Family Travel Archives - Page 9 of 12

Mar 11 2017

Credit card annual fees worth paying

Early this week, I started taking stock of my annual fee cards. Although all my annual fees hit at different times throughout the year, I found myself asking “How many annual fees do I actually have and are these credit card annual fees worth paying?”

What sparked this? The annual fees on both my Citi Prestige and American Express Platinum are due this month and I realized that I have a lot of high annual fee cards. I somehow ended up with three Platinums in the past calendar year, something I need to rectify soon.

Anyway, in my mind there are two ways to evaluate annual fees. You can evaluate the benefits and whether they are worth the fee, or you can evaluate the fee in light of how much benefit you can glean from the card via MS.

For our family, I’ve basically decided that the MS stuff is a wash – I’m never going to MS enough to make any credit card annual fee worth paying. That’s just not my game. If that’s a factor it’s just gravy. It all comes down to whether the annual fees benefit my family. Here are the annual fee cards I have and how I personally decided whether they were worth paying or not in light of our family’s situation.

IHG Card ($49)

Everyone says these IHG credit cards have credit card annual fees worth paying. I’ve only heard one contrarian view (Freequent Flyer) that I can remember, but I’m starting to come around to that view. My wife and I each have this card, so we have two free nights between the two of us.

You’d think this be ideal but between the fact that we travel less than we used to, our unflinching loyalty to Hyatt Diamond (sarcasm, but we did migrate many stays in that direction), and our favoring apartment rentals more, these free nights have become much more difficult to use. I ended up using our 2016 credits for my in laws, which I’m happy to do of course but which is also indicative of how often I have a chance to book these nights.

This card often gets praised for the ability to redeem a room at an Intercontinental for $49, but that’s not really realistic for my situation. Still, I’m enamored with the free night (or the idea of it?) so I’m keeping this card.

Bank of America Alaska Air ($75)

There’s a companion pass, but I’m actually not sure why I haven’t cancelled this card yet.

Barclays AAviator ($89)

I keep telling myself 10,000 anniversary miles a year make the $89 annual fee worth it. I’m not sure why, though. The fee also gets mitigated by free check bags, which we use quite a bit as a family.

Chase Ink Plus ($95)

I earn enough Ultimate Rewards points at office supply stores to justify this annual fee. People often compare cards like the Ink Plus to 2% cashback cards, which is a good rule of thumb. However, I’d never MS that much on a 2% cashback card so I personally don’t use that criteria. Remember, just because it makes logical sense doesn’t mean you need to apply that criteria, especially if it doesn’t apply to your situation.

American Express Delta Gold ($95)

I strongly considered canceling this card last year, but decided that the odds of the family taking two domestic roundtrips on Delta were high enough to keep the card. Checked bags for four segments cost more than $95 so the fee pays for itself. Now I couldn’t guarantee that we’d take that many trips on Delta, so I inherited some risk keeping the card. It worked out this year but I’ll have to reevaluate again for the coming year.

Barclays Jetblue Plus ($99)

Checked bag fees factor in again here, but the big reason why I’m keeping this card is the ability to earn Mosaic status with $50,000 in spend. I fell in love with Mosaic status last year when I status matched, mainly due to the ability to cancel tickets without fees. This comes in super handy for family travel, because when you book 4 tickets being able to change to a lower price without a fee is incredibly clutch. This will be the first time I’m earning status via spend – should be fun!

Citi Prestige ($350 due to Citigold)

I consider my Citi Prestige a $100 fee due to the $250 airline credit I end up getting every year (it’s so easy to redeem). So the question I ask myself is whether I can get $100 back from the fourth night free benefit. This proves harder than you would expect, because we don’t often stay four nights in one hotel (plus the factors I mentioned for the IHG card). Like the Delta Gold, I’m gambling that I’ll use the benefit which will cancel out the annual fee. If saving money was my only priority, this would be easier, but I can’t use the fourth night free benefit as much as others might because hotels don’t always make sense for my family.

Chase Sapphire Reserve ($450)

Like the Citi Prestige, the $300 travel credit on the Chase Sapphire Reserve isn’t difficult to use. So the question I ask myself for this card is whether the card justifies paying $150. Since I’m keeping the Ink, I don’t need the Reserve in order to transfer points to travel partners. So most of the extra value I can get from this lies in the ability to get 1.5 cents per Ultimate Reward point on travel. However, since I already get 1.25 cents per UR through my Ink card, the marginal benefit is only 0.25 cents.

So to make up the $150 I’d need to spend at least 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points towards booking travel. That’d be worth $900 with a Reserve and $750 with just an Ink. I’ll be booking four tickets per trip starting in July so that’s not unrealistic, though put a pin in this for later.

American Express Personal Platinum ($450X2)

Nevermind why I grabbed these cards, the $200 airline credit just doesn’t cut it anymore. I never use Ubers, which AMEX uses to justify it’s upcoming increase of the annual fee to $550. We totally panned these “enhancements” on Episode 50 of the Saverocity Observation Deck podcast so you can hear my full thoughts there, but basically, so long AMEX Personal Platinum cards. Oh, and how could I forget their middle finger towards families!?

American Express Business Platinum ($450)

I’m totally on the fence about this card though I don’t have to decide for awhile. I’m fairly certain I can glean $250 of value out of the 50% points rebate, but I’ll need to do some more thinking about this. That leads me to my final point though.

It’s impossible to evaluate these cards in a vacuum – time to be realistic

You’ve probably noticed a fairly large flaw in my evaluations here. Well, if you’re a parent you probably have. Now for a family with two kids under 5, our family travels quite a bit, despite how messy it can get.

But let’s add up what I need to do to justify all these annual fees (of the cards I’m leaning towards keeping):

2 nights in IHG properties
2 domestic roundtrips on Delta
Some Jetblue flights to justify earning Mosaic
A four night stay with Citi Prestige that saves me at least $100
At least $900 in flights booked through Chase Travel with the Reserve
At least $500 worth of travel booked through AMEX Travel with Business Platinum

If I can do all those things, I’ll at least break even on the FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS of annual fees across those cards. But almost all these benefits are mutually exclusive. I can’t fly Jetblue and Delta at the same time. If I’m booking through Chase Travel, I can’t use my Mosaic status.

To use all these benefits I’m looking at a minimum of three domestic trips realistically. Combine that with our travel goal of one or two international trips (which probably don’t factor into these valuations at all since we try to book those in business class or above), and my travel demand schedule for the year is maxed out at best or exceeded at worst.

Put simply, we probably won’t fly enough to justify all these cards. Especially considering we’ve already completed two of our domestic vacations and booked the international one! So I’m going to be making some cuts in the upcoming months, despite what I said above. My comments above evaluated each card in a vacuum, but I can’t really do that, can I?

Final Thoughts

My one thing I hope people take away from this post? It’s easy to justify paying the annual fee on almost every single card you can get. But make sure your justifications don’t operate in a vacuum. They need to reflect your actual travel goals and capacity.

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Mar 08 2017

Real Life Family Travel: Conflicts

I’ve learned a lot over the past eight years, first through traveling with my wife, then with my daughter, and now as a family of four. It’s easy to blog about the great experiences and make everything sound hunky dory, but I’ve long wanted to write a series talking about the real experience of traveling together as a family. Part I: The Glue turned out to be a bit nicer than I was expecting, but that was important to start the series off. Things got a little hairier in Part II: Family Travel Compromises. And Part III: Family Travel Conflicts discusses how ugly things can get – but also how the conflicts help us grow as a family.

One thing I’ve noticed since I’ve started writing more about family travel – people show no hesitation writing about the good stuff. I redeemed this suite! Business class with toddlers – amazing! But I don’t see a lot of writing about the darker side of real life family travel: those family travel conflicts that inevitably arise.

It’s easy to create an image that family travel is easy. Or that the only issues that we deal with are puke. So, for part three of my Real Life Family Travel series, I’m going to highlight some of the uglier situations we’ve experienced, self-inflicted ones. I’ll also share a bit about how we as the adults in the family try to work through the issues and why I believe the experiences, no matter how ugly, are valuable. This is a topic we also touched on a little bit on Episode 49 of the Saverocity Observation Deck with Shawn Coomer if you’re more of an audio person.

Ultimately, I still believe family travel is totally worth it (and will end this series with the reasons why). Those of you who already told me I’m stupid for traveling with my kids when I discussed the compromises we need to make will probably flip out even more after this post. But hey, I like to keep it real, and family travel conflicts are as real as it gets. Note: none of these moments bring us pride and I cleared this post topic with my wife before posting.

The storm off

The first time this ever happened, we were on our honeymoon. Seville, to be exact. Running low on sleep, we explored the city at night. Eight years later, I don’t remember what sparked things, but we got into a pretty big argument. Fed up, one of us walked away into the Spanish night. We didn’t meet up again until later that night.

Jess and I have strong personalities. Sometimes we just need space from each other. Before kids, we realized that splitting up and spending an afternoon off really lowered the chance of storm offs. Practically, we achieved the same result (time off from each other), but relationally, it’s much more healthy when we agree to just create that space.

Family travel conflicts are a stark reality of traveling as a family. They're unavoidable, but it's important to own them in order to try to prevent them. — The storm off was right below this tower – on the night this was taken!

We still do this now that we have kids, though of course usually we each take one. The funny thing is, when we travel just the two of us now, there is the inherent pressure to spend all that time together (sunk cost fallacy strikes again). But we still realize we may need some healthy space and that’s okay. I’d love to say storm offs never happen anymore, but I don’t love lying. But taking planned time off and doing our own thing (plus 8 years of getting to know each other better!) has made them much rarer.

Directionless direction debates

One thing I don’t find unique to our family: debates over directions. Back in the old days, you’d argue with your spouse (or teenage kids) over an honest to goodness AAA map. GPS hasn’t improved things since it’s often easy to miss turns (though it’s better when walking).

Trying to figure out where to go leads to very stressful situations, especially if you’re meeting someone or trying to make a dinner reservation. You can often find the Cheung family (including extended) buried in our phones and physical maps on street corners debating which direction to turn. Add foreign countries into the mix and it gets pretty confusing!

We honestly haven’t come up with a good solution for this. One thing we believe would work in theory is for one person to be in charge of directions. I say in theory because every time we try this, person two never seems to be able to keep their mouth shut! Jess and I mostly accept that this is a gridlocked issue (aka we’re probably stuck in it), but since it’s not a huge source of conflict it’s mostly okay. Unless it leads to…

The public disagreement

Try as we might, it’s pretty difficult to avoid the public disagreement. We have mastered the “quiet whisper hiss” at each other at dinner. Or maybe we haven’t! Tough to tell when you’re arguing!

Of course, kids take public disagreements to another level. The most common one we face (I’m guessing it’s the same for most families?) is “I don’t want to leave yet!”. Usually we can quiet that down but sometimes these kids can get really loud. I have a bunch of tactics I try to use, including but not limited to:

Setting timers to indicate time to leave
Making sure the kids are well rested and fed as much as possible
The “fake walk-away” – usually this at least succeeds in changing the location of the tantrum
The drag out kicking and screaming way – when you have to

Obviously these situations aren’t only limited to travel, but travel exacerbates them. Shortened sleep schedules lead to extra stress and shortened tempers.

The spaz out

I totally lost it. I’m not proud of the moment, but in Charleston last month, one morning my daughter had finally gotten on my last nerve and I carried her kicking and screaming to a timeout. There, I not so delicately stated my case about how she had been doing a terrible job listening to me (essentially a solo parent for that portion of the trip).

Sometimes, when traveling, someone totally loses it. While I’d love to say this is limited to the children, it happens to the adults more often than we care to admit. To me, the spaz out presents the biggest danger because it contains the highest probability of someone saying something they can’t take back. And that has the highest potential for long term negative effects on family relationships.

But when reconciliation happens, even spaz outs can be beneficial in the long run (though that’s not an excuse to have them). What I’ve found to be important is modeling sincere apologies and forgiveness to my kids. We’re doing our best to avoid the classic, stereotypical Chinese “pretend like nothing happened” tactic.

Surviving family travel conflicts strengthens us

I think a fair question would be this: If travel causes huge conflicts in the family, is it even worth it? This differs for every family, but I can say honestly for us that our family travel conflicts strengthen our family. Obviously not quantifiable, but if I thought traveling caused irreparable harm to our family dynamics I wouldn’t do it.

For starters, family travel conflicts basically mirror our home conflicts but in a different setting. So Jess, myself, and eventually my kids just continue to work on our same issues whether at home or abroad. But the same problems in different contexts actually lead to more growth for me, because the problems aren’t framed in the same rut of my everyday life.

Secondly, we have to deal with issues on the road that we’d never deal with at home and that makes us stronger. I’ve always been of the belief that overcoming challenges outside of my comfort zone stretches me in ways that wouldn’t otherwise. I apply the same beliefs to my family – I think all four of us learn to grow and adapt on the road in ways we don’t get to at home.

Finally, at the risk of sounding corny, forgiving each other after family travel conflicts does wonders for our familial relationships. Family is a commitment (one that your kids didn’t choose) and every time we survive one of these conflicts it strengthens our commitment to each other. It gives us confidence in the middle of conflicts that we will get through it.

Final Thoughts

This post didn’t really turn out the way I intentioned. Basically, I just wanted to highlight that family travel can get ugly sometimes and that’s okay. Hopefully I achieved that in some form or fashion.

Obviously most of this applies directly to how my family operates, maybe it’s different for yours. But I do want young families thinking about traveling to understand that family travel does lead to family travel conflicts; that doesn’t make family travel any less worth it. But it’s important to be realistic about the fact that it will happen. But in the end, I’d argue it helps our family grow stronger in ways we wouldn’t otherwise. <ducks>

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Mar 02 2017

I’ll be holding off on solo dad vacations for awhile

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have caught the Instagram story I posted a few weekends ago: my first solo dad flight with my two kids. For background, these lovely children are 4 years old (just turned) and 19 months respectively. Jess attended a conference in Charleston, SC and left the day before. My parents and sister’s family met us in Charleston as well.

I took my two young kids on the plane as a solo dad. And I survived! — Ready to go!

Despite my family being there as backup, at many times throughout that weekend I felt like a solo dad with his kids on vacation. Besides the flight, I took the kids to the aquarium by myself, handled bedtime alone in a new environment once or twice, and took my kids to a couple meals. It was tough. I think when the kids are older I’d like to take them on a trip on my own, but at a minimum I think H would need to be 4. The ability to dress yourself cannot be undervalued.

Anyway, I thought it’d be fun to write up a bit of our time together – equal parts fun and stress! 🙂

Choosing a flight – buy an infant seat or no?

I spent quite a bit of time debating whether to buy my son a seat. The benefits were obvious to me – I could bring his car seat on and prevent him from squirming around for at least some of the two hour flight.

Unfortunately, only one Jetblue flight flies directly between Boston and Charleston. Every other carrier and routing requires at least one stop. Doubly unfortunate was the fact that that ticket priced out at about $300 – one way! Flights with a connection ran around $220.

Ultimately, I decided I definitely couldn’t shell out an extra $300 for the seat. I debated between flying a connection with a paid infant seat or direct with an infant in arms, I opted for the latter.

One fun note, I booked the flight using my Jetblue points (came out to around 25,000 points, ugh). After I booked the flight, I ended up applying for the Jetblue Plus card from Barclaycard which offers a 10% rebate on points bookings. After my flight, I got the 10% even though I had booked the flight before I had the card. Good to know.

Surviving the flight

Honestly, I barely remember the flight at this point. We survived. For some reason for the Saturday flight Jetblue flies an Embraer 190. I’m no AvGeek but even I know that’s a small plane. The set up was 2-2 which was perfect: I didn’t have to worry about sharing the row.

Even better, the passenger in front of my daughter was another little kid so I worried less about whether she kicked him by mistake. But my big takeway was that 1 on 2 I didn’t have enough energy to feel bad about disturbing others. My choices were I to spend time and energy apologizing (if necessary) or focusing on fixing problems. I opted for the latter.

I placated the kids with a combination of snacks, tablets, games, and snacks. At some point my son shotgunned a can of Diet Coke. But other than that, the flight felt busy but not as stressful as I had thought. I just had no free time but for a two hour flight that’s totally doable.

The one semi-disaster was my inability to get my son to nap. By the time we were on final approach it was around 1:45 PM. My daughter hadn’t allowed me to go to the galley to rock my son to sleep (which my wife had successfully done twice the week before); she didn’t want me to leave her alone – understandable.

So of course he freaked out as soon as the seatbelt sign turned on and I had no real options. He didn’t want to drink milk or eat crackers or even potato chips. I just did my best to soothe him and of course as soon as the seatbelt sign turned off he flipped back to happy mode. Kids, man!

Picking up the rental car

Some point late in the week before my trip I became much more worried about getting to the rental car than the flight itself. Car seats, amirite? I had to buy another Jeep Car Seat bag (affiliate link) since mine had basically disintegrated over four years of flights.

Luckily, Charleston is a small airport. My son has gotten into this “I don’t want to actually ride in my stroller I just want to play with the buckles” phase which actually made things easier. I threw my backpack in the stroller, slung the car seat around my back and just walked with the kids to Hertz. Thanks to AAA, we got a free second car seat from Hertz (membership basically paid for itself right there).

Of course, the most annoying thing about car seats is installing the monstrosities. It took me about 5-10 minutes to do this. That whole time my kids climbed in and out of the car, in and out of the car. They had a great time but I basically soaked through my shirt. Still, we happily went on our way, they fell asleep for a nap, and I bought myself some Arby’s to celebrate.

Getting around

As I mentioned, my son decided that he no longer needed the stroller. We only brought one, so we let his sister use it. But since he loves the buckles so much he kept trying to push her out of the way so he could play with the buckles. Like, COME ON, DUDE.

Practically, this meant doubling the amount of time allocated to get anywhere on foot. We stayed right by King Street which has a lot of great things to eat so we walked often, it just took a lot longer than expected, especially when when 1 on 2.

Visiting the aquarium

Due to various parenting situations, I found myself alone at the Charleston Aquarium with the kids for a morning. This proved to be the simplest part of single parenting since I’ve taken my kids to the museum on my own before.

Since M is 4, I can let her wander within like a 100 foot radius and I can keep H on a 15 foot radius. I really enjoyed this aquarium. First, they have all these fish and water creatures (like an alligator) made from Legos – so cool! Secondly, I thought the aquarium had a nice vibe, just a lot of nice things for the kids to duck in and out of, some play areas, the touch tank wasn’t as cramped as Boston, etc. Highly recommend.

Dealing with crankiness

Probably the toughest thing about solo dad travel is the same as being a solo dad at home: disciplining the kids. First there’s the practical issue. Who watches kid 2 while you deal with a disciplinary issue with kid 1? Then there is an energy issue. How many problems or issues can you deal with at once? Add to that the new environment and things can get pretty tough.

So one morning M just up and decided she didn’t want to go to wherever everyone was going. At this point I basically told her if she wasn’t ready to leave in five minutes we wouldn’t be hanging out with her cousin (who she loves dearly) in the morning. Well, she didn’t get ready and I don’t make empty threats so that’s how we ended up at the aquarium alone that morning.

I can’t do a solo dad trip until at least both my kids are as reasonable as M is now (even though she wasn’t being reasonable in that instance). Because as everyone knows, there’s no reasoning with a toddler! Still, after that first morning I realized it would be better to just go with it and to not put too much pressure on myself due to our sunk costs. M and I had one more major issue on the trip, but I’ll save that for another post.

Final Thoughts

While I mostly highlighted the difficulties in traveling with those crazy kids alone, we actually had a really good time. Like every family trip we take, I feel more bonded to my kids than before. We have fun memories to talk about (especially now that M can legitimately remember them).

Still, what struck me was just how tiring it was to be the #1 parent on the road. Thankfully Jess finished up her conference Monday morning and once The Glue returned we settled into a much better routine. But yeah, I’m gonna hold off on another solo dad vacation for a little while, at least with both the kids. And for now, achievement unlocked!

Feb 28 2017

Why staying at an on site Disney resort is worth it

Staying off site makes sense for a lot of families visiting Disney World, especially those on a tight budget. I’ve written before about how we rented a condo off site which saved us over a thousand dollars over renting multiple rooms at an on site Disney resort.

However, Disney offers plenty of value for the premium you might pay by staying in an on site Disney resort. And a reminder – if you stay in one of their value hotels, you might not even pay a huge premium. You can score a value at $100/night which negates any savings from staying off site (but whether a value makes sense for your family or not is another matter altogether).

You pay a premium to stay in an on site Disney resort, but here the many benefits Disney offers (and their monetary value!) that makes it worth the cost. — I spent more time in this lobby than I would have liked due to our bag issue, but at least it’s pretty to look at!

Still, I wanted to know what benefits on site Disney resort guests received. I actually booked a room at Port Orleans: Riverside, a moderate hotel, for four nights before #DisneySMMC began. This was my own money (minus the Citi Prestige 4th night free benefit, cha-ching). The four nights came out to around $190/night all in, though I could have gone as low as $165 if I hadn’t booked the river view room.

I didn’t look (because I didn’t want to move hotels), but I probably could have booked an off site property for like $100/night or so. Staying at Port Orleans: Riverside meant no kitchen, no extra room, etc., things I really enjoy about having my own apartment. Still, I definitely see how the $65 extra dollars a night can be worth it: here are some reasons why (in chronological order).

No rental car needed thanks to Disney’s Magical Express (estimated savings: $18/day)

I honestly felt some apprehension about using Disney’s Magical Express bus service. Disney’s Magical Express provides transportation to and from the airport for guests staying at Disney resorts. I’d say the Magical Express presents a ton of upside.

If you’re checking bags, you can check them all the way to your hotel room with many US carriers. That means you say goodbye to them at bag drop and say hello to them the night of your arrival in your hotel room. The amount of stress that saves a dad like me dragging two young kids along is unquantifiable. Amazing!

Secondly, while you do have to wait in a line to get on the bus, I’ve always had to wait in line getting a rental car at MCO so that’s a wash. AND you don’t have to worry about driving or carrying a million quarters with you for the stinking SunPass! Still, make sure you bring plenty of food/water/activities for the kid since the bus can take over an hour (each bus drops at multiple properties).

Good travel hackers probably can score a car rental for $15-$18/day, factor in gas and tolls and Disney’s Magical Express might save you $18/day. (Here’s where the commenters come out and say they can score $5/day rentals – great! Please write a guest post.).

Magic bands are included AND you can go straight to your room (estimated savings: $15)

Disney World’s magic bands are amazing. You can use those magical bands to get into your room, pay for stuff, add pictures to your Photopass, and much more! (OK, maybe that’s it). I seriously loved having a magic band, I didn’t need my wallet for anything and it just felt freeing to tap to pay for everything (much like the Octopus card in Hong Kong).

But the best part of having magic bands at an on site Disney resort? Online check-in. Basically, you can check in from the My Disney Experience app before you even get on your flight. You’ll receive a notification e-mail when you can get into your room. If said e-mail comes before your Magical Express bus arrives at the resort, you can walk straight to your room like we did. Or, since you aren’t worrying about bags, you can go straight to the parks.

While hotel chains like Hilton offer online check in, you still need to go to the front desk to grab your keys (though I think some hotels have keyless entry? IDK). It’s worth about $15 for me to go straight to my room without waiting in another line. I didn’t count the cost of the “free” magic bands because chances are if you’re staying off site you wouldn’t spend the thirteen bucks to get them.

Great pools and activities for kids (estimated savings: one day’s park admission)

The majority of on site Disney resorts are well themed and a pleasure to walk around. I’ve visited a bunch but only stayed at Port Orleans: Riverside as an adult so I will just talk about Riverside and French Quarter (we walked over there a bunch of times).

I can confidently say my daughter and son probably could spend an entire afternoon at the pools. Quiet pools, central pool, doesn’t matter – these pools just scream fun. Whether it be water slides, buckets of water pouring on your heads, or Mardi Gras themed floats in the water (French Quarter), it’s just fun to spend time at the pool.

Riverside also had a great playground where we spent some time. There’s entertainment in and around the resort, you can just take a nice stroll, or ride the boat to Disney Springs. You could spend an entire day wandering around Port Orleans Riverside and French Quarter and not get bored. If I personally was staying off site, I probably wouldn’t take a day just to lounge around my hotel, so I estimate this benefit to be worth one day’s park admission, which, admittedly, could cost as little as $10.

Still, the fun in the themeing at Port Orleans: Riverside actually can be pretty hard to quantify.

Free Parking at theme parks (estimated savings: $20/day)

Obviously if you didn’t rent a car you don’t need to worry about this. But if you did rent a car, parking at theme parks is free for guests at on site Disney resorts. This saves you a quantifiable $20/day (but of course negates the rental car savings). Of course, annual passholders also have waived parking fees (and bear in mind that getting an annual pass makes financial sense for repeat visitors more often than you think).

Don’t forget, you don’t need a car because of Disney’s Transportation system. You can ride free buses to and from the parks and to many other areas around Walt Disney World. We used this system extensively and while I heard that Port Orleans: Riverside had spotty bus service; our experience didn’t reflect that. Lost backpack at bus depots notwithstanding, of course.

If time is money, time saved is money saved (estimated savings: whatever hourly rate you value your time at)

One of the savings from staying at an on site Disney resort is tough to quantify: time. If you spring for a deluxe resort, you are within walking distance to the parks. This saves a ton of time, especially if you have young kids. You can walk home to take a nap instead of worrying about public transportation, spending “just an hour” in the park doesn’t feel like a colossal time investment – these things are tough to quantify.

But as any parent of young kids will tell you, time is precious. A trip to Walt Disney World requires a significant investment and that can often lead to a lot of stress. Staying at an on site Disney resort relieves some of that stress by freeing up your valuable time. I’m probably not doing a good job of explaining this, but I just felt more relaxed staying at Port Orleans: Riverside than I did off site. And while I’m a bit rusty on my personal T-rate, that’s very worthwhile.

Bonus savings: Use Amazon Prime Now to buy drinks and snacks

Disney World has these pretty neat souvenir cups that you can basically refill everywhere. That’s pretty useful to get your Diet Coke fix on, but you can do better than the $18 these would cost for the length of your stay. For a $5 charge you can use Amazon Prime Now to get all sorts of groceries delivered to your resort (or any grocery delivery service really). You can of course do this if you’re staying off site as well, but you’re likely to have a car in that situation.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed staying at an on site Disney resort much more than I expected. Overall, I’d say for the $65 extra per night it would have cost to stay at the most basic room at Port Orleans: Riverside, I received at least $25/day in value. Honestly, that’s probably a conservative estimate since renting a car probably costs on average closer to $30/day.

Personally, the decreased stress, fun theming, and enjoyable ambience of the hotel more than made up for that extra $40/day, but obviously your mileage may vary. Every family has their own unique situation and you can’t go wrong as long as you try to do what’s best for your family.

What does everyone think, did I miss any benefits of staying at an on site Disney resort? Let me know!

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Feb 23 2017

Discovering the family friendly Embassy Suites

For one reason or another, we’ve stayed at Embassy Suites two separate times in the past two weeks. I booked the Doubletree near Disney Springs during our daddy daughter delay which I found family friendly, but Embassy Suites (also Hilton) tops it. My wife stayed in the Charleston property and finally for the last two nights we’ve stayed at Embassy Suites Charlotte.

What have I learned? Just how family friendly Embassy Suites can be! I’ve often spoken about how apartments like AirBnB make more sense for my young family, but perhaps I need to do more research. Embassy Suites represents a great middle ground – here are some quick hit reasons why.

You get a suite regardless of your status

Amol posed a fun question the other day:

Random question for twitter: what are the minimum things a hotel suite should have above a regular room?
— Amol (@PointsToPointB) February 11, 2017

I’d advise you read through those responses for some amusement. I think a good rule of thumb is that a suite should have a separate room with a separating door. People rave about Hyatt’s confirmed diamond suite upgrades (and now Globalists are entitled to suite upgrades if available too).

Well, at the family friendly Embassy Suites, every room comes with a separate living area. How did I not know this!? This obviously comes in super handy when traveling with sub 5 year olds. The baby can nap separate from everyone else, parents don’t have to sit in the bathroom with the light on, etc. etc.

As far as I can tell, you can only receive one upgrade at this particular Embassy Suites – to the Presidential Suite. But hey, everyone enjoys a suite when you stay here.

I've come to realize that Embassy Suites can be a great option for family travel. Here are some reasons I think the hotel chain deserves a look! — Having a pool to yourself is nice too

Free made to order breakfast

Breakfast matters. One of the reasons I love staying in apartments is we can cook our own breakfast. My sister’s family, my family, and my parents went through 24 eggs in four nights in Charleston this past week!

Embassy Suites comes with free hot breakfast, including made to order omelettes. That means we can just wake up and roll downstairs to eat breakfast. That also means we don’t need to worry about buying groceries or cooking eggs without oil. 😛

Complimentary drinks at night

Sometimes parents just need something to take the edge off. Every night, Embassy Suites has a happy hour with some light appetizers. You also get a few drink coupons to get free drinks – some pretty nice stuff. I had a scotch and M had an orange juice. Everyone had cheese and crackers.

Refrigerator, microwave, and no minibar

If you have kids, you know that they often wreak havoc with the minibar. Especially egregious? The minibars that get triggered electronically! Thankfully, the family friendly Embassy Suites rooms come with both a refrigerator and a microwave, both with nothing inside of them!

That means you have the utility of an entire fridge for milk, fruit, yogurt, etc. You have a microwave to heat up leftovers if you’ve eaten out, and at any Embassy Suites you can guarantee that those things will be in your room.

Final Thoughts

One of the toughest things about family travel can be deciding where to stay. While I still might gravitate towards apartments, the family friendly Embassy Suites is quickly shooting up my list. Plus, at 30,000 points a night while we were here in Charlotte (a busy time due to the CIAA basketball tournament), the price is right too! Where are some hotels you enjoy taking your kids, young and old?