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Welcome to A Walk in the Park with Colleen! August Newsletter!

My name is Colleen and I love Disney!! I have experienced over 20 trips to Disney since I went the first time at age 19.  I have been helping people plan and enjoy pixie dust trips for over ten years, and I love hearing about the memorable times they have had. My motto is “no one should have a bad time at Disney”.

The big topic for this newsletter is PLANNING.  Taking the time to plan the trip means enjoying the parks, so we PLAN to ENJOY.  To me, planning means dining reservations and there are many, many choices!! Which means when I say planning I mean over 6 months in advance; yes, that is 6 months!!  The reason for this is to get those special dining reservations you want- like Cinderella’s Royal Table, or California Grill or Be our Guest.  It can be character dining experiences, romantic dining or just incredible favorite foods or restaurants!! Do you want to tell your child, your spouse or friend you didn’t get the reservation because you didn’t start planning early enough?? Don’t get me wrong, you certainly can go to Disney without making those dining reservations at 180 days, or at all, but do you want to??  Planning your accommodations ahead can be another major benefit as you get better choices of where to stay, whether it is on-site or off-site. The benefits of staying on-site are extra days for dining reservations, Magical Express, Disney transportation, and 60 day Fastpass window. Another benefit to early planning is if you book your room (as well as tickets and dining plan), you will get a postcard from Disney showing you the dates that your reservations window opens. Another reason to start planning in advance is saving the money to go, we know it isn’t inexpensive to go to Disney.  There are several options you can use including: Disney vacation account (you can actually save for up to 5 years with this): https://disneyvacationaccount.disney.go.com/ Another option is the 52 week challenge of $1 for the week (week 1 is $1, week 2 is $2, etc.):  http://www.thesimpledollar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/52weekmoneychallenge.jpg When you start planning early you can slowly take in all the information and it causes at lot less stress.  You can learn little bits at a time which is much easier. Part of my job is to take the stress out of the vacation planning and put the fun back in to the vacation.  This is one of the ways I can do that for you. The most important thing to do first is set up a My Disney Experience (MDE) account. It is an app that you can download to your smartphone or use on a computer. I will have much more information on this invaluable tool and other reasons to start planning early in later newsletters.   Please check out my website: www.awalkintheparkwithcolleen.com as I am always adding new information and pictures.  Also, feel free to contact me at Colleen@awalkintheparkwithcolleen.net with comments or questions. Feel free to share this email with friends and family. Until next month, I hope you have a magical day!!   Colleen

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