"We're not going to England!?" - Last minute planning for April 2017

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Augustus Wulf's Mommy
Joined
Jan 11, 2016
So, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Mel. I'm a Disney fanatic, who has never been to Disney World. I know...holy crap. To preface this trip, I must give a little backstory as to why it is happening. About 7 months ago, we were invited to come and stay in England for a month (more specifically in Somerset). We were planning to fly into London, take a bunch of trains, see a bunch of stuff, and eat a bunch of amazing food. It was going to be a massive trip, and it was going to be my first time flying on a plane (why not start with a 9 hour flight! Yay!).

Then, the issues at the airports started, and a lot of protests shut down some airports. Airports started getting ready for cancelling plans, and even though our plans were far enough in advance that they shouldn't have been affected, Virgin Airlines cancelled our flight. Now, this wouldn't have been an issue. We could have just booked another flight, right? Well, technically yes. However, we booked our flights when a flight from Memphis to London was under $500 a piece. Now? Depending on the day of the week, they fluctuate from 850-1400 a person. So, doing the math, we realized that rescheduling our flight would have taken up our entire spending budget for the month (we weren't taking much since the boyfriend was working while we were there, as part of the invitation).

So, we had to think about what else we could do, or if we just wanted to cancel the whole thing. A couple of weeks ago, the boyfriend was trying to get everything in one place so that we could book our tickets for London, and he realized he had lost his passport. We looked all over the house, threw couches onto their backs (literally), and even searched the bathroom and closets. No passport. We took this as a sign.

I was devastated. My birthday is technically in June, but we were going to celebrate it during our time in London, so I could go shopping and see a city that I have romanticized like crazy. Now my birthday was kind of ruined and I had used a month of vacation time for nothing.

Cue my boyfriend being a genius. He randomly looked at me and said "Why don't we go to Disney World? We can go for two weeks, or close to two weeks. We can skip over to Universal, and you can celebrate your birthday there. I will even take you to that one restaurant you like...from Lilo and Stitch!"

And that's where we are now. My boyfriend is a genius, and saved my birthday trip!

So, let me introduce the two of us.

First there's me: Mel

I'm 27 years old (28 in June).

Favorite movies: Beauty and the Beast, Nightmare Before Christmas, Tangled, and Star Wars

I'm not sure what my favorite park is because I've never been!





I feel like that pretty much sums me up. Easily excitable, Star Wars fanatic, and overall pretty happy, despite severe anxiety (which will be an interesting exercise in Disney World lol).

Then there's Matt. Matt is a tattoo Artist, whom I met during a very rough time in my life. He was there for me when no one else was, directly after leaving a 10 year abusive relationship. Said relationship gave me my anxiety and some PTSD toward men, but I've never felt unsafe around him.

His favorite things in the world are Star Wars and Transformers.

He's 41 (his birthday is in September).

His favorite Disney movies are: Treasure planet, Sword and the Stone, and the Black Cauldron. However he likes a few of the modern movies as well, such as Big Hero 6, Wreck it Ralph, and he LOVED Zootopia.

His favorite park was Epcot.







That's my leg he's working on, and the finished product turned out amazing, as does all of his work.



We have been together for almost two years now, and they have been some of the best and most adventurous two years of my life.





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Plans so far: We are working on securing a hotel room, and our plan so far is as follows.


Hotel: I'm hoping to stay at POP!, because I love it so much. I've never stayed there obviously, but it looks so fun. Our second option is All Star Music.

Tentative Itinerary:

Day 1 (April 11) - Drive down to New Orleans to have a night of unwinding. We aren't in a hurry, and so we are doing a road trip sort of thing, and are visiting my favorite city in the world before we hit the happiest place on earth!

Day 2 (April 12) - Start heading over to Orlando sometime in the morning. Check into our hotel, and go either resort hopping, or to Disney Springs.

Day 3 (April 13) - Magic Kingdom! I plan to celebrate my birthday this day, since it's the most eventful and seemingly fun park of them all.

Day 4 (April 14) - Hollywood Studios. Because duh! Star Wars

Day 5 (April 15) - Star Wars Celebration. I'm so excited to have tickets to one day of Celebration. If anyone else is going, please let me know so that we can meet up!

Day 6 (April 16) - Epcot

Day 7 (April 17) - We haven't decided if we wanna hit up Animal Kingdom or if we wanna run around everywhere and see lots of stuff. Leave suggestions below if you have them!

Day 8 (April 18) - Universal Studios. He's a transformers fan. I'm a Harry Potter fan. We have to.

Day 9 (April 19) - Islands of Adventure. Same as above.

Day 10 (April 20) - Unfortunately it's time to head back toward home.

Day 11 and 12 (April 21-22) - Rest a bit more in New Orleans before I have to bring him back home to work the next week.

The only ADR I have planned at the moment is Ohana. We found two 4 pm reservations open, but I haven't decided on which day I wanna go eat there. So, that's still up in the air.



I will update as I get more info, tickets, or just we make some decisions. I'm the only one planning, here, because he likes the adventure of just going on a whim. My anxiety won't let me do that, which he understands. So, I'm obsessively going over and over the details. Any advice is GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks for reading!!!
 
So, here's an update. We have the plan for our days, and that's about it. I'm trying to get the DBF to sit down and help me plan, but since he has said I can do whatever I want.

Well...I'm gonna do whatever I want.

So, here's the plan.

Day 1 - April 11 - Leave home for New Orleans (we wanna chill on bourbon first)
Day 2 - April 12 - Head toward Orlando, peck around Disney Springs, and chill
Day 3 - April 13 - Magic Kingdom - Dinner at Ohana
Day 4 - April 14 - Hollywood Studios - Not sure about dinner yet
Day 5 - April 15 - STAR WARS CELEBRATION!!!
Day 6 - April 16 - Epcot - Not sure about dinner yet
Day 7 - April 17 - Park Hopper Day - not sure about dinner yet
Day 8 - April 18 - Park Hopper Day - Not sure about dinner yet
Day 9 - April 19 - Take it easy day (do whatever we feel like)
Day 10 - April 20 - Take it easy day (do whatever we feel like)
Day 11 - April 21 - Head back toward New Orleans for the night
Day 12 - April 22 - Head home to rest before DBF has to go back to work (I don't go back until May 10)

We've decided to pull Universal completely for this trip. I would rather concentrate on Disney. I have been making ears. I recently started setting up my etsy shop, and getting something started for myself, and it's all because I wanted a pair of ears to wear at Disney World. We are also thinking about moving down to Florida in the next year. So, we are going to go explorin' while we are there. This is a vacation, not a race. Everything is gonna be peaceful and calm...and we aren't afraid to take a step back.

So, I'm excited!!!!

46 days and counting.
 
We are officially 32 days out, and I can barely control my excitement.

The only update we really have is that our hotel has been confirmed. We are staying at the Red Lion Inn across from Disney Maingate. It has a shuttle to the parks that runs twice a day, to every park, and we got it for a steal at $57 a night.

We have also updated our plans for saving money and not eating too much while in the parks. We will be eating our own breakfast at the hotel and carrying snacks with us in our backpacks, saving dinner for the proper time to eat in the parks.

I have Binge Eating Disorder, and so I have to be extremely careful what I eat and where I eat, because a lot of restaurants have portions that make it incredibly hard for me to control my binging. That's why we've decided that quick service and bringing our own snacks and breakfast is the way to go.

Is anyone going to Star Wars Celebration? I would love to meet up with people!!!
 

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