First-Timer PTR With AK Proposal!!

[Shughart12]

Hi all!

As the title implies, I am currently in the latter stages of planning my first ever trip to Disney World! My trip dates are May 20th - 27th and we will be staying at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort.

I suppose now would be a good time to clarify who "we" is.

My name is Cody and my only experience with either of the Disney parks comes from the 90's sing-along VCR tapes I used to love as a kid and the Behind the Scenes shows that used to air on cable. Since planning this trip, I've admittedly watched parts of those tapes and shows on YouTube from time-to-time but hey, that's what Disney is all about right? Bringing out your inner child.

My girlfriend will also be joining me on this trip (obviously since it's a proposal ) and her name is Regan. We've been together for three years now but have known each other almost all of our lives. We both live in Michigan and attended the same k-12 school and college. She is currently enrolled in her last semester and will graduate with a bachelor's in biology with a minor in chemistry. I graduated last year with my bachelor's in Athletic Training.

Back to Disney.

Growing up my parent's always promised my two younger sister's and I that we would go to Disney World some day, just the five of us but, as often is the case, the financial situation didn't seem to work out and so we never went. My girlfriend on the other hand has been once before. She was around 5 or 6 at the time so for her, this trip will sort of be like her first time as well.

As I mentioned above, our trip dates are May 20th through May 27th, a Sunday-to-Sunday trip. Right now my countdown is at 80 days and 7 hours until midnight on Sunday the 20th! Through out this thread, I will be updating you guys on all of the planning I've done thus far and the details of my proposal idea!! I hope you all follow along and feel free to post ideas or comments along the way, I'd love to hear them!!

Thanks and stay tuned!

 

[mousehockey37]

Hope Regan doesn't find this, lol.

Good luck.

 

[MommyinHonduras]

Following along, we will be there at the same time.

 

[Shughart12]

Hope Regan doesn't find this, lol.

Good luck.

She won't, lol. While she's super excited about the trip, she's not one to do much researching/planning so the odds of her finding this are slim to none.

 

[Shughart12]

Following along, we will be there at the same time.

Awesome! Maybe we will run into each other!

 

[krysenchips]

Can't wait to see your plans! I'll be down there the same time as well!

 

[Shughart12]

Can't wait to see your plans! I'll be down there the same time as well!

Awesome! We are both getting extremely excited as the trip is only 79 days away now! By the way, Thanks for joining the thread, I hope you enjoy it!

 

[Shughart12]

Alright guys, I thought today I'd fill you all in on how this trip came to be, so here it is:

Regan has always been a free spirit and LOVES to travel and experience new things. I do as well, but when we finally got together as a couple, she really helped to break me out of my shell. We both really enjoy camping and out of the nearly 10 or 11 trips we've taken together, only two have included an actual hotel stay. We love camping so much in fact that for Christmas this past year, Regan's family took it upon themselves to totally revamp all of our camping supplies, buying us everything from a new tent right down to getting us matches and kindling.

Back to Disney though.

So during our first year together, we camped out on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls for three nights. Instead of driving back home through Canada and crossing the bridge in Detroit, we decided to take the longer route through New York and back around to Michigan. During the drive we were flipping through Pandora stations on her phone when we crossed a Disney station. We listened to "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" (one of my absolute favorites) and I casually mentioned how awesome it would be to stay at one of the campsites at Disney for a week and visit the parks. Her initial reaction was something along the lines of, "Yeah right! Do you know how expensive Disney is?" That's when I first learned that she had been when she was around 5, so the rest of the way we chatted about some of the details she remembered.

After we get home and returned to our normal lives up at college, I couldn't shake the thought of how awesome it would be to stay at Disney. After a week or two of casually mulling over the topic in my head, I decided to go on the Disney website and price out a vacation just to get a feel for the price. I don't remember the exact figures that I worked out but I do remember pricing multiple vacations with stays at the campsites and various hotels with different ticket options and length of stays. I kept all of this written down in a notebook which I later showed to Regan. With this, I also looked at pinterest (which I still use now for various tips and tricks to use in the parks) which is where I first saw the savings jars below.

To my surprise, she was actually impressed that I had taken the time to price out all of the vacation options and actually agreed that, over time, it might be something we could afford. Of course, I took what she said and ran with it. I looked up different savings tips and ideas and set a goal of $3000 for us. We took the picture of the Disney jars I had seen on pinterest and decided to create them. Our first savings idea was to save every $5 bill we came into contact with, which actually turned out to be very effective. I think we ended up saving around $800 each this way over the course of the next year!

Our second year together was when our savings plan was halted a bit. We were both swamped with school which meant we weren't working enough to have extra money to put aside, and since this was right around Christmas, any extra money we did have was put towards gifts for family and each other. Unfortunately, since we were both short on money, we had to dip into our Disney savings a bit to get us through until the end of the school year.

Once school was out though, we got back on track! I was working two jobs at this time and by the start of winter 2016 we had close to $2000 saved. That is when we decided to put our money into the online Disney Vacation savings account (no longer in existence). Through the website, I was able to set up automatic monthly payments of $100 which worked great. However, sometime in early 2017, we got an email that the Disney vacation account website was closing and we could either withdraw our money before the end date, or we could take no action and they would close our account, refund us what we had contributed and through in an extra $70ish dollars, all of which would be on a gift card. Obviously this was a no brainer and we opted for the extra money.

When we got our gift card from the website, it totaled around $2400. At this point, it was approaching May of 2017 and I was about to graduate college so we both decided that we were content with the amount we had saved and to put off setting any more money aside for Disney. The following month was when the pricing for 2018 came out and I was able to pick our dates, but more on that next time!

Stay tuned!

 

[MommyinHonduras]

You guys are so cute! We ate over at Ft Wilderness at Trails end last trip. I loved the feel there. I would love to camp there sometime, but in a camper.

 

[Shughart12]

You guys are so cute! We ate over at Ft Wilderness at Trails end last trip. I loved the feel there. I would love to camp there sometime, but in a camper.

Thanks! I've talked to Regan and her family about their trip when she was younger and no one remembers quite where they stayed but from what they've described, I'm 99% sure it was Ft Wilderness. Fingers crossed for a future trip that includes a stay there!

 

[DaisyDuck001]

How did the trip and proposal turn out?