Hill Family Happenings: We're going to Disney. Now what?

So now that we've decided that we're going to celebrate our anniversary in Disney World, we have to plan. For us, we like to plan for about a year. Yes, you read that right, a year. We now only have several months to plan. You see, we're not actually going on our 10 year anniversary because both kids will be in school. Our anniversary is in January. So we decided to celebrate it this summer. But I'm not panicked. this is our 6th Disney trip we've planned so we have a pretty good idea what works for us and what doesn't.

The first thing we do is decide on a resort. This seems simple enough but for us it can get rather complicated. Why? Because we like to stay at the deluxe resorts at Disney but sometimes don't want to pay the money for them so we try to plan staying at a value or moderate resort.

Disney categorizes their resorts into three categories:

1. Value - least expensive, not as many perks, no balconies, LOTS of people, full sized beds, no restaurants at the resort (although they do have food courts), and the have the smallest rooms.

2. Moderate - In the middle as far as price goes, no balconies, slightly larger rooms than values, have a restaurant at the resort, still only have full sized beds.
3. Deluxe - largest rooms on the Disney property, largest price tag, most have balconies, have nice restaurants at the resorts and some have access to the monorail.

One trip we had planned to stay at the All Star Movies (a value), changed our mind along the way to Coronado Springs (a moderate), changed again to the Wilderness Lodge (a lower deluxe) and then finally decided on Polynesian (a deluxe resort that has monorail access). I know, we have issues. This is why perhaps having less time to plan means we won't be able to change our minds as much.

So we just decided that since this is for our anniversary, we'd go all out and stay at the Polynesian again. So this hasn't bee to hard of a decision this time.

The next thing we start trying to figure out is what parks we want to go to on which days. If you stay at a Disney Hotel, there are certain days you can go to certain parks early or stay late. We try to take advantage of the early entry days but don't like to go to the parks that are open late. Just our personal preference. As of right now, we've figure those days out and have made a tentative schedule.

Then comes my favorite part. Where to eat!!!! Momma likes to eat! To figure out where we want to eat, we make a calendar that specifies the days we're going, what park we'll be at on those days, and then we decide where we want to dine. For lunches we usually eat at a counter service (burgers, fries, pizza, sandwiches, etc.). For dinners we usually go to a sit down restaurant.

Here's what our schedule looks like:

Not written very neatly but it's just a rough sketch.

There's my Chef Mickey's!!

This is where we're going for our anniversary dinner. It's at the top of the Contemporary resort. There are windows that look out on Magic Kingdom and we'll see the night time fireworks while we dine. :^)

This was a little surprise from Mike. Notice Kona is crossed out. Kona is at the Polynesian where we're staying, but Mike decided to see if they had anything available for Cinderella's Royal Table (CRT). They did, so we are having dinner at the castle!! Good job Mike!