Flowers, Disney Running, and a Dream Birthday Surprise!

20thingamabobs

DIS Veteran
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Aug 3, 2010
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Hi! This is my second (third, depending on how you look at it) attempt at writing a PTR. My first one was fun and I enjoyed writing but I’m hoping to have more readers this time. Because I mean honestly, that’s what makes DISing so much fun.
Let me begin by giving you a little bit of background information. First up, for those of you joining me for the first time, let’s have an introduction of our case of characters:

Who’s going?
First, there’s me (Whitney). I’m 24 years old, I’m employed full-time as a Sales Manager at a marina on Lake Erie in Cleveland and I’m also attending graduate school full-time to get my Master’s in School Psychology. It’s a full schedule which makes this vacation needed more than ever before. This is my 16th trip to Disney World and I’ve also been to Disneyland 3 times (since my brother lives 45 minutes from it now). One of my favorite trips was this past January when my DBF and I went to WDW to run our very first half marathon. My favorite attractions are Splash Mountain and Expedition Everest and my favorite character is Tinker Bell. Here’s me (March 2009)…
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Also along for this trip is my mom, Christy. She’s my usual fellow Disney traveler and we spend most of our trips as just the two of us. She lets me do all the planning and is happy to just be along for the ride which works really well with my obsessive over planning self. She’s lives about 2 hours from me, closer to Pittsburgh so she enjoys our trips because we don’t see each other a whole lot. She’s a retired high school teacher. This will be her 15th trip to the world and she has been to Disneyland twice. Her favorite trip was this past Nov/Dec 2010 when we finally got to see all the Christmas decorations. Her favorite attractions are Splash Mountain (when she doesn’t get wet lol) and Soarin’ and her favorite characters are Eeyore and Jiminy Cricket. Here she is (Nov 2010)…
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Now, this is where the cast gets a little tricky…
So, my dad will also be joining us this trip (which is rare since he’s sadly not really a Disney fan) but he’ll only be a part of the Disney portion during the first 3 days and the last 5 days of the trip. During the missing 3 days, he’ll be attending a golf school. I’ll explain this more later but it becomes important. Since he’s not really a fan, he ONLY likes the thrill rides and certainly doesn’t have a favorite character. Here he is (Feb 2010)…
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In addition, we have a fourth possible member. Now, I know what you’re thinking… “You’re trip is just over two weeks away and you don’t know if this person is coming or not?” Yep. That’s right. And, it gets worse. If this person joins us, it completely changes our plans which once again, I’ll explain a little later. So, who is this mystery person that’s affecting our trip so much? That would be my brother, Rustin. He’s 27 years old and lives in Los Angeles, CA where he works as a production assistant on the televisions show Cougartown with Courtney Cox. He’s been to Disney World about the same amount as I have and Disneyland more times than I can count since he moved to CA and lives so close. He loves Disney too and his current roommate works as a Disney Imagineer (cool jobs right?). His favorite rides are Splash Mountain, Peter Pan’s Flight, Soarin’, and Expedition Everest. His favorite character is Donald Duck. Here he is…
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Continued next post…
 
So, a little more background on this trip… I’ve always been a Disney fan and visited the parks several times as a little girl. But, my love didn’t really turn into an obsession until March of 2007. It was my sophomore year of college and it had been a tiresome long year so far. My DBF played baseball and college and every year they went to Florida for spring training. So, one weekend I was at home and talking with my parents and mentioned how nice it must be to go to Florida for Spring Break and how I would love to get away for awhile. Well, in response, my dad says “why don’t you and your mom go to Disney World for a few days” Well, I quickly agreed and he got on and booked us for a 5 night/6 day trip. Little did he know, he was starting my obsession and a tradition. We had a wonderful time and I was hooked. Now, this was before my crazy planning and extreme Disney knowledge days so my brother made all our dining reservations and wrote up a touring plan for us based on the attractions I had picked out. But, when I returned, I had learned so much and really got into the planning from then on out. I’ve been back 8 times since then, 5 within the last 11 months. We stayed at POR in March 2007, POFQ in March 2008, in May 2009 my brother and I stayed at SSR, in October 2008 my DBF and I stayed at ASSp, in March 2009 we stayed at POFQ, in April 2010 we stayed at the Poly, in June 2010 we stayed at ASMo, in Nov/Dec 2010 CSR, in Jan 2011 DBF and I stayed at BLT.
As you can see, we make a spring break trip every year. That being said, I wasn’t sure we’d be making it this year when I booked my Nov/Dec trip with my mom and my half marathon trip with my DBF. So, how did we make this trip possible? Fuzzy Disney Math of course. First, I made the argument that we could upgrade our tickets in Nov/Dec to Annual Passes that I could use all year. Then, I had to agree that we would stay at our time share instead of a Disney hotel since it’s already “paid for”. Well, if it means a Disney trip then I’m all in.

Now, that you have all the background… LET’S GET TO THE TRIP!!

When are we going?

Well, the original plan was for March 5-12 but with some more Fuzzy Disney math and convincing my dad that running was fun (more on that later) we switched to March 4-12. Then with some more Fuzzy Disney math and convincing my dad that I wanted one big Christmas present this year, we switched to March 4-13. Well, Southwest didn’t have reward flights left on the 13th so my dad pushed us back and our new (and final) dates are…

March 4 – 14, 2011.

We’ve never taken a trip this long and as you’ll soon find out, it’s about to be the trip of a lifetime.

Where are we staying?

As I mentioned above, part of the deal was that we had to stay at our time share so we’ll be staying at Sheraton Vistana in a one-bedroom. I’m actually ok with this. It’ll be nice to eat breakfast in our room and I’m pretty excited about having a rental car. Also, since we have Annual Passes, we don’t have to pay for parking!

Well, I think that’s all of the basics so from here on out, we can get into the details!
 
I'm subbing!!!

I can't believe your brother has like, the most amazing job EVER!! That pic was awesome! LOL :)

You're so pretty!!

Can't wait to read more!
 

I'm from NEOhio too...and I can't imagine how excited you are to escape this Winter! I can't wait to hear more of your plans! :surfweb:
 
I'm here!!! :wave:

Welcome! Glad to have you!

I'm subbing!!!

I can't believe your brother has like, the most amazing job EVER!! That pic was awesome! LOL :)

You're so pretty!!

Can't wait to read more!

Welcome! And, thank you! He really does have a cool job, he's constantly calling me telling me all the cool things he gets to do and people he gets to meet...

I can't wait to hear your plans!

Thank! I wish our trips were overlapping since it sounds like they are going to be pretty similar!

I'm in...

Welcome!

I'm from NEOhio too...and I can't imagine how excited you are to escape this Winter! I can't wait to hear more of your plans! :surfweb:

Yea, I can't wait to get away from this winter! The past two days have been pretty nice but I noticed we're suppose to get some more snow next week so I can't wait to get rid of that! Florida is showing highs in the 80s:thumbsup2
 
So, our arrival day was originally suppose to be March 5. However, as I mentioned earlier, this past January, my DBF and I ran our first half marathon in WDW and I am hooked! Disney Running is sooo much fun! So, one day, I was looking through all my park maps, etc that I'd brought home from my Nov/Dec trip and I noticed on the back of the Holidays Around the World pamphlet that ESPN the Weekend was going to be taking place March 3-6. We've been to Disney several times in March but never for this event, so I hopped on line to see what it was all about. Well the first thing I noticed was that they offer a 5k on Saturday that runs through Hollywood Studios. Well that's all I needed to know. I called my dad immediately and asked if he would run it with me. Well, it took a couple days and some MAJOR convincing but he finally agreed. Since the race starts so early and we have to attend packet pick-up, we had no choice but to add a day ;) So now, we are arriving March 4. So, here's our plans...

Day 1: March 4, 2011 - Arrival / Downtown Disney / Magic Kingdom?

The night before, I will be driving the 2 hours home to meet my parents so we can all travel together. We are flying Southwest and taking their earliest departure. Our plane leaves Pittsburgh at 9:05am and arrives in Orlando at 11:40am. We will be picking up our rental car and then heading to the Sheraton Vistana to check-in. After we check in, the plan is to head to DTD to have lunch at Earl of Sandwich. We ate here on our Nov/Dec trip and we both REALLY liked it so my mom asked if we could return. After lunch, we'll spend a little time walking around... I've always wanted to do the Characters In Flight but it's never been running while we were at DTD so maybe we'll luck out and get to try it :confused3. Once finished, we'll probably head over to a grocery store to pick up some breakfast items for our hotel room and then just relax at the hotel. We MAY go to the Magic Kingdom for a little while since my mom and I have Annual Passes we wouldn't be wasting a ticket but we'll see. At 5:00pm, we'll head over to the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex for the Expo and our packet pick-up. Then, we have dinner reservations at Kona Cafe for 8:40pm. After dinner, we'll head back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep before our race!
 
We'll be at MK that day and Kona as well, but much earlier!! So excited that you are doing the marathon!! Good for you!!
 
I didn't know you started a new PTR, I'm in! :thumbsup2 Can't believe you're going to WDW for so long, I'm so jealous!!! :rotfl:
 
We'll be at MK that day and Kona as well, but much earlier!! So excited that you are doing the marathon!! Good for you!!

Yea, I originally had a reservation closer to your time but I changed it when I realized that the Expo only runs from 5-8pm. I'm very excited to do the 5k. We really enjoyed doing the half marathon in Jan. and have already signed for a couple others too!

I didn't know you started a new PTR, I'm in! :thumbsup2 Can't believe you're going to WDW for so long, I'm so jealous!!! :rotfl:

Welcome! I can't believe our trip is so long either but we're not exactly going to be at Disney the whole time.. but I'll get to that later!
 
:cool1::cool1: Two Week Wiggle Day!!! :cool1::cool1:

Day 2: March 5, 2011 - ESPN 5k, AK, Epcot

Ok, this day shaped up to be jam packed and long. Now, let me start by saying that I know it seems crazy to put so much into one day when we're going to be there for so long but you'll understand why I did it later. You'll also see later that if I have to use Plan B (yes, there's a Plan B) that this day will change. So here it is...

The ESPN 5k starts at 7:00am. They haven't sent out a lot of information yet so I still need more details before I know what time we'll need to arrive but I'm assuming we'll need to get there by 6:00am. I run the equivalent of a 5k at least 3 times a week since I started training for our half marathon so I'm hoping to be done by 7:30 - 7:35 depending on how many pictures I take and where I start in the pack. My dad is running as well so he may take longer than me if I don't stay with him the whole time. Either way, I'm hoping that we'll both be finished and leaving Hollywood Studios no later than 8:15am. From there, we'll be heading to Animal Kingdom.

My hope is to arrive before the park opens for the day. If we stick with Plan A, this will be our only AK day. Our plan of attack for the day is:

Straight to Expedition Everest - ride 2-3 times plus grab Fast Passes
Head to Dinoland, USA. (Primeval Whirl is closed)
Dinosaur
Finding Nemo - The Musical
Head to Africa
Fast Pass Kilimanjaro Safaris
Pagani Forest Trail
Lunch
Head to Tree of Life
It's Tough to be a Bug
Check time - do whatever
Use Safari FP
Use Everest FP

Leave park around 4:30 to head to Epcot

5:30 - meet outside Epcot for Dive Quest

For those of you who read my half marathon TR, you'll know that my DBF and did this "tour" then and it was so much fun, so I've decided to take my dad back to try it since he's the only other person in my famiy that's certified.

I'm so excited my mom will be with us to take pics of us in the tank since DBF and I didn't have anyone with us in Jan.

The nice thing about this tour is that you don't need a park ticket to enter and after, they just release you into the park as well. In Jan. my DBF didn't buy a ticket at all but we were able to eat at Chefs de France and enjoy Illuminations after the tour anyway. So, it's nice not to have to get my dad a ticket either. After we're done, we'll be heading over to have dinner at Via Napoli! After dinner, we'll head back to the hotel to get some well needed sleep.

 
WOW!! That is a very ambitious day, but actually sounds doable:thumbsup2. It's funny to read some people's daily itinerary and not see a nap put into the afternoon! :lmao: I guess you can get a lot accomplished during nap time;)
 
I'm here!:wave2: I'll be getting to the WWoS complex around the same time as you so I'll be on the lookout! Have you been able to print out your waiver on line yet? I haven't checked lately to see if it's available yet but I'd like to have it done ahead of time.
I'm taking it slow during this race and hoping my IT band decides to cooperate with me by then.

See you soon!!:goodvibes
 
WOW!! That is a very ambitious day, but actually sounds doable:thumbsup2. It's funny to read some people's daily itinerary and not see a nap put into the afternoon! :lmao: I guess you can get a lot accomplished during nap time;)

I think we'll be ok as long as we make it to AK before park opens... it's amazing what you can get done in those first few hours after the park opens. I would just hate to get there late and have to leave early.

Ahh, nap time. My mom begs me for this on every trip... we've yet to experience one :rotfl: I think I'll go insane when we start traveling with kids again... I won't know what to do with myself...

I'm here!:wave2: I'll be getting to the WWoS complex around the same time as you so I'll be on the lookout! Have you been able to print out your waiver on line yet? I haven't checked lately to see if it's available yet but I'd like to have it done ahead of time.
I'm taking it slow during this race and hoping my IT band decides to cooperate with me by then.

See you soon!!:goodvibes


I actually didn't get my waiver until two days ago when i read your post. I'm surprised they were so late in putting them up :confused3 But, I went and checked after I saw you msg and there it was! So, I printed it out today and put it in my travel notebook! I totally agree in taking it with you.. the lines during the half marathon expo were long... I really hope you're feeling good for the race and everything goes well! I think I'm going to run a little slower than my normal pace to so I can enjoy it and run with my dad and we can take pics. I mean, that's what running at Disney is all about! Well, hopefully I'll run into you at the Expo or parks!
 
I can't believe we've reached our 10 day mark already. Normally by this time I'm going insane because it's taken so long to get here but this trip really snuck up on me. Work and school take up so much time plus we brought home our two puppies this weekend, Lilo and Otis, and all I want to do is play with them. I'll post pics soon. Anyway, I can't do online check-in since we're staying at the Sheraton so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to dance for my single digits! So, since we're almost at single digits, here's my day 3 plans...

Day 3: March 6, 2011 - Epcot

After our long day the day before I wish we could sleep in but once again, this is probably our only Epcot day so the goals for today are...

Arrive at Epcot by 8:30am for 9:00am opening
Head to Soarin', grab a fast pass, hop in line to ride.
The Seas with Nemo and friends
Journey into Imagination with Figment
Innoventions - Sum of All Thrills
Fast Pass Test Track
Disney Visa Meet & Greet?
Head to World Showcase
Duffy, Meet & Greet
2:00pm - Lunch at Le Cellier (first time ever!)
Enjoy Flower & Garden displays
Maelstrom
Gran Fiesta Tour (first time)
Head back to future world
Use Test Track Fast Pass
Spaceship Earth
Use Soarin's Fast Pass
Accomplish anything we missed before lunch
Head back to World Showcase
Dinner?
Citron Slushie from France!
Illuminations @ 9:00pm

After Illuminations, we'll head out of the park and back to our resort. The next day is my mom's birthday!


 
Your plans are looking great! Saturday is going to be a long day for sure. I'm planning on being at HS by 6am so I have plenty of time to stretch. I ran 3.5 today and didn't feel any tightening in my knee but I have been using that IT band strap. I'm going to try a run tomorrow without it. I booked my room for the Wine and Dine Half today! I was telling some of the other girls how much fun I think it would be if we all met up for it. Let me know what you think!:goodvibes
 
Your plans are looking great! Saturday is going to be a long day for sure. I'm planning on being at HS by 6am so I have plenty of time to stretch. I ran 3.5 today and didn't feel any tightening in my knee but I have been using that IT band strap. I'm going to try a run tomorrow without it. I booked my room for the Wine and Dine Half today! I was telling some of the other girls how much fun I think it would be if we all met up for it. Let me know what you think!:goodvibes

I'm not sure if I mentioned it yet but I actually registered for the Wine & Dine half on the 14th when registration opened. I will be running with my two college roommates! We haven't booked our hotel yet though... where are you staying? It would be so fun to meet up!!!
 
Weather: So, in natural Disney obsessive planning fashion, I’ve began obsessing over the weather for our trip. On weather.com, I can only see March 4th so far and it is showing a high of 77 and a low of 55 with a 60% chance for showers. Accuweather.com is showing a high of 72 and a low of 50 with morning showers. Hm, not exactly how I want to start my trip but hopefully if accuweather is right and the rain is in the morning, it’ll make its’ way out before we get there at noon… We’ll see if it changes too, as it most likely will…

Sidenote: My brother has decided to definitely join us for part of the trip. Cougartown is filming “on location” somewhere for their season finale Feb 27 – March 7. Then, my brother will fly back to LA to pack for Florida before flying down to meet us most likely on March 9.

Day 4: March 7 – Off Day / Mom’s Birthday

After the crazy packed days we started our trip with, we’ll be taking the day off. Also, today is my mom’s birthday and as much as she loves the parks, I knew she’d appreciate the sleep more. So, we’ll sleep in as late as we want, then grab breakfast in our room. If the weather is nice, after breakfast we’ll make our way over to the pool. The afternoon will be spent lounging in the sun and cooling off in the pool. We’ll probably grab lunch somewhere near or at the hotel then enjoy more sun and pool time. After we’re nice and relaxed, we’ll head back into our room around 5:00pm to get ready. My mom’s dream resort in the Grand Floridian so for her birthday dinner, I book a reservation at Narcoossee’s for 7:40pm. We can enjoy a nice meal and then we can make our way outside at 9:00pm to watch Wishes from the terrace at the restaurant. After dinner, we’ll most likely head back to our resort for a good night’s sleep as tomorrow we’ll start our full packed days again.
 












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