Tentative Itinerary for our disney/other vacation, please advise!

[louise1928]

Hi everyone

2 Adults, no kids

We have narrowed our choices down to the following:

7 days, 6 nights mid June

Accomodations; Marriott Grande Vista/ 1 bdrm villa (got a very good rate here)
Roundtrip Air: have not done yet, but thinking about booking USAIR fly/drive package
I really hate booking items separately, especially with airline tickets...I feel more secure with
their package that includes trip cancellation waiver, but it will depend on the cost!

Attractions, starting with the top picks:

Discovery Cove
SeaWorld
Epcot
Animal Kingdom
MGM (only for the Tower of Terror ride)
Cirque Du Soliel
Medieval Times (not sure yet)

I have not set a budget yet for everything, but we will make a pit stop at the grocery store
to stock our refrigerator, and we both agreed to eat breakfast and dinner at our villa.
We will probably eat dinner out at least one night, and have breakfast out the day of departure. This should save us on our food bill for the week. I am just afraid, my husband will bust the budget here, because he loves eating on vacations...

While I am doing our budget, I am going to set aside monies for parking, gas, etc., and that will be placed in a seperate envelope marked auto expenses.

I plan to purchase all of our tickets at home with AAA, but if anyone can suggest other discounts, please advise.

I was told with the Discovery cove tickets, you get seaworld as well....
(I am still not sure about this attraction, the price scares me!, but my hubby really wants to doit, and told him we may have to cut back on other attractions somewhere else to afford this)

Should we purchase the parkhopper, or just individual tickets for parks mentioned above??
I am just wondering will it be a waste of money to buy the park hopper....but we would like to visit downtown disney/pleasure island...

My main concern is cost for everything I have listed we would like to do...


Any suggestions or ideas???

Thanks

Louise

 

[Kermit]

I think you should definitely get some type of park hopper. You said you only want to do one ride at MGM, and AK doesn't take all day. You'll get your money's worth much better if you can just go to another park when you're done.

I've never done Discovery Cove or Sea World, so I can't really give you advice on that. Discovery Cove does look neat, though. How many days are you planning on spending in the parks all together? It seems like you would need 1 day for DC, and no more than 1 day for SW, so you have 5 days available for WDW. With 5 days, you can really plan on doing more than just a few rides at MGM, and you could get MK in as well. DH and I travel w/out kids, and MK is where we end up spending most of our time. Epcot is fun and educational, but MK is <i>fun</i>. The other parks are too, of course, but a trip to WDW just isn't complete without spending at least a full day at MK. On the other hand, we have decided not to do AK again until we have kids who really want to go there. It just really doesn't do much for us, and it's hard to get around. There are things that are worth doing once, but you probably will find yourself spending much less time there than you planned on.

I would skip Medieval Times, especially if you're trying to do this on a budget. I've never been to the one in Orlando, but I have been to one. The entertainment just doesn't compare with any of the other things you're going to be seeing.