Tuesday, March 27, 2012

75 Days and Up All Night!

Today marked 75 days before we board the Disney Dream. I received an e-mail from Disney Cruise Line yesterday reminding me that today I could go online and reserve adult-only dining, the nursery, spa appointments, excursions, and a port arrival time.

But since I am a big researcher, I knew from the message boards that I could actually start doing some of these things at midnight (or actually 12:01 a.m. this morning eastern time) and do the rest of the things at 3 a.m. eastern time. So do you think I was crazy enough to stay up or get up to do those things in the middle of the night??

You betcha!

And I guess the reason I did is because I've read first-hand experiences of people who waited and then couldn't get into the adults-only restaurant (Palo). Or who waited and then got stuck with a late port arrival time (which means less time on the ship the first day).

The first time we went to Disney World with kids (ok, just our oldest in 2008) it was 4 months before our trip and I hadn't made any character dining reservations yet (or any dining reservations yet, for that matter). I remember my sister-in-law telling me that I should do it ASAP because some of the restaurants get booked up 6 months in advance. And I remember thinking, that's crazy, I'm still 4 months away. But when I called, I had a really hard time booking a character meal. Chef Mickey's was completely booked during our entire stay, and we could only get into the Crystal Palace at odd random times during the day (like 3 p.m.). So lesson learned--I now book all Disney-related things as soon in advance as possible.

My middle of the night waiting paid off. We were able to book a dinner at Palo! I cannot wait to try this Italian restaurant. I've heard such good things about the chocolate soufflé.


And we pre-booked 10 hours of nursery time for our youngest. (Our older two have unlimited hours in the kids club--no need to pre-book hours for them). We are planning on having 3 date-night dinners without our kids.


And, we got the earliest port arrival time. WOOT!

3 comments:

  1. Nancy- you're nuts!!! You've got three young kids, I know how precious those sleeping hours are, and yet you stayed up all night to do this! I'm so glad it paid off and you got everything you wanted :) Hopefully you were able to get to bed early tonight :)

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  2. Sorry not nuts and I would have done the same thing.
    Joy

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  3. Good for you! I would have done the exact same thing!

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