Pixie Dust Overload - the day I won One More Disney Day

[lvjen777]

So where did I leave off...getting my official win confirmation & choosing my destination....

Now I wait for Disney to contact me. Each day that passed seemed like an eternity when you’re so excited & anxious for more details! It appeared as if they were waiting to contact all us February winners until after the sweepstakes ended, because ALL of us were still anxiously stalking our emails, looking for any sign of Disney as of early March.

Finally bright and early Monday , March 19 (about a month later) I received an email with the official Disney trip questionnaire.

With my official Disney letterhead in hand, Andy finally believes this is all real now & not some scam. The questionnaire I received is a few pages long. It asked for our guest info, our top 3 choices of trip dates and which general flight times we preferred. It indeed listed all the Deluxe resorts, and asked me to rank them in order of preference. We are given the opportunity to add on nights (at our expense). Add-on nights could be booked at any level of resort - Deluxe, Mod, or Value.

Of course we had already been going through the WDW website to try to decide on a resort. I was already way sold on the Poly. On our last (and only) trip to WDW in 2011, I wanted to stay there, but couldn‘t quite swing the pricetag.

On each of our Disney trips, I enjoy seeing how far into our trip it is before somebody already starts planning our “next trip”.. Usually it’s you know, like day 1. In 2011, we had a great stay at the Wilderness Lodge , but visited the Poly to eat dinner at Ohanas. Once Tyler saw that volcano pool, it was all over. He turned to us and said very seriously that we DEFINITELY were staying there “next time”. (this happened Day #2 - he was a little late)

DS at the Poly (Jan '11)



However now when looking at the resorts online, Tyler fell in love with the photos of Stormalong Bay at the Beach/Yacht Club. We finally decide to request a split stay - 4 nights at Poly and 2 additional at the Beach Club. We could’ve stayed at the Poly for the whole trip, or saved money and transferred to a Mod, however, we decided we might as well take advantage of this amazing opportunity to try out more than one Deluxe, especially after I found out they were offering us great discounted rates on any nights we add on, , and they'd be "free" with our gift card anyway. We decided we should definitely take advantage of this opportunity to try out two different Deluxes, in two different parts of the World, so a split stay is what we would do.

We chose January for our travel dates, like our last trip to WDW. Many winners were taking their trips really soon -- I was definitely going to be in the minority waiting until winter, however we really prefer the low crowds during off-peak times and with both our busy jobs, January is the best month for us to take time off.
　
I'm sure hoping at least part of those two days of our trip are decent weather because Tyler is SO looking forward to trying out Stormalong Bay. We always do our DL trips in the winter as well, and we always manage to swim, so I’m hoping for the best!
　
Since there are only 3 of us (and the prize is for 4 travelers), we ponder the thought of bringing Andy’s 2 (teen) nephews with us. They don’t get to travel much & have never even flown on a plane before. We’d have to pay out of pocket for our fifth traveler, but that was okay with us. However, upon closer inspection of the rules, it says all minors must travel with legal guardians. Ruh Roh. Not to mention, it also said you could potentially forfeit your whole prize if you violate any of the rules... Well, that sealed the deal for me!! Sorry kids! Maybe we’ll have money on our gift cards left from this trip & we’ll drive you to DL next year !!

For our prize options, we choose the shopping spree, which is actually another gift card. So upon check in, we will receive $1500 total in gift cards. Not sure how much shopping we will actually end up doing. That money will primarily be going to dining & our 2 extra nights, so I'll have to see what's left...I'm used to doing Disney on a budget, so this will be a new experience for me for sure. However I do know that those Dooney’s that some other winners have splurged on sure look nice………..

With all the tough decisions finally made, I email our questionaire back ..



So now I'm back to waiting patiently by my computer inbox again ...


Unfortunately a couple days later I got an email back saying that since I chose January for our trip, I will not be getting any further trip correspondence from them until “FALL”, because they will work on the winners’ trips with the closest dates first.



Oh, how completely agonizing it was to know that I had to wait from like April to “Fall”. This email was like a knife to my heart. Seriously, I wanted to cry…. Fall?? When is that anyways?? Waaay too general a description for my sanity to handle. They didn't even confirm my dates or anything.. major bummer!

Let the waiting game begin...

[ProudMommyof2]

Yikes! That would be too long to wait for me!

I love the picture of your son at the Poly! That Is where we stayed when I won. They put us in a theme park view room in Tahiti!

[lvjen777]

Originally Posted by ProudMommyof2

Yikes! That would be too long to wait for me!

I love the picture of your son at the Poly! That Is where we stayed when I won. They put us in a theme park view room in Tahiti!

Wow, what an amazing location, I'm sure you loved staying there. I know another OMDD winner got a room like that as well.... how awesome!

[natebenma]

ARGGGHHH!!! With apologies to Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part!!!

It will be interesting to hear when they did start contacting you with concrete details. I certainly hope it was in time to make any dining reservations you wanted (or do they take care of that for you)?

I'm so glad you chose the Beach Club for part of your stay. I hope you find it to be everything I think it is!

Temps have been nice and warm the past few days, I hope it continues that way for your trip!

[Marsheliz]

This is the coolest story EVER! OMG- I would die and go to heaven, seriously.... That is so awesome!! And the Poly is so soo so beautiful, Cant afford to stay there but we have ate at Ohana's and man, it was so neat.
I may start entering contests too, GEESH.

[Gantu]

9 days left... are you packing yet?


I so cant wait to hear more!!!

[luckylady]

I'm so excited for you. Are you doing the SDD yet? Loce the BC but beware if your there during EPCOTs fireworks you will hear it. SAB Love the round and round pool. If you have room pack an innertube. When we stayed there they charged for it,but if you can swim/float go with it. I loved to float on my back. As for waiting that long to hear back from them....AHHHHHH

[lvjen777]

Originally Posted by Gantu

9 days left... are you packing yet?


I so cant wait to hear more!!!

Yep, I've had the suitcases out since Christmas!!! Ha Ha

[lvjen777]

Originally Posted by luckylady

I'm so excited for you. Are you doing the SDD yet? Loce the BC but beware if your there during EPCOTs fireworks you will hear it. SAB Love the round and round pool. If you have room pack an innertube. When we stayed there they charged for it,but if you can swim/float go with it. I loved to float on my back. As for waiting that long to hear back from them....AHHHHHH

Thanks for all the tips!

It's funny, with all the months I've been anticipating, researching & planning this trip, it's like all of a sudden I'm all like, Is it really time for our trip?! Have I booked everything we want to do? Have I read up on everything I need to know? I think this whole crazy experience may have fried a few brain cells

[lvjen777]

Originally Posted by natebenma

ARGGGHHH!!! With apologies to Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part!!!

It will be interesting to hear when they did start contacting you with concrete details. I certainly hope it was in time to make any dining reservations you wanted (or do they take care of that for you)?

I'm so glad you chose the Beach Club for part of your stay. I hope you find it to be everything I think it is!

Temps have been nice and warm the past few days, I hope it continues that way for your trip!

I've really tried to keep myself from stalking the weather forecasts quite yet. On our last WDW trip they were calling for a TON of rain on every day of our trip , and I about made myself sick worrying about it before we left.. However I did hear here on the Dis somewhere that the weather has been extra nice there lately...so I was hoping that was true On our last trip we wore everything from shorts to coats with scarves, so our plan is to be prepared for anything & everything!!!

[ShellieB]

Awesome!! Can't wait to hear about it! We will be there the same week as you We go every January and weather has always been great! Although we are from Michigan, so we are usually the only crazy people swimming

[lvjen777]

Originally Posted by ShellieB

Awesome!! Can't wait to hear about it! We will be there the same week as you We go every January and weather has always been great! Although we are from Michigan, so we are usually the only crazy people swimming

I'm glad to hear we aren't the only other crazy January swimmers!!

I hope you have a wonderful vacation !!!!!

[kittylady1972]

Ok, so I guess I missed your dates post somewhere along the line. Sounds like you leave the weekend of the 19th or something like that? Our trip will be the following weekend...arrival of Jan. 25th. I have been HOPING a waitlist will come through for Boardwalk so we can stay there, but I am not feeling too positive about that. We will most likely be staying at Old Key West instead.

I was thinking there was no WAY we'd be doing any swimming, but with the weather being so warm even here in MD lately, I'm thinking there's a very good chance for some very warm temps in Florida for our trip. The kids would LOVE to swim in January so we will definitley be packing the suits for them now.

Can't wait to hear more about the trip. It sounds so fabulous!!!

[phardin]

Subscribing. I can't wait to hear about your trip. It's so cool to know people actually win the trips.

[Wanna be Ariel]

This is soooo cool. I cant wait to hear all about it. We are staying at they Poly for the first time in September so I can't wait to hear what you think of it! Have a safe trip and I look forward to reading alot more