I Think This Might Be Getting a Little Out of Hand...PTR - Updated 9/1

[sandam1]

So I went back and forth about whether to do a pre-trip report. I've never done one before, but love reading other people's and I wanted to try my own. However, I am thoroughly expecting my work life to go sideways at some point in the near future so I wasn't sure that I was going to have the time and focus to do one. But I'm going to do my best and see where we wind up...

Anyway, the whole story starts last year. My friend, Karen, and I came to Florida for a trip to celebrate my (ugh!) 40th birthday. It wound up taking place about a month before my actual birthday due to work. We spent two nights at Universal before moving to Disney for another three nights. We are serious Potter-heads and, having spent one day there the year before, decided that we HAD TO go back and spend some more time. But instead of buying 2 day, park-to-park tickets, we decided to splurge a little bit and buy annual passes (Splurge #1), figuring that we would plan another trip in the fall of 2016 before they expired. That was the plan at least.

But after we got back, fall seemed soooooo far away. So we started talking and it turns out that Karen, who lives in Indiana (I am just outside of Buffalo, NY), was going to Florida in February to visit her family. Well, that was too good of an opportunity to pass up and we wound up doing a quick, 3 day, 2 night "long weekend" to Universal (Splurge #2).

And then I started talking to another friend (and fellow Potter-head), Julie, who said that she would love to go to Universal. Well, that was all I needed to start planning this trip. The original plan was to do a 4 day, 3 night trip to Universal at the end of September, beginning of October, staying at Universal's Cabana Bay. But then Julie said something to the effect of "well, what about Disney?" I hadn't planned on adding Disney to the mix (mainly because the tickets are just so darn expensive). After thinking about it, we decided to add an additional night and do Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party (Splurge #3). But I hate, hate, HATE dealing with the potential Disney transportation/bus failures so a hotel near the Magic Kingdom was a must for the night (Splurge #4). The original plan was one night at the Wilderness Lodge. Both of us had stayed there before and liked it and the boat is super convenient.

Once the dates for MNSSHP were released, we finalized our dates - Monday, September 26 through Friday, September 30. That would give us three days at Universal, hitting none of Universal's early closings for HHN, and then going to MNSSHP on 9/29.

And then things started getting interesting! Many more splurges to comes...

 

[schumigirl]

Sounds like a fun trip!

I like trips with splurges........I like to do that......

Looking forward to reading along.........

 

[Robo56]

sandam 1 embrace the splurge. You only live once enjoy it. Will be reading along for all the upcoming splurges

 

[iona]

We'll be there at the same time so I'm looking forward to reading more about your plans (and maybe seeing if there are any ideas I can "borrow"...).

 

[sandam1]

embrace the splurge. You only live once enjoy it. Will be reading along for all the upcoming splurges

Most of the time, I'm embracing it. But every once in a while, I start to question whether I am going overboard. Hence, the title of this PTR.

We'll be there at the same time so I'm looking forward to reading more about your plans (and maybe seeing if there are any ideas I can "borrow"...).

Please feel free to share your trip plans as well. Hopefully, we can both get some ideas. At my work we have a term for "borrowing" ideas. It's called "R&D" or rip-off and duplicate and we do it all of the time.

 

[sandam1]

Sorry for the delay in posting! Things got kind of busy and I just haven't had a chance to do any fun trip planning.

So back to it...

The original (and current) plan was to spend the first three nights at Cabana Bay. I was able to book a Tower suite (tower is a must have since I want indoor corridors and proximity to the lazy river) with my APH rate for $119 per night. Score! I've stayed there on both of my previous trips - once in a standard room, which was a little on the small side, and once in a suite, which was very nice! I know that the suite is a bit of overkill for two people, but I think we will enjoy it. The kitchen also gives us the option of getting some groceries on the trip from the airport and saving a few $$$ on breakfast if we want.

So these are our digs at Universal:

The original plan was to check out of Cabana Bay on Thursday morning and move to a courtyard room at Disney's Wilderness Lodge. Both Julie and I stayed at WL before and enjoyed it. Julie has a Disney Visa card and booked it for her reward dollars so it was an almost "free" night, which made the price slightly easier to swallow. Keeping in mind that the one night at WL was costing more than the 3 nights at Cabana Bay, but whatever - we're on vacation.

And then the fall discounts came out...as soon as they were posted, I checked and there was nothing for our dates at WL. Phooey! But then I looked at what else was available (not that I was particularly interested in a different hotel) and noticed that we could get an Outer Building, Garden View room at the Grand Floridian!!! for $20 more. I was bouncing around, almost giddy at the idea. I have wanted to stay there since my first adult Disney trip and never thought that I would be able to afford it. But the glitch was that Julie was at work and since the reservation was in her name, she was the only person that could change the reservation (assuming that she was up for the change, which she was). I must have checked Disney's website 100 times over the course of the day to see if the room was still available. It was almost 8 p.m. that evening before Julie and I could connect to make the change. But with Splurge #5, we were booked at this beauty:



More to come...

 

[sandam1]

The next splurge happen shortly thereafter when our 180 day ADR window opened up. I didn't get up super early that day - I can't remember what it was, but I had something going - and, no surprise, by the time I got on-line none of the "good" restaurants were available (i.e. Be Our Guest or Cinderella's Royal Table). Knowing that we were going to want a sit-down dinner to keep us going strong through the party, I grabbed a 4ish reservation at The Plaza. I ate there in November when we did the Christmas party and enjoyed it, plus it's one of the most reasonable MK sit-down restaurants cost-wise.

But I kept checking back (because that's what you do when going to WDW). One day I did see a reservation for CRT, but by the time I logged in to grab it, it was gone. And then I scored a 6:05 p.m. reservation for Be Our Guest. Luckily, the system let me hold both of them until I could talk to Julie and see what she wanted to do. Well, she was all over the idea of BOG so I cancelled The Plaza and we officially had Splurge #6.



And that brings us to ever-changing idea of party costumes! When Julie's niece heard about we would be having dinner at BOG, she offered Julie her Belle costume. Yes, one of these:



I tried to explain that this dress wasn't exactly practical for a number of reasons - 1. How exactly where we going to get in there? 2. The plan was to do use our fast passes to do a few rides before dinner. Can you imagine trying to do anything in that outfit? 3. It's the end of September, but I know that it is likely going to be HOT! Julie started to say that she could wear it to dinner and then go back to the hotel and change, which had me . I know that the GF is close, but really!!! Finally, about a month ago, I was able to show her examples of what other people do as far as (practical) costumes and she got the idea. Her next idea was to do Tinkerbell (which seemed do-able), but her current thought is Joy from Inside Out.

I'm not terribly "into" Halloween and dressing up, but my favorite princess is Sleeping Beauty so that is my plan. I bought a pair of skorts at Kohl's a couple of months ago so all I need is a shirt. I've been trolling Etsy and these are my favorites right now:







My only hesitation is that they are all tank tops and I'm concerned about being chilly by the end of the night. I saw one short sleeve shirt that was similar at one point, but it was almost $90 and I was having a hard time spending THAT type of money on a costume. Of course, I didn't bookmark it and now I can't find it (which is maybe for the best). I may contact the seller of these and see if it's possible to get these designs in short sleeve. But I know that I need to make a decision soon. Because there are:

36 DAYS UNTIL WE LEAVE!!!!

And don't worry, the biggest splurge is yet to come...

 

[Lynne G]

I'm not dressing up for the Party either. Went last year the second week in October, and it was warm, even at night. This year, doing it the first week of October, and I'm just going to be in a Halloween t-shirt and shorts. Depending on how cold you get, even a tank might not be bad at night. Maybe see if you can wear another shirt under it, to keep warmer?

Love splurges. That's why I booked the Villain's Party, and some of the F&W events too, including a D23 package. Became more money for the mouse than I first thought. Yep, splurged on this upcoming vacation.

 

[sandam1]

I'm going to leave you hanging for a bit more about my latest splurge so I can get caught up on a few more of the trip details.

Arranging our flights has been a little interesting, to say the least. The plan was (and is) to take an early morning, non-stop flight on Southwest out of Buffalo, which will get us into Orlando around 10:30 a.m. Our return flight is also non-stop on Southwest, leaving Orlando around 6:30 p.m. and gets us home around 9 p.m. These flights work out really well, giving us the bulk of both days to do things.

Of course, between the time we originally looked at our dates and when we were finally ready to book, the price went up. Not too much, but up nonetheless. Finally, nervous that they would go up even further, I just booked them. Since I booked them, the flight costs have bounced around and, after 3 phone calls to Southwest, I've managed to save $50+ on Julie's flights (hers were slightly more expensive when they were booked) and about $30+ on mine. The credits need to be used by mid-May of next year - whatever are we going to do?

We haven't made a firm decision on ground transportation yet. I e-mailed Tony Hinds a while ago, getting a quote of $50 each way for MCO to Universal and then Universal to Disney. As some of you may know, I had a TERRIBLE experience with the SuperStar Shuttle (booked through Universal) on my February trip and said never again! We're definitely going to use a private car for the the first two legs, but I'm still waffling on the return trip from Disney to the airport. Tony quoted $60 for that leg and I'm tempted to splurge again (no surprise there) and just do it. On my November trip, we wound up on the Magical Express for 1.5 hours with an ill-behaved (and very loud) child, making for a very stressful trip to the airport so I'm a little leary of a repeat experience. Ugh! What to do? What to do?

Our Fast Passes are booked for pre-Halloween party. The only time that I've been able to snag for the Mine Train is 5:15-6:15 p.m. and, unless I can move it back closer to 5:30 p.m., we may have to only use 2 FP reservations. I also have a 3:30-4:30 p.m. for Pirates (one of the other must-dos). Not ideal, but it's the best that I've been able to do.

I'm super excited that Toothsome is going to be open for our trip! I forwarded the Touring Plans blog entry about it to Julie and her e-mail back suggested that we just cancel our hotel reservations for the week and move into Toothsome. I predict more than one trip there during our stay.

As the calendar flipped to September today, I got hit with the realization that our trip is this month!!! Yikes! In addition to arranging ground transportation, still on my to-do list:

- Picking a Sleeping Beauty shirt to order. Looking more closely at the Etsy listings that I mentioned in a previous post, they do offer the shirts in regular t-shirts as well. So now I have to decide what to order? Do I "make it pink" or "make it blue?" The shirt is going to be Splurge #7 at $38.99. I showed these shirts to Julie on Tuesday and she is considering buying one as well. But she keeps changing her mind so I'm not holding my breath.

- Ordering a Harry Potter shirt (or two). I keep looking for the "perfect" Harry Potter shirt and just haven't found anything that I love in the parks. So I've been looking on-line and have seen several that I like a lot. I want at least one (maybe two) for our Universal days. But I seriously need to make a decision on this as well.

- Either order a wand holder or make something. I broke down and bought an interactive wand on our February trip (I had bought a regular wand on my first trip to the WWOHP right after Hogsmeade opened), but carrying it around is a bit of a pain. It fits (barely) in my park bag, but then the bag doesn't zipper, which makes me nervous. So I need to come up with some way to secure it. That may be this weekend's project.

I suppose you want to know what the big splurge is...hint, it involves another plane trip in my near future. But more on that later...