We're Being Optimistic! We Leave This Month!!!

[AwkwardTurtle]

Hi! This is my first pre-trip report ever, so be gentle please. I am super awkward with things like small talk, so I’m going to jump right into introductions.

WHO: There are two of us going on this trip.

I’m Jessica. I’m 28 and I currently work retail. Yay. I’ve loved Disney basically for as long as I can remember. I’ve been to Disney World three times before. Once on an epic family vacation when I was in kindergarten (sidenote: that word looks really weird spelled with a t), once with summer camp between seventh grade and eighth grade, and then finally in October of 2011 with Max. If you’re interested in our previous trip, you can check out my (unfinished) trip report.

Here are some of my Disney World favorites, although it changes pretty frequently. I can’t make up my mind, I love everything!

Park: Probably Animal Kingdom. I just love the themeing here, and I love animals. When I went to Disney World with summer camp, it was literally a few months after Animal Kingdom had opened, and it was miserable. They had planned for us to be there the whole day, and there just wasn’t a lot for a bunch of 13 year old girls to do. We rode Dinosaur about 15 times, and then complained a lot, as I recall. But I was still excited to go back in 2011 with Max, and it was really a wonderful time. We didn’t get to do everything we wanted, so I’m definitely looking forward to the different walking trails. Hollywood Studios is my least favorite.

Attraction: Probably the Peoplemover. I just love the feeling of riding high above Tomorrowland. I also love Carousel of Progress. I’m a bit of a classic Disney nerdy type

Character: Daisy Duck, for sure. I just love her and her sassiness. And she’s so underrepresented at the parks.



Max is my husband. He’s a 29-year-old computer programmer. He’s been to Disney World once before – with me in October 2011.
Here are some of his favorites.

Park: Max’s favorite part is EPCOT, but he says he’s not sure how much of that is because we were there for food and wine or because of the park itself.
Attraction: Max’s favorite attraction at Disney World is Spaceship Earth. He also really, really loves Splash Mountain and Everest.

Character: Max claims to not have a favorite character (lies) but growing up he always loved Goofy. Do not make jokes about Goofy being his dad though, those are apparently not funny (also lies). We don't meet a lot of characters, because they actually freak Max out a lot. See how far away he is from Donald up there?

We live in Southern California, and we go to Disneyland a lot, so our Disney World trips tend to be a little bit different than a lot of others. For example, we have an easier time than most in EPCOT because we don’t have to worry about getting FastPasses for Soarin’. We do love all the different food options at WDW, so there will be much discussion of food to come!

WHAT: We’re going to Disney World! Hopefully.

WHERE: Stay tuned for resort info and other plans

WHY: Because it’s been WAY too long, and we need something good to look forward to. Also, we’ll be celebrating our 5th anniversary next May, so we wanted to do something special.

WHEN: April 26th – May 3rd 2014.

And that’s us! More details and other things come. Also, pictures of my cats. They have nothing to do with Disney, but they’re adorable. Please feel free to comment and such. I'm an awkward turtle, but I'm friendly, I promise!

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Resort Drama Ahead!​

Like the title indicates, even though we have dates booked, there’s a good possibility that we won’t be able to go on this trip, due to finances. Max has been doing freelance work, and it can be really unpredictable as to when he gets paid. So it’s kind of up in the air. He’s hoping to get something full time soon, in which case we get to go on vacation! My thinking was I wanted to book the trip, just in case. Because if it turns out that we can go, awesome! And if not, well, the deposit is refundable, or we can just push it back. Fortunately Max agreed He’s been wanting to go back to the world as much as I have, so it was really a very short discussion.

The reason we needed to book so early is that we’re booking on a discount, and only so many rooms are released with that discount, and they fill up fast. It was hard narrowing down a time to go. We had thought early February, because it’s still slow then, but the weather is so unpredictable. It’s really important to Max to be able to swim on vacation (who says that only kids care about the pool?), and I will never say no to some nice, relaxing sitting by the pool with a drink time, so we decided to push the trip out a little. We wanted to go after Spring Break and Easter, but before Summer really started, which is actually not a huge window. My birthday and our anniversary are in May, so first we had looked at dates in the middle of the month. Then I remembered that my little sister has her law school graduation at the end of May, which we’re flying to New York for. Hence, April 26th – May 3rd were deemed the Dates of The Vacation™.

We stayed at Coronado Springs when we went in April of 2011, and LOVED it, so we were all set to stay there again. I did some vague researching of other resorts, but none of the other moderates really called to me, and we can’t quite afford a deluxe. So we planned to book a standard room at Coronado, and we would probably request the same location we had last time – Casitas 4. I priced everything out, and it looked great! I was just waiting until pay day to book.

And then the standard room was no longer available! Now I know that you can hold the reservation for a week at no cost. I wish I had seen this option before, because I totally would have done that. But I was immediately stressed out and faced with making Decisions. BUM BUM BUMMMMM. (<---totally be dramatic music).

Basically we were faced with the following options:
At Coronado, the least expensive option was the preferred king rooms, followed by the standard king and the standard business class. And suddenly I had no idea what to do! I didn’t want a preferred king, because I didn’t want to be that far from the pool. But it was a really negligible amount to go from the regular king to the business class, with the awesome location. But it was still more money than I had been expecting to commit to. We even briefly considered Caribbean Beach, but we really wanted to stay at Coronado. After 15 very stressful minutes in which I stressed out and Max nodded and agreed with me like a good husband, we decided to just book the business class and be done with it. It’s not that much more money, and this way we know what building we’re going to be in. So yay!

Recap: After much stressing we’re booked in a Standard View- Business Class room at our beloved Coronado Springs Resort!

My very first picture of Coronado in 2011 - because I am an excellent photographer,


I am so excited to go back!

 

[happybelle]

I hope you get to go, Disney is such a great place to dream of being.

 

[BelleLulu]

Hey Jessica,

I'm subbing. Followed your link from Mark's Going to Disneyland Report.

We are so alike. My favorite park AK, Daisy is my most favorite, thus the comment on Mark's thread. I will drop everything for that duck!

I look forward to hearing about your trip.

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

I hope you get to go, Disney is such a great place to dream of being.

Thank you! There have certainly been a lot of dreams since I started this.

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Hey Jessica,

I'm subbing. Followed your link from Mark's Going to Disneyland Report.

We are so alike. My favorite park AK, Daisy is my most favorite, thus the comment on Mark's thread. I will drop everything for that duck!

I look forward to hearing about your trip.

Daisy is amazing, I love her so much! Funny story, I got an adorable plastic tumbler with Daisy on it from the Disney Store, and Max actually got me a second, because I have a tendency to break my tumblers, and he knew how said I would be if that happened.

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

WOW, thank you so much for commenting and reading! I know it looks like I abandoned this report, and I kind of did, but I am back. Because......













WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately, not in April. It would've been a stretch financially, and once I realized how close it was to my little sister's law school graduation, which we are traveling to the east coast for, I realized it just wasn't going to work out. I ended up cancelling the trip in November, and was just super bummed about it. Last week though, we did our budget planning for the year, and we realized that the trip to the Caribbean we had been planning for our fifth anniversary wasn't going to work out. I suggested going back to Disney World instead, and Max immediately agreed.

We will be going back in October, actually the exact same dates as our trip in 2011! Which I think is kind of cool, if not planned at all. We're still staying at Coronado Springs, and decided to keep business class. The location just looks like it can't be beat!

Now that I know we are for sure going, I promise to be all over this report. Max is good about listening to my Disney babble, but he doesn't really get excited about it until much closer to the trip. While I am super excited RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!

240 days!!

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Trip Shopping Has Commenced!

Nothing big, but I just ordered a bunch of Disney themed hair bows from a great (if time management-challenged) site. My husband is actually encouraging Disney bounding to go with my bows. I'm not 100% on this, as I feel like it's weird to be almost 30 and Disney bounding, but it means I can shop a lot, so.....

Also, it's getting to be ADR time! Many food choices are in the works, I hope to share them soon

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

So. Max and I were talking about vacation time, and the best way to use it the other night.

Background: He is a lucky jerk and does not usually have to be in the office on Fridays. Therefore, his boss, a lovely, lovely man, does not require them to use vacation time if they are going to be away on Fridays. So we changed our days, so now he only has to take 4 days of vacation. Yay for playing the numbers game!

The upshot of this is that we've moved our trip up by 5 days!!!! Which means we are 13 days from ADR time

I really need to make some decisions about that. I promised a friend we would do lunch today, but I will back later to talk dining, if anyone wants to join!

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Also it looks like we're only a few days from park hours being available!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Park hours are finally out for the first day of our trip! Yay! Super exciting, and it means I can really start planning and making dining decisions. But it also means I need to actually make dining decisions! Decisions are hard for me.

On our last trip, our table service restaurants were Kona, Boma, Cape May Cafe, Grand Floridian Cafe, Yak and Yeti, and Artist Point. We're planning to try as many new things as possible this time around. We'll be doing Yak and Yeti again, and I really want to try Kona for breakfast. We did dinner last time, and I really am wanting to try those pineapple macadamia pancakes I keep seeing everywhere. Other than that, places we are wanting to eat include:

Trail's End (dinner)
Beaches and Cream
T-Rex (apps and drinks most likely. My husband is obsessed with dinosaurs, and has decreed that we must go to T-Rex)
Jiko (this is really high on the list for me, I hope we can make it work)
Chefs de France
Be Our Guest (lunch) if I can get a FP+ time for it. I really want to see the inside, but not enough to wait in line I don't think.

I'm especially interested in hearing opinions on Trail's End, if anyone has been there. It looks really good, and it would be cool to see the campgrounds, but I don't know a whole lot about it!

And, obviously, there will be copious amounts of Food and Wine booth food consumed. And all the Grey Goose slushies in the world.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Oooh Coronado is my favorite too!

Are you going to go to a mnsshp??

I've been wondering how long they'll keep handing out bonus fp for bog. I thought they'd have stopped by now, but who knows how long it'll keep going.

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Oooh Coronado is my favorite too!

Are you going to go to a mnsshp??

I've been wondering how long they'll keep handing out bonus fp for bog. I thought they'd have stopped by now, but who knows how long it'll keep going.

Yes, Coronado is amazing! We're especially excited to try Business Class this time.

We're not planning to go to a mnsshp. As much as I'd LOVE to see Boo To You in person instead of just on You Tube, it's just not really worth it to us. And by us, I mostly mean Max But he has a point - since we don't really do characters, and I can't imagine trying to transport all that candy on an airplane, it's kind of a large added expense. I think we might try to watch the fireworks from the beach at the Polynesian one night though.

Fun fact: We usually go to the Halloween Party at Disneyland, where it's just Mickey's Halloween Party. For some reason, they dropped the not-so-scary part out here!

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Flights are booked!

I got an email from Virgin America about an awesome sale, and found a great deal. Unfortunately, I did not have time before I went to work to talk to my husband and book the tickets. He was already at work, and I was running late, and I didn't want to just book them. I don't know why, I was obviously not thinking straight!

Anyway, when I went to book the flights 10 hours later, they were gone

I was super bummed. These were great flight times, at an amazing price, on an airline we really like. I ended up finding a deal for only $20 more total, but it's on United, which makes me nervous. I booked it, just because I was stressed, but United has a 24 hour cancellation policy, so I will still be looking around to see if anything better appears.

 

[karaokevixen]

We booked our flights last night. The price wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad either... We're flying Delta, which we prefer, but we needed a plane with at least 5 seats across, as we're a family of 5. On the plus side, we'll be in Orlando by 10:30AM, so we might be able to do a park the day we arrive!!! YAY!

I'm looking forward to Food and Wine, but I'm not sure about the MNSSHP. While I think my kids would enjoy it, like you I'm concerned about all that candy on a plane. Plus, I'm not certain the price is worth it. If it was included in the cost of admission to the park, different story, but I'm not sure I want to pay extra just to have the Halloween feel...

YAY for Disney!!! I'll be following your journey!

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

We booked our flights last night. The price wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad either... We're flying Delta, which we prefer, but we needed a plane with at least 5 seats across, as we're a family of 5. On the plus side, we'll be in Orlando by 10:30AM, so we might be able to do a park the day we arrive!!! YAY!

I'm looking forward to Food and Wine, but I'm not sure about the MNSSHP. While I think my kids would enjoy it, like you I'm concerned about all that candy on a plane. Plus, I'm not certain the price is worth it. If it was included in the cost of admission to the park, different story, but I'm not sure I want to pay extra just to have the Halloween feel...

YAY for Disney!!! I'll be following your journey!

Super excited to have you along! Doesn't it seem like September is so far away, and yet all these decisions have to happen OMG RIGHT NOW??

I am glad we booked our flights, although I'm still frustrated I missed the Virgin America deal. I can see where it would be tough to get five seats together if you don't book early though. Our plane was almost totally available, so we're trying our usual trick of booking the aisle and the window, and hoping the middle stays empty. It's nice, because sometimes it works, and when it doesn't the middle seat person is always happy to switch to either the window or aisle instead.

I have had good experiences with Delta, I'm glad you were able to get your preferred airline. Our flight is scheduled to get in around 4:00, which is about as good as it's going to get flying across the country, although I am concerned with United's track record on being on time. We're planning to do Fantasmic! on arrival night, which I'm excited about.

Here are my thoughts on the Halloween If you are into characters/parades/fireworks, then I highly, highly recommend it. It's just an amazing and special time. It is pricey though, especially on top of park tickets. I don't know, it's such a tough decision!

I actually just popped over to your pre trip (your kids are adorable, by the way), and I think with the ages of your kids and the amount of stuff you're already doing it might be overload. Are your kids old enough for/into mini golf? Fantasia Gardens mini golf was the highlight of our last trip, and I think they still include vouchers for it in the magic your way package, but not sure about that.

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

Wow, that balloon party was a total accident, but I am not editing it. When the Interwebs hands you a balloon party, you take it!

 

[karaokevixen]

WOO!!! Balloon party!!! Looks like fun. lol

I've been trying to explain to my kids how long we still have until we travel. (we showed them the airline confirmation, but the only thing they got out of it was that we were going to be flying somewhere) My daughter asked me this morning how long we have before we leave. I told her that she still has to finish school, enjoy her entire summer vacation, do back to school, and wait until the Fair comes to town. It seems like AGES away, but yes with the whole "OMG RIGHT NOW" for doing stuff. Like packing: I feel like I need to start putting stuff together now and I have already had to physically stop myself from writing detailed packing lists. (I have a small one, but I can get pretty detailed. You should have seen how many lists I went through when preparing for the NKOTB cruise last year. Managed to get everything I needed into one carry on sized bag, though! WOO! lol)

OH! And thanks! I think my kids are adorable too, but I might be a bit biased. lol The bigger kids like mini golf, but the youngest can't be bothered. He doesn't have the patience for it.

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

WOO!!! Balloon party!!! Looks like fun. lol

I've been trying to explain to my kids how long we still have until we travel. (we showed them the airline confirmation, but the only thing they got out of it was that we were going to be flying somewhere) My daughter asked me this morning how long we have before we leave. I told her that she still has to finish school, enjoy her entire summer vacation, do back to school, and wait until the Fair comes to town. It seems like AGES away, but yes with the whole "OMG RIGHT NOW" for doing stuff. Like packing: I feel like I need to start putting stuff together now and I have already had to physically stop myself from writing detailed packing lists. (I have a small one, but I can get pretty detailed. You should have seen how many lists I went through when preparing for the NKOTB cruise last year. Managed to get everything I needed into one carry on sized bag, though! WOO! lol)

OH! And thanks! I think my kids are adorable too, but I might be a bit biased. lol The bigger kids like mini golf, but the youngest can't be bothered. He doesn't have the patience for it.

I am super impressed with getting all your cruise items in a carry on! I have too many hair products to be able to do that. Also, I love that you went on the NKOTB cruise! My friends and I thought about doing the Backstreet Boys cruise this year, but decided against it. We have to settle for seeing them in Vegas in May.

And I am with you on detailed lists. I have not gotten the urge to start packing yet, although I've always been a last minute packer. I have started planning outfits though.

 

[AwkwardTurtle]

So I was gone for a little bit (spent most of the weekend with friends at Disneyland, and also work), BUT ADR day was Sunday! I am so excited for the reservations we have, although I know they're going to change between now and September. So far I have the following booked:

Breakfast at Kona - We did dinner here on our last trip, and I am really excited to try breakfast. I love breakfast food. I'm planning to get the pineapple-macadamia pancakes.

Lunch at Sci Fi Dine In - I know not to expect too much of the food here, but I am super looking forward to fried pickles.

Lunch at Beaches and Cream - I love burgers and ice cream, can't wait for this!

Dinner at Yak and Yeti - We did this on our last trip, and we were really happy with it.

Dinner at Chefs de France - I expect this one will probably get cancelled, but we'll see. The drawback to going during Food and Wine time is eating at all the booths at the expense of the amazing restaurants in Epcot.

Dinner at Artist Point - this was the one signature dinner we did on our last trip, and we loved it.

Dinner at Jiko - this is new for us, and I'm so excited. Everyone I know raves about it.

Dinner at Trail's End - the food looks yummy, we love buffets, and I'm excited to see the campgrounds!

We're also planning to head to T-Rex at some point for drinks, because Max loves dinosaurs, and I would like to do Be Our Guest for lunch, if the lines aren't ridiculous. I'm also thinking about doing the Mama Melrose Fantasmic dining package, but those don't seem to be available yet, so we'll see.