GatorMama
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2011
- Messages
- 869
WHO: myself (27), a stay at home mommy with a background in theatre and early childhood education. DH (29), a great daddy and Airman for our nation. DS (almost 2!) a sweet little one who developed a deep love for Wall-E just a day or two before our vacation
WHEN: July 23 - August 3, 2011
WHERE: 1 night with family upon arrival, 7 nights off-property at Wyndham Cypress Palms Resort, 2 nights at Disney's Wilderness Lodge, 1 night with family on our way back home... ELEVEN nights total! WOW!
WHY: Early in the year, we received 3 free nights at a timeshare resort in Orlando, so we planned to stay at WL for a few nights to extend that trip. Problem was, we never found our paperwork for those free nights, so we shortened our stay at WL and found an inexpensive (a steal, really!) resort to stay at for the rest of the trip.
BUDGET: We were on a pretty tight budget from the beginning, but just before the trip, there were a couple of big, unexpected costs to us, so we had to pull in the reigns even more. Cancelling the trip so last minute was out of the question (first 7 nights were already paid for and non-refundable), so we cancelled 2 of our 4 ADRs and altered our cooking plans to utilize more sale items/stash items and coupons. We had a $600 food budget for the trip. And we SUCCEEDED! We also cut out some of the souvenir money we'd hoped to use.
Day 1- Driving SOUTH:
A few days before our vacation began, we changed some of our plans, including our strategy for driving down. Originally, we planned to break up the drive into two days, but in an effort to save money on hotel costs, we ended up driving it all in one day... this change required us to also stay with family our first night in Florida.
The drive down was MOSTLY uneventful... aside from the rock that made a quarter-sized nick/crack in my windshield. We planned to utilize an idea from DISers to rent a free movie from redbox, but I had a hard time locating a redbox once we were on the road (none of the places we stopped at had wi-fi). Our young son did pretty well in the car unless he was in need of something (drink, snack, clean diaper) and we made decent time. We left our home at 7:15 AM, made several stops along the way and arrived in Polk County at 9:15 PM.
Meals/Snacks: Cereal and milk at home for breakfast, picnic lunch (chicken salad sandwiches, carrots, chips) at a rest area, late afternoon snack (more chicken salad sandwiches) with a free lemonade at Chick-fil-A and dinner at Carrabba's (free- DH's best friend is in upper management).
Day 2- ARRIVAL:
We spent several hours with DH's family before heading to Orlando (45 minutes from where we were staying). We checked into our resort, unpacked and then went to DownTown Disney to activate and upgrade our tickets. We had the Armed Forces Salute 4 day hopper, and upgraded to the 4 day hopper with water parks and more. It was wonderful to chat with the CM that helped us. Her tag indicated that she was from Macon, GA, so I mentioned we were from there. When we got to chatting, it turns out we went to the same college and she was in the same class as my cousin! After that, we went grocery shopping. We both nearly fell over dead from the grocery prices. I'm used to paying no more than $3.50 for a pound of bacon. We paid $6.49 and it HURT. I cooked dinner back at our resort and we went to the Disney outlet to find pins for trading. We let DS pick out a single pin for his collection (he chose Donald Duck), and I got a small set to begin trading. 5 pins for $13 ain't half bad!
Meals/Snacks: MIL cooked a late breakfast of bacon and french toast for breakfast, no lunch, I cooked up chicken for taco salad at the resort.
Day 3- EPCOT:
We got up early to attempt RD. I cooked breakfast for us and prepared everything for dinner. We were there before RD, but far enough back (hadn't gotten through the stiles) that we missed the opening show. We went straight to Soarin'. I thought it might be fantastic enough that we'd want to try to ride twice... so we got a Rider switch pass... DH rode first in the standby line. It took 35 minutes. While DS and I waited, I got FPs for us to use later. I didn't ride immediately once DH got off. Instead, we read Test Track using the single rider line. Quite speedy! Then we made our way to Mission Space. DH rode first in the standby line (for the green side, because it was quicker), then I rode the orange side using Rider Switch. While I was on, DH got a FP to use on the orange side because he called the green side "weak sauce" (a term you may see later... he used it several times over the course of our vacation).
We were beginning to get hungry, so we headed to the Morocco Pavilion in World Showcase for lunch. DH was a little disappointed in the falafel, but everything else was so good, it easily made up for it. We shared the Slider combo and were mostly satisfied. Maybe not "full" but not hungry either.
After lunch, we wandered the WS, including scoping out CM lanyards in the hopes of finding a 2011 pin for me and a Wall-E or Mike Wazowski pin for DS. Once we began seeing that the end of our day was nearing, we went back to Future World. I rode Soarin' (only once- we gave our FPs to a group of extremely respectful and considerate teenaged boys that held the door for us at a gift shop) and we took DS to ride Nemo and explore the Sea pavilion. He really liked the "pish" and I was a little sad we didn't keep our ADR for Coral Reef. We also rode Journey into Imagination with Figment and Living with the Land (which I LOVED... we made note to eat at Garden Grill next time!). We finished our day with Spaceship Earth... and a survey on our dining experiences while in the park. We gave mostly high marks...DH did say he didn't think the falafel was authentic enough.
Meals/Snacks- bacon and egg sandwiches and yogurt for breakfast, slider combo in Morocco for lunch, beef stroganoff and green beans for dinner at the resort.
Days 4-12 will have to wait until I have more time! I hope to update with pictures too!
WHEN: July 23 - August 3, 2011
WHERE: 1 night with family upon arrival, 7 nights off-property at Wyndham Cypress Palms Resort, 2 nights at Disney's Wilderness Lodge, 1 night with family on our way back home... ELEVEN nights total! WOW!
WHY: Early in the year, we received 3 free nights at a timeshare resort in Orlando, so we planned to stay at WL for a few nights to extend that trip. Problem was, we never found our paperwork for those free nights, so we shortened our stay at WL and found an inexpensive (a steal, really!) resort to stay at for the rest of the trip.
BUDGET: We were on a pretty tight budget from the beginning, but just before the trip, there were a couple of big, unexpected costs to us, so we had to pull in the reigns even more. Cancelling the trip so last minute was out of the question (first 7 nights were already paid for and non-refundable), so we cancelled 2 of our 4 ADRs and altered our cooking plans to utilize more sale items/stash items and coupons. We had a $600 food budget for the trip. And we SUCCEEDED! We also cut out some of the souvenir money we'd hoped to use.
Day 1- Driving SOUTH:
A few days before our vacation began, we changed some of our plans, including our strategy for driving down. Originally, we planned to break up the drive into two days, but in an effort to save money on hotel costs, we ended up driving it all in one day... this change required us to also stay with family our first night in Florida.
The drive down was MOSTLY uneventful... aside from the rock that made a quarter-sized nick/crack in my windshield. We planned to utilize an idea from DISers to rent a free movie from redbox, but I had a hard time locating a redbox once we were on the road (none of the places we stopped at had wi-fi). Our young son did pretty well in the car unless he was in need of something (drink, snack, clean diaper) and we made decent time. We left our home at 7:15 AM, made several stops along the way and arrived in Polk County at 9:15 PM.
Meals/Snacks: Cereal and milk at home for breakfast, picnic lunch (chicken salad sandwiches, carrots, chips) at a rest area, late afternoon snack (more chicken salad sandwiches) with a free lemonade at Chick-fil-A and dinner at Carrabba's (free- DH's best friend is in upper management).
Day 2- ARRIVAL:
We spent several hours with DH's family before heading to Orlando (45 minutes from where we were staying). We checked into our resort, unpacked and then went to DownTown Disney to activate and upgrade our tickets. We had the Armed Forces Salute 4 day hopper, and upgraded to the 4 day hopper with water parks and more. It was wonderful to chat with the CM that helped us. Her tag indicated that she was from Macon, GA, so I mentioned we were from there. When we got to chatting, it turns out we went to the same college and she was in the same class as my cousin! After that, we went grocery shopping. We both nearly fell over dead from the grocery prices. I'm used to paying no more than $3.50 for a pound of bacon. We paid $6.49 and it HURT. I cooked dinner back at our resort and we went to the Disney outlet to find pins for trading. We let DS pick out a single pin for his collection (he chose Donald Duck), and I got a small set to begin trading. 5 pins for $13 ain't half bad!
Meals/Snacks: MIL cooked a late breakfast of bacon and french toast for breakfast, no lunch, I cooked up chicken for taco salad at the resort.
Day 3- EPCOT:
We got up early to attempt RD. I cooked breakfast for us and prepared everything for dinner. We were there before RD, but far enough back (hadn't gotten through the stiles) that we missed the opening show. We went straight to Soarin'. I thought it might be fantastic enough that we'd want to try to ride twice... so we got a Rider switch pass... DH rode first in the standby line. It took 35 minutes. While DS and I waited, I got FPs for us to use later. I didn't ride immediately once DH got off. Instead, we read Test Track using the single rider line. Quite speedy! Then we made our way to Mission Space. DH rode first in the standby line (for the green side, because it was quicker), then I rode the orange side using Rider Switch. While I was on, DH got a FP to use on the orange side because he called the green side "weak sauce" (a term you may see later... he used it several times over the course of our vacation).
We were beginning to get hungry, so we headed to the Morocco Pavilion in World Showcase for lunch. DH was a little disappointed in the falafel, but everything else was so good, it easily made up for it. We shared the Slider combo and were mostly satisfied. Maybe not "full" but not hungry either.
After lunch, we wandered the WS, including scoping out CM lanyards in the hopes of finding a 2011 pin for me and a Wall-E or Mike Wazowski pin for DS. Once we began seeing that the end of our day was nearing, we went back to Future World. I rode Soarin' (only once- we gave our FPs to a group of extremely respectful and considerate teenaged boys that held the door for us at a gift shop) and we took DS to ride Nemo and explore the Sea pavilion. He really liked the "pish" and I was a little sad we didn't keep our ADR for Coral Reef. We also rode Journey into Imagination with Figment and Living with the Land (which I LOVED... we made note to eat at Garden Grill next time!). We finished our day with Spaceship Earth... and a survey on our dining experiences while in the park. We gave mostly high marks...DH did say he didn't think the falafel was authentic enough.
Meals/Snacks- bacon and egg sandwiches and yogurt for breakfast, slider combo in Morocco for lunch, beef stroganoff and green beans for dinner at the resort.
Days 4-12 will have to wait until I have more time! I hope to update with pictures too!
