IHG

Disney Cruise

Reagan National Airport
Reagan National Airport
  The time for our Spring Break trip quickly approached.  Our flight would be leaving Reagan National Airport at 6 pm, so we decided to pick the girls up from school so they could get changed and we could head out.  We were going to park at the airport to reduce our travel time there as well as for the trip home since we would be arriving back into Reagan at 11 pm at the end of our trip.  The daily rate to park in the garage is $25 vs the $17 in the economy parking.   We left the house at 3 pm and arrived at Reagan National Airport around 3:45 pm or so.  We pulled into the parking garage and found a spot on the top level.  I always photograph our parking spot so I can find it when we come back (although we’ve never forgotten where we parked). We grabbed all of our bags from the back of the car and headed towards the American Airlines check in line.  The lines weren’t long, so we dropped our bags off, got our boarding passes and quickly went through the TSA Precheck lines.  Since we had about 90 minutes to kill before our flights, we decided to head for the American Airlines Admirals Club.   The Admirals Club in Terminal C at Reagan National Airport is the opposite of exciting.  But it is quiet and out of the crush of people that are usually in the terminal.  We found some seats and went off for some refreshments . Nancy managed to get a beverage while the kids and I went to check out the snack offerings.   There are two different snack offering areas.  One has cookies, brownies, and bananas.   The other snack area has light snacks (cheese, olives, hummus, chips, etc) plus usually some sort of soup.  There is also a coffee machine that will make espresso type drinks as well.   The Admirals Club apparently also started doing made to order guacamole as well, so the girls and I decided to try it out.  We really enjoyed it (and may have made a few return trips).    After our snack and drinks, we decided to head out to the chaos of the terminal.  We were flying out of gate 45, so it was only a short walk.   Our flight was still listed as on time, but the flight before ours at the gate was delayed so the gate area was really congested.  That flight eventually got on its way and our inbound aircraft pulled up to the gate to let people off.  We grabbed some food to eat on the plane so we wouldn’t be hungry once we landed.  We really wanted to get going once we landed, since we had about two hours to drive before getting to the hotel in Florida. One of the best things about flying into or out of Reagan National Airport is the great views of downtown DC that you get.  One of the girls took these two great photos as we took off.  The first shows the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building.   The second shows the mall, the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, the Capitol Building and the White House. Our flight went off without any problems and we were soon landing at Orlando International Airport.  Nancy and the girls went to get the bags and I went to get the car from Alamo.  Last time we used Alamo, I stood in the line for about 45 minutes.  As I approached the line this time, I noticed it was pretty long.  Then, I noticed the self check-in kiosks.  There was no line for them, so I decided to give them a shot.  It took about two minutes to input my driver’s license and credit card information and pull up my reservation (made through costcotravel.com, of course).  Then we were off to pick up the car. I showed our documentation to the assistant in the Alamo area in the garage and they said we could pick any car from the full sized row (which is what we had rented).  Included in the row was several pickup trucks and minivans.  The girls really wanted a minivan for the extra space on the drive to Miami, so we picked one out.  It easily held our luggage plus we had tons of room.  We set up our phones for navigation and were on our way to our hotel around 8:45 pm.   We had moved the hotel from Miami to Stuart, Florida so we wouldn’t have to drive as far after we landed.  We arrived at the hotel about 10:15 or so and checked in.   The two queen bed room wasn’t exciting, but it was comfortable and clean.  We brought in a couple of bags that we needed and got ready for bed.    We got up the next morning and had breakfast at the hotel.  We then headed back out on I-95 south to get to Miami.    We stopped about 45 minutes away from Miami at a Total Wine so Nancy and I could grab some beer for the cruise.   Disney Cruise Line lets you bring two bottles of wine or a six back of beer for each adult.  You can also do this at each port stop.  We probably spent about 30 minutes here and at a nearby Super Target getting some last minute items.   We got to the ship around 10:15 am or so.  As we headed over the bridge to the cruise terminal, we saw the Magic!   We decided to park in the parking garage facing Terminal G.  The Magic was at Terminal F, which is a short walk away.  We had parked in the lot across from Terminal E during our Christmas cruise, but the walking route from the surface lot wasn’t easy to navigate, requiring us to walk through an area where there were a lot of trucks moving around.  The parking garage allowed us to walk down a sidewalk to get to Terminal F.   Here is the view down the sidewalk toward Terminal F.   We dropped our luggage off with the porters (and a tip) and headed to check in!   Once we entered the building, we had to pass through security.  There are two security lines you can choose from.   As you can see, the lines weren’t very long at this point.  It was about 10:30 or so at this point.   Once we cleared security, we headed upstairs to the check in area.  We showed them our passports and received our Key to the World cards and lanyards.  We were given our boarding number as well.     Once we got to the waiting area, we realized that they were already past our boarding group.  We immediately went to board the ship.   We skipped the standard welcome photo since we’ve never purchased any of the photos.  We presented our Key to the World card to get scanned onto the boat and headed on board. Next up, we’ll talk about our first night on board the ship!   Planning | Travel | Boarding | Key West | Nassau | Castaway Cay | Sea Day | Disembarkation   If you have enjoyed this article, please be sure to check out our Disney Cruise Line information page, which has useful hints as well as our cruise trip reports!     read more

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Disney Cruise, Disney Parks, Flight Cost, Hotel Cost, Travel Cost

Planning

The end of the school year is dangerous for us, mainly because it has us thinking about vacations.  Such was the case in May of 2016.  We were still a month or so away from our great Hawaiian vacation and Disney Cruise Line had just announced the fall/winter sailings for 2017.  After scanning through offerings, I noticed a 5-Night Western Caribbean sailing out of Miami on the Magic.  It would leave on December 24, 2017.  The prices were really high, but that’s to be expected with a holiday cruise.  We had a placeholder available from our Spring Break 2016 sailing, but it appeared that this cruise was blocked out from receiving the 10% discount.  This left us having to pay full price for the cruise if we wanted to take it.  The itinerary was one we have done a few times before.  Departing Miami, there would be a sea day, followed by a stop in Cozumel.  The sailing would then have another sea day followed by a stop at Castaway Cay, then return to Miami.

Further complicating the decision was our plans to eventually get Walt Disney World Annual Passes again.  A quick scan of the school calendar showed that school would let out on December 15, 2017 and come back into session on January 2, 2018.  That gave us about 17 days for potential travel.  Surely there was enough time to get in a decent trip to Walt Disney World and a cruise!  Since we had the time, we could even drive down to Florida and save on airfare.  We could drive to Orlando, go to the parks, then drive to Miami, park the car in the port garage for the duration of the cruise, then retrieve the car to return to Orlando for a few days before driving home.  We would save money on flights and rental cars, plus get in a land-sea vacation over Christmas.

The first step was the family discussion.  I had not even completed the words “land and sea” before everyone was on board.  They were not excited about driving down though.  We would also be getting an oceanview room instead of a verandah because of costs, but that didn’t seem to bother them as much.  We would also be staying offsite at Walt Disney World in order to save money.  We had a number of Hilton Honors points that would get us some free nights as well as Hyatt points we could use.

Cruise

The first thing we did was to book the cruise.  Our initial price was $6,034.52, including the trip insurance.  It did not include ground or air transportation since we planned to visit Orlando first and drive to the cruise terminal.  We reserved stateroom 2512, which is on the starboard (right) side of the ship, all the way forward.  This would also be our first time on the Magic!  I would normally have preferred a verandah but those staterooms were $1500 more.  We have sailed in an oceanview stateroom before and found them to be more than acceptable.  We thought we might try to upgrade when arriving at the port, but we would still enjoy the room if upgrades were not available.

Our first change to this plan arrived with Hurricane Matthew.  Hurricane Matthew impacted the Florida area in October of 2016.  Nancy and I had planned a 20th anniversary cruise on the Disney Dream for October 7, 2016.  A couple of days prior to the cruise, we were notified by Disney Cruise Line that it would not take place because of Hurricane Matthew.  We were refunded the entire cost of our cruise, plus an additional 20% off a future cruise if we took it before the end of 2017.  When we found out about the future cruise discount, we reached out to our travel agent to have it applied to the December 2017 cruise.  It was great that we were able to apply this discount, because holiday cruises are ineligible for onboard booking discounts due to blackout dates.  We ended up saving a significant amount of money on this cruise because of it, with savings close to what we had paid for the canceled October cruise.

Transportation

We had originally planned to drive down on this trip to save some money.  The drive from the Washington DC area to the Orlando area takes us about 14 hours with stops for breaks and lunch.  About nine months out, I started thinking about how the drive back up would work out.  We wanted to stay at Disney through New Year’s Eve, so we would only have New Year’s Day for the return drive.  This meant we would be on the road with everyone else that was attempting to get home on that day.  Plus, if we stayed up till midnight, that would mean we would either get a late start on New Year’s Day or we would be tired while driving.

We decided to look for some cheap/free flights to get us down and back to Florida.  We had a 45,000 United miles and a larger number of American miles.  The relatively small number of United miles we’d saved limited us to a free one way flight to or from Jacksonville, which only costs 10,000 miles per person.  We’ve flown into Jacksonville several times in the past and consider it a hidden gem when it comes to Orlando travel.  Luck was on our side as we found some early morning flights leaving Dulles on the morning of December 16 at 8:20 am — the day we’d planned to start our trip.  We would arrive in Jacksonville at 10:21 am, where we could pick up our rental car and head on to Orlando.

I couldn’t find a free flight back, but we did find a flight back from Jacksonville on New Year’s Day for $120 per person, which isn’t too horrible.  The flight left Jacksonville at 2:00 pm and landed in DC at 4:00 pm, which was pretty good.  We wouldn’t have to rush to get to Jacksonville, and would get home relatively early in the day.

We used Costco Travel to get a rental car from the Jacksonville airport.  We kept checking in after we got the reservation and rebooked it several times to get a lower price. 

Walt Disney World Hotel

We would be visiting the parks from December 16 through December 23.  We would have to leave the afternoon of the 23rd to get down to Miami in order to get on the ship on December 24.  Staying onsite was definitely a consideration for the first week we would be there since we we would qualify for a few different specials they were offering.  The problem was that as we got closer to Christmas, the room rates really started climbing.  We had a number of Hilton points saved up, so we decided to use them to stay at the Hampton Inn & Suites Orlando-South Lake Buena Vista, which is right outside the south end of the Disney Resort area.  We have stayed there before and really enjoyed it. 

I know a lot of people enjoy being in the Disney bubble, but it doesn’t bother us too much to stay off property. We already had a rental car because we were coming from Jacksonville and had to drive to Miami for the cruise.  We wouldn’t have to pay for parking at the parks because of our Annual Passes that we activated in the summer.  The rental car also gave us the opportunity to head offsite to pick up snacks and drinks as well as eat some meals outside the parks.

Miami (Pre Cruise) Hotel

We needed to get a room in Miami for our pre-cruise stay.  Fortunately, because of our IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card, we had a free night that we used to book the Intercontinental Miami, one of our favorite places. 

Walt Disney World (Post Cruise) Hotels

Once we got off the ship, we would also need some hotel stays in the Walt Disney World area for the days before New Year’s.  We used our free nights from the Hyatt Credit Card to book two nights at the Hyatt Place Orlando/Lake Buena Vista, which is near Disney Springs. 

New Year’s Eve Hotel

Our final hotel stay of the trip would be for New Year’s Eve.  We knew we could see the New Year’s Eve fireworks at Magic Kingdom on December 30, so we wanted to take advantage of that as well as seeing another park’s NYE fireworks.  We decided to spend New Year’s Eve at Epcot, as we did at the end of 2015.  The only part of the evening that we didn’t enjoy that time was attempting to exit the parking lot at the end of the night.  We didn’t leave the parking lot until 2:30 am.  All the parks pretty much let out at the same time, which really clogs the roads up.  In order to avoid all this, we booked a room at the Dolphin for the evening, paying full price with cash to do so.  The cost was fairly significant (in my eyes) at about $430.  Still, that was a good deal cheaper than the prices for other Disney rooms in the surrounding area (that were in walking distance). 

That completed all the planning for the trip, except for a few minor changes to the flight time or rebooking the rental car to save some money. 

Here are the other parts of the trip:

Planning | Travel | Hollywood Studios | Magic Kingdom | Epcot | Animal Kingdom | WDW Part 2 read more

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Credit Cards, Hotel Cost, Travel, Travel Cost

One of our favorite hotel credit cards is the IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card from Chase, which is affiliated with the InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) family of hotels including Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Candlewood Suites, and other hotel brands.  If you do a lot of paid travel with stays at IHG properties, you can really enhance your paid and free stays with this card.  The card is currently issued as a MasterCard, with a $49 annual fee (the fee for which is currently waived for the first year).

  

One of the greatest benefits of the card is that it gives the card holder Platinum Elite status in the IHG Rewards Club.  Platinum Elite status gives the holder a 50% bonus on base points earned through paid stays and room upgrades, when available, when staying at an IHG property. We have been upgraded many times at IHG properties, including the InterContinental Miami and the Crowne Plaza at Los Angeles International Airport.  You also get priority check in, which can come in handy when the line is long and you just want to get to your room.

The card holder also receives one free anniversary reward night at any hotel within the IHG property group.  That free night can range from a stay at a Holiday Inn Express (normally $79) to a night at an InterContinental that would normally cost $450.  We have used our free stays to stay at the InterContinental Miami (multiple times) and the Holiday Inn Orlando-Disney Springs.  To redeem the anniversary reward, a rewards night booking must be available, and you must have paid the annual fee for the card.  The reward night must be booked within a year of getting it.  We discuss how to book the free night as well, it is very easy.

The card always has a sign up bonus that is available with it, ranging from 60,000 points to 100,000 points for spending $1,000 within the first three months of opening the card.  You will also receive 5,000 bonus points if you have an authorized user get the card and make a purchase with it.  The card also provides you a 10% rebate on all the points you use throughout the year, up to 100,000 points.  This can help you stretch the initial sign up bonus, plus any additional spend you put on the card.

The IHG Rewards Club Select card gives 5 points per dollar for any charge put on the card from an IHG property.  Anything charged to your room will give you this multiplier, including taxes, fees, and dining.  Eating at the on-property restaurant?  Charge that breakfast to your room to earn those extra points.  You will earn 2 points per dollar spent at gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants.  Any other types of spending on your IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card will earn 1 point per dollar, though there are other credit cards that provide better rewards. 

While annual fees can reduce the money you have for travel, the benefits of this card make the annual fee worthwhile.  You can use the anniversary reward night to offset the annual fee.  Additionally, granting of Platinum Elite status, while not the highest IHG status, will still give you some great upgrades and additional points.  Nancy and I both signed up for this card and often use the free nights back to back to get a free weekend!
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