Our first Disney World trip is just 'a whim away, a whim away' (8/31)

[Surfinpiratee]

Hello!

This will be a mini trip report! DBF surprised me for my birthday

Thursday, 9/19

I was off work. It was the day before my birthday. The night before Billy had mentioned kind of out of the blew that I would look cute with short hair! So kinda on a whim I started looking at pictures of short hair cuts. I figured I'd call a couple of the salons I really like to see if they could fit me in Thurs or Fri.

Thursday morning rolled around and since I was off, Billy and I made plans to hang out before he went to work in the evening. So I texted him saying goodmorning and asked him if he knew when he was coming over because I wanted to call my salons to see if they could fit me in! His response: "I don't know yet" GRRRR.

45 seconds later I hear kind of a thud at the door. I figured it was a UPS or FedEx guy, so I decided to go to the door. When I opened the door Billy was standing there and said: "Hello, hello! You need to shower and pack because we're going to the Dells!" (side note: the dells is Wisconsin Dells, pretty cool place!) I was shocked. For a while I didn't even believe him, haha! But I was very excited so I got ready as fast as I could!

We hit the road! We only live about 3 hours from the Dells.

Had to stop and get my Green Tea Frapp!

He didn't tell me where we were staying which added to the excitement!

Pretty soon, we pulled up and I saw where we were staying:

AHHHHH THE KALAHARI! Now, I've stayed here before, so I was pretty pumped. I've also heard from others that this resort compares to Disney resorts!

Kalahari is a waterpark resort. And it's alllll African themed!
Here's the lobby, well some of it!


They also upgrated our room to a big suite!
Outside door:

First king room when you walk in. There's also a sink, bathroom, microwave and fridge:


The double queen room, where we slept


I won't go into too much detail for this little trip, but the arrival day we explored the resort. And also went to the water park. We LOVEEEE this waterpark. I recommend looking it up

(continued in next post)
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[Surfinpiratee]

The next morning was my birthday! We went to Paul Bunyan's for breakfast!

Just me and Paul Bunyan.

After breakfast we went to this wild animal park in progress called Timbavati! We went last year so we were excited to see hoe they've updated it!

Feeding the camels. I was a little nervous lol


Giraffe!! They are my favorite animals



Just a photo bombing camel..lol

We went to the water park after. Then we headed back home around 4. My dad was making me crab bisque for my birthday!! Yummm!!

Any way, on a Disney note, 101 days until DISNEYYY!!! ​

 

[MeeskaMomma]

What fun! A surprise trip for your birthday! That is awesome!!!

 

[francis6306]

Awe! We're wanting to go to the Dells!!! I've been slowly starting to research them… I'll have to check out the place you stayed at!

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Awe! We're wanting to go to the Dells!!! I've been slowly starting to research them… I'll have to check out the place you stayed at!

The Dell's is one of my favorite places! Although that will probably.change when I go to Disney...haha. I'd definitely recommend the Kalahari. The wilderness is fun, just so big and a lot of walking between water parks. The great wolf lodge also looks fun. I've never stayed. If you have younger kids I'd definitely look into it!

 

[WildernessExplorer04]

That looks like such a fun time! Happy birthday!
The Kalahari definitely reminds me of AK Lodge.

 

[Skycat]

This looks like so much fun. Glad you got to go on a surprise trip for your birthday.

 

[Surfinpiratee]

My apologies again for being so MIA There's just not too much to update. We're still trying to decide on an offsite resort and I TOTALLY forgot about Ex pe dia and now there's A TON of resorts I can choose from in our price range. Ahhh so many choices ​

 

[Skycat]

My aunt just visited and stayed in a condo for a week from vrbo.com and she really liked using this and liked having a kitchen - I think I recall food restrictions were one of your concerns.

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Yeah, DBF has a sensitive stomach/digestive tract lol. Not sure what causes it and its really only if we eat dinner out, anything earlier in the day is fine, I don't mind getting food from the store though, saves us money!

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Hi all!!!!

SO, I thought for sure we were going to be staying off site.

WRONG.

I happened to read the 'January discount' thread and saw there would be discounts coming out!!! Even though it would be the same price to stay off site with a kitchen and a moderate without a kitchen. I just really wanted to be on site!!!

So I thought for sure we'd be staying at Coronado Springs. I thought about it. And something made me check and see how much a deluxe would be... it's only like $400 more.

Well, typical me, I couldnt decide. So I left it up to my boyfriend. I basically just said to him "exterior hallways or interior hallways?" He chose interior lol

So we've basically gone from POP or AoA ---> POR ---> Off site ---> deluxe villas (pshh) ---> DELUXE!

Now it's between Animal Kingdom Lodge or Wilderness Lodge, suggestions!?


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[ZehnJahren]

I'm joining in! Also in the Chicago area.

What did you decide? Where are you going to stay??

Also, with you looking at a January stay, have you considered renting DVC points? I didn't see it mentioned in the thread. You'd at least get a microwave, fridge, and sink. For a studio for those dates, it would be (for example) 60 points at AKL or 66 for BWV (so if you could rent points for $13 pp it would be $780 at AKL or $858 for BWV for your dates). Depending on your budget, you might be able to get a 1 bedroom and get a full kitchen if you rent points.... I have rented several times and always been super happy - renting for my November trip as well and I'm very excited!

Also, just throwing this out there, but I had a super sensitive stomach to all kinds of foods for a large percentage of my life, starting around age 16 until I was 32 - when my gallbladder just failed on me. I had to have it taken out, and for months after the surgery my stomach was even WORSE (I thought "OH NO, seriously??" - I had to take medicines before eating and even then my stomach often hurt and made me sick.) but NOW it's the best it's ever been! I can eat so much I couldn't before, even eating out at restaurants and having foods that would have made me ill or achy before.

If he ever has pain in his left abdomen/chest area, it might be worth it to ask a doctor if it could be his gallbladder!

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Hi guys!!

Today is a very exciting day because....IT'S NOVEMBER 2ND!

And you know what that means? TWO MONTHS EXACTLY UNTIL WE LEAVE!!!

Also, one month exactly from today is DBF and I's 3 year anniversary

I have a feeling these next two months are going to FLY BY. Seriously. Beginning of Jan is like, the best time to plan a trip! Because you have all the holidays a few months before!

Like... in about 2 weeks it will be my dad's birthday
Then about a week later it will be Thanksgiving!
Then it will be my mom's birthday!
Then a few days later will be my anniversary
THEN. (this is a really exciting one) a couple weeks later the second Hobbit comes out!!
Then it will be Christmas, New Years and Yay! Then we will for Disney!!!!!

We will be staying at Coronado for the first two nights and then for the last 4 we will be staying at the Wilderness!!!!

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Hello Everyone!

Please excuse this post. I just kinda need to figure out my plan for each day. THIS IS SO HARD. So, feel free to chime in your opinions or thoughts. Or just excuse me while i get my thoughts down on 'paper' (this board )

Arrival Day:

We should be getting there around 1pm. But since we're driving, we'll just say between noon and 2pm
DBF doesn't want to do a park, which makes sense I suppose after a 17 hour drive..
So we'll be checking into CSR and obviously explore the resort!
Obviously chill in a hammock for a bit...!!
Now here's when I'm not 100% what we should do..
Either DTD or Mini Golf. Or both, but I don't want to 'over plan'
Also, I'm pretty anxious to get to DTD!

Anywho...We'll spend the afternoon there. Then I thought it might be fun to hop on the monorail and go resort hopping! Basically CR, Poly and GF
Ending at the Poly to watch Wishes from the beach Eeeek!

my OTHER plan for arrival day (which probably won't happen, just a thought) was to go to MK. Not to do much, just walk down Main Street, play Sorcerers and maybe ride a couple short wait rides?


So that's the 'kind of' plan for arrival day!
Questions, Comments, Great thoughts?!


Also, I'm going to split up my days between posts so it's easier for myself and you to follow

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Sorry for the lack of pretty fonts, I'll start now...

Day 1:

I'm like 99.8% sure we'll be buying park hoppers. I wasn't going to..but I decided it would be best.
Now, we do want to do Typhoon Lagoon if it's warm enough. So that's going to be in the plans for each day.. but I don't plan on going everyday..

So, like I said, Typhoon Lagoon if it's warm enough.
Then the 'green' parks for today are AK, and Epcot.
Animal Kingdom is open until 8. So, If we go to the waterpark, then we'll probably head over to AK for the afternoon.

If we don't do a waterpark this day, then we will go to AK in the morning, and Epcot in the evening

This won't be our only day at Epcot, but it will probably be our only day at AK. There's not really THAT many rides we want to do.
We want to ride Dinosaur.
It's Tough to be a Bug.
Kilimanjaro Safaris

As far as rides go, that's it. Otherwise the other things we want to do are the 'walk around and look at animals and the Tree of Life' things

 

[Surfinpiratee]

Day 2:

This morning we are checking out of CSR and checking into....THE WILDERNESS!!!

I'm.so.excited.

I'm also very excited about staying at CSR because I absolutely love the theme and the 'beach' and the hammock So beautiful.

But the Wilderness.....I never thought I'd be staying at a deluxe when I started planning this back in June/July.

Anywho... we'll be checking into the WL and exploring the resort (this will hopefully be pretty early in the morning because I really want to make it to MK by rope drop to see the welcome show (I didn't care about it much at first...but the more I think about it, it's just too cute )

Now, MK's hours this day are 9am to 12am (10pm-12am are emh) This is very awesome
Now, since we're getting park hoppers, there's no need to be there ALL day. So I was thinking:
MK in the morning for a few hours
Then maybe hop over to HS for a few hours (which honestly I think is all we're going to need there..) This is what I want to do at HS.
MAYBE do Great Movie Ride...maybe.
Maybe do Legend of Jack Sparrow, I love POTC, Like...obsessed love. But this 'ride'? looks really boring, so if anyone wants to give any input...
Magic of Disney Animation!
Muppet 3D
Star Tours
Toy Story Mania
One Man's Dream.
After HS we'd probably go back to MK since it's open until midnight!



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[Ceryssa]

Following along! Sounds like you have a fun trip planned I'm in the process of planning our first trip, so I don't have much in the way of actual experience to offer you. Hope you guys have an awesome time, and looking forward to hearing all about it!

 

[Surfinpiratee]

It's all becoming so official..!
I just talked to my manager yesterday about me going on vacation in January, and she was totally fine with it!!!

52 more days until we leave!!

 

[Surfinpiratee]

It's so real!!!!!

I made reservations yesterday

First two nights: PORT ORLEANS RIVERSIDE!!
Second four nights: CORONADO SPRINGS!

It just seems so real now I'm so excited!! Can January 2nd just get here now?!?! (<---This is pretty much me)

 

[GetUpTop]

I'm in!

Me and DGF (both 22) drove down from Pennsylvania. Took about 18 hours due to bad weather. Overall I thought the drive added a lot to the trip. We saw a lot of cool sights, and DGF never runs out of things to talk about. Just remember your iPod!

I think your decision to stay on site was a good one. We stayed off site and it just doesn't feel the same.

POTC is my favorite ride! It might be a little "boring" for some but I really enjoy looking at all the scenery. The pirate ship scene is the coolest!

Any thoughts of ADR's yet?