Verstehen
I break for the Nautilus
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2008
Hey folks, ain’t it pretty?
Look who’s back in good ol’ Disney!
Sorry, I’ve been really into Beetlejuice the Musical (the Musical, the Musical) lately, since I saw the opening number on Youtube a few weeks ago. (You should watch it, but it’s NSFW!). Also, it’s coming to Orlando next year!
Anyway!
Welcome to another brutally honest, sometimes hilarious, occasionally helpful, and always quirky trip report. I am Rachel, your narrator and our family’s main planner, and I’m here to recap our most recent adventure to Walt Disney World.
A little bit more about me. I’m Rachel, an Orlando resident, having moved here with my husband in 2016. We live about 30-40 minutes from property, on the north end of the city near Altamonte Springs and Winter Park. I am a massive retro Disney and Epcot fan, and one of those folks who actually like spending time at the resorts. I work part time from home and am a Mom to an amazing two-year-old.
This is my daughter, April. She is about as toddler as you can get, very sweet and funny, but she will turn on you at the drop of a hat if you dare to give her a green cup when she wanted a blue cup. She is a budding Disney fan, though her latest obsession is Peppa Pig. At the parks, she loves Figment, Mickey, and Nemo best of all.
While I take her to the parks fairly regularly for an afternoon visit here or there, once or twice a year we are joined by my Dad, who bought DVC shortly after I moved to Orlando. He lives in New York, where I grew up as well. He fell in love with Disney pretty quickly after poo-pooing it for years, and he likes having an excuse to stay in a nice resort instead of at our house, which isn’t really set up for overnight guests and also he claims to be allergic to our dog. Whatever! I’m happy for the excuse to have a staycation. Our home resorts are Polynesian and Riviera.
We weren’t planning on doing a DVC stay until October, but earlier this year I discovered that we had a bunch of points we needed to use by the end of May or we would lose them, so we set this trip up. We hadn’t been using as many points as usual due to the whole Covid situation. So we set one up for early May!
We also finally, after over a decade of me living in Florida, convinced my uncle to come down as well. I’ll be referring to him as just Uncle. This was his first time in Disney World, or even in Orlando, and let me tell you, if you want to inject some energy into an otherwise regular Disney trip, bring someone who has never been before and just watch them take it all in. I wish I had been video recording him the whole time, but I genuinely did not think he would be as impressed as he was.
Rounding out the trip is a special guest star, my husband! I’ll refer to him as DH. Those of you who have read my reports before know he is not a Disney fan. He doesn’t like crowds, he doesn’t like most Disney IP (with the exception of Marvel), and in general he prefers to spend his time and money on other things. Which I completely understand. He doesn’t usually come with us on these trips, but he will usually come for a day or two to join us at the pool and for a few meals. Lately he has shown more interest in Disney because he knows our daughter loves it, so you will see him pop up in this report more than normal.
Next up: the trip details!
As I mentioned, this trip came about because we had some DVC points to burn; thanks Covid! May is not usually an ideal time to visit because of the heat, but what can you do?
Because we only booked a couple of months in advance, pickings were a bit slim (for those of you who don’t know, DVC is great in a lot of ways, but so few rooms are set aside to book with points vs. direct w/ Disney using cash, so you have to book very far in advance in most cases). We ultimately decided to do a split stay. So we stayed May 4th-May 7th at Boulder Ridge Villas, and May 7th-10th at the Boardwalk, both in one bedrooms. We had stayed in a one bedroom for the first time for our trip last September and we loved it. We had previously been skeptical because it’s double the points to be able to hold the same number of people as a studio (less in some cases, actually!), but the extra space was well worth it.
In the next post, I’ll get into some of the pre-trip planning details and drama. And boy, did this trip have some unique drama, so stay tuned!
Look who’s back in good ol’ Disney!
Sorry, I’ve been really into Beetlejuice the Musical (the Musical, the Musical) lately, since I saw the opening number on Youtube a few weeks ago. (You should watch it, but it’s NSFW!). Also, it’s coming to Orlando next year!
Anyway!
Welcome to another brutally honest, sometimes hilarious, occasionally helpful, and always quirky trip report. I am Rachel, your narrator and our family’s main planner, and I’m here to recap our most recent adventure to Walt Disney World.
A little bit more about me. I’m Rachel, an Orlando resident, having moved here with my husband in 2016. We live about 30-40 minutes from property, on the north end of the city near Altamonte Springs and Winter Park. I am a massive retro Disney and Epcot fan, and one of those folks who actually like spending time at the resorts. I work part time from home and am a Mom to an amazing two-year-old.
This is my daughter, April. She is about as toddler as you can get, very sweet and funny, but she will turn on you at the drop of a hat if you dare to give her a green cup when she wanted a blue cup. She is a budding Disney fan, though her latest obsession is Peppa Pig. At the parks, she loves Figment, Mickey, and Nemo best of all.
While I take her to the parks fairly regularly for an afternoon visit here or there, once or twice a year we are joined by my Dad, who bought DVC shortly after I moved to Orlando. He lives in New York, where I grew up as well. He fell in love with Disney pretty quickly after poo-pooing it for years, and he likes having an excuse to stay in a nice resort instead of at our house, which isn’t really set up for overnight guests and also he claims to be allergic to our dog. Whatever! I’m happy for the excuse to have a staycation. Our home resorts are Polynesian and Riviera.
We weren’t planning on doing a DVC stay until October, but earlier this year I discovered that we had a bunch of points we needed to use by the end of May or we would lose them, so we set this trip up. We hadn’t been using as many points as usual due to the whole Covid situation. So we set one up for early May!
We also finally, after over a decade of me living in Florida, convinced my uncle to come down as well. I’ll be referring to him as just Uncle. This was his first time in Disney World, or even in Orlando, and let me tell you, if you want to inject some energy into an otherwise regular Disney trip, bring someone who has never been before and just watch them take it all in. I wish I had been video recording him the whole time, but I genuinely did not think he would be as impressed as he was.
Rounding out the trip is a special guest star, my husband! I’ll refer to him as DH. Those of you who have read my reports before know he is not a Disney fan. He doesn’t like crowds, he doesn’t like most Disney IP (with the exception of Marvel), and in general he prefers to spend his time and money on other things. Which I completely understand. He doesn’t usually come with us on these trips, but he will usually come for a day or two to join us at the pool and for a few meals. Lately he has shown more interest in Disney because he knows our daughter loves it, so you will see him pop up in this report more than normal.
Next up: the trip details!
As I mentioned, this trip came about because we had some DVC points to burn; thanks Covid! May is not usually an ideal time to visit because of the heat, but what can you do?
Because we only booked a couple of months in advance, pickings were a bit slim (for those of you who don’t know, DVC is great in a lot of ways, but so few rooms are set aside to book with points vs. direct w/ Disney using cash, so you have to book very far in advance in most cases). We ultimately decided to do a split stay. So we stayed May 4th-May 7th at Boulder Ridge Villas, and May 7th-10th at the Boardwalk, both in one bedrooms. We had stayed in a one bedroom for the first time for our trip last September and we loved it. We had previously been skeptical because it’s double the points to be able to hold the same number of people as a studio (less in some cases, actually!), but the extra space was well worth it.
In the next post, I’ll get into some of the pre-trip planning details and drama. And boy, did this trip have some unique drama, so stay tuned!