Walt Disney World
September 25 - October
2, 2010
UPDATED on 7/16/10 - see updates in red.
Important things to know...
w
The final registration deadline for this trip is
July
31. Travelers who register early will have a better chance of
getting any extra guest tickets they need and will have priority for
chaperoning our educational programs.
w Payment will be due in
my mailbox within 7 days of the day I send your confirmation email.
Please don't register until you're able to pay for your tickets
and/or hotel.
(This eliminates the need to send repeated payment reminders.) If
I don't receive your payment within one week of my confirmation
email, your registration will be deleted and you'll lose first-come,
first-serve priority for any extra guest tickets needed for your
family, as well as priority for chaperone spots. If you decide to register again, a re-registration fee will
be added to your total.
w
We accept checks, money orders, and bank (cashier's, certified)
checks. Families from Canada (and other countries outside of the US)
are encouraged to register well before the July 16 deadline to allow
enough time for checks to clear and avoid a delay in mailing
tickets.
w
Homeschoolers from other states and countries are welcome to join
us. We enjoyed meeting homeschooling families from around the
country and Canada during previous trips.
w
We do not use a travel agent,
nor are we travel agents who receive a commission on your trip.
Instead of booking a group block of Disney rooms, we allow you to
choose your own hotel based on your budget, whether on Disney property, or off-property.
We do have group rates at an off-property hotel for those who choose
this option. Also, when
you use a travel agent, Disney will not let you access your
reservation, make any changes to it, or even discuss it with you -
your travel agent must do everything on your behalf. We prefer for
you to have complete control over your reservations. And last, we've
found that option-for-option, the cost of our trip
is much lower than those offered by a travel agent, whether it's a
"homeschool" trip or not.
w
We are not attending Disney's Homeschool Days. We prefer to choose
our own dates, and our own educational programs instead of being
limited to three (or so) programs. Also, the cost of our program is
included in the price of our tickets, so it ends up costing less
than Disney's Homeschool Days program.
w Please understand that
for each group 5-day or 8-day park ticket you purchase for your
school-age children (K-12, and college-age), you'll be able to purchase one
identical ticket for yourself, your spouse, and/or another guest in
your party. Since the number of parent/guest tickets cannot exceed
the number of student tickets, you might not be able to get the
discounted group tickets for every guest in your party if the number
of guests exceed the number of students. (In this case, you'll need
to purchase the extra tickets from Disney - I'll help you with this
once I determine our total student/guest ratio.) Tickets will be
assigned on a first-come, first-serve basis, so register early for a
better chance of getting educational tickets for the "extra" guests
in your party. All of your children in grades K-12 must be registered for
and attend at least one
educational program in order for your family to get the discounted
group tickets.
w If you're trying to
decide between the 8-day and 5-day tickets, I recommend the 8-day
tickets if you're staying 6 days or more, especially if you're using
the dining plan. You'll have more flexibility in choosing
restaurants
if you have more park days (since many of the restaurants are
located inside the parks), and you can spend a half-day at the park
on your arrival and departure day without feeling like you're
wasting money.
w One parent per five
children can chaperone during each program
(except for the How Things Move program for the younger kids
– Disney will allow us to have more chaperones for that one). I'll
work out the logistics of this after the deadline passes and I know
how many students will attend each program. Just keep in mind that
you probably won't be able to attend these programs with your
children. (We'll have plenty of homeschool parents chaperoning
each program, and we've never lost a child in the four years we've
coordinated these trips.)
w Chaperones will be assigned on a first-come, first-served
basis. You'll have a better chance of chaperoning if you register
(and send payment) early. One parent of children ages 7 and under
registered in the How Things Move program must attend with
their child.
w Your tickets will be
mailed to you via certified, traceable, insured, signature,
as-safe-as-the-post-office-can-get mail at least two weeks before
our departure date. In four years of coordinating this trip, we've
never lost tickets in the mail. If you have any doubts about the
legitimacy of Carolina Homeschooler or my integrity, please ask me for references before
you register. Don't send money to anyone on the
internet if you don't trust them.
w You can choose your own
arrival date, but you must plan your arrival in time for your
students to attend at least one educational program. I've scheduled
our programs on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. See the
Educational Programs page for more
information.
w
You will not be able to purchase the non-expiration option
for our heavily discounted park tickets. They will be valid 7 days
before our main group arrives and will expire 7 days after our main
group leaves.
w
You will not be able to add your educational ticket to your
"Key to the Kingdom" card to get everything on one card,
even
if they say they can do this for you. Most Disney personnel are
not familiar enough with our special group tickets to know that it won't
work. If they try to transfer everything to your card, it will seem
to work. However, the first time you try to use your card to get
into the water parks, Disney Quest, or use your 5 or 8 park days, it
won't work. You'll then have to spend the better part of a day
getting your original educational tickets reissued to you. (Yes, we
learned this from experience.)
w Park admission is
required for the educational programs. Your tickets will have
five or eight park-hopper days included, so make sure you
save one (or more) of those days for admission to the park that is
hosting the educational programs you registered for. You don't have
to stay at that park after the conclusion of the program, though.
Since you have hopper tickets, you can hop to another park. Each
program lasts for between 2 and 3 hours on a specific day (programs don't carry
over on multiple days). Please make sure you don't use up all your park
days before your scheduled program.
w If you decide not to
take the trip after paying, a refund is not guaranteed. Please read and understand my refund policy (located
on our main Disney Trip page) before sending your money!
In any case, a $20 cancellation fee per person will be charged.
w Since we're going
during hurricane season (which is why Disney usually offers their
free dining to draw us in), there is a hurricane risk.
Please check Disney's website for information about their hurricane
policy in regard to refunding your hotel cost if your trip is
disrupted. I can't be responsible for Disney's refund policy, so
make sure you understand it before you reserve your rooms, etc.
Regarding our group tickets - Disney will work with us on a
case-by-case basis to refund our tickets in the event of a
hurricane. There are no guarantees, but they'll almost definitely
refund our tickets if they experience a direct hit (or anticipated
direct hit) from a hurricane right before our arrival or during our
stay. If there's just heavy rain from a hurricane, then no, they
probably won't refund our tickets - we'll just have to deal with the
rain. I'll do my best on your behalf if there's an event that
impacts our stay, but there are no guarantees. Please register with
this in mind.
w See our
Disney World 2006, 2007,
2008, and 2009
trip reports for a description of our previous trips.
w More "things to know"
will be posted as we near our departure date, so check back here
from time to time for the latest updates.
Ready to register? Before you do, you need to choose
Disney Youth Educational
Programs for your children.

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