perditax
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2015
Okay, it's not really secret.
My user name comes from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. I'm not really named Perdita.
I know there’s a right way and a wrong way to do these things and I’ll probably be doing it wrong.
Timeline:
1980s-early 2000s: Grew up in Florida during the Epcot and WDW boom. Many many trips, but not a Disney fanatic per se.
Mid-2000s: Left Florida with a sigh, vowing never to return. (Long stories.)
Mid-2010s: Got over a lifelong fear of flying. Started traveling. Financial/career situation improved, mostly ‘cause I am now oldish and have been working in the same field a long time. Got divorced. Obtained new boyfriend. He’s not so new now, but still around. We will call him BF.
2013, 2014: Vacations in New Orleans (we like food and live music).
2015: Had enough of New Orleans. We’re kind of stumped as to where to go next. We have the money to travel but we’re both pretty … untravelled. I’m not ready for anything long/adventurous, not sure I’m up for multi-hour flights so West Coast/Vegas/Europe is out. New York still seems imposing. I randomly suggest we could spend a weekend in Orlando since I know it like the back of my hand (used to live there in fact) and BF has never been.
Jan 2015: Start planning. Find the Disboards, which I remember from when I used to go to Disney a lot (90s/early 2000s). A ‘lounge around in the hotel’ weekend turns into ‘…and go to MK’. While I start reading on Disboards, I come across lots and lots of cruise posts. (I like to attack forums by clicking “New Posts” and reading everything everywhere.) Cruising sounds appealing. In fact it begins to sound more appealing than WDW itself.
Feb 16 2015: After weeks of reading, have pulled the trigger and booked our first cruise, Sept 14 on the Dream, 4-night Bahamas. Oh God! What have I done? Buy lots of DCL cruise guidebooks.
Feb 27 2015: The previously arranged trip to WDW. Not an unqualified success; it’s crowded and rainy and far more walking than I even remember. However, BF assures me that I was way more stressed than he was, and that we should go ahead with the cruise. Return from trip and immediately go back to reading about cruises.
First week of March 2015: Spend most of it sick (the guy on the plane next to me to Orlando was hacking and coughing), and reading about cruises. Agonize a bit over whether we should cruise DCL or try RCCL or HAL or something. Read lots of trip reports for other cruise lines. Nothing seems ‘perfect’ for us (no kids and enjoy quiet; we both get a bit queasy in very large crowds). But DCL seems to be at the top of reviews even on non-Disney-centric forums. Read some more DCL trip reports, including a couple of Concierge-specific reports. Hmm, this concierge thing sounds nice: skip a few lines, rooms are close to the adults-only areas (which we plan to utilize a lot), concierge lounge nearby to fulfill our frequent caffeine requirements, a complimentary internet service perk, and a few other items that seem appealing. We’d stayed CL at AKL for the weekend trip, but the lounge there was crowded, a very long walk from the room, and frequently understocked. Trip reports about DCL don’t mention these problems.
March 8 2015: Log onto DCL site for thousandth time, only this time I click on the ‘Concierge’ rooms. One of the cat V00 rooms available is … one of the famous ‘bump-out’ verandah rooms. On deck 12 (same deck as the CL lounge). On starboard side (which I hear is frequently the side with a nice view of CC).
!!! What to do !!!
I think about it for a few hours. Finally, at the end of the evening, I decide to go for it. Except … disaster! The room is no longer available. This is the part where I find out that if you click around on DCL’s site, even without making a reservation, you can temporarily take the room out of availability. Well, I don’t figure it out at that exact moment; instead I spend some time watching it appear and disappear, and being unable to do anything about it because my trip is through Costco. But by the next morning, a Costco TA has (despite my clicking and meddling) managed, with the help of a Disney rep, to upgrade my prior deck 7 cat 4C (I think) to a deck 12 cat v00, the exact room I wanted!
…and since Concierge deposits are non-refundable, we are now *really* committed (barring disaster). And I’ve bought trip insurance.
So: I love to research. Love love love it. Not so much into super-granular planning the way some people are (other than things like restaurant reservations), but I get hooked on a topic and then spend weeks on it. Since I’m in the middle of that now, I figured I’d use this thread to list interesting info I’ve discovered, link cool TRs I’ve found, discuss stuff I’m thinking of buying for the trip (clothing/luggage/etc), recommend books and podcasts, that sort of thing.
In short, it’ll be more of a (b)log of my obsessive tendencies (and a way to keep me from overloading BF with details) than a traditional PTR.
My user name comes from Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. I'm not really named Perdita.
I know there’s a right way and a wrong way to do these things and I’ll probably be doing it wrong.
Timeline:
1980s-early 2000s: Grew up in Florida during the Epcot and WDW boom. Many many trips, but not a Disney fanatic per se.
Mid-2000s: Left Florida with a sigh, vowing never to return. (Long stories.)
Mid-2010s: Got over a lifelong fear of flying. Started traveling. Financial/career situation improved, mostly ‘cause I am now oldish and have been working in the same field a long time. Got divorced. Obtained new boyfriend. He’s not so new now, but still around. We will call him BF.
2013, 2014: Vacations in New Orleans (we like food and live music).
2015: Had enough of New Orleans. We’re kind of stumped as to where to go next. We have the money to travel but we’re both pretty … untravelled. I’m not ready for anything long/adventurous, not sure I’m up for multi-hour flights so West Coast/Vegas/Europe is out. New York still seems imposing. I randomly suggest we could spend a weekend in Orlando since I know it like the back of my hand (used to live there in fact) and BF has never been.
Jan 2015: Start planning. Find the Disboards, which I remember from when I used to go to Disney a lot (90s/early 2000s). A ‘lounge around in the hotel’ weekend turns into ‘…and go to MK’. While I start reading on Disboards, I come across lots and lots of cruise posts. (I like to attack forums by clicking “New Posts” and reading everything everywhere.) Cruising sounds appealing. In fact it begins to sound more appealing than WDW itself.
Feb 16 2015: After weeks of reading, have pulled the trigger and booked our first cruise, Sept 14 on the Dream, 4-night Bahamas. Oh God! What have I done? Buy lots of DCL cruise guidebooks.
Feb 27 2015: The previously arranged trip to WDW. Not an unqualified success; it’s crowded and rainy and far more walking than I even remember. However, BF assures me that I was way more stressed than he was, and that we should go ahead with the cruise. Return from trip and immediately go back to reading about cruises.
First week of March 2015: Spend most of it sick (the guy on the plane next to me to Orlando was hacking and coughing), and reading about cruises. Agonize a bit over whether we should cruise DCL or try RCCL or HAL or something. Read lots of trip reports for other cruise lines. Nothing seems ‘perfect’ for us (no kids and enjoy quiet; we both get a bit queasy in very large crowds). But DCL seems to be at the top of reviews even on non-Disney-centric forums. Read some more DCL trip reports, including a couple of Concierge-specific reports. Hmm, this concierge thing sounds nice: skip a few lines, rooms are close to the adults-only areas (which we plan to utilize a lot), concierge lounge nearby to fulfill our frequent caffeine requirements, a complimentary internet service perk, and a few other items that seem appealing. We’d stayed CL at AKL for the weekend trip, but the lounge there was crowded, a very long walk from the room, and frequently understocked. Trip reports about DCL don’t mention these problems.
March 8 2015: Log onto DCL site for thousandth time, only this time I click on the ‘Concierge’ rooms. One of the cat V00 rooms available is … one of the famous ‘bump-out’ verandah rooms. On deck 12 (same deck as the CL lounge). On starboard side (which I hear is frequently the side with a nice view of CC).
!!! What to do !!!
I think about it for a few hours. Finally, at the end of the evening, I decide to go for it. Except … disaster! The room is no longer available. This is the part where I find out that if you click around on DCL’s site, even without making a reservation, you can temporarily take the room out of availability. Well, I don’t figure it out at that exact moment; instead I spend some time watching it appear and disappear, and being unable to do anything about it because my trip is through Costco. But by the next morning, a Costco TA has (despite my clicking and meddling) managed, with the help of a Disney rep, to upgrade my prior deck 7 cat 4C (I think) to a deck 12 cat v00, the exact room I wanted!
…and since Concierge deposits are non-refundable, we are now *really* committed (barring disaster). And I’ve bought trip insurance.
So: I love to research. Love love love it. Not so much into super-granular planning the way some people are (other than things like restaurant reservations), but I get hooked on a topic and then spend weeks on it. Since I’m in the middle of that now, I figured I’d use this thread to list interesting info I’ve discovered, link cool TRs I’ve found, discuss stuff I’m thinking of buying for the trip (clothing/luggage/etc), recommend books and podcasts, that sort of thing.
In short, it’ll be more of a (b)log of my obsessive tendencies (and a way to keep me from overloading BF with details) than a traditional PTR.
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