At the end of my first post about planning our Disney trip, I compared myself to "Professor Ludwig Von Drake." You know, the scholarly and wizened duck who hosted somewhat educational videos in the 1960s and now makes guest appearances on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I liked the analogy, but after I let it simmer on the Internet for a while, I felt compelled to edit my post. If there's a scale between "Dumbo" and "Professor Von Drake," I've definitely inched away from the "Dumbo" end, but I am definitely not a Professor Von Drake at this point either. I'll be the first to admit that I've got so much to learn, and I've already had more than one humbling experience while planning our trip. So far, I've made three pretty big blunders, which have since been resolved. I'm hoping that sharing them with you might prevent you from making the same mistakes I did if you decide to plan a Disney trip of your own! 

Mistake #1: Buying elements separately vs. buying them as a package.

I mentioned in my previous post that I was encouraged by a Disney cast member (customer service rep) to make our resort reservations as soon as I knew when and where we wanted to stay, so I made our resort reservations almost a year ago (August 2017). At the time, I hadn't figured out our park strategy yet, so I held off on buying tickets. The cast member (CM) assured me that I would be able to buy tickets at any point in the future, so I didn't worry about it.

The time to make our FastPass reservations is approaching, and I know that I need to have park tickets linked to My Disney Experience in order to make the reservations; so, last week, I finally resolved to buy them. I called a CM and purchased base tickets (the cheapest option that does not include the "hopper") for five days. (By the way, Theo, who will have just turned two years old at the time of our stay, is considered "Mickey's Special Guest" and does not need tickets to get into any of the parks.)

The next day, I called a CM again, this time wanting to apply a promotion to the resort reservation I made almost a year ago. [I will expand on this in Mistake #2.] This CM was incredibly helpful and politely asked me why I chose to buy the resort reservations and park tickets separately. She told me that if I bought them as a package, I would have to put less money down (only $200 versus the >$500 + full price of the park tickets I had already fronted) and, more importantly, the park tickets would be refundable if we had to cancel for some reason. (Otherwise, we would be out a lot of money if we had to cancel and couldn't use them.) The CM assured me that she could "fix" my reservation, and I gave her permission to do so. I was on hold for quite a while, and I wondered whether all this switching around of reservations might affect the dining reservations we had worked so hard to secure. I had about seven heart attacks waiting for the CM to return to the line, and she promised me (three times, ha!) that my dining reservations would stay exactly as they were. Sure enough, I received a new confirmation number, we were refunded lots of money, and I had the extra security of knowing that our park tickets were now refundable.

Lesson: If you can, book your resort stay and tickets together as a package.

Mistake #2: Thinking I can apply today's promotion to last year's prices.

When I made our reservations at Beach Club nearly a year ago, I paid full price. Since I was more than a year out from our trip, Disney had not released any promotions that would apply to the dates of our stay... yet. I planned to watch the promotions like a hawk and, as soon as I found a good one, I would retroactively apply it to my reservation. [My favorite resource for finding Disney World promotions is MouseSavers.com.] I was hoping for the Free Dining Package offer, but, unfortunately, it was only offered certain dates, which did not include the dates of our stay. I was really disappointed about this, but I knew that other promotions would come up. [I also read somewhere that a silver lining to not getting free dining is that fewer guests are making dining reservations during your stay, so you have a better chance at snagging the ones you want. Cinderella's Royal Table and Be Our Guest, anyone?] Even though the free dining plan didn't work out for us, I found another offer [The Magical Holidays Package Offer], which would apply to our Disney World trip and give us 20% off our stay at Beach Club! If I could get the promotion applied to my reservation, I calculated we would be saving about $800. That's HUGE! I called up and chatted with a less-helpful CM (remember, their helpfulness varies) who eventually figured out how to apply the offer to our reservation. I asked her how much the savings was, so I could comfort Dan, who is already bemoaning the expense of this trip. She didn't know, but she gave me the new total, and I figured I'd just crunch the numbers when I hung up. I did and was dismayed to find that our savings was only about $100--an eighth of what I was expecting!!

I called up Disney Travel Planning again and told the (different) CM that the savings were much less than what I expected. She did a bit of investigating, and we finally figured out what had happened. I was expecting the 20% discount to be applied to the price of the resort cost when I made the reservation back in August 2017. If I wanted to apply the 20% discount, they had to apply it to the price our resort reservation would cost today. That is, if I want today's discount, I have to apply it to today's prices. And that also tells you how much Disney's prices inflated over 11 months. [Ouch!] I kept the $100 savings... It's better than nothing!

Lesson #1: It really is a good idea to book your stay as soon as you know enough information. Disney prices inflate rapidly!

Lesson #2: When retroactively applying a discount, realize that the discount will apply to today's prices, not what you have previously booked. Depending on when you initially made your reservation, you may not come out much ahead (or at all!).

Mistake #3: Paying almost twice as much as I needed to for plane tickets.

The last time we flew, I was pregnant with Conner, who is now almost 7.5 years old, so that should tell you how "up" on these things I am.

Although we have an airport in our hometown, it does not offer a direct flight to Orlando. We, therefore, opted to fly out of Milwaukee via Southwest Airlines. With four young kids who are thoroughly inexperienced in flying, we feel that direct flights are the way to go. In addition, Disney's Magical Express [the service that picks up our bags from the airport and delivers them to our room at the resort and vice versa when we depart] is only available if we arrive at the Orlando airport.

I've been stalking Southwest's website for months, and the dates of our flights finally opened up. Southwest offers three levels of plane tickets:

1. Wanna Get Away - the cheapest option; non-refundable
2. Anytime - the mid-priced option (although not much less than Business Class), the same features as Wanna Get Away, except the tickets are refundable
3. Business Class - the most expensive option, priority boarding, a complimentary premium drink, refundable

After surviving Sick-ageddon of 2017 (the winter in which we were all ridiculously sick), Dan and I thought it would be wise to buy refundable tickets, so we chose the "Anytime" tickets. The prices were much more than I wanted to pay, but I was confident the price would go down. (According to The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World with Kids, there isn't really a rhyme or reason to when tickets prices increase and decrease; however, there does seem to be a noticeable trend for ticket prices to be at their lowest four months before the departure date and again at two weeks before the departure date.) Well, the anticipated four-month low-price window was supposed to be open, and the ticket prices were still stubbornly high. Sky-high. Frankly, we just can't afford to pay that much.

It suddenly dawned on me that perhaps I had purchased the wrong kind of tickets. I checked in with our friends who had recently gone on their own Disney trip and, sure enough, they had purchased the Wanna Get Away option, which was much more in line with my cost expectations. I hopped on the phone with Southwest, and they very painlessly switched our tickets to the Wanna Get Away variety, and we were credited almost HALF of the original cost.

Now, I have to admit that I was nervous about buying non-refundable tickets. However, while talking to my favorite CM at Disney, I learned that I could purchase travel insurance through Disney for only $77.50/adult. (There is no separate charge for the kids; they're covered under us.) So for $155, every bit of our Disney trip for all six of us is covered--including our flights! DONE AND DONE!

Lesson: Save loads of money by purchasing the Wanna Get Away tickets and travel insurance through Disney.

Have you planned a Disney trip? What lessons did you have to learn the hard way? I keep reminding myself that, even if everything doesn't go perfectly, we're still going to be in "The Happiest Place on Earth," so we'll have a good time no matter what!

See my other post on Disney planning:

Part 1 - A Disney-Dumbo Plans Her First Trip [Onsite or off? How many days? Which parks? Dining reservations and more!]