Walt Disney World/Disneyland

Disney Parks 2012 One More Disney Day Promotion

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With the business and excitement of Christmas day, we decided to set the DVR to record the Disney Parks Christmas Day parade. As we settled down Christmas evening to enjoy each other and all of the toys with the boys, we decided to watch the parades (pre-recorded from Disneyland and Walt Disney World) and reminisce about our time at World last year and our coming trip to Disneyland in the summer of 2012. It was fun not only watching the boys play with their things but also enjoying all of their favorite characters dancing down Main Street USA.

Near the end of the parade, Mario Lopez and Maria Menounos announced details of the 2012 campaign at the Disney Parks, One More Disney Day. At 8:00 11:00 PM EST on December 31, 2011, during the Dick Clark New Year’s Rock-n-Eve broadcast, Disney will announce the details of the new campaign. Unfortunately, the official Disney website does not release any early information yet except a very cool video counting down until the announcement.

The Disney organization has a very moving way of exciting the audience in the new video. It is one of the many reason’s Walt Disney has always been an inspiration and role model to me. Most notably because it is incredibly moving to me to see how one man’s vision makes millions of kids (and adults) happy by embracing the magic. How can it not bring goosebumps to one’s skin seeing kids light up after seeing their favorite character point them out during a parade. Every ounce of you gets wrapped up in the magic of the entertainment as you walk through those gates and into the Parks. It is that magic that is priceless and what we hope to capture in our hearts as we take our boys in 2012.

While there are rumors that the campaign has something to do with the leap year and possibly being open continuously over the leap day, it is far from a year long promotion like previous years. More than likely, Disney will offer a promotion to earn an additional day at the parks. In the last (2010) big ticket promotion, Disney offered guests who volunteered a day a free ticket to use at the Disney Parks in 2010. It was an awesome promotion, and just as fast as registration went live, it filled up and was booked. We debated about doing it, but never did since we did not think we would be able to use the tickets. Unfortunately, we ended up going over Thanksgiving as a last minute decision and could have used the tickets if we had planned properly.

Luckily, in 2012, we plan on going to Disneyland, so we will be closely watching to see what the new campaign entails. I have to believe the promotion will be available for use over the entire year, and not just over Leap Day, but we will not know until New Year’s Eve.

Update 12/31/11: Details were announced tonight for the One More Disney Day promotion. First the details. As expected, the Disney Parks (Disneyland and Disney World) will remain open for 24-hours on leap day, February 29, 2012. In addition, every day until Leap Day, Disney will give away a vacation package plus some special offer.

In addition, there is an option to get One More Disney Day:

Spend an extra night for free at either a Disneyland Resort Hotel or a Walt Disney World Resort hotel when you book a Room and Ticket Package for 3 nights or more, between February 26 and March 10, 2012. Purchase before January 31, 2012.

Note the travel date restrictions. Now for my opinion. The offer is weak at best and is not a typical year long celebration like in years past. Basically, Disney is giving away a free night if you come during a very slow time of year. Oh, and if you happen to come over Leap Day, you can stay for 24 hours. Just my idea of a not so good time; being at the park when they are at capacity because they will surely do so. In other words, this promotion appeals to only a small handful of willing participants, and is not going to move people to want to come to Disney just to partake in this event. A family is more likely to use the free Dining offers at other times of the year before this promotion.

I was hopeful this promotion would spark some magic in my wallet for our Disneyland tickets, but besides the lovely video on the website now live, there is no reason to jump the gun on this one. If we win the daily contest though, I will be sure to let everyone know my opinion has been bought by the Mouse.

2010 Osborne Festival of Lights Brings Goosebumps

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Before we get to the end of the year, I wanted to just share a quick video that we taped last year during the Osborne Lights at Walt Disney World/Hollywood Studios. Last Thanksgiving was our first time to the Disney Parks during the Christmas holiday, and despite Bug, who was 2 at the time, being sick during our visit (as it appears to be typical for almost all of our vacations), we had an amazing time over the holiday weekend.

We really had no idea what to expect, but had heard amazing things about the light show. When we rounded the corner near the back of the Osborne Lights area, and heard the music start and seeing the lights dance to the sounds, it truly was an amazing experience. It is one of those moments in life where you are holding your child, and they see something amazing, and the incredible sense of happiness just overcomes you. The feeling is part of the Disney Magic that you hear so much about, but really might not understand until you experience it for yourself.

During this video, I just so happen to capture one of my favorite Christmas songs as we watched the lights. You can see the flying reindeer over the walkway in the video. There is “snow” falling from the rooftops. And there are lots and lots of people packed side-by-side. The pictures and video can not begin to explain just how amazing the experience is, but it was fun to find these and reminisce of our time with Disney last year.

101124 Disney Hollywood Studios

101124 Disney Hollywood Studios

101124 Disney Osborne Lights

101124 Disney Osborne Lights

101124 Disney Osborne Lights Fireplace

101124 Disney Osborne Lights Fireplace

The last picture of the fireplace was pretty cool because it really looked like flickering flames as the lights changed. Also notice the hidden Mickey in the stocking.

We at InACents hope you had a truly magical 2011, and wish you the best of times in 2012.

How We Are Going to Hawaii and Disney for $30

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As anyone who follows might know by now, we have been in mass accumulation mode to be able to go to Hawaii someday. Recently, we have made a decision that we want to go next summer. The plan was to combine our United and Continental accounts to be able to pool enough miles to get the four of us in 3 seats (1 lap child). Yet the details were a lot more difficult than we anticipated.

First was the lengthy process to get both my wife and my OnePass accounts combined (we both had two accounts). This process involved name changes for my wife. My accounts all went smoothly, but getting someone at Continental to actually process our requests took numerous phone calls and emails. Then, when we went to combine my wife’s Continental and United accounts, we realized one had a middle initial in her name and the other did not. So the accounts would not merge, and it took another email and then a phone call. Finally after a couple of weeks, the accounts were merged, and I could get serious about our search.

For the past year every time I have occasionally searched United’s inventory, I had availability at the 40,000 tier. However, nothing lately out of our home airport has been available for next summer. So I searched airports all the way from New York City to St. Louis and everything in between, including several options in Canada. I was a desperate parent in search of any available option to get my family to Hawaii.

The best tool for searching Star Alliance reward options was by far the Continental site. After searching for reward availability, it was an excellent tool to be able to see a two-month window for available options. I was in search for the lowest level redemption at 40,000 miles for coach seats. We have a family, and traveling in business, while it would be awesome, just is not feasible in my mind. I like to see real value with our miles, and considering we only had about 180k combined miles to work with, coach was acceptable.

Pretty much any airport within a several hour radius connected through Chicago. In addition, it was pretty much the only airport that had any type of availability. At the time, the Continental website only showed availability near the end of next summer at the 40k level. That is when I noticed something hokey.

When searching through the Continental system, the award calendars were rarely correct. In other words, some days it would show a low level redemption, only nothing was available once I selected the day. The real kicker is several days would show no low level availability in the calendar, but if you actually searched each available day, certain days did have availability. It was a kink in the software apparently. I had a lead and the detailed hunt began.

So I began searching every airport again, this time day-by-day. What a time commitment to save some cash. Eventually all circles lead me right back to Chicago. This time, searching day-by-day showed tons of availability that was not showing up in the calendar. I was able to find early summer options for the two-weeks we were wanting to spend in Hawaii. The adrenaline was running.

At that point, I realized I needed to perform a two-browser trick to be able to book rewards through both my wife and my accounts. I did not want to reserve tickets in one of our accounts, and then when I went back in to perform the same redemption for the other account, it would be unavailable. So I had my IE browser searching for flights with my wife and infant as a lap child (one ticket), and Firefox running with seats for Bug and I (two seats). We did not have enough points in only one of our accounts, thus why we both needed to redeem miles for seats.

After a long process, I was able to snag flights in and out of Chicago to HNL. 120,000 miles and only $30, and we are going on our dream vacation for two weeks.

The only setbacks is we need to get ourselves to Chicago. The flights out are super early in the morning, and the return is late at night, so therefore, we need to make sure we account for a day before and after the trip for travel to and from Chicago. Not a problem.

Then my wife and I got to thinking. We have a 6 hour layover in Los Angeles on the way to HNL. Not quite long enough to go anywhere with LA traffic. So I decided to call up Continental and see if there was any way they could move up the CHI-LAX leg of the trip by several hours or even days to give us enough time to acclimate to the time change, but also possibly squeeze in Disneyland.

When I called, the agent was able to make my day by moving our departure up three days as a stop-over. Luckily, that aligned with a weekend, so no additional time off of work. I took my chances to see if there was any availability directly out of Cleveland to save us a trip to Chicago, but no luck at the 40,000 redemption level. However, the agent said to keep an eye on availability, and as long as it is before 21 hours or days (I can’t recall) ahead of the departure, they could make the change. This is excellent news, and it really made our day. My wife is now head-over-heels that she not only is getting to go to Hawaii for two full weeks, but also gets to go back to Disneyland with the boys.

So with a bunch of planning, and only $30 out-of-pocket, we have now been able to secure flights to Hawaii with a nice stop-over in LA for several days in Disneyland. It was all possible with free miles earned from credit card bonuses and spend, and earning miles on purchases we were going to make anyways. Stay tuned over the next several months, as there is a lot to plan, and my mind is spinning on all the different point and mile redemptions for hotels, cars, and everything else. Aloha everyone!