Our Vacation Paperwork Arrived or Disney Mail!

The paperwork for our upcoming trip arrived!  Actually, it was hand delivered to our home by our travel agent.  Disney mail is the best kind of mail, in my opinion.

The documents were a little more extensive for our upcoming trip, as it includes both sea and land portions.

Here’s what was included in our documents:

• Voucher for our overnight stay at the Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport.  We are staying her the night before we sail as our flight does not arrive in Orlando until after 8:00 pm.  It will be convenient to grab our luggage at baggage claim and head upstairs to a comfy bed.  We have a voucher as we have pre-paid for the room at a great discounted rate!

• Luggage tags for the ship.  The adhesive luggage tags have our name and stateroom number included.  We will tag our bags in the room at the Hyatt the day we sail and leave them in the room.  Hyatt and DCL have a system where our bags will be picked up in our room at the Hyatt (without us even having to be there!) and the next time we will see our luggage will be at our stateroom on the ship.  (I just love this convenience!)  And, there are 6 luggage tags!  While we will be traveling with 3 checked bags and 3 carry-ons, this means we can tag most of our bags and just make our way to the ship with 1 rolling bag (I’ll have to write more later about what is in that 1 bag).  Again, very easy. . . and light!

• Cruise Line Booklet.  Okay, I will admit that I was very impressed with this booklet, as not only does it contain important information, but it is personalized!  It has our names, the publishers indicated that we had already completed our pre-cruise documents on-line, even our port adventures, a.k.a. shore excursions were printed inside.  Wow!  The information in the booklet includes a check-list of things to do prior to your Disney Cruise vacation.  Also, it mentions how important it is to bring the booklet with you as you will need to have it, along with the cruise paperwork you completed on-line, at a few stops along the way. (The scans for our Disney transfers are in the inside front cover!)  There are also 3 perforated cards to tear out and give to friends/family with information about contacting you on the ship in case of emergency included in the booklet.

• Walt Disney World luggage tags for personalized information.  The 3 that were included have a different design than we have seen in the past.  We have these tags on almost every bag imaginable, but we will add this to our luggage, too.  Now, here’s a personal preference:  when filling out the Name, etc. on the cards that go inside these bag tags, I just include our last name and a cell phone number.  If I include our home number, obviously no one would be home to answer the call if the bag was lost/found, as we would be traveling.

• AAA Walt Disney World Vacation Booklet which includes our itinerary, our resort stay, and park ticket types.  This booklet also has a personalized PhotoPass card that I can register on-line to our PhotoPass account.  There are also vouchers for our free Magical Express transportation from our resort to the airport, Disney’s Story Time Experience—which we have yet to do and is now in EPCOT, discounts on fishing excursions, spa treatments, marina rentals, miniature golf, etc.  There’s also an arcade voucher worth 100 arcade points—this we use!—a Diamond Parking for free and preferred parking at the theme parks—we don’t use this as we don’t have a car, but it is included, and the AAA Diamond Card good for discounts on Dining, Recreation, Spa, Merchandise, Disney Tours, and AAA services including automotive repairs and tires at the AAA Car Care Center.  We do use the AAA Diamond Card, as it offers a 10% discount at World of Disney at Downtown Disney on purchases of $75 or more.  Using the vouchers and discounts in the booklet, a family could go play miniature golf at any of the miniature golf courses at Disney with 1 person free and up to 6 others playing with 15% off the fee.  (This we have done!  And, it is similar to the DVC and AP discounts at the miniature golf courses.)

Well, now that the paperwork has arrived, we finish packing, check-in to our resort on-line at the 10 day window, pre-order our PhotoPass CD, and countdown the days until our trip.

It won’t be long now!