on overall costs. 

The WDW trip in November will has some major comping as I am checking out a couple of performance opportunities for my performing ensembles.

What Swoosh sez about the Cedar Fair Platinum and Six Flags Gold season passes is spot on. Use it to hit up as many parks as you can. The 50 percent off from Herschend is nice but pales in comparison but their list of properties aren't as deep either.

The entertainment at Universal is lackluster for our weekend, Forenier and Fifth Harmony. I'm hoping Busch Gardens saves the day but they have yet to announce their weekend music acts for Food and Wine.


When using points on Southwest,  fly midweek for best value, Sundays are murderous for the points balance.

Our Airfare for our grand month in Europe in 2019 is paid for already. We'll fly free from a variety of sources.
United has certain flights I can get from 30,000 points each way. The Wife and I each signed up for the Chase Sapphire Reserve when it was a 100,000 bonus when introduced. Right now we have over 350,000 Chase UR points amassed from using those cards along with our Freedom cards and their 5% bonus categories. Transfer them all to the Reserve cards and and make the Freedom points worth even more.

Back to using United, if you book an open jaw to Europe using points, they'll give you a intra Europe Leg for free.

One example i've been eyeing is a  a MEM to Rome for 30,000 each that gives us a 13 hr layover in Lisbon during the day, easily giving us 8 hrs to explorer Lisbon and putting us in Rome around 9pm.

The 'freebie' Leg would be on Lufthansa, a United partner, from Venice to Paris with another very generous layover in Munich to explorer the city.

The return back to MEm may include another nice layover.

I don't thin American understand that if you travel light, Flying city to city in Europe is dirt cheap. I've been looking at one way fares for Strasbourg France to either Bordeux or Nantes (Europa Park to Puy du Fou) for under 30 bucks per person. Same about goes for any major city to major city. Travel light to a oid the luggage fees and it is really silly.

We'll book some hotels through Southwest and get points amassed for another run at another companion pass.

[chittlins]

Here's an example of what you can get  for a M to F, 4 nite stay in Rome in June, I've seen some higher cost hotels give upwards of 45,000 points. The beautiful thing about that is that you do not have to use your Southwest Card to pay, I use the Sapphire Reserve that gives me 3x UR points on the price I pay in addition.

[chittlins]

Yippee!!!!!!!! Blank a 3 hour plus wait.

[Swoosh]

The most I ever waited was 1.5hrs for it.  I'd suggest going straight to Na'vi River then since you will not want to wait very long for that short ride

[Tmboote]

How did you manage to get that fast Pass? When I went to Disney from December 29-31, I was surprised how good our fastpasses were. I was reserving with a group of 12 and got Everest, Dinosaur, Safari, Star Tours, Rock N' RollerCoaster, Tower of Terror, Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain and only booked about 2.5 weeks in advance. I expected to get nothing good.

The most I ever waited was 1.5hrs for it.  I'd suggest going straight to Na'vi River then since you will not want to wait very long for that short ride

I was told the River Journey wasn't worth any wait 

We actually didn't even walk through Pandora because we only had about four hours in Animal Kingdom, most of which was spent eating supper or going from fast pass to fast pass.

[Swoosh]

How did you manage to get that fast Pass? When I went to Disney from December 29-31, I was surprised how good our fastpasses were. I was reserving with a group of 12 and got Everest, Dinosaur, Safari, Star Tours, Rock N' RollerCoaster, Tower of Terror, Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain and only booked about 2.5 weeks in advance. I expected to get nothing good.

The most I ever waited was 1.5hrs for it.  I'd suggest going straight to Na'vi River then since you will not want to wait very long for that short ride

I was told the River Journey wasn't worth any wait 

We actually didn't even walk through Pandora because we only had about four hours in Animal Kingdom, most of which was spent eating supper or going from fast pass to fast pass.

If you only got 4 hours in Animal Kingdom then either your director or tour booking guide is absolutely clueless about how to do Disney.  Considering that my choir just performed there at the start of December.  Flew in from KC and still had almost 9 hours at that park.  Shoot we had 7 hours at Studios before our flight out. 

To answer your question on how he got the FP for FOP.  Resort guests not in groups can reserve 60 Days out

[chittlins]

How did you manage to get that fast Pass? When I went to Disney from December 29-31, I was surprised how good our fastpasses were. I was reserving with a group of 12 and got Everest, Dinosaur, Safari, Star Tours, Rock N' RollerCoaster, Tower of Terror, Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain and only booked about 2.5 weeks in advance. I expected to get nothing good.

The most I ever waited was 1.5hrs for it.  I'd suggest going straight to Na'vi River then since you will not want to wait very long for that short ride

I was told the River Journey wasn't worth any wait 

We actually didn't even walk through Pandora because we only had about four hours in Animal Kingdom, most of which was spent eating supper or going from fast pass to fast pass.

If you only got 4 hours in Animal Kingdom then either your director or tour booking guide is absolutely clueless about how to do Disney.  Considering that my choir just performed there at the start of December.  Flew in from KC and still had almost 9 hours at that park.  Shoot we had 7 hours at Studios before our flight out. 

To answer your question on how he got the FP for FOP.  Resort guests not in groups can reserve 60 Days out

That's true, but you have to be ready to pull the trigger exactly at your FP window opening at 7am eastern, 6am central. They changed it from 12 am since my last visit. That cost me some sleep. But anyway, my Animal Kingdom day is 5 days before my single night at Wilderness. My plan was to shoot for AK and the FoP passes as I had been watching how quick the FPs disaapear. I had resigned myself to just doing MK on the Thurs before the cruise thinking that I should hqve just Stayed at AKL instead. I hit the fast pass system right when it opened and there was zero FoP fast passes and I was like D×#! that was instantaneous. I thought oh well, let me check that previous Thursday instead thinking there was no way that Thursday would be availible. Lo and behold, two times popped up and only two times and at the start of night. I snagged the later one. I checked every other day we were in Florida , none to be had. Not even for the Tues of our departure when they came on line. For those that don't know, you can't fast pass both Avatar rides in advance. It's one or another.


For those that don't know, if you now stay at the club level at Disney you can purchase the he right to fast pass 90 days out. For such a PC company, they are all about the 1 percent

[Tmboote]

If you only got 4 hours in Animal Kingdom then either your director or tour booking guide is absolutely clueless about how to do Disney.  Considering that my choir just performed there at the start of December.  Flew in from KC and still had almost 9 hours at that park.  Shoot we had 7 hours at Studios before our flight out. 

It was due to a lack of time. Because we had to take busses, we only had three days to do the parks. We got very little time at Epcot and AK because we did them both in the same day with a workshop in between. We performed at Disney Springs at 11 the next day then were at Hollywood until 10 and we were at Magic Kingdom from 10am-midnight. We still did pretty well at Animal Kingdom for having little time. We ate, saw Bugs Life show, rode Safari, Everest twice, Primeval Whirl, and Dinosaur. I didn't really care how much time we got because I just spent 5 days at the parks in April.

That's true, but you have to be ready to pull the trigger exactly at your FP window opening at 7am eastern, 6am central. They changed it from 12 am since my last visit. That cost me some sleep. But anyway, my Animal Kingdom day is 5 days before my single night at Wilderness. My plan was to shoot for AK and the FoP passes as I had been watching how quick the FPs disaapear. I had resigned myself to just doing MK on the Thurs before the cruise thinking that I should hqve just Stayed at AKL instead. I hit the fast pass system right when it opened and there was zero FoP fast passes and I was like D×#! that was instantaneous. I thought oh well, let me check that previous Thursday instead thinking there was no way that Thursday would be availible. Lo and behold, two times popped up and only two times and at the start of night. I snagged the later one. I checked every other day we were in Florida , none to be had. Not even for the Tues of our departure when they came on line. For those that don't know, you can't fast pass both Avatar rides in advance. It's one or another.


For those that don't know, if you now stay at the club level at Disney you can purchase the he right to fast pass 90 days out. For such a PC company, they are all about the 1 percent

That's how my grandma does it. She stays up and books the fastpasses the second they become available. I wanted to do that but we didn't get our ticket info until a few weeks before, but I got what I wanted anyway.

[Swoosh]

Why would anyone in their right mind take buses from northern Iowa to Orlando?  It would be cheaper to fly (time and money).  It really comes down to how much is your time worth.  Sheesh.  You send the equipment/instruments down in a UHaul and meet it there. 

[Tmboote]

Why would anyone in their right mind take buses from northern Iowa to Orlando?  It would be cheaper to fly (time and money).  It really comes down to how much is your time worth.  Sheesh.  You send the equipment/instruments down in a UHaul and meet it there.

Taking buses cost about $1300/person and flying would've been about $1700. I also couldn't imagine trying to get through airport security with 80 people, many of which have never been to an airport. We also didn't have to bring any percussion instruments so the wind instruments easily fit under the bus and we didn't need a trailer.

[Swoosh]

If that was seriously the price difference - that's a no brainer.  Definitely fly and save almost 40 hours of seat time.  Dang that's crazy to take a bus. 

And not only that, but if you stayed on property you use Magical Express and wouldn't even need to rent a bus

[Tmboote]

If that was seriously the price difference - that's a no brainer.  Definitely fly and save almost 40 hours of seat time.  Dang that's crazy to take a bus. 

And not only that, but if you stayed on property you use Magical Express and wouldn't even need to rent a bus

I think the actual issue was the travel agency originally said $1700 so that's what parents were told but it would've ended up costing more than that and we weren't going to raise the price again. I think most of us would agree that the bus ride was actually a lot of fun though, and way easier than flying would've been. I expected the ride to be about the worst thing ever.

[sirwillow]

The most I ever waited was 1.5hrs for it.  I'd suggest going straight to Na'vi River then since you will not want to wait very long for that short ride

I was told the River Journey wasn't worth any wait 

We actually didn't even walk through Pandora because we only had about four hours in Animal Kingdom, most of which was spent eating supper or going from fast pass to fast pass.

I'd have to disagree with you on River Journey.  Very neat, absolutely gorgeous ride.  Is it worth a long wait?  No.  but I'd wait 30-45 minutes for it.  Only had to wait 15 for my ride (we were there early) and it was more than worth that.  You can see my video of it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSRdzBWZxF0

of course if you haven't seen the movie then you'll miss some of what is going on with the ride.  And the video really doesn't do it justice.

As for 4 hours in DAK?  Really?  The only park you might get away with only 4 hours is Hollywood Studios, and even that's really not appropriate for it.  Thinking that 4 hours is worth visiting any Disney park is really silly- and, IMO a waste of money and time.

personally, as long as you can work in the rest stops and have a place to freshen up before hitting the parks I think the bus ride could be a lot of fun.  I know a number of schools in our area not far from SDC that have done busses down to Disney instead of flying.

[Tmboote]

The most I ever waited was 1.5hrs for it.  I'd suggest going straight to Na'vi River then since you will not want to wait very long for that short ride

I was told the River Journey wasn't worth any wait 

We actually didn't even walk through Pandora because we only had about four hours in Animal Kingdom, most of which was spent eating supper or going from fast pass to fast pass.

I'd have to disagree with you on River Journey.  Very neat, absolutely gorgeous ride.  Is it worth a long wait?  No.  but I'd wait 30-45 minutes for it.  Only had to wait 15 for my ride (we were there early) and it was more than worth that.  You can see my video of it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSRdzBWZxF0

of course if you haven't seen the movie then you'll miss some of what is going on with the ride.  And the video really doesn't do it justice.

As for 4 hours in DAK?  Really?  The only park you might get away with only 4 hours is Hollywood Studios, and even that's really not appropriate for it.  Thinking that 4 hours is worth visiting any Disney park is really silly- and, IMO a waste of money and time.

personally, as long as you can work in the rest stops and have a place to freshen up before hitting the parks I think the bus ride could be a lot of fun.  I know a number of schools in our area not far from SDC that have done busses down to Disney instead of flying.

Ok, I was actually wrong when I said that. I think I actually said to someone who had ridden River Journey that the current wait is 60+ minutes (I don't remember the exact time) and they said it wasn't worth that wait. So I shouldn't have said that it wasn't worth any wait.