Weren't You Just IN Disney? An April 2019 PTR

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Hello all and welcome!


For those of you who don't know who I am, my name is Elle!

I've been a member of the DiS since college when I planned my first trip to Disneyland Paris, but became super into the boards when I started planning my first "adult" trip without anyone else's help about 5 or 6 years ago. I'm in my early 30s and I love Disney nostalgia. I have a top five alternating favorite princess (as you do) - Merida is currently strongly at the number 1 slot, then Belle, Anna, Aurora, and Tiana. My other favorite characters are Nick Wilde, Megara, Vanellope, Daisy, the Three Caballeros, and Hades. I'm a passholder, and subsidize my love of Disney as a middle school English teacher and drama teacher. Right now, between teaching, directing the spring musical, and directing the spring competition show, I'm kind of running all over the place.


Normally around these parts is where I'd tell you all about the people I'm going with - I'd tell you all about Liz, my oldest childhood friend who I used to constantly visit in Florida on my trips but who is now one of my favorite Disney travel buddies. Or I'd tell you about Jen, my high school best friend who has moved away from me but still goes to Disney with me every chance she gets, but, well....this time I'm going solo.


Like for real, for real.


My last time "going solo" I had planned everything myself but had been attached to my friend E's room at the last minute and I ended up being a party of 6 for every day but my last night. The only real solo part was my Magic Kingdom evening the night we checked out and my first/last day in the parks.


Well, this year I am going BECAUSE of E, but I'm not planning with her.


She and her family will be down in Florida at the same time I am. She tells me that I am always welcome on her family trips, but her best friend J will be down with them as well so while I'm going to be down at the same time and have offered to help her with the kiddos whenever she wants me to meet up with them but I am staying in my hotel room and am going to be doing my own thing most of the time.


And I do mean 'most' of the time. I'll be down from April 16-21. I have tentative plans to meet up with my cousin and her kids for lunch at some point, but other than that I am kind of going with the flow.

I'm usually the one who HATES to do things alone. But, well, I'm having a bit of FOMO (E and J going down the same time I am, Liz and Kyle going down a few weeks earlier), I love Flower and Garden Festival, I want to get the most use out of my AP before it's up in July, and because of a kink in our plans regarding her parents surprising her with a family beach house vacation Liz and I may need to rethink our California plans for this summer. So basically I'm in a Disney spiral and this is my option to get out.

But have I planned anything?

NOPE!

I mean, I'm going to plan things for myself, obviously. I am not the type of person who can wing it happily and be okay with it.

But I haven't booked my hotel yet which means I haven't gotten my FPs yet. Which is horrifying to me.

I'm going to run numbers today at work, but if I can't do the hold on the room and comfortably still afford bills/life until my next pay check. This week was a bill heavy pay period as I'm going to Nashville in a couple of weeks and had to pay first-of-the-month bills plus my share of our Home Away, the SUV we're renting, and booked the hotel room we're staying in on the way.

So, my basic plan is to do research today. I'm going to be heading down for the 13-21 of April. Is it cheaper to fly out April 12 or 13? If the 12th is cheaper than the 16th I'll be doing what I've done my last 3 Florida trips and leave from my local airport, then spend the evening in Disney Springs. Once I figure that out I'm going to book at Port Orleans: French Quarter (my favorite hotel on property). I'll be solo the majority of the time April 13-18, then on the 18th J is joining me. She is staying with E and her family for the first half of the week but they're off-property the end of the week. So the day she has to change hotels since I can't simply add her to my reservation beforehand we're going to go to the front desk and add her for the rest of my stay.

I'm so excited and stressed and I just want Flower and Garden menus to come out!

So, welcome. Most of my posts (if I remember my PTR) will be rants or long rambling diatribes about what I'm going to wear or what I think I'll do. You've been warned!

 

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I am the worst at PTRs!

Okay, at the moment I'm the worst at all sorts of trip reports, pre- and otherwise. Between work, the two extracurriculars I am in charge of, and general lack of time I haven't updated anything. I've tried - I should have been able to update everything this weekend, but we had a wind storm last week that knocked out our wifi at home and even though it's back everywhere else in our area we still don't have it back. We've called about it every day and they keep telling us "it'll be fixed by end of day" and, well, it's now been 10 days and we still have no wifi service. Which is great. Really helpful for getting things done.

But I am home from Nashville and my goal was to book my trip after I got home from Nashville and I did just that! By the time I was ready to book my hotel room the AP discount for French Quarter was filled except for King bed rooms, and those are more expensive. So I changed to Coronado Springs - with the construction it's a lot cheaper and since I'm going to be alone for the majority of my trip.

So here's the plan of action as of right now:

* April 13 - get in in the evening. I'll probably take the flight from the closest airport to me, which means there's only one flight out that day. I'd get to MCO around 7:30 so I'd get to Coronado around 8:30. I'll drop my carry-on off and, if I'm up to it, probably head to Disney Springs which is what I usually do on my first travel day.

* April 14 - Magic Kingdom in the morning at the very least. I have some FPs for that day and I have friends who'll be in MK that morning too so I'm going to see if I can meet up with them.

FPs: Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain​

* April 15 - Epcot. I've got morning FPs again, so my basic plan is to go to Epcot and try as many items from the Festival booths as I can. I'm hoping I can just kind of not eat a real meal today and subsist on Disney foods. I might meet up with people later in the day or head to Studios or something but my basic plan is food and drinks and vlogging. (I WILL VLOG for real this trip.)

FPs: Spaceship Earth, Frozen Ever After​

* April 16 - I have no plans this day. I figure I'll make my decision as I go and see what an uplanned park day is like.

* April 17 - same as the 16th. On one of these two days I may end up spending some time with my cousin and her kids if she has the time so I'll just go with the flow.

* April 18 - Animal Kingdom. This is the last day of my being alone for my trip. I'm going to solo it in Animal Kingdom, but my friends who are down at the same time as I am are in Animal Kingdom on this day too. Our FPs are vastly different though, so I may not see them. In the late afternoon/early evening my friend Jill will be saying goodbye to the rest of our friends and we'll be meeting up to spend the rest of the week together. We figure we'll have dinner and then spend the evening maybe exploring Pandora at night or seeing Rivers of Light (since she hasn't seen it yet). At the end of the evening we're going to have to make sure we go to concierge and add her onto my room for the rest of the week, as E and her family are heading off-property Thursday.

FPs: Dinosaur, Everest, Na'vi River Journey
ADR: Yak & Yeti
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* April 19 - Epcot again. Since Jill is on Auntie duty during their first Epcot day we decided to head back to Epcot so she can enjoy Flower and Garden booths.

FPs: Soarin', Living with the Land, Spaceship Earth​

* April 20 - Studios morning, and we've decided we'll probably head out after lunch to spend the rest of the time in Magic Kingdom. We're hoping to be able to stay for HEA.

FPs: Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, Rock n Rollercoaster
ADR: Mama Melrose
​

* April 21 - We're both headed home early so we can spend some time we our families on Easter. I'm usually traveling on Easter so I'm hoping I can get in a little bit of family time.

Now, of course, because I'm a super planner, I'm trying to figure out outfits for the week. I'm trying to get some cute, subtle Disney things to wear so I'm not just in t-shirts and shorts, because I don't love shorts and my favorite skirt doesn't have pockets, which is not my favorite thing.

 

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I almost considered canceling this trip.

For about 20 brief seconds.

If you've been a part of any of my TRs in any of the recent years you know that, inevitably, right before a trip, something goes wrong. Well..

So, about a month ago I was in a car accident. I'm fine. My car's not. The entire back bumper came off. It's been sitting, waiting for all the paperwork to come through from the insurance company so that I can get it repaired. Since then, I've been driving my dad's SUV. It's my parents' extra vehicle, for hauling things, since sometimes my dad's job requires it. The reason why it became my parents' emergency vehicle is because about a year ago my dad was rear-ended while at a stop light and since then the suspension hasn't ever been right, even after it was repaired. It's safe to drive, it's just a little finicky.

Yesterday I left work. I had to get across town to the high school for rehearsal with my students. As I got to the stop sign at the end of the driveway at work I heard a very loud POP, so I figured "ah dang, popped a tire. That's annoying." There's a gas station maybe a quarter of a mile (at most) away from work, so I figured I'd just slowly drive there on the flat and change it someplace safe since there is no "side of the road" right now with all the icy, melty snow.

As I turned all I could hear was squealing and you could tell there was definitely something very wrong with one of the wheels. It didn't sound like it was moving at all. You know that sound when you have a bum wheel on a shopping cart? Amp that up and that's what the noise was. I basically got myself a safe distance away from the parking lot at work so people could still turn in/out, pulled over, got out to make sure it wasn't a blown tire (nope, it wasn't), then called AAA to get the car towed, my dad to see if he could maybe come pick me up, and the other teacher involved with the rehearsal I had to let him know that I'd be late. One of my coworkers saw me on the side of the road and pulled over to wait with me until AAA came and one of my bosses stopped to make sure everything was okay. What we've determined (since we haven't heard any definites back from the garage yet) is that the brake froze up so there's definitely something wrong with the brake line.

I ended up standing outside for an hour yesterday, had a pretty uneven amount of time to work with my students, and got home wondering why I was even bothering.


Buuuuut then I got the mail and had my new NASA-style Pandora shirt from Hook and Dagger arrive and knew that I was definitely going to go. I definitely need the break and to just get away from everything. I'll just be on a budget, but considering I'm going by myself, that shouldn't be an issue.

So I ended up getting my plane tickets officially this week. I'll be in Florida by 7 pm on the 13th and be home by 9:30 am on the 21st! Huzzah!

 

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How is it possible that I only have 2 weeks left until I go to Florida again?

This seems way too short a time frame!

The middle school musical was this weekend, so I suddenly have free time again. Yay! Plan of action: Packing. I haven't had a second to do that.

Well, okay, decidedly not super true. I was able to pull out the shirts and ears that I'll be bringing with me on Sunday night. I still have to get my shorts out, but that involved a step stool as they have shifted to the back of my closet's shelf and it was getting too late. I figure I can do the rest of my clothes this Friday night so I can spend the next couple of days finishing my packing list. I also really need to go shopping, at least to buy new sunscreen.

My one big concern is getting to the airport. I haven't flown out of Boston in about two years, and normally I have someone who can drop me off/pick me up. But with me coming in on Easter Sunday I get in while my dad is working. I either have to find someone who is willing to drive me or take the park and ride shuttle, which isn't ideal but may be best. I need to see how much it is to park at the airport for a week; if that ends up being cheaper or equitable in pricing then I'm doing that.

Aaah, but it's so close!!!!

 

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Yes, I have like 4 days until I leave for Florida. No, I have not figured my life out yet. I got home last night with the plan of talking to my dad about the possibility of driving me to the airport on Saturday but he was out at his accountant's office until 9-ish. I meant to start actually putting things in my bag, but that hasn't happened either - though I did get my suitcase out, which is a minor miracle at this point. Today I have a cast party for the kids involved in the musical I just did at school until 5, so by the time I get home I'm hoping I'll be able to figure something out.

Honestly, the worst case scenario is that I get a shuttle service from my house to the airport. I looked it up already and the most reputable shuttle service in the area is $85 which is about what I expected for park and ride anyway.

I'm so stressed and worried but the other side of this is Disney and I cannot wait!

 

[Corrine 1973]

Just popping in to say I hope you have a great trip at WDW.

 

[StephanieE]

I just found your PTR and you are leaving today! Have the best time ever!! I can't wait to read your TR when you come back!