Orlando/Disneyworld Thread (Part 3)

blue_monkey_2

KarenG wrote: »

If you are eating at a Disney restaurant, you can call the Cake Hotline (swear I'm not making this up!!) and order through them. Not cheap generally though. Did you have a budget in mind?

DH did this for me on my birthday last year and I had a custom made castle cake - very small but a wonderful surprise. You have to be eating at a Disney restaurant to make this happen though, so is that in your plans?

I can't help with outside Disney restaurants, but there are always scrum my looking cakes on sale at Publix, WalMart etc.....

We looked at cakes for DD birthday and on average it was about $60 for a 6-8 portion cake. And they told me it was $25 delivery charge to a Disney restaurant which was a real surprise as I thought it was free - so we gave it a miss as it was just a cake. You can also order them at the Boardwalk Bakery but you do have to give them notice for it. She was happy with her birthday cupcake and the card she got from the Characters (*another story there, below).

You can get a 'generic' cake in Disney for $15 and you ask when you get to your table. Word is that it is a previously frozen Sara Lee one. You might want to take some decorations of your own as they do not have many, they will put some one though, however one family did not get the Happy Birthday note they wanted as they had run out that day.

When you book your reservation do call Disney and tell them that it is for a Birthday though, it will be noted on the reservation when you arrive.

There are so many restaurants to choose from, it depends on what you like to eat however book as far in advance as possible.

*DD forgot her card when we left Crystal Palace and we had not left the restaurant so we went back and asked for it and said she had forgotten it. They bought it out and she had another look and then noticed that the signatures on it were different from the first time. LOL. It was a lovely touch though, sometimes they lit a candle and sometimes they didn't. We 'strung' her birthday out for 6 meals by her wearing her birthday badge though. Ha ha!!

PROUDMUMMYTOTHREE

hi can someone tell me how the disney photopass works when we went in 2005 they took a photo then give you a ticket to hand in at the photobooth

blue_monkey_2

It's all changed now Mof3. You get a card - all over Disney you'll find photographers, they wear a blue shirt and biege gillet and they'll have 'Official Photopass Photographer' on their shirt - ask for a photopass card for the DISC, not for the photos as you can still buy them indiviually.

http://www.disneyphotopass.com/

http://www.thedibb.co.uk/disney-photopass.php

You can also ask for magic photos. If they have a tripod they do not do magic ones though. The magic photos are taken in all parks by phorographers with HANDHELD cameras, in MK you get tinkerbelle and balloons. In Epcot you can get tinkerbelle wings, mickey and minnie sitting with you. HS is Stictch and tinkerbelle. They are fab and you get to ots of different ones so ask, ask and ask again what ones they have - it does not matter if you get doubles. They have Simba at AK and we missed that so we'll have to go again. Damn!! LOL. If you PM me I'll give you a link to some pages where you can see some of the ones we had done.

We ended up with over 500 pics so for us it was money well spent and we can take the disc to places here in the UK to have them printed or print them at home. We put ours in photobooks and got them through Bonus Print who had the best software. I got loads of books on Buy One Get One Free from them. People groan when I get them out. Ha ha.

You can have as many photos as possible, you get home, put the card number into the website and then you have 30 days to edit the photos so you can make borders on them, logos or add signatures, etc... You can ask any of the photopass booths in Disney to have a look but the minute you put the number in the Disney website you only have 30 days to look at them. I think you have a month from the first one being taken to log in and start looking at them. If you go to Special Events you can have special ones done there too and you get extra stock pictures which are nice. We got osme from the Halloween Night included.

It costs $149 for the disc, or you can sometimes pre-order for $99 but we did this wrong and did not realise you had to pay for the disc, we thought you just had to put it in your basket or account and then pay later, but you pay and have a credit in your account, you can get a photobook and disc for $149. Delivery of the disc is $10.

Well worth it as it means we get pictures of us together as a family. As I say, PM me and I'll give you a link to an album with some of my pictures and you can see what you get.

blue_monkey_2

jeanniebeanie wrote: »

Edit to say you can easily do a water park and shopping in one day. The malls like Florida Mall and Festival Bay are open until 9-9.30pm and Premium Outlet Malls are open until 11pm, so that could take care of another evening too.

Wouldn't know where to start on spending money. They may want loads of souvenirs and there are designer clothes, bags etc in the outlets far cheaper than here. Very much depends on whether they are Gap or Fendi kinda girls!

Festival Bay was rubbish - there was about 10 shops open, waste of a few hours for us as we walked from Premium to it and then back again. Always siappointed when I've wasted some of my day somewhere rubbish but at least I can advise others now. Buena Vista Shopping was rubbish too.

Premium has very expensive designer gear with the odd cheap shop and I'd not recommend it for teenagers as even I would not pay those prices just for clothes. As an 'outlet' I did not rate it that much - I wanted some Uggs but they did not have anything I could not get cheaper at home from Cloggs either. I do think prices of clothing have risen quite a lot.

We did, however, LOVE the Florida Mall and they seemed to have everything we needed to look for and it was just a taxi ride from ID. I'd check out JC Penneys which is right at one end, they had loads on the sale rail and I got loads of T-shirts for $4 each - they had something for everyone. However, they had loads of shops and stalls there too so there was lots to see.

I agree, you could do a waterpark/shopping in a day but this is a group fo teenage girls - I'd say they'd be best doing a day each. maybe waterpark then onto Downtown Disney (no buses) for a wander round, maybe some shopping (they have a little Disney outlet that is tagged onto the Pooh shop with loads of stuff under $10 - I got a limited edition watch for $9.99 - maybe they can get some souviners) and something to eat.

Good luck with the dance competition girls.

blue_monkey_2

elantan wrote: »

Hi all back again

i have spent some time on the dibb ... isnt it great ?

i am thinking about money again ... i have $950 so far but think i need to get me some more dollars ... i just dont want to get too many and land up having to spend money i cant afford ..

were going for 21 days so with $950 it works out at less than $50 a day cash (the rest i was planning on putting on my halifax clarity card) now parking for cars is between $14 and $15 a day so that leaves me less than $35 a day for food etc at the parks and at Anna Maria island( we have decided on which parks we are doing now) and also for money for tips toll roads and any coffees drinks etc we want to have ....

i plan on using the clarity card for petrol,wallmart, presents etc

i just have this worry that the money i am taking is going to be no where near enough ... but then i also dont want to take too much for safety reasons .... i'm used to taking my debit card and just using that (but now that my bank charges i wont be doing this anymore) and i think thats why i am panicking is less than $50 a day enough?

How many are going? we had around $100 a day for our trip cash and still used cards. Drinks are $3-4 each. Lunch around $8 a head. We also went for 21 days. If you cannot get to a cash point, get a cash passport so you canuse a card and transfer it back when you get home.

I personally would rather have too much cash than not enough. If you do not want to take it, load it onto a cash passport card. Do not get cash out in Universal though, they wanted $4.50 in 'Gringotts Bank'. Everywhere else was $2-$2.50. Even Disney.

elantan

hey blue monkey ... there are just the two of us this time ( we are going with a party of about 8 or so though) i have looked into front loading a card but wasnt really impressed with the charges which is why i decided on the halifax clarity and cash ... i also have a nationwide current account but they have also started charging now ( when we went to thailand it was fantastic to just go to an a.t.m and lift what i needed for the day) ...

i usually budget £100 a day for spending for hubby and myself but that usually covers things like scuba diving etc ... this time we are trying to do it on a budget ( although i am working in a few days at the beach i think ) ... we hadnt planned on going to Florida at all but after we got burgled last year and have had such a stressful time ( on going marriage issues , son attacked by a gang of knife weilding idiots, frozen shoulder issues etc etc) my M.I.L said look you two need a break i'll pay for the villa you just need your flights spending and car hire ... which was great of her and we really appreciate it ... we have saved for the flights, car hire and insurance etc but are struggling for spending money ... my M.I.L has offered us spending money of £2,500 as a loan and we may need to take her up on it ... but were trying to manage it ourselves firstly ... hence the worry this time about money

so whilst i am really looking for ward to going i am trying to do it as cheaply but as fulfilling as possible if that makes any sense ?

blue_monkey_2

elantan wrote: »

hey blue monkey ... there are just the two of us this time ( we are going with a party of about 8 or so though) i have looked into front loading a card but wasnt really impressed with the charges which is why i decided on the halifax clarity and cash ... i also have a nationwide current account but they have also started charging now ( when we went to thailand it was fantastic to just go to an a.t.m and lift what i needed for the day) ...

i usually budget £100 a day for spending for hubby and myself but that usually covers things like scuba diving etc ... this time we are trying to do it on a budget ( although i am working in a few days at the beach i think ) ... we hadnt planned on going to Florida at all but after we got burgled last year and have had such a stressful time ( on going marriage issues , son attacked by a gang of knife weilding idiots, frozen shoulder issues etc etc) my M.I.L said look you two need a break i'll pay for the villa you just need your flights spending and car hire ... which was great of her and we really appreciate it ... we have saved for the flights, car hire and insurance etc but are struggling for spending money ... my M.I.L has offered us spending money of £2,500 as a loan and we may need to take her up on it ... but were trying to manage it ourselves firstly ... hence the worry this time about money

so whilst i am really looking for ward to going i am trying to do it as cheaply but as fulfilling as possible if that makes any sense ?

Yes of course it does. Florida is such an expensive place to go and I think you can do it on a budget.

We got one in Tesco, it loads on the amount in $ so you use the $ rather than the £ and pay exchange fees, IYSWIM. So we went and asked for $900 and they told us it was £600 but we could spend the $. Hubby and I had a card each and they were linked to the same account.

If you go to the Travel Money booth in Tesco you can do it there and it is just like taking currency but you can get the money from a cashpoint too, the only fee is the fee for getting cash out on a Visa Card (around $2 depending on the machine). There was not even a fee for using my Tesco Credit card to buy the currency - we could have £600 'cash advance' and also got clubcard points but even that did not incur a charge. You can then swipe the card, sign or use cashpoints. Then change it back at the end - IF you have any left, LOL. We put $1500 on that and came back with about $8.

I just googled, it's a Travelex card: http://www.cashpassport.com/1/en/nz/

I did also take my Santander Zero card but not sure if the rate they used was variable. We used it for shopping, hotel and big meals really.

aimex

hi guys,

off to the us in march and wondered how people normally take money? do you normally just take cash? or i did see on the martins email this morning about the new halifax card? x

amanda40

We just came back today so thought i could answer a few questions. With regards to cash , we took $500 dollars and have brought some home , we literally put everything on the Santander Zero card even down to Ice creams at the park and the car parking charges. Used cash for the kids to try amusements and when they went to get themselves drink or sweets. Also used it for tips and for any shops we used that looked a 'bit dodgy'! The last few days though we used cash for all our spends and we had most of it left.

Photopass - we signed up for the $99 pretrip deal sp works out at about £62. = Well worth every penny IMO. We have 181 photos on i and didnt try particularly hard. Got good ones of all the family at all the 'landmarks ' of each park, got a few magic ones done and lots of character ones too. It was worth it to have so many nice pictures of us all together. On the last night we went to Downtown Disney - they have a photopass studio ( used mainy for the kids that get the Princess/pirate/prince charming experience type thing), but they will take any ones photos. The lady there was really nice and done some really lovely studio shots of us as a family, dh &i, and the kids together and on their own - so that alone I feel was worth the fee. We now have 30 days to edit them and then order cd. Benn saving up free print codes and got a Disney Album at Walmart - for a fraction of the price of Disney but same logo etc - "2011 - so will get that filled up once done.

Next time we would probably take less cash and stick mainly to the card.

We found we were around $40 a day for lunch/or dinner then maybe $14 for icecreams, and $20 for a cake at night if we had a late lunch. We took a rucksack to park with juice and snacks too to cut down on the spends.

elantan

thanks very much for that amanda helps alot ... i didnt know you could put your car parking on a card .... i thought it had to be cash ... that helps me decide alot of things really ... think i will change a few of my $100 bills for $20's and maybe we will be good to go with all of that then