A Birthday Trip without a Birthday - 2/16: Conclusion and Bonus Birthday Tea

[Curiouser&curiouser!]

Have an amazing trip!

 

[mom3sonstt]

Sorry I missed the final countdown for your trip. Hope you are having an amazing time!

 

[Flossbolna]

Hi everyone,

Katharina and I are both back in Germany - tired from jet-lag, but happy that we had such a wonderful trip!!

I still have another two days off from work and will try to start telling some stories about our trip. It won't be a full trip report this time - I actually did not take very many pictures at WDW at all, it was very relaxing to just enjoy without a camera lens between me and reality! :good vibes But we have some interesting things we want to mention and then there is of course Universal...

 

[marvali]

So glad you both made it safely back home! Was thinking about you both last night knowing you were on the way home. Can't wait to hear all about the trip!

 

[englishrose47]

Hope you had a safe trip home !!You will have to post the only pix we got of our meet due to my batteries dying !!!! And you kept Marv's secret well

 

[Minnie&Nana]

Welcome home! Hope you had safe travels and a wonderful trip.

 

[glennbo123]

I'm glad you had a great trip. Can't wait to hear some of those stories.

 

[tiggrbaby]

Welcome back! Looking forward to hearing about your adventures!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Welcome home! Sorry the trip had to come to an end, but I'm glad you're safe and can't wait to hear about it!

 

[lovealldisney]

Welcome home ladies! I'm glad you had a fun trip can't wait to read all about it!

 

[Poolrat]

Welcome home. I am sure you have plenty of stories to tell about a certain Dismeet.

 

[eandesmom]

Welcome Home!

 

[englishrose47]

Welcome home. I am sure you have plenty of stories to tell about a certain Dismeet.

You knew to Pat !!!The Plot thickens

 

[Poolrat]

You knew to Pat !!!The Plot thickens

I only found out when he got home and spilled the beans. Honest.

 

[podsnel]

welcome home, girls! Hope you loved your first trip home!

 

[brookelizabeth]

Welcome home!!! I look forward to hearing about it! Glad to hear you had a wonderful time.

I just looked at your pics of the Newport Bay Club - it really does strongly echo the Yacht Club-even some of the decor is the same/similar.

 

[Flossbolna]

Thank you to everyone for the welcome-homes! It took us some time to get rid of the jet-lag and to settle back into our everyday life. But now I have already some updates for the TR written and will start posting momentarily!! :good vibes

I have decided to just continue with the PTR and ask the moderators to move it over to the TR section. So those who have subscribed to it should find it easily, everyone else, be prepared to find it over on the TR board soon!

 

[Flossbolna]

Since this trip report is just a continuation of the pre-trip report, we don't need a new introduction of the people involved or the purpose of the trip. You can find all of this here.

I will also update the original table of contents as we move along which can be found here.

But I want to say a few things about how this trip report will work. It won't be a chronological review of what we did when. Instead we will just have different topics – and will use the pre-trip-report plans as a kind of guideline about what we will want to talk about. Of course if anyone feels like they want to hear more about specific aspects of the trip, just go ahead and ask and I will try my best to embellish that point! I hope you will all find this still interesting enough to read along!

Unfortunately, I must warn you that there won't be many pictures to see along the way. Some parts will have more pictures than others, but in general I came back with about 1/5 of the pictures I have taken on previous trips. This one was just much more about enjoying being there than about documenting it – and it made for a very pleasant change for me! I guess I felt that by now I have a picture of nearly everything I want to have a picture of at WDW.

So, let's get started in the next post with the first “real” update!

 

[Flossbolna]

Ok, with the introduction out of the way, let's start with the one topic which I never made into a PTR update – and for good reason! We had two DISmeets planned for our trip, but for one I was sworn to secrecy. So it felt strange to tell you all about one and be silent about the other.

The one which was talked about in the chatter on the PTR and people might have known about was that we were hoping to meet Rosie (englishrose47) who was at WDW as a group leader for a group of special needs adults – one of her famous “free trips”.

The secret DISmeet was that Marvin (Marvali) had been thinking about making use of his annual pass for a weekend trip to WDW while we were there. It was very much uncertain until the last minute whether this would work out and he hoped to surprise Rosie with his presence. So, therefore this meeting was only discussed in PMs and emails between Marv, Katharina and me.

So how did all of this work out?

For whatever reason it turned out that Rosie always planned to be somewhere else than Katharina and I. The only real chance for a meeting was her first evening at WDW, Thursday, when her group had dinner at Teppan Edo. So we decided to meet at Epcot after their dinner to view Illuminations together. We had agreed to meet at the Japan pavilion at 8:30 pm. Katharina and I were unfortunately running late due to extremely crowded monorails (we were arriving from dinner at the California Grill) and were afraid that we had missed Rosie when we arrived in Japan 10 minutes late!! But it turned out that Rosie's group was still finishing dinner.

Unfortunately this meant that we had only very little time to talk, but it was great to meet Rosie in person! She is such a wonderful, cheerful and fun person! And while I had always admired her dedication to her work with developmentally disabled people, it was truly great to meet her group and see her interact with them. Rosie, you once mentioned that you are happy that you found your true vocation in what you do and one could really tell that!!

At first I thought I had forgotten my camera, but then I found it in my bag, so after the fireworks were over and we got to chat for a little bit, we did take one picture of the three of us:

Rosie had also a lovely gift for us: a Vera Bradley pocket photo album for each of us.Which was great since we had read so much about those bags here on the DIS!! And we will make sure to fill the albums with pictures from this trip! Thanks again Rosie!!

We knew already that we would be able to spend more time with Marv – and a bonus guest! During the very last week it turned out that he was not going to be travelling solo, but would bring along his 19 year old son Jonathan! It was a great pleasure to meet both of them!! Katharina and I were rather amazed that Jonathan opted to spend so much time with us “old” people, but we truly enjoyed his company!

We met up with Marvin and Jonathan on three mornings and then at Sunday evening during the MNSSHP. We actually covered all four parks together! And had a truly fun meal at 50's Prime Time Cafe on Sunday. Marv and Jonathan made sure that we had fun with our server, even though Marv was way too good at hiding his left over southern greens under the chicken bones, so our server did not see them. But I was really glad that I finally got to experience a server who was playing along instead of being all boring!!!

Marv also brought something for us to WDW, but I feel like I should not yet mention this...

Touring the parks with Marv and Jonathan was a lot of fun, it felt quite different for me to actually tour WDW with a group of people. So far my trips to WDW have always only been with one other person, and even at DLP we had never been more than three. However, the one thing I was a bit sad about in the end is that touring the parks does take away something from conversations you might have with your friends. I felt that we did somehow catch up a little bit on that during our lunch at the PTC, but in the end I feel it would have been nicer to have more time to talk...

I only have one picture of the three of us (well, there is one from MNSSHP, but I am not posting that yet...), but I know that Marv has more, so I hope that they will make it into this TR somehow!!

Just as we had experienced with Laura during our last trip, meeting people really adds so much to a trip to WDW! I feel very lucky that we got to meet Rosie, Marv and Jonathan! It truly made me feel much more at home at WDW to have friends to meet there.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Ok, with the introduction out of the way, let's start with the one topic which I never made into a PTR update – and for good reason! We had two DISmeets planned for our trip, but for one I was sworn to secrecy. So it felt strange to tell you all about one and be silent about the other.

Having secret plans makes things more exciting, though!

Rosie, you once mentioned that you are happy that you found your true vocation in what you do and one could really tell that!!

I'm glad it worked out that you could meet Rosie! You had me worried for a second there.

We met up with Marvin and Jonathan on three mornings and then at Sunday evening during the MNSSHP. We actually covered all four parks together! And had a truly fun meal at 50's Prime Time Cafe on Sunday. Marv and Jonathan made sure that we had fun with our server, even though Marv was way too good at hiding his left over southern greens under the chicken bones, so our server did not see them. But I was really glad that I finally got to experience a server who was playing along instead of being all boring!!!

Somehow, it seems appropriate that Marv would be good at hiding his vegetables. When I was a kid, my favorite trick was to shovel them back into the serving bowl when my parents weren't looking.

Marv also brought something for us to WDW, but I feel like I should not yet mention this...

Just as we had experienced with Laura during our last trip, meeting people really adds so much to a trip to WDW! I feel very lucky that we got to meet Rosie, Marv and Jonathan! It truly made me feel much more at home at WDW to have friends to meet there.

I was going to make an It's A Small World joke here, but I don't want to get that song stuck in anybody's head. So I'll just say it's amazing at how the internet has made these kinds of friendships/meetings possible. I'm glad it all worked out so that you could meet in person! It's a special feeling to know you have friends around the world.