Airmiles Armchair Chatter

[hdrolfe]

@bababear_50 That Tron news is interesting... and good. I will keep waiting to see what happens but mid-May is looking like the time to go, gives me an extra pay cheque before the trip And also, probably not quite as hot/humid/stormy as late August. I do think that 10 days there, really with travel days it is only 8 full days in the parks, plus the day we arrive we should be able to spend the afternoon/evening in a park, we should be able to do all the things we want to do. I am hoping to avoid getting genie+ but may spring for lightning lanes and possible genie+ at MK once. Trying to budget for that any way! Last time we went it was food and wine, kiddo wants to go back to Epcot and eat at all the little booths, I believe they do something similar for the Flower festival. Oh, and we'll get to ride Guardians, looking forward to that ride as well.

 

[bababear_50]

@bababear_50 That Tron news is interesting... and good. I will keep waiting to see what happens but mid-May is looking like the time to go, gives me an extra pay cheque before the trip And also, probably not quite as hot/humid/stormy as late August. I do think that 10 days there, really with travel days it is only 8 full days in the parks, plus the day we arrive we should be able to spend the afternoon/evening in a park, we should be able to do all the things we want to do. I am hoping to avoid getting genie+ but may spring for lightning lanes and possible genie+ at MK once. Trying to budget for that any way! Last time we went it was food and wine, kiddo wants to go back to Epcot and eat at all the little booths, I believe they do something similar for the Flower festival. Oh, and we'll get to ride Guardians, looking forward to that ride as well.

Yep Epcot Flower & Garden Festival is one of my favorites.
Here is a link to last years ,,, hopefully menus/concerts/activities will be posted for 2023 soon.
Last years were good.
https://www.themouseforless.com/walt-disney-world/planning/events/flower-and-garden-festival/

I just booked a quick get away for next Dec and I am hoping to do a Mickey's Very Merry Christmas type Party and maybe a Top Of The World Lounge Party. (Contemporary Resort)
Paying for Park passes and then having to pay for Genie+ & Lightening Lanes is rough. I wish they would go back to 3 FP+ system.
It's weird// but nice to not have to follow school schedule to travel.

 

[hdrolfe]

Yep Epcot Flower & Garden Festival is one of my favorites.
Here is a link to last years ,,, hopefully menus/concerts/activities will be posted for 2023 soon.
Last years were good.
https://www.themouseforless.com/walt-disney-world/planning/events/flower-and-garden-festival/

I just booked a quick get away for next Dec and I am hoping to do a Mickey's Very Merry Christmas type Party and maybe a Top Of The World Lounge Party.
Paying for Park passes and then having to pay for Genie+ & Lightening Lanes is rough. I wish they would go back to 3 FP+ system.
It's weird// but nice to not have to follow school schedule to travel.

We are cruising out of Port Canaveral in December... still debating what to add to that trip but The Christmas party is on my list Once flights come out and I can get an idea of when would be best to arrive we may get there a day or two before, and stay a few days after. Kiddo is old enough now that he doesn't mind so much missing Christmas morning at home. And thanks for your link! That is very helpful. Kiddo loved the lobster stand at food and wine lol, he's hoping they have that again but I'm just hoping for some different things he will be willing to try.

 

[bababear_50]

We are cruising out of Port Canaveral in December... still debating what to add to that trip but The Christmas party is on my list Once flights come out and I can get an idea of when would be best to arrive we may get there a day or two before, and stay a few days after. Kiddo is old enough now that he doesn't mind so much missing Christmas morning at home. And thanks for your link! That is very helpful. Kiddo loved the lobster stand at food and wine lol, he's hoping they have that again but I'm just hoping for some different things he will be willing to try.

LOL,,,, my sons have never forgiven me for my inability to Cruise. Nope just can't do it.
Their Dad lives on a Sailboat ,,, I tell them I can't even handle 1 hour on a sailboat how am I going to do a Cruise.?
I do admire those that can and all the on board activities sound wonderful.

 

[tinkerone]

LOL,,,, my sons have never forgiven me for my inability to Cruise. Nope just can't do it.
Their Dad lives on a Sailboat ,,, I tell them I can't even handle 1 hour on a sailboat how am I going to do a Cruise.?
I do admire those that can and all the on board activities sound wonderful.

That's what kept me away from cruising for 25 years. I get sea sick just looking at the ocean. We used to go fishing on the lake in a motor boat when I was a child, queasy the whole time. Then a friend convinced me to 'try' a cruise with her and her children. She talked me into it, I figured I would just spend the time in my room lying down.
I'm here to tell you, it was one of the best vacation I had ever been. The only time I felt seasick was when I was in her cabin, which was an inside with no windows. It was to confining and I could feel motion, or at least my brain told me I could. My cabin, which had a balcony, was perfect and I was fine the whole trip. We have since switched to Ocean View as we seldom use the balcony though.
I would never have believed it. Now we cruise much more than we vacation on land. You really should give it a go. You might be surprised.

 

[bababear_50]

That's what kept me away from cruising for 25 years. I get sea sick just looking at the ocean. We used to go fishing on the lake in a motor boat when I was a child, queasy the whole time. Then a friend convinced me to 'try' a cruise with her and her children. She talked me into it, I figured I would just spend the time in my room lying down.
I'm here to tell you, it was one of the best vacation I had ever been. The only time I felt seasick was when I was in her cabin, which was an inside with no windows. It was to confining and I could feel motion, or at least my brain told me I could. My cabin, which had a balcony, was perfect and I was fine the whole trip. We have since switched to Ocean View as we seldom use the balcony though.
I would never have believed it. Now we cruise much more than we vacation on land. You really should give it a go. You might be surprise.

Thanks for sharing Hon.
Hugs Mel

 

[bababear_50]

On Airmiles news
I was able to pick up 75 Airmiles by stocking up on TP & Paper towels (buy 2 get 20 Airmiles) and 3 bags of Crispy Minis( buy 3 bags get 15 Airmiles). Metro
Picked up another 50 Airmiles for a Basic car wash at Shell this morning.
I am hoping for some can veggies with Airmiles attached to them for this week, or at least a small spend offer.

Hugs Mel

 

[Aladora]

Deleted because I think my math was off!

 

[dancin Disney style]

Ok my cruising friends....I have a question. I've joined a couple of FB groups for DCL and for the week we go. What the heck is the obsession with pirate night? It seems to be the daily conversation ...some people say yes we will have one while others say no we will not. DD who has the inside track doesn't even know if there is one. She said there is one this week but after that no one knows. There are people trying to gather a small mob of emailers to let DCL know they are angry. There are people saying that no pirate night will ruin their cruise. Anyway, the FB people are really something. I offered a little bit of info and totally got ripped into.


Aside from that nonsense....I've still not booked my hotels or ordered park tickets. Todays thought is that I will buy a Disney gift card from Metro on Thursday to get the 500 miles on my MC. Then buy my park tickets and book my hotels with AM. Car...still not sure, I have a Costco reservation but I could flip that to AM as well. The quote I got from the personal shopper was a bit of a turn off....4875 for 2 X 1 day MK tickets. I've tried to figure out the best way to minimize OOP costs and miles redeemed but none of it makes much sense at the moment.

 

[hdrolfe]

Ok my cruising friends....I have a question. I've joined a couple of FB groups for DCL and for the week we go. What the heck is the obsession with pirate night? It seems to be the daily conversation ...some people say yes we will have one while others say no we will not. DD who has the inside track doesn't even know if there is one. She said there is one this week but after that no one knows. There are people trying to gather a small mob of emailers to let DCL know they are angry. There are people saying that no pirate night will ruin their cruise. Anyway, the FB people are really something. I offered a little bit of info and totally got ripped into.


Aside from that nonsense....I've still not booked my hotels or ordered park tickets. Todays thought is that I will buy a Disney gift card from Metro on Thursday to get the 500 miles on my MC. Then buy my park tickets and book my hotels with AM. Car...still not sure, I have a Costco reservation but I could flip that to AM as well. The quote I got from the personal shopper was a bit of a turn off....4875 for 2 X 1 day MK tickets. I've tried to figure out the best way to minimize OOP costs and miles redeemed but none of it makes much sense at the moment.

I have not done Disney cruise but when I was planning to do one, Pirate night was a big deal, fireworks at sea, dress up, big party on deck. So I guess if it isn't happening I can kind of see why people are upset? Unless they are doing something else, like I believe they do something else for the Star Wars or Marvel cruises. Some FB groups are touchy, I have joined a few for cruises I've done and have to ignore some of the people. Occasionally there have been group hotel bookings, so you could get a good deal on a hotel or transfers or private excursions. And then exchanges and stuff on the cruise.

That is a lot for 1 day tickets, but not totally unexpected I guess. I hear you on trying to minimize the OOP costs though. Flights, hotel, tickets seem to be it. In my case I've switched over to cash miles to take advantage of a few months to earn some money for gift cards, but if you already have a lot of dream miles it kind of sucks. That is one advantage to the other point plans, like Scene, it's one pool of points, want to redeem towards groceries? great, a trip? fabulous! AM is annoying for having the split. You have to know in advance what you want to earn towards and can't change your mind.

 

[tinkerone]

Ok my cruising friends....I have a question. I've joined a couple of FB groups for DCL and for the week we go. What the heck is the obsession with pirate night? It seems to be the daily conversation ...some people say yes we will have one while others say no we will not. DD who has the inside track doesn't even know if there is one. She said there is one this week but after that no one knows. There are people trying to gather a small mob of emailers to let DCL know they are angry. There are people saying that no pirate night will ruin their cruise. Anyway, the FB people are really something. I offered a little bit of info and totally got ripped into.


Aside from that nonsense....I've still not booked my hotels or ordered park tickets. Todays thought is that I will buy a Disney gift card from Metro on Thursday to get the 500 miles on my MC. Then buy my park tickets and book my hotels with AM. Car...still not sure, I have a Costco reservation but I could flip that to AM as well. The quote I got from the personal shopper was a bit of a turn off....4875 for 2 X 1 day MK tickets. I've tried to figure out the best way to minimize OOP costs and miles redeemed but none of it makes much sense at the moment.

Apparently, this week has a lot of Media on the sailing to help promote PDAS, which is why they are having both a Pixar Day at Sea night and a Pirate night. It's true that no one knows if Pirate night will continue for those sailings going forward. I have seen postings of email from DCL saying yes and another saying no. It's going to be a wait and see situation I believe. More should be known next week I would think.

As to why it is so popular, well, it all comes down to a personal preference. It's always been a big deal, but to me, if you've done it once you've done it. There is a pirate kerchief given with Mickey pirates on it. There is a special 'Pirate Night' menu. There is a deck show with a finale of fireworks. Then they had a Pirate night buffet, which included the large turkey legs and a crepe station. We only ever did the buffet once, it was way to crowded. Not worth the pushing IMO. After the covid debacle, I heard they did away with the buffet, which made sense.
I have seen the FB posts as well. People really aren't happy. It certainly will take nothing away for us, if they don't have it. We are taking our 6 Y.O. grandson and he may have liked it though. People will just lose it over anything now a days. It's entitlement at it's finest.

 

[dancin Disney style]

I have not done Disney cruise but when I was planning to do one, Pirate night was a big deal, fireworks at sea, dress up, big party on deck. So I guess if it isn't happening I can kind of see why people are upset? Unless they are doing something else, like I believe they do something else for the Star Wars or Marvel cruises. Some FB groups are touchy, I have joined a few for cruises I've done and have to ignore some of the people. Occasionally there have been group hotel bookings, so you could get a good deal on a hotel or transfers or private excursions. And then exchanges and stuff on the cruise.

That is a lot for 1 day tickets, but not totally unexpected I guess. I hear you on trying to minimize the OOP costs though. Flights, hotel, tickets seem to be it. In my case I've switched over to cash miles to take advantage of a few months to earn some money for gift cards, but if you already have a lot of dream miles it kind of sucks. That is one advantage to the other point plans, like Scene, it's one pool of points, want to redeem towards groceries? great, a trip? fabulous! AM is annoying for having the split. You have to know in advance what you want to earn towards and can't change your mind.

So the next 9 weeks are Pixar Day at Sea....pretty much the same as Star Wars or Marvel. The big deck party and fireworks etc still take place but on Pixar day.

I've got 60K miles and yet I still hoard the miles rather than spend them.

Apparently, this week has a lot of Media on the sailing to help promote PDAS, which is why they are having both a Pixar Day at Sea night and a Pirate night. It's true that no one knows if Pirate night will continue for those sailings going forward. I have seen postings of email from DCL saying yes and another saying no. It's going to be a wait and see situation I believe. More should be known next week I would think.

As to why it is so popular, well, it all comes down to a personal preference. It's always been a big deal, but to me, if you've done it once you've done it. There is a pirate kerchief given with Mickey pirates on it. There is a special 'Pirate Night' menu. There is a deck show with a finale of fireworks. Then they had a Pirate night buffet, which included the large turkey legs and a crepe station. We only ever did the buffet once, it was way to crowded. Not worth the pushing IMO. After the covid debacle, I heard they did away with the buffet, which made sense.
I have seen the FB posts as well. People really aren't happy. It certainly will take nothing away for us, if they don't have it. We are taking our 6 Y.O. grandson and he may have liked it though. People will just lose it over anything now a days. It's entitlement at it's finest.

DD said there are a ton of Vloggers and that they are really annoying. They cut right in front of people with their cameras. She said no real media that she has seen.

I've also seen many of the copied emails, some saying yes and some saying no to pirate night. My take on it is that the people responding to those emails are just like the people in the call centre. You get a different answer each time you call in. Knowing what I know....outside of the PDAS day nothing else is planned right now. This week they are very much in trial and error mode. Last night was big error night. Her word...chaos. I could care less about pirate night....I've already got 6 of the bandanas. The attitudes of the people in the FB group have actually turned me off about the whole experience. Right at the moment I think we are going to enjoy our trip but have zero interest in going again. If the people on the ship have the same type of attitude I'm not going to like it. LOL....I told that to my mom yesterday and she told me I'm being ridiculous and that's because SHE loves cruising. She also said that I'm probably going to lie to her after I get back about liking it. Ummm, what?

 

[mkmommy]

DisneyLand questions. I have an old Air Miles Disneyland ticket that were never used but expired Dec 2021. Planning on going in November 2023 how can I get these tickets applied to purchase a new ticket?

Also how do you get from LAX to Disneyland ? , I can’t find much current information on transfers. Don’t really want to rent a car.

 

[Donald - my hero]

AKKKK -- just discovered there is in fact a discount that covers our dates and if I split our reservation up, add an extra day at POP and split the POFQ into 2 separate reservations, we can save as much as $800 USD!?!?!?! OR spend the whole time at POFQ and save $380 For some odd reason even though the discount is available at POFQ for an entire stretch of 10 days I need to split it into 6 and 4 nights to get the discount, Disney math at it's finest

 

[hdrolfe]

I've never stayed at either PO resort, but noticed both have discounts during the date frames I was looking at and thought they are often excluded so if you are planning to stay there, I'd look into it. Would be annoying to have to change rooms part way through the stay, I'd almost rather change resorts completely than just rooms in the same place. I'm sure I'd go to the old room at least a few times before remembering we moved But that savings does sound lovely to me. Either one.

 

[Donald - my hero]

I've never stayed at either PO resort, but noticed both have discounts during the date frames I was looking at and thought they are often excluded so if you are planning to stay there, I'd look into it. Would be annoying to have to change rooms part way through the stay, I'd almost rather change resorts completely than just rooms in the same place. I'm sure I'd go to the old room at least a few times before remembering we moved But that savings does sound lovely to me. Either one.

We've pieced reservations together before and so long as it's the same room category, you call to get them linked AND then remind them when you check-in, they're more likely than not to let you stay in the same room to eliminate extra room cleaning. We've done this 4 times, at CBR, Old Key West and twice at POFQ and never been forced to move rooms. Both trips at POFQ were actually 3 separate reservation numbers to get discounts

Looking like this trip will be a bit different than what I mentioned though. Since we were originally planning to spend the first 2 nights at POP before moving to POFQ for the remainder of the trip, we're thinking that we'll spend 3 nights in a standard room and then move to the King room for 2 separate reservations for a total savings of just over $500 USD from what we're currently willing to spend. I'm THRILLED to save any money and stay in the resort for the full trip, it should guarantee the best service possible for my meals.

 

[Donald - my hero]

Final outcome of the switcharoos - I was able to do a straight swap for the POFQ, got all 9 nights in one reservation at the discounted price. Swapped the first 3 nights from POP to POFQ in a king room for a total savings of almost $250 USD ($335 CDN today). Did it all online, no need to call, used a gift card I picked up at Metro to top up the deposit. The whole stay in one room category, in the resort we love and save money while we're at it, I'm so flipping happy!

My tickets finally came from Redtag, I've been back and forth with the personal shopper for the After Hours at the Studios and used the credit from last trip on the After Hours at MK. That means ALL ticket media came from Airmiles and the way we collect them, that made them all FREE (my favourite price)

 

[bababear_50]

Two Thumbs up Hon!
Sounds like you got the Resort you wanted and a great price!
Congratulations !
Hugs Mel

 

[ottawamom]

DisneyLand questions. I have an old Air Miles Disneyland ticket that were never used but expired Dec 2021. Planning on going in November 2023 how can I get these tickets applied to purchase a new ticket?

Also how do you get from LAX to Disneyland ? , I can’t find much current information on transfers. Don’t really want to rent a car.

Are your tickets linked to your Disney account? If so they may be able to apply them over the phone. It used to be that you would have to go to guest services to do it but I think they've evolved since then.

As for LAX to Disneyland there used to be shuttles. Not anymore (I'm still hoping they will come back). There are a number of car services (depending on the size of your party). I got the names of a few to check out from the Disneyland Forum. It's not cheap 150-200 round trip but that's cheaper than renting a car and then having to pay for parking at the hotel.

 

[Aladora]

Are your tickets linked to your Disney account? If so they may be able to apply them over the phone. It used to be that you would have to go to guest services to do it but I think they've evolved since then.

As for LAX to Disneyland there used to be shuttles. Not anymore (I'm still hoping they will come back). There are a number of car services (depending on the size of your party). I got the names of a few to check out from the Disneyland Forum. It's not cheap 150-200 round trip but that's cheaper than renting a car and then having to pay for parking at the hotel.

We have used Lansky's before for USH-DLR and also a few times for SNA-DLR.