The Year of Food & Wine [Part 2] - An October 2020 PTR!

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Hi all!

For those of me who don't know me, I'm Elle!

I've been around on the DIS for a few years now, and in the past couple of years I've kind of failed at being active, but I'm ready and raring to go for a new PTR, a new trip, and a new year!

2019 was definitely the year I took some time off from serious writing, that included blogging, which is what I I consider PTRs. But after a break I'm back!

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a middle school English and Theatre teacher living in Central Massachusetts. I'm in my early thirties (my birthday's next week and I keep forgetting how old I am lol) and I've been going to WDW pretty much nonstop since I was 11 years old. I've even been an Annual Passholder for the past 4 years.

For the past three years my mother and I have been doing an annual mother/daughter trip to Florida in October. This past year she wasn't able to go with me due to timing, but she is definitely going with me in 2020.

In fact, we've already booked our hotel room, that's how serious we are about going this year!

Since my mother's knee has been really bothering her recently (she's been using a cane on vacations to help even though she doesn't need it all the time) I decided to choose a hotel close to the parks, and as an early Mother's Day present I decided to splurge on her a little bit and stay at Wilderness Lodge. So we'll be there from October 9-12, 2020!

This PTR is going to be a lot of me panicking, forgetting I have a PTR, panicking some more, and on and on for the next 10 months.

Oh, and why is this Part Two? Because I'm going to the tail end of Food and Wine in Disneyland in April (that PTR is over here).

 

[Heluvsme]

Can't wait to read all about it, especially Wilderness Lodge....

Food and Wine.... FUN!!!

 

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Can't wait to read all about it, especially Wilderness Lodge....

Food and Wine.... FUN!!!

Thanks! I'm excited!! Wilderness has been a bucket list hotel for me and the price was just so good when I went looking for hotels that I had to jump on it!

 

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So, my mother has leg issues. We take it slow in Disney, she walks with a cane while we're there to help. She likes to turn in early to rest her leg while I usually stay out. Honestly, it's a system that works well, because I don't mind being in Disney by myself because I'll just people watch or eat or something, but I know she always feels badly about it no matter how much I tell her I don't mind. She liked it last time we went because two of her close friends went as well - one kept up her pace and the other kept up mine.

So, enter the holidays. The time between Christmas and New Year's was a bit of a madhouse because we had family over, friends over, my birthday last week, my grandfather's birthday last week, my dad's choir over, more friends over....it's basically been packed full of people.

Well, at our family's Yankee Swap/White Elephant party last week my mother started asking our Disney-going friends if they wanted to come down to Disney at the same time so we could have a big celebration. She asked Kyle and Liz (Liz has been in numerous of my PTRs and TRs and Kyle is her DBF who went on vacation with us two summers ago and is a huge Disney nerd) who had been planning on going either late September or November if they would rather go at the same time as us. Kyle seemed interested, but I don't know how well that will turn out. She also asked my friend Jill (who I went to Disney with this past October and have done two other trips with as well) if she would like to come and stay with us. So, who knows? We may have more people going with us.


She is excited though. She has already started giving me a list of places she wants to eat, even though we can't make ADRs yet.

 

[Heluvsme]

I've never done it, but I honestly think if I did DW solo while a loved one was doing what they wanted/needed to do i.e. resting in the room, I think I'd be absolutely fine to walk around and just enjoy the beauty of it all. As long as my loved one genuinely enjoyed their down time I think it'd be a nice switch up.
Having friends along sounds very nice as well! We've had a large family group with us before and it was one of my best memories ever ❤

 

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So it seems as though we may have definitely convinced Liz and Kyle to come at the same time as us, which will be nice.

I have had the "bad news, good news" move in the last week. We had to move our Disneyland trip, as we decided that it wasn't worth it to keep waiting or even to go in April with everything that's going on. So we moved that trip to July, which does stink a bit but is definitely the exact right decision to make.

What that does mean, though, is that when I moved my flights, I got basically my entire roundtrip flight (minus taxes and travel insurance) paid for in credit, which is great! In fact, buying both my mother's ticket and mine with the Jetblue credits meant I spent less than I did on my original return flight from San Diego in April.

So our current plan is:

- Our flight out of our small, local airport isn't until 5:47 pm which means that for once neither of us (mostly me) have to worry about rushing to the airport. I offered to pick my mother up at work on my way to the airport but I think what's going to end up happening (as we just talked about it a bit as I paid for our flights) is that my dad will take our carry-ons that morning. He and my mother work in adjoining buildings so they drive to work together anyway. They'll wait until I'm on my way to the airport and then they'll leave work. He'll drop my mother off at the airport with the bags so we won't have to worry about trying to carry the bags up the stairs from the parking lot. I'll park in the lot and meet my mother inside so we can go through security.

- We'll get to Wilderness Lodge around 9:45-ish from the airport so we figure we'll just grab food at Roaring Fork either after we drop our bags off or before we go to our room, depending on how we're feeling, then we'll spend the rest of the night in our room so we can go to bed and get us at a decent time.

- On Monday our flight's not until 2:30 so we'll probably get up early, drop off our bags, and go to Disney Springs for a couple hours before we head to the airport.

- Once we get back I'll run down to grab my car and drive up to the airport entrance to grab my mother and our bags and then drive home. If all goes as planned we'll be back home before 6 pm!

 

[DLo]

Just found your PTR. Looking forward to reading more

 

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ADRs done!

Our ADR date was Easter, which I did not realize until my alert to make my ADRs went off yesterday morning while I was making breakfast. So our plans so far are:

Friday -
* nothing, we get in too late

Saturday -
* Be Our Guest dinner. Neither of us have gone to BoG since it became a prix fixe meal and we want to try it out.

Sunday -
* Kona breakfast, our favorite
* Hoop Dee Doo dinner. I've never done Hoop Dee Doo before so I paid for it for us

Monday -
* Whispering Canyon breakfast