Our trip is 18 (almost 17) days away. I've been working on a trip report for a while now, since I like to journal anyway. The period leading up to the trip has been an eventful one and not in a good way.
So here's the very long pre-trip report on our planned* one night trip to MNSSHP.
*that plan lasted a very very short time.
Cast of Characters
Me Single, working in a high tech field with a lot of stress. Love it though.
Mom My mother. The best mother on Earth. I adore her and always have, even in those tough teen years.
Sister My older (and only) Sister. We have brothers but they dont come into play unfortunately. I tried to talk one of them into coming with us with his wife but it was a no go.
DN1 Nephew 13 years old. All attitude. Loves most thrill rides.
DN2 Nephew 13 years old. Easy going. Not into thrill rides.
The Inception of The Plan.
My sister, mother and I take a few four day trips to WDW a year. Girls only. Its our mental health break. Driving back from our trip in April for the flower and garden show and talking about our next trip (then planned to be in December) my sister said she didnt think she could go again until she had taken her kids. I could understand that but I knew money was pretty tight for her. Shes a teacher and we all know how underpaid they are. Of course, given that I cannot imagine a more nightmarish job than teaching small children a million dollars a year would seem underpaid to me. She doesnt have many expenses on the trips with my mom and I since we cover the resort and she has an annual pass. Her not going in December however was totally unacceptable. Ive read those nightmare trip reports about traveling with family and I even know someone who lived one of those trips, but the three of us love going together. Who knew? We fought like cats and dogs as teenagers.
So once we were home (maybe the day after we got home, because Im not a Diser for nothing) I made our reservations for December (POR, later changed to CSR when I realized it was Pop Warner week) and then debated a few options on what we could do with the kids and settled on MNSSHP. I could swing that; my sister, her boys and me at POP. Not too expensive. Wed go on a Friday night and come home the next morning. So I proposed this idea and she and the kids all thought it sounded like fun. Well, to be blunt, one of them said hed rather do Halloween at Universal. Sacrilege! I pointed out to him that Disney was on the table, Universal was not. He had two choices in answer to the do you want to go? question, Why yes, thank you, Id love to go to Disney for Halloween! or, No thank you, Id rather stay home. Guess which one he chose?
Now, my mother is not a fan of Halloween. She has no moral objection to it, she just thinks it detracts from Thanksgiving, which to her is the One True Holiday. When I was growing up we always had lobster for Thanksgiving. I had no idea until I started school that other people ate Turkey. My mother couldnt see anything special about a big, cheap, bird that hardly anyone cooked well. And we lived in Boston, she figured it was dead certain that the pilgrims ate lobster. She wasnt so sure about that whole turkey thing. So, given her whole animosity towards Halloween for infringing on Thanksgiving, it didnt occur to me that she would want to go to a Halloween event. I cant imagine what I was thinking. Her reaction to that was, No one is going to Disney without me! (I think it was a good two months later when she asked me, What is this thing were going for?)
The Execution of The Plan:
This was going to require a slight modification in plans. I dont stay in value resorts with my mother. I just think she deserves a bit more luxury and I know she prefers it. Also, I wanted to stay as late as possible at MNSSHP. I was starting to think a Magic Kingdom resort would be a good idea, and it was only for one night. Id need two rooms though so that pretty well narrowed it down to the Wilderness Lodge. No problem, I love the looks of that place. After all were from New England but live in Florida. Do you know if you want a rock here you have to buy one? Really, there are stores where you can buy rocks for your garden since there are no rocks in Florida. Wilderness Lodge for us is the equivalent of the Poly to a resident of Buffalo. So I called up and bought five tickets to MNSSHP and reserved two rooms (AAA rate) at WL for Oct. 19th. You may be seeing the fatal flaw in my plan right about now.
I still do not know if it was my fault or the CMs fault (or divine intervention) that I ended up with tickets and reservations for a Thursday night. In any case, it was done and there was no fixing it. We were going on Thursday and returning on Friday. Right. Bet you can figure out how that turned out. A week or so later I called up to add a night to our reservation. No more AAA rooms left. No more woods view rooms left. So now I have two reservations. One night in a woods view at AAA rate and one night, courtyard, rack rate. Ouch.
I quizzed the kids on what they wanted to do most so I could figure out where to go on our second day. No matter how I worked it though we just were not going to be able to do much. AK was out, there wasnt much anyone wanted to do there and we didnt have a good time there on our last trip. But we were somehow going to have to get Epcot and MGM into that second day. It was becoming really apparent that leaving on Saturday morning was just silly. Why not add another night? By now Im trying really hard not to think of how much all this is costing. Remember, it is two rooms. So add a night and were talking the equivalent of six nights in a deluxe (granted a budget deluxe, but still, deluxe) at RACK RATE. My mom said she wanted to stay another night and volunteered to take on some of the expense. Go mom!
Back on the phone. CM assures me no way, nothing available. She can get me into CR for about $100 more. I tell her Ill think about it. Hang up, call right back, get another CM. Adds my night no problem. Were set! Its happening! 4 days and 3 nights at the Wilderness Lodge. And its only costing $2000! Time to start praying for a code. Any code.
Seriously though. Its done. Plans made, tickets bought, reservations made and paid for. Code, no code, whatever, I dont care. Were going and I cant wait! Our one night visit has turned into a vacation!
The Interlude between the Planning and the Trip:
As a postscript to this let me say that we are going during food and wine. I know these kids though, we arent going to be able to spend much time doing any F&W events. Two weeks ago at work someone said, Hey, arent we going to Food and Wine this year? (I work with friends.) So by that afternoon we had a Saturday night reservation at POFQ for two weeks after I return from the MNSSHP trip. A few days later we added Friday night to our reservation. I am taking full advantage of being a FL resident this fall!
Postscript 2: About a week after the above we also decided New Years Eve at Pleasure Island would be fun. Staying at ASMU, Dinner upstairs at Wolfgang Puck.
Postscript 3: My father suffered a mild stroke, no lasting damage. A frightening warning shot about his health that he is choosing to ignore. He smokes. Fortunately he will not be alone when we go. My uncle will be in the house with him and my BIL will be checking in on them.
UPDATE: (I havent posted it yet but I have an update.) Room only discount came out yesterday. I got on the phone and was on hold for 40 minutes before the very sweet Contessa answered and began to help me with applying the AP rate to my reservation. I have three nights, two separate reservations. She got one (the most expensive one!) switched over and then we got disconnected! Called back, another 30 minutes on hold and I got Art. Poor, sweet Art. He just had dental surgery, could hardly talk, and was getting totally slammed between the code coming out and the computers being down the day before. Anyway, he got the rest of my stay on the discount and also got my other upcoming reservation (November) on the discount. I now have $225.00 credit for our October trip! This will pay for a dinner at least. Not so much luck with December. My dates are the only few blacked out of a discount.
UPDATE 2: When the paperwork came through with the new rates I actually had nearly $400 in credit due to the AP discount! Thats going to help a lot with meals.
UPDATE 3: A week ago. Just about 1 month to the day before our trip, my house caught fire at 4:00AM. We all got out, the cat got out. I called 911, grabbed the cat, my purse and my pants (in that order), got my mother out of the house and then went back in for my dad who wouldnt leave. I had to force him out of the house and he was fighting me the whole way. My uncle got out on his own. All of them are 80 or above. A house fire has always been one of my biggest fears. The house will be ok eventually but it was a terrifying experience.
The fire makes the budget a bit tighter but since all the trips I have planned are already paid for Im still going to Disney World! Im also getting in some overtime to help with the extras.
Oh and the cat had to go for a bath and a haircut (long haired cream coloured cat and a smoky fire do not a happy combination make!) I dont think he enjoyed his day at the spa as much as were going to enjoy our trip to the World.
UPDATE 4: 16 days to go and I've caught a cold.
The cat, Dandy (after his haircut):
UPDATE 4: a week after the fire (the day after I wrote the above): A young woman whom I had met several times and who was very close friends with four of my co-workers was driving home from her night shift job when a man driving an SUV on the wrong side of a divided highway slammed into her car going 60 miles an hour and killed her. She was 27 years old. The daughter of a police officer and a much loved friend to many. This late summer/early fall has been horrible.
Trip resolutions:
I will not cave in to stress
I will not lose my temper with any member of my family. I will remember how blessed I am to have each and every one of them.
I will remember that I can (and will) go to the World again so Ill do what the kids want and worry about the things I want to do on the next trip.
I will not view my entire vacation through a lens. I have lots of photos of WDW already. I will only take the important ones and make good use of the park photographers.
I will, however, shoot some video.
I will see some characters and get some autographs.
I will not buy a t-shirt that I will never wear again.
Ill see a parade
Ill do something kind for at least one person that I dont know every day.
Ill ride Dumbo.
Ill spend time enjoying the resort
Ill buy my kitty a present, because I love him and he was such a good boy when I was carrying him out of the fire and didnt panic and fight me.
So here's the very long pre-trip report on our planned* one night trip to MNSSHP.
*that plan lasted a very very short time.
Cast of Characters
Me Single, working in a high tech field with a lot of stress. Love it though.
Mom My mother. The best mother on Earth. I adore her and always have, even in those tough teen years.
Sister My older (and only) Sister. We have brothers but they dont come into play unfortunately. I tried to talk one of them into coming with us with his wife but it was a no go.
DN1 Nephew 13 years old. All attitude. Loves most thrill rides.
DN2 Nephew 13 years old. Easy going. Not into thrill rides.
The Inception of The Plan.
My sister, mother and I take a few four day trips to WDW a year. Girls only. Its our mental health break. Driving back from our trip in April for the flower and garden show and talking about our next trip (then planned to be in December) my sister said she didnt think she could go again until she had taken her kids. I could understand that but I knew money was pretty tight for her. Shes a teacher and we all know how underpaid they are. Of course, given that I cannot imagine a more nightmarish job than teaching small children a million dollars a year would seem underpaid to me. She doesnt have many expenses on the trips with my mom and I since we cover the resort and she has an annual pass. Her not going in December however was totally unacceptable. Ive read those nightmare trip reports about traveling with family and I even know someone who lived one of those trips, but the three of us love going together. Who knew? We fought like cats and dogs as teenagers.
So once we were home (maybe the day after we got home, because Im not a Diser for nothing) I made our reservations for December (POR, later changed to CSR when I realized it was Pop Warner week) and then debated a few options on what we could do with the kids and settled on MNSSHP. I could swing that; my sister, her boys and me at POP. Not too expensive. Wed go on a Friday night and come home the next morning. So I proposed this idea and she and the kids all thought it sounded like fun. Well, to be blunt, one of them said hed rather do Halloween at Universal. Sacrilege! I pointed out to him that Disney was on the table, Universal was not. He had two choices in answer to the do you want to go? question, Why yes, thank you, Id love to go to Disney for Halloween! or, No thank you, Id rather stay home. Guess which one he chose?
Now, my mother is not a fan of Halloween. She has no moral objection to it, she just thinks it detracts from Thanksgiving, which to her is the One True Holiday. When I was growing up we always had lobster for Thanksgiving. I had no idea until I started school that other people ate Turkey. My mother couldnt see anything special about a big, cheap, bird that hardly anyone cooked well. And we lived in Boston, she figured it was dead certain that the pilgrims ate lobster. She wasnt so sure about that whole turkey thing. So, given her whole animosity towards Halloween for infringing on Thanksgiving, it didnt occur to me that she would want to go to a Halloween event. I cant imagine what I was thinking. Her reaction to that was, No one is going to Disney without me! (I think it was a good two months later when she asked me, What is this thing were going for?)
The Execution of The Plan:
This was going to require a slight modification in plans. I dont stay in value resorts with my mother. I just think she deserves a bit more luxury and I know she prefers it. Also, I wanted to stay as late as possible at MNSSHP. I was starting to think a Magic Kingdom resort would be a good idea, and it was only for one night. Id need two rooms though so that pretty well narrowed it down to the Wilderness Lodge. No problem, I love the looks of that place. After all were from New England but live in Florida. Do you know if you want a rock here you have to buy one? Really, there are stores where you can buy rocks for your garden since there are no rocks in Florida. Wilderness Lodge for us is the equivalent of the Poly to a resident of Buffalo. So I called up and bought five tickets to MNSSHP and reserved two rooms (AAA rate) at WL for Oct. 19th. You may be seeing the fatal flaw in my plan right about now.
I still do not know if it was my fault or the CMs fault (or divine intervention) that I ended up with tickets and reservations for a Thursday night. In any case, it was done and there was no fixing it. We were going on Thursday and returning on Friday. Right. Bet you can figure out how that turned out. A week or so later I called up to add a night to our reservation. No more AAA rooms left. No more woods view rooms left. So now I have two reservations. One night in a woods view at AAA rate and one night, courtyard, rack rate. Ouch.
I quizzed the kids on what they wanted to do most so I could figure out where to go on our second day. No matter how I worked it though we just were not going to be able to do much. AK was out, there wasnt much anyone wanted to do there and we didnt have a good time there on our last trip. But we were somehow going to have to get Epcot and MGM into that second day. It was becoming really apparent that leaving on Saturday morning was just silly. Why not add another night? By now Im trying really hard not to think of how much all this is costing. Remember, it is two rooms. So add a night and were talking the equivalent of six nights in a deluxe (granted a budget deluxe, but still, deluxe) at RACK RATE. My mom said she wanted to stay another night and volunteered to take on some of the expense. Go mom!
Back on the phone. CM assures me no way, nothing available. She can get me into CR for about $100 more. I tell her Ill think about it. Hang up, call right back, get another CM. Adds my night no problem. Were set! Its happening! 4 days and 3 nights at the Wilderness Lodge. And its only costing $2000! Time to start praying for a code. Any code.
Seriously though. Its done. Plans made, tickets bought, reservations made and paid for. Code, no code, whatever, I dont care. Were going and I cant wait! Our one night visit has turned into a vacation!
The Interlude between the Planning and the Trip:
As a postscript to this let me say that we are going during food and wine. I know these kids though, we arent going to be able to spend much time doing any F&W events. Two weeks ago at work someone said, Hey, arent we going to Food and Wine this year? (I work with friends.) So by that afternoon we had a Saturday night reservation at POFQ for two weeks after I return from the MNSSHP trip. A few days later we added Friday night to our reservation. I am taking full advantage of being a FL resident this fall!
Postscript 2: About a week after the above we also decided New Years Eve at Pleasure Island would be fun. Staying at ASMU, Dinner upstairs at Wolfgang Puck.
Postscript 3: My father suffered a mild stroke, no lasting damage. A frightening warning shot about his health that he is choosing to ignore. He smokes. Fortunately he will not be alone when we go. My uncle will be in the house with him and my BIL will be checking in on them.
UPDATE: (I havent posted it yet but I have an update.) Room only discount came out yesterday. I got on the phone and was on hold for 40 minutes before the very sweet Contessa answered and began to help me with applying the AP rate to my reservation. I have three nights, two separate reservations. She got one (the most expensive one!) switched over and then we got disconnected! Called back, another 30 minutes on hold and I got Art. Poor, sweet Art. He just had dental surgery, could hardly talk, and was getting totally slammed between the code coming out and the computers being down the day before. Anyway, he got the rest of my stay on the discount and also got my other upcoming reservation (November) on the discount. I now have $225.00 credit for our October trip! This will pay for a dinner at least. Not so much luck with December. My dates are the only few blacked out of a discount.
UPDATE 2: When the paperwork came through with the new rates I actually had nearly $400 in credit due to the AP discount! Thats going to help a lot with meals.
UPDATE 3: A week ago. Just about 1 month to the day before our trip, my house caught fire at 4:00AM. We all got out, the cat got out. I called 911, grabbed the cat, my purse and my pants (in that order), got my mother out of the house and then went back in for my dad who wouldnt leave. I had to force him out of the house and he was fighting me the whole way. My uncle got out on his own. All of them are 80 or above. A house fire has always been one of my biggest fears. The house will be ok eventually but it was a terrifying experience.
The fire makes the budget a bit tighter but since all the trips I have planned are already paid for Im still going to Disney World! Im also getting in some overtime to help with the extras.
Oh and the cat had to go for a bath and a haircut (long haired cream coloured cat and a smoky fire do not a happy combination make!) I dont think he enjoyed his day at the spa as much as were going to enjoy our trip to the World.
UPDATE 4: 16 days to go and I've caught a cold.
The cat, Dandy (after his haircut):
UPDATE 4: a week after the fire (the day after I wrote the above): A young woman whom I had met several times and who was very close friends with four of my co-workers was driving home from her night shift job when a man driving an SUV on the wrong side of a divided highway slammed into her car going 60 miles an hour and killed her. She was 27 years old. The daughter of a police officer and a much loved friend to many. This late summer/early fall has been horrible.
Trip resolutions:
I will not cave in to stress
I will not lose my temper with any member of my family. I will remember how blessed I am to have each and every one of them.
I will remember that I can (and will) go to the World again so Ill do what the kids want and worry about the things I want to do on the next trip.
I will not view my entire vacation through a lens. I have lots of photos of WDW already. I will only take the important ones and make good use of the park photographers.
I will, however, shoot some video.
I will see some characters and get some autographs.
I will not buy a t-shirt that I will never wear again.
Ill see a parade
Ill do something kind for at least one person that I dont know every day.
Ill ride Dumbo.
Ill spend time enjoying the resort
Ill buy my kitty a present, because I love him and he was such a good boy when I was carrying him out of the fire and didnt panic and fight me.
