Extending my next trip

My boss pointed out to me last week that I have a floating holiday to use this year, since Christmas falls on a Saturday. I didn’t really think about what I wanted to do with that extra day. This morning, however, talking with Ange about our upcoming Christmas-themed trip, it suddenly dawned on me that I could use that extra vacation day to extend our trip. We were originally planning on going from Sunday after Thanksgiving through Thursday. But since I can now take Friday off, we’re going to stay until the following Sunday. We both have (or will have, by then) Annual Passes, so there’s no additional ticket cost. The flights can be changed, since they’re Southwest, by only paying the difference in fare cost between the two flights. So the only real additional cost for this extension is the hotel. I found pretty much nothing available on DisneyWorld.com (other than the Executive Suite at Coronado Springs, or Treehouse Villas at Saratoga Springs, each of which would be several thousand dollars). But I was able to find Disney hotels on Expedia, specifically the All Star Movies for $79/night. I also emailed my travel agent, Stephanie, to see if she can get us a better rate.

This is all pretty exciting. In addition to simply having more time at WDW, it removes a bit of stress from the trip. For example, on our Magic Kingdom day, I’d been trying to figure out how we were going to manage to tour the different MK-area resorts, including Fort Wilderness, without taking time away from the Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. But now I know that we can spread some of that resort touring into these extra days. It also feels good to know that I have “extra” days that aren’t already obsessively planned out. Three days that we can pretty much take as they come, and decide what to do right there and then, since we’ll have already accomplished all our “goals” for the week.

40 days and counting!!