Let's Stay somewhere cheap.... like the Deluxes! (Updated 10/03!)

[dgbg100106]

We own at Beach Club and have stayed at Boardwalk many times. You guys will love both of them, but I must tell you that Animal Kingdom Lodge is my all time favorite!

 

[bellanotte10]

ok no more Pink....

I can't read it....

Agreed. It looks better on my laptop. I'm gonna change it when I get home!

 

[bellanotte10]

Can people read the blue? Or should I do it in a deeper color? Expect an update later!

 

[PrincessInOz]

I can read the light blue; but a deeper colour would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bellanotte10]

Purple better?

 

[PrincessInOz]

I love purple; so yes for me!

 

[bellanotte10]

I love purple; so yes for me!

awesome! Then the update will be up in like... 5 minutes!

 

[bellanotte10]

So another update! Since my mom’s family came down at our house for Christmas, we got to ask Aunt if she’d like to join us for our trip. She seemed excited that we wanted her to go, and especially excited that we wanted to go over her/my Birthday. However, we’re still not sure if she’ll actually come, because apparently her and her husband, were planning on going to Argentina. (see what I mean about crazy fancy vacations?)
Also, like I said earlier, when we first brought this up to 2nd mom, she said she wanted to see Epcot and Hollywood studios. Apparently, what she meant by Hollywood studios was Universal Studios because she mentioned being excited to see Harry Potter. So she wants to go there as well as Disney. She’s a super planner, so she borrowed one of my books and is now asking me a ton of questions.

While I type this, my moms now talking to the Hilton at Downtown Disney See? Didn’t I tell you this is the cycle we go in? Now can you see why I wanted you to follow me on this journey? She just makes me laugh because over and over she says “I just want to be close to a park, I just want to be able to walk, and not worry about a car”. DTD is NOT a park…. And now we’re talking about renting a car…. This is like our last trip ALL over again…. Aaaaaand now we’re booking Needless to say I’m not amused. She’s telling 2nd aunt that we can always cancel, but now she’s attracted to a 2 bedroom suite and the Hilton has them. She doesn’t want to do a DVC rental because she’s afraid that something could come up and then she’d lose out on money.

I can see where she’s coming from, but it makes me both want to laugh and want to cry when this happens. Especially after losing out on AoA and that whole fiasco, I was so EXCITED to stay at Boardwalk or beach club, and now if I make a big deal about this she’ll get mad at me, and I don’t want that. I should’ve seen it coming, but I thought she was so dead set this time on getting the hotel she didn’t want.

So now we have this. We can always cancel, but at least now we have a 2 bedroom villa and dates… just… no where NEAR a park… but whatever. I’m just kind of upset and hurt that she’d do this.

 

[PrincessInOz]

So sorry about the changes. Where is the Hilton?

Is there anyway that you can take control of the planning/booking and get your moms to stay out of it? As long as you stay within their budget.....

 

[bellanotte10]

So sorry about the changes. Where is the Hilton?

Is there anyway that you can take control of the planning/booking and get your moms to stay out of it? As long as you stay within their budget.....

Its about a mile or two away from DTD, its the Doubletree. she's excited because we're hilton honors members and thinks we'll get a good deal in the future i guess, i dunno. And unfortunately theres no way for me to take control of hotels. Thats her thing. I'm in charge of parks planning, but since she's paying for me to go, i don't get a say in Hotels. even though its my birthday trip. She gets grumpy and its really not pleasant when you try to change her plans. So while I apparently have control over certain things, i'm starting to see that i'm apparently just going to be along for the ride... and that they're really not going to consult me at all. Which stinks. But this is the only way I can afford to go to disney until I get a big girl job, so i guess i'll have to suck it up haha

 

[PrincessInOz]

If it is in DTD, then you're still on property. And the Doubletree is nice. That's a shame about her having ownership over the hotel booking. But as long as she stays on property, it should be fine, right?

Besides -- it sounds like resort changes might be in vogue right now. So, maybe she'll change it up again.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Never mind. Just re-read your post. You're a mile or two away from DTD. No where close!


How sucky!!!!

 

[dgbg100106]

Purple better?

I love purple; so yes for me!

purple is much better....

 

[dgbg100106]

sorry about all the changes...


We are also Hilton Honors members, we are Diamond, and they did NOTHING for us when we stayed there... We did not even get an upgrade.

We are also DVC and get better treatment by far with our DVC.

Hope that you can adjust to the changes and enjoy it for what it is, nice quality time with your family.

 

[bellanotte10]

So after that last post I realized I was being ridiculous and super whiny. I finally accepted that we were going to be off site, and it wasn’t going to be some travesty. I mean hello! I was going to DISNEY WORLD! Who cares where I was staying!

My mom did keep saying that she’d look for deals and things so we could always switch, but I just accepted that we were going there are started looking forward to it. However, to get to this announcement, I need to provide some back story, so there will be a mini TR within this PTR because my half marathon changed a LOT of the plans we had for this November trip….which is now not in November….

So I recently ran the princess half marathon with 2 of my best friends, and 1 of them was in the cheer squad cheering us on. When I heard that there was going to be the Wine and Dine half during our November trip, I got excited for that, and was like sure! If I love the princess I’ll do the Wine and Dine! It’ll be great! And we can get hotel discounts and.... yeah no...

Well I was a running train wreck during the princess half. Being from Greater Boston, my training mostly consisted of dark nights in ~30 degree runs on a fairly flat coarse. No one prepared me for the 3 hills at the end of this coarse, and the humidity and heat during the race was the worst they had in all 5 years of doing the coarse. By the end I was hyperventilating and about to pass out. My friends had to pull me along at points.
BUT BUT BUT I did it. In 3 hours and 1 minute. Not the best time, but we stopped for pictures. And I’m so proud of myself for doing it….. I just don’t think I could do a half by myself. So those discounts were out.

But I forgot we had a bounceback. So I called my mom and told her, and she said she’d think about it. I completely forgot about it, as I was too busy enjoying Magic Kingdom to worry. So while I was off eating my dole whip and riding the new little mermaid ride, my mom had called 2nd mom and my aunt. Aunt is no longer coming as she’s going to Argentina , and 2nd mom didn’t care where we stayed, so my mom sneakily booked a 1 bedroom villa at Boardwalk Inn and told me when I got home. However, our dates were not available for the bounceback, so she had to change them. Luckily I had already decided not to do the Wine and Dine half marathon, or I would’ve been disappointed. So our new plans aaaaree…..

October 23rd-28th at Boardwalk Villas.


its going to be awesome. Right now we’re not thinking of doing dining reservations, and it seemed to work out on this February trip. We ate breakfast at the hotel, went straight to the park, ate lunch late, then ate either back at the hotel or a late dinner at the park before sneaking in a few rides.

So here’s my mini PTR
Saturday we fly into MCO and I’m grabbing my hot chocolate at Starbucks when my friends start whispering all excited. I turn around and apparently, everyone but me saw Big and Rich. We got lost in MCO trying to find the magical express, but met up with two wonderful ladies who were lost as well, so we all went to find it together.
So we get on our bus to All Star Music! Woooo! Our room was ready once we got there, so we dropped everything off and headed to the Fit to be a Princess Expo. We got our race bibs and picked up some official merchandise. Once we were done there we headed over to Downtown Disney!

At downtown Disney I headed to World of Disney to see if they had a replacement tiara for my Merida one that broke en route to Disney and was told, unfortunately that they no longer sold them. However, the very lovely women said oh! We have super glue! So they spent 20 minutes trying to super glue it back together, and the manager had a back up crown (not the same style, but still Merida) just in case they couldn’t do it. Well they managed to glue it back together, but unfortunately the next morning when I went to put it back on, it fell apart again. ☹ but I’m so happy they at least tried for so long and didn’t just say “oops sorry!” from there we went to our lovely dinner at Raglan Road, and then back to the hotel for bedtime!

The day of the race was fun. It stunk to be getting up at 3:30 for the second day in a row, but it was race day! We had fun in the pre race party, and then it was Race Time! We got to meet up with Jack Sparrow, Genie, and the Princes (Eric, Flynn Rider, Aladdin, and John Smith). We also took pictures with guys with a glass slipper over at the Grand Floridian. I was having a blast during the race up until mile 9 and I started getting tired, but nothing major. By mile 10? I was dead. My friend literally had to drag me along. It was over 70 degrees, humid, and I was overtired and sick. I was also in a lot of pain in my quads, because while I knew of one hill thanks to the lovely people of the DIS, I didn’t know there were 3 in a row. Right at the end. I was near tears and hyperventilating by the time we hit Epcot and heading towards the end. If I didn’t have two of my friends with me, I probably wouldn’t have been able to finish. They were awesome.

I don’t want it to sound like I didn’t enjoy the race. Yes I was sore for a few days after the race, and yes…. I got stuck on space mountain because I was in so much pain standing and sitting…. But it was so worth it. Coming onto main street and seeing the castle and having people cheering you on was amazing. Someone had a sign on the way to the magic kingdom “ I don’t know you but I’m proud of you” and I was near tears the whole time I was in the magic kingdom. I had trained and wanted it for 2 years and it was finally here! It was a dream come true!!! One of my favorite memories.
After we met up with our Chear squad friend in the end, got iced up and I no longer felt like death personified, we went back to ASMu and showered and changed and headed out to DHS.

We got there, ate some lunch, and went on star tours, which was AWESOME! I love star tours! Then we did TSMM. Now, we finished the race about 9:30 ish, and got to DHS around 11:30… so the lines were about 80 minutes long. NBD right? Yeah one of my friends almost fell asleep on the ride she was so exhausted. All the pictures we took in line, she looks murderous. After that we bought her coffee… But she did like it, even if she was basically sleep shooting! We did the usual suspects, RnRC, ToT Star Tours again, and Muppets 3D. we also did the new Jack Sparrow attraction, which I wasn’t really impressed with, and I loooove Jack Sparrow! Also somewhere along the way I lost a pair of sunglasses I had ironically bought AK in Oct. 2011 to replace a pair that had broken. (this becomes important). But at the time it was really NBD and I wasn’t too bent out of shape. After our Lovely day at DHS went back to “watch the Oscars” and by watch the Oscars I mean I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow….. but that’s ok Next morning was MK day!

We were very productive on our MK day. Hit every ride we wanted to go on at least twice, and even some I had never been on, like Jungle Cruise and PhilharMagic. I even tried a dole whip float, but I liked the ice cream more than I liked the float so next time I’ll just get the ice cream.

We did manage to eat lunch right before closing at Be Our Guest. BEST MEAL EVER! It was so nice in there! Although we had a rude woman who cut the line by saying she was part of our party. I didn’t hear her doing this, one of my friends did, but we were super confused as to how she was suddenly at our console when she hadn’t been anywhere near us in line. She must’ve chose us cuz we were at the ordering station right in front of the line to get in.

Also loved the new Little Mermaid ride! It was sooooooo nice. We also had way too much fun on Mad Tea Party due to being overtired… we couldn’t stop laughing to the point where I was crying laughing. Another one of my new favorite memories. I even got a new pair of adorable Minnie mouse sunglasses! It was a good day at MK!

Our last park day was US/IoA. Well unknown to us…. Apparently there were tornado warnings as well as thunderstorm warnings, so that combined with it being off season, we basically walked on EVERYTHING. We did Forbidden Journey twice, Hulk walked right on, Mummy was a 20 minute wait. The longest we waited for was I think 45 minutes for Ollivanders. Everything else was either 5 minutes (and that was pretty much just getting through the empty queue) or 20 minutes. It was AWESOME. Until I went on the ET ride, my bag got stuck, the ride attendant had to help me, and I lost my new awesome sunglasses I was so excited about. So I was upset with myself I not only lost 1 pair of sunglasses, but TWO that same trip. I called to see if they had found them when I got back, and they had, so YAY I get them back! But at the time I was wicked bummed, but was joking about how ET got some fun new shades.

Overall it was an awesome trip. It was my first trip without my parents, and I loved it. Now that I’m 2 weeks out… I’m in a post Disney slump and just not excited about my next trip because I’m missing the feeling of this past one, but I know that once October gets a lot closer, I’ll be just as excited. It’ll also be great because 2nd Mom hasn’t been since it was just Epcot and MK so it’ll be cool to see her seeing things for the first time that weren’t there last time she went.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Glad you're finally getting to stay somewhere cheap....like the Deluxes.

 

[usnuzuloose]

I am here. I am going keep a big chalk board to write everyone who has has PTR's , TR's . Even if you stay off site at least your going.

 

[dgbg100106]

Sounds like you had a great race, even if it was rough. It was a great experience.


And as pio mentioned, glad you are staying somewhere cheap!

 

[Enchanted]

Wow, the Princess marathon sounds so amazing. I'm working on getting into better shape, and now I'm like, "Hmmmm...." That would be a blast if I could get myself into that kind of running shape. We'll see. Haha.

I'm SO glad your mom went with Boardwalk Villas instead of Doubletree. In all the times we've went to Disney, we've NEVER stayed off site. Even if we ended up in a value, we much preferred it to offsite because, hello? It's DISNEY. So I'm glad that it worked out for you and you won't have a damper on your magic. Especially during your birthday!

Looking forward to more!

 

[bellanotte10]

Glad you're finally getting to stay somewhere cheap....like the Deluxes.

I am here. I am going keep a big chalk board to write everyone who has has PTR's , TR's . Even if you stay off site at least your going.

Sounds like you had a great race, even if it was rough. It was a great experience.


And as pio mentioned, glad you are staying somewhere cheap!

haha thanks guys! and welcome to my new people! And don't worry if you forget about this PTR... there won't be many updates so i don't blame you at all!