The completion of the African Elephant Crossings exhibit at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo is a major accomplishment. The area is the first major reinvestment at the zoo since the Rainforest project in 1992. The elephant project has been my personal favorite and most important endeavor that the zoo could undertake.

Yes, elephants have always been my favorite animal, but in addition, the exhibit and aging building needed some new energy. As we traveled the country going to other zoos, we constantly were reminded of the eyesore that was the old elephant exhibit. The Cleveland Zoo was falling behind relative to what other zoos across the country were accomplishing. The new elephant area will not only be gorgeous and aesthetically pleasing, but will help guide and improve the elephant program, increase education, and hopefully be a good stepping stone to launch new projects throughout the zoo.

Want to see the return of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo elephants to their new home without all the crowds? If you are a zoo member, you can now register for the free private events going on this summer. If you are not a member, I strongly encourage you to join, not only because you have access to the zoo year round, but the reciprocal access to zoos across the country is priceless. We more than pay for our membership every year by visiting other zoos when we travel.

Go here, and after signing into your account, you will be allowed to register for the various ElephanTuesday events.

Tour registration for April, May and June tours will begin on March 8, 2011at 8:30AM.

Tour registration for July, August and September tours will begin on May 31, 2011 at 8:30AM.

Tour registration for October and November tours will begin on August 30, 2011 at 8:30AM.

I was worried at first because you are only allowed to register two people to the event of your choosing. We have two little ones, under the age of two, who are currently free to the zoo, so I was not sure how this event would work. I called the zoo and confirmed that both of our kids will be able to attend the event with us. This will work out perfect because the event we registered for will be warmer weather, and our newborn will be 8 weeks, old enough to take out in public.

In my post here I talked about the cost of going to Disney World. I also mentioned how I could not find any current offers for free Disney Dining for comparison. Then, like Disney Magic, I received a pinned offer today for arrivals most nights 4/23–8/13/11.

In the offer, we would receive free…

FREE Disney Dining Plan when you purchase a non-discounted, 5-night/5-day Magic Your Way vacation package that includes Theme Park tickets and accommodations at a select Disney Deluxe Resort or Disney Deluxe Villa Resort!

or

FREE Disney Quick-Service Dining Plan when you purchase a non-discounted, 5-night/5-day Magic Your Way vacation package that includes Theme Park tickets and accommodations at a select Disney Value Resort or Disney Moderate Resort!

So I decided to run a comparison of Travelocity’s current promotion of up to 35% off the room rates, plus 4 free days of tickets versus Disney’s free dining promotion. Both scenarios were run June 7-12, 2011 at the Disney Yacht Club Resort.

Travelocity’s Offer

Garden View Room (30% off) = $1,574.21 after taxes
Three Day Magic Your Way Ticket + Park Hopper + 4 Days = $592.14
Disney’s Magical Express Service
Total = $2,166.35 + We are responsible for all of our own food costs.

Disney’s Offer

Garden View Room
5-Day Magic Your Way Base Ticket
Disney’s Magical Express Service
Total = $2,785.26 includes Magic Your Way Package Plus Dining .

Therefore, the true cost of the “free” meal plan directly through Disney is $618.91 ($2,785.26 – $2,166.35). That means my family of four would have to eat $123.78 worth of food every day just to break even. Everyone claims how expensive it is to eat at Disney, which it is not in reality if you are used to eating at better than average establishments. However, $124 worth of food is a lot of food every day. Therefore, which option is best for your family?

My wife and I always tell ourselves how we would love to try the free dining plan one time. However, with this scenario, I can not prove anything to win the discussion. In this instance, it makes no financial sense to go through Disney to book the free dining offer. Travelocity is the clear winner! I have proven to myself that by comparing the options, it again is not worth the effort to go through Disney’s plan. If we were to book the Travelocity plan, we would save $619 to be used towards food, plus have two extra days worth of park passes + park hoppers. At the end of trip, we could easily add on extra days to our tickets and upgrade to the non-expiration tickets to help come out ahead for future travels to the World.

Now in reality, if we were interested in going again, the clear winner without me even running the numbers would be to book one of the on-site Disney hotels, plus get tickets through UnderCoverTourist via Mousesavers newsletter link, and we would easily come out ahead of all these options even after factoring in the cost of purchasing our own food and transportation to and from the airport.

It seems I register and register for all the Continental promos, and it is always a waste of time because they rarely if ever actually credit my account. Even last year when my wife and I held the Continental Debit card for opening checking accounts, there were very few if any promo miles we received.

Continental offers little 100 mile promotions all the time. You simply go to this page and enter in a promo code. What they never tell you though is that you need to be a credit or debit card holder to obtain the miles. After registering for the promotions, they now have a statement which reads…

Offer valid for existing Continental Airlines Chase Credit Card members.

Every promotion I hold out hope that they will surprisingly appear in our accounts one day, even though we are no longer credit/debit card holders. Here is to another try.

Current promotional codes include:
TB3M26– 100 miles to learn about purchasing a cruise through Continental.
TB3M28– 100 miles for registering to learn about paying your telephone bill with your Continental branded credit card.