hurricane2017
Five Resorts and Counting
- Joined
- Mar 8, 2011
- Messages
- 11
Hello All,
A short introduction before I pull you into my completely selfish and nostalgic attempt at a recap of our trip.
I'm Brian - 25 year old guy from NY
My trip buddy is K8 - 26 year old gal, also from NY. We dated in high school and tried to do the long distance thing in college, which ultimately failed. Now we are just good friends and Disney freaks.
This was our 4th WDW vacation together, and what we deemed our "Extravagant Disney Trip."
Without further ado, I present an abridged version of Brian & K8's May 2012 Vacation:
This was our first weeklong trip to Disney since the Summer of 2006. We are both working full time (we were in college then) and so we said we would just go all out and do whatever we wanted (within reason). Since we plan on going back in October, and possibly next year, we agreed an AP was a good bet. I wanted Beach Club, but K8 suggested a Pirate Room at Caribbean Beach would be very "Disney' so I deferred to her judgement. We got the Deluxe Dining Plan because we wanted to try out an array of different restaurants. This was what I got in exchange for shelving the Beach Club. I like to eat and figured we wouldn't be in the room that often anyway. Was it a good trade? Read on!
5/18
We left on an 8:15 flight from Stewart International that arrived in MCO at 10:30. The airport is a 5 minute drive from my house, which is one of the most beautiful things in the world (Anyone who has had to deal with getting to LGA or JFK during rush hour can back me up). As we were going through to get scanned I realized I didn't have my cell phone. I scrambled around in all my pockets and my carry-on and couldn't find it anywhere. As I was using K8's phone to try and call someone to help me find it, she heard an announcement over the PA claiming they found a cellphone and reading my name, which I'd luckily put on my phone's home screen (yay Android 4.0). Crisis averted.
Our 2nd hiccup came when we were on the plane. K8 brought to my attention that we had forgotten to put our Magical Express luggage tags on our bags. It would've been quite the debacle had we come back to the room and realized our bags weren't there. A trip to baggage claim effectively nullified the extra time we had gained from our ahead-of-schedule flight.
When we arrived at the hotel we ran into a 3rd issue. When I called about the reservations, I made them assuming we would be using an AP discount. We planned to buy the pass at the hotel concierge before checking in. I checked a week before to make sure that this was possible. Unfortunately, when we got to the desk, we learned that due to an upgrade to the ticketing system, we couldn't buy the AP at the hotel. By this point I was agitated. This trip was 5 or 6 months in the making and these problems all happened in a matter of a few hours.
Thankfully, the guy who helped us was great, he overrode the AP issue, allowing us to check in then and get the pass when we went out to the parks (on our honor). We could have bought a 7-day PH, and made off with an extra 5% discount on the room, but we are noble Disney travelers.
Interestingly enough, the weather forecast for WDW had changed pretty drastically in the week before our trip. 7 days out, it looked like sun sun sun, every single day, but by the time we left it was 7 days straight of scattered T-storms, with around 50% chance every day. By this point, I was sure that we were going to be drowned in rain, given our luck. Was my pessimism warranted or did the clouds part for our coming? Stay tuned for more.
A short introduction before I pull you into my completely selfish and nostalgic attempt at a recap of our trip.
I'm Brian - 25 year old guy from NY
My trip buddy is K8 - 26 year old gal, also from NY. We dated in high school and tried to do the long distance thing in college, which ultimately failed. Now we are just good friends and Disney freaks.
This was our 4th WDW vacation together, and what we deemed our "Extravagant Disney Trip."
Without further ado, I present an abridged version of Brian & K8's May 2012 Vacation:
This was our first weeklong trip to Disney since the Summer of 2006. We are both working full time (we were in college then) and so we said we would just go all out and do whatever we wanted (within reason). Since we plan on going back in October, and possibly next year, we agreed an AP was a good bet. I wanted Beach Club, but K8 suggested a Pirate Room at Caribbean Beach would be very "Disney' so I deferred to her judgement. We got the Deluxe Dining Plan because we wanted to try out an array of different restaurants. This was what I got in exchange for shelving the Beach Club. I like to eat and figured we wouldn't be in the room that often anyway. Was it a good trade? Read on!
5/18
We left on an 8:15 flight from Stewart International that arrived in MCO at 10:30. The airport is a 5 minute drive from my house, which is one of the most beautiful things in the world (Anyone who has had to deal with getting to LGA or JFK during rush hour can back me up). As we were going through to get scanned I realized I didn't have my cell phone. I scrambled around in all my pockets and my carry-on and couldn't find it anywhere. As I was using K8's phone to try and call someone to help me find it, she heard an announcement over the PA claiming they found a cellphone and reading my name, which I'd luckily put on my phone's home screen (yay Android 4.0). Crisis averted.
Our 2nd hiccup came when we were on the plane. K8 brought to my attention that we had forgotten to put our Magical Express luggage tags on our bags. It would've been quite the debacle had we come back to the room and realized our bags weren't there. A trip to baggage claim effectively nullified the extra time we had gained from our ahead-of-schedule flight.
When we arrived at the hotel we ran into a 3rd issue. When I called about the reservations, I made them assuming we would be using an AP discount. We planned to buy the pass at the hotel concierge before checking in. I checked a week before to make sure that this was possible. Unfortunately, when we got to the desk, we learned that due to an upgrade to the ticketing system, we couldn't buy the AP at the hotel. By this point I was agitated. This trip was 5 or 6 months in the making and these problems all happened in a matter of a few hours.
Thankfully, the guy who helped us was great, he overrode the AP issue, allowing us to check in then and get the pass when we went out to the parks (on our honor). We could have bought a 7-day PH, and made off with an extra 5% discount on the room, but we are noble Disney travelers.
Interestingly enough, the weather forecast for WDW had changed pretty drastically in the week before our trip. 7 days out, it looked like sun sun sun, every single day, but by the time we left it was 7 days straight of scattered T-storms, with around 50% chance every day. By this point, I was sure that we were going to be drowned in rain, given our luck. Was my pessimism warranted or did the clouds part for our coming? Stay tuned for more.
