This is the basic checklist that I had for our family trip driving from Canada down to Florida and back.
We put on 9,500 kms!
1. Passports
2. Travel Insurance
3. Notify Credit Card Company of travel
4. Exchange Cdn for US money
5. Book townhouse/ accommodation ahead of time for your stay at the destination.
6. Bring an atlas/maps (travel centres are very helpful too)
7.Update cell phone plan to a travel plan (no roaming charges)
8. Camera's and extra storage capabilities ( you may take more photos than you think!)
9. Adapters for the vehicle for above devices
10. GPS?
11. Emergency phone numbers in your phone and in an address book, etc.
12. Tell someone where you will staying, etc.
13. House sitter or watcher.
14. Inform someone where your will is (well, this is my thing)
15. Bring Sunscreen and after burn care products. Also bring some basic medical supplies.
16. Purchase tickets for the attractions you really want to see.
17. Pack your best attitude and HAVE FUN!
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Crossing the Canada/ US border
With Passports in hand, we made our way to the border crossing at the International Peace Gardens near Boissevain, MB. It is on Highway #10 in Canada and Highway #3 in North Dakota.
I had made a copy of everything we packed just in case they would like to see it. The crossing guard asked us a few questions "Where are you from?" "Where are you going?" "What do you do for a living?" "What is the purpose of your trip?" "Do you have any weapons, etc etc" then he took Gregg's mango's. Yup, anything with a pit. The apples were okay because they were actually from Washington. Gregg thinks/hopes the guard got to enjoy the mango's for lunch.
Very quick crossing and we were off by 12:30 pm! Windy, 5C weather, but we were more than thrilled! A little later than we had planned, but we had dropped our dog off with my folks and had a nice visit with them too.
Our first stop was Dunseith North Dakota. I remember going to Dunseith with an Aunt and Uncle for the HUGE Dale's burgers. They'd feed 4 people with one burger. Specially made buns and all.
Gas price was $3.69/gallon and we filled up for $59 US.
Well ~ cross the border and you can purchase a sword at the truck stop. Gregg loves this sort of thing.
We have had tremendous amounts of fun with this trick lighter. It is shockingly great fun! Come on over and we'll let you light the next bonfire !
... and the journey has officially started! We are beyond excited and eagerly anticipating the next stop!
I had made a copy of everything we packed just in case they would like to see it. The crossing guard asked us a few questions "Where are you from?" "Where are you going?" "What do you do for a living?" "What is the purpose of your trip?" "Do you have any weapons, etc etc" then he took Gregg's mango's. Yup, anything with a pit. The apples were okay because they were actually from Washington. Gregg thinks/hopes the guard got to enjoy the mango's for lunch.
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| All loaded up with a car topper and a giant cooler on a trailer hitch set up. |
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| A little breezy at the Turtle |
Gas price was $3.69/gallon and we filled up for $59 US.
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| Look at all the flavors of Extra Dessert gum! Best selection we found! |
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| Mei bought some of these later on, and well, thumbs DOWN |
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| Gregg got an adapter for the car/music and we got Uncle Si plastic cups for $1 |
Why would there be two toilets stuck in a little bathroom? We got a good laugh over this one!
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| No French writing on these wrappers |
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Travel Insurance for Canadians traveling to the USA
So I started thinking about "What if something goes wrong?" This is where a travel insurance comes in.
I phoned 6 different companies, some only dealt with "snow birds", so they were out. The best deal was through our CAA auto insurance. We already belonged to CAA (which has saved us numerous times since enrolling... I definitely recommend it for any travel in Canada), so we just went into the local office and asked about travel insurance.
CAA offers insurance through Blue Cross. You can get packages for what I would call regular life in Canada ( dental, prescriptions, etc) or travel insurance. For a little bit extra, we went with a 1 year plan. Knowing that we have our Passports and my folks live so close to the USA/Canada border, we thought it worth it. Just imagine tripping and cracking an ankle or something and not being insured! Limping across the border is not exactly an option.
You can go to the CAA website through this LINK HERE that tells you how to enroll. By using their Refer a Friend program, they waive your $19 enrollment fee AND the person referring you gets a Free Movie Ticket. How nice is that? Just tell them who referred you and everyone wins. My hubby and I would thank you for the date night :)
For our family of 5, all aged 10 to under 40 years old, we paid $124 Cdn for 1 year of insurance. This covers anything unexpected. Some companies had limitations and also capped out at $100, 000 to $1 Million, others were $10 Million or unlimited. They aim to get you back to Canada ASAP if there is an accident, etc as well as your family. There are no health questions if you're under a certain age.
We were all mailed cards and kept them with us. Thankfully, we haven't had to use it. Doesn't cost much for peace of mind.
Oh, added bonus. In the USA, they accept the CAA card like their AAA and give discounts on motels, etc. Just ask everywhere you go!
I phoned 6 different companies, some only dealt with "snow birds", so they were out. The best deal was through our CAA auto insurance. We already belonged to CAA (which has saved us numerous times since enrolling... I definitely recommend it for any travel in Canada), so we just went into the local office and asked about travel insurance.
CAA offers insurance through Blue Cross. You can get packages for what I would call regular life in Canada ( dental, prescriptions, etc) or travel insurance. For a little bit extra, we went with a 1 year plan. Knowing that we have our Passports and my folks live so close to the USA/Canada border, we thought it worth it. Just imagine tripping and cracking an ankle or something and not being insured! Limping across the border is not exactly an option.
You can go to the CAA website through this LINK HERE that tells you how to enroll. By using their Refer a Friend program, they waive your $19 enrollment fee AND the person referring you gets a Free Movie Ticket. How nice is that? Just tell them who referred you and everyone wins. My hubby and I would thank you for the date night :)
For our family of 5, all aged 10 to under 40 years old, we paid $124 Cdn for 1 year of insurance. This covers anything unexpected. Some companies had limitations and also capped out at $100, 000 to $1 Million, others were $10 Million or unlimited. They aim to get you back to Canada ASAP if there is an accident, etc as well as your family. There are no health questions if you're under a certain age.
We were all mailed cards and kept them with us. Thankfully, we haven't had to use it. Doesn't cost much for peace of mind.
Oh, added bonus. In the USA, they accept the CAA card like their AAA and give discounts on motels, etc. Just ask everywhere you go!
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Buying Disney World Tickets ~ Tip for Canadians
1. Sign up for Mouse Savers Newsletters! It kept us informed and let us know of ticket price increases and was very helpful in every way with planning. Whether you stay on site, off site, everything. Click HERE
2. Accommodations. Decide whether you want to be in a resort on site, or stay off site. THEN decide on a budget and then location. The agents I did talk to on the phone about staying on site were very helpful. Staying on site gives some added perks and has free shuttles. You can also get meal plans, but I think we could have got these staying off site as well. The trick with booking your lodging....some give discounts on tickets. We didn't go this way, so I am not much help on that.
3. The next thing I did was find Disney tickets. They don't have set dates, so they can be ordered in advance. We checked CAA and also talked to them about a "Disney World Vacation" ...it would be over US$5000-$7000 for 5 of us for 6 days. Ugh, maybe not.
CAA link HERE Tickets are discounted a little, but the best deal I found was through Undercover Tourist. Here is the link, press HERE.
You can also redeem AirMiles for a basic Disney ticket. Click HERE to go to a general AirMiles info page.
I may have missed some, but I did a lot of internet searching. I gave myself a deadline and just went with the best deal I could find in that amount of time. My time is also valuable.
The biggest thing to be careful of, is NOT to RE PURCHASE Disney tickets. When we were at Disney, on the news they just busted a bunch of people for reselling tickets. The tourist bought them, but then couldn't use them. At the admission gate of Disney, they scan your ticket and your FINGER PRINT. Yes, your fingerprint is attached to your ticket, so I don't know how you can re sell them? Maybe there is a way to do this all legally, but we didn't want to chance it.
I ordered our tickets and they came in the mail approx 3 weeks later? They suggested taking a photo of the backs of the cards, just in case they were lost before we activated them. They could be replaced. Once you use them once at a Disney attraction, you have 14 days to use them up. We bought 6 day passes for ages 10 years old and up. ( Child is under 10 years old) Added the Fun Pass bonus.
5 people, 6 days, PLUS Fun Passes ~ US $1911.75 CDN $2200.50.
This actually gave us 12 days of fun options. The Fun Pass gets you into 2 Water Parks (Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon) AND Disney Quest (at Downtown Disney) which is a 5 story building full of arcade style games (Pac Mac, Frogger) as well as simulators etc. AND also some mini golf courses.
To add on a Fun Pass was almost equal in price to paying for 1 day at one of Fun Pass attractions...EXCEPT we got 6 days for the price of 1 ! Great deal. You're spending money anyhow.
You could order directly from Disney through their website or click HERE to get there.
They are like a credit card and you sign the back of them. They were our entry to the parks and to use the FAST PASS system to get onto rides a little quicker.
Now ain't they cute?! So, we were more than happy with UNDER COVER TOURIST for our Disney Tickets.
Our cost $440.10 CDN per person/6 days which was actually 12 attraction visits = $36.68 per day.
2. Accommodations. Decide whether you want to be in a resort on site, or stay off site. THEN decide on a budget and then location. The agents I did talk to on the phone about staying on site were very helpful. Staying on site gives some added perks and has free shuttles. You can also get meal plans, but I think we could have got these staying off site as well. The trick with booking your lodging....some give discounts on tickets. We didn't go this way, so I am not much help on that.
3. The next thing I did was find Disney tickets. They don't have set dates, so they can be ordered in advance. We checked CAA and also talked to them about a "Disney World Vacation" ...it would be over US$5000-$7000 for 5 of us for 6 days. Ugh, maybe not.
CAA link HERE Tickets are discounted a little, but the best deal I found was through Undercover Tourist. Here is the link, press HERE.
You can also redeem AirMiles for a basic Disney ticket. Click HERE to go to a general AirMiles info page.
I may have missed some, but I did a lot of internet searching. I gave myself a deadline and just went with the best deal I could find in that amount of time. My time is also valuable.
The biggest thing to be careful of, is NOT to RE PURCHASE Disney tickets. When we were at Disney, on the news they just busted a bunch of people for reselling tickets. The tourist bought them, but then couldn't use them. At the admission gate of Disney, they scan your ticket and your FINGER PRINT. Yes, your fingerprint is attached to your ticket, so I don't know how you can re sell them? Maybe there is a way to do this all legally, but we didn't want to chance it.
I ordered our tickets and they came in the mail approx 3 weeks later? They suggested taking a photo of the backs of the cards, just in case they were lost before we activated them. They could be replaced. Once you use them once at a Disney attraction, you have 14 days to use them up. We bought 6 day passes for ages 10 years old and up. ( Child is under 10 years old) Added the Fun Pass bonus.
5 people, 6 days, PLUS Fun Passes ~ US $1911.75 CDN $2200.50.
This actually gave us 12 days of fun options. The Fun Pass gets you into 2 Water Parks (Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon) AND Disney Quest (at Downtown Disney) which is a 5 story building full of arcade style games (Pac Mac, Frogger) as well as simulators etc. AND also some mini golf courses.
To add on a Fun Pass was almost equal in price to paying for 1 day at one of Fun Pass attractions...EXCEPT we got 6 days for the price of 1 ! Great deal. You're spending money anyhow.
You could order directly from Disney through their website or click HERE to get there.
They are like a credit card and you sign the back of them. They were our entry to the parks and to use the FAST PASS system to get onto rides a little quicker.
Now ain't they cute?! So, we were more than happy with UNDER COVER TOURIST for our Disney Tickets.
Our cost $440.10 CDN per person/6 days which was actually 12 attraction visits = $36.68 per day.
Surprise! We're going to Disney World!
We have always talked of going to Disney with our girls, once they were all old enough. Numerous times we have started saving, only to have other life happenings get in the way. This time we thought it was "now or never" as our eldest is 16 1/2 years old. So we seized the opportunity and I began squirreling away even more savings, whenever and wherever I could. I began searching online for any information I could and found myself extremely overwhelmed and "wasting" many evening hours looking for real info, real prices, real peoples experiences and how they made it work for them. So, this is our real life experiences put to blog. It is also going to be put into a photo book for our memories, so this is as personal as it gets. If you have stumbled onto this blog while doing your own searching, I hope it is helpful!
We asked our eldest daughter Kate if we should still try to go to the Canadian East coast this year, or if we should "just go to Disney"? She said "YES, let's go to Disney!" So she is the one taking the photos of her two younger sisters being surprised.
By this point I had already ordered the tickets, so they would know that FOR SURE it was REAL!
Ruth's reaction ~ Is this real? Really...we're going for real?
Mei's reaction ~ EEEEK!
It did take some convincing that yes, we were going! Next on my list was lodging and to figure out what date we could go.
I will make a list of what we had to do in another post.
Mei's reaction ~ EEEEK!
It did take some convincing that yes, we were going! Next on my list was lodging and to figure out what date we could go.
I will make a list of what we had to do in another post.
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