Never say Neverland: Easter '18, May/June '18, July '18, Sept '18, Nov '18 TRs (2/15/19 UPDATE!!)

Just one more photo...the magic shot taken of our group on the last day (my brother and family weren't there, as they had already used their 5-day passes and spent the day at SeaWorld instead).

 

Great trip, great pics!!!

 

I'm woefully behind in updating here and really not sure when I'll get around to it. I've been swamped at work and at home. Work is just busy, lots of end of the year stuff, and home I'm trying to get Christmas stuff done. We are hosting our annual Christmas party on Saturday...have no idea what I'm having for that. I've done my share of online shopping and still have a little more to do. Thankfully tomorrow I am off work for a doc appointment and then holiday lunch for work and then taking the rest of the day off to hopefully knock out almost all of the rest of my shopping.

Anyway maybe I'll get some time this weekend to do some more updates...fingers crossed!

 

Almost a week later...and I'm still behind in everything. I am getting closer to being done with Christmas shopping...but I'm not there yet. I've ordered and picked up my Christmas cards...don't know when I'll get around to sending them. I barely got everything together for my Christmas party on Saturday...hopped in the shower at 4pm for our 4:30pm party. It all worked out though. #LifeofaSerialProcrastinator

And now...well as if I didn't have enough going on, I'll let you in on the additional fun stuff in that my DH will most likely be going into the hospital this week for a cardiac catheter to try to get to the bottom of some heart-related issues he's been having for about two weeks. We spent 6.5 hours in the local E/R about two weeks ago, and after an "unusual" stress test last week, we spoke to a cardiologist yesterday morning. That will probably be Thursday but still waiting for the official word. That means his primary doctor has insisted he be on very restricted activity since the hospital visit, which means guess who is doing even more running around at home these days?

Yep...it's awesome. On the bright side, I might have time to do those holiday cards while I'm sitting there waiting for his procedure or while in the hospital with him later this week.

This December 2018 has been a bit of a downer with the sorta pre-wake for my uncle with terminal brain cancer, the unexpected death of my 48-year-old cousin, and now this heart stuff. Knowing that my Disney AP is expiring on Thursday and I won't be renewing...no chance to hop on a plane and do a quick visit now.

Hope everybody else is having a good December!

 

So sorry for the crummy goings on in your life. We just went through open-heart surgery in September with my husband and he is doing fantastic now. Praying the same for your DH. Hopefully his surgery is through an artery and not open-heart. That is such an invasive procedure and he is just returning to work next week after being off work since September.

I remember the sadness when our AP's expired this spring and we had no plan of renewing. Since then The Mouse has gone on a pricing spree and I'm not sure I will ever convince DH to go again.

I hope the rest of your December turns out nicely and your holidays are truly blessed.

 

Hope all went well with your DH's procedure. Just wanted to stop by and wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! And to let you know how much I enjoy your trip reports!

 

Thank you so much. Oh wow...so great to hear how well your husband is doing. The good news for us is the catheter procedure found no real issues with his heart and so not even a stent had to be done. The procedure was last Thursday and he was home that evening. He's still trying to keep from using his right arm for a bit while that fully heals. Plus he's frustrated that no obvious issues have been found even though he has heart rate issues that actually wake him up at night.

The rest of my 6-day weekend went well overall, got everything done for the most part and got those cards done while the hubby was in his procedure and in the mail the next day.

I definitely miss my AP but I think I'll do okay without it for now.

Thank you and see above for my response on that but all is well. Hope you had a nice Christmas and hope the New Year is good to you as well. Glad you enjoy reading and maybe one day soon I'll get around to updating this with a real TR again. So much to tell about our last trips of 2018!

 

Is there anything as sad as the Disney blues??

Sitting here realizing that there will be NO Walt Disney World trips for me in 2019, though I'm still considering a trip to Florida either in the spring or summer but for the "other" parks this time.

I think we've decided that 2019 will be our year of "other" amusement parks overall, with some thoughts of visiting the Cedar Fair parks like Kings Dominion (a 2 hour drive from us), Kings Island and Cedar Point. I'd like to plan for a Universal trip also but we'll see what's in the budget. As of April, I'll have a 4th driver in our family which means more for insurance and at some point in 2019 I'll probably have to purchase another vehicle. Trying not to think too much about all of that.

Hope everybody had a fabulous New Year! I'm now going to attempt to finish my JULY 2018 trip report and then maybe start a full November 2019 one!

 

July 2018 Celebration of Life - Day 6 (Continued)

After our meal at Sci-Fi Dine in it was now time for some more rides. We would finally be able to ride Slinky Dash as we had FPs for there.

We had some time to kill, so we hopped on this ride first:



There may have been some trash talking by me to my oldest son (shown at left with his grandfather) about me winning. Spoiler Alert: I did not beat him...go figure!

Anyway I don't think we waited more than 20 minutes or so for this one and it was cool to see the new inside queue and try to figure out...where was the old stuff and how does it mesh with the new stuff?

After this it was time to head directly over to Slinky Dog Dash for our FastPass!

I could barely contain my excitement at finally being able to ride this one, even if it isn't a THRILL ride.

So lots of photos were taken:






Getting closer:




AND SUCCESS!



I really did LOVE this ride! Such a fun little coaster, but of course not worth the crazy long waits that it normally has here.

After this, I think we decided to try to do the Alien Saucers since my son hadn't experienced it earlier in the trip when we had FPs for it. I seem to recall us waiting in line for quite a bit for it, and the line moved SLOWLY and had very little air flow. We survived though.

 

July 2018 Celebration of Life - Day 6 (Continued)

We finished Toy Story Mania (no FP), Slinky Dog (FP) and then Alien Saucers (no FP) and I knew I wanted one more ride on Slinky...but knew our best bet for the lowest wait was closer to the 9:30pm closing time. We decided to do one more ride on Toy Story Mania and it looks like I took a photo around 9pm of the exit queue:



We headed over to Slinky Dog to wait standby, and I think we ended up there about 30 minutes or so which wasn't horrible at all. So happy to get in one more ride:





This would end our time at Hollywood Studios and we headed back to our resort.

 

July 2018 Celebration of Life - Day 7

We had finally arrived at our last fully day of vacation. Always a sad day. We would make the best of it with some time at the Magic Kingdom!

I have no idea what we did that morning, other than maybe pack? All I know is that around 3pm we were walking around Disney Springs and ended up with this:



And we snapped a photo with MY favorite Disney character too:



And I bought myself a new Magic Band:



After some food and shopping, we headed over the Magic Kingdom. The tram ride photo:



We had dinner plans at one our favorites, The Plaza. We arrived around 6pm and although we were told it would be about a 30+ minute wait...we sat outside at one of the umbrella tables for maybe 10 or 15 minutes before we were called. I swear we have the same table every time...and we ordered up the loaded fries for an appetizer:



We do enjoy the food and the service here, and it's so reasonable...well except maybe the size of those fries for an appetizer!

Next it was time for some rides, and I have no idea for sure what we did but from the photos we did manage this:


And also this:



And some nice views of the Castle around sunset:

 

July 2018 Celebration of Life - Day 7 (continued)

Selfie attempt:



I think we headed over to BTMRR since I have some lovely photos of this area along the walkway:



We definitely managed to convince my FIL to ride Splash Mountain with us, but the boys chose to sit this one out:



We enjoyed it though...and didn't get totally soaked.

We also managed a ride on this:



One last family photo for the trip:



We returned back to our resort I'm sure to enjoy our last evening, as the next morning we would be making our drive back home. This trip was definitely an enjoyable one, I don't think we drove ourselves too hard and while I wish we had spent more time at the pools and waterparks I was happy with the time that we did have there.

 

We will not be going to Disney this year either. It's going to be real sad come March when we fly to Florida to take a Caribbean cruise on NCL and fly out of the state seven days later without saying hi to the Mouse. We fly from Florida to New Mexico for another seven days there, but I am so uninspired by this portion of the vacation that I am currently switching to New Orleans instead. It would be real easy to just insert Disney instead! Alas, DH says NO!

Fourth driver, UGH.

 

Ah...misery loves company. I could totally get "on board" with a cruise though...I keep looking into those as well. Your trip sounds lovely though, and I've never been to New Orleans so that sounds pretty cool too. ENJOY!!

Alas the only vacation I currently have planned for this year is a trip to Salt Lake City UTAH later this month to ski. NONE of us have ever been skiing out west on a "real" mountain...we've done MD/PA/NC slopes only so I can only imagine how long we will last out there...SPOILER ALERT: NOT LONG! Still it is something different but every time my husband sends me another weather report about the temps there...I just roll my eyes...what was I thinking?? It was all my idea, as I have a friend who lives out there and works for a ski resort and she is putting us all up with her. We used airline points/miles for the majority of our tickets. It should be a fairly inexpensive trip compared to what it could be for sure. I would rather be somewhere warm though.

 

Skiing in Utah sounds.......challenging! I live very close to Mt Hood in Oregon but don't ski or snowboard, just too cold for me. I'm a fair weather vacationer as well. That's part of the reason for moving the vacation from Santa Fe to NO. Average temps in March are 55 and 73 respectively. Coming from a Caribbean cruise I don't think we will appreciate the 55*. We will get that soon enough when we return home!

 

Yes I'm sure it will be quite challenging...and exhausting...for us, especially since it's been a few years since any of us has been skiing. I think your plans to go to NO instead of Santa Fe are perfect. I'm still not sure why we chose Utah as I am not a fan of the cold myself, but I think it will be a fun experience and a good chance to catch up with an old friend of mine as well. Between using airline points for our flights and our free place to stay with my friend, the only thing we are paying for is the food and excursions, including skiing. That makes it a bit easier.

 

Wow...hard to believe it's been so long since I've updated here. For those not linked to me in social media, we had a FABULOUS time in Utah. My friend, who we stayed with, had two puppies at her house (and two cats) and so my animal-loving family (and her dogs) were all quite happy.

Pups:


We spent our first full day there snowmobiling on a huge mountain in a heavy snowstorm:



We had a great time, other than my friend who ended up crashing her snowmobile into a small group of trees. Thankfully she was mostly okay and continued the 2-hour tour on the back of her husband's snowmobile. Even more thankfully the damages were minimal.

On Friday the four of us went to Deer Valley to ski:



The views were amazing, the trails were long and lovely, and we all really enjoyed ourselves. This was me on the lift after I got "lost" and ended up on the wrong trail:



Here we are enjoying some after-ski food and drinks:


On our last day, we ended up driving around to a few scenic areas and even this frozen lake/pond/reservoir:


That evening we also visited the downtown Park City Main Street area which was really nice. We had late lunch/early dinner there and then had a larger down in another part of town that night.

We returned home to Maryland where the weather was COLDER than it was in Utah...and it was snowing most of the time in Utah.

My friend would love for us to visit again, and I must say I think we would enjoy that as well. Right now we are still recovering from our holiday spending and various other stuff. There are too many bills coming in fast and furious and on top of all that I bought myself a "new" used car over the weekend. This was something I had planned to do this year anyway, as my daughter will be eligible for her full driver's license in 3 more months and the plan was for her to drive my 2008 vehicle, that I bought new in 2007, on a permanent basis. It's been 11 years since I bought a car, so we started the process recently and accelerated it a bit over the weekend when I found a vehicle that I really liked and looked into financing options. I qualified for the loan I wanted, and by 10pm Saturday night I was driving home my 2015 vehicle with every bell and whistle I could ever imagine on it. My 2008 vehicle does not even have bluetooth so this is a big adjustment for me.

So now I am at a point where I don't have ANY future vacations planned right now. This is very unusual for me. I have some things I'm looking into, but nothing for sure yet. Really hoping for a trip to Universal this spring/summer, though right now I'd give anything to be in Florida and away from this bitter cold, but so many other parts of the country have it so much worse than here.

Hoping to do some more updates soon!

 

It looks like you had an amazing time! Those pups are way too cute, I would have stayed inside playing with them the entire vacation!

 

What a fun upgrade! About 18 months ago, a drunk driver plowed into our driveway and totalled our two cars plus his own. We went from an '06 minivan and an '07 sedan, both paid off, to a '15 and a '14 respectively. Suddenly having to go back into a car payment STUNK, and I wish I had been able to make the choice on my own terms, but man if the newer vehicles aren't fancy. The minivan has the keyless start, heated seats, etc. It's quite the ride!

 

I know...we so enjoyed them! I told her she has to send us photos of them as they grow up, well especially the little one (Rizzo)!

Oh my gosh...that is INSANE about BOTH of your cars! I joke that we should get a fleet rate on our insurance, as we have 5 cars now and 3.5 licensed drivers (with the .5 most likely being a full driver in 3 months). The vehicles are two 2008 SUVs, a 2009 car, and then my DH has a 2015 convertible (which isn't driven a lot, especially in the cold) that he bought a year or two ago and now I have a 2015 vehicle as well. It's definitely a new experience for me, and now everybody wants to drive my SUV everywhere. I feel all fancy driving it for sure! I've never been a fan of leather though, so I'm a bit concerned about driving it in the summer, but it does have heated AND cooled front seats so we'll see how that works out.