Prologue
So I started writing this report in September of last year, hoping to come back to it as needed before our planned trip June 10-15th. At the time I was also slightly disbelieving that we would even be able to make it a go, as we’ve been saving for this trip for over 3 years. From time to time I would come back and update, trying to keep things light and funny. You’re going to notice a change in tone starting in May of this year. My moms health became unstable in January and while she was able to rehab and go back home, in May she declined again, and she passed in mid May. Since then I’ve been scrambling beginning the process of settling her estate and listening to people tell me how much I “deserve” to take this trip. I don’t feel like I deserve it, I feel like crawling back into bed and hibernating which is saying something because I love summer. I love everything about it the pool, the heat, the lack of school and routine. Not this year, this year everything has a bit of gray to it. My hope is to come back and report that we had a great time, that I was able to relax and enjoy that pool cup. That I’ll return refreshed and ready to take on the days ahead but I honestly don’t know. Our lives can change with every breath we take, don’t take a moment for granted.
And on that note, lets go in the way back machine to September of 2018 when I thought this was going to be a fun, light trip report about a family headed out on our first family vacation (meaning we aren’t visiting family, headed for a wedding or other event, just going to go because we want to)
9/19/18
We are: Myself (bethany10) DH (T) enjoys roller coasters, His words are I’ll go horizontal, but not vertical (no Dr. Doom’s fearfall for him!) Harry Potter and works hard to help support our family. DD (13 at the time of the trip)is a MAJOR thrill seeker, Harry Potter fan and all around great kid. and DS (10) is a willing thrill seeker, but announced early on, no water rides for him. As for me, I’m a non roller coaster Disney fan who also loves Harry potter. I work full time as a Graphic Designer, so the design geek in me will be making all kinds of secret purchases purely for the labels in the HP areas. Basically I’m just here for the food.
Some background, if you’re interested.
After many, many years of unemployment, daycare bills that would have bought us a new car every year, setbacks and challenges in 2016 we achieved the goal/dream of purchasing our first house. I cried when we signed the papers and am grateful every day I come home to a house we “own”. Well, ok our AC went out for most of last summer so I was less grateful then BUT, still a big deal to me that we/the bank own it.
So we’re sitting at the house signing and I look at T and go, next goal is a trip. T nods at me and says sure. His thoughts: Omaha for 3 days. Mine: Disney for 7 days. With all due respect to the people of Omaha, clearly we needed to get on the same page. I go off on my own tangent and start planning a massive Disney trip with a side trip to Universal for a day (yes, I know I’m on the Universal boards walk with me). I start chattering to DH about how much we’re going to spend on food while at Disney. He blinks at me, Disney? Wait, HOW MUCH? The discussion devolved from there.
I talked to friends who had gone to both parks who had kids our age, unanimously I was told we spent all this money on Disney and our kids begged to go back to Universal. I began to have second thoughts. I asked A about meeting characters. I got the patented tween eyeroll stare every parent of a teen/tween can mimic as they’ve seen it approximately 3,287 times. I asked DS, I got why are we going to see mickey? I thought we were seeing Harry Potter. So, I swapped out plans (again), at one point we were going to go to Universal for 3 days then get on a Disney cruise for 3 days for some beach time. DH looked at the budget again and said, I’m sorry did you win the lottery and not tell me? I let go of the cruise. Then we looked at the end of May, 2018. That winter we had the most snow days we’ve had since DD started Kindergarten. School was extended past Memorial Day to make up the time. More changes.
Finally dear readers we get to plan Foxtrot. Which is totally set in Jello on a hot summer day.
The plan: Two nights at Royal Pacific, then move to a family suite at CBBR. We’ll rent a car and plan on a day trip to Kennedy Space Center. With the car I can hit Publix for some sundries to keep in the room.
Ebay purchases: 3 freestyle mugs and a popcorn bucket for a nice little savings. I’m saving the 4th mug for the prettier (IMO) Volcano bay mugs. I told the seller to pitch the straws, so I’ve been trying different reusable straws to find one that fits. It’s harder than you might think.
First change: As of September, RPR has priced us out, so the new plan has us spending the week at CBBR in a family suite. DH is happy as he felt moving hotels was “stupid”. If I can get a good AP rate at RPR we’ll go back, but I’m going to book CBBR for the week once we pay for plane tickets. Southwest releases our flights at the end of October. The plan is to hit Sams club for GCds at some point before that and save a little cash that way.
March, 2019 update. Remember how I said our 2017/18 winter was bad? Well the 2018/19 winter said hold my beer it’s going to be a bumpy ride. We had snow, then ice, then more snow. Did I mention the snow? Being in the Midwest, we’re used to the cold and to some extent the snow but this was bad even for us. The kids didn’t get a full week of school from the start of January (coming back from Christmas break) until the beginning of MARCH. We had that many snow days. Their last day is now set for a full week past Memorial Day.
In late January, my mom had to be checked into the hospital, where she spent 2 weeks, then on to rehab to get her strength back as she’s a senior and lives by herself. The day after she was admitted to the hospital, I had knee surgery which was a rabbit hole I went down after telling my GP we’re going on a very expensive trip this summer where I’m going to be doing a lot of walking. I’m nervous about this knee pain I’ve been having. That pain ended up being a torn meniscus, and my week post surgery where I was supposed to be resting and staying off of it, I spent running around the hospital dealing with mom. In short, the first half of the year sucked, and I started jokingly telling people I was padding my pool cup beverage fund. What they didn’t know is that’s exactly what I had started doing. Along with googling photos of warm beaches, and the lazy river at Cabana Bay.
Somewhere in there flight tickets were booked, and yet another change we were now coming home late Saturday, and saving about $200 over coming home early Sunday, not to mention the hotel savings. (Yay pool cup fund)
Mid March, AP rates were released for our dates. Now I had booked us into a Family Suite at Cabana Bay, so everyone would have their own bed. Being the cheap (or Frugal as my friends call me) person that I am, I booked us into the parking lot view room. We do tend to spend time in the room, so noise level is important to us, plus I don’t like the idea of an outside door. So, we were booked into a Family Suite interior entry in the towers. When AP rates were released, the only thing I paid attention to was interior vs exterior entry. We looked to save a decent amount by switching to the AP rate so I called (yay for $$ in the pool cup fund).
The guy on the phone is running through the reservation, family suite, interior entry yadda yadda pool view yadda.
Me: wait what, pool view?
Him: yes mam the rate you requested is the pool view room. (Still cheaper than the parking lot view with the AP rate. )
Me: Oh, yes ok we’ll take it.
Later to DH: Um I upgraded us to a pool view.
DH: cool!
Me: If parking lot view opens up we can save more (yay pool cup)
DH: But, pool view (boo, no pool cup)
Me: sigh, ok. Apparently everyone else is ecstatic with the idea that we’ll have a view of the pool. Here I was thinking no one cared.
That settled, we made the appointment to board our 100 lb dog at the canine resort, and settled in to wait until June. Slight tangent here, when I was a kid you boarded your dog at the vet. There was no resort, no grooming (baths were outside, with the hose with the stinky shampoo) no pay extra for a treat one day while you’re gone. You left the dog at the vet, came back and picked them up when you got home. Now, we have to spend the month of May taking him to the daycare portion of the resort because he gets anxious and we don’t want him to freak out when we board him. Sorry, get off my lawn rant over.
The flights, hotel and tickets (Undercover Tourist) have been booked. The weather has finally broken and there are plants blooming in my garden. Spring has finally arrived!
Mid April- nothing much to update. I’ve got counters going on my phone, and have started watching ride times on the Universal app. I’ve also drug out sewing projects that I put away in prep for the holidays thinking I would pick them back up in January (bwa ha ha says the universe on that one). I don’t sew very well, but do have a bag maker that I follow whose patterns are so well written she makes me think I can do more than my skills say I can. I’m in the middle of making our pool bag which I really want to be waterproof. This is proving to be a challenge and so far I’ve successfully managed to screw up a fair amount of the “good” fabric I’ve been hording for this project. If you’re a crafter you know the special pain that comes from actually using the good stuff you’ve been saving for the right project only to screw up said project. I’m switching gears and trying a different method of waterproofing. I’m hopeful it works.
Also this week, I contacted Cabana bay about pre-paying for the room. For anyone interested, I just emailed customer service and they very nicely emailed me a form to fill out and send back to them. The person I emailed was lovely, and very helpful she even added our high up room request to our reservation as it got lost somewhere along the way. I’m really happy to know that everything is pre-paid as much as possible so I can just relax and enjoy the parks. I know this isn’t how everyone rolls, but for me to know Its handled is a major part in being able to just flow with the day once we’re down there.
Just under 2 months to go. I’m ready for some pool time!
Less than one week to go update, I wrote my opening paragraph from here.
The weather is predicted to be surface of the sun hot, so basically June in Florida. Which I’m excited for. I’ve managed to pick my sewing projects back up and hope to get those done. The pool bag is coming together nicely, and I’ve been reading Schumi’s latest trip report adding yet more restaurants to my growing list.
Initial plan: We arrive around 4:00 on Monday. Everyone (else) has announced they want to chill in the hotel room. I’m going to see if I can coax them to citiwalk and have cowfish for dinner.
Tuesday: We hit the parks early, my family has been warned. I apologize now for anyone who may encounter us that early in the morning. I’ll be the one going look at that, how cool is that, do you know how much money we spent to be here? This is fun dammit.
Wednesday – volcano bay day if the weather holds. Which I’m hopeful it will as we will have limited time in this park due to our seasonal passes.
Thrusday – I finally let them sleep in. The day is open to return to VB, the parks or wherever people want to go. I may steal the car and go get a dole whip.
Friday – Boma day. She who makes the plans, gets time on Disney property. We have reservations for breakfast. The rest of the day is open. A trip to Kennedy space center has been discussed.
Saturday – we don’t leave until late in the evening, so it’s going to be what do we want to do, we’re open.
Will we actually follow this itinerary? Well I can guarantee parts of it will be followed (see the mention of the dole whip) and both kids are excited for the coasters so I suspect we will get to the park on Tuesday, the timing may not be what I want but that’s all part of the fun right?
Stay tuned and we’ll find out as the great 2019 vacation commences in just under 6 days.
So I started writing this report in September of last year, hoping to come back to it as needed before our planned trip June 10-15th. At the time I was also slightly disbelieving that we would even be able to make it a go, as we’ve been saving for this trip for over 3 years. From time to time I would come back and update, trying to keep things light and funny. You’re going to notice a change in tone starting in May of this year. My moms health became unstable in January and while she was able to rehab and go back home, in May she declined again, and she passed in mid May. Since then I’ve been scrambling beginning the process of settling her estate and listening to people tell me how much I “deserve” to take this trip. I don’t feel like I deserve it, I feel like crawling back into bed and hibernating which is saying something because I love summer. I love everything about it the pool, the heat, the lack of school and routine. Not this year, this year everything has a bit of gray to it. My hope is to come back and report that we had a great time, that I was able to relax and enjoy that pool cup. That I’ll return refreshed and ready to take on the days ahead but I honestly don’t know. Our lives can change with every breath we take, don’t take a moment for granted.
And on that note, lets go in the way back machine to September of 2018 when I thought this was going to be a fun, light trip report about a family headed out on our first family vacation (meaning we aren’t visiting family, headed for a wedding or other event, just going to go because we want to)
9/19/18
We are: Myself (bethany10) DH (T) enjoys roller coasters, His words are I’ll go horizontal, but not vertical (no Dr. Doom’s fearfall for him!) Harry Potter and works hard to help support our family. DD (13 at the time of the trip)is a MAJOR thrill seeker, Harry Potter fan and all around great kid. and DS (10) is a willing thrill seeker, but announced early on, no water rides for him. As for me, I’m a non roller coaster Disney fan who also loves Harry potter. I work full time as a Graphic Designer, so the design geek in me will be making all kinds of secret purchases purely for the labels in the HP areas. Basically I’m just here for the food.
Some background, if you’re interested.
After many, many years of unemployment, daycare bills that would have bought us a new car every year, setbacks and challenges in 2016 we achieved the goal/dream of purchasing our first house. I cried when we signed the papers and am grateful every day I come home to a house we “own”. Well, ok our AC went out for most of last summer so I was less grateful then BUT, still a big deal to me that we/the bank own it.
So we’re sitting at the house signing and I look at T and go, next goal is a trip. T nods at me and says sure. His thoughts: Omaha for 3 days. Mine: Disney for 7 days. With all due respect to the people of Omaha, clearly we needed to get on the same page. I go off on my own tangent and start planning a massive Disney trip with a side trip to Universal for a day (yes, I know I’m on the Universal boards walk with me). I start chattering to DH about how much we’re going to spend on food while at Disney. He blinks at me, Disney? Wait, HOW MUCH? The discussion devolved from there.
I talked to friends who had gone to both parks who had kids our age, unanimously I was told we spent all this money on Disney and our kids begged to go back to Universal. I began to have second thoughts. I asked A about meeting characters. I got the patented tween eyeroll stare every parent of a teen/tween can mimic as they’ve seen it approximately 3,287 times. I asked DS, I got why are we going to see mickey? I thought we were seeing Harry Potter. So, I swapped out plans (again), at one point we were going to go to Universal for 3 days then get on a Disney cruise for 3 days for some beach time. DH looked at the budget again and said, I’m sorry did you win the lottery and not tell me? I let go of the cruise. Then we looked at the end of May, 2018. That winter we had the most snow days we’ve had since DD started Kindergarten. School was extended past Memorial Day to make up the time. More changes.
Finally dear readers we get to plan Foxtrot. Which is totally set in Jello on a hot summer day.
The plan: Two nights at Royal Pacific, then move to a family suite at CBBR. We’ll rent a car and plan on a day trip to Kennedy Space Center. With the car I can hit Publix for some sundries to keep in the room.
Ebay purchases: 3 freestyle mugs and a popcorn bucket for a nice little savings. I’m saving the 4th mug for the prettier (IMO) Volcano bay mugs. I told the seller to pitch the straws, so I’ve been trying different reusable straws to find one that fits. It’s harder than you might think.
First change: As of September, RPR has priced us out, so the new plan has us spending the week at CBBR in a family suite. DH is happy as he felt moving hotels was “stupid”. If I can get a good AP rate at RPR we’ll go back, but I’m going to book CBBR for the week once we pay for plane tickets. Southwest releases our flights at the end of October. The plan is to hit Sams club for GCds at some point before that and save a little cash that way.
March, 2019 update. Remember how I said our 2017/18 winter was bad? Well the 2018/19 winter said hold my beer it’s going to be a bumpy ride. We had snow, then ice, then more snow. Did I mention the snow? Being in the Midwest, we’re used to the cold and to some extent the snow but this was bad even for us. The kids didn’t get a full week of school from the start of January (coming back from Christmas break) until the beginning of MARCH. We had that many snow days. Their last day is now set for a full week past Memorial Day.
In late January, my mom had to be checked into the hospital, where she spent 2 weeks, then on to rehab to get her strength back as she’s a senior and lives by herself. The day after she was admitted to the hospital, I had knee surgery which was a rabbit hole I went down after telling my GP we’re going on a very expensive trip this summer where I’m going to be doing a lot of walking. I’m nervous about this knee pain I’ve been having. That pain ended up being a torn meniscus, and my week post surgery where I was supposed to be resting and staying off of it, I spent running around the hospital dealing with mom. In short, the first half of the year sucked, and I started jokingly telling people I was padding my pool cup beverage fund. What they didn’t know is that’s exactly what I had started doing. Along with googling photos of warm beaches, and the lazy river at Cabana Bay.
Somewhere in there flight tickets were booked, and yet another change we were now coming home late Saturday, and saving about $200 over coming home early Sunday, not to mention the hotel savings. (Yay pool cup fund)
Mid March, AP rates were released for our dates. Now I had booked us into a Family Suite at Cabana Bay, so everyone would have their own bed. Being the cheap (or Frugal as my friends call me) person that I am, I booked us into the parking lot view room. We do tend to spend time in the room, so noise level is important to us, plus I don’t like the idea of an outside door. So, we were booked into a Family Suite interior entry in the towers. When AP rates were released, the only thing I paid attention to was interior vs exterior entry. We looked to save a decent amount by switching to the AP rate so I called (yay for $$ in the pool cup fund).
The guy on the phone is running through the reservation, family suite, interior entry yadda yadda pool view yadda.
Me: wait what, pool view?
Him: yes mam the rate you requested is the pool view room. (Still cheaper than the parking lot view with the AP rate. )
Me: Oh, yes ok we’ll take it.
Later to DH: Um I upgraded us to a pool view.
DH: cool!
Me: If parking lot view opens up we can save more (yay pool cup)
DH: But, pool view (boo, no pool cup)
Me: sigh, ok. Apparently everyone else is ecstatic with the idea that we’ll have a view of the pool. Here I was thinking no one cared.
That settled, we made the appointment to board our 100 lb dog at the canine resort, and settled in to wait until June. Slight tangent here, when I was a kid you boarded your dog at the vet. There was no resort, no grooming (baths were outside, with the hose with the stinky shampoo) no pay extra for a treat one day while you’re gone. You left the dog at the vet, came back and picked them up when you got home. Now, we have to spend the month of May taking him to the daycare portion of the resort because he gets anxious and we don’t want him to freak out when we board him. Sorry, get off my lawn rant over.
The flights, hotel and tickets (Undercover Tourist) have been booked. The weather has finally broken and there are plants blooming in my garden. Spring has finally arrived!
Mid April- nothing much to update. I’ve got counters going on my phone, and have started watching ride times on the Universal app. I’ve also drug out sewing projects that I put away in prep for the holidays thinking I would pick them back up in January (bwa ha ha says the universe on that one). I don’t sew very well, but do have a bag maker that I follow whose patterns are so well written she makes me think I can do more than my skills say I can. I’m in the middle of making our pool bag which I really want to be waterproof. This is proving to be a challenge and so far I’ve successfully managed to screw up a fair amount of the “good” fabric I’ve been hording for this project. If you’re a crafter you know the special pain that comes from actually using the good stuff you’ve been saving for the right project only to screw up said project. I’m switching gears and trying a different method of waterproofing. I’m hopeful it works.
Also this week, I contacted Cabana bay about pre-paying for the room. For anyone interested, I just emailed customer service and they very nicely emailed me a form to fill out and send back to them. The person I emailed was lovely, and very helpful she even added our high up room request to our reservation as it got lost somewhere along the way. I’m really happy to know that everything is pre-paid as much as possible so I can just relax and enjoy the parks. I know this isn’t how everyone rolls, but for me to know Its handled is a major part in being able to just flow with the day once we’re down there.
Just under 2 months to go. I’m ready for some pool time!
Less than one week to go update, I wrote my opening paragraph from here.
The weather is predicted to be surface of the sun hot, so basically June in Florida. Which I’m excited for. I’ve managed to pick my sewing projects back up and hope to get those done. The pool bag is coming together nicely, and I’ve been reading Schumi’s latest trip report adding yet more restaurants to my growing list.
Initial plan: We arrive around 4:00 on Monday. Everyone (else) has announced they want to chill in the hotel room. I’m going to see if I can coax them to citiwalk and have cowfish for dinner.
Tuesday: We hit the parks early, my family has been warned. I apologize now for anyone who may encounter us that early in the morning. I’ll be the one going look at that, how cool is that, do you know how much money we spent to be here? This is fun dammit.
Wednesday – volcano bay day if the weather holds. Which I’m hopeful it will as we will have limited time in this park due to our seasonal passes.
Thrusday – I finally let them sleep in. The day is open to return to VB, the parks or wherever people want to go. I may steal the car and go get a dole whip.
Friday – Boma day. She who makes the plans, gets time on Disney property. We have reservations for breakfast. The rest of the day is open. A trip to Kennedy space center has been discussed.
Saturday – we don’t leave until late in the evening, so it’s going to be what do we want to do, we’re open.
Will we actually follow this itinerary? Well I can guarantee parts of it will be followed (see the mention of the dole whip) and both kids are excited for the coasters so I suspect we will get to the park on Tuesday, the timing may not be what I want but that’s all part of the fun right?
Stay tuned and we’ll find out as the great 2019 vacation commences in just under 6 days.