Sept 6 - 12, 2012 - Port Orleans French Quarter - The Martin/Bahl Family Trip

[RMartin]

Welcome to my first pre-trip report. Hope everyone enjoys.

Travel Dates: Sept 6 - Sept 12
Travel Method: 6 on American Airlines, 2 on Frontier Airlines, Two Rental Cars
Resort: Port Orleans French Quarter for 5 nights and Old Key West for 1 night
Accommodations: 3 Garden View rooms at POFQ, 2 Studios at OKW
Ages Represented in Group: 12 - 55
Disney Experience: 3 first time visitors, 2 second visitors, 1 3rd visit, 2 5th visit. All Disneyland AP holders and 1 DVC member
Cast of Characters: Rich (31)- 5th Trip - DVC member (telling the story), Miguel (20) - 5th Trip - Rich's Adopted Son, Felipe (12) - 1st trip Miguel's younger brother, Tony (55) - 1st trip - Rich's Dad will be using Dream Scooter, Annita (33) - 3rd Trip - Rich's Sister, David - 2nd Trip - extend family, Dodie - 1st trip - David's wife, Erich - 2nd trip - David's son

This trip started coming together around March. I really wanted to take another trip to the World and decided that I was going to go when Miguel was out of school. He goes to College in Tacoma, Wa now so I only see him when he has time off which is few and far between now. I have had him since he was 12. So I looked at his schedule and saw that September was a good time since he didn't go back to school till the 23rd. I looked at the vacation book at work and blocked the days out. Miguel asked if his younger brother could go with us so I crunched the numbers and figured I could swing it.

The three of us were ready to look into hotel options. Although I am a DVC member I used my points for a trip to Disneyland staying in a two bedroom villa at the Grand. I started looking at packages and noticed the free dining options. I know I wanted the standard plan and not the quick service so I looked at Moderate Resorts. We narrowed our choices to Coranado and POFQ because of the Queen Size beds.

After talking to my sister and my dad they really wanted to go. I told them about the plan and crunched the numbers for them and they decided they could go too. So now we are at 5 for the trip and still plenty of time to find great deals on flights.

My friend David came by and I told him I was going to go back to Disney World and he asked when? I told him the dates and he said that he could go too. Now with his family we are a party of 8.

We went to AAA to see what kind of deals we could get with them but found it was a better deal to just go through Disney. We looked at the two resorts and decided to go with Coranado. We stayed there for a few days my last trip and liked it so figured it would be good. Two weeks after we booked i really thought about it and changed to POFQ because I really want to stay at different hotels on trips. I have stayed at Pop, Saratoga, Coranado, Kidani Village (home). I want to stay at all before judging my favorite.

A few weeks later I started thinking about the Halloween party and started thinking how great it would be to go to Disney Worlds version after going to Disneylands last year and loved it. I started looking at park hours and noticed that the park was scheduled to close at 7 pm on the 11th. I was a little disappointed because we were leaving on the 11th. Then the dates came up and sure enough the first night was the 11th. Oh well not meant to be. Or was it???

The next day I started looking at Airfare to get a gauge on prices so I could start saving. I knew for me I needed to find a flight from SF and from Seattle. I looked on Kyack for prices for Sept 6 -11 and the cost from SF was around $400 and Seattle was $500. Just out of curiosity I checked Sept 6 - 12 for SF. I could not believe my eyes, $260 round trip. I wasn't really prepared to buy now but how could I pass on that. I called David and told him the price and he agreed that we shouldn't wait so we booked 5 tickets leaving on the 6th and coming home on the 12th. I can go to the party. Yes!!!

Now I booked the flight for 5 of us but still needed 3 tickets. 2 from Seattle and 1 from SF. My dad needs a first class ticket because he needs the extra leg room. He is retired so I tell him he deserves it anyways. Well both are still to high so we will wait. So now I had to worry about booking one extra night and getting party tickets. I remembered I had 20 points remaining for DVC so looked to see if I could get anything for that. I saw two options. Animal Kingdom Value Room and Old Key West studio. I could only get Two rooms. I told my dad that we would have to move rooms for one day and he wasn't happy. I told him he could stay in his room if he wanted too and he said that would be easier. My first choice was AK but he only had 1 room so we took OKW. Glad they have two queen beds in the room.

Coming up Still need more flights and dining reservations. Plus a few twist and turns

[relaaxedwheniamthere]

should be a lot cooler in oct

[TulaBelle]

I've gone at this time of year and it's almost like having the place to yourself! Don't forget the waterparks, because it's still plenty hot in Sept. Congratulations on pulling together what sounds like a great family memory in the making.

[TinaMouse]

Good start!

[RMartin]

Hard to believe we are down to 17 days. Update to today. This will be a quick catch up as I have been busy.

About a month went buy I bought the flight from Seatte by bidding on Priceline. They got Frontier Airlines for $150 one way. I had previously bought the one way from Orlando to Seattle on US Airways. I bought this because my dad was worried about traveling alone going home so I got Miguel on the same flight as him going to Arizona and then they would split from there but then we where able to get my dad on American with us for $80 cheaper so luckily his flights where fully refundable. So now we are set on flights.

After reading more and more bad reviews of Via Napoli we finally dropped it and got a lunch reservation at Le Cellar. This will be our last opportunity to not use two dining credits so we figured we better do it.

I got a email from Priceline about a sale on Rental Cars so I tried my luck on a van and got it for $21 a Day from Hertz so now we are set there.

About the 1st week of August I got a little Disney crazy and decided I really wanted to see CarsLand so we took a quick trip down to LA. I just had to get my Disney Fix.

That's about it. Hopefully I will have time to do better reports from the trip. Next Stop Disney World.

[wonderfulshana]

I can't wai tto read about your trip! We are heading down on 9/22 and I just ordered my son's Jake (of the Neverland Pirates) costume last night for the party (we have Capt. Hook but it is just WAY too hot in Sept for that one). Thank you for sharing and I hope that you have a wonderful trip!

[Rockchalker]

Can't wait to read your trip report. We stayed at the POFQ last October and really liked the resort. We had requested building 4 as it was the closest to the main building and the bus stop. We were set to stay there again this year for Christmas, but just moved to POR because of the free dining offer and availability.

[RMartin]

Day 1 - Travel Day

The Martin's for the airport at 2:30 pm to catch our flight to LAX at 5:50 pm. Everything went smooth and we left a few minutes early and arrived in LA at 7:00 pm. Our flight for Orlando was scheduled to leave at 10:05 so we had dinner at the airport at a place that featured wood oven pizza but I can't remember the name of the place.

The Bahl's flight to LA was scheduled to leave SF at 8:05 pm and meet us at 9:30 pm. We are all scheduled on the flight to Orlando. They arrived in LA at about 9:40 pm and ran over two gates to board to Orlando. We where all grateful that everyone made it.

The flight was uneventful and we touched down in Orlando at 5:40 am.

Day 2 - Nap, store stop, pick up Miguel and Felipe from Airport, breakfast at Kona Cafe and dinner at 'Ohana

We went to get our two rental cars after picking up our luggage. The Martin's had to go to Hertz and since I am a gold member the van was right in the front. The Bahl's had to go to Alamo and they got a full size car, a dodge Charger.

We got our cars and headed for Port Orleans - French Quarter. We had never been to this resort and for some reason never got directions to the resort but I knew once we got onto property we would see signs so we just went and see what would happen. I knew it was close to Epcot so went that way. We had no problem following the signs and got to the resort around 7:30 or so.

After traveling all night everyone was beat and having a tough time adjusting to the heat and having a tough time breathing. I don't think I ever realized how the humidity would effect breathing. We where pleased to find that our rooms where ready. The staff was so welcoming and check in was so easy since we checked in online at the ten day mark. We got our luggage and found our way to building 2. We had three rooms all garden views two standard two queens and one handicap accessible two queens. Rich had 2118, Dave had 2119, and Annita had 2139. Everyone was pleased with there rooms.

After settling in we had a 9:30 breakfast reservation for Kona Cafe. We headed that way about 8:45 and arrived at the Poly around 9:10 and where seated right away. All of us ended up ordering the Big Kahuna and everyone enjoyed it. After stuffing ourselves everyone was ready for a nap. We went back to the rooms at about 10:30 and got back to the room around 11. I knew from past visits that I didn't want to sleep long or I would have a really hard time sleeping that night because of the time difference so we agreed we would head to store around 2:30. Plus I had to pick the last two up from the airport at 4:15.

My alarm went off at 2:15 and I jumped into the shower and was ready to go at 2:30. We got to the van and the clouds where looking very dark. As soon as we got to the gate to head out it was pouring. When we got to the store most of the roads where flooded and had standing water. We waited in the car for about 10 minutes at the store but it was letting up so we decided to look for a Wal-Mart instead. We got on interstate 4 and went a few exits before finding the Wal-Mart. Since it was now past 3 we knew we would just kill time there and head to the Airport. We bought cases of water, fruit, snacks, and some ponchos. It was about 3:45 (time can go so fast in Wal-Mart) so we headed towards the airport.

We got to the cellphone lot at about 4:10 and waited to hear from Miguel. Got a text from him at 4:15 said he had arrived. I told him to text me when he got his luggage. Around 4:30 he text me saying they are sitting on the plane and he is not sure why. I told him when they get off to hurry off as we had reservations at 6:20 at 'Ohana. He text me again at 4:45 saying that for some reason they landed in Tampa instead of Orlando. I didn't know what was happening so I called the airline and they said the flight was diverted due to weather and they would leave Tampa at 5:20 and be in Orlando at 5:40. We called Disney Dining and they said we could just wait until 9:50 for open reservation. We knew that was too late so I drove back to the world and told everyone to go head without us.

When they arrived at 'Ohana they asked if we could join them after being sat and they said they could wait until we arrived and sit everyone together. I love how Disney helps when they can. I headed back to Airport at 5:10 and got them at 6:00. I knew it was going to be more than 20 minutes but felt good that we wouldn't be that late to our reservation. We made it to the Poly at 6:40 and where seated right away and had a great dinner. This was the right way to start off the trip. We knew after eating here we would not want to go into any parks. After dinner we drove to FQ and settled in for the night. We knew we where heading to Animal Kingdom at 8:00 am for 9:00 am opening.

[relaaxedwheniamthere]

That is disney service for you