NO SCOOTER THIS TIME!! A PTR for Food & Wine Festival!

[justgeorgi]

And so the walking begins-A PTR for Food & Wine!

We pulled the treadmill out today and plugged it in.

Who is WE?
We are two recent empty nesters who love Disney! (Our only child moved 2 hours away for a fabulous musical theater program and broke our hearts.) Mention Disney and friends and family either laugh or roll their eyes if we are around. WHY did we pull out the treadmill? Well….Disney has a lot of walking….and we need to begin building up our stamina…so here we go!

Here we are! Taken on a fabulous "Only us" trip about 3 years ago.

Wendy and Dave-married 21 years this past June, we have one daughter who just turned 20 years old and 3 dogs and 2 cats.

I’m Wendy, 40 years old and a lifetime lover of all things Disney. My first trip was in 2nd grade when there was only one park! My 2nd trip was as an adult with my husband and 18 month old daughter (she is now 20!) We spent one day in the Magic Kingdom during a short trip to Daytona Beach and instantly I knew we had to plan a real trip. After much reading, research and planning we took our 3rd trip with my aunt, her guide dog, and my daughter’s friend when our daughter was 4 years old. We stayed at All Star Sports. We have been back many, many times to Walt Disney World and have also visited Disneyland and Parc’ Disneyland in Paris. I love that first look at Main Street when you walk under the train station!

He is Dave, 41 years old and has never once complained about a trip to Disney! (Even the ones that he hasn’t been able to go to.) He loves staying on property, usually wears a hat with a propeller on it during Disney trips and loves Epcot and thrill rides. He works hard, helps take care of my family and just lost his brother, so a vacation is SO needed right now.

And here we are during our December 2011/January 2012 trip. We stayed off property in a condo. Pictured with us is my 82 year old Nana that we took on the trip and our daughter and her boyfriend. They will NOT be on this trip.

Ok now that you have met us….here are the plans!

We are traveling from Upstate NY on November 1st. We will travel by car, around 19 hours straight through. This is the usual way we travel. We plan to spend two nights in Daytona Beach “just for the heck of it” and then checking into Coronado Springs Resort on November 4th. We are meeting old Disney traveling buddies Kathie & Woody and we can’t wait! We plan to hit up the Food And Wine Festival for 5 days of yummy indulgence! 4 or 5 other friends will be meeting us for two days while we are there before they go on a cruise. This is a total adult’s only trip! That means lots of imbibing of the wine (and beer) part of the festival! We have only 2 meals planned (Kona Cafe’ and California Grill) and will either do breakfast in the room or counter service for the rest of the trip. Most of our “food” is planned during the evening at Food & Wine!

Ok, that may be it for now! More to come!
(And if you are still reading-and I hope you are-the title of this PTR has to do with our LAST trip and the tribulations of traveling with an 82 year old in a scooter!

 

[Lifeangel1]

Love the pic with Donald. Great looking family. Looking forward to more!

 

[justgeorgi]

Love the pic with Donald. Great looking family. Looking forward to more!

Thank you!!! I'll have updates on the "plan" for the trip soon!

 

[justgeorgi]

Yeah I hate the treadmill
No really I do.

This thing is a death machine. It enjoys torture.
But so far I've done 2 miles a day for the last three days!

Ok so back on topic!

Dave and I are going to The Food & Wine Festival! We are meeting our very good friends Kathie and Woody for all of the Disney portion of our trip! They used to live in our state (New York) and we convinced them to go to Disney one year when our kids were little...we hooked them! They loved it!
We even traveled to Disneyland Paris together, have camped for Christmas and New Years at Fort Wilderness, squeezed into one room in All Star Movies for an almost unplanned Christmas trip, spread out in spacious rental homes and everything in between. We had one short 4 day trip adults only many years ago and are finally doing it again! They are a lot of fun to travel with!

While there we have a handful of other friends who will be meeting us there for 2 days for Food & Wine as well!

So lets start off with my planning:
We decided in January while on the scooter vacation from hell, as we walked out of a particularly trying day in Animal Kingdom that we (Dave and I) needed to go on a vacation
Alone.
Just us.
We were on a great, memorable trip to Disney at that moment. With my daughter, her boyfriend and my 82 year old grandmother. We rented her a scooter (from Apple Scooters, they are GREAT) and lets just put it this way....she cannot drive a scooter. God love her. It was very difficult and emotionally trying to get her to maneuver it safely through the parks. As a stubborn senior she didn't exactly listen to our instructions....she knew what to do. Yikes. Not so much fun.

So we began planning this upcoming trip while in the parks...which isn't that unusual, my friend Kathie and I used to bring notebooks so we could plan our next trip while waiting for shows, parades, fireworks or Fanstasmic to start lol! Dave and I knew we wanted to do Food & Wine Festival and doing the math in our heads we figured that we would be able to swing a nice trip if we went in November...giving us 10 months to plan and pay. With our daughter leaving for college in August we knew funds would be tight. She spent the last two years at home going to school but the added expense of paying rent, groceries, utilities, etc were going to limit our trip. Plus that we put in a new and pretty darn expensive but MUCH needed fence this summer. Dogs love it, my bank account...not so much.

Plans in next post

 

[justgeorgi]

And the plans-with more details to come

November 1-10
Daytona Beach for two days!
Coronado Springs Resort
Park Hoppers
Mode of Transport-Rental Car
FOOD & WINE!
Kona Cafe Dinner
California Grill Dinner


I work until 6pm on November 1st but I don't imagine I will get much work done. Dave will be taking October 31st off and will probably go to the a local casino that night and then will come home when they close and stay up till morning. He then will sleep during the day while I'm at work. This works pretty well for us as we have tried many different "times" to leave and this bypasses the heavy traffic around Washington D.C. and then Jacksonville, Fl. There is also far less traffic on the road in the middle of the night. So our plan is to head to our local airport about 35 minutes away, pick up our rental car and drop our car off at an economy parking lot near the airport. Once we load up and get on the road Dave does most of the

I have only helped out with the driving once 20 years ago...the man is a beast behind the wheel, he should have been a long haul trucker!

We are headed to Daytona Beach first! This was an add on that we didn't plan for originally but when I started planning the trip my work days changed giving me Friday-Sunday off! So now rather than leaving on a Friday we could leave a whole day early. Once I booked the trip to best fit my schedule it gave us two days of NO PLANS! We have been to Ormond Beach and Daytona Beach a few times and loved it. I did some research, wanting a beach front hotel but wanted something kitschy and retro...did it exist? It did in my mind

AND I FOUND IT! Happy dance time!

The Dream Inn, a retro beach front hotel in Daytona that had fabulous reviews on Trip Advisor and looked adorable! It has hot tubs in the rooms on the 2nd floor with full balcony views of the ocean. Now THAT is a vacation I showed the hotel to Dave and he was all for it! I booked two nights and started looking for fun things to do in Daytona for two 40 somethings After the long drive we will get to Daytona and check in around 3 or 4pm. We are only planning a walk on the beach and dinner and then possibly pier fishing and lighthouse tour the next day. Low key with no concrete plans. I can't wait!

 

[justgeorgi]

I left off with my plans for our drive down on the first day. We are from Upstate NY and can go two ways to hit I-95....down the NYS Thruway into Jersey or thru the mountains of PA. We will be doing Jersey. The NYS Thruway will be empty of most traffic at 8pm when we leave and since its a more traveled road its safer to drive late at night with actual rest stops that are lit up. I-88 and 81 through PA...not so much. PA also does a very poor job of dead deer removal and truck tire blowouts.

We will pack a cooler with sandwiches and fruit and water for dinner and the trusty thermos of coffee...which will be refilled by the time we get to Maryland, where I can drink energy drinks Dave doesn't like the taste and drinks a lot of coffee. Hopefully weather will be good for travel and it should be that early in November. I don't expect snow but I'll keep my fingers crossed. We had such a mild winter last year I'm surpised it hasn't started snowing yet!

We are drive straight through types...but will make a stop at South Of the Border traditionally if its open and Dave's big plans for breakfast......

Yup, the boy likes Waffles. He worships this place. He loves them more than me. But that is ok. I'm not jealous. He cheated on Shoney's once with Waffle House and hasn't looked back since. Thankfully I was game as Shoney's leaves their food sitting in greasy pans for hours and Waffle House cooks it in front of you! I prefer fresh

OH...what about our pets back home? How could I forget them! Someone has to feed and water the pups and kitties! My aunt who lives downstairs from us will be taking over the care of the little ones Let me introduce them!

The love of my life:

I caught this just as he fell asleep on my knee...his name is Abraham...or Abe...named for the president. He is a toy fox terrier and very partial to his Mommy. It was true love when we met. He is 8 years old.

Then there are these two muppets:

Both belong to our daughter. One is Broadway and she is a min pin, she is a bit obnoxious but at 10 she is getting more sedate. The other mop is Benjamin, he is 4 years old, he loves EVERYONE! He is a Lhasa/Cocker mix and a big lovable goof. Somehow we got stuck with them both when she went off to college. What is up with that??

Then there are the kitties....

This is Runway, she is a white persian rescue who was adopted three times and given back three times. She had some "potty" issues which required patience... and laundry . We have only had her since last October but she has really turned into a sweet girl. She is 4 years old.

And this beast is Arthur Fonzarelli "The Fonz", Fonzie....he is a lovable baby who does his best to sleep between us each night

Once he was "fixed" he went from ornery to sweet overnight...we prefer the latter!

They will be cared for by my Aunt. We have a nice fenced in yard and although they will probably miss us they also miss us when we walk downstairs for 5 minutes!!

 

[justgeorgi]

So we've talked about our drive to Florida from Upstate NY...and the pets we are leaving behind...and what my husband plans all year long for his breakfast on the way there (His beloved Waffle House) so lets talk about the 2 day stopover in Daytona Beach.

We never go anywhere but Disney. Ever. One trip to Europe was planned just to see Disneyland Paris and a modeling expo in L.A. turned into
a trip to Disneyland in Anaheim. Trips that are not to Disney are usually connected to work related activities...so we DO see some fun things occasionally...which of course are ALWAYS compared to Disney. Funny how that works! We occasionally will do day trips and last summer for our 20th anniversary we did go to Boston for 2 days but we always plan our trips around Disney.

So honey what do you think about going to Daytona Beach for two days since my work hours changed and now we can leave on Thursday rather than Friday? I can adjust the hotel reservations, that won't be a big deal. OH you would like to do that? Sweet. Done.

So we are staying at The Dream Inn right on the beach. We got a fairly good deal on the hotel, its totally retro and bright yellow, has pink flamingos and blue dolphin statues and a pink hot tub IN OUR ROOM right in front of the double glass balcony doors. Sunset anyone? I cannot wait! We have zero plans other than having dinner on the pier, a walk on the beach and maybe a picnic, fishing and a trip to a local lighthouse...or we might do nothing at all. Nothing is planned or set in stone other than arrival date and departure date (and time, gotta make rope drop at MK on Sunday!!)

So now that we have the two day detour "planned" what will we do in DISNEY???

 

[justgeorgi]

We check into Coronado Springs Resort on Sunday, November 4.
Not sure if we will go directly to the resort to check in or go straight to the Magic Kingdom. I'm leaning towards straight to Magic Kingdom. We have a car and will probably use it to get to and from parks the first 2-3 days. We plan to use a cab to get back from Epcot's Food & Wine Festival on our last two days.

So loose plans are Magic Kingdom-Rope Drop-meet up with our friends Kathie & Woody who are driving in that morning from GA and grab some fast passes for Space Mountain and head off to Splash and BTMR. We will most likely pack a small soft side cooler for lunch and do Casey's for dinner. I'm sure we will had back and check into the hotel sometime in the afternoon and then head back to MK until closing and then Downtown Disney for some shopping. Looks like MK is open until 8 on Sunday.