Our mini "We gotta get outta here!" weekend trip - In the mist of the crazy SB crowds

[Jacklynn]

Hello! This is the second time starting a trip report. My first one, the trip never happened. It never happened because we ended up finding out we were going to be MOVING to central Florida just a few months after the trip we were going to be going on. So we decided it wasn't smart to spend $2k on a trip, when we would be living there a few months later.

Since then we have moved (from Chicago) and now live about 40 mins away from the gates of Disney.

Here is the cast:

Myself Jacklynn -- I'm a few months shy of 22, and work at an Academy. The academy is a boarding school that hosts mostly international students. These are kids who are much smarter than I It is mostly Asian students. I work as a house parent. Meaning we live in an apartment that is inside of a girls dorm. Our apartment is separate, meaning we have our own bathroom and kitchen of course.

DH-

<-- after doing the Richard Petty Driving experience not long ago. Matthew -- Matt is 23 and works at the academy as well. He works at the lower school as the after school coordinator. He is looking for a different job though, because the after school position is not full time.

So about us:

We started dating back in high school in 2001. We got married May 12th 2007 with a year left of college. We moved from Chicago, this last August and love living in Florida.

Oh I almost forgot! There are two members of our family that won't be going away with us:

Wrigley

He is a 10 month old Yorkshire Terrier. He's about 7lbs and he apparently didn't get the memo that he is not a German Shepard.

Rae

She is a 3 year old Yorkshire Terrier. We rescued her. She is about 2.2 lbs, and she knows she is a tiny thing and takes full advantage of it.

The reason why this is called the "Gotta get outta here" report is because since August, we have only had 1 day a month in which both of us were off work the whole day. See my schedule rotates and I have 1 full weekend off a month. I am usually off Mondays and Tuesdays and he of course works those days. He was previously working as a youth pastor at a church as well, and so he worked on Sundays as well (that didn't work out for various reasons and he no longer works there).

Also even when I am "off duty" we are still inside of the dorm. I can still hear the girls, and if we leave the dorm we have to walk through the dorm to get outside, so I never really feel fully truly off work. Since Matt recently decided to discontinue working at the church this upcoming weekend is our first weekend since we moved here 8 months ago, that we have the whole weekend off together. So we gotta get outta here!!

Up Next: How the trip came to be and some of our plans

 

[Jacklynn]

So like I said we don't get to have much real alone time. I typically feel like I am still working when I am off duty because we live where I work. We are working on buying a house this fall so that when I am off duty we can spend the night there so I can really feel off duty. We just got to get Matt working full time again first.

Anyways, Matt and I decided that we should have a "weekend getaway" we have never done this! So we were trying to decide if we should go over and get a hotel (Hyatt) at Tampa, or if we should get a room at Disney.

Obviously Disney won out.

We are going this weekend, checking in Saturday April 11th and checking out Monday April 13th. So a little 2 night get away. We realize it is Easter of course and know it will be CRAZY busy but we live so close that we get to go often, meaning we get to do all of the actual attractions mostly whenever we want. We just want to go to get away.

We get to go to Disney pretty often, but we've never really had that Disney VACATION feel if that makes sense. So we are pretty excited about checking in and not having to go home at the end of the night for the first time.

Okay so where are we staying? Like I said we wanting to buy a house soon so we are trying to pay off some credit card debt. Sooo that means we are staying value to save some $$. I've always thought POP looked neat, so that is where we are staying .

We both have a PAP so tickets are not an issue.

We decided to add the new Quick Service meal plan! I love the sound of the plan. If you haven't heard about it yet, you get 2 quick service meals and 2 snacks a night. You also each get a refillable mug! For us this works perfect! Since we decided so late that we were gonna go (as in we booked this morning) we probably couldn't get much in the way of TS anyways. And we are all about those snack items, and with this plan you get two. Plus, don't forget about the mug... I'm not a pop drinker but will enjoy having the mug to take home, and drink coffee from.

We figured the meal plan would be easiest because it is already paid for, just one less thing to think about, making for a more carefree weekend which is exactly what we need.

Also since our trip is less than 10 days out I went ahead and checked in online this morning. So that is already taken care of. I'll make sure to report back to you how it went for those of you who are thinking about doing it.

Next up: The rough-draft of a plan

 

[Jacklynn]

I think we have our first rough draft of a plan:

Get to POP early Saturday, drop off our bags. We are planning on getting there between 8 and 8:30, because we want to head over to TL close to opening which is at 9 that morning. It would be nice if our room was already ready, but there isn't much chance of that - espeically with it being a busy weekend.

We will stay at TL until around 1ish or whenever we get tired of being there. Then we will head back to TL, see if our room is ready, if it isn't read we will explore the resort a little bit until it is ready then shower. If it does happen to be ready we will just shower first then explore some.

Then head to Epcot around 5ish, wonder around not really expecting to get on anything, we mostly just want to stroll around the lagoon.

After Illuminations, head back and possibly swim.

Sunday:
Sleep in a little
Swim some more and just kind of chill at the resort.
Around 4ish we might try to head over to DHS and see what the wait time is for TOT or head to AK to see what the wait time is for EE.
Leave either DHS or AK around 6 or whenever we get done with our ride.
Get to MK around 7, eat dinner and then wonder around. Watch Wishes, and then watch the 11pm Spectro.

MK has EMH until 3am, so we will stay until we get too tired or just simply feel like going back.

Monday
We will sleep in maybe get some breakfast and check out. And our short weekend get away will come to a quick close. I'm sure it will come way too quickly seeing as it is going to be a VERY short trip, but since we live close we wouldn't really want to pay to stay there and go longer than this anyways.

It will be sooo nice to not have to drive back home at night, and to really be totally emersed in the atmosphere

hmmmm now, where shall we eat?!

 

[Jacklynn]

Not sure if anyone has read my little pre-trip report so far, but if you see this and are interested in seeing any specific pictures of the resort or of MK, EP or TL just let me know and I will try to get it for you, especially because we mostly plan on just strolling around the parks and resort, and don't really plan on being able to get on much - and since we live close we are a bit line-snobish hehe and won't wait more than say 20 mins since we know we can just go back another time --- sooo we will probably be just walking around a lot taking in the atmosphere.

So let me know if you would like any specific pictures, or any specific info, like a price on something, I'd be more than happen to do it - assuming I can find it

 

[Jacklynn]

Okay I'm about 99.99999% sure no one is reading this since there hasn't been any replies,but I'm going to update it so I have my thoughts all in one place

I just read that MK closed today at capacity. So I'm pretty darn sure it will close on Sunday which of course is Easter. That is also when we are planning on doing MK for the weekend.

Sooo new plan.

We will keep our Saturday plan, but on Sunday we will go check out the Poly (which we have not gotten to explore yet) to look around and try to catch Wishes from there. After that, then we will try to catch the monorail to the MK in hopes that some of the crowds will have cleared out, at least enough that it won't be closed It is open with EMH until 3am, so we would still have plenty of time to roam around, even if we don't ride much. But again, our purpose is just to get out of the house for a few days - not to ride anything.

If it is still too crazy over there, then we will just either head to DTD or go back and swim. This is suppose to be a relaxing get away. The parks are just an extra perk of something to do. But yet we still want somewhat of a plan of course

If we don't get into MK on Sunday, maybe we will pop in Monday morning for a Main Street Bakery cinnamon roll for breakfast or something.

 

[princessalexis]

I'm jealous that you live so close! I stayed at POP a few years ago, and I really enjoyed it (of course, I never spend too much time at the hotel when I go to Disney)! They were redoing the main pool when I went, but it was February and too cold for me to go swimming anyway.

Have a fun trip and post lots of pics when you get back!

 

[Jacklynn]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the resort... we will probably be there a lot during the two days... we are going to possibly check out some other resorts too -- since the parks apparently are so busy this week.

 

[teruterubouzu]

It will be crazy crowded, but I bet you'll have an amazing time if you get to the parks early.

 

[Jacklynn]

Okay so we actually was thinking of seeing if there was a way we could cancel yesterday. I knew it would be crazy busy, but I didn't know it was going to be "parks reaching capacity crazy".

The thing is we aren't going to do the parks. We are going to get away, and throw in a park into the mix. We aren't getting up early to go to the parks, the only early park we are doing is getting to TL for opening tomorrow before we can check in.

Sooo this is our new plan, which is very close to our old one: *I know this is a long and drawn out plan, but it is mostly so I can put my thoughts down

Saturday
Morning-
6:30am-11/1pm- Wake up around 6:30, leave home by 8ish, arrive at TL by 8:40am to get there around opening. We are just going to throw our stuff down on a seat, and do a few slides. After about an hour we plan to grab our stuff we put down and find one of the out of the way seats that people usually look passed. We will just chill out there for a little while.
11/1pm-5pm -We will leave TL no later than 1, but I am sure we will leave way before that, maybe even by 11.
We will head to POP and check in, though I'm sure our room won't be ready yet. Then we will head out and explore POP. We will also grab lunch in the food court.
We may swim if we end up feeling like it.
When we get our room we will shower and relax some just enjoying being away from home.
5pm-9:30pm Around 5 or so we would like to head over to Epcot.
We just want to stroll around the countries with no real plan. We do want to get some nachos from Mexico and watch Illuminations afterwards. So we will start heading to the busses around 9:30 or so.

Back to the hotel and relax and go to bed.


Sunday
This day is really up in the air. We do not have any plans until around 8pm. We will sleep in and relax. We might swim again if we want to, we may go play putt-putt, or go to DTD or something - but since the goal of this weekend-getaway is to relax and get away from home we are going to just go with the flow - especially because we won't be in any parks.

Around 8 we would like to go over to the Poly. We've never checked out that resort and I have wanted to for a long time. We will hang out there until Wishes is over (hopefully catching some of it from the beach) and then take the Monorail over to MK after Wishes, so around 10:30.

Then MK is open until 3am that night, so we will just hang out in MK until we get too tired. We don't really care very much if we actually get to get on anything since we go to the parks about 3-4 times a month. We just want the atmosphere.
When we are done we will go back and get to bed.

Monday
We will sleep in a little of course, and then we have to check out by 11, and our very short weekend away will already be over.

 

[Jacklynn]

Welcome! I meant to do this a while ago, and got so busy I forgot. I created a small pretrip report here: Our weekend getaway Pre-Trip report No one read it though (granted I created it a few days before the trip and there wasn't much excitement to the report more of a place for me to get things organized). So hopefully I have at least some readers here interested in a locals weekend getaway.

Long story short:
DH and I decided we needed to get away. We couldn’t decide between going over to Tampa, or staying on Disney property. We only live about 30-40 mins from Disney gates, but thought it might be fun to stay on property anyways, and Matt made the call that Disney it was.

Our dates… Saturday March 11th-Monday March 13th ---- dun dun dun Easter weekend, when the parks kept closing.


Cast: (This is the same as in my pre-trip report)

Myself Jacklynn -- I'm a month shy of 22, and work at an Academy. The academy is a boarding school that hosts mostly international students. These are kids who are much smarter than I It is mostly Asian students. I work as a house parent, and DH and I live within a girls dorm, now calm down I know what you are thinking… we have an apartment that is separate with our own bathroom kitchen, ect. DH isn’t sharing shower stalls with the high school girls

DH-

<-- after doing the Richard Petty Driving experience not long ago. Matthew -- Matt is 23 and works at the academy as well. He works at the lower school as the after school coordinator. He is looking for a different job though, because the after school position is not full time.

So about us:

We started dating back in high school in 2001. We got married May 12th 2007 with a year left of college. We moved from Chicago, this last August and love living in Florida.

There are two members of our family who did not go with us:

Wrigley

He is an 11 month old Yorkshire Terrier. He's about 7lbs and he apparently didn't get the memo that he is not a German Shepard. He was recently neutered poor guy

Rae

She is a 3 year old Yorkshire Terrier. We rescued her. She is about 2.2 lbs, and she knows she is a tiny thing and takes full advantage of it.

Here are the details on the trip: We stayed Saturday March 11th-Monday March 13th, at POP. We decided it would be fun to do the new Quick Service Dining plan (we have Premium Annual Passes - It is just for AP holders right? I could be wrong). Short weekend because of my work schedule, but we got a lot done (and relaxed too!) We did a few parks, and checked out a few resorts as well.

Up Next:
Typhoon Lagoon before check in: Did it close at capacity on us? Leaving us bumping into other sunscreened bodies :

 

[Jitzy]

Great start on your report! We live only 2 1/2 hours away, so we know what it is like to just hop in the car and go! I've often called while driving down in the car. That really freaks our kids out!

Can't wait to hear more!