The "Funnest" Disneymoon Ever! 9-14 to 9-26 WDW and DCL

[Disneymoon0909]

****I started writing this PTR months back as a sort of journal to keep track of our disneymoon plans as well as to share with friends and family who are curious and then decided today that i would share it with all of you. I will be posting in sections, forgive me if things don't make sense (I do have dates in there so those might be wrong, lol. I hope you all enjoy it and that you hang around for the real trip report when we get back!****

Hello all and welcome to my Disneymoon Extraordinaire Trip Report, complete with pictures and sarcasm. Here are the cast of characters:

Me (Holly): Fabulous 26 year old marketing director from NH who loves all things Disney and would live there if her husband would allow. Also loves to write, sing, take pictures of everything possible and curl up on the couch with her 3 crazy cats.
DH (Steve): Handsome and dashing 25 year old from all over who loves all things outdoors and reckless and secretly harbors a love for Disney…he is getting there (of course the three Disney trips I have taken him on in 3 years helps).

Now that you know who your tour guides are, I proudly present to you Our Trip Report.

It all started with a little thing called an engagement. On August 17, 2008 Steven proposed to me on Stratton Mountain in Vermont on the windiest day possible on a bench where we sat because I couldn’t convince my scared-of-heights-self to make the climb all the way to the top of the fire tower where he had planned on asking. I really did try, honest, but half way up, I freaked out, we came down and he improvised. Let’s just say the morning started with him throwing up and me trying to convince him we could do the hike another day so he was determined to go through with it.

After my shocked but emphatic yes, we moseyed our way down the mountain (ok, moseyed probably isn’t the right word, but I feel it isn’t used enough so there) and began talking brass tacks. We decided pretty early on we wanted to get married at Stratton as it was where we had fallen in love (insert gagging noises here) and knew it would be special.

It wasn’t long after that that we decided (read: I decided and he agreed because it’s easier) that we wanted to celebrate our engagement at the greatest place on Earth: DISNEY!!! Woohoo, plans began and shortly after, during the first week of September, we made the trek down to the world and spent an amazing week enjoying low crowds, decent weather and low prices!

After we came back from our trip we settled into planning the wedding like it was our jobs. Actually, what that really means is my mom and his mom were on the phone constantly, gave us options and we said, “that one.” Yeah…not your typical bride I guess, lol. Anyways, there was one thing I knew I wanted to be” bridezilla” on, and that was the honeymoon! I wanted to go big and grand; I wanted to go all out!

Steve, who grew up in a rather well-to-do family, has had many fortunate opportunities to travel and has visited many countries and seen many places others would kill for. I, as well, have been lucky (more every day lucky, not silver spoon lucky, lol) with my travels and we both had the opportunity to live out of the US for a bit, which were great opportunities. Needless to say, we have been blessed and wanted to do something new and exciting so we got to talking…and you know what? STEVE HAS NEVER BEEN ON A CRUISE! After all the traveling he has done, places he has been, crazy adventures he has gone on, he has not been on something as (fairly) common (at least to people of his background, lol) as a cruise.

It was decided then and there that we would definitely be cruising. He was super excited and we both began researching right away. As I happen to work at a job where it is either feast or famine (I am “working” as I type this now) when it comes to how busy work is, I had the luxury of having a bit of extra free time during the day when I could make spreadsheets and compare cruise lines.

Steve is a graduate student and luckily for him is able to pursue that full time while not having a job, so he has oodles of free time…oodles. So throughout the day Steve and I would email back and forth about ideas and budgets etc. Steve had been kind enough to offer to pay for the honeymoon after we were informed that etiquette calls for the groom to pay for it…yeah I was upset, lol.

After much research we narrowed it down to Royal Caribbean and Disney, me leaning towards Disney and him on the fence. I furiously designed spreadsheets, showed him literature, made him listen to podcasts and had him surfing the Disney Cruise Line website and after not much deliberation he agreed Disney was the one for us. YIPPEE!

More to come...

 

[Disneymoon0909]

PRE-PLANNING

Now it was time to really start the planning, well pre-planning anyways since we still didn’t know anything other than we were Disney-Ho!. We researched which specific cruise would work for us and discovered that we had two options dependent on which date we chose for the wedding. The two contenders for wedding dates were September 5th and September 12th. We quickly realized that regardless of which date we took we would have to wait a week between the wedding and the cruise as Disney ships disembark on Saturdays, not Sundays. No bother, we will find something to fill that week (anyone guess what I wanted to fill it with?!).

We sat down with a calendar one night and discovered (like it was a secret or something) that the 5th was Labor Day weekend…no way we would get married that weekend, more expensive and most people we know go to their lake houses to close them that weekend. So the date was now chosen, we would be getting married September 12, 2009! Great, that works out. Why you ask? Because that means we get to go on the September 19th Western Caribbean cruise, the one I was secretly harboring feelings for.

Wedding date: check
Cruise date: check
Week before cruise planned: no check

So one night, I come home from work, cuddle up on the couch next to my adorable (he will hate me for that) fiancé and look at him adoringly while I bat my eyelashes so fast I look like I am trying to take off. “What” he says. I then launch into my pre-planned, practiced, rehearsed a dozen times speech about how we have to do SOMETHING the week leading up to the cruise and since we have to be in Florida anyways and since Walt Disney World is so close and since they have convenient transportation and since I want to and he loves me so much he would die without me…we should spend the first week in the parks.

He kind of stared at me blank faced for ten seconds and then said, “we were just there.” To which I answered, “by the time we get there, it will have been a whole year!” I then told him how if he agreed I would pay for that portion of the trip (hotel and tickets) and that we would only get 3 day park hoppers and spend a few days relaxing and doing all the things you never do at Disney because you are too damn busy at the parks, lol.

It didn’t take much to convince him, I think the idea of doing Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party was the clincher, and after that he just warmed himself to the idea that we would get to spend our honeymoon relaxing. We decided we definitely wanted to do Cirque as well as rent a boat for an afternoon (DH is an accomplished boatman, haha that makes him sound like a picture form a Ralph Lauren ad) and that we would try and do as much exploring as possible.

HOTELS

First on the list was hotels. Previously when he was younger he had stayed at The Grand Floridian and the Swan (told you he was swanky) and I had stayed at off-site resorts and the All Stars, lol (my family liked to “slum” it, haha). We had also stayed in the All-Stars on our two previous trips as a couple, once at Music and once at Movies. But this was our honeymoon! We couldn’t dare be seen at a Value resort (said with a disgusted sneer)?! We figured this is probably our last big hurrah, our last major vacation where we won’t feel every penny being spent; we might as well do it up, and do it up right!

I started my research again (notice a pattern?) and discovered we could stay at a high priced Moderate or a low priced Deluxe. Steve was kind enough to offer to cover the cost of whatever went over my budget of $2000 (ain’t he sweet?). After conferring with Disney boards all over the internet, reading every Disney travel book available, scouring the Disney websites and calling Disney to ask questions, I had it narrowed down.

We could either do Port Orleans French Quarter, Animal Kingdom Lodge or the Wilderness Lodge. We ruled out POFQ early on, we thought it looked nice but didn’t think it was our “style” whatever that means, lol. As badly as I wanted to stay at AKL, I knew if I couldn’t have the perfect Savannah view I would be hugely disappointed and since those views cost a pretty penny it was decided we should forego that until a later trip (I hope). That left us with the WL, a hotel that after I had done more research discovered was the perfect one for us! It was known for its romance, cozy nooks, warm fire places (***, ya know, it’s freezing in Florida in September) and generally beautiful atmosphere. We were sold.

QUOTES

With hotel chosen we now had the daunting task of deciding how we were gonna officially book this trip. I had done it myself in previous years and last year had used a AAA travel agent for the first time. I contacted my previous travel agent only to find she no longer worked there, so they connected me with someone else. I also sent in for quotes from two online companies: Dreams Unlimited and Small World Vacations. All three agents had the same info:

This was my email:

Hi,

I am planning a Disneymoon and would love to get a quote but given the options on your website, I felt a direct email would be more efficient. The reason being is that I am planning to do 1 week at the parks followed by a 1 week cruise. These are the details as I have them now:

Fly from Albany International Airport on Monday September 14, 2009 to Orlando Airport in the early AM. We would like transportation form the airport to the hotel (Disney bus is more than sufficient). Stay at the Wilderness Lodge from 9/14/09 until 9/19/09. 3 day park hopper passes, no water park option. There was free dining offered when we went last September, not sure if it is offered again, but if it is we would like to take advantage. The 19th we would like transportation (again Disney bus is fine) from WL to the port where the Disney Magic will disembark for a 7 day Western Caribbean cruise to Key West, Castaway Cay, Cozumel and Grand Cayman. We would like a category 5 room, and if possible would like to request room #7596. We do not know if we need flights yet as we have a possible standby option but if we could get a quote with and without that would be wonderful. Thank you so much for your time!

Holly

So as you can see we knew what we wanted (by the way, the reason for leaving Monday Morning instead of Sunday is purely selfish, I do NOT want to get up early the day after my wedding…it’s gonna be a late night ya know) and were hoping to come back with some decent quotes. I also made a face to face appointment with the AAA agent and made a spreadsheet (you’re shocked, right?) with a breakdown of what they had been able to give us.

Sunday, February 15th is a day that will live in infamy…not really but I always wanted to say that! Anyways, that morning armed with quotes from Small World and Dreams Unlimited I headed to AAA with DH in tow. We sat down to face a woman who knew less about Disney than my cat, and that’s saying something. I had to correct her several times on certain “facts” and was more than a little discouraged. We escaped quickly and I told her if we were interested we would be in touch. Yikes!

We stopped at my parents house (they live near the AAA Agency) and told them what we had discovered. Small World was the most expensive by over $500. Dreams Unlimited was the next most expensive and AAA was cheapest by about $200.

Even though AAA was the cheapest I didn’t feel comfortable with that agent and didn’t want to go through the hassle of requesting another (plus I didn’t wanna hurt her feelings). So now, it was between Dreams Unlimited and Small World. Dreams Unlimited won hands down. The agent I had been corresponding with was prompt, efficient, funny (a plus in my book) and informative. Her name was Dagny Young and I quickly signed into my email to send her a “you won!” email and explained my trickery (she was glad she won, lol).

Early on I realized that we received an onboard ship credit of $200 so we were really only paying $5 more for using DU as opposed to AAA! I was once again reassured in our choice. After shooting emails back and forth with Dagny for a while we decided to officially book (we didn’t wanna chance losing the room she had secured for us since I had read through like 150 room reviews to find a cabin we liked and the quote was about to expire). Steve would pay his deposit portion and I would pay mine. We made the first deposits on February 16th and had the DCL portion paid in full on February 25th! I also made a payment to the WDW portion that day and continue to make periodic payments. I hope to have it paid in full by May.

PLANNING

Now that we had things booked it was time to start planning all the other little exciting tidbits that we would be experiencing on our Disneymoon. We had lots to think about including what restaurants we wanted to consider if we had the free DDP offered and if we didn’t, what days we wanted to use the 3 hopper passes, what parks we wanted to go to and when, what rides we wanted to definitely do, when we wanted to see Cirque, which day should we do MNSSHP, how the boat rentals worked, how we were gonna get flights, where to fly out from, which shore excursions to do, whether or not we should make a Disneymoon registry, should we try Palo, for which meal, do we wanna do a couples massage, on land or on sea, and a million other little things. It was obvious we had a lot on our plates, but thankfully we had plenty of time!

PARK PLANNING

Okay, where to begin? Let’s start with our basic day plan. We knew we had 5 “days” to work with: Monday through Friday. We assumed we would arrive sometime between late morning and early afternoon, so we figured that that would obviously not be a park day. We also figured Friday we would wanna spend relaxing since it would be our last day and we didn’t wanna feel rushed. Also, we figured that if we used the park hopper passes on Tuesday through Thursday and really felt we needed more time we could just add on an extra day.

So the decision was made to utilize the park hopper passes Tuesday through Thursday. That gave us Monday and Friday to do any exploring and non-park activities. We had two options for MNNSHP: Tuesday the 15th or Friday the 18th. We figured Friday would be more crowded and we had already decided park days were Tues through Thursday so we chose to go with Tuesday. We decided to rent a boat on Monday afternoon and add Cirque to the calendar for the early Friday evening show (we don’t wanna be out late the day before we head to our cruise). We also plan to do some resort exploring as well as ride the monorail around aimlessly, just because we can.

Our days were already fairly fleshed out so now it was time to move on to meals, my least and most favorite task. Least because there are so many choices and the idea of making reservations months before the day you will use them stresses me to no end. Most because, and anyone who knows me will attest to this, I LOVE to eat (see pictures for photographic evidence). We didn’t know if we would be offered the free DDP (as they had done in years past) but decided to err on the side of hope and only look at restaurants included on the 2009 DDP list. Plus this would make it a little less daunting.

Based on the 2009 DDP we knew we would each receive 1counter, 1 snack and one table credit for each night at the resort (five for all those who suck at math like I do). I went to task searching through the menus online and figuring out what would suit both our needs and taste buds as well as fit into the basic schedule we had already outlined. After conferring with the husband to be we came up with a pretty “solid” plan which of course will most likely change a million times before the trip.

Since neither of us can eat early in the morning, breakfast for us is not common. I have it penciled in that we will eat at Roaring Fork for the days we don’t have reservations but the likelihood of that is small. We are planning on packing a few breakfast items with us that we can just munch on in the room or while we are on our way to the parks. If we do end up doing breakfast we will pay cash and not use the DDP.

With meals and activities planned it was on to ride planning. I know what you are thinking, “is she kidding? Does she really need to plan rides?!”. But calm down kiddies, I assure you it is not as serious as it sounds. I merely wanted to get an idea of what rides and shows were definites, which ones were maybes and which ones were no’ that way we had an idea of how much time we needed to dedicate to each park. I went park by park picking out my favorites as well as the ones I knew or thought I knew that Steve would not want to miss. As we had spent the shortest amount of time at my favorite park (Epcot) the year before due to weather and illness I wanted to spend a good full day there and he lovingly agreed.

More to come...

 

[Disneymoon0909]

EPCOT

In Epcot our definites are: World Showcase (we had to breeze through it sadly) which includes Maelstrom and Gran Fiesta; Spaceship Earth, Mission Space, Test Track, Turtle Talk with Crush, The Seas with Nemo and Friends, Soarin, Living with the Land (which I found out in August will most likely be in rehab), and Journey into Imagination (Figment is my favorite character). Thankfully we have a full day dedicated to Epcot so this should be doable.

MAGIC KINGDOM

In Magic Kingdom our definites are: Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, It’s a Small World, Peter Pan, Snow White, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey’s Philharmagic, Cinderella’s Carousel, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Indy Speedway, Transit Authority, Carousel of Progress, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, Haunted Mansion, Tiki Room, Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean. Space Mountain is in rehab for all you wondering why it’s not on the list. Given that we have MNSSHP and the crowds for this were so low everything was a walk on I don’t anticipate an issue. Hopefully we will get to do even more!

ANIMAL KINGOM

In Animal Kingdom our definites are: Kilimanjaro Safaris, Expedition Everest, Dinosaur, Festival of the Lion King, Finding Nemo, Maharajah Jungle Trek, and Pangani Forest Trail. We only have a half day here so we will have to rush through to get all of this done. Hopefully the weather and crowds cooperate.

HOLLWOOD STUDIOS

In Hollywood Studios our definites are: Rock’n Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Muppet Vision, Toy Story Mania, Great Movie Ride, Indiana Jones, and Lights, Motors, Action! Not sure how doable the two shows are as we are not planning to get there until mid afternoon, if we have to cut one it will be IJ, because DH’s favorite thing in all of Disney is the LMA show.

Now these plans are all well and good but we will have to see if anything changes when the EMH are released. That may end up changing things a bit. We might have to do more hopping then we’d like but if it means more park time we will sacrifice, lol.

CRUISE PLANNING

With the park portion of the trip just about covered we moved onto the Cruise part. This was not going to be as easy, I didn’t have years of experience under my belt like I had for planning the WDW week. I began my usual way: research. I once again hit the web and my trusty books to try and get us much info as I could. Once I had everything I thought I would need I sat down with the fiancé and started asking questions.

SHORE EXCURSIONS

The first thing we wanted to discuss were the shore excursions. We were both really excited about some of the things we had seen on the DCL planning DVD as well as the Travel Channel shows. We knew the toughest part would be narrowing it down to just one. The main goal was to try to do the excursions together; this was our honeymoon after all! We knew that at least one day we would be separated because he wanted to do a dive (he is PADI certified) and I couldn’t (wouldn’t is more like it, lol) so the objective was to try and sync up the rest of our days.

KEY WEST

Our first stop on the trip would be Key West so we started there. After looking at all 18 options offered we decided that the only one we would both enjoy would be the glass bottom boat tour. Snorkeling was a possibility but since I have a raging fear of water and he has already convinced me to go snorkeling once on this trip (and that is more than enough for me) we went with the boat. We may end up just walking around the town that day instead, we haven’t fully decided yet.

GRAND CAYMAN

Grand Cayman has 19 options and unfortunately a lot of them look interesting to both of us. We pretty much narrowed it down to the Nautilus Undersea Tour or the Atlantis Submarine Expedition, after much deliberation I think we settled on the Atlantis Submarine Tour as it sounds more exciting!

COZUMEL

Cozumel has 36 options- THIRTY SIX! Yikes, that’s a lot. This choice was easy for Steve however, because he would be doing his Scuba Dive here. For me, it was immensely difficult. I first saw the Tulum Ruins and wanted to go with that but after hearing how many people get sick on the ferry I thought it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Other options I looked at were Cozumel Highlights & Mayan Ruins, Mayan Frontier Horseback Riding and the Jungle Hike Expedition. I have been riding horses for years so that would be fun but I really don’t feel the need to go learn about cattle, been there done that. Plus they require long pants which I doubt will be comfortable after the fact. I think it will be between the other two.

CASTAWAY CAY

The one we have all been waiting for! The first thing on our list here is the famous Castaway Rays Stingray Adventure. After seeing countless videos of this experience we are really excited to meet Big Mama! We also would like to snorkel here so we will be looking into that as well.

MORE PLANNING

March 27th I hear a rumor that sounds something like “…free dining will be offered to everyone on Monday the 30th…” so I shoot an email to Dagny and ask her if she has heard anything and sure enough she concurs! WOOHOO! Monday the 30th Steve and I get booked into the FREE DISNEY DINING!!! It is a rarity that you can use the words “free” and “Disney” in the same sentence, let’s take a moment to appreciate it, shall we? Ok, moment over. Needless to say, we were extremely happy and began firming up our dining plans based on the list of participating restaurants.

Ok, we are now exactly five months out from the day we leave (April 14th, for those math challenged people) and I was finally able to book our flights! Thank you so much to Southwest who waited an eternity to open up their flight schedule. Luckily, I jumped on early this morning (after a disappointing try at midnight when the darned thing still said “(We are currently accepting reservations through August 14, 2009)“ GRRR! Anyways, I signed in and entered our information…ALB (which incidentally we drove by recently and I discovered is the size of my gym shoe) to MCO on September 14, 2009 and MCO to MHT on September 26, 2009. I waited with baited breathe hoping and praying they would have something…and I was very pleased indeed! Not only did they have the times we wanted to fly, but…and this is really the only way I ever fly…they had NONSTOP flights, and they weren’t wicked expensive! Lol. So after all was said and done we gave Southwest $467.40 of our hard earned buckaroos and they gave us 2 lovely tickets good for our Disneymoon  Not a bad trade. Ironically, only a few hours later after checking the flights because I get nervous, lol, the prices have already gone up on the flights! Glad I booked right away!

Our biggest concern with booking these flights were times. Flying out wasn’t an issue, we could leave as early or as late as we’d like, the only possible constraint we have is transportation and we are pretty sure we can get a ride from one of his relatives who live in the area. However, flights on the way back were a whole other issue. A few weeks after Steve and I announced our grand honeymoon plans, my friend Kristen announced that she was getting married…two weeks after us…on the day we are scheduled to fly home…from our cruise…yeah, not so good. DCL recommends not booking a flight earlier than 12:30 on disembarkation day, well if we do that we will definitely miss the wedding which is in NH, an hour from the airport we would be flying into. Unfortunately, if we book earlier, there is a chance we might not make the flight. Dilemma. Needless to say we decided on a 12:30 flight that is nonstop and scheduled to arrive at 3pm. Hopefully we can make the wedding at 4:30…we might have to take advantage of Steve’s radar detector!

Besides the ever important flight purchase we have also been making other grand purchases, lol. The two biggest are tickets for Cirque du Soleil and an addition to our cruise: The REAS package (Romantic Escape at Sea).

Let’s start with Cirque, because it’s entertaining. I had spoken with our agent about wanting to get tickets as soon as they were available. I had done my research and knew exactly what I wanted. There are five levels of pricing for tickets: Front and center and Categories 1-4. Front and center are most expensive and, obviously, front and center in the theatre. Categories 1-4 are spread through the theatre with category 1 having the best views, and category four the worst. After searching boards, websites and calling Cirque, I discovered that the front and center tickets were not worth the money and that in some cases caused you to miss all the action because of the close proximity. Not for me. While Category 1 would be the next logical choice, I found a tip on mousesavers that said if you could get seats in sections 203, 204 or 205, Rows EE, FF or GG, you would get amazing seats at great (category 2) prices! So that was my goal.

So, here goes: March 30th I get a hunch to call Cirque. Our agent had said tickets weren’t available that far out yet, but I wanted to call and get the exact date so I knew when I would need to have the money available. I called them that night and found out they were selling them already! YIKES! I sent an email to Dagny right away and asked her to please secure us tickets in the desired spots. Morning of March 31 we shot probably 10 emails back and forth getting all the info right, lol. First, she misunderstood and held two category 1 tickets, so I had her drop those and search for “my” special spot, lol. Then I couldn’t remember if I had already told her that we wanted the Friday show at 6 or at 9, then she needed me to authorize the purchase but forgot to tell me the total to enter! Needless to say we were both laughing by the end of it. But I am glad to say we have amazing tickets: Section 203, Row EE seats 11 and 12! Not only are we in the center of the row but we are also (it appears) over an entryway so we won’t have an obstructed view of freakishly tall people! (we are in the middle of the very first blue line in the picture below)

Now, for our other exciting addition: The REAS Package. After mulling it over for a few weeks, seeing all the pics online, thinking about booking ressies early and chatting with Steven, it was decided: WE WANTED IT! We are still a little unsure of exactly what is included, lol. It seems it changes occasionally and not sure how much to trust the DCL website, but we do know we get a Palo meal (we are gonna do brunch as that seems to suit our tastes and time schedules best), a turn down service and a rainforest room spa package. No matter what we do get, we will be very excited and the perk of being able to book things early is an added benefit that I am very happy about.

With this lovely aforementioned perk we plan to book 1 Palo brunch on an at sea day, so that will either be Monday the 21st or Thursday the 24th. We also wanna book a couples massage but haven’t yet decided if we should do one on Castaway Cay or on the ship. We are also still trying to figure out what we wanna do for excursions. We have actually been considering only doing an excursion at two ports and spending the other two exploring the ship and a little bit of the port. Haven’t decided specifics yet, but we will hopefully hammer that out this month so we are ready to go on D-day!

We are still waiting for the May 1 release date of tickets for MNSSHP but are pretty sure about those. It’s kind of exciting to see our weeks fill up with lovely fun plans! I am especially happy that we will be arriving early on Monday morning. I figure if we land at 10 it is safe to assume we will be arriving at the Wilderness Lodge by around noon. The tentative plan now is to grab some lunch at Whispering Canyon (and hope to order something that doesn’t require ketchup apparently) then explore the resort, rent a boat on Bay Lake then do dinner at Earl of Sandwich and walk around Downtown Disney. We would like to try to catch the Electrical Water Pageant if possible since it might be the only night we can. Then we wanna turn in early so we can be nice and rested for our first full day of the adventure!

Another bit of excitement we have tentatively planned is a sit through of the DVC presentation. I would really love us to be able to buy in, after all the research we have both done it looks like something we would really enjoy and I truly feel we would benefit from it in so many ways, now I just need to convince the checkbook! We penciled it in for Friday afternoon and once we get closer to the date will make a final decision about whether we feel we can afford it right now and then call to set up an official time.

Ok, it’s now May 7, 2009 and I have some more exciting news to add: WE ARE OFFICIALLY GOING TO MNSSHP!!! Yay! Dagny scored us tickets May 1st and we should be receiving them in the mail in the next few weeks. Can’t wait! We have also made more payments to our land reservation, or I should say I have made payments since I am paying for the land portion. Of course, Steve’s portion (the water part) is already paid in full…butthead, lol.

We have made a bunch of other plans…really it’s me doing hours upon hours of research, narrowing stuff down, giving Steve choices and seeing what fits, but hey who’s keeping track? Needless to say, I have made more glorious spreadsheets. We now have a tentative schedule for the entire land portion of the trip broken down into time increments, lol. I had a basic itinerary for last year too and it worked great.

More to come...

 

[Disneymoon0909]

The best part is we have a plan, but know that if we wanna change something or decide to add something we can be flexible. I am not one of those OCD freak out people who have a nutty if you veer from their plan- I lust love making spreadsheets! How can you resist color coding?

We also received our DCL planning kit in the mail last week and I immediately sat down to scour through it. There wasn’t anything in there I didn’t really know already but it was handy to have it all in once place. Later that week Steve and I sat down to talk dirt about our excursions. For some reason we keep putting off making any kind of decision about them. We figured we should probably get an idea so that when it comes time to book next month we are ready.

So we made one concrete decision which is that we are only going to do 2 excursions (one in Castaway Cay and one in Cozumel) instead of 4. We did decide that for Castaway Cay we are most likely going to go with the Extreme Getaway package and that at Cozumel Steve will do the Certified Scuba Tour and I will do the Jungle Hike Expedition. The reason we chose the Getaway package at CC was because we definitely wanted to do the Stingray Adventure, most likely would go biking, wanted to snorkel and thought, hey, what the heck, maybe we could bob around in the ocean in a floatie for awhile. The Cozumel choices were a bit tougher. First of all, we needed to make sure Steven was qualified. He is PADI certified but it says in the fine print that you have to have gone on a dive in the last two years. The only dive he has done in the last two years was the DiveQuest one at Epcot. So I called and checked with them and they said he would be fine, that it counted as a dive! Yay! I finally settled on the Jungle Hike after a bit of wavering back and forth but am happy with my choice, it is something nice and low key and I hope I will enjoy it.

Yikes, it has been awhile and a lot has changed! We were able to officially make our cruise reservations on June 6th and got everything we hoped for! Here is the list:

Sun 9/20: Palo Dinner 6pm (so we can have two dinners, lol)
Mon 9/21: Palo Brunch 11am
Wed 9/23: Scuba Tour for Steve 10:45 am
Wed 9/23: Jungle Hike for me 10:15am
Thurs 9/24: Couples Well Being Massage 3:15pm
Fri 9/25: Extreme Getaway (snorkel, rays, bikes and float rental) 10:00am

We have also started putting aside some of the stuff for the honeymoon in our brand new luggage (Thanks mom and dad!) so we don’t forget anything as we go along. Also, I am the designated bracelet orderer and keeper for our cruise meet with the DISboard. We have decided to go with green glow in the dark bracelets that say “Disney Magic” on one side and “September 19-26, 2009” on the other. I am really excited to order them next week on July 15th. Also, we have planned three meets for the cruise. They are all on the 19th, the first one is in the terminal at the port and I will be handing out bracelets, the second is at 3pm near the ice cream makers on deck 9 and the last one is at 8pm on deck 4 at the promenade lounge. I am so excited to meet all these people I have been talking to for months!

We also recently figured out transportation. We found a couple staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge the night before who was willing to split the cost of a minivan to drive us to the port. It will be a cool way to start the cruise. We are also figuring out transportation form the port to the airport the following week and think we are going to go with Ace Transportation, they have decent prices and I haven’t heard anything bad about them yet.

After doing some research on transportation Steven and I just decided to use Disney transport. People on the boards have said that it is easy and quick and we shouldn’t have any problems getting to the terminal on time.

As a surprise for Steve, I called Gifts by Shirley and ordered a Happy Birthday basket for him to be delivered to our cabin. I can’t remember exactly what I ordered but I know it has an underwater camera, water bottles, Smirnoff ice, water, towel, deck of cards, candy and chips, chocolate, a tote bag and a bunch of other stuff. I really hope he likes it all. His birthday is the 25ht, the day we are on Castaway Cay so I wanted to do something special. I also ordered bride and groom ears to be delivered to our resort hotel so that’s another little surprise for him!

The bracelets recently came in and they look awesome!!!

We are about 3 ½ weeks out from our Disneymoon and are getting more and more excited ach day. We finally finished our FE gifts and can’t wait to pass them out and see what little prizes we get too! We had this great woman from the DISboards make us our very own personalized FE, it is super cute and is a Mickey/Minnie love theme with our names and the date of our wedding on it!

More to come...

 

[daveyc150]

Just read all your planning, it sounds great. I love spreadsheets too!!!!

Can't wait to meet you on the cruise or we may bump into you around the parks, we are there from the 12th Sept with lots of activities planned and our wedding on the 17th (planning journal link below)

Keep us updated on what's going on.

 

[gvivanco]

Holly - WOW - all I can say is you are definitely an obsessive planner!!!!! Wow - I thought I planned things a bit......Wow

It all sounds so fun and exciting!! What a happy time in your life - you're gonna have a BLAST!!!

 

[dennismcneely]

Holly, just wanted to let you know that I just finished the reading of your trip report. I really enjoyed it. Congrats!

See you soon!

Dennis

 

[cakesnjammom]

Holly...just finished reading your pre-wedding/pre-trip of a lifetime report! You Go Girl, now that is what I call OCPD!!!You make us compulsive planners look good....and you work seriously great job! I am so happy for you and Steve....happy wedding planning/packing/preparing just breathe and remember to enjoy every minute of it. I won't give you the whole long drawn out version but dh and I were thinking back to our honeymoon (a RCCL cruise) and boy was it FUN you will always remember it! I wish I would have taken the time to record it as well as you have yours! Ok so mo more mushy stuff.

I look forward to meeting you and the STBDH!!! Keep us posted...wishing you both the best! Oh and pixies dust too!

 

[kileybeth]

Yikes, Holly I still haven't had time to read this but am bookmarking it so I can find it when I get a minute. I lost it and just took 20 minutes finding it!

Kim

 

[Disneymoon0909]

thanks for all the comments guys I know, i am a bit of an uber geek, lol I cant wait to get this trip going so i can come back and wrote more

 

[cakesnjammom]

holly you are being so quiet....you must be SUPER busy! I hope everything is falling into place for you and your big day!