Fitting in as much as we can! A December 3-13 PTR

[TLC371]

I haven't posted here at the Dis in a long time, and have been bad at keeping up with trip reports that I started in the past, but I thought I would start this PTR for our trip to try and keep my thoughts and plans in one central spot.

First - who is going on this trip:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/187848800@N04/shares/XK51z3
Hopefully that worked - I haven't shared pictures from flickr before!

First - me -My names is Trish and I am the blonde in the orange Minnie sleeveless shirt. My name is Trish, 49, I work as an administrative assistant at our local Children's Hospital. I am the Disney planner in our group. Disney has always been one of my most favorite vacation spots, I first went in 1977, when I was a little girl, with my family, After I met my now husband in 2002, I started going yearly. His mom has a timeshare in Kissimmee, just off Disney property and we would go every year. He proposed at EPCOT in 2006, we honeymooned there in 2007. It has always been a special place to us.

Next is my son, Zachary. He just turned 10 on April 1st and is currently a 4th grader. He loves Disney and Star Wars just like his momma, he also loves Legos and video games.

Terry is the one in the middle with the white Mickey shirt on. She is like a second mom to me, and is Zach's bonus grandma. My dad passed away in 2013 and then my mom in 2017 and she was there for me through it all. She is one of my very best friends, and like I said, like a mom to me. I don't know what I would do without her.

Last, but not least, we have Cindy in the gray Minnie shirt. She is Terry's younger sister and she is like a sister to me. She helped me as much as Terry did when both my parents passed away and I don't know what I would do without her either.

Unfortunately my husband isn't coming with us on this trip. Last year the company he worked for closed and when he started his new job he had to start over again with vacation time. He is still working on his vacation time and with things the way they are now, he isn't sure if he is going to need it or not, so he said to go without him. Our vacation time is nowhere close to being similar, right now I get 6 weeks of vacation per year and he gets 1 week, so he doesn't mind that I take some trips without him.

Backstory of this trip:

Last August I was talking to Terry about how I hate how hard it is to get people to RSVP to your kids birthday party and how on Zach's next birthday I just want to plan a trip for his birthday present and not even worry about planning a party. So from that we decided that we were going to go to Disney and Universal for Zach's birthday and we started planning for a trip from March 26th to April 4th. Then this pandemic started, and at first we thought we would still risk it and go. But the more we thought about it, with Terry having heart issues and me being diabetic, we decided to postpone our trip, called Disney and changed our dates. The next day they made the announcement that they were going to close the parks so we knew we made the right decision.

Our dates that we rescheduled for was May 28 - June 6th. But this week, after hearing that they cancelled the summer college program, we got to thinking that maybe we should postpone again. We had discussed that if we had to postpone again, then the next time we would reschedule for would be during December so we can be there for the Christmas decorations. So today we rescheduled everything for December, we were already planning a few days at Universal and then a the rest of the time at Disney, but then we decided to add a few days at LEGOland in at the beginning because my son is a huge LEGO fan.

So our itinerary for the week is:

December 3 & 4 we will be staying at Legoland Hotel in a Kingdom themed room with 2 day Legoland tickets
December 5 & 6 we will be staying at Universal's Cabana Bay Resort with 2 day/2 park Universal tickets
December 7 - 13th we will be staying at All Star Movies resort with 3 day tickets and we are thinking about adding tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

We are definitely doing Hollywood Studios, Epcot and Magic Kingdom. I don't think we are going to do Animal Kingdom this time. We want to have a day or two to be able to check out the decorations at the resorts and spend sometime at Disney Springs. Also dinner at T-Rex is a must because that is the one place Zach has asked to eat at, it was where we were supposed to have his birthday dinner at, and we decided that it doesn't matter that we will not be there for his actual birthday, we are still going to celebrate his birthday while we are there. We were going to celebrate my birthday on the original trip as well, so we will be doing that this trip as well. Then Cindy's birthday is December 5th, so we will be celebrating her birthday as well. When we rescheduled our trip to May, it was also going to be one year from my surgery last year. I had to have the right side of my thyroid removed, it had cancer in it, so this trip would have fallen during the one year of that surgery.

So that's it for now - hopefully I will be better at keeping up with this trip report! It might be slow going at first, as I get used to posting here again. I look forward to any visitors and any input/advise/suggestions that anyone may have for our trip!

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more

 

[ariane37]

Hi Trish ,following along! Your new and improved December trip sounds awesome We had a Disney cruise scheduled for April 6th and would have celebrated DS18's 18th birthday on there, and were following it up with a day at AK when it was over. Once that was cancelled we rescheduled for late May and while that is still in the books, we also booked for early June as a back up! And we've had our July 4th trip booked for awhile now too. Obviously I want to get back ASAP lol!

I love Cabana Bay, I think the theming is fantastic. And Universal at the holidays (plus Disney of course) is so fun! Looking forward to following along!

 

[TLC371]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more

Welcome! I am so glad you are here to follow along

Hi Trish ,following along! Your new and improved December trip sounds awesome We had a Disney cruise scheduled for April 6th and would have celebrated DS18's 18th birthday on there, and were following it up with a day at AK when it was over. Once that was cancelled we rescheduled for late May and while that is still in the books, we also booked for early June as a back up! And we've had our July 4th trip booked for awhile now too. Obviously I want to get back ASAP lol!

I love Cabana Bay, I think the theming is fantastic. And Universal at the holidays (plus Disney of course) is so fun! Looking forward to following along!

I'm sorry your cruise and AK were cancelled! I am glad you were able to reschedule and also have a back up! I hope one of those trips work out!! It sucks to do all that planning and then all of a sudden you can't go. This uncertainty with everything is so nerve-wracking! We will get our trips - all we need is faith, trust and a little pixie dust!!

 

[TLC371]

I am so glad to have people following along I am always so worried when I start trip reports that no one is going to read! I love making Disney friends!

So we had a slight change to our Universal portion of the trip. Yesterday I was pricing the cost of a room at a premier hotel, just to see how much it would cost. We already have 2 day/2park tickets for Universal and I was going to get the Express Pass for one of those days once we got there. But it turns out that it is $100 cheaper for us to book a room at Royal Pacific Hotel and get the free Express Pass that they offer, and it will be good for our entire length of stay there and not just for one park day. So I cancelled our reservation at Cabana Bay and booked at Royal Pacific. I am kind of bummed about missing out on Cabana Bay, but this just means that we have to go back another time so we can stay there!

Cindy's birthday is on December 5th, which is the day we switch from Legoland Resort to Universal Resort, so I am thinking of making a dining reservation for Hard Rock Cafe that night for her birthday dinner. Hard Rock has always been one of our favorites, and I think she would like it too. So we shall see. If I do book it, it will be a birthday surprise for her.

I saw the dates released for the Very Merry Christmas Party, and it looks like there will be one on the 8th, so we are pretty sure we are going to get tickets for that. Our plan will would be to spend the day at Magic Kingdom, take a short break and then head back for the party that night. We watched Decorating Disney Holiday Edition on Disney+ last night and it made me so excited to see all the decorations!!

Now I am just (not so) patiently waiting for Southwest to open their schedule for the rest of the year so we can book our flights. Once I know what time we are getting in and what time our flight is leaving, then I can plan our first and last days, and then fill in the rest of the week.

 

[ariane37]

am always so worried when I start trip reports that no one is going to read! I love making Disney friends!

Funny I feel the same each time I start one! My first one back in 2016 I think was a little slow but they all gain more readers as I do more. My current PTR is my first one in YEARS and only I think my 2nd ever? So I wasn't sure how that would go but needed to do it to keep my spirits up!

So I cancelled our reservation at Cabana Bay and booked at Royal Pacific

While I do love Cabana Bay switching to a premier is always a good choice. I always suggest the premiers to clients for exactly the reason you stated. It is often less $ to book a premier than do a non premier with EP! And of the 3 premier's I've only stayed at Hard Rock but have toured all 3 and I have to say, theming and room wise I think RPR is my fave

 

[TLC371]

Funny I feel the same each time I start one! My first one back in 2016 I think was a little slow but they all gain more readers as I do more. My current PTR is my first one in YEARS and only I think my 2nd ever? So I wasn't sure how that would go but needed to do it to keep my spirits up!

While I do love Cabana Bay switching to a premier is always a good choice. I always suggest the premiers to clients for exactly the reason you stated. It is often less $ to book a premier than do a non premier with EP! And of the 3 premier's I've only stayed at Hard Rock but have toured all 3 and I have to say, theming and room wise I think RPR is my fave

When I get a chance, I need to go find your PTR! It's been crazy and I just haven't had the time to Dis as much as I would like to!

I am glad you agree with our reason to switch. It is nice to have confirmation that we made the right decision! Are you a travel agent? I had thought about doing that, and for a while I was signed up with an agency that specialized in cruises but it didn't really go anywhere for me. I guess I wasn't as motivated to make it work either, because it was hard to make it work with a full time job.

 

[TLC371]

We bought our plane tickets today! Plus ended up adding an extra day because we didn't like the times for the flight home on the 13th, so we just decided to add an extra day. I'm pretty sure my son's school is going to hate us! Oh well - we'll make sure he does all his work, he will be good. With all going on right now, we have proven he does do his work when he is not physically in the classroom, we will make sure he does it all while we are gone on vacation.

Anyway, we arrive at noon on December 3rd and our flight home on December 14th leaves at 2:20. If we had flown home on the 13th, that flight would have left at 9:30 - we were hoping for something later in the day, but the afternoon flights were much more expensive and had stops and would have gotten us home pretty late. We like to do the nonstop from Norfolk to Orlando, especially with having a kid. The thought of a long layover with my son just brings out my anxiety!

I am going to try to call Disney when I can and see if we can add one more night to our reservation. We'd like to be able to just stay in the same hotel room if possible. If it's not possible, I will see if there is anything reasonable for one night on property, and if not, we'll find something nearby for one night.

Next up will be the rental car search. We'll need one for the first part of the trip, but we'll keep it for the whole trip because we want to be able to go when we want to go and not have to wait for Disney transportation. Plus maybe go have a few dinners at nearby restaurants and not just eating at Disney restaurants.

We would have been able to make our dining reservations in a few days, but that isn't an option right now. I am hoping that things will return to normal when we go - we shall see.