The Help! Get Me To WDW Now! Spring Break Getaway!

[LadyGracey]

Introduction

Hi everyone! After reading so many excellent and entertaining trip reports, I have decided to write one of my own! As this is my first, bear with me if I digress, become boring, or lapse into pure drivel. Feel free to make comments along the way. And enjoy!


The Cast

Me: LadyGracey Teacher by day, wannabe actor/singer by night. Okay, I do local theater. But that doesn't mean I won't end up in New York someday. Or on a SpectroMagic float.

My partner-in-crime: MomGracey Disney-nut in training and fellow AP holder (I had to twist her arm on that one)

Why us? Mom and daughter, together? Well, for one thing, we have the same vacations. For another, I'm single, and most of my friends are performers--hence, they either work weird hours or don't have the funds to "do Disney." And, finally, we get along. She lets me do my thing, and I let her do hers, and we have a chance to share the Disney experience in a different way, now that I'm old enough to appreciate it (not so, when you're eight years old). Mostly this involves food and hotels. Eating our way around the World has become a treasured pastime (though the straining seams on my pants would beg to differ).

What we did in a nutshell:
2 parks, 2 hotels, 3 nights, Dole Whip and All-You-Can-Eat Smashed Potatoes

Why the title?

"Help! Get me out of here!" That is what I said on a daily basis over the three weeks before spring break. Something happens to kids (parents, you can vouch for this, I'm sure) in the spring. Maybe it's the relief that our standardized testing is over (no more FCAT! ) or maybe it's the weather, or maybe it's because we're halfway between Christmas vacation and summer vacation...but whatever it was, I felt like I was going slowly insane. Any teacher will tell you that we're pulled in a thousand different directions at once, but in addition to the mundane daily tasks, I was right in the middle of putting on three productions almost simultaneously. Bad planning on my part, of course...but I was ready to get away. I started marking the days off on the calendar as soon as March began...


Coming Up: My Suitcase Bulges...and other Planning Insanity

 

[KimAshton]

Cannot wiat to read more.

 

[praisehisname]

That's all we get??? Reading trip reports is the highlight of my week--all three of my kiddos are down with the flu! Sitting here waiting...

Denise

 

[LadyGracey]

It's coming, I promise. Work has been crazy since I came home, but I will write more today! Thanks for reading!

 

[sham101505]

More more more...... please

 

[happyindisney]

Patiently waiting for more. Which productions were/are you doing? (Sorry, I'm a "drama geek" and haven't had much time here lately for doing any productions. I am living vicariously through others at the moment!)

 

[LadyGracey]

Patiently waiting for more. Which productions were/are you doing? (Sorry, I'm a "drama geek" and haven't had much time here lately for doing any productions. I am living vicariously through others at the moment!)

Right now we're working on a new musical that a friend of ours wrote and had produced off-Broadway; we're trying to cast it this week. At school my students are working on a one-act play called "Dinner With the Macguffins" that breaks the fourth wall (rare time they get to do that!) As for me performing, I've done Ragtime and a musical version of "The Prince and the Pauper" and a lot of revues and variety things. Musical theater down here is limited and a very closed little society, so it's hard to get seen for good stuff sometimes, unless you know someone. Kind of like New York but with less auditions.


Continue to wait patiently until I get home from work...I promise it will be worth it!

 

[LadyGracey]

Is there a support group for compulsive planners?

My last trip had been in mid-February, for my birthday (awesome...I'll have to write about it someday), and I was already ready to go back. Actually, every time I come home, I'm ready to go back. (I'm sure a lot of you understand that!) This time, though, I wanted to stay someplace I had not been to before, namely the Wilderness Lodge, due to the glowing reviews from other DISers. Normally, I stay at values or moderates, so this would be a rare treat. However, since MomGracey was going too...well, teachers don't make a lot of money, and she has a lot more bills than I do. So I had to approach this in just the right way...

"You want to go to Disney over spring break?"
"But, honey, we were just there."
Grr. She's still learning.
"I know, I know, but when else do we have that many days off in a row?"
"Okay. Tell me what it will cost, and we'll talk about it."

She didn't have to tell me twice.

See, I am a compulsive planner. Have been ever since I was eight, and made poster-sized budget breakdowns and little pamphlets and gave presentations to my parents about how we could indeed afford yet another Disney vacation.

So, I went to work, scouring the Disney website and AAA for all the possible rates, available hotels, and combinations thereof. I did split stays, all-value, all-moderate, "if we check in on a Saturday instead of a Sunday it will cost this much more," and other bits of OCD information that only the most ardent planners would appreciate. I color-coded them and hand-wrote them in tiny, neat print on a big index card. Oh, and I cleverly slipped in Wilderness Lodge, alongside our favorite Animal Kingdom Lodge. Then I handed it to MG, a masterpiece of organization and calculation. And she scribbled all over it. Then, she tells me she doesn't even want to stay at AKL this time. To which I responded:

"Well, we could go to Wilderness Lodge..."
"Is that the one that's $214.07 a person with a split stay at a value for two nights?" (I told you I was compulsive.)
"Yes. And there's a boat to the MK. Except the pool is closed." I thought this would be a sticking point, even though we hardly ever swim--my concern was, would it be worth it to pay that much money to spend a night in a hotel with a huge construction site in its center? To me, it didn't matter so much, but...well, MG is much pickier than I am.
"That's fine. We don't swim anyway."
Huh? Was I talking to the same person?
"You really don't care that they're doing a refurb in the middle of the courtyard?"
"Not really. Go ahead and call them."

So I booked 2 nights at POP followed by a night at WL, both with a passholder rate...and my calculations? They were off by 4 cents. Score one for me.



That's okay. I'll tie the suitcase shut.

Normally my compulsive planning behavior includes packing for the trip, too. I start well in advance and put things in my suitcase as I buy them or wash them, make lists, check weather reports...This was not to be one of those trips. Two reasons: 1) there was no clear weather forecast...four different websites said four different things and 2) all that nice, advance, plan-ahead time I usually take evaporated when I came home from work exhausted and threw myself in front of the TV. So, three days before we left, I just started throwing things into my suitcase, with no regard to color-coordination, and hoped something would match when I got there. At least I would be warm and/or cool enough and stocked with enough disposable ponchos to outfit a marching band.

MG...well, she needed 2 suitcases. And she packed on Saturday night. When we were leaving Sunday at 6 AM.


So much for sleep.

Up next: "Buzz Lightyear Thumb" and other Disney first-day maladies.

 

[LadyGracey]

Getting Off on the Right Foot...or, "You will like POP again or else!"

4:30 comes entirely too early, even when you're going to Disney. There is something torturous and insane about getting up at that time of the morning, then trying to make three bulging suitcases and two tote bags fit in the trunk of a Corolla. Thank goodness for the 24-hour Starbucks drive-through 5 minutes from my house.

By the time we headed for the interstate it was 6 AM. which is just about the only time one can drive on I-4 road without battling kamikaze truck drivers. However, anyone who has ever driven in Tampa knows that it takes almost as long to drive from the west side of town to the interstate as it does to drive from the interstate to Lakeland. With this in mind, I knew our time would be tight--we were stopping to check in at POP on the way, and I didn't know how long the check-in or bus lines would be. It was 6:30 before we even got to the interstate, but after that, it was an easy 70mph straight to the World.

Surprisingly, we were only slightly behind schedule, driving under the arches at 7:30 and heading straight to POP. Thank goodness I knew where I was going, as there were absolutely no signs telling drivers how to get there (maybe I just got off at the wrong exit?).

We pull up to the guard shack at POP, and what does MG say?
"Oh, no. It's POP again."
Now, she knew this from before, but she never said it wasn't okay. She sort of had a "bad Disney experience" at POP last year...

It was late June, and everything was packed--the parks, the resorts, and especially the buses. The first problem she had was with the transportation--granted, standing in a bus queue in the boiling sun with 150 people in front of you at 9 in the morning is not fun--which only got worse when we waited one night for almost 2 hours for a bus back from MGM. I have never seen a line that long for a bus. There must have been 300 people, stretching far past the end of the entire bus stop area, and only one bus every half-hour. And then, we got stuck in the elevator the next day (and she's claustrophobic)...

Needless to say, POP is not her favorite place. I booked it this trip because I wanted a guarantee of a newer room, and because I wanted to avoid the youth groups they book into the All-Stars this time of year. Plus, I like POP--the themeing, the great food court, and really nice CMs.

"It will be better this time," I assured her.
"Uhhh."

 

[KimAshton]

Cannot wait to read more.

 

[praisehisname]

I really want to try a split stay someday so that we can try AKL or WL. Maybe I'll have to tweak my ressies for the September trip...

Denise