first the worst, second (hopefully) the best!

[bellesBFF]

Hello everyone!

This is my very first time writing anything so formal on these forums. I've always been a lurker, and often posted random treads while I tried to plan other trips. All those trips fell through, as I never really saved up. I had no motivation to do so as I couldn't talk to anyone about my planning. SO! I decided maybe by making a pre trip report to put all my ideas and information into one spot, it would keep me on track and able to save up


and now.. !

This is my mother and I sometime in winter of 2014/2015. We do lots together. I became very close to her once I finished high school. I dated some real a*hole and he had me turn against her and it was just horrible. Once my we broke up, I realized how much my mom is truly my best friend and most definitely not my worst enemy. She was in the hospital for 2 months back at the start of 2014 right after my grandpa died. It was a rough time. As soon as she got out of the hospital we became best friends as I realized how much she truly meant to me. Since her discharge from the hospital we have done so much together. We've gone on multiple weekend trips, we craft, we cook/bake and do pretty much everything together. It's honestly great to have such a close relationship with her as I am an only child.

I should maybe mention that we are from Canada. Ontario, to be exact. Northern Ontario. I'm talking like 9 hours from Toronto. Whenever we want to go somewhere...... it's a long way to go.

This is me. My name is Breanna. I am 20 as of August 25 2015, and a certified disney ADDICT (as i'm sure many of you are ..... please tell me i'm not the only one. it would make me feel much better.) To be completely honest, I'm just a travel addict. I'm always looking for places to go, and things to see. I've been to Niagara Falls the last 3 sumers, and have not seen the same thing twice. Besides the falls. Those don't count. Whenever we go we always stay at Great Wolf Lodge, too. Which super reminds me of Animal Kingdom Lodge .... which we will not be staying at. I am an early childhood educator at a local daycare and I love my job more and more every day. The kids make me so happy.

My favourite disney things include, but is not limited to: the Princess and the Frog, Big Hero 6, Aladdin and of course Beauty and the Beast

I should maybe mention I also have a boyfriend, his name is Zach. This is us:

And now! My lovely mother

Her name is Denise, but for this PTR we will know her as "mom." Mom is turning 53 in December and I'm 100% sure she will be mad at me for disclosing her age but that's ok! Because you would never guess she's that old. She stays young, mostly because of me. She's also a lover of Disney and has been wanting to go back just as badly as I have! She works at the hospital as a ward clerk.

I honestly don't know many of her favourite because she was alive and young during the young days of Disney, so for all I know her favourite thing can be Steamboat Willie. But hey, who am I to judge! it's a cute cartoon.




We also live with my father, but to protect my own embarrassment he is not coming with us. But! Fret not, I will include a picture of him so you can decide for yourself who I look like

There ya go.


Together we also have 3 animals - 2 cats and a dog.

To the left we have Mowglie, named after the loving character from the Jungle Book. She's just shy of 5 years. On the right we have Munchie. She's old.. she's like, 9. We got her when I was in grade 6.

This is my fur baby Koda. Yup, you guessed it... from Brother Bear. As you can tell he loves getting dirty. The house always smells like wet dog and it's a little gross. He's just over a year old and I love him with all my heart. We aren't sure what mix he is but he for sure has beagle in him. We are thinking maybe golden retriever.



So that's my family in a nut shell! I'm sure I will have many updates in the coming weeks as my excitement is through the roof. I have a rough plan but it will be nice to put it all down somewhere without having my parents go "seriously, a planning binder?" I'm a little OCD when I want to be.

Now if you'll excuse me.. I work in an hour and I haven't showered yet #oops.


​

Table of Contents:
1. How we decided on Disney.
2. Our 2008 trip in a nutshell!
3. The start of our plans

 

[anniebean]

Happy planning! It's one of my favorite parts

 

[bellesBFF]

Hi everyone! I have returned with another update. Yes, you are right. It's only been a day. But I thought that maybe you'd like to know how this trip came to be!

Last sunday my mom and I hung out in our basement. Here, to be exact:

This is our craft room. My mom is real big into scrapbooking. Like, she loves it. So much that she dedicated this entire room in our house to it. On the right of the room is the table that holds a basket full of stickers, and the 3 drawers have paper in it. Beside those 3 drawers is another basket with more paper. On the right is the table she uses. It's actually a counter. She likes it that way because she finds it's easier to stand while scrapbooking.


ANYWAYS...

I was hanging out with her downstairs last weekend as she scrapbooked, and I worked on some stuff for work. I took over the birthday board and decided to make cupcakes on the cricut and put everyones names and birthdays on them. How cute, right? I got super distracted and started looking through ALL the scrapbooks we have. My mom has made some for my dance (14 years worth of pictures), school, growing up, and of course DISNEY.

When I got to the disney pictures I started about how much I missed it. The first time I went, and the last time I went was in October 2008. Yeah, 7 years ago. I'll post some pictures of that trip in another post!


Our conversation went something like this...
Me: I'm 20, I feel like a total child but I totally want to go back to Disney world.
Mom: I'd love to go back and I'm 53.
Me: I think we should go. Just me and you.
Mom: What? When?
Me: Next year, obviously. So I can save up.
Mom: Ok sounds good.
Me: When do you want to go? Halloween or Christmas? (we went for Halloween last time)
Mom: Ouuuu, Christmas.


And that was that.

So naturally, I got so excited and started planning.

It's such a rough copy, but so far this is our plan.

Like I said, we are from way for up north in Ontario. We literally need an entire day to get to Toronto. How sad. It works out well in the end, though. We have family in TO and we plan on staying with them (if they allow us) so its going to be nice to not have to spend extra money on hotels.



This was such an uneventful post, and I apologize. I will update again shortly on the past trip, and I'll go further into detail about our planning!!​

 

[bellesBFF]

.. double post by accident, lol oops..

 

[bellesBFF]

2008 TRIP.

Welcome back everyone! I feel like I'm talking to myself when I write these updates.. But I was once a lurker, so I know that there is a possibility that there are people out there who are too scared to post.... BUT WHY? I'm friendly, I promise please come out and say hello!

Today's post is dedicated to my October 2008 trip. Oct 26-Nov 1 to be exact. I only remember those dates because they are written in the scrapbook, lol. I'm not going to lie. We went down as one of those "know nothing" toursits. Because before the planning of that trip, I didn't even know about Disney World. My parents have both been in their 20s, before they met, with their own families. This trip took place when I was 13. We. Knew. Nothing. I'm not joking. We didn't know about rope drop, we didn't know about fastpasses, I didn't know about the DisBoards. It was a rough time.

We went down with my dad's friend and his 11 year old son. In a private plane.

And we rented a van.

We did not see the magical express video. The good video, apparently.

I don't really remember much from the trip.. except for the fact that we felt the need to wait for the other family everyday. So, these people are well off financially and they could go back whenever they pleased. So they slept in, didn't do parks until like, 12-1pm. My parents and I are morning people. Had we known about rope drop, I assure you we would of liked to see it.


We stayed here.

We went in the year of a Million Dreams.. and we got like, 3 sets of these mickey ears.

I just recently threw out my last pair.

We met characters.

(I know these aren't "characters" but my dad wanted to meet them...)


We seen A parade. But don't ask me which one, because once again... I don't know.

My dad took part in the Indiana Stunt Spectacular (that I do remember, because he took part in it.)

And we seen Mickey's ToonTown...... that's how long ago this trip was.

And last but most certainly not least, we seen the castle.

Once. We saw the castle Once.
Ask me if I remember what it looks like in person. I don't. How sad, right?


Now, you're probably asking yourself how was this trip the worst. Well, it wasn't really the *worst* but it certainly was not as much fun as it could of been. I just feel like we missed out on SO MUCH because we were always waiting in line. We didn't know about EMH. So we only got to stay in the park for a few hours once we finally got there. The only park day I remember extremely well was our HollyWood Studios day. Because we thought "screw this" and went without the other family. It was the first and only day that we spent the full day in the park. I rode Rock'N'Roller Coaster like 5 times because the line was so short. We stood in line for TSM and I think we watched beauty and the beast. All in the morning. And in the afternoon we watched the parade, went on Tower of Terror and did a drawing class. That's about all I remember.

Overall, I am glad I got to have a taste of the magic. But man oh man I want to go back. I already have enough saved up to put down a deposit ... but now it's too decide where we are staying. We have 1 ticket with park hoppers left from last trip, so we are buying 4 park hopper tickets this time around. That's about all we have planned...


So, coming up next: you guessed it, we start planning! Stay tuned



​

 

[bellesBFF]

Good morning/afternoon/evening, everyone! Today I bring you another update.The topic is PLANNING. YAY... kinda.

Don't get me wrong, I love planning. I plan trips in my spare time and I'd love to become a travel agent. I just find that sometimes it can get overwhelming.

I have a horrible spending habit. On like, anything. Food, clothes, bath stuff, etc. So to try and motivate me to actually save, have created a mickey themed disney saving bucket. Out of a yogurt container.

This is for my spending money. I am following this saving plan:

It's hard to read, I'm sorry. But by the end of 1 year I should have close to 1000$, which is good enough for me. As for saving to actually pay for the hotel and what not, I'm giving money to my mom and she just isn't giving it back to me, lol. We already have the 200$ deposit, but we want to have a little bit more than that when we go to book. Also, we might go through a travel agent. We are not sure yet!


I also had the idea of making disney treats every week. As a family, we are trying to eat a lot healthier. We decided that we will only have "desserts" on the weekend. Which works out perfectly. This week was chocolate chupcakes with vanilla icing in the form of Mickey Mouse, Mike Wazowski and Sully!

I seen someone else doing this, but I promise I did not copy them. I did get really excited that I wasn't the only one doing cupcakes, though! Next week I want to make my very own Mickey rice crispie treats



Now! Onto the actual planning portion of this update, lol!

I will get a better calendar, I promise. We just didn't have ink at the time so I hand made a calendar!

I don't know how well you can see the picture, but our plans are as followed:

Trip Dates: December 3-11 2016

We will be flying to Toronto on Saturday the 3rd and spending the night very close to the airport as we will be departing to Orlando on the 4th. Hopefully on the earliest flight!

Where?

We will be staying at the All Star Music! From the 4th to the 10th, as we will be leaving Orlando hopefully mid-day to Toronto, where we will again spend the night close to the airport. And then fly home on the sunday

Sunday: We will just hang out at the hotel probably. Maybe head to Disney Springs (or as I still call it, Downtown Disney)
Monday: Magic Kingdom! What better way to start the trip We will hopefully to MVMCP
Tuesday: Animal Kingdom!
Wednesday: We don't want to burn ourselves out, so we will take a day off. Probably return to DTD and start buying souvenirs.
Thursday: Epcot
Friday: Hollywood studios
Saturday: leave

We might be getting park hoppers, so these plans aren't etched in stone.

I also have certain places I would like to eat at, so next up I will be making a list of foods I want to try.

So for now;

​

 

[bellesBFF]

Hi everyone! No real update just yet, but just poped in to show off my themed treats for this week!

Baymax cake pops!

Hope things are going well for everyone I'll be back shortly with a real update!​