Where'sPiglet?
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2007
- Messages
- 6,671

Welcome!

My name is Bethany and this was my fifteenth trip to Disney World since my first WDW trip in 1992. This was a solo trip from July 25th-August 2nd. I have an annual pass and I am a teacher, so I decided to squeeze in one more trip on my pass before it expires in early November. I have the pass because I did the 10th Anniversary Coast to Coast Challenge with runDisney in the fall of 2017 by doing the Wine & Dine and Avengers Half Marathons. I also did the 10th Anniversary Princess Half Marathon in February. My mom came with me on that trip and did the 10k and I did the Fairy Tale Challenge. It worked out to get the annual pass; I said I even saved money. However, since I booked an “extra” trip, I’m not sure I saved anything!

This was going to be a split trip with me going first to New Orleans to see a few people, but mostly one person, and then flying from New Orleans to Disney World. However, my friend had a family emergency a few weeks prior to the trip and I ended up just changing it to be all at WDW. I have a cast member friend and I had a great deal on Riverside, but I wasn’t sure I could modify that reservation, so I just booked Pop for the first three nights and did a split stay.
I did not have the dining plan, but my goal was to keep food under $70/day. I ate a ton of junk food and mostly counter service meals, and I’m almost certain I was below $70/day. My reasoning for an estimate of $70 I think came from estimating $20 for breakfast and $25 each for lunch and dinner, but I don’t really remember. Maybe it was $15/$20/$20 and then $15 in snacks.

My intent was to do rope drop in the morning and then return to the resort to relax in the afternoons and then go back to the parks in the evenings for the night shows and more park touring when it should have been cooler. I struggled to maintain this plan, and it was most obvious in the mornings, although I blamed it in part on the difference in time zones. The reality is that I don’t think you can maintain 30,000 steps a day in summer heat and humidity on 4 or 5 hours of sleep and something eventually has to give, which is where the title of this report comes in!

One other wrench in my plans came in the form of school. As stated, I’m a teacher, and I booked this trip back in May. I had pondered adding an endorsement to my license for a while, and ended up registering for online classes in mid-June. Unfortunately, there were a few days of overlap and I was scrambling to finish some assignments before the term closed. I was taking two classes, and one of them had due dates and I had worked ahead as much as possible, but I had two assignments that I was unable to do ahead of time due to when they were made available. The other class? There were no due dates, so I had gotten behind while prioritizing the other class, and it kind of came crashing down in a blaze of procrastinating glory during the last week of the term. (Spoiler alert: I did end up finishing all the assignments in time, but not without being angry with myself!)

So, here we go!
