2 Weeks to Disney: 10 Things I've Learnt

Time seems to be going quicker and quicker as my trip gets closer. I'm starting to get a bit stressed, as evidenced by the number of times I wake up in the middle of the night from a bad dream. For the most part the dreams aren't related to the holiday, but they're a good indication that I'm a bit anxious. A few months ago my anxieties mainly revolved around whether my plans for the parks would work out, but as the trip gets closer I'm more worried about practicalities - getting through airport security, finding the shuttle to take me to my hotel, and so on. Rationally I'm sure that everything will work out fine, but everything always seems insurmountable in the middle of the night.

Since I've finished outlining my major plans for my trip, I thought this week I'd go through some lessons I've learnt during the planning process.

1. Airlines have frequent and often short-lived specials. I had been checking for specials once a month, and it was only by chance that I happened to come across a special on my long-haul flights that saved me about $700. On the other hand, with my flight from Los Angeles to Boston, once specials started coming out for October I assumed there would be no specials for August, bit the bullet, and booked my flight. I was wrong; there were more specials, and if I'd waited I could have saved over $100.
2. Exchange rates suck. When I started planning the trip I was assuming an exchange rate of 0.80 and thought I was being fairly conservative. Now the official exchange rate is 0.74 and I'll be lucky if the actual exchange rate I end up getting from the bank is 0.70.
3. Double check everything before you book. I thought I had found a great deal at Howard Johnson hotel near Disneyland on Expedia and excitedly booked it. Shortly afterwards I realised that it wasn't the hotel I was thinking of - it was a different Howard Johnson hotel a few kilometres away. Luckily it was a fully refundable rate and easily cancellable online, but I certainly learnt my lesson.
4. Refurbishments will happen. I'm not going to Disney at a peak time, but I'm also not going in the traditional winter refurbishment season. But I have had to change my plans around to fit in two attractions that will be under refurbishment for part of my trip (Haunted Mansion in Disneyland and Living with the Land) and am going to miss out completely on two more (Pirates of the Caribbean in Disney World and Primeval Whirl). The Primeval Whirl refurb in particular was only announced a couple of weeks before it will start.
5. A trip to Disney World requires a lot of planning. I've always done a lot of planning for my Disney trips, but the recent fastpass changes make planning pretty much mandatory. If you have 3 FPPs at fixed times (and maybe an ADR) and want to fit in a few shows or parades that only happen at certain times, you need to do a lot of fiddling to get a plan that works. Otherwise you are going to spend a lot of time crisscrossing the park or waiting around - or you're going to miss out on things you want to do.
6. Plans will change. I have kept multiple versions of my plans so that if I want to look back at what my plans were a few months ago I can. As a result, I have files on my computer with names like Itinerary version 17. I don't regret the number of times I have redone my plans at all - the planning process is fun, and every time I revise my plans I learn something new. But I've learnt not to get attached to any particular aspect of my plans.
7. Moreover, plans will change at the last minute. Last week and the week before I posted my rough plans for the parks, but things have changed just in the last couple of weeks. I shifted a few things around because of the Primeval Whirl refurb. I found a couple of places where I could save some time standing in line by changing the order of attractions. And I decided that when I got to Disneyland the first thing I was going to want to do was probably going to be to walk down Main Street and see the castle.
8. Hard-to-get ADRs are really hard to get. Be Our Guest was booked out for dinner by the time I could make reservations at 6am Orlando time 180 days out. I checked several times a day for several weeks before I finally got a reservation on the day I wanted.
9. FPPs are easier to get than ADRs, but you can't always be fussy about the time. At my 60 day mark, I could get a FPP for any attraction I wanted (although the Anna and Elsa meet was only available on some days). But I often had to change my plans around because I couldn't get the exact time I wanted. I could usually get a time within half an hour of what I was after, so it was only really a problem when I was trying to get a very early FPP (for example in order to ride Rock 'n' Roller Coaster at rope drop and then immediately ride Tower of Terror with FPP) or trying to get two consecutive FPP windows (such as Splash Mountain immediately followed by Big Thunder Mountain).
10. Blog posts take a long time to write. When I started blogging about my trip I had the grand idea that once I was actually away I would write a post every day. But there's no way I will have time to write a post of this length in between my planned time at the parks. So I will need to figure out a plan for posting updates - which will probably be the topic of next week's blog.