My tenth trip and still so many new things! A February 2016 Disneymoon PTR *Last Updates 2/10*

[PhoenixStrength]

Can I go slap the woman? Seriously this is not about "her". You are a saint to deal with this. At least you get to get married on Valentines Day and Geitge can't possibly forget your anniversary

Yeah, we were quite upset and shocked by her actions too. I know she sounds selfish from what I've been saying, but she normally isn't at all. She is really a very funny, sweet, generous person that we both adore, which made her behavior in all of this more confusing and infuriating. I'm actually about to add something to the end of my last post, as she texted us this morning saying she can come that weekend and can't wait for it, so there is that at least.

Funny enough George's parents said the same thing about not being able to forget our anniversary! George doesn't have the best memory, so it will help!

 

[afwdwfan]

Holy crap! That's just crazy!!! I'm so sorry for all of the trouble you've had to go through, but I definitely give you credit for being the bigger person and trying to accommodate her. I'd have given up on that idea a long time ago. I think the new dates look like they should work well for you and I'm glad you were able to overcome everything and come up with a better plan. And I hope she can actually, really, truly make it out there this time!

Oh yeah, congratulations on the new job!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Holy crap! That's just crazy!!! I'm so sorry for all of the trouble you've had to go through, but I definitely give you credit for being the bigger person and trying to accommodate her. I'd have given up on that idea a long time ago. I think the new dates look like they should work well for you and I'm glad you were able to overcome everything and come up with a better plan. And I hope she can actually, really, truly make it out there this time!

Oh yeah, congratulations on the new job!

Thanks! We really did consider just saying oh well to her and not changing it, but after looking and seeing that it would actually save us money to go in February we decided to go for it. And if she changes her mind and sees she can't come then it will be oh well, as plans are already made and things are booked!

Thank you, just a few days until I start and I'm excited!

 

[Vernie822]

Following along!

I'm a bride to be as well and I have fully come to understand so far that everyone else thinks you should do things a certain way.. but you have to do what you want! I'm glad you were able to make it work with Claire. Lets hope it stays that way.

Are you guys staying at AKL? Can't wait to hear all about your Disneymoon plans!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Following along!

I'm a bride to be as well and I have fully come to understand so far that everyone else thinks you should do things a certain way.. but you have to do what you want! I'm glad you were able to make it work with Claire. Lets hope it stays that way.

Are you guys staying at AKL? Can't wait to hear all about your Disneymoon plans!

Thanks, and congratulations!

So far Claire hasn't said anything about the new date, and since it's the final date if she tries to pull something again than oh well!

I'm going to post an update right now with our booking information!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Sorry for not being around much the last few weeks. With my new job starting 3.5 weeks ago and trying to get not only our trip plans together, but now also helping my parents with planning a last minute trip for next month, I have been busy! But I'm back now with lots of trip plans, and changes to our original plan!

To catch everyone up, our original plan was a wedding in April then two weeks in WDW staying at AKL by way of renting points. Then about a month ago George's sister Claire said she couldn't get off work for those dates. After some consideration on our part we decided to change the dates to a holiday weekend so she wouldn't have to take time off work. She still said she wasn't sure she could come for other reasons and wanted us to put the wedding for a year, but we said no and she told us a few days later that our new date would work for her. What is that date? Well we picked President's Day weekend and were amused to find that it meant we would be getting married on Valentine's Day! And that is where I left off!

About 3 weeks ago we started trying to rent points and found that the Princess Marathon had the weekend of the 19-21st of February pretty much booked for not only AKL DVC rooms, but all of the ones we could afford were booked up. We considered doing a 3 part split stay, but we really didn't want to move around that much. While George and I both want to stay at AKL, we realized that will have to be a future stay. The resort is not as important to us since we will be spending most of our time in the parks anyway, so we decided to save our money for other special things to do while at WDW and go for a value resort. In an effort to make it a new one for both of us we chose All Star Movies. We booked it for February 14-27 with 9 day park passes and Memory Maker. No Dining Plan since I added up all our meals and it would have been more expensive by almost couple hundred dollars to pay for it versus paying OOP.

Then I saw the Stay, Play and Dine special announced last week. After doing some math I realized that with the discount we would actually save money now by adding the dining plan! I did check the room only discount too but found the Stay Play Dine would save us more than it would. So early this past Monday morning I changed our reservation online. I love being able to do this now versus waiting on hold for an agent forever! Since All Star Movies was exempt from the discount we switched to All Star Music, added the dining plan and upgraded to the regular versus the quick service they give for the value resorts, and voila, we are up to the present time with our reservation! To help make things clearer, since we have changed around a bit , here is our trip as it stands now (and we anticipate it will stay as this!):

We will be honeymooning at WDW February 14-27, 2016, staying at All Star Music with a 9 day base ticket and the regular dining plan.

I think that's enough for today, but I will be back soon to start laying out our daily plans!

 

[afwdwfan]

Sorry you couldn't get AKL for your honeymoon trip, but I think you chose a pretty good alternative. Nothing wrong at all with staying in a value and using the money saved to do some other fun things. You've probably saved enough money by going value and getting free dining to spring for some special tours or some other special events in the parks. And that would definitely make for a memorable honeymoon.

 

[mickeystoontown]

You mentioned to me that there was another change and boy it a big one. I've always liked the look of the Music resort and hope that you'll come back with lots of pictures to share with us. Now, before Claire can change anyone's minds again, go get those invites printed. LOL

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Sorry you couldn't get AKL for your honeymoon trip, but I think you chose a pretty good alternative. Nothing wrong at all with staying in a value and using the money saved to do some other fun things. You've probably saved enough money by going value and getting free dining to spring for some special tours or some other special events in the parks. And that would definitely make for a memorable honeymoon.

Thanks! I've stayed at POP 3 times and never had any complaints about staying at a value resort. We are going to be doing some tours and fun stuff with the money saved, which I'll get into during my day by day break downs!

You mentioned to me that there was another change and boy it a big one. I've always liked the look of the Music resort and hope that you'll come back with lots of pictures to share with us. Now, before Claire can change anyone's minds again, go get those invites printed. LOL

You know I will take a ton of pictures! The wedding invitations will be going out within a couple of weeks!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Sunday February 14, 2016

Our Wedding Day!!

I'll back up to the day before really quick. Everyone should be arriving on Saturday. My parents and one of my sisters, Heather, will be coming cross country in my parents RV since my Mom is terrified of flying. The last time she flew (to WDW!) they almost did an emergency landing of the plane because she had such a bad panic attack they thought she was having a heart attack! So no more planes for her. My other sister, Lisa, will be flying in Saturday night. George's parents said they are driving too because they want to bring their dog, but we will see. We do know George's grandparents, sister Claire and brother-in-law Zack will be flying in on Saturday. Since we live in the middle of nowhere the closest airport to us is McCarren in Las Vegas, about a 3.5 hour drive from our house, and is in another time zone!

So, onto Sunday!

The wedding will be around 10am that morning at our rental house. The weather better cooperate, because we are having the wedding here due to the gorgeous view from our back deck!



We are still looking for an officiant. There are plenty in northern Utah, but we have only found one in Southern Utah and I haven't heard back yet. The only one I have heard back from is willing to drive the 4.5 hours to us, but she wants a good bit more than we wanted to pay! I'm sure we will find one though!

After the wedding our plan is to have everyone head to St. George, Utah for lunch together. To get an idea of how remote we are, St George is the closest city to us and it is about 1.5 hours away . After our lunch together some people will start to head home, others will head back to their hotel for flights or driving to start the next day. George and I will be heading to Las Vegas as we will be flying out to WDW that day!

This day could also be called the day of 3 time zones (no worries, we will hit all 4 on the way back home from the honeymoon). We will be starting in our time zone, mountain time, and then our flight is from Las Vegas, which is Pacific Time. We will fly out at 4:30pm pacific time and then land in our 3rd time zone of the day, at 11:40pm Eastern Time. Our dinner will be something we grab at the airport before our flight. While it will be late by the time we get to All Stars Music for them, probably around 1am, it won't be too bad for us because it will feel like 11pm. We usually go to bed around 11pm anyway so that will work for us! We will be taking Disney's Magical Express from the airport to ASMu. And that is a wrap on our first day of our Disney honeymoon!

 

[afwdwfan]

The wedding will be around 10am that morning at our rental house. The weather better cooperate, because we are having the wedding here due to the gorgeous view from our back deck!

Wow! That is quite a view! I don't blame you a bit for wanting to get married there in the place that the 2 of you are making your home!

After the wedding our plan is to have everyone head to St. George, Utah for lunch together. To get an idea of how remote we are, St George is the closest city to us and it is about 1.5 hours away .

That certainly is remote. So do you shop for a month's worth of groceries at once? Mail order? Kind of inconvenient for those last minute needs!

This day could also be called the day of 3 time zones (no worries, we will hit all 4 on the way back home from the honeymoon). We will be starting in our time zone, mountain time, and then our flight is from Las Vegas, which is Pacific Time. We will fly out at 4:30pm pacific time and then land in our 3rd time zone of the day, at 11:40pm Eastern Time. Our dinner will be something we grab at the airport before our flight. While it will be late by the time we get to All Stars Music for them, probably around 1am, it won't be too bad for us because it will feel like 11pm. We usually go to bed around 11pm anyway so that will work for us! We will be taking Disney's

Quite an eventful day. Getting married in Utah and checking in at Disney World the very same day. I hope you have the perfect wedding day.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Wow! The view from your back deck is GORGEOUS! The perfect setting for a wedding, that's for sure.

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Wow! That is quite a view! I don't blame you a bit for wanting to get married there in the place that the 2 of you are making your home!

That certainly is remote. So do you shop for a month's worth of groceries at once? Mail order? Kind of inconvenient for those last minute needs!

Quite an eventful day. Getting married in Utah and checking in at Disney World the very same day. I hope you have the perfect wedding day.

We really do marvel at our view every day.

We do have two small grocery stores in town where we do most of our grocery shopping. They have all of the basics you need, and we go to St George once a month to get the other stuff we can't get at either of those!

It will be a busy day, but a wonderful one too!

Wow! The view from your back deck is GORGEOUS! The perfect setting for a wedding, that's for sure.

Thanks, we certainly think so!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Monday February 15th, 2016 (First full day at Disney!)

As I previously stated we won't be checking in here...




...until about 1am so we will be sleeping in! Once we do get up (no scheduled time since we want to sleep as much as we need) we will grab some breakfast at Melody Hall, ASMu's food court.




From there we will probably explore the resort some before getting on a bus and making our way to Magic Kingdom. We won't be staying there though, no parks today! Instead we will hop on a boat from there to head to lunch at our first restaurant reservation of the trip!




Our lunch ressie is at 1:40pm at Trail's End Restaurant. While I ate dinner there back in 2008 I have never eaten from their lunch menu and George has never been there at all. We are both definitely looking forward to our lunch here!

After lunch we will most likely head to Winter Summerland mini-golf course to use our free mini-golf coupons. We tried Fantasia Gardens last time so it will be Winter Summerland this time, which neither of us have been too. We really enjoy mini-golf and it will be a fun way to spend our first, more relaxing day at Walt Disney World.

We should have time after mini-golf to head to Disney Springs for a bit and check out all the new places and old ones too. Around 6pm we will head to the bus stop and make our way to another resort for somewhere we have eaten breakfast before, but not dinner, Boma!




George and I both really loved our breakfast here last year and the dinner options look so good too. Our reservation is at 7:20pm so I think we should make it in time if we leave Disney Springs around 6pm. I'm sure we will engorge ourselves on lots of delicious African themed foods before we get on a bus to probably Epcot and then switch to ASMu. Once we get back to our resort we will head to bed, as we have an early morning the next day!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Tuesday February 17, 2016

Our first park day!

We will be getting up around 6am on this morning, as we have early morning plans! We will shower, get ready and head to the bus stop by 7am. Our destination?





I know most people like to have Magic Kingdom as their first park, and I used to be that way too! But when we started planning this trip I asked George which park he wanted to visit first and he really wanted to head right to Animal Kingdom our first park day. I love AK too, so I had no real problem with that at all. Animal Kingdom doesn't open until 9am this day, but we will head there early since we have an 8am ressie with Donald, Daisy, Mickey and Goofy at this fine establishment:





Tusker House! While George and I ate dinner here last year, he has never eaten breakfast here and we are looking forward to it. Especially since Donald is his favorite character! I have eaten breakfast here once, two trips ago when I took my Mom to WDW, and really enjoyed the food options at this buffet, along with the great character interaction.

Once we are done breakfast we will start hitting the attractions. Since we can't book our FP+ options until December I'm not sure what we will do in what order, though we will probably start in Africa since we will already be there. So the morning will probably consist of these fine attractions:









Once we get those things done George and I will head toward the next area on our AK journey, Asia!





Where we will most certainly ride George's favorite attraction at all of WDW, Expedition Everest!





Depending on the time we will either then visit Maharajah Jungle Trek and/or Kali River Rapids and then lunch, or the other way around. Our plan for lunch this day is another of our favorites





I'm looking forward to seeing what changes were made while they rehabbed it earlier this year!

Also on the list for this day are Dinosaur, which we both love, and seeing Finding Nemo, which is the only AK attraction we didn't get to do our last trip. Whatever else we can squeeze in will be great!

Since it's the winter and a slower time of year Animal Kingdom closes at 5pm. We wanted to eat at least one place at AK that neither of us have ever eaten at in though, so we will have an early dinner (4:45pm) at Yak & Yeti!

EDIT: Right after I posted this I double checked the hours and they extended until 8pm for AK this day! No later times yet for ADRs so our dinner will stay at 4:45pm until I see later come available!





George's sister Claire and her husband Zack ate here on their honeymoon and raved about it. I've seen plenty of other great reviews and so as soon as we decided to have our honeymoon at WDW we knew we would have to get an ADR for here, and thankfully we were able to get it!

Once dinner is over we will just head back to the resort. We won't stay up too late, as we have another early morning tomorrow!

 

[afwdwfan]

Looks like a nice start to your trip! I think a low key first day with a couple of good ADR's is probably a good way to unwind after the whirlwind of activity on your wedding day.

I think the best thing about AK staying open so late when you'll be there is the fact that you can ride Everest after dark. I've never been able to do that, and I really think it would be an awesome experience.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I am anxious to hear your review of Trail's end. Twice, I've booked dinner reservations there but then cancel because another restaurant becomes available. We have had dinner at Boma two times and love it.

I can see how you'd choose Animal Kingdom for your visit park to visit since you love animals.

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Looks like a nice start to your trip! I think a low key first day with a couple of good ADR's is probably a good way to unwind after the whirlwind of activity on your wedding day.

I think the best thing about AK staying open so late when you'll be there is the fact that you can ride Everest after dark. I've never been able to do that, and I really think it would be an awesome experience.

That's what we thought too, start out with a more relaxing day to decompress!

Neither of us have ridden it in the dark either, and we are definitely looking forward to it!

I am anxious to hear your review of Trail's end. Twice, I've booked dinner reservations there but then cancel because another restaurant becomes available. We have had dinner at Boma two times and love it.

I can see how you'd choose Animal Kingdom for your visit park to visit since you love animals.

I ate dinner at Trails End in 2008 and remember liking it. My parents just ate there last night and enjoyed it as well. We are looking forward to their lunch menu for sure! Boma may have been our favorite breakfast our last trip, so we definitely think we will love dinner there too!

Animal Kingdom really is the favorite park of both George and I!

 

[misssullyinc]

Loving your planning so far, glad your FSIL drama has worked out!

We stayed in AKL last time around and it was great, but it's definitely not going anywhere so enjoy!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Loving your planning so far, glad your FSIL drama has worked out!

We stayed in AKL last time around and it was great, but it's definitely not going anywhere so enjoy!

Thanks! She hasn't said anything else about our wedding date since she confirmed she could come.

We already have our general idea for our next trip to WDW after our honeymoon, and we definitely plan to stay at AKL for that trip!