Category — e. What to Budget for Walt Disney World

A couple of quick points:

• Disney’s current major Disney World discount available to the general public needs to be booked by February 28th.
• Multiple sources, including Mark Goldhaber at MousePlanet.com, are noting that Disney World will be upgrading its reservation systems beginning early in the morning Thursday 2/23. 

In the past, this upgrade has led to a bit of a mess, including trouble “with dining reservations records, dining plan credit records, and other resort systems.”   So bring paper copies and don’t expect to be able to use the systems the 23rd and perhaps even the 24th…

• Finally, I’ve been ill most of this week, so have gotten behind on new posts and on responding to comments…I promise to do better!

My friends at Destinations in Florida Travel have a deal where if you buy your Universal tickets from them, you can use, for free, their shuttle service from Disney World hotels to Universal and Harry Potter.

For more, and to get your Universal tickets that provide this free deal, see this.

For more on getting to Harry Potter from Walt Disney World, see this.

WALT DISNEY WORLD DEAL NEEDS TO BE BOOKED SOON

One of Walt Disney World’s current deals is expiring soon.

The deal offers discounted rooms for many arrival dates from February 21 through March 31 2012, but needs to be booked by January 22 2012.

For more on this deal, see this.

If you are a military or retired military family, are related to one, or are friends with one, and have a Kindle, sign up for the Military Disney Tips blog right away.  The link to sign up for it on Amazon is here.

MilitaryDisneyTips.com and its blog focuses on Disney World and other central Florida opportunities for military families. All the material on it has some military connection, but much is of interest to the general Disney fan community as well.  It is particularly strong on military discounts and Shades of Green.

New discounts and such typically come out first on the site’s blog.  These discounts can save military families hundreds of dollars, and almost all can be shared by military families with their extended family and friends.

Long-time readers of this site know that Steve, the author of MilitaryDisneyTips.com and its blog, and I collaborate all the time.  My site focuses on first time visitors, some of which are military families; his site focuses on military families, some of which are first time visitors.  So we work together to help our shared audiences.

Subscribing to the MilitaryDisneyTips.com blog on Kindle is like signing up for any other blog with a kindle feed–the first 14 days are free, and after that you pay a 99 cent monthly charge.  You can cancel anytime.

Why Kindle it when you can get RSS or just go to his site for free? 

Well, different people will choose the web vs. RSS vs. Kindle for blogs for different reasons. 

I signed up for Steve’s blog on my Kindle because first,  he doesn’t post that often, and I don’t want to miss anything, and second, his stuff is so potentially  important and money-saving for my military visitors that I want it pushed to and waiting on my Kindle, and thus readable anywhere and anytime.

Most of the great Disney blogs don’t have a Kindle version (use the comment form below to highlight those that do!) and I think it’s great that Steve’s blog is available on Kindle.

LINKS FOR MILITARY FAMILIES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

• Military Families at Walt Disney World
• Deals and Discounts
  • Military Discounts and Deals
  • Other Walt Disney World Discounts and Deals
• Shades of Green
  • Review of Shades of Green
  • Splitting Your Stay Between Shades of Green and Another Resort
  • Overflow Rates at Shades of Green
  • Shades of Green website
• Other Resources for Military Families
  • DisneyMilitarySales.com
  • Disneyworld.com/military
  • MilitaryDisneyTips.com

ONE ANGLE ON DISNEY WORLD DEAL BLACKOUT DATES IN 2012

Those who stay at Disney World resort hotels a lot know that sometimes there’s material in your room offering you a discount on future dates if you book before you complete your current reservation.

One of these offers was in my BoardWalk Inn room on a recent visit, and I thought the offer blackout dates were worth noting.

The 2012 dates excluded from the offer were the following: [Read more →]

WALT DISNEY WORLD DEALS AND DISCOUNTS NEED TO BE BOOKED SOON

Two current Walt Disney World deals are expiring soon.

• One offers free dining for stays many dates into March 2012, and needs to be booked by December 17.  Click here for more.
• Another offers room rate discounts from 20% to 35% for many dates in January and February 2012, and needs to be booked by December 21.  For more, click here.

Another deal has “book by” dates into 2012.  It offers room rate discounts of 15% to 30% for many dates from later February into early June 2012. For more, see this.