Lesley Wake
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2017
Hindsight is 2020 - A VERY late Trip Report!
Hello everyone, from your “favorite” super-late trip reporter, lol! What better time to start posting about my 2020 Disney trips than over a year after they happened?!?
Yeah, sorry about that one! I considered not posting these at all, but realized I actually enjoy reliving the trips, so would still like to share them, but I’m ok if you totally skip them!
So, I will be including 2 trips in this report. I normally would do these in two separate reports, but I’m probably not going to go crazy detailed, so will likely just post as one report (with a possible separate cruise trip report on the cruise boards).
I’m actually so so so happy I did these trips when I did them, which was pre-pandemic/lockdown. If I had postponed them by a year, who knows if/when they would have been possible.
Trip 1 – New Years Eve, December 27, 2019 – January 5, 2020, all at WDW.
Trip 2 – WDW, Star Wars Disney Cruise, WDW again – Feb 22, 2020 – March 9, 2020 (just squeaked it in before lockdown).
So, lets get started with Trip 1 – New Years Eve!
A bit about me if you haven’t read any of my previous reports – I’m Lesley and am an engineer in Los Angeles. I’ve been a Disney fan all of my life, going to Disneyland often. Finally I did my first WDW trip in 2017, in the middle of a hurricane (TR)! I quickly got hooked and returned to WDW multiple times (you can see my signature for the various Trip Reports). Add in a trip to Paris in June 2018, and then the Asian parks in Oct/Nov 2019 (still finishing up that report), as well as a cruise in February 2019, and, well, I’m a Disney addict, lol! Pre-lockdown I would usually be at Disneyland a couple days a month, even if just for a few hours. Most of my trips have been solo, though I have gone with some family and made some great friends, including an EPIC trip with about 30 dissers!
While it's been over a year since I've been to Disney (with the exception of a couple Downtown Disney visits) I am excited because I got my first vaccine shot about 1.5 weeks ago, so I will be at Disneyworld in May!
As an intro to this trip, it was only a partly solo trip. Instead I was joined for the first part of it with some great friends, Dina (@dina444444), Willis (@wnwardii), and Zach (@AMusicLifeForMe) (for some reason those tags aren't working right now)
We actually all met because of the Dis! I think Dina, Willis, and Zach first really met at the Dis 20th anniversary event in 2017, but they were all disboards friends before then. I ended up connecting with Zach in 2017 after reading his trip reports, and we ended up deciding to meet up when he came to Disneyland for the Candlelight Processional in December 2017. Dina is also a Disneyland local, so she was visiting with him too, and we connected, and started hanging out at Disneyland together occasionally. In mid-2018, Zach came back to Disneyland, and Willis also met everyone there, so I got to meet him and we all became friends. I think there’s been several Disneyland meet-ups since then.
For the trip itself, I think I decided in late 2018 to do the NYE trip for the following year (2019-2020). My friend, @chunkymonkey, was considering coming too, but she and her husband dropped out sometime in late 2019. Zach had done previous NYE trips, so he already decided to come too. I had talked about the trip with Dina on one of our Disneyland days and mentioned, hey, did you want to come? She had a valid AP and would just need to sleep on the pull-out couch in my room. So, why not! And I think sometime in the summer Willis decided to come too. So, it ended up being a nice 4-some. Though everyone else went back to normal life on January 1st, I stuck it out for the week.
So, anyways, that’s the history behind it.
I rented DVC points to stay at the Boardwalk villas for 8 nights, and ended up adding on a 9th night with my own points after flight prices were excessive, so I extended my trip a day. (Willis stayed at Pop Century and Zach stayed at the Poly Villas.) We did all our scheduling/booking far in advance, knowing crowds were no joke, lol! And overall, I think we had a pretty good time!
Hello everyone, from your “favorite” super-late trip reporter, lol! What better time to start posting about my 2020 Disney trips than over a year after they happened?!?
I’m actually so so so happy I did these trips when I did them, which was pre-pandemic/lockdown. If I had postponed them by a year, who knows if/when they would have been possible.
Trip 1 – New Years Eve, December 27, 2019 – January 5, 2020, all at WDW.
Trip 2 – WDW, Star Wars Disney Cruise, WDW again – Feb 22, 2020 – March 9, 2020 (just squeaked it in before lockdown).
So, lets get started with Trip 1 – New Years Eve!
A bit about me if you haven’t read any of my previous reports – I’m Lesley and am an engineer in Los Angeles. I’ve been a Disney fan all of my life, going to Disneyland often. Finally I did my first WDW trip in 2017, in the middle of a hurricane (TR)! I quickly got hooked and returned to WDW multiple times (you can see my signature for the various Trip Reports). Add in a trip to Paris in June 2018, and then the Asian parks in Oct/Nov 2019 (still finishing up that report), as well as a cruise in February 2019, and, well, I’m a Disney addict, lol! Pre-lockdown I would usually be at Disneyland a couple days a month, even if just for a few hours. Most of my trips have been solo, though I have gone with some family and made some great friends, including an EPIC trip with about 30 dissers!
While it's been over a year since I've been to Disney (with the exception of a couple Downtown Disney visits) I am excited because I got my first vaccine shot about 1.5 weeks ago, so I will be at Disneyworld in May!
As an intro to this trip, it was only a partly solo trip. Instead I was joined for the first part of it with some great friends, Dina (@dina444444), Willis (@wnwardii), and Zach (@AMusicLifeForMe) (for some reason those tags aren't working right now)
We actually all met because of the Dis! I think Dina, Willis, and Zach first really met at the Dis 20th anniversary event in 2017, but they were all disboards friends before then. I ended up connecting with Zach in 2017 after reading his trip reports, and we ended up deciding to meet up when he came to Disneyland for the Candlelight Processional in December 2017. Dina is also a Disneyland local, so she was visiting with him too, and we connected, and started hanging out at Disneyland together occasionally. In mid-2018, Zach came back to Disneyland, and Willis also met everyone there, so I got to meet him and we all became friends. I think there’s been several Disneyland meet-ups since then.
For the trip itself, I think I decided in late 2018 to do the NYE trip for the following year (2019-2020). My friend, @chunkymonkey, was considering coming too, but she and her husband dropped out sometime in late 2019. Zach had done previous NYE trips, so he already decided to come too. I had talked about the trip with Dina on one of our Disneyland days and mentioned, hey, did you want to come? She had a valid AP and would just need to sleep on the pull-out couch in my room. So, why not! And I think sometime in the summer Willis decided to come too. So, it ended up being a nice 4-some. Though everyone else went back to normal life on January 1st, I stuck it out for the week.
So, anyways, that’s the history behind it.
I rented DVC points to stay at the Boardwalk villas for 8 nights, and ended up adding on a 9th night with my own points after flight prices were excessive, so I extended my trip a day. (Willis stayed at Pop Century and Zach stayed at the Poly Villas.) We did all our scheduling/booking far in advance, knowing crowds were no joke, lol! And overall, I think we had a pretty good time!
Last edited:
