wow thanks heaps thats a lot of stuff
we have purchase accom (boardwalk) and magic your way package and we paid full price
ok so ill have to keep an eye on the discounts section
Discounts have historically been either a % discount off your room or Free Dining. Disney have also offered a Gift Card (up to about $750) and Kids Play for Free i.e., the kid park ticket is free; in the past. You can only apply ONE discount per booking. What this means is that you need to work out which discount is best for you and the family.
The BW should qualify for the highest % room discount, which historically has been about 40%.
Free Dining will save you about $50 per adult per night.
If you are obsessive compulsive like me, you'll be running spreadsheets soon to work out which discount is better for you. I'm outing myself here but my spreadsheets also include the dishes the family would be eating per meal! But I don't recommend that you get down to that level of obsession
I do have a few newbie questions if anyone can help me with them
when we get off the ship it will be a sunday morning at around 9am
the plan was/is to then hire a car somewhere (at fort lauderdale)
and drive up to disneyworld in time for check in (we are guessing 2 to 3 hrs drive ??) but really we dont have a clue
A number of us have driven from Miami up to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale isn't that far from Miami. I would allocate about 4 - 5 hours drive for this; more if you plan to stop and sightsee along the way. I've found Alamo to be the cheapest in Florida; but other Aussies have different preferences. It all boils down to the deals the offer at the time. The additional benefit of going with Alamo (or Hertz) is that you can drop off the car on-site within WDW (either at the Swan/Dolphin, which is next door to the BWI or at the car rental site...and they will provide a free drop off back to BWI).
dont really know what order we will be doing things after that, all i know is my wife wants to take the kids for a character breakfast
You have lots of time to plan. There are a number of character breakfast spots; Tusker House seeming to be a favourite on the Aussie section because you can get into Animal Kingdom (AK) park early with an early ADR booking and also because the food is pretty good there. I also like Cape May at the Beach Club; which is about 5 - 10 minutes walk from the BWI. And after breakfast, it also is about 5 minutes away from the International Gateway entrance to Epcot or a short boatride to Hollywood Studios (DHS or HS).
other foods we enjoy are mexican, quality burgers, indian, italian and of course chocolate
Epcot has a fantastic range of counter service and table service places. Indian is a little bit difficult to get in WDW.
sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
after we finish at disneyworld we are then going to universal where we have booked at one of the 4 star hotels that are onsite
how are we gonna get from disneyworld to universal ?
as of yet, no idea, still trying to figure it out
travel from universal to seaworld, once again, no idea ?, we will prolly just stay local somewhere near seaworld.
Depending on whether you are keeping the rental car for the duration, you could drive yourself from BWI to Universal or SeaWorld. The alternative is to catch the Mears Shuttle service or organise a taxi/hire car for this. It depends on how many people there are in your party and whether you plan on keeping the hire car or not.
its a huge trip and the value of the dollar is certainly helping
we are not rich and have been saving for ages to do it and do it in style
from what i have read, everyone seems to fly to LA then across to florida (miami in our case as Kennedy is first followed by the ship)
Some of us fly straight to Orlando/Miami with a short layover either in LA or San Francisco. Depending on whether you are travelling with kids; you might want to consider breaking the trip up in either LA or SF to recover from the long haul. Just depends on what you want to do.
we are budgeting about 15K spending money and will prolly post some stuff home so we dont get caught overweight at the airport
all help and advice appreciated