Our Summer Plans. . . They Are A Changin'

AirTran changed the flight times for our awesome summer trip—Walt Disney World/Disney Cruise Line/Walt Disney World. Instead of arriving at Orlando around 1:30 pm, we are now arriving at 8:30 pm. While we are used to some changes in our flights. . . a few minutes here or there, the changes usually haven’t been more than 30 minutes in either direction. Hmm. . . What to do, what to do?




We could take an earlier flight with no charge, but alas, there is no earlier flight. Here are some of our options:

1. Keep all our reservations—a night at the French Quarter, dinner reservation at T-Rex at Downtown Disney, and a breakfast ADR for ‘OHANA’s in the morning before we head to the port to embark on the Disney Dream—and hope AirTran changes the flight times again before our trip and in our favor!



2. We could make a reservation at the Hyatt Regency at Orlando International (click here to read more about staying at the Hyatt) and stay there the night that we fly into Orlando. Just grab our bags at baggage claim and go up the stairs (OK, elevator) and check in for the night. We could then have breakfast at Hemisphere’s, at the Hyatt, or the food court, in the airport, and go downstairs and grab a bus to the port.



This plan, of course, would remove us from the immersion into Disney until we got on the bus to go to the port and reached the ship. It would also keep us from having a character breakfast.



The upsides to number 2, would be that our luggage would still be taken care of and whisked away to the ship and we can catch an early bus to head to the port. We just tell the folks at the Hyatt when checking in that we are cruising on Disney. They tell us to tag our bags and leave them just inside our hotel room when we leave. Voila. The next time we see our luggage is outside our stateroom on the ship.

Here is what we are doing:

• We have left all of our reservations in tact for Downtown Disney and breakfast at ‘OHANA’s, just in case AirTran changes the flight times again.

• We still have our room at the French Quarter for the night before we embark on the ship. In fact, it is paid in full. (We can cancel up to 3 days prior for a full refund.)

• We have reserved a room at the Hyatt for the same night; the night before we embark on the Dream. It is also paid in full with an option to cancel and get a full refund. The reason it is paid in full is that our travel agent could get a price for the room that was $45 dollars cheaper than the other rates, but we had to pay in advance.



Now, we wait. While many of our reservations can be cancelled up to 3 days in advance, the planner in me (as made obvious by the information above) doesn’t want to wait until the last minute, so my goal is be firm 3 weeks out from the start date of our trip.

I told the husband that we would be about $400 richer, but that there’s that much money tied up in two hotel rooms for the same night. We are reframing this as a sort of non-interest bearing savings account, as when we cancel one reservation; we can then use the refunded money towards other things while on our trip. The reframing is sort of helping. Knowing we are headed on a Disney Cruise and a week at Walt Disney World is really helping!