Pre Trip Trip Report Advice? Leaving in 1 Day!!!

[bstarprincess37]

Hi Everyone!

I am new here to the DIS and will be taking a trip with my DH in only 1 Day to Disney!!!

After some months perusing and planning my own trip I thought I would give a stab at writing my own TR.

Since I am new around here I guess I should introduce myself...

This is me, Brittany, and my DH, Israel. (sorry about the engagement photo...newly married, and no Disney pics yet! )

I am currently a stay at home wife, but am looking to return to work as a preschool teacher soon, following a break after a horrible year as a PreK special education teacher (but more on that later). My DH is into everything entrepreneurship and currently works for a law firm consulting for new businesses.

After a very difficult and challenging year, we decided (or rather I decided with the consent of my DH ) to plan a trip to one of the happiest place on earth! We are only in Orlando for 5 days, but will be splitting the stay between Disney and the "Other Orlando" parks. Since my DH and I spent many of our dates together watching the Harry Potter movies and I just finished reading the books we thought we definitely should also spend some time experiencing the WWOHP together. Of course, since it is also his first trip to the World, I am staking alot of this trip --because if he enjoys it, then it will be easier for me to convince him to return again (and be sort of a first step in my brilliant plan to convince him to buy into DVC )


Our itinerary is somewhat intense, especially for our days at Disney, but it looks like this:

Day 1

Arrive/Hotel/Check out I-Drive Area

Day 2

Check Into Royal Pacific
IoA and US (Blue Man Group at night)

Day 3

IoA and US

Day 4

Check Into Coronado Springs
Ultimate Day of Touring at HS, AK, and MK

Day 5

Epcot!

Day 6

Trip Home

Sooo...What do you think??? I thought I would ask for some advice as I start my TR from some more experienced DISers. Since I will be pretty busy each day I wanted to ask, how do you keep track of your day so you can write your TR? Do you take time each night to do a post on the DIS or do you wait until you return home and try to do it while it is fresh in your memory?

 

[Alysa]

Sounds like fun! Have a wonderful time! Three parks in one day and I think you'll be a bit tired for notes - just have a blast and take lots of pics!

 

[bstarprincess37]

Sounds like fun! Have a wonderful time! Three parks in one day and I think you'll be a bit tired for notes - just have a blast and take lots of pics!

Just got back.and yes I had a blast! but yes, I was very tired

Will have to get on to posting if I can remember it all...Thanks for the post!

 

[Alysa]

I love that you have a new trip planned already! Looking forward to hearing about your trip!

 

[bstarprincess37]

Hello! and welcome to my first trip report!

To start I guess I should re-introduce the cast.

This is me and my DH.

I'm Brittany, 26, stay at home wife and currently looking to return to preschool teaching after a very tough year. I love everything to do with travel and theme parks. I also love all the performing arts, theatre and a great show.

and here is a pic of my wonderful DH, Israel, 27.

He currently works as a consultant for new businesses and start-ups and is into everything having to do with entrepreneurship and new tech gadgets. He too has a great appreciation for awesome customer service and quality businesses - which is of course the reason I knew I could convince him to give Disney a try .

The idea for this trip was born out of my very tough year of teaching as a special education teacher. Exhausted and disheartened at the public school district I worked within, I decided that it was time for a little magic. After finding the DIS and reading about other trips, and finding some pretty cheap air tickets online, I was ready to pop the topic to my DH. DH agreed and on I went with the planning.


If you read my pre-trip report, then you will know that this trip was sort of a short sampler trip to Disney and to the “Other Orlando” parks. We only had 4 days to spend in Orlando (DH has a busy job!) and both budget and time were an issue. Although, I tried to convince my DH to have a full on Disney Vaca, he really wanted to see Universal after hearing so much about it from my solo trip there back in March. Plus, he was concerned that the costs of four Disney days would add up quickly.

So I, like a good DW, went ahead with the plan to do two days at Universal and two Days at Disney.


Up Next: Mistake # 1: Too Little Time, Too Little Sleep

 

[bstarprincess37]

Mistake # 1:Too Little Sleep, Too Little Time

In searching for our flights for our memorial weekend trip, I ended up finding some great deals on one way flights. In the end it came out to $300 total for both of us!

I was thrilled and knew that this would be one way of convincing my DH that we should definitely head to Disney for Memorial Weekend. However, taking the oh so cheap flights meant we would need to fly into Tampa and drive a rental to Orlando. But these were minor hurdles given that we would want to rent a car anyway so we could drive between Universal and Disney at our leisure. However, it did mean that with a flight arriving in tampa at 11:30pm, we would not make it to our hotel in Orlando until 1:30am. But, at such a great deal, I couldn’t pass it up.

Fastforward to our actual departure day, the late arrival time was making me pretty nervous. --Not to mention there was a lovely tropical storm scheduled to be moving through the Florida area that weekend. I was really nervous we would end up getting delayed and have to fly in the morning taking away from our precious vaca time so I convinced my DH to try for an early standby flight. After trying to confirm an earlier flight over the phone to no avail, we decided to try our luck by going earlier to the airport that day to see if we could leave a bit earlier in the day.

This ended up being the first of many mistakes we were to make on our first Disney trip.


Once at the airport, we were informed that all the flights through to Tampa were booked and not available for standby. Strange, seeing as how I checked online just before leaving the house and there was definite availability on at least three of the flights. We tried calling the booking number to see if anyone there would be more helpful but the only offer we were given was to pay $150 each to go on the earlier flight. Although this, to me, sounded like a small price to pay, my DH was not so convinced so we let the agent check us in. After a coffee in the starbucks downstairs, we were a bit more level headed and decided to head home to rest up (and so my hubs could do some work).

A very tired DH on the way to the airport...

Even though we had alot of time to rest up, we were both tired when we finally headed back to the airport that afternoon around 2pm. We had to take the metro so it meant taking a bit of a walk to and from the station to the gate at the airport. Once we made our way through security, and grabbed some coffees, (my DH loves his coffee!) we were finally on our way to Orlando! (Well sort of...we were on our way to tampa, where we would pick up a rental car which we would finally drive to Orlando!)

We made it into Tampa around 11:15pm . This was good news seeing as every minute early meant another minute to sleep before our first day at Universal the following day. In the end, I think that it would have paid off to just book an earlier albeit more expensive flight to Orlando. The process of trying for something else was costly both in time and rest. However, at this point, I was over it, and happy to be at the airport just a bit early, or so I thought.

This leads me to part 3 and mistake #2 of our trip.

Up Next: Mistake #2: Lock It NOT Pocket...