Becky2005
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2004
- Messages
- 6,009
This is the year of trip reports for me! I have never gone to (or planned to) go to Disney so many times in one year I know I am super, super lucky to even be able to do this & it is definitely a once in a lifetime year for me. I was going to do a year-long trip report and then realized I am a talker and it would have been *way* too long. 
Therefore I am breaking it up into each trip and will do a report on each one as we get back.
This was the first one of the year!
Background:
This year all came about due to the Military 250 special year-long pass. My sister qualifies for it. My brother has several timeshares in FL that he uses quite often as well as frequent flyer miles. I am the youngest and tend to get "told" I am going on vacation with them. The catch in this is my siblings are retired & I work part-time that I have to keep reminding them of that, so they do go more than I can.
The running joke is that my sister speaks “Dad” and my brother speaks “Mom” and somehow I can speak both so I mediate quite a bit (which you will see happens on this trip!). However, just like all siblings we have our share of bickering with each other and these trips are a team effort to make sure it doesn’t go too far with the fighting. Somehow by the end of it, we all still end up on speaking terms and keep on planning trips together.
The main characters of the trips are:
ME (youngest) – The original Disney fan of the 3 of us. If I had my way, I would stay on site in the Disney bubble and be willing to pay more for the things I deem make the trip better rather than penny pinch. However, I am also practical and know I don't have unlimited funds to make that happen. I can’t decide if Magic Kingdom is my favorite or Hollywood Studios. Although, if I could choose only 1 it would be Magic Kingdom.
K1 (older sister & oldest of the family): – She is a fan but not like I am, although I think that might be changing a bit after a few trips she has had. She is more a penny-pinching personality that is slowly seeing that sometimes cheap is expensive depending on what it is. Magic Kingdom is her favorite park.
K2 (older brother & middle child): He is not a Disney fan yet, somehow, he is the one who keeps instigating several of these trips. His favorite park is Hollywood Studios (Galaxy’s Edge specifically).
K1 does not live local to us, she is on the East coast. If we fly, she usually does a connecting flight with Chicago being her connection airport. We then all get on the same flight to go to FL. If we are driving, then that’s on each of us to figure it out. Makes for some interesting travels at times! We usually have some sort of saga each trip!
Our plan this year (so far with all 3 of us going and it seems to keep changing!):
January -- activate the military tickets and not even sure why we picked the dates we did but the airfare was cheap and we were able to make it work with everyone.
March -- I somehow got talked into this one as I wasn't going to be able to go as I thought I might be going to CA which fell through. We are staying on-site at All Stars Sports so this could get interesting as we normally have a 2 bedroom timeshare but this is a quick 4-day trip. It was just a fluke that any All Stars opened up because when I was originally looking nothing was available & my sister also could not get Shades of Green. Just happened to open when I looked on a whim. I booked that quickly as I am assuming someone cancelled because nothing was there before or after. Not really ideal but for the price and how quick the trip is, we will make it work!
May -- I already had a trip planned with my friend (which I have a PTR for) and they decided to crash it!!! So this trip will be with my siblings there but not really a sibling trip. We may or may not run into them after we get dropped off at our hotel. My brother is our ride home so I think he will be stuck at our airport for a few hours as they are taking an earlier flight than we are.
June/July -- we have nothing booked but my brother was attempting to get us to book something. I don't think this is going to happen as I don't have enough vacation time to make this work and we already have an August trip on the books. However, you never know with us, so stay tuned on this one!
August -- We have a semi sibling trip planned. We went last year as a big family group and we are going again but not quite the big family group. At this point, we aren't sure who all is going. I know K1 is bringing her entire family so they are going to drive. K2 isn't sure of who all is going from his family and none of my family can afford/wants to go again this summer. I was just trying to figure it out and I think at this point DH is going to come with me & we will go $$$$$$$ due to our last adventure with him (he has mobility issues so uses a wheelchair there & we were at Ft. Wilderness since he wanted quiet...he said next time Contemporary).
After that we don't have anything on the books as this pass does expire December 18 and there are some black-out dates. I would like to get 1 more quick trip in probably late September/October but that will probably not be a sibling trip, it might be my daughter & I or maybe even me going solo???
Now that I wrote a novel *just* for the background and introduction -- next up will be our arrival day!!!
Therefore I am breaking it up into each trip and will do a report on each one as we get back.
This was the first one of the year!
Background:
This year all came about due to the Military 250 special year-long pass. My sister qualifies for it. My brother has several timeshares in FL that he uses quite often as well as frequent flyer miles. I am the youngest and tend to get "told" I am going on vacation with them. The catch in this is my siblings are retired & I work part-time that I have to keep reminding them of that, so they do go more than I can.
The running joke is that my sister speaks “Dad” and my brother speaks “Mom” and somehow I can speak both so I mediate quite a bit (which you will see happens on this trip!). However, just like all siblings we have our share of bickering with each other and these trips are a team effort to make sure it doesn’t go too far with the fighting. Somehow by the end of it, we all still end up on speaking terms and keep on planning trips together.
The main characters of the trips are:
ME (youngest) – The original Disney fan of the 3 of us. If I had my way, I would stay on site in the Disney bubble and be willing to pay more for the things I deem make the trip better rather than penny pinch. However, I am also practical and know I don't have unlimited funds to make that happen. I can’t decide if Magic Kingdom is my favorite or Hollywood Studios. Although, if I could choose only 1 it would be Magic Kingdom.
K1 (older sister & oldest of the family): – She is a fan but not like I am, although I think that might be changing a bit after a few trips she has had. She is more a penny-pinching personality that is slowly seeing that sometimes cheap is expensive depending on what it is. Magic Kingdom is her favorite park.
K2 (older brother & middle child): He is not a Disney fan yet, somehow, he is the one who keeps instigating several of these trips. His favorite park is Hollywood Studios (Galaxy’s Edge specifically).
K1 does not live local to us, she is on the East coast. If we fly, she usually does a connecting flight with Chicago being her connection airport. We then all get on the same flight to go to FL. If we are driving, then that’s on each of us to figure it out. Makes for some interesting travels at times! We usually have some sort of saga each trip!
Our plan this year (so far with all 3 of us going and it seems to keep changing!):
January -- activate the military tickets and not even sure why we picked the dates we did but the airfare was cheap and we were able to make it work with everyone.
March -- I somehow got talked into this one as I wasn't going to be able to go as I thought I might be going to CA which fell through. We are staying on-site at All Stars Sports so this could get interesting as we normally have a 2 bedroom timeshare but this is a quick 4-day trip. It was just a fluke that any All Stars opened up because when I was originally looking nothing was available & my sister also could not get Shades of Green. Just happened to open when I looked on a whim. I booked that quickly as I am assuming someone cancelled because nothing was there before or after. Not really ideal but for the price and how quick the trip is, we will make it work!
May -- I already had a trip planned with my friend (which I have a PTR for) and they decided to crash it!!! So this trip will be with my siblings there but not really a sibling trip. We may or may not run into them after we get dropped off at our hotel. My brother is our ride home so I think he will be stuck at our airport for a few hours as they are taking an earlier flight than we are.
June/July -- we have nothing booked but my brother was attempting to get us to book something. I don't think this is going to happen as I don't have enough vacation time to make this work and we already have an August trip on the books. However, you never know with us, so stay tuned on this one!
August -- We have a semi sibling trip planned. We went last year as a big family group and we are going again but not quite the big family group. At this point, we aren't sure who all is going. I know K1 is bringing her entire family so they are going to drive. K2 isn't sure of who all is going from his family and none of my family can afford/wants to go again this summer. I was just trying to figure it out and I think at this point DH is going to come with me & we will go $$$$$$$ due to our last adventure with him (he has mobility issues so uses a wheelchair there & we were at Ft. Wilderness since he wanted quiet...he said next time Contemporary).
After that we don't have anything on the books as this pass does expire December 18 and there are some black-out dates. I would like to get 1 more quick trip in probably late September/October but that will probably not be a sibling trip, it might be my daughter & I or maybe even me going solo???
Now that I wrote a novel *just* for the background and introduction -- next up will be our arrival day!!!
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