Family Travel Archives - Page 4 of 7

Apr 26 2017

Is Disneyland Paris worth visiting?

Disneyland Paris is comprised of two parks situated about 19 miles east of Paris. It’s celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year so it’s theoretically a great time to visit. The park is quite a bit newer than Disneyland in Anaheim and the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. It gets generally high marks for attention to detail in its design and finish, but lower marks for the overall experience for a variety of reasons ranging from inexplicable closures to employees that don’t quite have the Disney spirit. So is Disneyland Paris worth visiting?

(Editor’s note: This is a guest post from @RobertDwyer, the most prolific Saverocity blogger to not have his own blog! Though you can find his lovely wine blog at Wellesley Wine Press.)

Disney fans tend to say a visit is worth it. Non-Disney fans I’ve talked to say they’d rather just visit the parks in the US.

Being a Disney fan myself I was very much interested in visiting my first international Disney park to see for myself what it was like. Overall it was a good experience that complements a visit to Paris quite nicely. I’d do it again.

Interested in other Disney Parks around the world? Check out our tips for Hong Kong Disneyland!

Pre-Arrival

The advisable amount of pre-planning you have to do for each Disney park varies wildly. Whereas Walt Disney World in Orlando virtually requires a heavy amount of detailed planning to ensure a good time, you can mostly get away with minimal planning for a trip Disneyland in Anaheim. Disneyland Paris is more like Disneyland in Anaheim in this regard.

Dining reservations for some of the more popular table service restaurants can be made up to two months ahead of time by calling an international number.

I was torn between reserving a table at The Blue Lagoon restaurant within the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction (since I love the Blue Bayou restaurant in Anaheim and there’s no such option at Walt Disney World in Orlando) and Bistro Chez Remy in the Ratatouille area within Walt Disney Studios Park. My decision was made for me when I was informed that The Blue Lagoon was going to be closed (closed!?) during our visit.

On the bright side, park tickets are much cheaper than US Disney Parks.

The price of admission each day varies based on a calendar Disney lays out for the year with tickets ranging from low, medium, high, and super-high. If you’re buying tickets ahead of time pay attention to this calendar to make sure you’re buying a ticket that’s valid on the day(s) you want to visit.

You also need to decide whether you want to visit both parks or just one. The Ratatouille stuff is in the smaller nearby 2nd park and the uplift for visiting both parks isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things, so especially if you’re visiting just one day I’d recommend getting a 2-park ticket.

For the day we were going, a “Magic” ticket (the 2nd most affordable) was sufficient.

Tip: Buy your tickets from the “UK English” version of the site rather than “US English”

I poked around at buying discounted tickets through a third-party but that felt a little risky for me for a first visit. A 1-day 2-park ticket priced out at $90 on the US version of the site. On the UK version of the site it priced out at 60 GBP, which is about $77. So definitely buy your tickets through the UK version of the site by clicking your chosen country at the top of the page. Our tickets worked fine as US citizens. I’m not sure why they price it out this way.

But no matter how you slice it tickets are much cheaper than in the US. A one-day “medium” season Parkhopper for Walt Disney World is currently $161. Sure you can whittle down the per-day cost if you stay multiple days (and indeed Disney hopes you opt for multi-day options so you spend spend spend while you’re there) but I find I can actually get a ton of enjoyment out of a short visit to WDW especially with their outstanding Express Transportation Option.

Getting There

There are a few ways to plan a visit to Disneyland Paris. You either go “all in” and stay on-property at a Disney hotel or save on lodging by staying at a nearby non-Disney hotel. Or, option C, stay in central Paris and make a day trip out of it like we did.

If you’re staying in central Paris there are a few ways to get out there. Most common I’d say is taking the train. It cost our family of four 27 euros each way.

Taking the train was every bit as confusing as stressful as I thought it would be based on reading about it online. While trying to buy tickets a local tried to “help” me navigate the automated kiosk (by sticking some “discount” card in the machine and encouraging me to buy roundtrip rail tickets and park tickets which I’d already pre-purchased). He was shooed away by a guy who purported to be an official employee of the station – but who knows whether they were both in on some good cop/bad cop routine? Then my credit card and prepaid cards wouldn’t work due to lack of true chip & PIN support. The full service terminal had a long line. Luckily I had cash and the machine accepted it.

Once we got through that we had to find the right line, and the right train along that line. Then the train(s) to Disneyland were both running 30 minutes late. The ride out there is an hour by train so we made it there just in time for park opening.

But just like at the parks in the US, guests staying at the Disney hotels are admitted early. So although we arrived right around 10a the park was already quite crowded with guests who’d been there two hours.

Uber estimated around 70 euros one-way and would have taken 50 minutes to get there due to traffic in the morning.

I’m not sure there’s enough meat on the bone to justify a stay at a Disney hotel, but at the same time it sure would have been nice to have those morning hours to take in attractions before crowds developed. I’m honestly not sure how I’d play a future visit.

First Impressions

Upon getting off the train you’re nicely right at the park entrance. The approach to the entrance is unique and well done. You walk under the Disneyland Hotel through a beautifully landscaped area. That, combined with a distinct but very well done Main Street USA make for a full-on grand entrance to the park. It’s hard to find someone without a smile on their face just as they’re beginning a walk down a Main Street USA anywhere in the world and this one is no exception.

Many of the popular elements at the original Disneyland/Magic Kingdom are replicated here, perhaps surprisingly so. Casey’s Corner, the Ice Cream Parlor, a barber shop. It’s pure Americana with very little local influence.

Most everything is in English, French and other languages. I thought they did a great job making the park accessible to visitors from all over the world.

Unique Attractions

The main unique draw for us was the area of Walt Disney Studios Park with attractions from Ratatouille. It may seem strange to visit the real Paris only to go to a faux Paris at a theme park but the Paris as depicted in Ratatouille fits very well in this little pocket of the park. The area features a trackless ride called “Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquee de Remy” as well as a restaurant – Bistrot Chez Remy. For a Disney fan, doing the ride then eating at the restaurant could very well justify a visit all by itself since there’s no where else in the world you can do it.

The ride was well conceived but a little glitchy. It kind of broke down in the first scene we were in then limped along to the next scene which was sufficiently distracting as to break any chance of being immersed in the illusion of being shrunken down to the size of a rat. But it was cool nonetheless. I’d love to see them add this to the France Pavillion at Epcot World Showcase. It would be a no-brainer slam dunk.

The “Toon Studio” area of Walt Disney Studios offers a glimpse into what it would be like if Disney didn’t create ambitious lands like Cars Land in Anaheim (and I presume the forthcoming Stars Wars and Toy Story Lands). The renditions in Paris did indeed feature attractions based on popular Pixar movies, but they weren’t very good. The Cars Quatre Roues Rallye was like Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree in Anaheim’s cars land – a real dud. Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin was straight out of a carnival attraction with little in the way of theming – perhaps the zigzag was referring to the monotonous slow-moving queue?

Crush’s Coaster looked surprisingly high-octane compared to nearby rides. Kind of a kids version of Space mountain in a 4-person turtle shell ride vehicle. But the wait was 90 minutes with no Fastpasses remaining by the time we got around to it.

Tomorrowland is instead called Discoveryland here and themed in a Jules Verne/steampunk motif. I thought it worked quite well compared to the Tomorrowlands we’re familiar with (which always seem to be the most dated areas of the park).

The Haunted Mansion is referred to as Phantom Manor in Paris and its theming is bent to fit in surprisingly well in Frontierland. It’s a darker rendition than we’re familiar with since much of the comic relief has been removed. Still, a well done attraction.

Big Thunder Mountain looked terrific but again had too long of a wait for the time we had. It starts on land, goes through a tunnel beneath water, then races around what’s Tom Sawyer’s Island at US Disney Parks. I’d prioritize getting on that next time for sure.

Instead of Tom Sawyer’s Island there are play areas and islands back near Pirates and a unique Indiana Jones attraction. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril is a roller coaster with an inversion. Glad I didn’t tell my kids it was a Jeep ride that wasn’t too scary! I hear it’s not a particularly good attraction but didn’t get a chance to go on it.

There’s a dragon under the castle. You won’t see that at other Disney Parks.

Overall there’s quite a few unique things about the park. It’s very well laid out and a joy to walk around. You may not realize until later which of your favorite attractions were missing.

Closures

As part of their 25^th Anniversary they’re “making the park sparkle!”. I planned our visit before hearing about this but it made me look forward to a park that was in tip-top shape in spite of some prior reports of maintenance neglect I’d read about.

The overall park may indeed have been in better condition (it looked quite nice to me) but I was disappointed that 2 of the 3 attractions that were touted as being “new for their 25^th anniversary” were still closed for refurbishment. Pirates of the Caribbean (said to be better than even the excellent one in Anaheim) and Hyperspace Mountain were both closed. Evidently we arrived before their refurbs were completed.

This was quite disappointing because some of the other attractions we really like as a family at the US Parks like Jungle Cruise, Soarin’, and Toy Story Mania aren’t present in Paris so every attraction counts. Pirates in particular hurt.

Lines

The lines were surprisingly long. We visited the Thursday after Easter which is evidently a week-long holiday for most of Europe.

Popular attractions had waits between 50 and 90 minutes. Even the train around the park had a wait of an hour plus. I’m used to using the train as an enjoyable mode of transportation so waiting an hour for it was a deflating experience.

We probably could have done a better job with Fastpasses. They’re the kind where you go to a physical kiosk in front of the attraction (as opposed to the kind you book through an app/ahead of time). We were able to take advantage of one of these for Buzz Lightyear but by the time we got around to getting more all of the Fastpasses of the day were depleted.

Put all of this together and it makes me think it would be worth getting into the parks earlier by staying at Disney hotel. But if you’re in Paris for just a few nights it doesn’t really make sense to spend those nights out near the park. Tough call.

Bistrot Chez Remy

People say dining is a weak spot for Disneyland Paris. And they’re right: Compared to other Disney Parks – even Anaheim – it is not good.

But let’s start on a positive note: We had a very good experience at Bistrot Chez Remy. I can’t think of a movie better conceived as inspiration for a theme park restaurant than Ratatouille, and Bistrot Chez Remy is mostly well done. The theming is very well done and you really feel like you’re in the lobby of Gusteau’s when you’re in the waiting area.

The theming inside the restaurant is clever but ultimately the dining experience falls apart a bit from there. The set menu pricing is a little awkward to navigate. I’d rather pick and choose the items I want, especially for lunch. But I wanted to give the restaurant every chance to impress so I went with the most expensive option in the joint: The Menu Gusteau with wine for a scorching 74,99 euros.

Almost every menu option included the famous ratatouille dish featured in the movie. But unfortunately, the “standard” ratatouille is just chopped vegetables that look nothing like what you see in the movie. It was comical to hear kid after kid say “that’s not Ratatouille” when presented with plain-looking chopped vegetables.

Since I went with the Menu Gustaeu I got “premium” ratatouille which looks a bit more like what’s in the movie thanks to the chopped vegetables being wrapped up in thinly sliced zucchini.

I wouldn’t consider a single thing I had to be truly remarkable or memorable so overall it was a bit of a bust in terms of value.

Bistrot Chez Remy felt more like a Rainforest Cafe experience quality-wise, with pricing as high as some very good restaurants in Paris.

Still, the one-two punch of going on the Ratatouille ride followed by a visit to Bistrot Chez Remy is something I’m glad we did. And I’d probably do again on a return visit.

Snack Options

Like I said, I heard bad things about dining going in. But even with lowered expectations I was disappointed. How could it be that Disney knows how to offer interesting dining options in their parks but they choose not to in Paris?

I was expecting things like less popular restaurants to be closed since it wasn’t peak season. Well, actually it was peak season. The entirely of Europe has the week off, lines at attractions are a mile long and the park is quite crowded. Seemed like a great opportunity to sell some food to me.

What I wasn’t expecting for nearly every snack cart and quick service restaurant in the place to be closed. Since we had a big lunch at Bistrot Chez Remy we just wanted some snacks in the late afternoon. And we weren’t even looking for anything interesting. Maybe just some popcorn or ice cream. We must have walked by a half-dozen popcorn carts that were closed.

We couldn’t even find a cart selling Mickey Bars or any kind of ice cream. (Ed note: No Mickey Bars!?!?!?!?!?) Back in Fantasyland we saw a promising looking sign for a Gelato shop. Closed.

I told the kids we’d have to go back to Main Street USA to the ice cream parlor, but when we got there it was….closed. Can you believe that? We ended up getting a lousy pre-fabbed ice cream bar for my younger son after standing in long lines at Casey’s Corner. Huge disappointment, and unbelievable they don’t want to make money by selling snacks in the park.

So believe what you hear about the food at Disneyland Paris: Although some of the best food in the world is in France it’s definitely not at Disneyland Paris.

Bottom Line: Was it worth it?

Disneyland Paris is the most accessible international Disney Park and worthy of inclusion as part of a trip to Paris for families with Disney enthusiasm. Having a day there at towards the end of our time in France provided something for us all to look forward to that was familiar and enjoyable. After doing the typical touristy things in France like gawking at the Eiffel Tower, going to museums, and bus/boat tours – it’s a nice change of pace.

To enjoy it, you need to be interested in appreciating what’s unique about it vs other Disney Parks.

If you play your cards right it can be quite a bit more affordable than visiting Disney Parks in the US. Our day there was cheaper overall than a lot of other days in France.

So was it “worth it”? Absolutely – both in terms of cost and time spent. It’s not perfect (neither are the Disney Parks in the US) but I’m glad we went and I’d gladly return for a future visit.

At the end of the day we only remember how an experience made us feel. I’m left with good memories of discovering this new place with my family, curiosity about the differences in this park, and concern and sadness at the end of the day upon hearing about a shooting on the Champs-Elysees a couple of doors down from our hotel.

What do you think of Disneyland Paris?
Ping me on Twitter (@RobertDwyer) or leave a comment with your thoughts…

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Apr 06 2017

How to put a Korean Air award on hold for a family

One reason I love having an Award Booking Service is it gives me the chance to book award travel. I’d love to book my own award travel, but I don’t get to do that as regularly anymore! One thing I’ve noticed though is that it’s easy for me to keep going back to the same well. One thing I find myself using for clients again and again is the generous Korean Air award hold policy.

Back in the day using Korean Air involved using a fax machine. Now that those bad boys have reached the verge of extinction, it’s much simpler to execute an award hold for yourself and your family. Let me tell you a tale of why you might want to hold an award and how to execute it.

One of the few frequent flyer programs that allows award holds is Korean Air. Here's how to use the generous Korean Air award hold policy for your family! — Korean Air has great award space to Asia (Image Credit: Pixabay)

Why hold an award?

Most people can probably skip this section, but just in case. Holding any award obviously provides a degree of flexibility. You can search for alternate flights, you can bug your wife about letting you book the tickets, etc. etc.

For Korean Air, the best and most legitimate reason to hold an award is to allow yourself time to transfer miles into your Korean Air account. You can transfer both Chase Ultimate Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest points into Korean Air. Ultimate Rewards transfer instantly but SPG takes a couple days, so you really need the ability to hold these awards for peace of mind. I’m always stressed transferring to Singapore from SPG, for example.

Creating a Family Plan

If you want to book awards for someone besides yourself (aka your family), you need to create a family plan. Luckily this has become much more straightforward now that you can do this online.

First, create a Skypass account for every member of your family. This took me about 45 seconds per person – the registration process for kids and adults is identical. Unlike some US carriers (ahem Delta!), you don’t even have to call in or send in a separate form – thank goodness!

Then, log in as the user whose miles you plan to use (or the person you plan the transfer the miles to). Go to “My Dashboard” => “Family Plan” => “Add a Member”. Then select apply online, the easiest method.

Just fill in the information of your family member and upload a document for proof of relationship (Tip from commenter Melanie: make sure name matches passport exactly!). For immediate family members this is a piece of cake – marriage certificate or birth certificate should do the trick. Also as long as your documents have both members birthdays you really only need to upload one document (if not, add secondary documents with your birthdays visible).

Note Korean Air really wants you to add family members to the family plan. So if you want to fly with a friend, they’ll probably need to book with their own account. Here’s a list of family members as defined by Korean Air (they use a dropdown list):

Grandparent
Maternal grandparent
Parent
Parent of spouse
Spouse
Brother/sister
Child
Grandchild
Daughter/Son in law
Child of daughter

If anyone’s gotten past these feel free to add to the comments. I do have one thought: why only child of daughter but not child of son? Come on, now!

Searching Korean Air award space

Korean Air has some pretty generous award space, especially in premium cabins. A paid Expertflyer subscription provides the easiest and fastest way to search for award space, but you can also search for it online using the Korean Air website. A bit slower but good enough! I’d recommend creating your family plan first because you can only search for as many seats as you have family members.

You don’t need to do this before you call but I always find it useful to have an idea of what flights have space before I call so I can feed the agents flights. I did find some discrepancies between what the agents saw and what Expertflyer showed me (some positive, some negative), so bear that in mind as well.

Creating a Korean Air award hold

Once you’ve created your family and found the flights you want, creating the Korean Air award hold is pretty painless. Call up Korean Air at 1-800-438-5000 and feed the agent your dates and flights. I’ve called a couple times in the last few days (middle of the day) and haven’t waited longer than five minutes. You probably will end up using the word “hold” but I think Korean agents call it a “reservation.” Regardless, after you feed them your flights and the confirm the availability, you get put on a brief hold and then they come back with your reservation held and a confirmation number.

At this point, ask how long the reservation will be held for. I made a couple of holds and they all will last for 14 days – shorter than in the past. Not sure if that’s the new timeline but it’s still better than the next most famous hold policy out there (AA – 5 days).

Things of note for family awards

At this point, you can complete the reservation online once you have transferred your miles over. Note you will have to submit an online form to do this. You can also complete the reservation over the phone, but this will necessitate the fax shenanigans of yore. If you no longer live in the 1990s and have since gotten rid of your fax machine, stick to booking online.

I saved the very best Korean Air feature for last: lap infants only cost 10% of the mileage, not 10% of the cash price. So if you fly in a premium cabin, instead of looking at a $1000 round trip charge you’re looking at something on the order of 6000-12000 miles. Great stuff.

Final Thoughts

Korean Air is great for travel to Asia on Korean Air metal, not so great on partner carriers. Europe SHOULD be a sweetspot (80,000 RT in business) but they charge significant fuel charges on transatlantic routes. Still, especially for families needing to get to Asia to visit relatives, Korean Air award holds are clutch and should be part of your arsenal.

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Apr 03 2017

When’s the best time to buy airfare?

I’ve discussed how to search for the cheapest airfare in my Family Travel Hacking Guide (which I will pick up again someday). The websites I use the most to do this are Kayak and Google Flights though there are a lot of other great resources out there. Still, a lot of people like to ask when is the best time to buy airfare? I thought I’d tackle my thought process in this post.

Understanding how to find the best revenue fares seems to gain importance as time goes on in this game. As Freequent Flyer recently wrote, award tickets on legacy airlines now represent one of the most unreliable rewards programs when it comes to saving money.

This rings doubly true for families who need to book more than two tickets: award space can be unpredictable and reliable for larger groups. But you can still use cash equivalents like Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, or Barclays Arrival points to book revenue fares – and all those currencies are cheap to earn.

So tl;dr, the best time to buy airfare depends on a ton of factors. There is no best time but you can still book at the “right” time for you. If you don’t feel like reading through my reasoning, here are the rules of thumb I use. I’ll break each one down in the post, with the caveat that no one post will cover every scenario or factor.

Always have in mind what you think would be a good price for your flights
In general, one month out (domestic) and two months out (international) provides a good starting point for timeframe
Rules of supply and demand apply – if you’re flying during peak times or on a busy route you generally want to book earlier. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays generally are cheapest.
Use Kayak or Google Flights to monitor flight prices – start as soon as you know where/when you’re going
If you see a price at or below your “good price”, book the flight. The chances of saving $20 per flight generally aren’t worth the risk of paying $50 more per flight.

Determine a “good price” for your flight

Sometimes it might be difficult to come up with a “good price” for the flight you want to take, but you need this as a starting point. A general rule of thumb I use from here in Boston is $150-$200 down the East Coast and out towards Chicago and $300-$350 for anything beyond that. If you fly even twice a year you probably have a good general feel for how much tickets cost for your home airport.

But don’t worry too much about a “good price.” Instead, decide what price you are willing to pay for your ticket before of shortly after you’ve begun looking for tickets. Sites like Google Flights and Kayak predict whether prices will go up or down so you can use that as a baseline. Note they only predict how prices will fluctuate for the next week, so don’t take it as gospel.

Since my searches tend to have an East Coast bias, I did a search between San Antonio and Raleigh, NC for the middle of July (on a Wednesday, see below).

Notice Kayak says buy now at a price of $383. My guess is you could probably do better if you wait a new, but I also think Kayak correctly determined that the price won’t change in a week. You don’t really start seeing price fluctuations until…

In general, flights tend to be cheapest 1-2 months out

A 2014 cheapair.com article found that on average, US flight prices bottomed out at 54 days before flight date in 2013. I generally use 1-2 months out as a benchmark or deadline for myself for buying flights.

You can figure this out using fairly simple logic. The airlines, business wise, have two goals:

Fill every seat
Get customers to pay as much as possible for every seat

A year out, airlines can afford to charge higher prices – they figure if anyone wants to take the flight that badly they’ll just pony up. (One notable exception: Southwest airlines – you generally want to grab those Wanna Get Away fares ASAP). A week out or the day before the flight, airlines know you’re desperate and can charge whatever they want. (They also need to create a disincentive for people always buying at the last minute).

Once you get to 1-2 months out, the airlines probably have a pretty good idea about how full a particular flight will be. Math, computers, and statistical models can cover that for them. Thus, if they need to lower prices, 1-2 months out presents the most logical time to do it. Take a look at my Kayak search for SAT-RDU for a month from now, May 3.

Wondering when is the best time to buy airfare? Let me walk you through the factors to consider so you can buy flights at the cheapest time! — Cheaper! Though that might just be supply and demand

Of course, if a flight is already pretty full, they might not lower prices then. So the best thing to do is to start checking the flights you want early and often as soon as you know where/when you want to go.

You can estimate how full your flights are

One other tool I like to use is expertflyer.com to see how full a flight is. This is a far from perfect method, but it works if you don’t want to pay any money (you can get better data if you’re willing to, though!)

With a free subscription you can search seat maps to see how many seats have been reserved on a plane. Note this doesn’t necessarily tell you how many tickets have been sold – it’s possible the airline hasn’t assigned seats, especially with these new basic economy fares. Still, the search is simple – put your flight cities, dates, and numbers into expertflyer and search. Below is my search for one of the legs of the July 5th flight:

Now like I said, don’t consider this method foolproof. However, if you see a seatmap like this actual seatmap from that search:

You can be pretty confident prices will probably fall in the next month or so. Even if there are a bunch of ticketed customers without assigned seats, that’s quite a few empty seats. You obviously need to check both legs if you have a connecting flight (I did, also empty), but a seat map like that indicates prices will likely fall.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays generally run cheaper

When it comes to airline seats, a lot of airline load revolves around business travelers and weekend trips. That’s why people say (generally correctly) that Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays usually offer the lowest prices.

Business travelers obviously spend a lot of time flying Sunday, Monday, and Friday (to and from home, respectively). Or maybe they’ll go home early on a Thursday. Weekend travelers will fly from Friday-Sunday for the most part. It’s simple supply and demand.

Saturdays tend to be cheaper too because who goes away on a weekend trip and flies home on Saturday? So if you have the freedom to fly on one of these less busy days, you can afford to wait even longer to buy your tickets.

Set up flight alerts as soon as you know where you’re going

I mentioned this already but it bears repeating. As soon as you decide where/when you are going, set up some flight alerts to monitor prices. Refer back to reminders on how to best use Kayak and Google Flights for this task.

Basically, if you receive an e-mail every week with flight prices, you can get a good feel for how the price fluctuates. Better yet, you’ll be alerted when your flight hits a price you’re comfortable with, which really is probably my biggest takeaways.

Whenever the ticket price is something you’re happy with, book it! If you’ve set a good price in your mind and your tickets hit that price don’t wait. The odds that you will save BIG are pretty low. So set up your flight alerts, follow the rules of thumb above, and book whenever the price hits something in your comfort zone.

Final Thoughts

There is no “best time” to buy airfare, but there is a right time for you and your family. Really as long as you do your due diligence you normally can score a ticket price in your comfort zone. Then, whether you use real cash or cash equivalents, you can pay as close to the price you want to pay as possible.

Obviously, there are mitigating factors – being locked into certain timeframes due to family constraints, desires for nonstops, etc. etc. The more you limit yourself, the more you limit your choices, but the same rules of thumb apply. As you practice using them more and more, you should find yourself paying less and less for your flights!

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Featured image courtesy of Pixabay

Mar 28 2017

Six reasons to take a toddler on a Disney Cruise

It’s been a little over six weeks since DisneySMMC ended and if I’m being honest I’m still thinking about our Disney Cruise. While we experienced many memorable moments, the Disney Wonder stands tall above the rest. Since I brought my young four year old daughter, I thought I’d tackle a question I had myself before the cruise: should you take a young child on a Disney Cruise?

Have you ever wondered whether you should take your young child on a Disney Cruise? Here are six reasons to sail with your child and Disney! — The Disney Wonder at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island (Todd Anderson, photographer | dclnews.com)

The reasons people might give to skip a Disney cruise with a young child often will be pretty similar to reasons to avoid traveling with young children at all. It can be stressful, they won’t remember it (though I’m on record saying that’s not important to me personally), it’s not worth the cost, etc.

Although you’ll definitely pay the Disney premium for a Disney Cruise, I’d argue that if you’re hesitant to travel with your kids a Disney Cruise is a great place to try some travel at an early age. So in honor of the six weeks I’ve been thinking about our cruise, I present six reasons to take a young child on a Disney Cruise.

1. Disney handles (almost) everything

Parents naturally get stressed out traveling with young kids because of the many logistics. Disney Cruise Line takes a lot of that stress off your hands.

First, getting to and from the ship, for a fee you can book round trip travel from MCO airport or a Disney resort. What really makes life easy is the onboard check-in. For certain airlines, you can check in on the cruise ship. Your bags magically get transported from your stateroom the night before all the way to your home airport’s baggage claim! This worked seamlessly for us even though our flight got delayed for over a day.

On the ship, you pretty much don’t have to worry about anything. You can do as much (or as little) as you want. Every day you will receive your personal navigator, a list of all the ship’s events. You don’t even have to show up to dinner on time if you want, you can go eat at any of the on demand eateries on the ship!

The great thing about young kids on Disney cruise ships (all cruise ships, really) is you everything is contained. You can find pretty much anything and everything you need, you don’t need to negotiate through unfamiliar languages or cultures (I guess the argument can be made about a cruise ship having it’s own culture), you don’t really have to worry about paying for anything extra if you don’t want to, etc. It’s simple and clean, something you paid for up front. As an aside, I think cruises are great for group trips for that very reason – everyone can do their own thing or can hang out together as much as they like.

2. Your young kids will probably love the Oceaneer Club

I won’t say that all kids will love the Oceaneer Club, Disney’s childcare for potty trained 3+ year olds, but I’d venture that most will. There are playgrounds, character meet and greets, arts and crafts, games, group games, iPad games, hula hoops – it’s basically a daycare on steroids. The good kind! (Just kidding don’t use drugs, kids).

I’ll give one example. On the Disney Wonder, kids got the chance to make boxcar racers. After about an hour or so of this craft, Mickey comes out to help the kids race their cars! If that’s not fun for a young child, it certainly would be a bunch of fun for me.

You can also leave the kids in the club for dinner while you spend some quiet time with adults. Or drop them off after dinner and spend some time walking the decks on your own. The hours of the club are generous and you’ll get a message if your kid needs you, so I personally felt very comfortable leaving my daughter there.

3. Castaway Cay is an island paradise for both young and old

One exception to the whole “you don’t have to navigate new and confusing environments” thing from #1 would be port visits. Now personally, I love visiting new places and locales. I don’t love not being sure which tours operate on the up and up or stressing about which souvenirs present the best value.

Castaway Cay was a lot of sun and a lot of funCastaway Cay, Disney’s private island, solves that problem. The island basically serves as an extension of the cruise ship: the beach is free, food is free, souvenirs are…definitely not free. But you know that everyone working on the island works for Disney thus you can relax a little bit in terms of worrying about getting scammed or the like. Yes, you will get scammed for $10 sand toys (bring your own, seriously), but you know who’s selling them to you. Quality Disney sand toys! (That’s a joke, they definitely sell the same toys you can get everywhere, bring them from home. Or bring some shovels and grab some big soda cups from the airport.)

Expensive sand toys aside, Castaway Cay rules. The beach is beautiful and picturesque, there is an amazing water slide, there’s a private beach for adults only, you can bike, you can hike, you can do water sports: there’s a reason “double dip” itineraries that visit Castaway Cay are so expensive. The port of call is simply spectacular.

4. The entertainment caters to both young and old

One thing that surprised me about the Disney Wonder? The quality of the entertainment. I had serious reservations about my daughter sitting through an hour long Broadway styled show. But Disney knows its target audience incredibly well. Each of the Disney cruise ship has a unique show, while some shows feature on multiple ships.

I first took my daughter to Disney Dreams, which basically hits some classic numbers from a variety of well known Disney movies. That gave me the confidence to bring her to the Disney Wonder’s unique show: Frozen, a Musical Spectacular. That show was a truly impressive rendition of a story whose plot I find questionable but whose music I find unquestionably excellent (don’t @ me. Horrible parenting. Obviously I support the strong female lead and sisterly love stuff).

Anyway, the Frozen show combined great acting and singing with some pretty cool technical feats. I won’t spoil them here but they were well worth the hour and my daughter loved every minute of it. It didn’t hurt that it was her first ever viewing of Frozen, either. The Disney Dream will have a new Beauty and the Beast show starting this fall so that should be pretty amazing.

Besides the shows, you have your normal cruise staple: the pool. To be honest the pools are designed for kids in mind, so young kids on a Disney Cruise will have a blast at the pool. To be fair, most young kids have a blast at any pool, but the theming is fun :).

5. Unlimited chicken fingers (and great dining experiences)

Let’s not bury the lede here: unlimited chicken fingers. The very fact that I can go order chicken fingers and fries almost anytime I want makes cruising a magical experience. OK, the quality of the chicken fingers is only average, but still! Chicken fingers!

Joking aside, the dining on the Disney Wonder was great for young kids. The pace of the meal moves quickly, but more importantly, Disney took great care considering how to keep kids entertained during meals. Each dinner restaurant (you are scheduled on an eating rotation) has its own unique menu and coloring page, so that occupies the kids for awhile right there.

Since you have the same servers every night, they get to know what your kids’ enjoy. Even by the end of a three night cruise our server already was able to pretty much predict and get anything M needed (broccoli).

Finally, the entertainment at Tiana’s Place and Animator’s Palate blew me away. Live music always keeps my daughter happy and dancing, and the New Orleans inspired music at Tiana’s Place didn’t disappoint. I got the chance to see two different shows/experiences at Animator’s Palate; both were a ton of fun. Basically, dinner becomes more than just a meal on a Disney Cruise, it’s an experience unto itself, and that’s great for young kids.

Plus, chicken fingers.

6. That Disney magic

Young children love magic the most. Yes, they can be whiny, but older kids are whiny too. But the great thing about young kids is the sense of wonder they have when “magical” Disney moments occur. Unplanned, unscripted, these moments happen from time to time on Disney properties.

Now, if you’re a cynic, you won’t appreciate this stuff at all. But that’s the thing: young kids aren’t cynics. So a young kid on a Disney cruise will love magical moments that happen that you might not even think twice about. For starters, they will get to meet Mickey dressed up in his captain’s outfit, which is pretty great.

But the moment that stood out for me was one night when M and I decided to take a walk through the ship. We were just standing around in a very quiet part of the ship, just the two of us. Suddenly, Mickey, dressed in full Fantasia garb, just sidled on in. He obviously had something very important to do, but he stopped for just that split second to say hello. That’s a cool moment for a 36 year old. That’s a mind-blowingly magical moment for a four year old. You’re not gonna get that on any other cruise line.

Final Thoughts

DisneySMMC gave me the great opportunity to see how my four year old enjoyed both the Disney Parks and a Disney Cruise. And, surprisingly to me, she enjoyed the Disney Cruise more! Perhaps it’s because she had to find other things to do in the parks because of her fear of the rides. I can’t say for sure, but ultimately, she preferred the cruise.

Disney makes their cruises so easy, I wouldn’t be surprised if your young child on a Disney cruise had a great time as well. Think I’m loco and Disney-brainwashed? You’re probably right, but have at me in the comments!

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Mar 25 2017

Easy travel rewards for non hackers

One of my favorite Saverocity personalities, Robert Dwyer, and I both enjoy listening to the Mighty Men of Mouse podcast (Disney stuff). On Episode 306 they had a brief discussion about travel rewards. Their sensible conclusion was that they don’t want to expend the mental bandwidth to keep track of it all. Travel hacking takes a lot of mental bandwidth (otherwise you might make potential costly mistakes), and I’m experienced enough now to know it’s pointless trying to convince people the value they present. But I thought it might be fruitful to discuss some easy travel rewards that don’t require a lot of mental bandwidth.

Travel reward programs can be complicated and confusing. But here are some easy travel rewards programs that you can use to save money on your travel! — If you can handle this, you can probably handle some simple travel rewards

A couple of notes. First, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for people to think they don’t want to expend the mental energy required to keep track of a million award programs. We all have our hobbies. Secondly, the easy travel rewards programs I’m discussing in this post don’t necessarily represent the most monetary value. Instead, they present travelers the opportunity to save money casually – without being insane like some of us.

I’ve split the rewards programs into categories, moving from simpler to more complicated within each category (in my opinion).

One organizational step – get a good password manager

While you can save money on your travel expending very little mental bandwidth, you should really get a good password manager before you get started. I use Lastpass, which will autofill my passwords in for me when I’m logged in – that saves a lot of mental time and effort.

Of course programs like Award Wallet really help too, but the simple easiest thing you can do is use something like Lastpass. That way you don’t really need to remember any of your logins and passwords.

If you’re paranoid about security, you could always make a spreadsheet for yourself, but that will really hurt your bandwidth. Programs like 1Password, which cost money, might be worth the cost in bandwidth saved alone.

Airline Rewards

If you’re flying, I find it easiest to focus on fixed value rewards programs like Southwest and Jetblue. That way you never need to worry about different award levels, demands on space, etc. etc. Each point you earn from Southwest or Jetblue has a monetary value to it. In fact they make redeeming the points a simple matter of clicking on “points” instead of “cash” when you search.

One feature propels Southwest to the top of the “easy to redeem” list: fee free cancellation. You can cancel or change your ticket any time up to 10 minutes before your flight. While you don’t get the money (or points) back to your account, you can apply that credit to future travel on Southwest.

One reason casual travelers avoid airline rewards is it’s hard to keep track of your frequent flyer number and how many miles you have. Solve that problem using the password manager you installed above. With Southwest or Jetblue, it doesn’t even matter how many miles you have since you can pay with cash or points – just try to pay with points every once in awhile and you’ll be saving money! The amount of bandwidth required to do this is only the amount of bandwidth you need to remember to login.

Hotel Rewards

While I’m not a huge fan of the program, I have to admit: hotels.com 10th night free program remains the easiest hotels rewards program. Basically, as long as you book all your hotels through their site you will earn one free night for every ten nights you purchase. Credit towards free nights expire in 12 months if you don’t redeem or stay within that time period.

The value of that free night will be equal to the average of the cost of the ten paid nights. It doesn’t get any easier than that, bandwidth wise. Also, Disney fans – you can book Disney hotels through hotels.com and redeem free nights at Disney.

Orbitz also has a rewards program – you earn 5% back for hotel bookings and 1% back for airline bookings. You can only use the rewards for hotel stays and all rewards expire in 12 months regardless of activity. The benefit of this program lies in being able to redeem more quickly (i.e., you don’t have to wait until ten stays).

When it comes to simple options, these hotel rewards are as simple as remembering to login and remembering to have activity once a year. Minimal mental bandwidth!

Credit Card Rewards

I swear I do not have affiliate links, but I still think the Barclays Arrival Plus card remains one of the easiest cards to use for travel rewards and a great card for travel hacking beginners. However, the annual fee scares casual travelers looking to save money and I get that. But if you think the $89 annual fee is worth the decreased bandwidth, then 2.1% redeemed towards travel will be pretty good for rewards.

Another great option is the Bank of America Travel Rewards card which comes with no annual fee. If you are a Platinum Honors Preferred client you’ll get 2.625% back per dollar spent, otherwise you’ll get 1.5%. Capital One Venture offers 2% back as well but with a $59 annual fee. All three of those cards are easy to use because you just redeem points against your travel purchases.

Of course the best option for the casual traveler? Invest in a 2% cash back card. The Fidelity Visa and Citi Double Cash both offer 2% cash back for no annual fee. But these options aren’t as “casual” because you need to mentally organize your money and dedicate that to your travel. Or alternatively, you can tell yourself to feel better about spending money on travel since you’ve been earning 2% back. Either way, it’s not as “clean” as the travel rewards card options.

Credit cards of course require more bandwidth than either the easy travel rewards from the airline or hotel programs I listed above. You need to keep track of things and you need to pay your balances off in full. What you receive in return for that extra bandwidth comes in the form of more savings, including savings you can “stack” (you can earn 2% cash back if you use your Fidelity card at hotels.com on top of the free night you are working towards).

Car Rental Rewards

One quick note here: it’s worth it to sign up for car rental programs. All you need to do is remember your number and add it to your reservation and you can generally skip the lines when picking up the car. All the different companies have different names but for the most part, have an account with them, skip the line. This even works sometimes for me when I book through sites like Priceline (even though it shouldn’t per terms and conditions). Worth the mental bandwidth especially in a place like Orlando where car rental lines are nuts.

Final Thoughts

Again, while these programs won’t save you the most money, they are some of the simplest programs to use. If you’re traveling a lot, why not at least give it a shot. Every dollar counts – if you save $50 that’s like…ten Mickey bars!

Any other easy to redeem programs I missed?

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Travel reward programs can be complicated and confusing. But here are some easy travel rewards programs that you can use to save money on your travel!