Travelmation - Jeremy Stoll - Specializing in Disney Destinations

18/08/2024

Windstar Cruises - “Around Iceland” 🇮🇸

Day 2: Heimaey Island

17/08/2024

Windstar Cruises - “Around Iceland” 🇮🇸

Day 1: Sailing away from Reykjavik

30/06/2024

Sun & sand vacations are perfect for a lot of people, but they’ve never given me what I want out of travel. I don’t need to come home relaxed; I prefer to come home changed.

Mission accomplished.

27/06/2024

We visited the Studio Ghibli Museum today, a part of the trip we crammed for the last couple of weeks by watching as many of the films we hadn’t yet as possible.

My favorite part was the gift shop’s awesome Ghibli merch, and my least favorite part was the gift shop’s cash registers.

Tickets are near impossible to get, so we booked a viator tour with guaraunteed entry that adds a little bloat into their profit margin by including a hotel lunch and architecture museum, both of which are indeed sites from which the filmmaker drew inspiration. Tack on included transportation and it was a reasonable deal for like $175pp.

No pictures allowed inside, so I have to rely only on my brain and the camera I had hidden in my top hat for memories.

25/06/2024

Our day tour to the Five Lakes region below Mt. Fuji was more rewarding to me than expected, with clearer views from land and water than we had any right to enjoy during rainy season.

The mountain is a total star - I loved seeing it loom over us at every shrine, stoplight, and convenience store. As our guide said in one of the few quiet moments when I wasn’t bossing him around about where to go next: from Tokyo the mountain is just a shape on the horizon, but from up close you can feel the size and power of Fuji.

Booked on viator for a bewilderingly reasonable price for a hotel pickup/dropoff 10-hour private tour.

24/06/2024

A guided tour through the little izakaya bars of Omoide Yokocho (aka Memory Lane) and Golden G*i was a good way to see stuff we wouldn’t have been brave enough to tackle on our own - especially with kid in tow. The guide had arranged tables to be ready for our semi-private group of six (us and two other American dudes), and walked us through the menu options.

Each stop included multiple drinks, but even that wasn’t enough to get me to subject this nation to my signing voice at the karaoke bar final stop.

Booked through Viator

22/06/2024

What Tokyo DisneySea lacks, it makes up for by lacking nothing. Of all the theme parks on earth, this must be the one that least needed a huge expansion like Fantasy Springs. Wow.

Vacation Package w/ unlimited priority access to the new rides was worth the price - they are doing some nifty crowd control in the new area so far.

Back for a bit tomorrow morning, then we’re on to the city.

21/06/2024

After a brief sneak peek last night, today was our one full day at Tokyo Disneyland.

Thanks to 15 min early “happy” entry (hotel perk), premiere access ($), priority pass (free), and our vacation package inclusions, we did every signifciant ride & show in the park by 5pm.

Plus beauty and the beast twice for good measure because the first time we were so blown away. It’s the best Disney ride I’ve ever been on and second place isn’t close. Perhaps something at DisneySea tomrrow can challenge it. Thanks to the time adjustment, I will have plenty of opportunities to ponder that during the eleven times I wake up overnight tonight.

20/06/2024

Disney deluxe hotel-worthy room amenities.

05/06/2024

If all goes according to plan, two weeks from this moment I will be on a very long non-stop flight to Tokyo.

Not pictured here are the many, many spreadsheets or the two+ years of credit card reward churn that made the business-class flights and city hotel free. I have never planned this intensely for a vacation, one which I assume will be once-in-a-lifetime.

I’m excited.

28/03/2024

After 4 days in Disneyland, I arrived back home yesterday full of memories, food, and middle-aged jet lag.

These are some photos I took with my phone while I was there.

17/03/2024

Where did you go / are you going on spring break?

(“None of your business, Travelmation - Jeremy Stoll - Specializing in Disney Destinations” is a fair answer)

09/03/2024

The number one myth about using a Disney-authorized travel agent is that it will cost you an extra $1,284.88 over doing it yourself. 💸💸

❌NOT TRUE! ❌

I can help plan your trip at the additional cost of $0 to you!! 🎉😃🎉 (in fact, I might throw in a little gift so you’ll come out ahead)

📧: [email protected]

26/02/2024

Hello, friends! I have 2️⃣ big surprises to share with you today.

—————————————-

SURPRISE NUMBER ☝️ - I have been working behind the scenes over the last several months in order pepare, organize, and rearrange my time to allow my travel planning business to become more of a focus. Until now, I have intentionally kept my client list small to ensure I had the personal bandwidth to devote to their trip as if it were my own.

now… I AM READY FOR MORE!

I would very much like to help you plan your next Disney trip, cruise, or land tour - at no cost to you. Hotels, restaurant, rides, well… you know what’s there I don’t have to name it all. (But I could, that’s how good I am).

———————————-

SURPRISE NUMBER ✌️- Walt Disney World packages for Jan thru Oct 2025 are bookable starting TOMORROW! This is months earlier than usual - how nice of them to take our money sooner than normal!

———————————-

Looking to visit WDW in 2025?

Want to work with an experienced no-cost travel agent who will care about your trip as much as his own?

📱Facebook message or
✉️Email [email protected] or
🗣️Scream loud enough for me to hear

Please reach out and let’s chat about planning together!

No-fee travel planner for Disney destinations & other places on Earth that are not Disney-related. I

30/12/2023

Planning never officially begins until the Rick Steves guide book arrives.

Any Iceland tips to share?

21/12/2023

Recommendation: Give the Capital One dining portal a try.

I was offered 2500 cap one miles ($25 equivalent) to book a dining reservation via their portal by the end of the year. Went through with it recently at a restaurant in DC, and not only got my $25 back as promised, but also a free appetizer, a free mocktail for the kid, and a free bottle (!!) of rose prosecco (which was on the menu at $20/glass). All “courtesy of capital one,” according to our server.

I’m still stunned, and assume the restaurant gave us more than they were supposed to, but I will be booking through the cap one portal again at my next opportunity.

16/12/2023

Who else does a Disney tree? Photos, please.

06/11/2023

Adding a Docking Bay 7 side of mac & cheese to my ronto wrap produced perhaps my most satisfying Disney dining experience since the time I brought a sheet of aluminum foil from home into Satu’li Canteen with which to transport a warm hot dog in dough to a place that served proper french fries as accompanyment.

05/11/2023

I just tried to teach myself how to do a Facebook story post and it took long enough to make me feel old.

12/09/2023

New office decor. Four down, five to go.

07/07/2023

We had a great experience - as always - last night at California Grill. It’s too bad that the fixed price menu is here to stay, but I’ll continue to work the budget to include it in every trip.

01/07/2023

Beautiful day for a walk across the bridge in one direction and a lazy rideshare back.

30/06/2023

We boarded our 6:55p flight last night about an hour late. Out near the runway, shortly before takeoff, we were told there was a maintenance issue & we had to return to the gate - which it took 90 minutes to become available. At 1:15a, after working on the plane for about four hours, the flight was cancelled. There was nothing available to even sort-of Venice for two days, and it was to Milan, which would have worked out to over half our time in Venice being lost. We made the tough decision to scrap the trip, and arrived to a hotel near EWR at 4:30a that kindly took us in at a discounted rate, as they have been folks all week.

Very tough blow. A lot of unrecoverable hours and TBD-recoverable money went into planning this trip. Worse things can happen, though, including perhaps taking our chances over the Atlantic on the piece of junk United was working to get airborne.

The leave from work has long been scheduled, so now that we’ve had a bit of sleep we’ll see if we can get creative about doing something else in the coming week.

This hurts, and I don’t look forward to the calls & emails to try to scratch back as much of the $ as I can. But it’s not the end of the world in a world with much bigger problems. My family won’t be riding a gondola down a canal in Venice this evening, but we’ll be doing something together. And I look forward to it.

next stop: Venice 🇮🇹

29/06/2023

next stop: Venice 🇮🇹

28/05/2023

At Disney, this brunch buffet would cost ten thousand dollars per person. In Pittsburgh, it’s $42. Highly recommend.