I know, I know, you must all be saying how can I possibly title a trip report to Disney as "Grin and Bear It". 
Well the whole time I was at Disney I kept trying to think of an appropriate title for my report when I came back and unfortunately this is it. It will all make more sense as I elaborate further. First of all the cast included:
Myself - 35 year single gal, this was my 2nd trip to Disney
Jane Smith - 62 year old first timer to Disney (you'll know why I excluded the correct name later!!!!)
To give a little background into this trip, I had been desparately wanting to return to Disney since 2002 when I was first there. My first trip was quite short, only 6 days and that included 2 days at Universal, so entirely not enough time to properly visit Disney (and I was paying for both myself and my friend, toooo much money to shell out!!!) In January I decided that I really needed a vacation. A friend of mine from church and I started discussing possible plans to visit Romania in the Fall for about 2 weeks. Well the more I thought about this, the more I felt I really should take a shorter trip with her first to see if we could get along traveling together. I suggested a short spa weekend, but had in passing mentioned Disney. I never thought Jane Smith would go for Disney, as she hates children, but surprisingly enough she said she would love to do Disney, so my Disney trip was born.
I am pretty lucky in that I work in a corporate travel department for a large company, so I do massive group movement and thus reap a lot of hotel points, etc. from these bookings. I started doing some checking and was able to get 4 nights at the Crowne Plaza Universal with my priority club points and 2 nights at the Dolphin with my Starwood points, I was happy as could be! I really wanted to stay on property the entire stay, but off property is still better than no property at Disney!!! LOL Next was coordinating our airline tickets, you see airlines are not a travel agent's friend, so I very rarely am ever able to reap any sort of agent benefits from them. I was able to get fairly reasonable flights on Northwest out of Detroit, so I was pleased. I was even able to get the last flight of the day on the outbound and the last flight on the return, to maximize my Disney stay. Next came a car rental, again used free vouchers from work and only needed to pay taxes, not a bad deal. Lastly was the Disney tickets. Disney does offer agents a reduced rate, but I figured out I had enough Hilton Honor Points to get a free 4 day park hopper (still had the old tickets left I guess), so I used the points for that ticket. I had one day left on my park hopper from my last trip, so I figured 5 days would be perfect. My last free day I was going to go to Universal for one day on a complimentary agent pass. So now I was all set, all I had to do was make some PS seatings, read up on what I wanted to do, and get my packing finished. You see, packing for me is a major event, I am horrible at packing lightly, but knew I did not want to check any luggage in, so this was a task in itself for me, but I did it!!!!
Up next.....the day of departure and why I titled this "grin and bear it".
Well the whole time I was at Disney I kept trying to think of an appropriate title for my report when I came back and unfortunately this is it. It will all make more sense as I elaborate further. First of all the cast included:Myself - 35 year single gal, this was my 2nd trip to Disney
Jane Smith - 62 year old first timer to Disney (you'll know why I excluded the correct name later!!!!)
To give a little background into this trip, I had been desparately wanting to return to Disney since 2002 when I was first there. My first trip was quite short, only 6 days and that included 2 days at Universal, so entirely not enough time to properly visit Disney (and I was paying for both myself and my friend, toooo much money to shell out!!!) In January I decided that I really needed a vacation. A friend of mine from church and I started discussing possible plans to visit Romania in the Fall for about 2 weeks. Well the more I thought about this, the more I felt I really should take a shorter trip with her first to see if we could get along traveling together. I suggested a short spa weekend, but had in passing mentioned Disney. I never thought Jane Smith would go for Disney, as she hates children, but surprisingly enough she said she would love to do Disney, so my Disney trip was born.
I am pretty lucky in that I work in a corporate travel department for a large company, so I do massive group movement and thus reap a lot of hotel points, etc. from these bookings. I started doing some checking and was able to get 4 nights at the Crowne Plaza Universal with my priority club points and 2 nights at the Dolphin with my Starwood points, I was happy as could be! I really wanted to stay on property the entire stay, but off property is still better than no property at Disney!!! LOL Next was coordinating our airline tickets, you see airlines are not a travel agent's friend, so I very rarely am ever able to reap any sort of agent benefits from them. I was able to get fairly reasonable flights on Northwest out of Detroit, so I was pleased. I was even able to get the last flight of the day on the outbound and the last flight on the return, to maximize my Disney stay. Next came a car rental, again used free vouchers from work and only needed to pay taxes, not a bad deal. Lastly was the Disney tickets. Disney does offer agents a reduced rate, but I figured out I had enough Hilton Honor Points to get a free 4 day park hopper (still had the old tickets left I guess), so I used the points for that ticket. I had one day left on my park hopper from my last trip, so I figured 5 days would be perfect. My last free day I was going to go to Universal for one day on a complimentary agent pass. So now I was all set, all I had to do was make some PS seatings, read up on what I wanted to do, and get my packing finished. You see, packing for me is a major event, I am horrible at packing lightly, but knew I did not want to check any luggage in, so this was a task in itself for me, but I did it!!!!
Up next.....the day of departure and why I titled this "grin and bear it".
