A New Trip Full of New Memories...Hopefully It Happens! - July 2020 PTR (Completed)

Did you see this? Jambo House will be closed. Might want to call right away before all the Savannah View rooms are gone.

https://dvcfan.com/2020/06/17/dvc-confirms-animal-kingdom-lodge-jambo-house-closure/

Thanks for posting this! That is great news to know. We are re-thinking things again with respect to those first four days of our trip where we had planned on being at Jambo. I will update the PTR here once I know more, but we are making a little bit of a drastic change.
 
Day 6 Plans

I think I mentioned it in my last update, but once again today we got some news that changed things. After hearing Jambo House may open last week, it appears that today Disney has confirmed that it will not be opening with the rest of the DVC resorts. They also said it would not open until they actually need it due to space available and that all reservations would be converted over to Kidani Village. Oh well...last night I actually started thinking about some other ideas for those first four days of our trip, just to make things easier. But, I’m going to wait to update here until I know for sure, which is hopefully in the next couple of days. Let’s get on with the Day 6 Plans.

This day’s plans are going to be super easy to get across. We had a busy day on Day 5 of changing resorts, going to Volcano Bay, and then crossing our fingers for a dinner at Bigfire. So, today is something I know we want at Cabana Bay...a day to just spend here:

ACtC-3dbCUm9xARjkj7IfFQW9WM1MomxcOydG451ewKrJaFs6-F_grPXJk024t2gbrzABAX7pZsuYxgsDhGRci0XkNhGC1PQjcoqgKWwkl2nwiZHc6ZzRunlkjGFC8WVQZwUGuMat_jZV84E0aAkCAr1fVw7fg=w1984-h1488-no


DW and I loved this pool here in August and left saying we wished we had more time to spend there. We only got to enjoy it for a few hours one afternoon, but it was so fun! DW loved the lazy river!!

ACtC-3fkj5CTKJ5CnfITdMvj8EqFbIraizi_LhI4gJgQEe-LSF3OTIR1Jaw0XOufzM7yidH2t_jH0jT7rOkFJ1fF1Azy303S7TJ2Qkf75rSEn0fj5PC-m0CRApHiTDN3-B-Kw9d_oqKwBmycRiiQTOTJAXT7Ug=w1984-h1488-no


So, this day is just a complete resort day. No parks are in the plan at this point. We will eat lunch at the resort and then dinner will be kind of up in the air. We love swimming after dark, so we may just decide to eat at the resort again and do some night swimming or we might venture over to CityWalk for a meal. What’s everyone’s favorite restaurant there? We love Bigfire, obviously! We’ve eaten at Bubba Gump and NBC Grill which are both decent. Also, we had milkshakes at Toothsome’s last year, but didn’t eat there. I’ve been thinking about trying that one.

ACtC-3fmvmuNLoleOijBPRsPuPQfW5KtEk4M_E_4Bydq9dtgghKxC11nATB8J3p5i_eq1AK6gAevJXhBlanMQGnHaMQv-gZwlFptDG9pGHHlJwAa4amooqkV4xNyxegTFpqyzXTpqYWFUTMBDn2Tv1PM0GD-MA=w1116-h1488-no


Anyways, that will pretty much do it. Not much to this day...just rest, relaxation, and swimming!

Up Next: Day 7 Plans
 
Resort days are the best!!!! I keep telling my family when we win the lottery, I'm putting a lazy river in our back yard!!! :rotfl2:

Fingers crossed you get the DVC resort and room you want!!!
 
Last edited:


Resort days are the best!!!! I keep telling my family when we win the lottery, I'm putting a lazy river in out back yard!!! :rotfl2:

Fingers crossed you get the DVC resort and room you want!!!

Oh man. A lazy river in the back yard! That would be the best!!!
 
Trip Update

All right everyone...I’m sure no one is surprised as this is kind of how it is going for everyone with Disney trips right now, but we have decided to make another change at this point. With all of the uncertainty regarding Jambo House at Animal Kingdom DW and I have decided to forgo our plans to stay there for the first four nights of our trip and instead extend our stay at Universal.

To be honest with all of the craziness it never crossed my mind to rent out our DVC points up until a few days ago because I just thought with our points expiring on July 31 and all there wouldn’t be much of a market. Well, we decided to try and I have been so shocked with the response. I have met some fantastic Disers who have rented out a bulk of our points at this point, in fact I only have 7 point lefts that will expire on July 31. The rest of ours will get extended another year due to the COVID closure. So, you guys probably don’t care about any of this, but we were able to rent those points to some new “friends” and we made enough to cover the entire amount of our park tickets to Universal, which will be a nice thing financially. Especially considering we still have about $2,500 tied up in Disney annual passes that we aren’t going to activate until next summer at the earliest, but I don’t want to get a refund on those and then risk the price being higher when it comes time to buy them in the future, which will probably happen!

Anyways, back to the planning! So, now I have extended our stay at Cabana Bay for three nights at the beginning, so we will have a total of five nights there.

ACtC-3fGtTakcD4jbqto-7BlRWWttcmNkiHQllv3IuJY676dazcdthvT3-WYDImtSVfzKgcYmc73i_NNElpdFb4_HM0i0SHOlUVs9WQmO-EKfXkKMgaTjGPeVL-btB1IgS7Eq1eJmNMNz4gvdXo63GeWVofXdQ=w1116-h1488-no


We are actually staying on a travel agent rate as I am a TA and so it is a good deal financially. Unfortunately, you can only stay 7 nights on a TA rate, so I will have one night at the beginning of the trip to figure something out for. I’m not too worried and I might just do another Cabana Bay night on a Universal Annual Pass rate, which is also pretty low price wise at Cabana Bay.

Did anyone catch that? Yes, I said it...we are all getting:

ACtC-3c-XsJ4rrW2QyERvnPHrO7Vs7Hcm8Mdej9BzbQGwUueB-ODIvTjX6i4szF2YUrXgl25gdr8cbTT98kEhNphOf_4uSuPMnwTxY91bs9WjXdwlV57UoKfOSA7stPWTiJk-lwZ_2Yd35bxaozjxotIOWLHJw=w415-h233-no


Annual Passes! The more we looked at it we could all get a 3 park preferred annual pass for everyone for only about $60 more per person. Now, we can go into a park every day of our trip instead of just four days as that was the ticket we were looking at. Not to mention we will get food and merchandise discounts. This will also allow us to add a couple of days onto our Disney trip next summer at not much additional cost, so we are pulling the trigger on this. The DVC point rental that we did easily helped us make this possible.

Now, there is one problem with the preferred pass that we had...BLOCKOUT DATES! Now, the blockout dates aren’t bad with this pass as there are none at either Universal Studios or Islands of Adventure, but Volcano Bay is blocked out from mid-June to mid-August until 4:00 PM. In a normal summer this wouldn’t be a big deal as Volcano Bay is usually open until 7 or 8 PM in the summer, but this summer with COVID going on they are only open until 5:00. They have been modifying park hours to a 6 PM closing time on Fridays and Saturdays though. So, our plan is to just go to Volcano Bay at 4 PM on both a Friday and a Saturday and then again on a couple of other days of our trip even though we will only get an hour or two in. We think that will be enough for us this summer since DS4 isn’t at the 42” mark yet, so he can’t really do any slides this summer. Also, we will be at Cabana Bay for five nights so it will be very easy to just pop over to Volcano Bay at 4:00 PM through the secret entrance for an hour or two.

ACtC-3eKiD5VdD8QpRJqXDNCgsfZgapFTTwtuc48JmQxPYZgvUy-XcU7_NzXBjxhF-aP3qYnNSYgpKnUWgDTPLVyLM6jTICeFReq_s5ikfXG5JvFz98SByA_KCxldzy9XieGwcEyH6T8gBGXm0f9DHFx4lSTLQ=w1984-h1488-no


I know everyone is on pins and needle wanting me to re-do our daily plans for days 1-6 again, but I’m not going to tackle that one! Sorry...haha! We are still just going to take it easy on those days and yes, we may pop into IOA or US for a few hours each day we will spend most of our time at Cabana Bay enjoying the pool there and relaxing. Our final three park days we are at Royal Pacific and will have express pass so we will do a bulk of our park touring during that time when we can use the express pass!

Anyways, that is plan now. I’ll get back and plan the final few days of our trip. In the meantime stay safe everyone and have a great week!

Up Next: Day 7 Plans
 
I think you made the right decision. Being at AKL for a few days would've been fun, but with Jambo House (and potentially their restaurants) not being open, it really limits your options. Extra days of swimming, water park time, and Universal parks sound like a great plan!

It's too bad about the blackout dates for Volcano Bay, but it sounds like you have a good plan to make it work. I think the ability to go into US and IOA any time you like during your trip will outweigh the disappointment of not being about to spend a full day at Volcano Bay.
 


Never even crossed my mind that you would be able to rent out your DVC points with all the craziness going on... But what a great idea and extra spending cash to put towards other things!!!

AP's for Universal are crazy cheap compared to Disney AP's... :scared1:
 
To be honest with all of the craziness it never crossed my mind to rent out our DVC points up until a few days ago because I just thought with our points expiring on July 31 and all there wouldn’t be much of a market. Well, we decided to try and I have been so shocked with the response. I have met some fantastic Disers who have rented out a bulk of our points at this point, in fact I only have 7 point lefts that will expire on July 31. The rest of ours will get extended another year due to the COVID closure. So, you guys probably don’t care about any of this, but we were able to rent those points to some new “friends” and we made enough to cover the entire amount of our park tickets to Universal, which will be a nice thing financially. Especially considering we still have about $2,500 tied up in Disney annual passes that we aren’t going to activate until next summer at the earliest, but I don’t want to get a refund on those and then risk the price being higher when it comes time to buy them in the future, which will probably happen!
Nice! Yeah, especially with people not being able to make new regular reservations, last minute DVC would have been a lifeline for some people. When I first got my DVC contract it had some banked points which I couldn't use so I rented them out to help cover some of the initial cost!

I hope you have fun at Universal!
 
I think you made the right decision. Being at AKL for a few days would've been fun, but with Jambo House (and potentially their restaurants) not being open, it really limits your options. Extra days of swimming, water park time, and Universal parks sound like a great plan!

Yeah, we are excited. I think we will have just as much fun and actually came out way ahead on the trip budget. I just didn't think it would be as easy as it was to rent out all of our points we needed to with the current situation, but it was surprisingly easy!

It's too bad about the blackout dates for Volcano Bay, but it sounds like you have a good plan to make it work. I think the ability to go into US and IOA any time you like during your trip will outweigh the disappointment of not being about to spend a full day at Volcano Bay.

Yeah, that is a disappointment, but we are kicking around the idea of going back to Universal next spring break as we will have the AP's and Volcano Bay won't be blocked out then. And DS4 should be 42" by then too so VB will be a bigger draw for us. I think we will work it out though and still get some time at Volcano Bay. While staying at Cabana Bay you are so close it is actually super convenient to pop over there for an hour or so a few evenings.

Never even crossed my mind that you would be able to rent out your DVC points with all the craziness going on... But what a great idea and extra spending cash to put towards other things!!!

AP's for Universal are crazy cheap compared to Disney AP's... :scared1:

It never crossed my mind either and when it did I thought it would be very hard to find people. But I got all of them booked within about two days and we are going to come out ahead on the trip budget now!

Nice! Yeah, especially with people not being able to make new regular reservations, last minute DVC would have been a lifeline for some people. When I first got my DVC contract it had some banked points which I couldn't use so I rented them out to help cover some of the initial cost!

I hope you have fun at Universal!

We did the same thing with our DVC. We bought in July with an August use year, but we got points for that first year which only had about 20 days left when we bought. We then got to bank those and use them as a rental like you did!
 
Sorry to see your Disney time gone but it looks like it the best outcome. Your trip is getting closer and closer.
 
Sorry to see your Disney time gone but it looks like it the best outcome. Your trip is getting closer and closer.

I know! Things appear to be going smoothly so far at Universal, although the same can't be said for the rest of Florida right now. Hopefully things turn back in the right direction here soon!
 
I know! Things appear to be going smoothly so far at Universal, although the same can't be said for the rest of Florida right now. Hopefully things turn back in the right direction here soon!

It does sound scary for Florida right now. I hope they can get it turned around.
 
Trip Update

Well, I have been gone for a couple of weeks and we should have been getting home from Universal today, but I guess I should update everyone. When I last updated cases in Florida had started spiking and they continued to spike even higher. After much thought and consideration we decided to not go to Florida this summer with all of that in mind. Let me know, we didn't make this decision because we were fearful of the virus or because we didn't trust Universal...we simply didn't want to make this large monetary investment into a vacation and risk the resort shutting down while we were there. I mean we didn't want the parks to close while we were there due to the spike or we didn't want other things like dining or indoor rides or anything like that shutting down. I know many people are dealing with those things just fine on their trips, but we felt like traveling with two kids that are 8 and 4 would make it harder for us with the heat and masks and other restrictions. So, we cancelled and that led us down the last three week which started with us frantically cancelling every aspect we had booked and then figuring out what did we actually want to do for some sort of vacation.

We decided maybe one of the easiest things to do was some sort of trip where we stayed within a days drive of home. We began searching different options and found a couple of things we thought sounded fun and were actually some pretty good deals for cheap stays at a couple of places. So in the matter of a few days we planned a mini road trip with a few days in Branson, MO where we visited Silver Dollar City and a couple of other fun things in that area. Then we drove up to Kansas City to visit Worlds of Fun, which is a neat theme park there, and got a great deal at Great Wolf Lodge which we had never done before. Overall it all happened so fast I never had the chance to update things here, but now we are home and getting back into a more normal routine.

I'm not sure I have enough to do a full trip report for a couple of reasons. First, wearing the masks in theme parks not only persuades you to not taking as many pictures because you have it on, it is just hot and harder to actually take pictures as you travel around the parks. The second reason was we took a lot more video on this trip because the boys wanted to create a video after our trip and "put it on YouTube"...they are into watching vacation videos on YouTube. So, we did take a lot more video than we have in the past. I did get a short preview video of our trip done and we showed the boys this morning and they loved watching it! So, we will continue putting some of those together. So please go watch that if you want to: YOUTUBE CHANNEL. I may come back next week and do a little update with the pictures we do have, but otherwise we will just wait and see when our next Disney trip will happen. We are hoping things clear up enough to go next summer since we already have annual passes purchased. We will see how things go!
 
I'm sorry you had to cancel your Universal trip, but I think you made the right call considering what Florida looks like right now. Even though I know the theme parks are doing what they can, I'm certainly fearful of the virus given the possible complications. Our family continues to lay low and I'm 100% okay with that. I also think face masks in the Florida (summer!) heat would be be very challenging. The good news is Universal will still be there for a future trip!

I'm glad you were able to find fun things to do closer to home. I've never been to Worlds of Fun, but have heard great things about it and it's sister waterpark, Oceans of Fun. Great Wolf Lodge would also be excellent! I'll have to check out your YouTube Channel and look forward to any pictures you post here.

Have a great rest of your summer and here's to wonderful trips in the future!
 
I was just thinking you should be back from vacation soon... Not the vacation I expecting, but any vacation right now is a good vacation... And probably a good call to cancel Florida...

I hope Florida gets their act together before we go in October!!! Husband wants to cancel it right now... I'm being optimistic that things will get better... Fingers crossed I'm right!!! And they now have openings at Jamba House so we moved over there since we just plan on hanging out at the pool all week... Another reason I hope they get their act together!!!

Love Great Wolf Lodge... We've been to the Wisconsin Dells location quite a few times... Never been to Branson or Worlds of Fun... Can't wait to read about them...

Headed over to your YouTube channel right now...

What's the update on your schools??? Some schools in Iowa want to start school online instead of in school (in the counties where the counts are getting bad, which is my county)... But the governor announced on Friday all schools will start in school and can only do online if they get an exemption... She didn't open up all 99 counties at the same time... She kept the 22 counties with high numbers closed for additional month... Wish she would do the same thing with school... Let the counties with stable numbers open with in school learning and let the counties with high numbers do online learning... School starts the week of August 24th...

Welcome back!!!
 
Trip Update

We decided maybe one of the easiest things to do was some sort of trip where we stayed within a days drive of home. We began searching different options and found a couple of things we thought sounded fun and were actually some pretty good deals for cheap stays at a couple of places. So in the matter of a few days we planned a mini road trip with a few days in Branson, MO where we visited Silver Dollar City and a couple of other fun things in that area. Then we drove up to Kansas City to visit Worlds of Fun, which is a neat theme park there, and got a great deal at Great Wolf Lodge which we had never done before. Overall it all happened so fast I never had the chance to update things here, but now we are home and getting back into a more normal routine.


We also cancelled our Florida trip, which was necessary because Kansas requires a two week quarantine for anyone coming back from Florida and no one could afford an extra two weeks off. We did go to Branson in late June, though, and stayed at a timeshare resort, so we had our own place with a kitchen and washer/dryer and access to nice pools. I was a little aghast at how poorly Branson was social distancing and we ended up spending lots and lots of time at the resort and ordering "to go" meals for dinners. We go to Branson several times a year, although this was our first and probably only time in 2020, and love it. We've also done Worlds of Fun and Great Wolf Lodge in the past. What a great combo! Here's hoping we all get to take trips next year!
 
So you cancelled our Florida trip but it sounds like you did what was best. It's been a very long time since we went to Branson. I remember is being so beautiful. I've always wanted to try Great Wold Lodge. I'm sure the kids had a blast.
 
Too bad about florida, but I totally totally understand! I don't have any plans to return until things truly settle down (though I'm also in LA in another hotspot, so that's super fun...)

I'm looking forward to watching the video!
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!










Top