Revenge of the Animal Kingdom Duck: A September Pre-Trip Report

[beckyx3]

1. Prime time cafe has really good fried chicken
2. I am suuupppperrrrr excited for Check Mickey's

3. Is that an actual picture of the duck?! Classic

4. I had an "I love Troy" backpack

1. Can you say peanut butter and jelly milkshakes?!
2. Me too! I've never been
3. Yeah! That's him! I had a picture of him on Facebook from Senior Trip, because why not?
4. We were so cool.

I introduced Steve. I hope he approves!

 

[beckyx3]

WE HAVE FLIGHTS.

Well...mostly. Ricky, Anne, and I went out to breakfast this morning. We had been going back and forth about flights for weeks, do we book now, do we wait. One of our group wasn't sure if they could even take off yet so we didn't have any way of deciding what to do. We found a 5:30 am flight out of Philly, but it was an airline I'm not all that familiar with where you have to pay for bags, carryons, peanuts, etc. But it was a great time! We'd get a whole day in Disney! But this morning at breakfast Ricky decided to check Southwest again and BAM. That coveted 6:30 am flight had more Wanna Get Away seats. It was beautiful. We cheered, we high-fived...

You should honestly know by this point it wasn't that easy. We can't make decisions to save our lives.

So we went back and forth. We listed the pros and cons of this. Both flights were pretty much the same price. Southwest would give us the free carryon and we'd get free drinks, but with Frontier we'd get there even earlier. It wasn't until Anne checked Southwest return flights for her and Steve that we were pretty much sold. They'd get a later flight for a good price. So we booked.

Hello, Southwest!

At this point our troubles dwindle down to two things:

1. Ricky and I don't have a return flight. We only booked one way in hopes that we could by some miracle find a return flight that is cheap and at a good time.

2. Our 5th member of our party can't request off until July. So even if she gets off, we still have to hope that there are still seats on Anne and Steve's flights.

We'll see how it works out, but I guess flights make it official! WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD​

 

[sailored]

Booking flights is always such a fun thing! I already booked mine the day SW released flights, but I still look all the time to see if prices lowered. I'm obsessed lol.

 

[beckyx3]

Booking flights is always such a fun thing! I already booked mine the day SW released flights, but I still look all the time to see if prices lowered. I'm obsessed lol.

It's such a crazy obsession!! I always heard flights came out a certain amount of time away and when I looked they had already been out! I felt so silly! But it all eventually worked out

But yay! Having a flight is the best feeling! ​

 

[TheLittleKatie]

So we all gathered in the back seating area. Ready to chow down on some BBQ. When all of a sudden this CRAZY duck flew down towards us. Swooping past us and scaring the BEJEEZUS out of us, mostly Darth.

Now she can be a very loud person and her reaction was to scream and flail about. The guy at the table behind us heard the commotion and started FREAKING out as well. Imagine this big dude having a mini panic attack. I have no idea if he saw the duck or just heard us and got confused but it was hilarious.

This is hilarious!!! I love ducks so much, and even though he scared you, this pretty much reaffirms my love for them So you guys are on a quest to find this specific killer duck and get your revenge?! Love it!

We found a 5:30 am flight out of Philly, but it was an airline I'm not all that familiar with where you have to pay for bags, carryons, peanuts, etc.

Oh man, they're the flights that get you, the costs just add up and up.. They'd charge you for breathing in their air if they could

But this morning at breakfast Ricky decided to check Southwest again and BAM. That coveted 6:30 am flight had more Wanna Get Away seats. It was beautiful.

YAY! Much better

Well, I'd keep it at a one-way ticket to Florida if I were you! That's my future dream

We'll see how it works out, but I guess flights make it official! WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD

Yaaaay!

 

[beckyx3]

The Worldwind That is Free Dining

Let's set the scene:

Monday morning, 7:30 am. I woke up to a text from Anne saying that she say on Twitter that Free Dining had been released

THIS IS NOT A DRILL. FREE DINING IS A THING!

But wait, weren't they supposed to release it to Visa card holders so we could be ready when it would come out for the general public??

I'm new to trying to get free dining so I got dressed, headed off to work, and figured I could make the phone call on my lunch break and it'd be such a lovely day and we'd all be happy and excited and it would just be such a pleasant day.

I'm sure a bunch of people know what happened next...

I started looking up threads on the Dis while my computer loaded and I got ready to work for the day. People were already saying that their resorts were sold out, they'd been on the phone for hours, all of the above. So since I'm allowed to have headphones in I figured I'd call early and just sit on hold while I got my work done and when someone answered I would take my break and speak with them.

Well 20 minutes passed, then 45...then an hour...

I guess I should feel grateful that I didn't wait as long as some people. After an hour and 20 minutes of silence someone finally answered and I popped up out of my seat and went to take my break. The CM I spoke to was wonderful. She was so nice. She kept trying to find different options for us but nothing worked. Almost nothing was available. I even tried to book a room discount and still..nothing. I failed. I sulked back to my seat and sent Anne and Ricky that it was a no go and we were all very sad and agreed to keep trying.

I did get a chuckle out of the beginning of our convo though. My current email address is based of the Yellowcard song Way Away. When she asked for my email I started spelling it out and she goes "wow, I thought you were going to say something else. We have this little convenience store here called Wawa and I thought your email was about Wawa" I told her I knew all about Wawa as I'm from the area where it originated and we had a nice little laugh about.

If you don't know what Wawa is, or you don't have one near you, I'm sorry for your loss.

Love.

That night Anne texted me and said her sister had offered to call for us and be a little bit more forceful. So that was the plan for the next day.

I got to work and Ricky had woken up early to call and searched online at the same time to see if there was anything available. He sat on hold and browsed and finally he found something! The Wilderness Lodge Villas, the same room type we had. The only difference was that we had to pay for park hoppers. We did the math and we'd still be saving money on meals. He was our hero!

This was me:

And this is how I imagined Anne and Ricky:

Happy dances all around!

We've been trying almost every day to get our room only discount for Beach Club. It's been a process, we've had some pretty bad CMs over the phone regarding it, but a few good things came out of at least getting free dining:

1. We don't have to cancel our dining reservations
2. Steve has been raving about the mug he got the one night they stayed at the Lodge and he was thrilled to know that he gets another mug
3. We now have park hoppers so we have a little more freedom

So that was our free dining fiasco. Anne accidentally texted that it was a worldwind instead of a whirlwind. It was pretty much all of the above.

This weekend the weather was beautiful. We went to safety day the next town over and today the Disney crew played wiffle ball and went to go get ice cream. We talked about the Lodge and Free Dining. It was really exciting.

So that's all I have for you today! We've got a lot going on in the next few weeks so no real updates. But go ahead and comment! I'll be checking in and would love to talk to some people!

See ya real soon!​

 

[beckyx3]

This is hilarious!!! I love ducks so much, and even though he scared you, this pretty much reaffirms my love for them So you guys are on a quest to find this specific killer duck and get your revenge?! Love it!



Oh man, they're the flights that get you, the costs just add up and up.. They'd charge you for breathing in their air if they could



YAY! Much better

Well, I'd keep it at a one-way ticket to Florida if I were you! That's my future dream


Yaaaay!

The Disney ducks are the craziest! They aren't afraid of anything! And airlines can be completely awful. My parents just returned from a trip and they had some major issues with airlines, mostly US Airways. My mom came back talking about how she's going to complain and write letters and she's absolutely not that person at all. We were going to book US too so I'm so glad we got those Southwest flights. And you and Ricky would get along so well! I saw your post about the Splash plush (which is awesome btw) and he LOVES those characters! He's going to be so jealous when I show him. And it's his dream to live in Florida too. I just get worried that the magic would be lost ​

 

[chillitsanne]

Ugh worldwind indeed but yay free dining!

 

[chillitsanne]

Also good thing I am up early to announce free dining to you

 

[beckyx3]

Ugh worldwind indeed but yay free dining!

I will never forget that day. Then Ricky just pulls it up on his phone the next day like it was no big deal.

Also good thing I am up early to announce free dining to you

Seriously! You saved the day!

 

[beckyx3]

So I'm currently stuck on the couch with a foot sprain.

It happened something like this:

So why not pop in for an update?

Ricky and I have been having issues getting a room only discount at the Beach Club. He called like 15 times and never had any luck. About a week and a half ago I decided to just look it up and see if I could find anything. Lo and behold a discount was there! So that was pretty awesome.

At this point we're about 123 days out so that's super exciting! And Anne and I may have talked another one of our friends into joining us! She and her boyfriend have to work out vacation days and stuff but it's still really exciting to think we might have more friends coming along. I'm going to have to think of a clever name for our trip!

I hope everyone is enjoying the nicer weather and I hope all of the American's out there have a great memorial day weekend! Last year we spent Memorial Day in Epcot, so this year will be a little less exciting.

Don't forget if you want to comment on anything, please do. We're nice people, I promise!

See ya real soon!​

 

[beckyx3]

Updates!

I hope everyone had a great memorial day weekend! It's been HOT here in the Delaware Valley. Temps are going down this week, but the weekend we were close to 90 degrees!

I feel like giving a life update and then some Disney updates. Hopefully you'll enjoy them

Friday night we went mini-golfing and got some froyo.

The mini-golf had a very Haunted Mansion-esque area:

Poor Fred. Always with the head injury.

It was a beautiful night. We talked about mini-golfing in WinterSummerland and how we want to try Fantasia Gardens on this coming trip. I actually won this game. A first for me. Ricky always beats me.

Then Ricky and I spent Saturday in Philly enjoying Philly Beer Week. There's a lot going on all over the city and even outside of the city so we had a lot to choose from. We started out on 2nd St, walked over to a pop-up beer garden in Head House Square, then meandered our way to the Independence Beer Garden outside of Independence Hall.

Pics or it didn't happen:

My first choice of the day. An NJ brewery Cape May Brewery Tower 23. It's a sour beer. They seem to be the only kind I'll drink

We didn't stop at the Victoria Freehouse, it's usually a family favorite, but they always have great signs. Last time I was there with most of the Disney crew for Harry Potter trivia. We came in second thanks mostly to Steve.

Next stop was Head House Square. Deschutes is a brewery in Oregon. They're bringing this cool little set up around the country throughout the summer. I suggest checking it out if it comes around to your area!

Last was my favorite

The Independence Beer Garden is right across the street from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. You can kind of see it in the background of my picture of my Angry Orchard. We were walking by and I said to Ricky "I feel like I'm in Epcot!" just because when we walk by the American Adventure pavilion we always discuss how closely the architecture really does resemble Philly. This was my favorite place though. They had bocce, jenga, connect 4. I think it may be my birthday spot for this year. We got some snacks and just relaxed. I contemplated walking over to see if I could get a real picture like this:

If Barney can lick the Liberty Bell, so can I!

But maybe next time...

Sunday morning was spent planning on having breakfast and talking about our Disney trip with Anne and Darth. It was discussed a little but there was really someone else who we needed to worry about.

And that brings us to DISNEY!

So as I mentioned last time, we have another friend who wants to join our adventure! She would be staying a day less and she's on a tighter budget so we've been trying to figure out what the logistics of that would be. If it's 6 of us, the WL would be out because there's no way to get a room for 6 of us in budget and that has the FD promotion available. I still have the reservation just in case. We went back and forth with ideas. A cabin. a suite at AOA, these would be fine but we were all really looking forward to staying deluxe. 2 rooms at POR. POR seemed to be the winner but we waited too long to book and we lost the standard room.

Back to the drawing board!

This morning I decided to check the price for a suite at AOA for the length of the friend who's leaving early's stay and then transferring to a deluxe with a room only reservation for the last night everyone else is with us. It turns out, switching to a deluxe for the night is cheaper than splitting the last night at AOA with 5 people instead of 6.

Pro: we'd at least get a night at a deluxe.
Con: we'd lose an extra day off FD
Pro: we'd have an awesome place to hang out before MNSSHP

So we decided to roll with the pros and the new plan, as long as our friend can get a good deal on flights, is staying the 6 of us in a Lion King suite, and then saying ALOHA for the night at THE POLY!

I AM SO EXCITED

We either stay at WL with the 5 of us or a friend who we don't get to see comes and then we get a night at the Polynesian. This is a win-win situation in my mind!

I'll keep you posted on where we end up staying but I'm super excited for both outcomes

110 days away!​

 

[beckyx3]

By Air, By Land, and By Sea!

So it’s been some time since I last updated. We haven’t really had too much to discuss so I figured I’d let the report sit.

So one of our party still hasn’t fully committed to coming along with us. One day I decided to check flights to make sure they were still there so if she decided to come there wouldn’t be any issues. So I looked at Southwest…and the flight was gone. I started to have a mini panic attack, so then I checked the flight Ricky and I were planning on taking home…and it was gone too! I couldn’t believe that both flights were sold out. We’ve never, ever been on a sold out Southwest flight and the times were so late, it seemed so strange to me. I was a little bummed out, but that’s what happens when you wait.

A few days later Anne called me. Southwest had called her to tell her that the flight had been completely cancelled. I was still so surprised. We’ve had so many issues with Southwest this trip and they’re usually our go to airline! I’m hoping this is just a one-time thing and we won’t have any issues in the future. Anne also had to ask the worker like 12 times to make sure that she really would get a refund and not just a credit. Turns out she did. I’m not sure if she booked another flight yet, but that’s the current plan.

So to recap: Southwest = issues this trip, Ricky and I still don’t have a return flight (¯\_(ツ)_/¯), and we gave our party member a deadline of July 1st of whether or not she’ll be coming with us.

But, on a separate Disney note, Ricky and I have BIG news…

WE BOOKED OUR FIRST DISNEY CRUISE!!!!

We’ll be sailing on the Dream in February for 4 nights. I’m so incredibly excited. I’ve never been on a Disney cruise and Ricky has never been on a cruise period. We haven’t finalized a plan yet, but we put down our deposit so hopefully it’s a done deal! I’m really excited that we’ll be able to get out of the cold Northeast in February and we’ll hopefully get some park time. We’re contemplating getting annual passes in September so maybe that’ll push us to do it. It’s going to be so awesome.

Also going on this week I decided to purchase a pair of the Disney Vans. I need some sneakers that aren’t workout shoes and I’ve pretty much fallen in love with the patterns. All I need right now is to decide if I should get the Ariel pattern or the Jasmine pattern. Any suggestions? It’s a really tough life decision.

These:

or these:

That’s pretty much all I have for now! We’re 87 days away from our trip so Fastpass selection is going to come up fast. Also, if you want to follow along, I have a countdown going on my Instagram. Every day I post a picture I’ve taken in WDW, I’ve been having a lot of fun doing it. There's a link in my signature, so go ahead and check it out. Or comment here. Or not. It’s cool!

See ya real soon!​

 

[beckyx3]

Not sure what's going on with the missing pictures! Almost everything is from Facebook and I haven't deleted any ​

 

[chillitsanne]

ya can't cruise without me

 

[beckyx3]

ya can't cruise without me

 

[beckyx3]

OFFICIAL PLANS!!

So it's starting to get real! We only have 55 days to go until our extravaganza!

So that means all of our plans are set and every one who's coming is officially in!

The Who:

Our travel party includes 6 of us. Myself, Ricky, Anne, Steve, and 2 of our friends whom we'll call K & N.

The Where:

Here:

The Art of Animation Lion King Suite from 9/19-9/22

and here:

The Polynesian! From 9/22-9/23

Then our friends are going to leave and we are staying here:

The Beach Club from 9/23-9/27

Our fastpass window was on tuesday. I stayed up until midnight on monday (thankfully I needed to finish the last season of Arrow so I could keep myself up) and we got everything we want!! I had read that people were having a hard time getting the Mine Train at the times they wanted a few days before us so I started to get nervous that our time wouldn't be available but it worked out a-okay

We're all really excited about our trip. I'm really looking forward to it but obviously I don't want to wish the rest of the summer away. But time really is flying by, before we know it the trip will be here! So I guess there are benefits of the end of the summer.

I'm not sure I'll have all that much to write about from now until our trip, but this was a fun way to get ready!
​

 

[chillitsanne]

 

[TheLittleKatie]

The Polynesian! From 9/22-9/23

9/22 is our first night at the Poly too! We're sooooo close to our trips OMG

 

[Dentam]

I just found your report and am following along! The AoA resort looks really cool, and of course the Poly should be awesome! Love the BC as well! Sounds like a great trip!!