More Vacation Planning!

What a fantastic week!

As our DREAM cruise gets closer (35 days til we fly down, and 37 til we board the Disney Dream) I have been getting more and more excited. But also a little sad since I didn't have the next trip planned. Mom has Allure of the Seas booked for later this year...so she still had something in the works.

Then on Sunday I get a text from mom "Want to go on the Fantasy with the Nelsons on 4/21/12?"

Um...HECK yeah!

See, our Dream cruise is only 4 nights. The shortest Disney cruise we've done (shortest any cruise for that matter). Being a new ship, we've really been struggling with having so little time on the new (40% larger) Disney Dream.

We'd also been kind of talking with our friends from our Magic 2008 cruise about needing to all do a 7 day together on the Fantasy in 2012. So, I promptly messaged them about our potential plans.

This was Sunday. Mom and I talked more Monday. We were both swamped this week..so she said she'd call member services on Friday. Then Tuesday morning (after a HORRIBLE 4 hour drive in terrible road conditions) I get a text that we were booked! Disney Vacation Club cabins have been getting limited since they are only allowed a certain % of each sailing and mom didn't want to miss our opportunity so she went ahead and booked.

Our first 3 DCL cruises we did a Deluxe Stateroom with Veranda, and always on Deck 7. After having chain smoking neighbors on cruise 3 prevented us from using our veranda we opted for an ocean view down on deck 2. Was nice to still see outside, and deck 2 midship was a surprisingly convenient location. Our upcoming DREAM cruise we are in a deluxe INSIDE. Because that cruise is with the WDW Radio Show Podcast it had to be booked using cash (and not DVC points like we usually do). And I was super stressed about money at the time, so we went inside Deluxe (Plus we get to have a cool virtual porthole then!). For the Fantasy our plan was to shoot for a Deluxe Ocean again. But due to DVC availability they were gone (as were the inside deluxe). So instead, we're in a FAMILY Deluxe Ocean. its going to be HUG! you know, relatively speaking.

Okay, so that is exciting Disney Vacation number 1. 456 days until that one.

Now onto Disney vacation number 2! Mom and I had been talking about trying to go to Disney late this year to see holiday decorations. See, growing up, we ALWAYS went late Nov/early Dec. But its been probably 15 years since we've been at Disney for holidays. So before the Osborne Family lights moved from residential street and the Castle got its holiday light overlay. That said, with booking Fantasy, we are using all of that use years points for the cruise - leaving nothing left for a holiday stay this year.

So mom proposed, we plan our holiday trip for 2012 instead - and then we can make it a full week (we were only going to have a few days over thanksgiving this year since she has planned all her vacation days already). We were toying with either going the week of my 35th birthday, or going down thanksgiving day. Either way staying 9-10 days. I ran the points analysis yesterday and we decided on my birthday week. So....I get to celebrate my 35th birthday at WDW. The first time I'll ever celebrate my birthday there! its way to early for us to book at this point, but we're hoping to do a 1 bedroom at Bay Lake Tower. we like the idea of it having two bathrooms and being able to do laundry so we can pack super light!

So...659 days until that trip.

Yay!!!!!!!!!! Now I have two more disney trips to plan for after the Dream!