dodging my way to Walt Disney World 2014 pre trip report

[disneydude365]

ok so allow me to introduce myself the name is Cameron, I'm 22, and slightly always a kid at heart. For the past year I've been counting the days till this SPECIAL upcoming trip. now I've been to the world several times and i seriously love everything about the wdw, but this trip has the potential and aspects to become the most favorite and memorable trips yet.
a little background on this upcoming trip. its being held in the Contemporary Resort December 17th-21st. it's being hosted by The MPS society (the society that researches cures, and treatments for the illness that i suffer from) now they have a yearly conference but every 4-5 years they go to WDW and this year happens to be the year. So there will be lots of medical meetings but I've also planned some Disney Magic to help make it awesome! (all of that however will be in the TR, this is the pre TR).
we are finally in the 2 week of count down, however the stress of getting everything planned, organized, and the freak outs along the way have certainly took their toll on me. so I'm going to recount the events that have led up to this most special trip. hopefully y'all will enjoy it, or at least it will keep you interested lol

 

[disneydude365]

So when we first got the info for booking our trip ill be honest we were kinda slow in the application forms lol. we weren't sure who was going, or how long we planned to stay. so we kept putting it off, which is very unusual for me lol. Still unsure of the details we booked the room for dec 17th-21st (allowing us to get there before the conference actually started on the 18th).
On the original registration list was My mothers name, My stepfathers name, my name, and my stepfathers Grandson. we were debating adding more people but we needed to get the registration in then, and were told we could add or remove after, but we needed to go ahead and get the registration in.
I had asked my cousin, and best friend to go, but hadn't heard much from them other than that they would like to go but had to see how it affected schedule (both were just about to enter first semester of college).. so i was just walking blind hoping that meant yes. At treatment my friend and I looked online at the schools schedule and the last date was dangerously close to when the trip was, so he decided that he'd have to see when his last day of classes would fall on, but hey at least he was making an effort!
Well finally all the paperwork was submitted and things were ready to get started prepping for the Disney part of the vacation! Honestly things were going to slow for me and i was ready to get some major stuff selected and booked!

 

[disneydude365]

ok so after all the forms for the conference were filed and the room was booked our first issue arose my stepdads grandson decided that due to school conflicts he would not be allowed to go, while around the same time my best Guy friend decided to go ahead and sign him up as he thinks it would work out for him.

well the conference requires a separate fee aside from the disney fees, to help pay for some meals and room. so we switched the names with a call to disney dropping the grandson, and replacing it with my friend so that he'd be on the registration to the hotel. Then we had to go to the society and have them switch my step dads name with my friends name so that he would be allowed into the meetings and conferences with me it took some effort but everyone was very helpful with the switches. (So step dad is still going he just won't be partaking in many of the conference activities)

Now since my friend is my guest I'm trying to pay for everything OOP myself except his food and shopping money which for a while i hoped would be fair and after reading on the DIS I'm still unsure whats appropriate when you bring someone along. anyway since we took my step dads name off of the society forms i paid the registration for my friend $150, and then i paid mine which was only a deposit of $50 but since I'm affected we will receive that back.

Looking at the tetris game of a schedule i realized we'd only have time for one day for a park, so before i started working on dealing with park tickets and stuff i decided to try and book a special bit of disney magic for the second night.. what ever could it be? ...Stay tuned!

 

[disneydude365]

so I'm starting to wonder if anyones reading this or if more or less a bore lol. anyways ill continue on with this tale.

ok so searching for an open window it seemed like i had struck gold! A way not to waste a park ticket on a small time frame. a way to get some sweets, some character fun and even a firework waterside view. thats right boys and girls I've planned a surprise "Pirate and palls firework voyage" for me and my friend on the second night of our trip, after the MPS society banquet.

with that under the belt it was time to focus on the tickets for theme park. Now being a member of the society, and speaking on a panel in a group i will be receiving on the day that meeting takes place two complimentary tickets. Sadly we discovered that since we won't be getting them until the trip fast passes could not be made when learning about the complimentary tickets. My mom would take one and i would take the other, i'm going to pay for my friends ticket, and then step dad would pay for his own... luckily it didn't quite play out that way.. at least with the fast pass selection dilemma

You see after hours of begging and pleading my mom agreed to let us switch the order of the tickets, and who received which, and when..

 

[disneydude365]

ok so this is where we started to hit some misses on the planning

Finally i was able to schedule fast passes so with those in check, i just made a double check with the society that they would allow us to choose a park other than MK seeing how step dad made it clear he didnt want to go there again and would rather go to hollywood studios. Mom came around and made it clear that if something went wrong with tickets id have to pay OOP for two additional tickets to make sure they got to go where they wanted (talk about stress yikes)

also on the way home i got a message from my friend saying to hit him up he had an idea about disney he wanted to run pass me. immediately i began to fear the worst that he was gonna bail. well turns out he didn't really know how the dates were gonna effect his school and everything until recently, and he was offered a chance to go on a ski trip (he began saying) ~i was back to thinking great he's gonna bail~ then went on to say that it worked out to where he could just fly down and meet us at WDW.. ok first let me just say that I'm so happy he was still going but i was also hit with some sadness as the ride down will now be just with my mom and step dad, and he didn't really specify when he'd arrive.. i had booked that pirate and palls cruise and looked like it would possibly be missed.
I did however tell him i thought it would be a good idea for him to do both, id never have told him not to go what kind of friend would that be?? so for awhile all i was going on was he'd arrive early the 18th, or super late the 17th. i tried to stress getting early as possible not to miss any of the conferences and trying not to let the cat out of the bag about the surprise cruise.

still needed to try and get one dining reservation for the whole group which was proving difficult, and along with some good news another bomb went off, threatening the entire trip all together..

 

[disneydude365]

ok so mom had been stressing about the holidays, and had had a lot of stuff going on, and one morning we were putting up the tree, and it wasn't going over well no matter what we tried it looked like someone threw up on it to say the least and something in her just snapped and she stormed out, later she came out announcing she was out of disney. she wasn't in the holiday spirit and she didnt wanna go... this was major wreck. one i didnt really know what was wrong and felt bad not knowing what to do, and secondly if she didnt go step dad wouldn't go meaning id have to find solo travel.. and id have to let my friend know wed be needing different returning home travel plans. she calmed down some but still didnt want to talk about it, saying shed make sure i got there safe. while thats fine and all i needed to know what to tell him you know?

anyways this goes on for about a week and she's pretty set in her mind finally she sits down after many failed attempts and says she will go and everything is back on track, just hope she doesn't get triggered while we are down in disney.

a few days later still trying to find an ADR i stumbled upon an Ohana for breakfast (one of my top 3 choices i wanted) so i snatched that up after making sure everyone would be present lol.

finally the friend confirmed that he was gonna try to arrive the 17th that evening so things are looking up

and just a few days ago, i scored a 7DMT fast pass!! so now our itinerary is looking like:

dec 17th
leave house hopefully by 7 am and get get there around 6pm
(check in is at 3pm) contemporary resort

dec 18th (character day)
ohana breakfast
conference pharmatheutical companys open houses
sign in
welcome banquet
Fireworks Cruise

dec 19th
Meetings
lunch
meetings
sneak off to DTD
Banquet/society prom

dec 20th (MK day)
early meeting
lunch
MK 1PM-3AM
(GET to the park and ride BTMRR, try and go find peter pan, then go back to splash mountain for fast pass. explore some then hit the fast pass for 7DMT, explore even more and make it to space mountain fast pass. hopefully get a night ride of BTMRR during extra magic hours)

dec 21st
check out 11 am
head home

its been a bumpy ride but it feels like things are finally calming down and set on track were now at the 7 (almost 6) day mark and honestly I'm so ready to go!

 

[disneydude365]

ok so on the MK day i just this morning reserved a Be Our Guest reservation for 7 pm! i was freaking out!

this was one of the 3 top TS restaurants i wanted to go to!

seems like disney released several reservation slots

 

[disneydude365]

ok so yesterday after i got the Be our guest reservation i went out to do some christmas shopping and when i was almost home BAM! i was hit in a bad car wreck. I was ok for the most part my car was totaled. after everything was over my dad took me home and i got the chills and threw up a few times, i guess it was the after socks. my knees had hit the dash and one had been cut the other was just sore. My step mom got me in blankets and heating pads, and tried to get me to eat to no avail. finally i drifted off to sleep. the next day the soreness in my knee was better and i was just generally sore from the wreck.

disney trip is still ago, and thankfully no one was hurt, and i was able to walk away from the car!

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