First "Real" WDW Trip Without Kids (and 1st PTR!)! 8/14-21/09

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Hey all......bear with me.

Cast of Characters
This is me, 38, currently unemployed elementary school teacher, community theatre buff, computer nut, compulsive trip planner:

My hubby, 38, college math professor, Philly sports fan, sci-fi/fantasy geek, goes along for the ride:

These are the kids. Emily is 10, a rabid Harry Potter nut, piano and French Horn player, and general kooky, fun kid. Matthew is 8, loves anything with wheels or wings, sings, plays football and is a big ol' goofball.

Let's start, I guess, with our Disney history.

Background
My first Disney World trip was in roughly 1975. I was four years old and all I remember at all is sleeping in the back of the station wagon (we camped near the park) and singing "It's a Small World" nonstop for the entire 24-hour drive home.

I visited again in 1986. My major objective was to get my picture taken with Eeyore (check!) and to buy a pair of Mickey Mouse ears (check!). Back then Epcot was called Epcot Center and the "Communicore" was a big part of Future World. I remember bits and pieces of the trip, but don't have any real specifics I can point to.

My hubby first visited Disney World in 1989, a pre-Christmas trip with his family (mom, dad, brother and two sisters). The trip itself was pretty great, I take it. But the whole experience was marred by his dad having a heart attack in one of the parks. The kids (all teens) had Park Hopped around, but the impressive Disney communication system and vigilant CMs had all the kids gathered and transported to the hospital in less than an hour. Dad was fine, but had to stay in the hospital. Mom stayed, too, and the kids flew home on their own.

I visited WDW one more time without Joe. Our college had a Casino Night event, with a grand prize of a trip to Disney World! Airfare for two, one night in a hotel and one day to one park. My friend, Helen, and I set our sights on winning that trip and we did! We felt like royalty , jetting off to Orlando (from cold, snowy Northwestern Pennsylvania) for a weekend. We visited what was then Disney-MGM and got entirely sunburned to a crisp and had a fantastic time. This would have been. Hmmm... winter of '91-92.

Which brings us to our first Disney experience together. We married in 1993, right out of college, and went on a honeymoon cruise through the Caribbean. After disembarking in Miami, we drove to Orlando and met up with Joe's uncle. The man worked as a mechanic or something like that at WDW! He gave us a free one-day pass to any of the parks. We picked Epcot and spent the day walking around. I remember it thunderstormed in the middle of the afternoon and we got drenched, so we ducked into Morocco to try to stay dry.

Graduate school and so forth kept Disney well out of our budget and off our radar for some time. Until March 2006. We took our first family trip to Disney World, spending a week staying off-site (MIL has a timeshare at Westgate Town Center). We saw it all. Two days in the MK, two days for Epcot, one each in AK and DS. We went back to the timeshare to nap most afternoons. The kids were just 7 (Em proudly wore her Birthday Badge all week) and 4-1/2.

Em's birthday cake at Chef Mickey's on our arrival day:

Family Pic at Disney Studios (in the "Incredibles" shirts I made):

Love the "Empty Park" pics on early ADR mornings:

My "twins" (she's 7 and he's 4-1/2, here):

Our last day in the parks (we did Hats Around the World):

The Setting
And, so this trip .....

It's a bit of a convoluted story. Ordinarily I plan vacations months even a year or more in advance. But this trip has all come together pretty quickly. This past year Joe has returned to school full-time for his Ph.D. and I've gotten involved with a lot more community theatre and volunteer work around town. So, we've spent a lot less time together than usual. When the school year ended, we decided we needed to escape and reconnect in a major way.

So, when Joe suggested a trip to Disney World, it just felt so right. We'd been sort of talking about a 2010 trip with the whole family (still a possibility), but it had never occurred to us to plan a trip just for ourselves. The more we talked about it, the more it just felt like a great idea. We mentioned it to the kids, and they were totally cool with us going without them.

We started our planning at the end of June. Maybe the 20th? I'll come back in another post and add on the details of what we've cooked up so far. I'm the one doing the vast majority of the planning, by far. But this time around, I'm insisting that Joe be more involved. And, it's actually been a lot of fun swapping emails, sharing DISBoard links, and planning this trip for ourselves, and working on it together!

Can you tell I'm excited?

More later ....

 

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Where to Stay?

On our prior visit, in 2006, we used one of my MIL's timeshare weeks at Westgate Town Center. It was a lovely experience, and well...you sure can't beat the price! So, we decided to give it a go, again. For reference, last tie we had the whole right-hand side of this unit (and in hindsight, I think we were supposed to have the whole thing ... but I wouldn't have wanted my four- and seven-year old kids way over on the other side, with a door in their bedroom!).

(I don't know how to make this image smaller...yikes!)

Hubby called his mom and asked if he and I could use on of her spare weeks for a just-us trip in August. She said, "Sure! Are the kids excited to go back to Disney World?" When he told her the trip would be for just-us, she replied, "All right! Good for you! Of course you can use the timeshare!"

So, after checking airfares and finding the best Friday to Friday, Saturday to Saturday, or Sunday to Sunday combination of flights ... I called and booked the timeshare. We'll find out details of what tower, etc, we're in about two weeks out.

I do know we have a two-bedroom unit with a full kitchen and a Roman jacuzzi tub. Enough space just the two of us? Yeah, I think so!

How to Get There?

Next I narrowed down flights.

We're about an hour from the Philly airport, so it's pretty easy to get direct flights to just about anywhere. I'd have preferred to get a major airline (we have frequent flyer miles with both Continental and USAirways), but the best deal for good flight times (we wanted to fly down early on our travel day and late on our travel back day) was $198 each with AirTran.

Booked. Done.

This was June 29. A mere 47 days before our trip. I knew ADRs would have to be my absolute next priority. But, I was packing and preparing to fly to San Diego for a week on June 30. I had to hustle!

The Joy of Planning!

I immediately paid the $8.95 for full access to everything on the Unofficial Guide site and started checking out crowd forecasts and their Which Parks to Avoid lists.

I also browsed quickly around that site, AllEarsNet, Mousesavers and (OF COURSE!) DISBoards to find the best places to buy tickets. We figured five or six days in the parks, no hopping, no water parks. But, UndercoverTourist has seven-day passes for the same price as their four-day passes. A no-brainer!

Around this same time my mom called and I told her what we were planning. She decided right there on the phone to send me money toward Medieval Times tix for our non-WDW day (we always plan on one of those). UndercoverTourist had my back on good prices there, too.

So, I bought both sets of tickets right then and there. They showed up just a couple of days later. Schweeeet!

Enough for now .... next up, What's for dinner? (and lunch and breakfast?)

 

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Where Should We Eat?

So, I'm all packed for my week in San Diego and it occurs to me that I'll have some free time on my trip to call and try to make ADRs. I'm not terribly freaked out about the late date, because we didn't want CRT for breakfast or Victoria and Albert's for dinner or anything like that (We did it with the kids on our last trip, and it was fantastic! I would definitely do it again, but not on this trip.)

I grab my hubby and say, "OK, let's hash out a plan. I've done this without you and you have no idea what's involved, so let's sit down together and figure this out." You know, which parks on which days so we can plan our ADRs. We don't care to park hop, so where we start is where we'll stay.

I open up several browser tabs and we get started -- TouringPlans.com recommended days calendar, AllEarsNet dining menus, and the DIS. I also opened our 2006 version of this document and began making the revisions and changes you see here. At-a-Glance.doc

Now we know what park we want to be in each day. We started to talk about what restaurants we want to re-visit from the last trip (Biergarten and Crystal Palace), whether we want to take any tours (Keys to the Kingdom and Segway Around the World), and what new restaurants we'd like to try (Ohana and Boma).

Biergarten entertainment

Ending a great meal

Fun at the Crystal Palace


Ch-ch-ch-changes!

I got the ressies I wanted at the days and times I wanted (earliest breakfast, and earliest dinner), except for two ... Ohana and Boma. The two new spots we wanted to try.

We switched to Tusker House and got it, and then played around with what to do on our first day, the travel to Orlando day. We finally decided to make it an additional Epcot day and perused the World Showcase restaurants again. Hubby has never been to a Japanese steakhouse (I have), so We picked Teppan Edo. Both of these, we again picked the earliest possible dinner reservation.

And, then we changed our minds again a few days later. This was hubby's terrific idea. He spent some time checking out the menus in detail, and noticed there's very little difference, if any, between lunch menus and dinner menus. He also noticed there's a price break between lunch and dinner. I called, and we switched the Tusker House and Biergarten ressies to the last possible lunch timeslot, saving a few bucks, anyway. Every little bit counts, right? Teppan Edo didn't apply.

At this point, I read about the new Wishes dessert party and sent a link to my partner in crime. His response was something about the end of a perfect day: gaze at my beautiful wife, ooh and aah at fireworks, and ... dessert! I'm in!

Except, we're not. We're in the MK on the 15th and 17th and can't get a spot in the dessert party. I'm going to keep trying, pretty much daily.

What to Do, and When?

Finally, Touring Plans.

We used the Unofficial Guide on our last trip and my husband, being a mathematician but not a planner, is both impressed by the methodology and algorithms involved and simultaneously appalled at the level of detail.

Based on the touring plans we liked best from the website, we come up with the following document. DailyActivities.doc It (along with the At a Glance doc) will be in our binder at the timeshare. I've created PhotoShop files with the park maps and big bold numbers directing us where to go next (much more sophisticated than doing the same thing with a Sharpie the last time). I'll have this printed on nice large paper and laminated (laminating the maps last time made a HUGE difference in their durability).

Each morning, we'll grab the appropriate map from the pile and head on out. No bulky guidebooks or standing around wondering where we should go next.

That said, we're not planning to be 100% Die Hard Commando about this.

Each morning we'll get up and head out early, follow the touring plans pretty much to the letter ... hitting the highlights. Mid-day or whenever we feel we've had enough of that sort of thing or whenever the heat and humidity have sapped all life out of us ... well, then we'll chill. Take a swim break at the timeshare, shower and feel more civilized. Go to one of our ADRs (depending on the day). Definitely get some a/c and maybe one of those fables (but not yet tried) Dole Whips.

Then the rest of the day will be low(er) key. People watch, get some character pics and autographs. Stop and smell the roses. Catch the evening show/parade/fireworks and head home for the night.

Sound like a plan? We're hoping it winds up being a Best of Both Worlds sort of touring scenario.

 

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What's the Plan, Then?

8/14 -- fly down early, call the timeshare to see what time we can check in (officially it's 4pm), pick up rental car, head to Epcot , tour-tour-tour, Teppan Edo 4:30pm, to timeshare (if not this morning) to unpack, chill out, settle in

8/15 -- Call for possible Dessert Party cancellations , Keys to the Kingdom tour 8:30am, possibly take a timeshare break after the tour, back to MK, tour-tour-tour, stay for Wishes and closing

8/16 -- Arrive at Animal Kingdom for rope drop, tour-tour-tour, Tusker House 3:25pm, tour 'til closing, hit the Boardwalk for some entertainment at the Dance Hall or Jellyrolls

8/17 -- Crystal Palace 8:05am (I love getting into the MK early!), tour-tour-tour, afternoon break at the timeshare for swimming, back to MK, stay 'til closing

8/18 -- Drive to and tour the Kennedy Space Center, Medieval Times 7:00pm

8/19 -- Arrive at Epcot for rope drop, tour-tour-tour all morning, Biergarten 3pm, stay for IllumiNations and closing

8/20 -- Arrive at DS for rope drop, tour-tour-tour, no dining ressies, maybe an afternoon break, stay for Fantasmic and closing

8/21 -- Segway around the World tour 7:45am, tour-tour-tour, evening flight home

 

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And Now What?

Other than reading the DIS boards obsessively and calling (nearly) daily to check for a Tomorrowland-Wishes Dessert Party opening for the 15th or the 17th, I am at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. I haven't started packing, yet, though I suppose that will be the next thing.

I also have to go get our pre-labelled-with-our-touring-plans maps laminated. Staples, maybe.

My folks are watching the kids (and our dog! Yay for no kenneling fees!), so I have to pack for them to be away, as well.

It seems like the trip is still ages away, but this Friday it will be only two weeks. Yay! And ... yikes!

So, I guess I'm just waiting until it's time for the actual packing and getting ready to leave the house for a week stuff.

 

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Baby Steps Forward

Today the Epcot maps I ordered on eBay arrived and I began Sharpie-ing in the touring plans we have in mind. When the other maps arrive, I'll do the same. Then it's off to Staples to have them laminated. The maps are definitely smaller and seem much flimsier than the ones I saved from 2006.

Emily helped me out (any excuse to use my paper cutter) by trimming down some white cardstock in preparation for collecting character autographs. I dredged through my scrapbooking supplies and pulled out a bunch of markers in different colors, too.

Finally, I worked on my packing list (based on the Ultimate Packing Lists), and added and deleted a number of items. When I finish doing laundry tomorrow or the next day, I think I'll actually begin putting things into suitcases. Wheeee!

I think it has all come together in no time flat. I can't wait for some quality bonding time with my hubby!