2025 Travel Plans

How many years have I spent chuckling over people trying to plan a Disney trip? Well, here I am presently wringing my hands over an end-of-February trip to one of my favorite places, Disneyland. It’s only the third trip ever to Anaheim for this Ohio boy and I couldn’t be more thrilled. My husband has a conference there at Grand Californian and I’m more than happy to tag along for some deluxe stuff.
I got the official/unofficial guide book and I’ve gone dizzy trying to get up to speed with LL, 2 hour rules, stacking, etc. Seriously, it’s overwhelming. The good news is that I’ll have most of the time there to myself. We arrive on Sunday, I plan to Uber to Knott’s on Monday where I should check off some new credits. I’ve always liked that park and I’m looking forward to some quality log flume time as well. Then 3 days at DLR. I have LL multi-something-something which shouldn’t be too tough to navigate especially over three days. The challenge will be for the afternoon and evenings when Jim and his associates come to the parks “for a couple hours”. They also have tickets and reservations, and he’s told me I’m responsible for “setting up everyone’s rides” and I’m like “um no, that’s not how it works.” I mean they can’t even tell me what times or days they will be available, so no. Thursday is an entire day at the parks for everyone so I’ll tackle that with help from the hotel concierge and the expertise of our friends who are all Californians. DL is 10pm close and CaAdv is 9p so I have a feeling they may be busy. (Always) Hope not.
I don’t want to turn this into an advice session, I’m not sure even why I’m going on like this. (But if anyone wants to send me a PM with any can’t miss advice I’m all Ears)
As for the rest of the season I’m not sure. Every summer I say I’m going to get back to Virginia but somehow that drive gets longer and longer. I’m also re-thinking my season pass options and I may go with (for the first time in my adult life) no pass at all. It’s expensive and last year was a complete bust for me. After I spent tons on a prestige pass with all-park and drink option I wound up not really using it. Life got in the way and I scored only 1 trip to KI and 2 to Cedar Point, the first of which was the last day TT2 ran. (Without me or anyone else in it, so I missed that.) In past years the Platinum pass was good at other parks through the spring, but I called Knott’s and that’s no longer valid. My pass expired on NYD. Her advice was to go ahead and get my pass updated now then I’ll be able to use it. I’m thinking an on-line day ticket will be best for now. Maybe a FL+ to save time.
I’d like to get back to Knoebels this fall but I can’t think about Fall right now.

SteveWoA:

2. The other half had some PTO to use up before her anniversary date, so we ended up booking a short notice trip to Spain at the end of February into March. We will fly into Barcelona and have our full arrival day plus two days in BCN, which will include a day at Port Aventura. We will then take the high speed train to Madrid which is a quick 2hr 45min ride or so. We will have two full days there, one of which will be at Parque Warner Madrid and likely a quick stop the other day (as there is not much and its basically right in the city) at Parque de Atracciones. Then we fly home the following afternoon.

So, turns out this isn't happening anymore... We ended up having to axe Spain because after 3 or 4 itinerary changes, nothing was working and we had roadblocks every step of the way.

Long story short... Park hours mixed with some huge 3-day "Largest and most influential connectivity event in the world" in Barcelona causing everything to be sold out or 3x the price, then Carnival events were occurring in other cities we had planned to stay in to work around the Barcelona event, among other things (such as a main tunnel the train uses was closed to Port Aventura, requiring bus transfers and making the near 2hr journey even longer)...

We tried to flip/flop our entry and departure airports, move stuff around, get a car to get around the train tunnel issue, etc... Then since the parks are only open across the weekend, it just got tough to make it work logistically. In the end, we decided to just axe it and go another time when it would be less hectic to cram things in. At least we are prepared and all set to go outside of just picking some days to make it happen!

So plan C?

We changed our flight to Hawaii, instead... Never been, but its been on the 'to do' for quite a while, probably over a decade. We will have 4.5 full days (not including travel) and decided on the island of O‘ahu for it's large variety of stuff to do... Maui was probably the preferred choice initially, but as we dug into O‘ahu it just worked better for us. We already have tours locked and loaded at Kualoa Ranch doing their UTV tour (I'm geeking about the Jurassic Park stuff we get to see), a Cocoa Farm tour, Rum distillery, coffee farm/shop and tons of various food stuff we have researched. We have a car booked, so we are not stuck in the city. Then snorkeling of course, beaches and various hikes mixed in.

The flight will be our longest to date (just shy of 10 hours from our connection in Detroit...), but a little YOLO on Delta One going will kick the trip off right. Be good prep if we do the 12-13hr Japan flight later this year.

So we are super excited, to say the least. It will be a super nice 'refresh' from all the craziness going on as of late.

RCMC if you still have your pass id, try to renew online. If they let you then your old card will get you in to KBF.

Yes, I renew the same card every year. But this time it was more about the money and ROI, as last year didn't work out to my advantage.

Steve, I've only been there twice, but if you miss Kauai, you miss the best parts of the islands. It's geologically diverse, most culturally authentic and easily the most beautiful. There's a reason they shot Jurassic Park there.

Kauai will be a must do for sure. The thinking is that if we love it and want to go back we will obviously spend longer there and prioritize Kauai for half and split with either the Big Island or Maui. Eventually would like to see them all, of course.

O'ahu seemed to be a good choice for that little bit of everything to prospect the 'experience' and dial in the activities or what we enjoyed most for future planning if we go back to the other islands.

We’ve been to Hawaii 5? 6? times and having tried all the majors, Maui is our favorite. Well, we haven’t been back since the tragic destruction of Lahaina, which devastated us, but we found Maui to be the best combination of beach, mountains, weather, food, and activities. Kauai gave us the most spectacular scenery I’ll ever see in my life but they roll up the sidewalks even at the small collection of resort properties. You’re not wrong with Oahu as a first choice, they have things that every visitor should experience- North Shore, USS Arizona Memorial, and even the Dole Plantation was beautiful and fascinating. Waikiki, Diamondhead, all the iconic Hawaii things. But most of the small-ish island is Honolulu which you may not know from any other big city. It’s easy to drive the entire island in a day but traffic can be horrible. Every island has its own unique ecosystem and environment and is worth visiting at least once. We also found Big Island Hawaii to be a favorite. One side of the island is a black rock, volcanic outer space apocalyptic fantasy (with an ocean) and the other half is rainy, tropical lushness. For most visits we’ve done two islands, either ending or beginning our time in Maui. Transportation between islands is by air only so that essentially takes away a whole day but to experience another island is worth it.
And we always say “Maui Nō Ka ‘Oi” (Maui is the best)
Have a blast, please report back, and we know it won’t be about a roller coaster.

Each of the four "majors" has a bit of a different vibe. My personal favorite is Kaua'i for the reasons that Jeff mentioned. The Big Island is #2---it's the youngest geologically, so it is very different from Kaua'i, which is the oldest.

O'ahu is for me "less Hawaiian" than the others, and Maui is much more tourism focused---which is great, because (at least prior to the Lahaina fire) they have a solid tourism infrastructure, but is also not great for the same reasons. Both are great, and worth a visit.

I would love to go back to Hawaii and we were actively considering it (although Korea won out) ...

It's never been a cheap trip, particularly from the UK, but I was amazed just how much more expensive it appeared to be since we were last there in 2013. Maybe that's true everywhere, but it felt particularly inflated vs. other trips.

Is that the general experience?

Yeah, its certainly expensive. The hotel costs as much as we paid in Manhattan or London. Far more than comparable (or better) hotels anywhere else we have been. Then add in all the parking fees if you have a car (which we will), food costs, resort fees, excursion stuff, etc.

That is a main reason why it has been harder to pull the trigger on Hawaii for us in the past as we could always do so much more for the money elsewhere for a longer period of time. Also a big reason why most tend to go to the Caribbean (especially if on the east side of the country) as it can be far cheaper and quicker to get to, but to be honest nothing there interested us nearly as much as Hawaii.

I want to say all-in, our 5 night stay in O'ahu all-in will cost more than our 10 night Poland/Germany trip in May. Flight cost is a wash between them, so its just everything else.

Hawaii is a bunch of small islands, so everything is more expensive there. Hotels aren't cheap, but some places are better than others. Like on Kauai, the only places that I'd be OK with are the Sheraton and Hyatt on Poipu Beach, although I think the latter is now like a grand a night (it was about $450 when I was last there in 2009). The big island, honestly you're better off trying a B&B, as most of the hotels are either meh or two theme park-like, in a bad way (I'm looking at you, Hilton Waikoloa).

It occurs to me though that it has in fact been almost 16 years since I've been, so my expertise may be past its shelf life.

I'd recommend (if the budget allows) to take a cruise on Norwegian's Pride of America around Hawaii. The ship is not the selling point for its amenities (in fact its my least favorite ship I've been on) but it does the 7 day cruise around the islands without the mexico stop. This is because its a US registered ship so the Jones Act doesn't apply.

Although I haven't sailed on it, I'd say that ship is the best way to see all of the islands and highlights in one week. Then pick what you like most (road to Hana) and go back to those spots for longer stays. With the time you save island hopping, you can swing by Knoebel's.

That NCL Hawaiian cruise was our honeymoon in 2006. It was our first and only cruise, as we discovered that cruising is not our thing, despite having a "large" room with a balcony and all.

As far as seeing Hawaii, yeah, it's a great way to dip your toes in the water. We got to sample a small part of each of the 4 main islands. If we were to ever go back though, we'd probably just pick a single island and do that one.

As far as the cruise itself, the selling point indeed was that you start and end in Oahu with no long oversees voyage. It makes for a busy itinerary if you chose to do so, which we did. Every day was a hike, tour, etc, which is of course exactly what we wanted. That's about where the advantages ended. We were tired of the ship by the 3rd day. The so-called "Freestyle dining" was in name only. If you did not make your reservations the second you boarded the ship, there was nothing left. We found ourselves eating at the buffet almost every meal because the "Freestyle" was booked. Pretty much everyone else was joking about the food too, so we knew it wasn't just us.

I'm not trying to crap all over cruising for those of you that enjoy it, but like I said, just not our thing. Not to mention this was almost 19 years ago so who knows how accurate my TR is at this point.

I don't think cruising was the problem, I think that itinerary, line and ship were the problem. The food on DCL is epic (no reservations), and at-sea days are peaceful (and rum soaked, optionally).

I always wanted to sail from California to Hawaii. Different options to do that. Charter a boat. Crew for someone looking to move a boat to Hawaii. Spend a little time on the islands and then fly home. More of sailing adventure trip than the specific destination though. Recently friend sent me info on an around the world sailing race. 8 legs and you can participate in any or all of them. Circumnavigation would take 11 months (14-15 ports) and require 4 weeks training. Too much of a time commitment. But one leg of the trip is from South Africa across the southern ocean to western Australia. 3-4 weeks at sea with still the same 4 week training. That's a time frame I could handle though it would likely need to be in retirement. Some of the most challenging sailing in the world. Spend some time in Australia and fly back home. Different destination with a more challenging/interesting voyage. Also working on a winter trip to Yellowstone. That will be before retirement. Biggest issue there is finding people who won't back out. My wife is a no go on both trips.

Tommytheduck:

We found ourselves eating at the buffet almost every meal because the "Freestyle" was booked.

My wife and I pack light and don't like showing up to the MDR under dressed so we just stick to the buffet. The only time we would do the MDR is if we were with a group of friends or family and we were meeting up for dinner every night.

While my recent travels over the past decade have taken me well beyond Central Florida, I still travel to the Orlando region a good 2-3 times a year for quick, long weekend trips.

I really don't do any of the parks or attractions anymore. Instead, I'm finding myself staying at one of the many really good "villa style" resort properties and just hanging out by the pool, relaxing and eating some decent meals, which are plentiful in the Orlando area. And yes, an occasional pilgrimage/road trip to Daytona to pay homage to Buc'ees is a must do...I'm a huge Buc'ees fanboy...

I'm a fairly spontaneous and last-minute traveler hopping on last minute deals, and I like to change my accommodation up, so I'm not really a good timeshare candidate.

Between all the trade shows I've attended in Orlando, and my countless visits over the years, I know central Florida like the back of my hand...so there's some comfort there.

I'm from NJ, so flight options to Orlando are vast and relatively cheap, especially during the winter and if you are flexible, which I am. As for accommodations, I'm so over traditional "hotel room" options. I have a much better stay at villa style accommodations.... separate living room and full kitchen setup with a kick butt pool complex to camp out at. It's my new go to and way more comfortable than a traditional hotel room. Just my style.