Birthday Halloween Trip 2008 (Pre-Trip) - Update 9/20 (5 days to go)

[jrpopfan]

So, this is my first trip blog thingy that I will be writing. I have not done this before so I am giving it a try. We are about 19 days away.

This will be our third WDW trip in 2 years. The first time my GF and I went to WDW in May 2007, we went with two cast members (Radio Disney employees) and two friends J&K (John & Kay). The first time was fun for us miserable for the others. GF & I had our own room at Coronado. L&R (Laura & Rose-cast members) had DVC and allowed for J&K to stay with them at Old Key West. The four of them seemed to have issues with each other making the group split up for most of the time and divided the friends to not like each other very much once the trip was over. We enjoyed ourselves because everyone basically went there own way and just met up for dinner. But because we had cast members, we relied on them to get us in the park. If you upset them you might as well kiss your park entrance goodbye when you went on a budget. So, overall -lots of stress, etc...

1st Trip during happier times.

2nd Trip; August 2007. GF and I went with Laura (cast member) who insisted that we go again and that she would use her cast discount for hotel and she would get us into the park. Being on someone else's schedule who wants "vacation" time and not really WDW time makes it difficult. She is the type of person who will go, come back to the hotel and sleep, then wants to go back to the park for the rest of the night and is up late, wanting to sleep in the next morning. We are opposite. Get up and go until evening come to the hotel and sleep. This cause much angst between us and her and we vowed never to let a cast member get us into the the park on "her" time EVER!

Laura and I on a mission at Epcot

We did a 3rd trip to Disneyland in October 2007 for my Mom's Bday. Invited an old HS friend and her family, my sister and her 4 kids, Mom and Stepdad and Me and GF. All was fine UNTIL... Met with HS friend, sister got upset we were talking with her and not them for like one entire ride. The went to other areas while I spent time with family. For some reason, sister seemed to be upset that mom was focusing most conversations with me and GF. Mind you that my mom and sister live about 3 blocks apart from each other in CA and see each other almost daily while GF and I live 2400 miles away in Houston and mom had never met GF before this day. Sister stormed off and made trip to CA horrible for all parties.

Me and the kids...

NOW to today... It has been almost a full year since GF and I went on a vacation. It is well deserved, we need a break from work and spending 11 days at the Mouse House is the best vacation. Now, it did not start out well.

When we planned this trip beginning of the year, the trip would be GF, best friend Janie and I. We were going to drive and do a road trip after the park on the way home. Our CM friend Laura wanted to tag along and she offered us discounts and free park admission. I said NO!!! I explained to her that we would not do that because of the problems the last time. I try to be an honest person. This caused a little emotionalness from Laura, but she understood. She still wanted to tag along until I told her that Janie was going. She did not want to go if she was going because she did not want to share the backseat of the car. She also said that adding a fourth person changes the dynamic to the group, so it was basically her or Janie.
I choose Janie. After a few months, Janie backed out of the trip and GF and I finally would get a GF and I solo trip. We WERE so happy.
Now that Janie was not going, Laura is flip flopping on going (even though she is going in November and January). As of right not, she is not going because she got transfer to New Mexico. So, the current travelers are GF and myself.

GF (Elisabeth) and I at Disney. Happy that our upcoming trip "hopefully" will be solo.

Last week, we found cheap airfare from HOuston to Orlando, which changed our car trip to a plane trip. Our 7 day trip has now been extended to 11 days. Sept 25 to Oct 5. We will be staying at Pop Century. All reservations have been made, Food and Wine festival the first weekend. Sept 30th which is my birthday we will be at MNSSHP.

I will post our itinerary tomorrow... 19 days and counting.

 

[jrpopfan]

GF was reading the boards and just realized that the F&W Festival is not only on weekends, but during the week too. How did we not know this? Why did we think it was only weekends? Not sure. But it that changes everything.

GF is rearranging schedule and will call reservations tomorrow to change dinner reservations because we now will be at different parks on different days. Once confirmed, I will post those.

On the topic of travelers, Laura is still not sure if she is coming to WDW or will be going to CA for a business trip. This got us on the conversation of rides, etc...
GF has issues with G-forces and spinning, it makes her sick. She went on Big Thunder (SICK), Space Mountain (SICK), Star Tours (SICK), Rock & Roller Coaster (SICK). She is fine with flying dumbo in circles, fine with dropping in Tower of Terror.
Laura can do all rides except Tower of Terror and Splash Mountain because they have straight drops (so she says).
I can do all the rides, my issues are animals. I am deathly afraid of the safari at AK, I am afraid of swimming with fish, I am afraid of petting zoos, ducks walking around the parks, etc...

GF said that if she goes on all the rides I want (Expedition Everest is one) that I would have to snorkel at Castaway Cay when we go on the Cruise next year. Since Laura still may come with us, I want her included in this mess. Everyone goes on all the rides and I go in the water. Keep in mind that I have not been in a body of water other than a pool since JAWS. I was 5 at the time. Yes I was scared forEVER!!!
Laura is backing out and I had to reminder her that I am prone to Animals attacking me. Bit by dogs around the same age as JAWS (5), Animals attacking my car in a drive through safari, stepping on a crab/lobster or something evil in the ocean. No good luck comes from it.

I am willing to taken on Disney animals for them to taken on Disney rides. I think this is a fair trade. I now claim this Extreme Disney Trip 2008!!!

BRING ON THE ANIMALS!!!!
(I am probably more scared than they are)

 

[jrpopfan]

After some wiggling around of our dates and places, we finally got our reservations in place.

Arrive on Thursday afternoon, we are going to DTD for shopping and some Bongos. I love Bongos. Especially those Cuban Sandwiches.

Friday 26: EPCOT with Tokyo Dining for dinner.

SAT 27: Open day. I think we will hotel hop, Fantasia Gardens. Eat where ever we find a place where we are ate.

SUN 28: DHS With 50's Prime Time for dinner.

MON 29: Magic Kingdom w/Tony's Town Square

TUE 30: Birthday Broadwalk morning/lunch w/lunch as Captains Grill at the Yacht Club. Fantasia birthday cake will be there and we will celebrate by passing around cake to EVERYONE. The check out other hotels around the broadwalk (pin trading) waiting for 4pm to get MNSSHP.

WED 1: Animal Kingdom w/lunch at Tusker House. The pop over to Epcot for dinner at Biergarten.

THU 2: Epcot w/dinner at Rose & Crown. Hopefully get a table on the water to eat and watch fireworks.

FRI 3: Free day so we are making no plans other than to revisit anything we might have missed.

SAT 4: Free day, maybe some boating, etc...

SUN 5: Go home day... YUCK, I hate this day.

 

[dustyraye]

Congrats on your upcoming 'solo' trip for you & your GF. Given your history, it sounds like a much better idea for you. And anyting that makes a 7-day trip into an 11-day trip is a good thing!

 

[jrpopfan]

Got home from work today and took my doggie for a walk. We stop at the mailbox and when I opened the box, I felt the magic.

When I pulled out the mail, there were two envelopes that contained out Disney Magical Express passes and luggage tags. That made my day today.

GF has decided that we need to get massages on my b-day. She is checking prices for Saratoga and some of the broadwalk hotels to see the best pricing. I feel special. I have never has a real massage before. Kinda nervous a little. I have one of those bodies that even hugs hurts. If I get touched or poked a little hard (even though it is not really hard) it hurts a lot. I am very sensitive. But I have lots of stress in my shoulders, so she says it will do me a lot of good. I need to start with only a 30 minute one to see if I can even handle it.

Maybe I should test it out at a massage place locally instead of at Disney so I won't ruin my trip if they hurt me. 17 days and counting!

 

[jrpopfan]

After waiting almost 1 whole year to go on vacation and you are down to the mere days before your trip, there is not much more to do that wait... and wait some more.

We feel like old vets when it comes to WDW, hotel is paid, reservations made, plans laid out to make the most of our trip. 11 days, not the longest WDW trip ever in history. But for us, it seems like a long time, but when I look at it on paper, it seems it will go by sooo fast. We are 16 days away from out trip. Such a long time to sit and wait.

Today, Elisabeth made reservations of massags for the night before we leave. Great way to start the trip. Get off work, take Max (dog) to babysitters (Debbie) then pick up Elisabeth, go get a massage, eat dinner, last minute packing, then wait some more. I think I am waiting a lot these days. When you have everything planned and you can't pack yet because you still have 2 weeks of wear out of your clothes, what do you do? I think I need help.

Elisabeth has become addicting to reading on the DISboards and other people's trip reports. I think she is planning on taking over my blogging to give her own trip reports. I guess I am ok with that. I am in charge of photo uploading for the most part. Elisabeth is better at writing than I am, I think. Well, she has a good personality and I think she can bring it out well in a blog. So, she may be the designated blogger for the trip. She actually want to do something called "Tandum" or whatever she said in the car. I only half listen and she knows it. "Tandum" the word and spelling makes me think of The Shining and the word "redrum", I just looks backwards. Mudnat? I guess not.

Well, that is my pre-trip post of the day, lots of waiting ahead. I guess tomorrow I will try to work on the last two chapters of my fan fiction story. So, if you get bored or have immsonia take a read, I am sure it will cure it.

 

[skellingtonfreak]

So in my own defense, after that last post by Jenny...I feel I really need to explain something. I thought it would be interesting to post two blogs simultaneously because two people NEVER see two things exactly alike. Jenny and I are so different with our likes and dislikes of Disney anyway. I think it would be interesting to see how differently we see the World at the exact same time.

I don't know though...maybe I am crazy and just in need of something else to do while we are on vacation that long. I mean, I had never even been to Disney before last May, and here it is my 4th trip to something Disney, and I want more to do? Heck, I only had been on one vacation my entire life before that, and that was to Mexico City. I haven't even seen ToonTown or most of Frontierland. We have only hit 2 sections of AK. We haven't done 1/4 of what there is to do at WDW. Is it crazy to think I need to add yet something else to this extensive vacation?

And anyway...I keep reading everyone else's posts of their trips, and I see how much fun everyone has and it is what is keeping me sane this close to our trip. I don't think I have been this excited to go to WDW yet. This is the first time alone (hopefully), let's ALL keep our fingers crossed on that one. And it is during the food and wine festival AND we are going to the MNSSHP! It is going to be fun overload!

And after all of that above...I still stand by my decision to do tandem reports of our trip as it happens.

 

[jrpopfan]

oh, GF has invaded my space. Ok, fine... "TANDEM" it is... Since I spelled it wrong the first time, like my try the whole Shining thing again "MEDNAT", sounds more medical. Hmmm... Ok, we can play her little tandem game. 15 days left. Spending the day off making a play list for my ipod so I have trip music. Elisabeth has Nightmare Before Xmas on my pod to watch, so I have to invade her pod with my crappy music.

 

[jrpopfan]

This morning I was woke up excited about our trip, but when I saw that Ike had made a turn north it really ruined my dad. We hit the 2 week mark today. Our weekend plans are wasted being cooped up this is apartment just waiting for the wind, rain and falling things to come annoy me. I hate Ike!!!

I am still waiting for our new DVC book to come. They said they would send it out to me 3 weeks ago, but still nothing. I called Disney and asked about the book. She said she would like a message for Joan to call us. Joan is our DVC person. She is super nice and has helped Laura, Rose and all Laura's other friend get on DVC. If I had the book, I could spend the weekend studying the points, but now I guess I will just watch movies.

We had plans to go get our hair cut and bleached for the trip. But we will have to wait until Ike goes away. For those people who will be trying to get out today or tomorrow morning, good luck and stay safe.

 

[skellingtonfreak]

So here we are at 14 days...2 lousy weeks before we get to embark on our 11 day birthday fest for Jenny. It turns out that Laura is trying to get there for at least 3 days of our trip...oh well...at least we get a few days without her there.
We are bored already because we are officially stuck in the apartment waiting for hurricane Ike to rear its ugly head tomorrow. Ugh..I hate hurricanes, but the way I see it, one now, is one less later. Hopefully we won't get one while we are at the mouse house.

Anyway...we are really ready for this vacation this year. We have promised ourselves to not wait a whole entire year before we take another vacation. As a matter of fact, we actually are really considering taking a long weekend in December to see all of the holiday lights...I really hope that it happens. God...I really hope so...I think it would be so cool to see WDW all lit up.

So there we are...14 days...and counting every single bit of it down.

 

[skellingtonfreak]

Today we finalized our new DVC membership in the midst of waiting for hurricane Ike. We are completely bored and waiting for this hurricane to get to us and pass us up. Won't be until tomorrow mid-day at best...ugh. Our power keeps going in and out, so that sucks.

We were planning on getting haircuts and dying our hair this weekend...that is SO probably not going to happen. Doesn't the storm know I have a pre-trip schedule? Dang...this totally screws up the travel budget as well as the pre-trip things we need to do. Oh well...not much we can do about it.

WHile we hope everyone is safe and okay...it is going to be a long night.

 

[jrpopfan]

"I survived Ike" is what it should say on my shirt. We sat, we waited... power went out before ike even hit land strange to say. Woke up to lots and lots of wind, then some water. We got up and waited for day light. When it finally came Ike was still over us but in the outer bands. We watched the trees blow, etc... After it was over, we sat... we waited. No power still.
The next night all you could do was go to bed early. We were woken up with more rain. So much rain that is flooded the street, work, etc... We sat... we waited... We just got back our power and I came to the DisBoards. (I guess I am Disney Addicted).
We live in an older apartment in the Galleria area. So, I would assume we would have issues. I thought it would be flooding through front door. Oh was I wrong. Apparently we had a crack in foundation that had water seep through the carpet and crack in wall that water came through in for the master bedroom. In the kitchen, there is some leak under the cabnets that flooded out and ruined the carpet in dining room and closet in master bedroom. Guest bedroom either had actually hurricane damage and cracked the window seal and we had a waterfall of water coming in soaking the carpet in the whole room.
So, dealing with all the water... no power to circulate air, the heat and a dog... the smell is almost unbearable in here. Hopefully tomorrow the apartment office will open and I will be trying to relocate to a different apt until they can fix all this.
Being without power was extremely boring and the only thing that I found to make this experience manageable was to continue to think that in 10 day, I will be leaving for my birthday wdw vacation. Me and my GF spent most of our time just talking about things we want to do, want we wanna buy, etc... It was that light at the end of this dark and windy tunnel.
So, I am now officially at day 10 countdown. Can't sleep. Don't feel good. But now with power I think I can finally cool down and relax.

 

[skellingtonfreak]

Ten days to go before our lengthy vacation. I don't think it can come soon enough at this point, expecially after this weekend of no power and all of the heat and rain. No work today because most of the city still doesn't have power. We are fortunate enough to live in a very populated area of the city that always gets taken care of first. Yay us, but I feel so bad for everyone else. We don't know how they are going to fix our apartment yet, so our lives might be all upheaved in the next week while they fix everything that happened, but since we don't know when that will be...I guess we will spend more time waiting around for people to get around to us.

Thank god the trip is so close...it really is the ONLY thing we are looking forward to now. It is all we can talk about. It is like we are 10 years old going for the very first time...I know people look at us funny, but I don't care. I LOVE WDW! I am so excited we get to spend 11 days there!!!! And it is only 10 days away before we get to hop on the plane and leave this city.

I wish time could be sped up at this point...

 

[jrpopfan]

We are finally at 9 days away. Fedex was not open and running in Houston from Ike. The other day I had called Joan at DVC and she was to send us the new DVC Dream book. Plus our DVC closing went through yesterday. So, we are waiting for the book and paperwork. We need to get out DVC card this week so we can go to WDW with our dvc member number.
Hopefully they will come soon.

 

[jrpopfan]

7 day countdown. OMG! I was soo excited when I got home from being at work for the first time since IKE. On my doorstep was the FedEx box from DVC. Inside my paperwork I need to sign and send back to them. It was sooo exciting.
Spoke to Laura tonight, she bought her plane tickets and will be coming to stay with us from 10/1 to 10/5. I am ok with her coming along, but it just seems to such an ordeal anytime someone does come with us. Because we bought a vacation package, we can not just add Laura to our room. With her being a cast member, she does not need park passes. Disney won't let us just add her without adding park passes and dining plan for the whole length of OUR trip which would be like 7 days.
Plus, we originally were going to leave on Friday the 10/03, so when we decided to stay longer we did not want extra passes cause we are upgrading to season passes and no dining for days. We can just pay. Well, Laura assumed that we had dining for the entire length of our stay and was planning on being on the dining plan the days she was there. Apparently, it does not work that way. Meanwhile, without her being on the reservations, she can not take the Magical Express to the hotel. They won't even help her get there. So, she now has no way to the hotel. No food and they say she can not stay with us without being on the reservation. So, she has a plane ticket with no where to go. So stressful.
I kinda feel that she seems a bit put off at the whole thing. But she has always came to Disney as a cast member or a DVC member. Things work differently for plain guests. She doesn't understand this, I guess. I explained to her that we made our plans going alone, so changing it 7 days before we leave is not kosher for me or Disney. I am just getting stressed. I want my trip to go smooth without complications. PLEASE!!!

 

[jrpopfan]

Countdown: 5 more days

Today we finally finished packing and buying last minute stuff for the trip. Elisabeth said I needed socks and I finally decided that I am going to take my point & shoot camera for some snap shots around the park. I have 5 rolls for my 11 day trip. Elisabeth got the DSLR camera for the "real" photos. I am going to use mine for the ride photos an just stuff here and there.
We also ordered from GardenGrocer today. Just to have some drinks and breakfast stuff.

Today the laptop broadband card came, Elisabeth is trying to install it now. We decided to pay for internet via T-Mobile than to pay $10 a day at Disney. I think we are ready. If the next 5 days can pass quickly, that would be a plus.

 

[skellingtonfreak]

So with Ike finally gone and much of my life back to normal today, I can finally get on with the tandem blogging...yay!!!! We finally have power at the office today, so we don't feel like refugees at someone else's house. While I am grateful I could help out with getting everything moved and sorted out and set up, it is a great feeling to have some sense of normalcy back in my life being back in the normal office with normal hours and a normal commute today.

We had to cancel the housecleaner and the massages today. I am a tad bit bummed out about that...I really wanted my apartment spotless when we came back, but with all of the carpet that was messed up, it really isn't feasible if they are replacing it while we are gone. I was really excited about the massage too, but with the power still being out at Jenny's office, we just didn't think she would be able to get out in time to go and get it done Wednesday night, and we sure as heck don't have time to do it on Thursday morning with our flight being at 10:30 in the morning. Oh well.

But the exciting part is that we are on a serious countdown...all ADR's have been made. The refrigerator for our room is a definite. The cake for Jenny's birthday dinner is confirmed. All drama surrounding Laura is done. We are paying for her taxi ride...I feel that is TOTALLY worth the $50 to not have anymore drama surrounding this trip. We have waited a year to go back to WDW and nothing is getting in my way of fun this time around. My trip, my schedule, my way or the highway baby! I will see every single parade even if it kills me. I haven't even seen one whole parade yet and I have been to Disney 3 times. That is practically sacriligious.

I am ready for the Food and Wine Festival and the MNSSHP! I can't wait to see all of the villains...they are my faves after all. Heck...after this whole hurricane thing...I think I am ready to escape all reality and news to completely relax. This has been one heck of a year. I will need all of my strength when we get back anyway...software testing...not fun for anyone. So I have to make this trip count in every single imaginable way. Nothing...not even another hurricane is going to hamper my fun. Mark my words!

 

[jrpopfan]

We leave on Thursday 9/25. I am still without power at my work, it sucks. We are on a generator so we can have phones and computers, but no air conditioners. It is high 80's and I feel this has to be some type of test. Preparing me for high tempetures at WDW maybe?
I need this vacation. I need it now. Still trying to figure out how to get dog to babysitters tomorrow. All my clothes are packed, so I am wearing the same 2 pairs of shorts and shirts and washing nightly. It sucks right now.
I think the only thing getting me through all this is the thought of 11 days at disney. Ahhhhhhh.... That makes me smile.