32 + 24 + 20 + 4 = 5 Fantasmic Days in the World --4/2 update

[Moira222]

Alternate title:

I wanna go! We really shouldn’t. We’re going right? What about the ____? Oh just DO IT!

(I liked this title better but I couldn't get it all to fit!!)

Ya know these little guys?

and

Well they have been whispering in my ear for months now. You need to go back to Disney. You really don’t have any money for this trip. BAH you can’t take it with you. You really need to do DisneyWorld for your anniversary. 20 years is something to celebrate. Wouldn’t it be fun to go with out Katie? You could go with grown up friends and do grown up fun stuff like kid stuff but without the whining.

Back and forth back and forth we went, round and round. Finally,

won.

MUAAAHAHAHAHA who cares if we “shouldn’t” ….. money isn’t everything!

And DH and I agreed that WDW is the BEST place to celebrate 20 years of marriage.

.

But just as it was important that we share our special day with friends, we wanted to share this trip with friends. Good friends. Best friends.

There’s a lot up in the air. I have a Plan A, Plan B, C, D, and E. I have so many options floating in my head that I am doing a PTR to gather the wisdom of the Disney Sages. So please, chime in! Your two cents is worth a nickel here!

Life is crazy, and this trip is 8 months away – June 2012 – so I promise that I won’t be doing daily updates. Really! Don’t give up on me, but don’t feel guilty if you don’t get here all the time – I won’t be here either. I’ll probably be on YOUR PTR or TR! But I hope you stop over when you have a few minutes!

 

[Moira222]

Introductions
The various plans: which one will it be??
Guess where we're staying!
Decisions Decisions, Where shall we eat?
Sorting out the details
Hershey Park Visit
Christmas Day
Take a Walk on the Wild Side (Day 2)
Wrapping up day two
Momma Mia! NYC trip
Flashback to 2007
Happy Anniversary
June 7 Magic Kingdom
chchchchchanges
Life updates
Friday June 8 more questions than plans!
Animal Kingdom Must Dos
Progress!
Hollywood Studios Must Dos
Mail call
30 Days Out To Do List
Camping trip & visit to Lititz PA

 

[Moira222]

Introductions:

Plans A and C of this trip included only myself & my dear hubby. June 6, 2012 marks twenty years of marriage for us. ( and that same week marks 23 years since our first date) It’s not been 20 years without stress, worries, and drama, but it also has not been without lots of love, laughter, joy, and friendship. Marriage is more than just a day of fancy clothes and a big party. It’s a real commitment – something you must decide sometimes daily that it’s WORTH saving and working for. Some years go by so fast you don’t know they’re gone – its “bliss”. Some years you struggle through like chipping away at an iceberg with a plastic KFC spork. But you love each other, and you know that the day to day sometimes is not nearly as important as the lifetime after lifetime that you know you’ve been together.

My DH is not an online sort of guy – I can’t resist posting one or two photos of him here but he really really does not like his picture posted online. A career in law enforcement will teach you to value your privacy in ways most people never think twice about. What you should know is that he LOVES DisneyWorld. It took me a twelve years to get him to go – and on the plane on the way home he told me how sorry he was that he put it off, and how much of a good time he had. We’ve been three times now with our DD Katie. Every trip has been fun, had its ups and down, and we’ve learned more about ourselves and DisneyWorld with every trip. Here’s what I learned after our last trip: Its much better to plan everything and tell DH very little so that everything appears perfectly flawless regardless of whether it happened according to plan or not!

Me: Mary Ellen aka moira222 I am the planner. I love planning and hosting parties, as long as I am not the center of attention. I especially love planning fun and awesome things for my family – I get so excited to see their faces when something fun/sweet/amazing/ridiculous happens. I can pre-live a moment a thousand times, and then re-live it afterwards forever. I get tears in my eyes thinking about things that happened 20 years ago. I am the mushy one, for sure.

Plans B and D also include my BFF Lesley and her hubby Colin, who will mark 20+ years of togetherness as well

and Les & I have been friends since we were twelve …… that’s a lot of years of friendship, trust me!

We (as couples) are godparents to each other’s children, and totally sisters by choice.

(Their son’s baptism)

After Katie’s baptism (my girl would not stop fussing till she got into comfy clothes!)

Colin has been in the US Army for over 20 years, and is waiting for his retirement paperwork to come through.

He’s received a few injuries in Iraq and on duty State-side over the years that sort of moved up the timeline a bit. Our BFF’s are moving to North Carolina sometime soon (house is being built) and so the “iffy” part of the plans are surrounding the house situation. Lesley was supposed to join us for our 2011 trip, which was supposed to happen in October. Life changed, we took our trip in May and it was not feasible for Lesley at that time (boo!).

Les is a DisneyLand expert, having lived in San Pedro for 4 years & having an annual pass while there. She’s done the world two or three times, but never stayed in a WDW resort & taken the full drink of kool aid (had to borrow that Caitlin!) so we are hoping to really do WDW all out this trip.

Plan E (yeah, there are that many variations) includes Katie, our 8 YO daughter. We love our little princess, but she’ll still be in school that week, and well, frankly, we really want the over 21 experience of WDW --- behind the scenes tours, late nights and maybe even sleeping in once or twice. We want our only wine to be the sort that comes in a glass But, just in case plans fall through I have an option where she joins us as well.

 

[Moira222]

SO, what are the plans? See, here is where I am looking for your feedback. Really. I know Dis’ers are helpful with comments even when NOT asked, and I’m asking!

Dates: Monday June 4 – Friday June 8 in the parks. We will have park hoppers, not water parks.

Travel: Joe & I are driving from PA. I will have to work that Saturday till probably 9 or 10 p.m. & then we (Joe) will drive to North Carolina to Lesley’s house. We’ll catch some sleep & have a meal & visit for a little while, and then will drive through the night again (Joe prefers to drive at night) from North Carolina to Orlando.


Plan A / C: Me & Joe.

Plan A is me renting DVC points for Joe and I to stay in a Beach Club Villa studio as a first choice, Animal Kingdom DVC points for club level as second choice. Purchase the Dining Plan. IF we stay at the Beach Club Villa we will get park hoppers – there is no way I can be so close to Epcot and not “pop over” whenever I feel like it! IF we stay at the Animal Kingdom, we may get straight tickets. I haven’t decided – the difference is pretty minimal so its likely we’ll just go for park hoppers but I will wait and watch for discounted tickets.

Plan C: Go with a Magic Your Way + Dining Plan and stay at the Coronado Springs Resort. I toyed with the Caribbean beach resort also but am leaning towards CSR if we go this route. If we go with Plan C we will likely not get park hoppers as it will mean we are in an every penny counts mode.



Plans B/D

Plan B: Joe and I, Lesley & Colin staying together in one villa. Again, Beach Club is the location of choice. If we go with plan b, we will reserve using the military discount. The one BR villa looks awesome, but then one couple is stuck on a pull out sofa bed. Eehhhh I am debating also a regular room at Beach or Yacht club, because the rooms have 2 queen sized beds in them. We can live with each other for a week …..and have already discussed the “if the mickey towel is hanging on the door” courtesy rule LOL We will do the regular dining plan, and take advantage of the military 4 day park hopper pass. With this option we will spend arrival day hanging out at the resort and/or downtown Disney and not go to a park.

Plan D: Joe & I, Lesley & Colin, staying in two separate rooms. This will be a lot like plans A/C for us but will mean we all stay in the same resort so that we can hang pool and bar side. Beach Club or Coronado Springs, depending on budgets and specials when we finally make the reservations.

Plan E: Joe, Katie and I Plans A, C, or D can easily become E if we find out that Katie needs to come with us. As it stands, she will still be in school for at least half of that week, and my sister has offered to keep Katie at her house. Katie wavers between being okay with us not taking her to Disney, and being not okay with it! I’ve found that Disney usually has no problem if you add to your trip at the last minute, its only when you try to reduce the cost that they balk on short notice.

I suppose there is technically also a Plan F which involves Lesley going with us, and not Colin. Colin is not a big ride/noise/crowd guy (migraines, combat stuff) , but he IS keen on some R&R and hanging pool/barside and the beauty of staying in a Disney resort is that at any point in the day he can take transport and easily head back for quiet time if he needs it. SO I am thinking that we won’t need Plan F, but it’s there, lingering in the background, if needed.

WHEW that’s just the possibilities for housing. Just wait till I get to planning ADR’s, Parks, oh and TOURS did I mention that I want to do a tour this time? Yeah, gonna throw that in there too.

 

[KatMark]

I'm here, MaryEllen. Will be back later to read the intro.

 

[Moira222]

I'm here, MaryEllen. Will be back later to read the intro.

Hi Kathy! No hurrying here, I think I may be making myself nuts with trying to plan a trip with so many "ifs"!

 

[Moira222]

Oh boy it is already starting ---DH is having pangs of guilt at not taking DD with us in June. He has asked me a few times already if I feel guilty (only a tad, not enough to change my mind), and last night he asked if the Fantasyland expansion would be open. Uh Oh. I looked this morning on the DIS Unplugged blog and got caught up with the expansion items and expected openings. Sure enough there are a few very cool things expected to be open in early 2012, which means by June they should be open. and they DO look cool.

and Katie would really love them… and I would feel more than a little guilty not having Katie there.aaaawww man! guilt is not cool!

BUT, says

she’ll still be in school, at least for part of that week (last day is June 6) and we wouldn’t want to make a habit out of taking her out of school so we should go without her.

sigh
this will be an ongoing battle of conscience, I can see it now. wonder how it will turn out?

So have you seen the rides that are expected to open early ’12? I thought that Goofy’s barnstormer was going to be “recycled” into the Dwarves mine ride, but am SO excited to see that they have rethemed it into the Great Goofini…this was a favorite of ours, and Katie’s first roller coaster, so I am SO excited that we will ride with Goofy again!

The new and moved Dumbo sounds cool – I hope the rumors are true and there are boarding passes issued ---- randomly playing in an interactive area sounds much more fun =! I liked the new queue for Haunted Mansion, but still felt rushed through it with the line behind us, but didn’t want to miss our place in line either. (oh the pressure to have fun! LOL)

I will be happy to check out the new story book landing of the train when we get there in June, too. sad, I am officially an addict.

 

[tinacaplan]

Hi! Just caught the link on Kathy's TR! You ARE going for your anniversary! Fantastic! One thought...OK, maybe more like two... Mark and I went to Disney for the first time for our fifth anniversary, minus Max. We stayed at CSR and it was a fantastic choice for an adults-only trip. I know you've stayed there, so you're well aware of CSR's advantages. Persoinally, we never minded the busses and found them pretty quick. Although... an adults-only trip and being able to walk to EPCOT.... hmm.... that sounds nice, too!

 

[Moira222]

Hi! Just caught the link on Kathy's TR! You ARE going for your anniversary! Fantastic! One thought...OK, maybe more like two... Mark and I went to Disney for the first time for our fifth anniversary, minus Max. We stayed at CSR and it was a fantastic choice for an adults-only trip. I know you've stayed there, so you're well aware of CSR's advantages. Persoinally, we never minded the busses and found them pretty quick. Although... an adults-only trip and being able to walk to EPCOT.... hmm.... that sounds nice, too!

Hi tina!! (thanks for coming by!) Yes, we are going, just now sure who the "WE" is. I personally have far less guilt than DH on leaving Katie with my sister. That may sound a tad mean, but umm well, I am really ready for adult time! I think DH is mixed....some days he mentions bringing her, but then others asks about dancing and touring and a few other no-kids-around things to enjoy on vacation.

If we don't go to CSR this time, we will next time (with Katie) for sure. The idea of strolling to Epcot, landing right near France and the Grand marnier slushie booth is just SOOO tempting.

 

[lmckiel]

You are tooooo funny. So this is where you spend all of your time? Lots and lots of "IFs", I'm ready to say the heck with it all and just go.

 

[Moira222]

You are tooooo funny. So this is where you spend all of your time? Lots and lots of "IFs", I'm ready to say the heck with it all and just go.

YAY yes, this IS where I spend all my time , so much more fun than Farmville

I'm so glad you came over!!!

Yes, down with fiscal responsibility, up with BFF trips!!

 

[pinkxray]

Hi Mary Ellen

I am glad I found your preTR. I haven't really been looking at any since I have no trip in the works, but I have to read yours.

I would find it so tough to go to WDW without Caitlin, but after 20 years of marriage you deserve a litte adult time.

Wow, you have many different options. The beach club does sound great. I know that AKL club level is pretty much impossible to get unless you have a member who owns there contact DVC at the 11 month mark.


Looking forward to reading more

 

[Moira222]

Diane I am so glad you popped in! I was just thinking of you & wondering how your cruise turned out & if DH like DisCruises. I subbed to yours & will read up when I'm not working. (or maybe later when no one is asking me for anything!) LOL

 

[Moira222]

Just saying Happy (late) Thanksgiving! We host holidays meals at our house so I spent much of the day (and week) baking, cooking, and tidying up. I did take some time yesterday morning to snuggle up with my girl and watch the Winnie the Pooh movie on DVD. LOVED IT! If you haven't seen it yet, its nicely done and really did make me chuckle at Pooh and his friends.

Tomorrow I'm going to see the Muppet Movie with Katie, my niece, and my BFF Lesley. YAY!

OH - Disney update -

DH came home this morning and said it's only a 16 hour drive to Magic Kingdom from our house. WAAAAHHHTTTT? really? that's rather dangerous information to give me!!!

 

[KatMark]

I can understand your dilemna of when and who to go with. I could see not wanting to see the new Fantasyland without Katie, but I can also see wanting to do an "adult trip." Our first trip without the boys was in 2006, I believe, and our "kids" were 20 and 18 at the time. I have to say I love our "adults" only trip, and I think for this special anniversary that I lean towards just you and Joe going.

 

[Moira222]

Did everyone see the new 30% discount for spring 2012? I did and was so excited I nearly peed my self! really!

Guess who made her reservations today for






are you ready?





there was lots up in the air



ok there still is a lot up in the air

but know what's NOT up in the air?

where we're staying


still want to know?

I ran the numbers with great excitement, and immediately requested a quote from my favorite Dreams Unlimited TA - Jen Kvidera (yeah I have to shout out).

She has a day job & ran everything through tonight and VOILA.

we're going to Disney
we're going to Disney

i know, I know, i KNEW I was going to Disney but I just love that moment of absolute certainty, when you make the deposit.

 

[Moira222]

We're spending our 20th wedding anniversary in the

 

[Moira222]

Yeah, I didn't even put this on my range of options because I just didn't think it would be feasible for us. But the more I thought about it, the more I just wanted to have that luxurious and pampered feeling for our 20th anniversary. And in talking about "dream trips" with Joe, we both said that this would be very cool.

So today, I spent much of the morning stressed out about a $ issue related to refinancing our mortgage. Managed to get that resolved, and got home in time to sign all the paperwork to close the refinance. Very great thing for us which will take 7 years off of our total mortgage AND free up a nice chunk of money every month to pay other bills with and maybe get ahead again. After I went back to work, what did I see on my twitter sidebar? New Spring Discounts. could it be? I have to look. so I do. YES! it extends into early June!

 

[Moira222]

sorry, i didn't want to delete ALL my happy faces so I had to split my post into three.

I called my BFF on the way home and nearly squealed, yeah, I am pretty sure I DID squeal and giggle a lot when I told her about the spring discount. So we are still looking at either plan a, c, e or f.

I agree with you completely, Kathy, that we should go adults only. I am all for it. I can see the guilt working on Joe so we will have to see how that all turns out.


Having reservations set will make it easier to just add more people to our room if we want to, or Lesley & Colin can take advantage of the military programs to score a great room for themselves if they want. I just hope they can come. keeping my fingers crossed for the next 7 months!!

I started going over restaurants and writing an update about picking foods, but I am pretty sure that I fell asleep with my hands on the keyboard (as I did already once this evening!), so I still have to finish that.

but I had to post my excitement with you all. Now I am awake again with excitement so think I will catch up on some more TR's. See ya 'round the boards!

 

[KatMark]

MaryEllen, I am so excited for you. That is just too darn exciting. The Beach Club is the last deluxe we want to try (we've done Contemporary, Poly and then AKV and OKW for DVC). Lucky, lucky you.