amazingact21
Upendi
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2010
Hello everyone! Welcome, welcome!
First off, I want to thank you for clicking on my thread and taking the time to read this first post. For giving me enough of a chance to spend your free minute here or there to see if my Disney experience is worthy of your time.
Trust me, I understand what it means to not have enough hours in the day to get what you need accomplished. So if you do decide to stick around and read what are sure to be long and picture-filled updates, I owe you tons of gratitude. It's greatly appreciated by me.
Even if I do repay the favor by taking 2 week long breaks between updates.
This was a trip of spontaneity, in its own way. The creation of the plans came about unexpectedly and definitely without much forethought on our part.
Let me take you back, all the way back, to the middle of December.
It had been 2 weeks - just 2 weeks(!) - after my family had returned home from our Walt Disney World vacation. Things like laundry and grocery restocking had just gotten back to order and my credit card was still weeping a little bit from its charges, the Disney depression had lessened on all of us.
Life was back to normal.
And then, my darling husband Alex:
Came home with some unfortunate news.
He had gotten orders to deploy in the middle of 2014.
My husband (nor I) were no strangers to deployments, and there was a part of me that had been waiting for that news for a few months already, but it was nonetheless sad and disappointing.
What was worse?
We'd purchased Annual Passes three weeks earlier, with the intention of participating and going to the Wine and Dine Half Marathon the following fall.
Once the dust had settled over the news and important things like notifying family and discussing game plans were established, I pointed out that if we didn't use those passes again, we'd waste a decent amount of money.
Obviously, the only logical thing to do was go back to Disney sometime in the spring.
I'd like to think I'm a practical sort of person:
That'd be me. I go by Alicia.
Or Mom, to this little fellow:
In case you have not seen him before, this is Landon. He was 13 months old on our trip, and I dare say he gathered even more groupies this time around.
If you'd like to know what I'm referring to when I say groupies, then visit my December 2013 TR. You can find the link in my signature and can see what the little guppy looked like at 8 months old.
Taking another Disney vacation made perfect sense in our minds. We had passes to use, family to visit, and probably the most important detail of them all: Alex needed quality family time before he left.
The idea of leaving your loved ones for 6+ months is hard enough, but it was especially difficult for Alex, knowing he would be missing so much in his son's life. Alex is an incredible dad, and they both needed this time at Disney to bond and hang out together before he left.
We needed a trip that would compensate for two missed birthdays, a missed anniversary, a Halloween, a Thanksgiving, a Christmas, and a New Year's.
We needed to formulate a vacation that would get us through the months apart, that would be so unbelievably awesome that we wouldn't feel so guilty at missing so many other trip opportunities.
A vacation to put all other vacations to shame.
(Not really, but Alex certainly had that mentality going into the planning stage.)
It took awhile to figure out the specifics of our trip, but when Alex and I did finally get exact dates on when we could visit, the plans started snowballing, getting bigger and better until we were both amazed at our luck and good fortune.
At first, we were going to do 2 nights.
Then it became 3 nights.
Then it was 4 nights.
We were going to do 3 nights in a Value and 1 in a Deluxe.
That morphed into 2 and 2.
But that was it. Absolutely no more changes!
Until about a few weeks before we left, when Alex talked and talked and talked me into staying all 4 nights at a Deluxe Resort.
How can you say no to "For me? As a pre-deployment gift?"
And then one dining reservation turned into 2, which rolled over into 3.
And before I knew it, we had this amazing, extravagant mind-blowing Walt Disney World vacation in the works.
To say we were excited for this trip would be an understatement.
It was necessary for our happiness and stress levels to break away for a short while, get away from the pre-deployment checklists and appointments and meetings. To get out from under that thunder cloud of sadness that was starting to move in on my family's cheeriness.
My family didn't just want this vacation, we needed it.
So, without further ado, I give you my May 2014 trip report!
First off, I want to thank you for clicking on my thread and taking the time to read this first post. For giving me enough of a chance to spend your free minute here or there to see if my Disney experience is worthy of your time.
Trust me, I understand what it means to not have enough hours in the day to get what you need accomplished. So if you do decide to stick around and read what are sure to be long and picture-filled updates, I owe you tons of gratitude. It's greatly appreciated by me.
Even if I do repay the favor by taking 2 week long breaks between updates.
This was a trip of spontaneity, in its own way. The creation of the plans came about unexpectedly and definitely without much forethought on our part.
Let me take you back, all the way back, to the middle of December.
It had been 2 weeks - just 2 weeks(!) - after my family had returned home from our Walt Disney World vacation. Things like laundry and grocery restocking had just gotten back to order and my credit card was still weeping a little bit from its charges, the Disney depression had lessened on all of us.
Life was back to normal.
And then, my darling husband Alex:
Came home with some unfortunate news.
He had gotten orders to deploy in the middle of 2014.
My husband (nor I) were no strangers to deployments, and there was a part of me that had been waiting for that news for a few months already, but it was nonetheless sad and disappointing.
What was worse?
We'd purchased Annual Passes three weeks earlier, with the intention of participating and going to the Wine and Dine Half Marathon the following fall.
Once the dust had settled over the news and important things like notifying family and discussing game plans were established, I pointed out that if we didn't use those passes again, we'd waste a decent amount of money.
Obviously, the only logical thing to do was go back to Disney sometime in the spring.
I'd like to think I'm a practical sort of person:
That'd be me. I go by Alicia.
Or Mom, to this little fellow:
In case you have not seen him before, this is Landon. He was 13 months old on our trip, and I dare say he gathered even more groupies this time around.
If you'd like to know what I'm referring to when I say groupies, then visit my December 2013 TR. You can find the link in my signature and can see what the little guppy looked like at 8 months old.
Taking another Disney vacation made perfect sense in our minds. We had passes to use, family to visit, and probably the most important detail of them all: Alex needed quality family time before he left.
The idea of leaving your loved ones for 6+ months is hard enough, but it was especially difficult for Alex, knowing he would be missing so much in his son's life. Alex is an incredible dad, and they both needed this time at Disney to bond and hang out together before he left.
We needed a trip that would compensate for two missed birthdays, a missed anniversary, a Halloween, a Thanksgiving, a Christmas, and a New Year's.
We needed to formulate a vacation that would get us through the months apart, that would be so unbelievably awesome that we wouldn't feel so guilty at missing so many other trip opportunities.
A vacation to put all other vacations to shame.
(Not really, but Alex certainly had that mentality going into the planning stage.)
It took awhile to figure out the specifics of our trip, but when Alex and I did finally get exact dates on when we could visit, the plans started snowballing, getting bigger and better until we were both amazed at our luck and good fortune.
At first, we were going to do 2 nights.
Then it became 3 nights.
Then it was 4 nights.
We were going to do 3 nights in a Value and 1 in a Deluxe.
That morphed into 2 and 2.
But that was it. Absolutely no more changes!
Until about a few weeks before we left, when Alex talked and talked and talked me into staying all 4 nights at a Deluxe Resort.
How can you say no to "For me? As a pre-deployment gift?"
And then one dining reservation turned into 2, which rolled over into 3.
And before I knew it, we had this amazing, extravagant mind-blowing Walt Disney World vacation in the works.
To say we were excited for this trip would be an understatement.
It was necessary for our happiness and stress levels to break away for a short while, get away from the pre-deployment checklists and appointments and meetings. To get out from under that thunder cloud of sadness that was starting to move in on my family's cheeriness.
My family didn't just want this vacation, we needed it.
So, without further ado, I give you my May 2014 trip report!
Last edited:
Excited for more!
