Another Magical Trip to WDW together - A Trip of 1sts!! Pre-Trip Up now!

[arizonacolbys]

This is my first attempt at a trip report, but after living vicariously through everyone’s Trip Reports on the DIS all summer awaiting our next trip – I’m attempting one of my own! I hope you all enjoy it!!!

Let’s start out with a little history….

Cast of Characters:
Me, 28 – loves our annual escapes to Walt Disney World & thoroughly enjoys making all the plans!!!
Craig, 29 – my Disney soul mate – been together over 10 years, married for 6 ½ years – fellow lover of all things Disney, too!!!

I think we knew that we were destined to be together after our first trip to Walt Disney World together back in January 2000. We had an awesome trip there together – we were engaged a month later, and married 3 months after that! LOL This will be our 8th trip together to WDW and we both visited many times as children, too. This will be an adult only trip (no kiddies yet – other than of the furry variety – they will be staying at Grandma’s again! ) Even after spending so much time at WDW, we have many firsts planned for this trip!!

Our list of Firsts for this trip:
- Full 2 week trip
- Free Dining Plan!!!
- Staying at a Boardwalk Villa for our last 6 nights!!!
- Food & Wine Festival
- MNSSHP
- & Many new restaurants to try!!!

This trip is extra special to us right now because we are really looking forward to some quality time together after our summer apart. Craig is in the Army National Guard & had to reside in Fort Leonard Wood, MO for about 4 ½ months this summer to finish up his Officer Training Course. I was able to visit MANY weekends, (approximately 9 out of 18 weekends! I earned a free RT ticket on Southwest just from my travels to FLW this summer!) but it was still hard for us to be apart for so long! He’s been home now for a couple of weeks, has returned to work & school….just in time for our big Disney trip!!

Here's a pic of us after hubby's OBC graduation in August:

After we drop off our furry children at my in-laws at the delightful hour of 5 am on Saturday, September 23rd, my dear father-in-law will be driving us to the airport.

Our furry children:
Colby Jack:

Arizona:

My in-laws also have 2 labs just like us - so, our pooches just love to go over there on their "vacation" too!

Cont...

 

[arizonacolbys]

Cont...

We’ll be arriving in Orlando, Saturday, September 23rd & returning home late on Saturday, October 7th. We have our rental car ressies in place (only for our arrival day & departure day – we can’t waste our precious park time with DME! LOL) We will be checking into POP Century (our favorite WDW Resort for the last couple years) on September 23rd for our first 8 nights at the World. We love the POP Century because it’s still pretty new & clean, it has a great food court, one of the best bus systems around, and of course, the price can’t be beat! We would always rather extend our trip by staying somewhere more affordable than spend hundreds of dollars a night on a room we won’t see much of! We typically request a room on the 4th floor in the 50’s section facing the lake – it is usually nice & quiet over there & you can see fireworks from the balcony in front of the rooms at night. We actually requested a room in the 70’s on an upper floor this trip just for a change of scenery.

Sunday, October 1st, we’ll be moving over to a Boardwalk Studio!!! This will be our first time staying at the Boardwalk (or any Epcot Resort) and our first time in a DVC property. We are looking forward to staying someplace new & are looking forward to being so close to Epcot for our first Food & Wine Festival! We have a Studio with a Boardwalk View booked & can’t wait to spend our 2nd week of the trip at a more relaxing resort.

We will be meeting up with some friends of ours that are currently living in sunny FL for a couple days when we are there. They are hoping to join us for the MNSSHP on 10/2 & then spend 10/3 strolling thru the Food & Wine Fest with us, too! We were able to meet up with them last May & we had so much fun down there with some friends our age to hang out with!! It should be good times again.

Here’s my itinerary – Dining Plan booked for the entire 2 weeks!!!:

9/23 – arrive, check-in at POP – get AP’s & head straight to MK!! (always our 1st park! LOL) 2 pm ADR – Alfredo’s (a new one for us this year)

9/24 – MGM – CS at Flatbread Grill or Backlot Express (we’ve had very bad luck with MGM CS & are hoping to find some good food there this year!) Then onto our ADR at California Grill (our new favorite restaurant last year! Can’t wait to go back!!!) & into MK for Night-time EMH

9/25 – Morning EMH at AK, breakfast ADR at Boma! Yummy!! POP Century for CS dinner whenever hungry & onto MGM for NEMH

9/26 – Early ADR at Crystal Palace (before the park opens – love those empty castle pictures!! Also our favorite character breakfast!), Epcot for the evening hours – probably CS in Mexico (our favorite!!)

9/27 – MGM for rides, then AK for NEMH – can’t wait to return to Flame Tree BBQ!

9/28 – MEMH at MK – early ADR for Chef Mickey’s breakfast, onto AK & a dinner ADR at Boma

9/29 – Early ADR at ‘Ohana (good food & can’t wait to eat with Stitch!!!), MK for the day & then Epcot for the evening – the 1st day of the F&W Festival – will get snacks around the World somewhere! Also – NEMH at Epcot tonight.

9/30 – MEMH at MGM – probably over to Downtown Disney to do some mid-trip shopping & grab Yummy sandwiches at Earl’s! Probably onto MK for the evening & may try Pinocchio Village for CS

10/1 – Checking out of POP this morning – heading to MK for the new celebration & will try to grab snacks for breakfast as we will likely be out of credits until we check-in at BWV later in the day! Looking forward to being at the MK for the beginning of a new celebration, but hope it’s no too crazy!! LOL Probably check into our BWV around lunchtime to get our new Dining Credits going. We have a dinner ADR at ‘Ohana – another 1st for us!

10/2 – MEMH at AK – may try Tusker House for an early lunch. MK tonight for our 1st MNSSHP!!! We’ll be eating at Liberty Tree Tavern (another favorite of ours) & can’t wait to see the characters all dressed up. This is the night that our friends may meet up with us at the MK…

10/3 – MEMH at Epcot – possibly stop for a bite at Boardwalk Bakery for breakfast. Planned this day to be our Tasting Around the World day at the F&W Festival – looking forward to trying to get into some of the free samplings I’ve heard so much about here Our friends may be around this day with us, too! We talked about possibly just getting a Pizza on the Boardwalk to eat on our balcony – probably depends on how many samples we’ve had & how hungry we are/aren’t at this point…

10/4 – MGM – breakfast at Cape May Café, onto Epcot for NEMH & a Dinner ADR at Spoodle’s (another 1st – have read some good reviews on it here recently!)

10/5 – MEMH at MK – early lunch at Cosmic Ray’s (another 1st!) Dinner ADR at Mama Melrose at MGM

10/6 – MGM for rides, possibly lunch at Beaches & Cream, dinner at Cape May Café (another favorite) and then onto Epcot for the evening – more F&W festival

10/7 – Unfortunately, our check-out day….Boardwalk Bakery for breakfast & then onto MK (always our last park) CS somewhere for lunch – Flight back home around 4pm…

As you can see – we like to try to take advantage of as many EMH’s as we can! In our experience, the morning EMH’s are definitely worth getting out of bed for – it allows us to get on SO many rides & then head back to the Resort every day for a nap or swim & shower to freshen up before heading out to a different park for the evening. We like to park hop – it breaks up our day more. We found the evening EMH’s to be pretty crowded last May, so we’ll see how they go this trip. We also love character meals, even though we’re adults only.

Well, I’m partially packed – I’m sure I’ll go through my bags a zillion more times before we actually leave though! LOL I’ve at least got most of my clothes set aside, just trying to pack up other odds & ends at this point…

I'm looking forward to posting my 1st trip report when I get back & will be taking LOTS of pictures to include!!

Thanks for reading this far – only 12 more days until we’re back at Walt Disney World!!!

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Can't wait to hear about your trip! Say hi to the World for me!

(Ft Leonard Wood isn't too far from my neck of the woods, btw! I think it's great that you got to spend so much time with him while he was away!)

 

[__disneygirl]

Loving this so far!! You guys are SUCH a cute couple and you have an AMAZING trip planned. You're gonna have a blast.

I love the POP too. I agree about spending more time in WDW staying at Value, as opposed to a shorter trip at a Deluxe. Totally worth it.

Have a magical trip!

 

[arizonacolbys]

Thanks girls for the sweet comments & for reading along!! Finally down to single digits on my countdown...just 9 more days!! Yipee!!

My exciting news of the week is that we've "officially" decided to go back in January to get away from the Cleveland winter for a few days & use up our Annual Passes! I've booked the airfare & am just waiting (hoping!) for some AP room discounts.