Swolphin Disneymoon, April 20-28: Pre Trip Report!

[jkramer]

Introductions:


IMG_1060 by JKramer2013, on Flickr

Im Julie! I am 27, I work for a big retail company, I live in the suburbs of Chicago. I went to Purdue for school and still love my Boilermakers! Oh and most importantly, Im getting married!

My Disney details:
Previous Trips: I used to go all spring breaks to visit a great aunt and uncle who lived in Orlando, but I havent been in TEN years!!! (My parents went a few years ago for their 30th wedding anniversary, but I stayed home&rude right!?!)
Fav movie: Little Mermaid
Fav character: Minnie!
Fav ride: In the past the safari, but well see if that sticks.
Fav show: Lion King!

My fiances name is Joe. Hes 33, works for a big bank, and soon will join me in my house in the suburbs. He went to DePaul, but isnt quite as obsessed as I am with Purdue. Hes also getting married

His Disney details:
Previous trips: NONE!!! GASP!!!
Fav movie: Fantasia apparently&.
Fav character: Goofy (probably because hes a lil goofy )
Fav ride: oh wait, hes also never been on any roller coaster type rides either!!! I cant wait!
Fav show: also yet to be determined.

The picture is from our bridal shower.

Note: we are not having a WDW wedding. Our wedding is April 13, 2013 in Indiana and we leave for WDW on April 20.

 

[jkramer]

Introductions
How the trip came to be
The Hotel
The ADRs
The special experiences
The Wedding Plans
The bridal shower
The work shower
The Disney touches
Pin Trading/Pin Boards

 

[wiigirl]

Congratulations!

In for your PTR!

 

[jkramer]

Congratulations!

In for your PTR!

Yay! I feel super behind starting a pre-trip report, but I figure better late than never. Plus I really want to collect my thoughts on the trip before we head out, and I figured this was as good as any way to do so.

 

[jkramer]

Obviously because we are getting married, a honeymoon is in order. I probably started honeymoon research while I was dreaming about the ring

I like many brides started with the all-inclusive resorts. The only question was where? We looked into Jamaica, Bahamas, but avoided Mexico. We discussed what was important to us. We even all but had a place picked out.

All along we talked about the fact we wanted to go to WDW before we had kids. Since Joe had never been, I didn’t want his first time to be muddled with chasing little ones around. One night I joked, that we should just go to WDW for our honeymoon. To my surprise, Joe quickly jumped onboard. I mean it made sense, neither of us are big drinker so our all-inclusive alcohol money would go to waste. We also are very on the go type people, so I couldn’t even find enough excursions to keep us interested. (I was also nervous about being on the beach for a week with all the pretty (read: skinny) honeymooners.)

So our plot was born, we were going to Disney!

Only problem was…where do you even start??? Do we just do Disney or do we add in other Orlando and area attractions? Do we stay on site or off? Do we drive or fly? How expensive is the GF again?!?

That’s when I found the DIS. I lurked a LOT of threads and finally made some decisions!

 

[jkramer]

I’m a big fan of starting at the unachievable and working my way down. So because I love Full House, my first looksee started with the GF! Well I’m not quite as rich as the Tanner family (or Steve…how the heck did he afford go all the way to FL from San Fran AND stay at the GF????) So I moved on.

Poly was next on my dream list, but ruled out based on who knows what. (I may have just freaked and looked into the Poly AGAIN 3 weeks before my trip). Moral of the story, for some reason I nixed the Poly from my plans.

Perhaps I crossed the Poly off my list because I discovered the Yacht Club. You see I grew up boating. I adore the water. PLUS I’m like a little kid; I don’t stay in a hotel without a swimming pool. So it looked like I found my dream resort…until I number crunched. That’s not to say we couldn’t afford it, but compared to a moderate resort, I just couldn’t justify the cost.

Onwards to the moderates! I’ve stayed at the old Dixie Landings and Coronado Springs and loved them, so we looked at the much recommended POR. Again, my little kid kicked in and whined about how FAR it is from the parks!!!! We couldn’t walk to ANY of them (imagine me whining about this haha).

After all that, we landed at the Dolphin. A moderately priced deluxe. I know it’s not a Disney-fied as some of the Disney owned hotels, but being on our honeymoon and not having any children with us…I think that’s ok. Plus we can WALK to Epcot!!!!!!

Hotel is set: Dolphin from April 20-28!