[Caldercup]

<u>The Mid-Point Planning</u>
Frank had some frequent flyer miles on USAir so he handled his own airfare. I got flights for us and also for Dad and Joan’s leg of the trip. (I even managed a layover in Atlanta where my brother lives. He is going to bring his twin boys to the airport so we can all have lunch together!)

When I called the GG coordinators to add my dad and Joan’s room, I remembered to ask about the AAA rate. Wonderful – our nightly rates were down to $140.50 (tax included).

I put together a budget for each family and Joan hosted a lunch to go over the ideas. Donna really wanted a sense of what they could do each day so I made a tentative “touring” plan that outlined, according to the park hours and the events scheduled (Grad Nights, In-line Skating weekend, the 50th press days, etc.) the places that made the most sense to be each day to mitigate any crowd problems.

They were all up for *both* GG events – so we were a go for the safari and the Illuminations dinner. Donna really wanted the Wishes cruise, but even when I called to add Dad and Joan, they were booked solid.

I called and joined Disney’s Dining Experience on March 3rd. I got the e-mail with the expiration of April 30th. As of April 27th, I have yet to receive the cards – even though my credit card has been charged. Ah well, I’ll have to go to the Epcot window and pick up temp cards while we’re on property.

Now I just had to wait for AP rates to come out. Well… they came out and they weren’t very impressive. I had been hoping to wow everyone by halving our nightly rates… but they only came down to $109 a night (or $121.50 with tax). &lt;sigh&gt; It was still a significant savings from rack rate, so they were all impressed nonetheless, but I was bummed.

On March 16th, I called the GG coordinators to pay off the GG events. Oh, my goodness, they’d dropped our reservation because we hadn’t paid yet. I told the CM that my confirmation letter said I had until the 17th to pay and she couldn’t figure out why it had been dropped. She started digging around and was able to recreate both events for us and I paid them off – phew, that was close!

Blithely, I asked if there had been any Wishes cruises added for the time we were there. She started looking around with no luck and then asked me if it was okay to put me on hold. (I think she wanted to make up for the “dropped” reservation fiasco and was willing to go the extra mile.) After about ten minutes of my listening to crackling “hold music,” she came back on the line and said she didn’t have room for 10, but that there was *some* availability on Sunday, May 1st for a smaller party. Ooooh, we didn’t need 10, we only needed 8 because Dad and Joan wouldn’t be in Florida on the 1st. Zowie, she had exactly 8 spaces and, suddenly, we were booked for a Wishes Cruise!!! I had hoped to keep this a surprise, but she already sent our payment to the computer and Donna would receive a notification that they were on the cruise. Ah, well…. I probably couldn’t have kept the surprise since I stink at that!

Phew… this planning stuff can be stressful!

&lt;more to come&gt;