DisneyDawgs

Tag: Southwest

  • Success – First step of our Trip Planning is Done!!!

    It took a little longer than we planned, but the first step of our 2020 Disney World trip has been completed.

    The first thing that we do when we are planning a trip is to secure airline tickets from Rhode Island to Orlando.  This used to be the most expensive part of the trip, not anymore.

    So Southwest Airlines opened booking for airfare for April, 2020 and beyond yesterday (October 30, 2019).  We were able to get direct flights from PVD to MCO and MCO to PVD for a pretty good price.  As always, we purchased the early-bird option for an extra fee.  This means that we do not have to sit at the computer 24hrs before our site and hope that we get a good boarding number.  If you do not know, Southwest does not have assigned seating.  This means that seating is first come, first serve and if you do not have a low number on your boarding pass, your party may be separated on the flight.

    Now we have always flown with Southwest and have gotten used to the way that flights are posted and the costs of certain flights at certain times.

    Usually it costs much more to fly home (MCO -> PVD) than to fly down to Orlando.  Also, early morning flights are usually as much as 2.5x the cost of evening flights.  So we usually fly down on a 6:30PM flight, getting into Orlando around 9:30ish and to the resort by 10:30PM.  The same is with the returning flight, we usually do not leave MCO until 6-8PM, getting back into Rhode Island around 11PM and not back into our house until Midnight.

    For some reason, this year is different.  Flying down to Orlando, we were able to get an early flight, a VERY early flight, where we will be in Orlando before most people are in work.  Also, this year, our flight home will cost MUCH less than the one to start our vacation and it is also a very early flight.  The early flight coming home is good because both of my pups and my wife have to be in school the next morning.

    Well, there we go, I guess we can check plane tickets off of our “2020 Vacation ToDo List”, but we still have quite a bit more to do.

    • Plane Tickets
    • Hotel/Resort
    • Theme Park Tickets
    • Car Rental
    • Boarding the Dogs
    • New Clothes for Trip
    • Buy new Disney Trading Pins for girls and wife

    As you can see, there is more for us to do.

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  • Trip Planning – Plane Tickets to Orlando

    Hi everyone.  It has been a while since I’ve posted to this blog.

    We are still planning on visiting Disney World in 2020 and have done some minor research for pricing.  At this point, here is where we stand…

    • We are currently waiting until October 30, 2019 to book airline tickets, that is when Southwest is supposed to open flights for the time period that we are going.
    • It currently looks like we will be staying OFF property for the first time in 10 years due to the cost of staying at a Disney World Resort Hotel.
    • We may also be limiting the number of days that we visit the parks, again due to the prices that Disney is charging.

    At this point, I am very discouraged at the cost in which this vacation is going to cost.  As of right now, if I include Hotel, Airfare, Car Rental and Park Tickets, we are right around $7,000 for 7 days and 6 nights in Orlando.  This is not including food, parking and other costs of being on vacation (such as boarding our 2 dogs.).

    As much as I love Disney, this may be the last time that I go to the parks with my family…  It has gotten way too expensive.

  • Trip Planning – Our 1st Fail

    It is kind of disheartening when the very first thing I try to do in planning our 2020 trip to Orlando falls through.

    Let me set the stage.  We usually plan our vacations roughly six months in advance and what we do is based on the cost of airfare.  You see, we live in Rhode Island and our main airport is located in Providence [PVD] (Warwick, RI to be exact, but that’s another story for another time.).  The only carriers located here that fly into Orlando [MCO] or Tampa[TPA] are Delta, American, Frontier, United, Southwest and JetBlue.  United, Delta and American Airlines are very expensive to fly out of PVD with roundtrip fares averaging about $900 per a person (there are four of us).  Frontier Airlines is fairly new to Rhode Island and what I have read about them, not too dependable.  That leaves us Southwest and JetBlue Airlines to get our flights.

    Of the two airlines, I prefer Southwest for flying to Orlando from Providence.  Although both carriers provide direct flights, JetBlue’s fares are slightly higher with only two scheduled flights per day to and from Orlando and JetBlue also charges for luggage where Southwest offers anywhere from 10-15 flights a day, both ways and luggage is included within the cost of your ticket.

    With that being said, we have two windows of opportunity for vacation in 2020… February or April school vacations. I have two teenaged daughters that are in high school and my wife is an elementary school teacher so our vacations, as I said, are based on the 2020 school calendars.

    Also, this year will most-likely be the last time that we all visit Disney as a family.  My oldest daughter will be graduating high school in June and will be moving away to college in the fall.  College and grade school vacations do not line up.

    OK… So we are hoping to go in February this year, but we cannot make any further plans because both Southwest and JetBlue have not announced their flights for February and beyond as of yet (Southwest is booking through early January and JetBlue through the week before we would be leaving in February.).

    After checking through Google a few weeks ago, Southwest announced that they would be opening flights for January – March, 2020 on July 10, 2019.  I was excited that I was actually going to be able to begin the planning of our 2020 vacation.  The cost of the airline tickets with affect what we are able to do and where we are able to go for the rest of the vacation.  I was glad that I would at least get the ball rolling.

    Well, yesterday was July 10, 2019 and when I went onto Southwest’s website at http://www.southwest.com and tried to search for tickets, they were still only accepting reservations through January 5th.  What? REALLY??? I tried again today, July 11, 2019 and, nope, they are still only accepting through January 5th.

    Come on Southwest!  It is not like I went to some Travel Blogger’s site to get this information.  I got it directly from your website www.southwest.com.

    Well, I guess that I will continue to search and watch to see when JetBlue will start accepting reservations for the third week in February, 2020 and see who has the better price.  My daughters were a little disappointed last night, as was I, due to the fact that once we have the plane tickets, we strategically plan the rest of the vacation as a family.  When we sit at the kitchen table to figure where we are going on certain days, it can get more intense than a NFL team’s war room on draft day.

    My plans are now put on hold, which to be honest is not a major disaster in the grand scheme of life.  But, Southwest, I would have expected better from you than to put out incorrect information that would mislead your customers.