The Year of a Million Disney Trips

[wingedjojo]

Hi there everyone and to my second (and counting) Walt Disney World trip report!!!

This trip was a particularly special one because it’s my boyfriend and I’s first trip to Disney World together! Sure I’ve gone several times with my family and he has gone with his and yeah, we’ve been to Disneyland together a couple of times but come on, we’re talking about DISNEY WORLD! Get excited.

So here are the details of our trip:

WHO:
We got yours truly, Jo, the planner of the pair and self-appointed Disney expert. 23 years young, this was my 5th trip to the World and I’m still not sick of it. Currently, my favorite characters are Dug from UP and Perry the platypus from Phineas and Ferb.

And then we have my 24 year old partner in crime, Kevin. He says he tolerates Disney for me but he secretly loves it too. He’s a firm believer in “Happily Ever After” and true loves so that’s saying a lot about his relationship with Disney. Like me, he also grew up with the films. I have no idea how many times he has gone to Disney World but I know it’s at least once. He also loves Phineas and Ferb but his first love will always be all things Toy Story.

Here’s the most recent picture I have of us:

WHAT:
A 10 days, 9 nights extravaganza at the wonderful land of Walt Disney World with a side trip to Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios.

WHERE:
For the first time in my life (and I’m pretty sure Kevin’s too), we actually got to stay on Disney property! This trip had 3 parts to it. In the first leg, we stayed at the Pop Century Resort for 4 nights.

The next 3 nights were at the Days Inn Universal Maingate for our Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios visit.

Lastly, for the remaining 2 nights of our trip, we came back to stay at the All Stars Music Resort.

WHEN:
April 24 to May 3, 2012

WHY:
We never got to celebrate Kevin’s graduation from college since he started working in his research lab right after. He is also about to start graduate school in the fall and this trip was mostly a nice break to spend some quality time together before he devotes himself to his studies/research. There is another reason why we took this trip but I’ll get to that later.

HOW:
Another first for me, we booked a direct, 5ish hour flight from San Francisco, California to Orlando, Florida on Virgin America. So fancy~

Now that all those basic facts are out of the way, let’s fill in some blanks.

First of all why is this trip report titled “The Year of a Million Disney Trips?” Well, in the time span of a year, I’ve been to a Disney park 3 times (Disney World in June 2011, Disneyland/California Adventure in July 2011, this trip) and I’m currently in Disney right now!

You’re all probably going: What? You’re in Disney right now and you’re typing up a trip report from April? Why aren’t you out having fun and all sorts of shenanigans? For that matter, why did it take you so long (almost 2 months!) to start writing a trip report if you came back from it in May?

You might also be thinking: You’re a recent college graduate. Where in the world are you finding the cash to go on so many trips?

And maybe: What’s that other mysterious reason you mentioned about why you guys went on this trip?

Well, there’s a simple answer….







!!!I WON THE LOTTERY!!!

I’m just kidding. I WISHED I had won the lottery and became an overnight millionaire. The real reason is much simpler (but maybe just as awesome).

I’m in the Disney World College Program!!!

On a whim I applied for the College Program back in January (you can apply even if you’re a recent graduate), got in, and moved over here to humid Florida. I’ve been a Cast Member since May 16 and so far it has just been a whirlwind of an adventure.

Knowing we would be apart for at least 7 months, Kevin and I felt a trip would give us a really good opportunity to spend some quality time together; to make some really good memories before we went long distance. We had already decided on and paid for parts of the trip prior to my application for the program but my getting in was just icing to the Disney cake.

Now I’m here in my Disney-appointed apartment with a little extra time so I decided to start typing up a new report. I have a day off today and I figured I could probably find time at least once a week to update. It’s a good unwinding tool for me to be able to blog/talk about my trip in detail after a long week of work. Hopefully I’ll get this trip report done before my program ends.

I’ll end this introductory post here and start the real report another day. If anybody is curious, I work at Epcot (my favorite park!) in attractions. Specifically, I work at the Living with the Land boat ride and The Circle of Life; basically the other stuff in the same building with Soarin’. Since this is the DISboards and I know people are constantly going to Disney World, stop by and say hello! I’ll be the weird looking Asian girl with the nametag that says “Jo.” Here’s a picture of me in my uniform so I’ll be easier to recognize:

Have a magical day!

 

[Eight]

This is probably a weird way to start a comment on a TR, but I'm so jealous that Virgin has a direct flight to Orlando from San Francisco. I hate flying but I love Virgin America.

Anyway though...

Congratulations on DCP! I hope you're enjoying your experience so far.

Looking forward to more!

 

[wingedjojo]

This is probably a weird way to start a comment on a TR, but I'm so jealous that Virgin has a direct flight to Orlando from San Francisco. I hate flying but I love Virgin America.

Anyway though...

Congratulations on DCP! I hope you're enjoying your experience so far.

Looking forward to more!

This was the first time I've ever flown Virgin America and I can totally understand what you mean. Flying direct is GREAT!

Thanks and I am enjoying my college program immensely. =)

 

[wingedjojo]

The start of this trip really began for me when our Magical Express passes came in the mail.

I have never stayed at a Disney property before and I was super excited to get these. My family never considered staying onsite before because it always seemed too expensive. It was much cheaper to just rent a car for a week and stay at a cheaper, offsite hotel (even if it was a little further away). It also made sense for my family to rent a car considering any Disney World trip was always supplemented by an Islands of Adventure/Universal side trip. That’s just how it has always been.

This time though (since neither Kevin nor I were 25 years old) renting a car would’ve been major $$$. It was actually much cheaper to stay at a Disney resort, get free rides to/from airport and just use their bus system. Even considering the additional cost of hiring a cab to/from Universal, it was cheaper overall compared to staying offsite and renting a car. So it was truly a dream come true.

Side note: my next dream is to stay onsite but at either the Animal Kingdom Lodge, Yacht Club, or Polynesian resort.

Okay, let’s get back on track. So when those Magical Express passes came in the mail, to me, it was the signal of the start of our vacation. I had already been pretty much packed for a couple of days already (I like being prepared) so I was gearing to go. The weather was looking pretty good too.

Our trip actually started on the morning of Tuesday, April 24. We were too excited to sleep and pretty soon were getting all our bags into my mom’s car. I was too excited to take pictures but clearly Kevin wasn’t. He managed to take this one of me:

Lovely.

Virgin America flight 300 was scheduled to depart at 9:45am. We had asked my lovely mother to give us a lift to the airport on her way to work. My lovely mother:

Apparently we had gotten out of the house and en route around 7:24am. We were super early but better safe than sorry, right?

Our house is about 15-20 minutes away from the airport (without traffic) so it wasn’t long until we saw signs directing us to our domestic terminal.

I love airplane rides. I just love the whole process of going through the terminal, getting your passes, even going through security. It’s the whole association of going on a trip that just makes me love anything that’s connected to airports. Plus, airplanes are just so much fun.

We arrived at the airport in no time, said a quick goodbye to my mom and were on our way through the terminal.

Speaking of going through the terminals, we had a lot of time to kill once we passed the security check point. So we just kind of wandered around. We came upon these neat-o figures.

I took a picture of this turtle one because one of my housemates loves turtles.

And then there was this penguin because penguins are cute.

There’s not much to do in terms of window shopping. We considered getting manicures/pedicures to pass time but it was way too pricey. Before we knew it, we were at our gate with too much time on our hands. We were SO early that the flight prior to ours hadn’t even started boarding!

If anybody doubted our presence at the airport, here’s proof:

Not soon enough, the sign for our gate finally changed to the correct destination.

And there’s our plane!

I had stupidly forgotten to do online check-in 24 hours in advance. It was probably around half a day in advance so we got stupid boarding group D. I was totally worried there wouldn’t be enough overhead compartment space to put all our stuff in. Turns out our flight wasn’t even completely booked so lack of space wasn’t really a concern. Even with boarding group D, we were going down the terminal soon enough.

Are we even allowed to take pictures here? I just assumed it was okay and the fact that I never see these types of pictures was probably because 1) it’s kind of a boring scene and 2) everyone is too busy hurrying on the plane to stop and grab a picture.

There was a hold up of sorts and we were stopped near the end of the ramp so we took another picture!

Somehow we make it to our seats and I grabbed the window (of course). I always end up sitting near the wing for some reason.

We looked so ready and happy to fly!

Kevin ended up sitting next to a nice lady from (I forgot where) but they talked about cancer. Kevin was the resident expert because he does cancer research and I think the lady’s daughter fought and beat some type of cancer. You can tell I was really paying attention. I think I was mostly sleeping.

Are we there yet?

 

[jpmandan]

I'm onboard for your TR.

 

[wingedjojo]

The airplane ride actually went by pretty quickly. We were scheduled to land at 5:50pm at Orlando International and we got there right on the time they predicted. Since we only had our carry-ons with us, we hustled right off that plane, to the pretend monorail, and right into the main part of the airport.

Kevin was pretty amazed that there was a hotel inside the airport so he had to take pictures.

That meant I was stuck lugging all the bags.

I didn’t mind too much. I was more concerned with finding the proper side of the airport to get to the Magical Express bus.

Like a stupid idiot I hadn’t bothered reading the booklet they gave us. If I had, I would’ve known to go to the B side but for some reason, I felt going towards A was the right way to go. Of course we got lost. I stopped by some random desk at the car rental level and asked where the Magical Express bus picked up. Boy they were rude. There was an older woman and a girl in her early 20s. Neither of them looked at us when we approached and the younger girl was on her cellphone texting. If I hadn’t said “excuse me” I don’t even know if they would’ve acknowledged us. They weren’t friendly at all and sounded almost mad that I DARED to ask them for directions. So rude; no Disney spirit at all.

Eventually we make it to the right area. We checked in and started following signs. I was quite surprised that they had this sign:

The Art of Animation wasn’t slated to open until the end of May. Talk about being prepared!

Pop Century was where we were headed!

Our bus was already there waiting for us to board. Sadly, it wasn’t a Magical Express bus; just a stupid Disney cruise line bus (which I hope to one day board and actually have it take me to a cruise).

Since we got there after people had already started to board, we didn’t get to sit in the front. We chose a row where we could see a monitor though.

The bus was relatively empty. I guess there weren’t many flights that landed around our time. Before we knew it, we were off! The bus driver was nice enough to slow down as we passed through the Disney arches but this was the best shot I could muster:

I didn’t know this but the Art of Animation is right across the street from Pop Century so I got to see from afar how all the construction was coming along and to take a picture of this:

I’m really excited about the new resort. I hope I get to stay in it one day because it looks GORGEOUS. As a Cast Member, I was allowed an opportunity to go check the place out before it officially opened but I had work that day and couldn’t make the open house. Boo~

I attempted a picture of the Pop Century sign but again, this was the best I could do:

But who cares? I was finally staying on property!!! I had neglected to check in online but it didn’t really matter. There wasn’t a large amount of people around so it was a breeze of a check in.

We got building 10, room 226 in the 70s section! It was a great location for us because it wasn’t too far from the cafeteria and bus stops.

Here was our view from the door:

Speaking of door, time to do a tour of the room we got. Starting off, we had our door:

We even had a little towel friend at our window!

Our table and entertainment system:

I was quite surprised to find a mini fridge there. I had thought value resorts didn’t have any and if we wanted one we would’ve had to pay extra. It didn’t really matter though since we didn’t have any perishables on us but if we did, it would’ve been super useful.

The nice and comfy beds were surprisingly bigger than I thought they were going to be. In fact, the whole room was bigger and much nicer than I expected.

The bed sheets were super cute.

Our bathroom space:

I thought this curtain was a neat idea but we never had to really use it.

I really wished this poster of stuff from the 70s was actually a box full of stuff from the 70s. That would’ve been so much cooler but I guess they didn’t want people stealing stuff and selling it on Ebay.

We got one of those bounce back offers on our table. I was really considering it just to have Kevin come visit me while I was on my college program but I wouldn’t know when to book it for or if he’ll even have time off. Good thing I didn’t because the Cast Member discount was such a better deal.

With the tour of our room finished, it was time to go out and explore!

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

Joining in.