For the first time in FOREVER.. at least that's how long it feels! Pre- Trip Report

[Axelrodb1]

WooooHooooo!!!! ​

I Sorry, I had to get that out. As this title suggests it has been WAY too long since I have had a Disney Vacation! So, without further distraction I have convinced my loving and wonderful boyfriend to allow us 9 nights at Disney World! I am excited, overjoyed... and now stressed with the planning!

I love planning our trips, but I am a planner by nature, so I am usually up at the crack of dawn on deadlines to make sure we get all the best reservations and things. We have our room booked, and now the madness begins!

 

[Axelrodb1]

Now some important words from... me!

I am a bad trip report writer.. my computer hates me and my wrists hate typing since I had a TFCC tear and a poorly done surgery in my past! With that being said, you have officially been warned, I am no good at fancy fonts and making my reports cute and fun. I admire those who can.. I am just not one of them!

With my boyfriend being somewhat new to Disney, and my little man too young to help too much with planning, it sounded like a fantastic idea to have some feedback from the people who taught me all about Disney... you guys! I have read, and read and read some more to learn as much as possible about all things Disney on these boards.

A little about us...

I am 30 years old and an elementary school teacher. I love all things Disney (who doesn't?) and my classroom hopefully will be overflowing with Disney this coming school year. My little man is 9, and is such a goofball, he's more or less grown up around the theme parks and enjoys them very much. My boyfriend, who I still need to make up a good nickname for... is an electrician, who despite having been born and raised in florida had not been to Disney in years and years prior to meeting us!

Onto the fun stuff.. the Details!!

The three of us, (myself, my boyfriend, and my DS9) will be staying at AoA November 13th- November 22nd. We have a Little Mermaid room booked, but I am hoping that the rates for the family suites may workout for us because I would love to switch to those!

As of right now there is no dining plan, we are strictly room only, but... we have done deluxe in the past and I am hoping to make a very convincing argument soon!!

 

[budz211]

How long has it been since your last visit?

 

[Axelrodb1]

How long has it been since your last visit?

Our last big vacation to Disney was in September. We are extremely fortunate to live in South Florida and visit often, but there is something so special about a long trip, that is so much better then a quick day trip up!

 

[MataHari22]

How exciting for you. I will be there basically at the same time as you, 12th-20th, and I wi be across the lake at Pop Century. My birthday is on the 22nd, and I was originally going to try and be there for it, but I ended up not being able to.

 

[Axelrodb1]

How exciting for you. I will be there basically at the same time as you, 12th-20th, and I wi be across the lake at Pop Century. My birthday is on the 22nd, and I was originally going to try and be there for it, but I ended up not being able to.

That is very exciting! I am absolutely going to check our your pre-trip report! At least at Disney you can celebrate birthdays whenever you want! I stayed for a long weekend at POP a while ago and we walked over to AoA and I totally loved it... hopefully I love it just as much when I am staying there!

 

[FantasiaMagic]

Hi! I'm here and joining along! It sounds like you and your loved ones are going to have a great trip.

The three of us, (myself, my boyfriend, and my DS9) will be staying at AoA November 13th- November 22nd. We have a Little Mermaid room booked, but I am hoping that the rates for the family suites may workout for us because I would love to switch to those!

This past spring I stayed at AoA in a Finding Nemo suite with my 5 friends. We had the best time, and loved the resort. It is so much fun and the theme is just so DISNEY! I bet no matter which room you all stay in, you will all enjoy it!

 

[Axelrodb1]

Okay- so after much research I have discovered I did a fairly bleh job of introductions... let's try that again!

This is DS9 and I, a stollen from snapchat photo.. We recently traveled all over for summer vacation. We went back to my home state of Connecticut, then out to California! It was a good time, except under horrible circumstances, but I think we made the most of it.






Now that I've gotten started on pictures of my little man, it is hard to stop! Here we are at a baseball game when he was around 3 and then again at age 9, same stadium and all!

DS9 LOVES everything Disney, he loves roller coasters, cotton candy, and his favorite movie has always been The Lion King.His favorite Disney Treat hands down is the frushi... he has not stopped asking me about it, can we make it, can we buy it, where did it go... since he tried it.. unfortunately it isn't available all the time, I believe we had it as flower and garden, but that could be wrong. So here it is.. his beloved snack

 

[Axelrodb1]

Okay- My brain is fried and my photos aren't in my photobucket where they should be so for now I guess those are all the improved introductions I can post!

Onto the bigger and more exciting things!!

So, we booked this trip a week or two ago, and with that being said ADR's were tricky, we have not decided 100% whether we will do the deluxe dinning plan again this year or not, we did it on our last trip and absolutely loved it. I personally, never felt obligated to finish my meals, apps, or desserts so I was never overly full... my boyfriend on the other hand ate every last drop and felt full to say the least. The ease of not having to worry about prices was a huge plus for me. I can admit I tend to look at prices when ordering things, and often will choose the cheapest as opposed to what I actually want... its a flaw a lot of people yell at me about it! So in the end I think we are doing the plan again, we have not added it to the reservation but we are making ADR's galore!

As far as our ADR's go, we decided we would only allow ourselves to each pick one place we wanted to repeat.. everything else we wanted to force ourselves to try new places. Luckily, on our last trip I was up an at it bright and early and was able to book a lot of awesome places to eat, so we have been fortunate enough to experience a lot of the "must do's." One of these days I am going to print out a list of all the TS restaurants so I can keep better track of where we have gone! I also told myself a full dinning report will be happening this time.. so we shall see!

 

[Axelrodb1]

When I figure out how.. this will turn into a table of contents page... in the meantime it's just a page.. without contents

 

[Axelrodb1]

We should be arriving on Friday November 13... which led to me to decide I need to find a Nightmare Before Christmas Photo Album for this trip.. we tend to always have some sort of disaster on our trip, someone gets sick, an entire lanyard goes missing.. just always something. Now that we arrive on Friday the 13th I've already decided this trip will absolutely have some adventure mixed in.. just hopefully the good kind!

We live in paradise.. and by that I mean sunny south Florida

We will be driving up to Orlando after we all finish working on Friday, usually that means we hit the road by 5 at the absolute latest, hopefully dodging all traffic and avoiding any unnecessary stopping to arrive at our resort (in theory) by 8pm at the latest. The original plan was to run into the hotel, get our room keys, throw our bags on the bed and race to Food and Wine for some tasty snacks AKA dinner. However, a slight reality check helped me realize that after a week teaching, a three hour drive, and what I assume will be traffic, and stopping, I will not be in my most peppy of moods, and perhaps a nice sit down meal is more appropriate!

My goal was to not have to eat at a park or Downtown so we could just grab food and then unwind, unpack, and relax.. so we shall see how it goes! The other options that we had we mostly places we have been, or not ideally located. The Illuminations Dessert Party opened up for our first day but I know how I am with rushing and times, and that sounded like a horrible plan. Sorry for the lengthy explanation I think I am trying to convince myself I made the right choice for our first night. Any who, We will be having our first meal of the trip at Boatwrights... I have gone back and forth about this one, having read some fantastic...and not so fantastic reviews but the menu sounded good, the location was easy enough and so there we go!

I am also writing a pre-trip dinning report where I went into details about what we will be ordering and price shopping our dinning plan!

So with much blabbering, and off topic chattering. There you have it.. day one theoretically planned and ready to go!

 

[FantasiaMagic]

As far as our ADR's go, we decided we would only allow ourselves to each pick one place we wanted to repeat.. everything else we wanted to force ourselves to try new places.

I totally agree. Every time I go to Disney, I always want to try some new places to eat, since there are so many great ones out there! I always make sure I go to my favorites as well, it's a must!

We live in paradise.. and by that I mean sunny south Florida

WOW. Yeah I would consider that to be paradise! What a beautiful place to live! And it's great that you and your family are so close to Disney World!

 

[Axelrodb1]

Oh Jeepers... that moment when you type a big huge things about what the next day will bring... and then hit post and get an error!

So Day two (or maybe it is Day 1 since it will be our first FULL day!) we plan to be at Animal Kingdom- its our go to for a Saturday! Okay, I can admit I am having an awful time re-writiting the fun and exciting post that I had all typed up........ I am hoping to get our fast passes for the safari, everest, and maybe kali if I am feeling brave. As for meals, it gets complicated and I think I need to fix it... as of now we are eating breakfast and lunch at the AKL, which is not a big deal, but I worry that we will return to AK just in time to leave again, so I think we may do a quick breakfast like a muffin or something and then go for lunch... the evening plan is to take DS9 over to one of the child centers which he LOVES and then my Hunny and I head to food and wine for some treats and mommy drinks!

Hopefully we can get a lot accomplished at Food and Wine this time around, last year on our date night.. it rained!!! Soggy food and soggy people were not happy!!!

And there we have it, our potential day two!

 

[FantasiaMagic]

I am hoping to get our fast passes for the safari, everest, and maybe kali if I am feeling brave.

These are the exact FPs I did for my past trip. It worked out great! Personally I love Kali, I think it's a really fun ride...even if you do get a little wet...

so I think we may do a quick breakfast like a muffin or something and then go for lunch.

IMHO, this is the best way to go, at least for park days. It allows you to spend much more valuable time at one of the parks, then traveling around for breakfast.

 

[Axelrodb1]

even if you do get a little wet...

I actually love water rides, I try to dress appropriately in knowing that walking around in wet jeans is horribly awful. Eventually I hope to plan out my clothes, I recently became obsessed with wearing workout clothes- when my prior thing was to be "cute" for all the pictures we take, lesson learned that comfy is absolutely the way to go!!!

 

[MataHari22]

Lol, I don't ride Kali anymore. I just don't like to get that drenched. Both times I rode it, I came off looking like a drowned cat. No water rides for me. (Though I suppose I could ride it wearing a rain poncho if I really wanted to ride it. Which I don't.)

I love a pre-park open breakfast at Tusker House. I love walking through AK and seeing the park all empty looking at all the amazing details, I just love that park. I really enjoyed the food at TH. I never leave the park I'm in for lunch because I feel like it just sucks up too much time.

 

[Axelrodb1]

I never leave the park I'm in for lunch because I feel like it just sucks up too much time.

That was my plan last year, we kept ourselves int he parks until after lunch, left to swim and relax then got cleaned up for dinner and whatever evening plans we had... due to our no repeat eating things are a little difficult this year... my planning brain is going to explode!

 

[Axelrodb1]

I just purchased a stand up jewelry box as i recently inherited a large amount of fun and funky jewelry from a family member who passed away, and upon picking it up did i realize I am somehow supposed to build this thing.... A glimpse into how not capable of building I am... I had to go buy the screwdriver wish me luck!