Debt Dumpers - 2018

You'll definitely have to report back on your Disneyland trip! I'm especially interested to hear about the hotel del coronado in San Diego. The hotel looks amazing, but it's a little out of my price range. If you'll have a car at all and you're coffee drinkers, Roasting Water is an amazing local coffee place that serves almost all their drinks in either decorate glass or plastic bottles. Their bottles change quite frequently. They are amazing! https://www.roastingwater.com/ You can check out their facebook page for some of the bottles they've offered.
Thank you for the suggestion! As for the Del, I would skip it, but hubby is insisting since we stay at the GF each year. Grand Floridian is based off of the Hotel Del Coronado. To make it more affordable, I plan to use an AMEX offer-$45 off any $250 or more Hilton Curio Collection booking. AAA rates are hovering around $322 a night plus resort fee of $35. The Amex offer makes it around $350 a night, so not too bad. I also won't be paying for airfare and the hotel was severely discounted by using points. This helps us to be able to afford the splurge. The trip being a year out also helps very much as I can pay for different segments of the trip over time.
 
No debt dumping going on here, sadly, as we bought our MNSSHP tickets a few days ago for our August WDW trip and I’m getting ready to purchase 5 day Disneyland tickets (for next year) to the tune of $1100 for the 4 of us . I also budgeted to stay one night at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego for Easter. Thank you pblack for your help in choosing a Disneyland place to stay. I found cash plus points availability at the Hyatt House Anaheim Resort so went with it. 6,000 points plus $75 a day instead of $558 a night was an easy choice to make. So excited as we’ve never done Disneyland. I plan to use JetBlue points to fly into Long Beach. We will likely fly to Vegas to spend 3 nights there before we fly back home.

On the debt dumping front, we paid extra on the solar loan, so we don’t owe on that until May. We’ve also had a ton of irregular expenses like summer camp and car insurance to pay these past few months. Should be able to start saving again next month.
I LOVE DL! Even better than WDW. Everything is so close, in proximity. And POTC and IASW are both 100% better in the original versions. Park hopping is literally a sidewalk away.
 
I LOVE DL! Even better than WDW. Everything is so close, in proximity. And POTC and IASW are both 100% better in the original versions. Park hopping is literally a sidewalk away.
I thought about buying parkhoppers but with a 5 day ticket, I don't think we will need to "hop". Am I wrong? I'm thinking 3 days Disneyland and 2 days California Adventure. Any feedback on this plan? The 5 day 1 park per day ticket is only a tiny bit more than the 3 day PH.
 
I thought about buying parkhoppers but with a 5 day ticket, I don't think we will need to "hop". Am I wrong? I'm thinking 3 days Disneyland and 2 days California Adventure. Any feedback on this plan? The 5 day 1 park per day ticket is only a tiny bit more than the 3 day PH.
I would recommend a park hopper. The parks are seperated by less than football field of space.
 


I thought about buying parkhoppers but with a 5 day ticket, I don't think we will need to "hop". Am I wrong? I'm thinking 3 days Disneyland and 2 days California Adventure. Any feedback on this plan? The 5 day 1 park per day ticket is only a tiny bit more than the 3 day PH.

I won't even pretend to be a DL expert for a second, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think 3 day PH would be sufficient unless your kids are dying to meet every single character and you want to eat table service for every single meal. DH and I did one day at DL (no CA Adventure) and even on a Star Wars Marathon weekend I can say that we comfortably fit in everything we wanted to do. I think we rode everything but Splash Mountain (in January) and The Haunted Mansion (closed). And yes, CA Adventure is less than a football field away. DH and I couldn't believe how close they were. You can very easily park hop there. Up to you though, your family may want to take more time, but I know even with a lengthy sit down lunch we still were very happy with how much we accomplished!
 
So 3 day PH over a 5 day 1 P per day is best?

We got 4 day park hoppers for our DL trip. I was originally going to just get a non-hopper ticket, but everyone recommended getting the hoppers. I am glad that I listened. We went often between the parks each day depending on the wait times and restaurants. And as first timers, we didn't get absolutely everything completed in 4 days. Mostly everything.
 


I won't even pretend to be a DL expert for a second, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think 3 day PH would be sufficient unless your kids are dying to meet every single character and you want to eat table service for every single meal. DH and I did one day at DL (no CA Adventure) and even on a Star Wars Marathon weekend I can say that we comfortably fit in everything we wanted to do. I think we rode everything but Splash Mountain (in January) and The Haunted Mansion (closed). And yes, CA Adventure is less than a football field away. DH and I couldn't believe how close they were. You can very easily park hop there. Up to you though, your family may want to take more time, but I know even with a lengthy sit down lunch we still were very happy with how much we accomplished!
Thank you for sharing. I was thinking with the extra days we could go at a much more leisurely pace. In fact, we could go to a park in the evening just for the fireworks on one of the extra days and head to Los Angeles during the day or to Long Beach to check out the Aquarium of the Pacific. DH has a cousin in Corona and I have a cousin in Pasadena, so we wanted the flexibility a longer ticket would provide. I'll have to see. We are very efficient though and never buy PH's at WDW and still manage to do a ton each year.
 
We got 4 day park hoppers for our DL trip. I was originally going to just get a non-hopper ticket, but everyone recommended getting the hoppers. I am glad that I listened. We went often between the parks each day depending on the wait times and restaurants. And as first timers, we didn't get absolutely everything completed in 4 days. Mostly everything.
Thanks for the feedback, Jen. I appreciate it. It seems like PH is the way to go.
 
Thank you for sharing. I was thinking with the extra days we could go at a much more leisurely pace. In fact, we could go to a park in the evening just for the fireworks on one of the extra days and head to Los Angeles during the day or to Long Beach to check out the Aquarium of the Pacific. DH has a cousin in Corona and I have a cousin in Pasadena, so we wanted the flexibility a longer ticket would provide. I'll have to see. We are very efficient though and never buy PH's at WDW and still manage to do a ton each year.

Yeah, if the PH aren't much difference in price from just the one-park 5 day ticket and you're looking for that kind of flexibility to drop in in the evening, then I certainly wouldn't blame you for keeping the 5 day ticket. I would not go back and change our 1 day plans at DL, but if we had 2 days I might have gotten the PH just because it is SO easy to hop there. No buses or monorails or anything!
 
Thank you for sharing. I was thinking with the extra days we could go at a much more leisurely pace. In fact, we could go to a park in the evening just for the fireworks on one of the extra days and head to Los Angeles during the day or to Long Beach to check out the Aquarium of the Pacific. DH has a cousin in Corona and I have a cousin in Pasadena, so we wanted the flexibility a longer ticket would provide. I'll have to see. We are very efficient though and never buy PH's at WDW and still manage to do a ton each year.
I actually DON'T parkhop. Shocker, right? I can spend an entire day in each park and save that money to use on food or whatever. But, I also turn left at the end of Main Street, while the crowd turns left. I've never had a bad day of single park days. Plus, on the down times, I like to look into shops or look for hidden Mickeys.

*edit* I know PH adds about $40/day per ticket, right? That adds up quick*
 
I actually DON'T parkhop. Shocker, right? I can spend an entire day in each park and save that money to use on food or whatever. But, I also turn left at the end of Main Street, while the crowd turns left. I've never had a bad day of single park days. Plus, on the down times, I like to look into shops or look for hidden Mickeys.

*edit* I know PH adds about $40/day per ticket, right? That adds up quick*
Yes, it does. I'm like you, longer ticket any day instead of hopping. But for Disneyland, since they are in such close proximity, it may make sense to PH. Decisions, decisions. I'm going to hold off on purchasing our tickets for awhile since any potential price increase should be aways off (they JUST increased prices in February).
 
Yeah, if the PH aren't much difference in price from just the one-park 5 day ticket and you're looking for that kind of flexibility to drop in in the evening, then I certainly wouldn't blame you for keeping the 5 day ticket. I would not go back and change our 1 day plans at DL, but if we had 2 days I might have gotten the PH just because it is SO easy to hop there. No buses or monorails or anything!
That's what I hear. You literally walk next door. The other thing I need to consider is that Spring Break crowds may be out in full force when we go. Southern California AP's are blocked during the time we plan to go, however, so that should help a bit with the crowds. I'm going to hang out on the Disneyland forums in order to do my research properly.
 
That's what I hear. You literally walk next door. The other thing I need to consider is that Spring Break crowds may be out in full force when we go. Southern California AP's are blocked during the time we plan to go, however, so that should help a bit with the crowds. I'm going to hang out on the Disneyland forums in order to do my research properly.
What are your dates? And once you are in the esplanade you turn one way to go to one park and the other direction for the other. You can be from one park into the other in less than 5 minutes.
 
What are your dates? And once you are in the esplanade you turn one way to go to one park and the other direction for the other. You can be from one park into the other in less than 5 minutes.
April 16-21, 2019. Based on this years schedule looks like the week before and after Easter is blocked for certain SC AP holders.
 
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@Ngwira we've gotten PHs on both of our trips so far and have always used them. It helps in case a show gets cancelled due to wind/rain too. If you're thinking about Maxpass, I've read that you can then pull a FP from either park. We did PHs and Maxpass for our trip in a few weeks, 4 day tickets. But we've always just been buying for two :) You have lots of time to plan/research/decide!
 
Thank you for sharing. I was thinking with the extra days we could go at a much more leisurely pace. In fact, we could go to a park in the evening just for the fireworks on one of the extra days and head to Los Angeles during the day or to Long Beach to check out the Aquarium of the Pacific. DH has a cousin in Corona and I have a cousin in Pasadena, so we wanted the flexibility a longer ticket would provide. I'll have to see. We are very efficient though and never buy PH's at WDW and still manage to do a ton each year.

I think I would go with the longer ticket. The parks are close and it’s easy to hop, but the cost savings is significant. My first trip was in January and my SO insisted on the hooper. We only used it two/five days and one of those days was because rides in both parks were going down for refurbishment so we had to hit those our first day. I’m glad we did the hooper because of the refurbishment schedule, but idk what we will do next time. My SO loves the hooper though, but I think I’d rather save the money.
 
April 16-21, 2019. Based on this years schedule looks like the week before and after Easter is blocked for certain SC AP holders.
I would buy your tickets by mid summer this year. There is a slight chance that SW:GE could be open by your dates and we are expecting major ticket and AP changes before the end of this year.
 
Ok thanks for the info.
You could take your PH savings and roll them into the MaxPasses. I used MP in November (one day trip) and it was FABULOUS! But I can understand a hesitation for a family every day. But if you do one park and MP, it's a near wash AND you get in more rides.
 

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