The Days Go By At A Snail's Pace *An Aug. 2014 PTR* FINISHED

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Hello Everyone!

Bare with me - this is my first ever PTR (and will be my first TR!) and I'm a crazy planning nut so I apologize in advance.

Hi. How are you?

I'm Coloredimage, aka Elle. That's me down there, the one that looks confused, not the awesome looking photopass guy:


I'm 26 years old, a full-time high school English teacher and a part-time writer with a gigantic love for musicals, reading, writing, and of course Disney. I am also a horrible abuser of the exclamation mark so sorry about that.

Disney Favorites: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Haunted Mansion, Daisy Duck, Princess Aurora, Tinkerbell, and Captain Hook.

This is actually one of my first posts at the DiS. I've been a member since college but I mostly used it to ask questions and then stalk the Disneyland Paris board. And then I forgot about this place until recently. I've been lurking ever since and finally got up the gumption to write out a PTR. I mean, really, what else am I going to do in the two hours I have until the kids get back for play practice tonight?

Disney's my life! I've gone 12 times, which isn't a lot to some old pros but for me it's special. It's nearly every year since I was 11 and got the doctor's official OK for me to travel by plane (or really travel at all!) that I go to Disney and every year I come back wanting to go back.

I'm so much a sucker for Disney and talking all about Disney that I'm half-tempted to write out a TR from last March in my spare time.


So this trip:
The When: Aug. 4-11, 2014
The Where: Walt Disney World Resort; Caribbean Beach Resort to be precise
The Why: We'll get to that...
The Who: That'd be me and Jem.


Who's Jem? She's my roommate and my best friend since high school. This will be our 6th Disney trip together. She shares my Disney, ahem, "passion."

Hopefully you'll stick with me! I'll do a couple posts on our ADRs and the reason why we decided to go in the first place soon, but for now, hi there!


Table of Contents:
PTR Part One: going Back Was Never an Option
PTR Part Two: ADR's - Part One of Elle Breaks the Internet
PTR Part Three: Flights, or Elle Breaks the Internet Part Two
PTR Part Four: I Need Advice
PTR Part Five: A Hipster for the Hipster
PTR Part Six: Fun Things Showin' Up!
PTR Part Seven: I Can't Believe I Forgot About This!
PTR Part Eight: I Got the Bag(s)!
PTR Part Nine: New Accommodations!
PTR Part Ten: The Newness Continues!
PTR Part Eleven: Going a Little Stir Crazy!
PTR Part Twelve: Or Oops I Forgot to Introduce Ourselves!
PTR Part Thirteen: Wining and Dining
PTR Part Fourteen: FP+ & Online Check In
PTR Part Fifteen: Derailment
PTR Part Sixteen: A Disney Rejoice in the Midst of the Muck
PTR Part Seventeen: You've Got (Mickey) Mail!
PTR Part Eighteen: The End Is Nigh!
PTR Part Nineteen: Single Digit Dance Party!
PTR Part Twenty: I Have Never Needed A Vacation More


An Aside: A Mini Trip Report Part 1
An Aside: A Mini Trip Report Part 2
An Aside 3: Life Update

 

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PTR Part One: Going Back Was Never an Option

The last time Jem and I went to Disney together was in March of 2013. We had gone with her mother and it had been a crazy rollercoaster of a trip but we loved it all the same.

How could you not, it's Disney?

We hadn't really talked about another Disney trip. It's always on the back burner, but it's never what we go out to try and do because we're always kind of....well, always assuming we're going to come back.

In November we decided, "no, we'll not go to Disney this year - we'll go to SDCC instead" (did I mention we're general big-time nerds, not just your average Disney nerds? No. Oh. You're in for some fun.) so we booked a hotel room in San Diego for the end of July. We were a little sad about the no Disney this year thing but we kind of pretended that it didn't exist.

Then January rolls around. We haven't been able to find anyone to share a hotel room with us and we're starting to get nervous about being able to get the passes we want - do we really want to put so much effort into something and then only get to see it for one day? Jem brings up the idea of going to Disney again. It'll end up being cheaper, she reasons, and we both have a bunch of expenses this year.

By the end of January I had had it. Work was becoming super stressful, I was exhausted, angry, and needed a break. I was trying to juggle the wedding I'm in, the wedding of a very close friend that I would be missing by going to SDCC, and the stress of not being able to plan anything and I was failing. I canceled our hotel in San Diego and after asking Jem to tell me what week she could get off work in the summer, I got to work, signed onto the Disney website, and booked us a package. It's the perfect time for us to go - it's after my parents come back from Disney (I'm house/pet-sitting for them), after the wedding I was going to miss and now can go to, and we come back just in time to head up to Maine for my cousin's wedding.

Perfection. Bliss.

Heat!

I used to go to Disney in the summer all the time when I was in high school. Because my parents are school teachers it was really the best if we went in August or July so I got used to the heat and humidity and just kind of took it for granted as part of the trip.

And then I went to college.

In college I'd go in May, the week after classes got out. It was perfect. It was always gorgeously in the 80s without a ton of humidity, and the crowds are okay because we always went (lamentably) before SWW. After college, before I had a job, we went a few times earlier in the year - once for NYE/my birthday, once for Easter, and last year for St. Patrick's Day. Last year I went to Florida for the Fourth of July but it was a condo on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale! Now our big scramble is to get clothes/shoes/bags/etc. that will keep us cool and comfortable.

Which brings me to my first of this trip: taking it slow and taking breaks back to the hotel during the midday heat

But right now I don't care - my trip is booked! Now, on to ADRs!

 

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PTR Part Two: ADRs - Part One of Elle Breaking the Internet

I may live in New England but my school never has snow days. I've had 2 this year while every other school in the state has had at least 5. I'm not complaining, because in hindsight it's great that we don't have to be in school as long as we were last year when I was subbing.

But one of our two snow days made booking our meals very easy.

Jem and I are usually right on top of meals. But for some reason we were really flustered when it came to booking ADRs this year. We wanted a good balance of what we haven't done and what are old standards, but we just weren't sure.

We needed ADRs planned, however, because Jem's (belated) birthday present is tickets to see Cirque du Soleil at DTD. I went with my mother when I was fourteen but Jem's never gone and has always wanted to. I figured it was the perfect time to go - we're both full-time workers now, we have the means to enjoy it, so why not enjoy it?

I thought I had forgotten when day 180 was. It was one of our myriad parents' nights and I was sitting chatting with my coworkers when alarm bells went off in my head. I signed onto the app but couldn't make any - phew! It was then announced that we were going to have a snow day due to an impending storm so I boogied on home with a plan.

I woke up at 8 the next morning and after eating I decided to call to make reservations. I only made one on the app: Be Our Guest for our first night there. I didn't want to take any chances on that one since we had missed out when it first opened.

I got a very nice lady on the phone right away who was very helpful. But as she went to do everything her computer crashed. Thankfully I wrote everything down and between the two of us we got everything squared away!

Here the ADRs I made on the phone that day:
Aug. 4: Be Our Guest 6:45 PM (a first for both of us)
Aug. 5: Sci-Fi 2:05 PM (Jem's never been; I haven't been in 10 years)
Aug. 6: Cinderella's Royal Table 5:45 PM (an old favorite)
Aug. 7: Tusker House 9:05 AM (we've never been)
Aug. 8: Le Cellier 2:00 PM (an old favorite)
Aug. 9: The Plaza Restaurant 6:00 PM (Jem's never been; I haven't been in 10 years)

Notice we're missing two days? We figured we'd just deal and eat QS those days because we couldn't pick any other restaurants.

About 2 weeks later Jem and I kept looking at menus and finally said "oh well" and made 2 more reservations -

Aug. 10: The Brown Derby 5:50 PM (an old favorite)
Aug. 11: Kona Cafe 12:00 PM (never been)

Since we have a lot of 2 pointers on our DP we decided we'd pay for what we call the "normal meals" (aka they cost as much as a regular restaurant around here) out of pocket.

Of course, ever since we've been whinging about not eating Disney food every time I make dinner.

 

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PTR Part Three: Flights, or Elle Breaks the Internet Part Two

We booked our flights about two weeks ago!

It was a debacle for sure!

The last time we went to Florida last year we took Southwest. It wasn't horrible, but we couldn't sit together on the way down and on the flight back we were delayed for four hours because of a flight mix up. It's the only time we haven't taken Jet Blue since Delta Song went out of business so we went back to our tried and true: Jet Blue.

Sunday night I went on to the Jet Blue website and put everything in for our flights - I was going to use my True Blue account so I could get the points - and went to pay. Well. The website glitched and it tried to go through three times: once with PayPal and two more times on my bank. None of the times worked!

I called Jet Blue and they said they thought they had fixed everything but I would have to call PayPal. The woman on the phone was very confusing and I really didn't understand what she was talking about. Since PayPal's office was closing in ten minutes I sadly had to put it off until the next day.

Monday rolls around and I'm in a panic all day at work. I'm agitated and just cannot focus. The moment school ended I pulled out my phone, closed up my room, and called PayPal. After about a half hour on hold between the initial call and the PayPal spokesperson calling Jet Blue for me they fixed everything. I tried again and -

- it still didn't work.

At this point I'm just panicked. I called my dad, who works right down the street from my bank and has access to my account if he could ask them if PayPal or Jet Blue had taken any money out of my account. As we're on the phone he asks me how much the tickets were. I tell him $600 or so for the two of us.

"Well there's the problem right there!" he says cheerily. "We have a credit union; there's a cap of $500 per day for that kind of expense!"

All this time I've been sending Jem panic stricken texts. By the time she finally looked at her phone she must have thought I had broken down. We decide that when I get home from that night's rehearsal we would sit down together and book our own tickets.

Twenty-four hours and a lot of angry tears later I have finally booked my flight (and so has Jem)! I've never felt more relieved!

 

[Riles_and_Gabe]

Hi! I am joining in. I am going in August this year too! I also share your love of exclamation marks. Everything is exciting in my world!! I am looking forward to future updates!

 

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PTR Part Four: I Need Advice

I know there are a lot of awesome planners on here. I was wondering if you all would mind terribly if I asked you a question? I would love to get a conversation going and get some ideas!

As I've mentioned at some point in this beast, I haven't been to Disney in the summer since 2010 and I haven't been in August since....oh, 2005 maybe? I can't remember how hot it is then, and last time I went when it was August I was a teenager and my parents were able to take the brunt of the stuff I needed.

So, besides sunscreen, a hat, and multiple pairs of shoes what are other must haves for the heat that you all recommend?

Also, how many changes of clothes do you bring? I know we're probably going to go slower this trip, go back to the hotel during the heat, etc., but I'm trying to make lists of things I need to pick up over the next four months and it's easier to get some things (ie clothes) over April break than it will be while I'm running around trying to do things for friends' weddings this summer.

All help is completely appreciated!

 

[coloredimage]

Hi! I am joining in. I am going in August this year too! I also share your love of exclamation marks. Everything is exciting in my world!! I am looking forward to future updates!

Thanks! I haven't been this late in the summer in almost 10 years so I'm really excited! Hope your trip is awesome too!!

 

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PTR Part Five: A Hipster For the Hipster

Guys. I found it.

THE perfect Disney bag for me.

It's only taken me, what? sixteen years?

Let's roll back a bit. First. I am a self-admitted hipster by situation. When I was in graduate school I had no car and lived in a completely different country so even thinking about having a car was silly. So every day I had class I had to walk a mile to my building and a mile back to my flatshare. I just started wearing dresses, tights, sweaters, scarves and boots because it was easy to get dressed in, easy to walk around in, and always looked both casual for class/going out for tea or dinner afterwards and nice enough in case there was a guest lecture series that evening.

I already had the attitude. All Victorian students have that attitude.

Then I decided to cut my hair short in the back, long in the front, and dye it scarlet red.

So how's this got anything to do with Disney?

Well, see, every time I've gone to Disney as an adult I've had the biggest back conundrum ever. I used to take backpacks but I hate carrying around a backpack. I always feel like I'm going to whack someone or knock something expensive down. I love messenger bags but the big ones are just too big.

Last year I took a Vera Bradley hipster and it was almost perfect, just a little small. It was a bit tight once I put a water bottle into it, but it was lightweight and nice.

This year I've been on a hunt. My big thing was "slightly larger than the Vera bag, not leather, and possibly Disney themed or able to be Disneyed up a bit."

Last night when I got home from work I checked out the Disney Store website and found this beauty: http://www.disneystore.com/mickey-mouse-canvas-bag-happiest-hipster-on-earth/mp/1338596/1000291/

It was a conversation of about five seconds before I bought it for myself. It's a little bit taller than the Vera bag so it'll be perfect for my water bottle and other accessories and I knew I would NEVER be able to find this again if I didn't snap on it immediately.

I've never been so head over heels in love with a bag/line before. I know that there are Hipster Mickey phone cases too and I'm now on the hunt for one for my trip.

 

[Riles_and_Gabe]

That bag is adorable! It looks like the perfect park bag. Actually it looks like a great everyday bag too. You must be so excited for it to arrive.

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

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That bag is adorable! It looks like the perfect park bag. Actually it looks like a great everyday bag too. You must be so excited for it to arrive.

Isn't it? According to the tracking it'll be "here" tomorrow so hopefully I'll be able to pick it up come Wednesday or Thursday after work! It would work really well as an every day bag as well - I may end up using it all summer once I'm on summer vacation and don't need to lug two bags' worth of stuff around every day!

Following along!

Welcome! Thanks for sticking with my nonsensical "updates"!

 

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PTR Part Six: Fun Things Showin' Up!

I just got home from work and checked our mailbox. Guess what I found inside?!





No, not my bag

That should show up at my parents' house tomorrow (we can't have packages left in our building so I always send them to my parents' house instead just to be on the safe side) but I won't get to pick it up until either Wednesday or (more probably) Thursday.

But this showed up! I just posted this picture on Instagram

We haven't gotten a planning DVD in years, but we have watched the video from....what, 2008? constantly. I don't know exactly what year it's from, but it's just after Everest opened and it has the little 15-20 minutes video with the teens in Disney. We watched it constantly for about a week and a half, two weeks straight right after we booked our latest vacation.

So, I decided to get this baby.

I haven't watched it yet - I just finished making my lunch and breakfast for tomorrow. My one qualm is something Jem caught - it says you have to watch it on your computer. We don't have a real DVD/Blu-Ray player in our living room; we use Jem's PS4. I'm not sure if it will play on that, but it would be nice if we could enjoy it together, not just on a computer.

 

[pepperandchips]

I watched the DVD all the way several times through also! You'll have to let us know what you think... And you probably already figured out that it works just fine in a regular DVD player - I didn't find the computer content to be anything fabulous. Excited to follow along with the rest of your plans!

 

[coloredimage]

I watched the DVD all the way several times through also! You'll have to let us know what you think... And you probably already figured out that it works just fine in a regular DVD player - I didn't find the computer content to be anything fabulous. Excited to follow along with the rest of your plans!

Yes, I figured out that it could work in a regular old DVD player about an hour after posting

I blame twelve hours of working with teenagers! We haven't watched it yet but I have vacation next week and Jen took the week off so we can get some stuff done so I'm sure we're going to be pumping ourselves up with it - we're almost out of triple digits!

 

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PTR Part Seven: I Can't Believe I Forgot About This!

Oh man, this part of my PTR/random musings so I don't go crazy report is actually Disney-relevant and I completely forgot about it!

I grew up as part of the generation who hates talking on a phone.

Which is funny, because when I was in elementary/middle school my best friend and I would talk on the phone for hours at a time.

I'm just not a phone person. I barely like answering it at work! I'll text, I'll email, I'll write a letter - heck, I'll send smoke signals! - but I get nervous and tongue-tied on the phone.

I really dislike calling companies.

I DID call Disney for our ADRs because food is important, but once we figured out flights, I really didn't want to call to add our airline information for ME.

I also just didn't have time. Calling for most of our ADRs was a fluke - a wonderful snow day right when I needed it - but I'm at work from seven in the morning until 2:30 on a good day, 8 on a normal day and Jem works later than I do. By the time either of us get home we just don't remember to call Disney.

So I did some poking around online and found the ME online form. I had to Google for it, but I found it! After a tiny SNAFU that I caught in time (namely - I had forgotten to put Jem onto the ME express reservation - oops!) I booked it.

And heard nothing.

For about a week.

On March 20th I got an email confirming my ME reservation. I was elated! It worked!

That was a Thursday.

That Saturday I went to my parents' house. I go there every Saturday for breakfast/grocery shopping/playing with the pets time. My dad had told me I had gotten something in the mail from Disney and I figured it was just one of the pre-trip things they like to send.

When I got there I found this:

I had to triple check the date to make sure it was right but there it is, clear as day! They came before my parents' did and they're going two and a half weeks earlier than we are!

 

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An Aside: Mini Trip Report Part 1

I’ve been waffling about doing a TR for our trip last year just to kill the time but with writing and the end of the quarter winding down I haven’t even had time to breathe let alone write an entire TR. I do want to explain some things though, because it definitely is going to color what I say and do in this PTR and my experience in Disney this year.

I’m doing this all by memory, and I’m only doing our big kerfuffles so I’m leaving out all the good (and awkward) bits because some things this trip are just…not disclosable. I’m splitting this into two posts. Sorry for the lack of pictures!

Last year we did a pretty spur of the moment trip. By spur of the moment I mean in January we decided we were going on a trip in March. Not a heck of a lot of time to plan. At this time, Jem was a CM so she was using her vouchers for free park passes each day and we were going to use her discount for the hotel stay, etc. It was the two of us and her mum, who hadn’t been to Disney since we had graduated high school. Originally one of her mum’s friends was coming with us as well but decided fairly last minute that she wasn’t coming.

Because we were so last minute we had to pay for everything at the hotel. Remember this, this is important.

So the big day arrives! We weren’t doing our normal 6 am JetBlue flight because Jem’s mother didn’t want to travel that early and we were in “all about her” mode since it’s an annual thing for us. It made it easier for me because we were leaving on a Saturday and I had had to sub the day before so it gave me some extra time to pack. I left my parents’ house around 6 and got to Jem’s mum’s around 6:30-7. The plan was for me to get there, the van to pick us up and drive us to Providence. Because we had booked everything so close to our vacation we couldn’t afford the JetBlue tickets, so we ended up on Southwest.
Our driver was about 15 minutes late but he knew all the back roads between the house and the airport, so we got there in plenty of time. I don’t remember much about this leg of the trip, so it must have gone by pretty smoothly.

We were separated on the plane. See, in the last two seats of the plane there was a very grumpy young woman who wanted a window seat but DID NOT want to sit with anyone else even though the plane was full and she had to. In front of her was an older couple – husband on the aisle, wife in the middle. I generally have to sit in the window seat because I get horrible vertigo on planes and it makes me pretty nauseous or gives me migraines for the rest of the day when I can feel that I’m moving but I can’t see it (the backseat of a car at night I have to have my eyes closed or I get really sick). So I went to sit with the older couple while Jem and her mum sat behind them with Ms. Grumps.
It was pretty uneventful. I had a conversation with the couple as their son was another local author (they saw me editing on my Kindle) and were generally very pleasant.
Getting to Disney was fine and dandy….and then we got to Pop. Jem and I hadn’t stayed in Pop for a while – we had gone with my parents on a graduation from college trip, but I think that’s the last time we stayed there (the next few times in between were off-property at the scariest motel ever and at ASMu if I remember correctly). We got up to the counter and explained to the very, very slow-moving CM that we had to put a third of the price on my debit card. We found out from another CM about an hour or two later that their network was bogging down so it was taking a bit for things to go through.
So he swiped my card.
Then swiped it again.
Then swiped it again.
This is literally the only thing he did quickly. At this point, there’s a hold to the tune of $1200 on that thing. He tells me it’s not going through and do I have another form of payment. All this time the manager is standing behind him talking and laughing and watching him but not helping him, even as he looks around for help to clear the transactions.
I tell him I have a check. After about twenty minutes of him finding the book to call in the check, he calls it in and tells me that it clears. I kept my mouth shut about how funny it was that it was attached to the debit card and if it hadn’t been swiped so many times in succession we would have been fine, but my nerves were fried at this point. We had been standing there for nearly forty minutes.
We get that paid for, get our KTTW, and head over to concierge to buy our park hopper passes. At this point I have 0 money except the cash I came with because of the hold on my card (it’s 4 PM on a Saturday and I have a dinky Credit Union so it was definitely closed for the weekend by then) so Jem’s mum graciously bought me my passes and I paid her back once we were home.

Exhausted and ready to just get to our room and go to MK for dinner we walked all the way back to the 90s section to drop off our stuff. We may have stopped for a quick lunch at this point too, or at least a snack, because we hadn’t eaten since the airport and that was somewhere around 9 in the morning.

 

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An Aside: Mini Trip Report Part 2
Except when we got there, there was already stuff from another family – balloons, bags, everything! In the time it took him to get my payment through, our room had been unlocked and given away to the family who had been served next to us a half hour earlier!

Annoyed and frustrated, we went back to the front desk and went to concierge. The girl who had helped us with our tickets was with someone, but another very sweet CM from the Netherlands helped us. We explained what had happened and she was shocked and very willing to help out. It was while she was trying to get us a new room (and, kind of her, one very close to the front because she knew we didn’t have too much time to get to our reservation at Crystal Palace) that she told us that their system had been bogged down all day. Finally, the manager came over and comp’d us the night for having to wait for so long and another half hour later we were given a new room and were on our way.

We dropped everything off, used the toilet (which ran slow but we figured we’d deal with that later) and ran like madwomen to the bus, hopped on, and went to MK. We made it just in time for Crystal Palace and had a nice meal. It was the one thing Jem’s mum wanted to do because it was the only permanent residence of her favorite character – Piglet!
The rest of the evening we just wandered around New Fantasyland. I think we rode Little Mermaid and we definitely tried LeFou’s Brew and got pictures with Ariel. Mostly we just wandered. We watched the fireworks over the Beast’s castle and I got this cool shot:

It was probably around 10-10:30 at this point and we were just sitting at the edge of where Fantasyland meets the expansion and were soaking it all in – we were in Disney.

Then Jem's phone rings. It’s baggage asking us where our room is. Okay, we figured that makes sense because we changed rooms, but we watched the CM call them and tell them it was changed. The guy was being really reticent to tell us if he was dropping them off now or not so we told him we would be there in a half hour and we needed our bags there.
So we rushed back to Pop and to our room. Our KTTW cards would not work so we walked back down to the front desk. The girl there said that she had new ones already activated for us, that there was a glitch on our door and if there was anything else we needed her name was (for the purpose of this, let’s call her Mary) Mary and if we needed anything call her.
We got back into our room, relieved to see our luggage there. My carry-on bag had been moved from its usual space between the TV and wall to be with the other bags but nothing had been touched in it. Then we looked around.
There was a man’s sweatshirt on Jem’s mum’s bed, two used napkins, and a half finished water bottle on top of the TV. We checked the safe for our valuables, glad that they were all there, and called down to the front desk for Mary, but she was busy with a late-night check-in so the CM on the phone tried a hand at helping us.
When he was as baffled by our story as everyone else had been, he got us on the phone with his manager (who was thankfully not the same one as that afternoon). The man was flabbergasted when he saw our history. It seems that they tried to put someone else in our room and they left once they found my bag.
We told him we were fine, we just wanted the stuff out of our room, but he insisted we move two rooms down. He didn’t feel safe leaving us in there, he said (and that’s not even an exaggeration!) so he sent the CM we had been talking to on the phone to bring us our keys because we were exhausted and he helped us move everything next door.
For the rest of the trip our joke was “will our keys work?” For the most part everything went okay until our second to last day. We were at Yak & Yeti and the girl informed us as we were checking out that we only had 3 sit down meals left. We should have had 6. We were leaving anyway so we went to the front of the park and after the CMs in guest services tried to convince us we must have used it at a 2 point place when we very specifically did not choose any 2 credit meals this trip she finally found that Backlot Express had TS credits instead of CS credits for our sloppy joes and salad. We had to go back to Pop and get it fixed.
Then the day we were leaving was our day at DTD. We got a call saying our flight had been delayed until 8 so we took some time in DTD and decided we’d get dinner at the airport. We went through security and I went to sit at the posted gate because I had a gigantic blister. While waiting for Jem and her mum to get a table at the food place at the gate they announced that we were at the gate across the hall. I told them once they called to say they had a table and I met up with them again.
About ten minutes before we were supposed to take off they told us we had no pilot because someone hadn’t shown up for work so we weren’t leaving until midnight. Needless to say I finally got home around 6 am the next morning because I was determined to drive from Jem’s mum’s to my parents’ house. I crashed once I got there and was really impressed that it was still morning when I woke up. Going to work the next day was horrible though.

 

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PTR Part Eight: I Got the Bag(s)!

The Hipster Mickey hipster came in on Tuesday but I didn't get to my parents' house to pick it up until today.

I can report successfully that it is just as cute in person as it was online.

I also bought myself a Disney Vera Bradley hipster because I just couldn't help it.

So? What's the verdict?

Let's look at it first!

This was a picture that I took when I got back to my parents' house after our weekly shopping. The picture was true to the picture on the website which is awesome.

It fit a ton of stuff in it too which is great. My plan for Disney is to carry at a minimum:
- phone
- camera
- water bottle
- chapstick
- poncho
- lotion
- hand sanitizer
- wallet
- sunglasses

So, this is what was in it today while I was walking around:

For a better image of the stuff inside, here is what was in there:

That's:
- keys to my parents' house
- sunglass case
- camera
- iPad
- wallet
- lotion
- gum
- 2 chapsticks
- 2 lipglosses
- pen
- perfume
- aspirin

And for an idea, here it is next to a regular Vera Bradley hipster:

As you can see, it's a good 3 inches taller than the Vera.

So, the verdict?

Well, I like it a lot. It holds a ton. My only problems with it are this (and they're personal preference issues instead of manufacturing):
1. The flap is longer than where the togs are to clasp it. I ended up walking around without it closed because it was too awkward to close it.
2. Even at its most let out the strap's pretty short. There's a picture of my below with it on and it stops just below my chest. I ended up just putting it on one shoulder while running errands after I left my parents' house and it was much more comfortable.
3. There is only one zippered pouch inside for everything you don't want rolling around at the bottom of the purse and there's no specific place for a phone so I had that in my pocket all day. Definitely not desirable for Disney.

So I'm definitely bringing this bag to Disney with me, but I'm not sure if I'll be using it every day in the parks. Jem said it'd be a good around the hotel or DTD back I think, you know times when I don't have to carry as much stuff around.

Here is is on me for a comparison! (I have a pretty short torso/am at the very bottom of average height):

 

[pepperandchips]

An Aside: Mini Trip Report Part 2
For the rest of the trip our joke was “will our keys work?”

What in the what?! This sounds horrific, but at least all the CMs seemed pretty nice about things. I hope you write to Disney, maybe they will do something to make it up to you. That's awful that you had the room troubles!

I've been out of town for a few days and am enjoying catching up What was your favorite meal from the key-swap-catastrophe trip? Favorite attractions?

 

[pepperandchips]

2. Even at its most let out the strap's pretty short. There's a picture of my below with it on and it stops just below my chest. I ended up just putting it on one shoulder while running errands after I left my parents' house and it was much more comfortable.

I love your hair! But you are right, that bag is way too short for a hipster. I actually only have one bag that I love for traveling - it's a reallly realllllllly old parcel bag from urban outfitters that I've had since high school. It makes no sense to me that they make crossbody bags with such short straps. Some ladies have curves!