Unconventional Weekender, Feb 27-Mar 1

[perditax]

Me: Female of a certain age. Grew up in south Florida and lived there and in Orlando until 2005. And until then, I knew everything there was to know about WDW. My info is all now about a decade out of date.

Him: My significant other of four years. We've traveled together a bit, but he's never been to FL except a MCO layover on the way to NOLA.

We both enjoy getting out and doing and seeing new things, but we also only have a limited endurance for crowds before we begin to do that introvert 'shutdown' thing. We also decided, on a recent trip to NOLA in which we ran ourselves ragged walking and touring and hanging out in smoky boozy music clubs, that we'd like one of those mythical vacations where you sit around and do nothing. So: for this trip we are doing the opposite of the typical WDW trip: not only are we planning nothing (except hotel and dinner reservations), there's a chance we won't go to any of the parks this time.

We're staying at AKL in a club level room, which seemed to me like the best setup for a non-park weekend. Since SO has never been to WDW at all, I expect he'll find the resort itself pretty amazing.

We'll also have a rental car, and I think by day two we may be a little antsy to get out, so I'm thinking I'll drive over to one of the monorail resorts and we'll do a little exterior tour of the parks on the monorail. SO knows almost nothing about WDW at all, barely even knows what EPCOT is, so my evil plan is to hang back and let him take it all in, and see where that gets us. (These things tend to go a lot better if I don't try to overload him with details of something ahead of time--I'm sure many of you reading this know what it's like to be the 'planner' in the relationship; I'm the one typing this, so you probably can do the math.)

I have this feeling that no matter how much we tell ourselves we want a chance to do nothing and hang around the resort watching animals and lounging, the fact that we are also both easily bored and always looking for something to do may eventually push us into one of the parks.

Either way I'm really looking forward to it. SO is always excited and enthused about new stuff, which makes it fun to do this kind of thing with him.

 

[perditax]

Ah, I lost this thread for a while after the board change. Since the original post:

--Bought one-day park hopper passes. "Just in case." I think we will probably do an in-and-out commando run on MK on Saturday. I have FP+ for Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion, all before 1pm. If we start getting too claustrophobic/crowd-overloaded, we'll just head back to the resort. Possible we will visit Epcot or DHS later in the day, hence I got the hopper.

--Dinner rez at Boma for the night of our arrival. Have been encouraged to do Jiko instead, but I feel like it's not Disney without one buffet.

--Dinner rez at Il Mulino the following night (the evening of our possible park visits). We don't have very good Italian food in my town.

--Decided to rent a car for our stay. Mostly because I don't want to deal with the Downtown Disney transfer to get to the Swan for dinner. Well, and I'm a control freak. We will likely take the bus for MK, though.

So Friday (arrival) is pretty much open. I expect we'll get to the resort around 1:30pm, if room is ready great, if not we will head to the club lounge for snacks and caffeine (we will probably do that anyway). Then hang out / explore the resort till dinner at Boma. Generally a day of relaxing.

Saturday is the park day, with an emphasis on seeing how things go and adjusting on the fly if necessary. (We're just not crowd people, but we like doing things. It could go either way. And I really have NO idea how my significant other is going to react to Disney. He could either get overloaded quick, or be totally into it.)

Sunday is 'sleep late and have a nice breakfast before the short flight home'.

Oh, and one more thing ...

I booked a 4-night Disney cruise for September. I've never been on any kind of cruise. SO told me to go ahead and book it, so he's at least partially on-board (no pun intended), but he is definitely not into trip pre-planning. He understands becoming completely obsessed with something (we both have the 'nerd' gene) but just doesn't like to apply it to travelling. So I have to limit my babbling about it. Believe me, I can babble. So I will probably make a new PTR for the cruise where I can hash out all my inner turmoil, such as whether a Disney cruise is a good idea for two adults who aren't kid people, "How bad is cruise food, really?", and whether dealing with car rental and other frustrations at Port Canaveral will cause me to have an aneurysm.

 

[perditax]

Cruise details: 4-night Dream 9/14/15. Deck 7, 4C.

Hopefully:

--will get Rainforest passes
--will snag a Palo brunch
--will be able to spend quality relax time in Cove Cafe (we are cafe/caffeine people).
--maybe see a Marvel movie on board. Perhaps Ant-Man by then?
--lots of chilling out in the room/on the Verandah.

I was surprised, during a conversation this weekend, to find out that SO is interested in snorkeling. There are reasons this was a surprise, but I was glad I broke my "no babble" rule to hash out some of our expectations. (He was worried I was going to overbook us with activities all day every day, I was worried he might not really want to go at all--we were both wrong.)

 

[perditax]

10 days till WDW. I was unbelievably busy at work last week, and this week we have multiple snow events happening (in a town not built for snow). Hoping this doesn't affect our flights next week, but it's way too soon to know, meterologically speaking.

Have been kind of bummed by recent reports of AKL club lounge being slammed / no tables etc., as I'd anticipated we'd spend some of the 'relaxation' weekend there. I'm trying to adjust my expectations accordingly--after all, we only paid $40/night for the upgrade, and if it means I can easily get tea and a croissant in the morning, and beverages anytime, and take it back the room, fair enough.

I haven't even had time to think about packing. Usually I've made lists by now, even for a short trip. I was at work for 8 out of ten days up till this last Sunday (I work as a systems administrator and there has been a lot going on), and I'm also studying for a technical certification with a very difficult exam in a few months. And ironically, instead of planning for this trip, I've spent all my free time reading about ... my cruise, which is still months and months away. Have been thinking that if I pass the exam, I may reward myself with a room category upgrade for the cruise.

 

[perditax]

T-minus three days! I think! I've been so busy for the last two weeks I'm not even sure what day it is. Plus we got a freak, completely unforeseen snowstorm ALL DAY today. And snow last week. And snow tomorrow night. And it'll be raining in FL this weekend. And my job has been insanely busy, and I'm also in the middle of studying for the certification I mentioned above. Other than making notes on my to-do lists, I've continued to spend more time thinking about/reading about the September cruise than this weekend's trip!

Hopefully I will start packing by tomorrow night!

We should be qualified for the automated check-in at AKL, at least. (I completed all the requirements.) And I signed up for the Emerald Club at National Car Rental, so supposedly when I get to MCO I can pick out the car a bit more easily. I've got cash for the tollbooths. I have a vague plan for Saturday (park day) although not sure how we will deal with the rain.

 

[perditax]

5-8" of snow supposed to fall overnight. I'm not in a city built for snow. No idea if this will cause my Friday flight to be canceled.

 

[perditax]

Lots of flights were cancelled today. Snow is done, but everything melted today and will refreeze tonight, and we're under black ice warnings until 10a tomorrow. The plane is supposed to take off at 10:30a. I'm not that amused.

We sort of have a backup plan of getting a one-way rental and driving down and flying back. But that's nine hours of driving out of a 48 hour trip. I'm not super thrilled with the plan. We'll see what happens. Feel free to send good vibes.

 

[perditax]

At the boarding gate, it's warmed up a lot here this morning and I think we are good to go.

 

[perditax]

We're here! OMG THE CROWDS! I hadn't been since the early 2000s at best. They are not kidding that there is no low season anymore. Also, AKL is noisy as heck. Have been listening to kids running back and forth in the room above us, and up and down the halls, for a couple of hours.

I'm not completely sure we're going to make it to MK tomorrow. Just the crowds at the hotel and Boma have about done us in. (Did I mention the introvert part?) Might fall back to Epcot or something. And definitely will not be repeating Boma.

On the positive side: Staff has been super nice, especially the concierge CM who checked us in, lady at the guard gate, various servers and wait staff. The hotel is still visually nice, and the animals are braving the cold to come out and be seen.