Thrifty Thursday: Lost in the (Disney) World

picture perfectphoto via http://www.flickr.com/photos/jewellshoots/3858698368/

Like so many other parents, I know what it is like to be walking down the sidewalk at a Disney park only to realize that a member of your family is missing. I have felt that utter panic and paralyzing fear that is associated with losing a child at Walt Disney World. During our trip in 2000, when my youngest son was only 6, he got separated from us. Those five minutes was the longest time of my entire life. In fact, that event is when I started to go gray.

Lost children are a very serious matter — not only to us as parents but to the Disney cast members as well. First, I am sure you have heard that at Walt Disney World there is no such thing as a lost child, only lost parents. The cast members are excellent at taking care of your precious little prince or princess until you can be found. I hope that your child is never lost, but we all know it does happen, so I am going to share some tips for hopefully making your reunion a lot quicker.

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Tuesday Disney Tips: To Insure or Not to Insure?

Choosing whether or not to buy trip insurance is one of the things to consider when planning your Walt Disney World vacation. Here at the Affordable Mouse it is paramount to us that we try to give our readers the best possible advice. We really want everyone to have the most magical experience possible when on your Disney vacation. We also try to heed our own advice when traveling ourselves. To me, affordable means the smartest use of, while requiring the least amount of, my Disney vacation money. So, it is not normally my practice to use money on any extras, like insurance, that would keep me from buying a momento for a family member or a gift for a friend while there. This year is a little different.

In all the years my family and I have been traveling to Walt Disney World, we have never purchased the vacation insurance with our reservation. Maybe we were tempting fate, but we all knew that it would have to be something fierce to keep us from making our annual trip to “The World.” We rested on the assurance of faith, combined with good planning and staying healthy. Plus, we have usually traveled at the end of November and we had been lucky in the past so what should change? Still, there is always a feeling in the pit of my stomach as we are driving from Texas to Florida that IF our van breaks down, we could arrive a day or two late, and the thought of that keeps tugging at me until we arrive there safe and sound.

For the first time, I will be purchasing trip insurance for my upcoming trip to WDW this September. For some travelers, this may seem like a waste of money, but I will spend that extra $59 gladly. What I am buying is peace of mind. I consider it to be a wise investment without any doubt for two simple reasons:

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Thrifty Thursday: Walt Disney World Lost and Found

Our family always wears lanyards during extra magic hours. It is the easiest way for us to prove that we are guests of the Disney resorts without having to stop at each ride to show our key to the kingdom card. We normally take the type with press closures at the tops of the cardholders but the lanyards themselves are regular rope-type.

This year, we got some beautiful lanyards from a travel agent and so we decided to wear them instead. The tops of the cardholders were not closed on these. We didn’t think anything of it until we got off of Space Mountain and my DH was missing his key to the world and his driver’s license.

We were frantic and went back to Space Mountain and spoke to the cast member at the entrance. She told us that there was nothing they could do right then, but informed us that every evening after the park closes, they do a full sweep of the ride to find any lost articles.  If they found the lost items, they would turn them into the main Lost and Found at the Transportation and Ticket Center. She told us to wait until the next day and call the Lost and Found to find out if they had been found.

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Adrift with Disney: Choosing the Perfect Stateroom

photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/sierraandi/5425751383/in/photostream/

As you may have read last week, my family and I are planning a brand new adventure – a Disney cruise. We have never been on a Disney cruise, nor booked one, so I am finding out new information all the time. I have already had to call and change our cabin choice after doing a little research.

When choosing our cabin, there were three things to keep in mind once we chose the category and price: the room accommodations, the location of the cabin, and which side of the ship.

Room Accommodations
Since the Disney Dream will be our home for 4 days, we want to be as comfortable as possible but  assume we will not be in the room much, if it is anything like being at Walt Disney World.  Because there are 4 of us, and allowing for the ages my children will be at the time of the cruise (DD, 21 and DS, 18), I wanted to make sure we had an adequate number of beds. I chose the Deluxe Family Oceanview Stateroom with Veranda as the description said:

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Thrifty Thursday: Creating a Disney Trip Cheater Book

I have not yet decided whether I am extremely organized or just uncertain of my ability to remember things but, either way, I compensate by always being prepared. I like to be able to put my hands on whatever I need whenever I need it.

Several years ago, when we first started visiting Walt Disney World, there was so much information about so many different things that I wanted to have a method of keeping track of things specific to our trip at any given time. I decided to create a Disney Trip Cheater book by using a set of colored 3X5 index cards, hole-punched and held together with a loose-leaf clip, like this.

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