Trip Report - March/April 2025

[Noreen411]

Introduction:
Noreen - I am a Senior Vice President at an Investment Banking Firm in New York City. I will be the author of the report
Scott - My husband, Independent Contractor

I’m going to post a picture (or few) of Scott and I so you see what we look like

 

[Noreen411]

Planning
This should be our longest trip yet; the last few were a little over 2 weeks, but now we’re pushing 3 weeks.

We knew we planned to go away around February/March but didn’t get serious about planning until early January. We finally looked at a calendar and started to get things booked.

This trip has a new (maybe not that new since we’ve done this the past few trips) component to it of location/possible house hunting for potential places to move down the road.

Our plans are as follows:
Leave New Jersey Saturday 3/15/25, drive partway towards Alabama, spend the night in a hotel we book on the way then continue driving towards Alabama, spending the next night in a hotel we book along the way. Originally we were planning to leave Sunday and do the drive in 2 days but the more we looked at the distance thought maybe we should do the drive to Alabama over 3 days instead.
Monday 3/17/25 arrive Gulf Shores, Alabama and stay until Friday 3/21/25. We will meet with the realtor on Tuesday 3/18/25
Friday 3/21/25 leave Alabama and drive to Disney World arriving that evening and staying until Thursday 4/3/25. We’ll meet with the realtor on the West Coast of Florida during our trip.
Thursday 4/3/25 leave Disney World and drive at least halfway home, stopping somewhere we’ll book on the way
Friday 4/4/25 arrive home in New Jersey

Lodging in Alabama
We stayed at Staybridge Suites Gulf Shores Alabama. Since we were going to be in the Alabama hotel for more than just a quick overnight we booked the hotel on 1/6/25 rather than just booking on the fly like we normally do for the quick overnight stops on our drive. We didn’t need anything fancy since we’ll spend most of the time touring around, but it needs to be clean and comfortable. This is the same hotel we had booked for our fall 2024 trip, but never made it to Alabama due to hurricanes.

Lodging in Florida
We stayed at the sister resort to our timeshare; we stayed at Vistana Villages. We own one week in a 2 bedroom / 2 bath villa at Vistana Resort. It’s just Scott and I so I like to book the one bedroom premium villa. If you don’t just book your regular week, you can use “options” and we have enough to stay for about 2 weeks in the one bedroom. There weren’t any one bedroom premium villas available for our stay, but there was a smaller one bedroom available in the St Augustine section (the section we always request) so I booked that.

Both Vistana Resort and Vistana Villages are great resorts; we enjoy the large 24 hour fitness center at Vistana villages so have been choosing that resort lately when available.

Transportation
We drove from Northern New Jersey. We’ve done the drive to Disney a few times and prefer the flexibility it gives us over flying. Especially a trip like this where we have multiple stops, it makes it much easier to just have a car with us rather than flying and having to rent cars as we go.

Activities
We have Disney annual passes that don’t expire until September 2025. We have to make reservations for the parks. With our annual passes we can make 5 reservations at a time. We have Incredipass as out of state passholders (with memory maker). Once we booked our trip, I booked 5 days of park reservations which we may change once the parks hours are listed. We know we like to start our trip at Magic Kingdom to get right into that magical feeling of Disney.

We would buy the new Multi Attraction Lightening Lane as well as Individual Lightening Lanes for the attractions we want to ride. I didn’t keep track of exactly what I booked and the times. Staying offsite, we couldn’t book until 3 days in advance rather than the 7 days in advance those staying on property can book.

Dining
I had a handful of restaurants I wanted to try to get reservations for. I logged in at 60 days out each morning right before they opened and would book dinner. I kept checking and changing things as we went along.

Routine
We have a pretty normal (maybe boring) routine in the morning at Disney. We would go to the gym then once back in the villa do laundry, use the jacuzzi, take our showers, and have breakfast before leaving for the park.

Miscellaneous
I didn’t keep many notes this trip so am trying to recreate what we did from memory so I’m sure I’ll forget stuff. I would send myself texts throughout the day to remind me what we did. Between the texts and pictures, I’m hoping to be able to remember most of it.

 

[Noreen411]

Real Life Updates

Invisalign
I still have Invisalign that I started the process in July 2024. I’m definitely more used to them, but a lot more thought goes into when you are going to eat since you have to take them out, clean them, then after eating you need to floss, water pik, and brush your teeth before putting them back in. At home it’s easy to control, but while traveling, it’s a bit more challenging. I know I can do a modified version while out and about and will do that, and carry a little travel pouch with travel sized things like floss, toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash so I can keep up with the process. Some public bathrooms are easier to do these things in than others, but you do what you have to do.

General Real Life Update
I’ve been dealing with some medical issues recently and it’s getting progressively worse the last few years. Due to this, we’ve had to be more careful with what we’re planning and be flexible to change plans as we go if my medical issues cause difficulties.

New Luggage
One of the things Scott bought for Christmas is new hard sided luggage for us.

 

[Noreen411]

The month before the trip
We were both busy at work trying to get things squared away knowing we would be away for 3 weeks. We were originally planning to leave on Sunday 3/16/25 and I was going to get my manicure/pedicure on Saturday 3/15/25, but we started to think about how long a drive it is to Alabama and thought maybe we should leave Saturday instead of Sunday, taking 3 rather than 2 days to drive there. It’s just on the cusp of being too long for 2 days but not really. We re-arranged a few things to clear our schedules to be able to leave Saturday instead of Sunday (one day earlier than originally planned).

 

[Noreen411]

The week before the trip
We were busy with the usual before trip stuff getting everything squared away before we leave.

I went to get my manicure/pedicure late in the week. I chose a light peach color since we’ll be gone for about 3 weeks. the manicure is shellac so hopefully it lasts the whole time we’re away. I expect it will start growing out and i don’t like when the plain nail starts to show but hopefully with a lighter color it won’t be as noticeable. The pedicure is a normal pedicure in the same color.

 

[Noreen411]

Friday 3/14/25 (the day before the trip)
Work was busy as expected for both of us trying to wrap everything up before leaving for vacation.

I don’t know how to cook, but can make a few things. One of the things I like to cook is Kodiak Waffles, usually with banana or blueberries. Scott bought me a new waffle maker and I’ve been using that. I made some waffles to pack and bring to eat during the car ride tomorrow. I know it won’t be as good as fresh out of the waffle maker and dipped in syrup, but they hold up pretty well to being in the fridge overnight, in the cooler in the car, until I’m ready to eat them plain.

 

[Noreen411]

Saturday 3/15/25
We were up around 4:15 and used our gym. I did a step class; I know I’m dating myself but I used to do those classes when they were popular I think in the 80’s and I saw a step on Amazon as well as a DVD of a step class so got that a while ago. I enjoy doing the class sometimes and it’s super convenient to do it when it works for me.

We showered and got ourselves ready to go. We didn’t rush at all. We didn’t leave the house until about 7:45am. The benefit of the later start is we were able to stop at our local Starbucks and bagel store to get coffee and a breakfast sandwich for Scott; I’ll eat my waffle a little later.

The navigation in the car says about 18 hours / 2240 miles to Gulf Shores, Alabama. I have my old fashioned trip tik from AAA that I like to follow along the ride with. The trip tik and the navigation in the car don’t always agree on the route. I’m glad we chose to do the drive over 3 days since the estimated 18 hours will probably be at least 20 when you factor in stops for getting gas and/or bathroom stops. 10 hours driving in a day is feasible and we often do that the first day of the drive, but going into it knowing it’s going to be 2 full days of driving 10 hours each day is a lot. At least knowing we have 3 days to get there, it takes the pressure off.

We were in Pennsylvania at 9am.

It’s not Hurricane season but we keep hearing about various storms including tornadoes in the Midwest and into Alabama.

We tried something new, we started to listen to an audio book, the Judge’s List by John Grisham during the drive. I usually like John Grisham books, they often start a bit slow but then get you hooked. Normally I’m just reading books and haven’t tried an audio book before. Maybe it was the narrator, but we were having trouble getting into this book. We listened to it for part of the ride but didn’t finish it. Scott totally gave up on the book. Here we are 3 months later (June 2025) and I haven’t finished it but have started to listen to it sometimes if I go out to take a walk, it’s picked up a bit so I expect I will finally finish it.

We stopped to get Starbucks for Scott just before the Maryland border. He drinks more coffee than usual when we’re doing these long drives. While in Starbucks I used their bathroom to brush/floss/etc and put my Invisalign back in after eating my waffle a little earlier.

We were in Maryland at 11:45.

We were in West Virginia at 12

We were in Virginia at 12:15. It’s nice getting to a new state so quickly.

I booked Fairfield Inn and Suites, in Bristol Tennessee around 4pm while we were still in Virginia.

We got to Tennessee at 5:20

We arrived at the hotel at 5:30. Fairfield Inn and Suites in Bristol TN


We were given room 409 and we brought our stuff in and did some cleaning/disinfecting. I know they clean the rooms, but we like to do this little extra cleaning.



The room is a decent layout. The living room area has a couch, coffee table, desk, TV. We didn’t really use the living room much other than putting our suitcases in there.



The bedroom area is sort of separate (but not really since there aren’t walls separating it) but it’s sectioned off. There are nightstands on either side of the bed.


Across from the bed is a dresser with a TV.


There is a small closet with extra bedding, some hangers, an ironing board and iron.



There is a little area containing a small fridge, microwave, coffee maker. It’s nice that this is here, we put some of our waters in the fridge.



The bathroom is self contained which we prefer so I was happy to see that. I like having the sink, toilet, and shower/bath all in one room. I know many hotels have split bathroom setups but that’s not our preference.

 

[Noreen411]

Saturday 3/15/25 Continued
Once sort of settled, we headed out for dinner. The front desk recommended a place nearby called Drake’s so we headed there for dinner.


We sat at the bar as we like to do that.

Scott had a Bourbon and I had a White House Sangria


We started off with a chicken quesadilla appetizer to share which was very good. We were off to a good start.


I ordered the Turkey, Swiss, Avocado with fries. I asked for no sauce since I don’t like many sauces on my food, preferring to dip if I’m going to use a condiment. This was terrible, it was greasy and swimming in whatever they cooked it in. The fries were good.


Scott ordered the fried fish mini’s with macaroni & cheese. He also asked for no sauce. While his dish was the better of the two, it was also just OK.



For dessert we ordered the chocolate chip cookie with ice cream. This was pretty good.


We would not go back to Drake’s.

We headed back to the hotel and started to watch a movie, Kraven: The Hunter. We both fell asleep during the movie, but we’ll continue to watch it throughout the trip.

 

[BellaBaby]

Looking forward to hearing all about your trip!!

 

[Stacybaeasm]

Glad to see you off to a good start. One of these days when you drive through, we have to figure out how close you come to me in VA. I would drive to meet you for a meal if it was a good place for you to pause.

How do you like your invisaline? I'm getting a ton of dental work done this summer (because I honestly don't remember the last time I went to a dentist which is terrible) and they have recommended I think about it. I'm not sure how I feel so I'm looking for people who have done/are doing it to see if it is worth it.

 

[rdkeim]

Following! You're off to a good start!