I Haven't Even Decided We're Actually Going - Pre-Trip Report

[usd2bmd]

I'm late to the party but I'm here...Hope you continue the PTR , because like you I love reading them. It's what keeps me going between trips. I didn't go for the first time until 2002...I was 30 something..LOL. We are right now talking about going again. but not until 2013..UGH. If we make that trip it will have been 4 years between trips. For us, that is way too long, but we had deicded to do some other vacation things as a family. Now we're talking about going for a longer trip (10 days) and driving down. I live in New York so it would really be a road trip. I come from a large family and we didn't really take family vacations when I was younger, it was just too expensive. So I am really looking forward to the roadtrip portion of the trip... Hope to see more of your PTR...maybe you'll inspire me to write one of my own!!!

 

[kthshh]

I'm late to the party but I'm here...Hope you continue the PTR , because like you I love reading them. It's what keeps me going between trips. I didn't go for the first time until 2002...I was 30 something..LOL. We are right now talking about going again. but not until 2013..UGH. If we make that trip it will have been 4 years between trips. For us, that is way too long, but we had deicded to do some other vacation things as a family. Now we're talking about going for a longer trip (10 days) and driving down. I live in New York so it would really be a road trip. I come from a large family and we didn't really take family vacations when I was younger, it was just too expensive. So I am really looking forward to the roadtrip portion of the trip... Hope to see more of your PTR...maybe you'll inspire me to write one of my own!!!

Really shocked someone dug this out! I haven't posted in a long while. Maybe I can be convinced to follow this thing through.

 

[kthshh]

Well, I'm back! I've been out of whack since returning from our week long vacation in July. We had a great time and I'm sure I will tell you all about it soon.

School starts here next week, and it's time to hit it. We went to Meet the Teacher night earlier today, and both my boys have new to the school teachers.

KJ, my 9yo, has started to play football. This is his first year. Last night he came in from practice close to tears. He was tired and itchy and had been pushed beyond his limits. But he's a go getter and couldn't wait to get back to practice today.

Lil C, my 7yo, has started gymnastics. It's his first time as well. He's loving every minute of it. Everytime I walk in a room now, he's standing on his head.

Both boys chose to try new activities this year. They've both played baseball and soccer in the past. Each of these was at our encouraging. This is the first time they have picked for themselves.

I'm actually heading to Orlando for a conference in a week. I will really only have one free afternooon. I'm trying to convince my coworker to buy an after 4 conference ticket. But it's not necessary that I go to the parks. I don't know if I can handle such a small taste of it. I'd almost rather not go than to be just teased with it. We shall see.

Another coworker is planning a trip with her husband, daughter and two grandkids in October. They'll be in the parks for three days. We have a lunch scheduled for next week so that she can find out all the must do's. She hasn't been in 15-20 years. I'm looking forward to discussing one of my favorite subjects with her.

So tell me, would you opt to spend one afternoon at one park if you had the opportunity to do so?

 

[Tink2Day]

Your family is just adorable!
Those smiles on the boy's faces (including your big boy) have me smiling to myself as I read your report!
That certainly isn't MY look when I get on a plane. This is more like my 'look'

Anyway I'm in, can't wait to hear about all your plans and I sure hope they come to fruition. I'm trying to plan something as well but it will probably be a school time solo trip without the grandkids.

I see your plans are changing a bit but I'm behind in your report still.

 

[usd2bmd]

Really shocked someone dug this out! I haven't posted in a long while. Maybe I can be convinced to follow this thing through.

I hope so...can't wait to read!!!

 

[usd2bmd]

Well, I'm back! I've been out of whack since returning from our week long vacation in July. We had a great time and I'm sure I will tell you all about it soon.

School starts here next week, and it's time to hit it. We went to Meet the Teacher night earlier today, and both my boys have new to the school teachers.

KJ, my 9yo, has started to play football. This is his first year. Last night he came in from practice close to tears. He was tired and itchy and had been pushed beyond his limits. But he's a go getter and couldn't wait to get back to practice today.

Lil C, my 7yo, has started gymnastics. It's his first time as well. He's loving every minute of it. Everytime I walk in a room now, he's standing on his head.


Both boys chose to try new activities this year. They've both played baseball and soccer in the past. Each of these was at our encouraging. This is the first time they have picked for themselves.

I'm actually heading to Orlando for a conference in a week. I will really only have one free afternooon. I'm trying to convince my coworker to buy an after 4 conference ticket. But it's not necessary that I go to the parks. I don't know if I can handle such a small taste of it. I'd almost rather not go than to be just teased with it. We shall see.

Another coworker is planning a trip with her husband, daughter and two grandkids in October. They'll be in the parks for three days. We have a lunch scheduled for next week so that she can find out all the must do's. She hasn't been in 15-20 years. I'm looking forward to discussing one of my favorite subjects with her.

So tell me, would you opt to spend one afternoon at one park if you had the opportunity to do so?

I would definitely spend an afternoon in any of the parks if I could. I work ed for an insurance company years back and was on catastrophe duty and working in Orlando and on one of my only free nights I went to the Magic Kingdom by myself. It was wonderful to just walk around and soak it all in. I will take any chance I can to enjoy the park.

 

[kthshh]

I've been gone from this report too long! I'm not good with regular updates. I always loved writing while I was in school, but my career path involves numbers. And I'm far from the habit of daily writing.

My work trip to Orlanda at the end of August was great. We stayed at the Hyatt Grand Cypress which is very close to Downtown Disney. The hotel was lovely, and all food served was delicious. This stay actually got me to consider staying off property for our next visit. But I've got mixed emotions about that. It's weird. I'd been to Orlando twice in the last few years and each time we used only Disney transportation. I love not having to worry about directions and such. So once we crossed under the sign welcoming us to Disney World, for me, the rest of the world ceased to exist. Now that I know just how close off-property can be, it's like some of the magic is gone. So I'm not sure if I'll feel the same, when I have to leave Disney property at the end of a day, and see grocery stores and drug stores and all that 'real life' stuff.

Now, I'm sure you're wondering, what did you do on your free afternoon? Well, we went to Epcot, of course!!! I convinced two of my coworkers to buy the after 4 conference tickets. We should've brought the after 2 tix because we were done with our work day by 12:30 pm. We quickly changed into park clothes and inquired about the hotel shuttle. They only had two departure times and that was for earlier in the morning. But we found out about return times so that we could get back with no problems. We took a $6 cab ride to DTD, and spent some time exploring the stores in the area. Then we caught a bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge to see if we could spot some animals. Of course my coworkers were impressed with my vast knowledge (yeah, right!) of Disney, and were just happy that they didn't have to worry about what to do or how to do it.

We left AKL and headed to Epcot by bus. We still had about 20 minutes to wait. Note: If you purchase after 4 tix, you will not be able to enter prior to 4pm. We talked about what we would like to eat for dinner. I even tried getting us an ADR but nothing was available. We figured we'd eat CS or just check to see if we could walk in.

One of my coworkers had come to Epcot the previous year during the same convention along with a group of others. They also went to MK. I believe that she thought she'd 'done Disney'. My other coworker had never gone to Epcot before (only MK as a child). So for the first ride, we walked onto Spaceship Earth. This was deemed as the best history lesson ever. We weren't really planning to do many rides, but tour the countries. I then took them into Club Cool because I wanted to trick them into trying the Beverly. One did and then decided that she couldn't trust me anymore! LOL!

I really wanted to ride Soaring but the wait was 60 minutes. We rode Living with the Land instead, and then entered the countries. We walked up to Le Cellier and found out we could be seated immediately. The food was absolutely delicious. I'd never eaten there before but will definitely be back.
It was lightly raining when we left the restaurant, but I was prepared. I pulled out the dollar store ponchos, and we continued on our way.

We explored all the countries, did some shopping, drank some wine and had a great time. We left Epcot right around 9 just as Illuminations was starting. We took the monorail back to the TTC and you could see both Illuminations and Wishes going depending on which direction you looked.

We had to wait a few minutes for the Hyatt bus, and then it was back to the hotel. This bus was not up to Disney standards by any means. I always took for granted the cleanliness and freshness of the Disney buses. I knew immediately that this definitely wasn't Disney!

The conference as a whole was pretty good. My presentation went great on Wednesday and we made it back to Dallas safely on Thursday.

I can't wait to go again. I'm glad I spent the evening at Epcot. Those were 50 well spent dollars!

 

[usd2bmd]

I'm so glad you decided to write some more...I'm still following and can't wait to read... I wish my business took me to Florida. I haven't been there in business since 2004. Of course, we ahve takne several family trips since then, but it was nice to be able to explore the Magic Kingdom at my own pace and take as many pictures as I wanted. THat is the one thing my husband and daughter give me a hard time about. They don't understand why I have to take pictures of everything on every trip. Can't wait to hear about the planning of your next trip.

 

[kthshh]

Maureen, thanks so much for following along. I'll try to do better with the updates. This was the first time that I'd ever gone to Florida on business. I hope to get the opportunity to go next year as well. I'm not much of a photographer. I leave that up to my husband. He ensure that we get lots of pictures and that we stop for the photopass photographers. I would just keep walking by!

I see you're from New York. I really want to visit someday. New York City is the one place in the world that actually terrifies me. I think it's because I've watched too many 'end of the world' movies and NYC is always destroyed. But don't worry, I won't let the fear keep me from coming there.

Hopefully, I'll be back later today with an actual report on next year's trip.

I'm so glad you decided to write some more...I'm still following and can't wait to read... I wish my business took me to Florida. I haven't been there in business since 2004. Of course, we ahve takne several family trips since then, but it was nice to be able to explore the Magic Kingdom at my own pace and take as many pictures as I wanted. THat is the one thing my husband and daughter give me a hard time about. They don't understand why I have to take pictures of everything on every trip. Can't wait to hear about the planning of your next trip.

 

[kthshh]

I had a whole post prepared that got lost. UGHHHH!

So I guess my update will be considerably shorter. We don't have anything put together as for a trip next summer. But it's still leaning towards Disney!

My hubby really wants to travel with friends, and introduce others to the joys of WDW. I've never done a friend trip and very apprehensive about driving 17 hours and staying in a house with others. I'm not even sure that these friends are going to commit to going or not. I know that I will have to keep this a very cost conscience trip if they do go.

Here are our options right now:
1. Travel with two other families. Rent a van, drive, and rent a house together. Purchase 3 day tix using the YES program (if it's available). Maybe spend a day at the beach.
Note: I was originally okay with this option because we were considering doing a cruise later in the summer. We have since decided to do some work on our home, and two trips aren't in the budget. I really want to back off from this, and make my primary vacation larger (but still cheaper than a Disney cruise).

2. Each family travels seperately (or the other two families can drive together). My family will fly because I really don't want to drive. We will likely stay longer, but spend our WDW time in the house with them. Then we will move on to Universal and spend 1 to 2 nights in a hotel on property.
This will offset the housing cost for the others but will increase their travel costs.


3. Go and plan strictly on our own and let the other families know that we can provide advice, and meet up with them on the park days and maybe catch a few meals together. If we do this, we would likely stay in a WDW resort, and then move to a Universal resort, renting a car for the Universal stay only. I can provide info to the others concerning timeshare tours so they can cheaply purchase the Touch of Magic tickets and/or stay in a hotel for a smaller price.

Those are just the broad details. Who knows how this will all end? You'll just have to hope that I continue to post so that you can find out! LOL!!!

 

[kthshh]

I love Fall!!! There I've said it. And I've always loved it. Living in the south, means that you have to wait longer for the cooler temperatures, but in my mind, the season starts with "Back to School". I love the transition from shorts to long pants and wearing light jackets. I love that you can go outside and enjoy yourself. I like that it gets darker quicker. I love the colors and smells of Fall. I love that Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are near! Did I mention that I really love this time of year?

Fall also means it's my birthday! I turned 38 on September 30, and had a wonderful birthday weekend. My hubby and I both took that Friday off work and enjoyed spending time together. We started out with a visit to the gynecologist for my annual exam. Then we ate lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, On the Border, yum! We did some shopping and some window shopping at electronics. We even went to stand in line to get my car tag renewed. Although we were both off, we let the boys go to After School care, and picked them up at the normal time. All of my boys treated me to a delicious dinner out at BJ's. We don't typically go out on a Friday night and it was a welcomed change.

We started Saturday with K's (DS9) football game. My special date night was going to happen on this night, but I didn't know where we were going or what we were doing. The babysitter arrived on time, and we were off. I was told that we were going to the Hotel Intercontinental, but didn't know why. I did ask if we were staying and was told 'no'. It ended up being a Murder Mystery Dinner! This was so much fun. We didn't guess who did it, but really enjoyed ourselves.

This past weekend the boys had both Friday and Monday off school. We worked Friday, but decided to make it a fun weekend. On Friday night, we went to see Real Steel at the movies. If you have boys, they will LOVE this movie. Saturday was football again, and a trip to our city's annual Fall Festival. That's one of the things, that I love about Fall. I could go from city to city and festival to festival. Just connecting with the community and seeing the local talent and eating the fair food....makes me come alive. Sunday was church and cooking dinner for my family and running a few errands. I went into Target and stared at an IPad. This is one of those "wants" that I'm trying to fight off!

Monday was a day that we look forward to all year. The day we visit the State Fair of Texas. We didn't grow up here, so we didn't come to visit until we were both adults. But it's the ultimate Fall Festival! The kids do the rides, we eat, we watch shows, we eat, we look at the cars, we eat, and we people watch. Did I mention that we eat? Yes, all the glorious fried foods! We try something new each year. And this year's new favorite was the fried cheeseburger balls. Delicious! Between the four of us, we consumed the following...fried cheeseburger balls, fried smores, fried Coke, fried catfish and french fries, cotton candy (only bought one bag, and we still have some left!), candy apple, ice cream Dibs, push-up, lemonade, pepsi, 2 Gatorades, and an order of nachos. We only buy one order of stuff, and then just share with whoever wants to try it. We had so much fun that I'm seriously considering returning this Sunday afternoon. Of course, we will scale way back on the rides and won't eat as much, but there are still a ton more shows to catch and so much to see. We just have to make our plans clear with the boys before we go.

Wow, that was a lot. I actually have some thoughts on our next summer vacation. But I'll have to come back to fill you guys in.

 

[baseballmickey]

Hey, you ever get a trip put together for this summer??

I was just working on my oft-neglected TR and saw you had a link to your PTR... I read through and I'm very curious if you put anything together or not... even without an actual trip, I was having fun reading your flashbacks!! (I was a big fan of "LOST" too!)

 

[kthshh]

Hey, you ever get a trip put together for this summer??

I was just working on my oft-neglected TR and saw you had a link to your PTR... I read through and I'm very curious if you put anything together or not... even without an actual trip, I was having fun reading your flashbacks!! (I was a big fan of "LOST" too!)

It's hard to believe that someone would actually be interested in what I write. I haven't updated in a long time, and I guess I should remove that link from my signature. I barely post so I didn't really think about it.

I rewatched Lost on Netflix earlier this year. It's a lot easier to follow when you can watch everything back to back. Honestly, though, trying to do the flashbacks, flashforwards, and the present in this trip report was a harder task than I thought. It might have worked better if I was posting regularly. I always had to reread what I'd previously posted to know what to post next.

Since it's July 2013 - I will do my one last update and let you know if we actually made it to Disney, took a Disney cruise, traveled with friends, or decide to go in a different direction all together. I'll be back soon with that answer.

 

[kthshh]

I typed up a great response, thought about copying it into Word, and didn't.
Now it's gone. I hate when that happens.

I will try to post again later this afternoon.

It's hard to believe that someone would actually be interested in what I write. I haven't updated in a long time, and I guess I should remove that link from my signature. I barely post so I didn't really think about it.

I rewatched Lost on Netflix earlier this year. It's a lot easier to follow when you can watch everything back to back. Honestly, though, trying to do the flashbacks, flashforwards, and the present in this trip report was a harder task than I thought. It might have worked better if I was posting regularly. I always had to reread what I'd previously posted to know what to post next.

Since it's July 2013 - I will do my one last update and let you know if we actually made it to Disney, took a Disney cruise, traveled with friends, or decide to go in a different direction all together. I'll be back soon with that answer.

 

[kthshh]

After losing my post on yesterday, I was almost ready to throw in the towel and not come back to finish. But I promised I would so here it is. The one thing I learned in doing this report was that “flashing” all over the place kept me confused and I had to reread all my posts every time I got ready to post just to know what I needed to talk about. LOL! Maybe I should have kept it simple or perhaps posted more regularly. I don’t know.

I won’t keep you waiting on the decision. We decided not to go to Disney this year for our summer vacation. We thought about it long and hard and back in January we agreed to go to my family reunion in Chicago. Since it’s an area that we hadn’t visited before, we chose to make a week out of it and that would be our big trip for the year. Before I get into that, I wanted to go back and wrap up some of the loose ends of our trip report.

When I last posted, my oldest son, K, was playing football. He fell in love with the sport. My youngest started to play basketball and enjoyed his time on the team. K didn’t play winter basketball but practiced with his brother’s team. He begged to play in the spring, and we agreed to let him play. He fell in love with that sport, too. He is presently counting the weeks down until football starts back up again.

During my flashbacks, I talked about other trips we’ve taken as a family. Here’s a rundown of things we’ve done over the years:

July 2008 – 2 days, 2 nights – San Antonio – Sea World – 1st real get away with our family of 4

June 2009 – 7 night trip to WDW. Animal Kingdom Lodge..Dining Plan..Water Parks and More. This trip was so much fun and begin our love of Disney.

Sept 2009 – 3 night trip to WDW. Loved it so much, we had to return. Well, I did. Caribbean Beach Resort. Free Dining. MNSSHP. Short lines, no rain, very tiring 4 days. Lots of Fun!

March 2010 – 3 days, 2 nights in Galveston, TX

June 2010 – 5 night Carnival cruise out of Galveston. Ports – Progresso and Cozumel. Most relaxing vacation to date. Food was great. Shows weren’t so good. But we enjoyed it very much. And we would definitely cruise Carnival again.

March 2011 – 3 days, 2 nights – Disneyland. I really wanted to go to WDW, but airfare prices were sky high. This was booked about a month out. I took me a day to get the bright idea to switch coasts. Everything lined up perfectly to go to California. We stayed at the Portofino Inn in Ahaheim. We visited the beach and Hollywood during those 3 days. We all had a good time, but it was much too short. The boys really want to go back to visit Cars Land.

July 2011 – 7 days in Gatlinburg, TN – Smoky Mountains – Absolutely beautiful. Very relaxing vacation. I learned that I didn’t mind going to the grocery store or cooking while away. My oldest DS would go back tomorrow if he could.

March 2012 – Spring Break Staycation. We did a lot that Dallas/Ft. Worth has to offer. We treated those days as if they were like vacation days. Leaving home early and staying out late. The money saved on lack of airfare and hotel went towards some repair work on our home. We painted and put down new flooring in most every room except the bedrooms. Loving the look of our home and glad we sacrificed to get this done.

Now this brings me back to right now. Summer 2012. We haven’t even left the DFW metroplex the entire year. That’s a big adjustment for us. But in just a few days we will fly into Chicago. During the week, we will drive to Wisconsin Dells, see my family at the family reunion in Indiana, and cover many of the touristy offerings of Chicago. Our bags are mostly packed and we are all pretty much ready to go. Just counting down the days.

You may be wondering, what happened to the trip with friends. That didn’t pan out. I think they really wanted to go, but the actual cost of the trip was more than they were willing and/or able to pay. I never got a response from the very first email that was sent out and no one mentioned anything else about it in conversation. After talking with my husband, I let it go back in December. One of the ladies involved actually asked in May about the plans. I told her that since there didn’t seem to be much interest, that we had made other plans. I wonder why she even brought it up. She knew that in the very least, we had to make a deposit on the vacation home. We actually have another family who seems pretty serious about taking a trip next year. They are up to go anywhere. We haven’t talked about budgets or anything so we will see how that goes.

So I’m bringing this PTR to an end…but that doesn’t mean that we won’t be going to Disney at all this year. You never really know with us. I loved going in the off season. And the current Free Dining promotions have been calling my name. If airfare participates, then you never know. We may be back. I’ll let you know if we do.

Thanks for reading along….and I guess I can say that I did actually finish the report!