What? A relaxing trip to WDW... Is that even possible?

[schoen]

Welcome to my trip report! My husband and I went to WDW from Oct 20-27. We stayed in a one-bedroom Beach Club Villa. We had a wonderful and relaxing vacation. I hope you have fun reading about it!

The Cast:

Me: Corporate trainer/unemployed teacher. I am a lover of planning Disney vacations and relaxing!

DH, Matt: Lobbyist. He is a lover of swimming, fireworks, Expedition Everest, and also relaxing!

Matt and I are frequent Disneyworld goers. We started dating when I was a junior in high school and he was a freshman in college. My senior year in high school we went to OKW for a week after Christmas with his family. My freshman year in college we went for a week with his family to celebrate the millennium. I went two other times in high school with my band. Matt went several times growing up.

While I had fun on all of these trips, I wasn’t hooked on WDW yet. It was my honeymoon that hooked me on WDW. Going with my husband and doing our own thing is really my way of doing Disney. See, when we go with his family they like to sleep in and show up at the parks after lunch. They don’t use fastpasses, they don’t follow any sort of plan. They don’t make ADRs or even tentatively plan what they might want to do. We spend half the time arguing about what to do next. This is stressful for me.

When I go with my husband though, we plan, make ADRs, get to the park at rope drop, and all the other little things that might require a little bit of pre-trip effort, but makes the actual trip SO nice.

We wanted to go to Disney World for a week in October; we knew that after our 2006 August trip. Matt surprised me for Christmas with a February trip! Yea! Twice in one year. That meant annual passes, and DDE! How exciting! My favorite part about having a trip in the future booked was that when I left in February I wasn’t too sad, because I had my October trip already planned!

The time between February and October was crazy. Our cars both broke down, I had a medical scare, our 80 year old house was having plumbing problems, Matt broke a tooth, got a root canal, got a crown, the crown broke. Yikes! For awhile I thought it would be smart to just cancel our trip. Matt claimed that it was the only thing getting him through our little run of bad luck, so we kept our plans. Before we knew it, it was time for us to go!

We live about an hour away from my family, and they were watching our dog and taking us to the airport. We left early the morning of the 19th to get to their house. My mom works at a dentist office, and Matt and I get our work done their. He had an appt. in the morning. I wanted to go to an art show in the afternoon with my mom, and we had to drop our sweet little mini dashound, Roscoe, off at my sister’s condo. It was going to be a busy day. Matt was annoyed about going in so early, but I was glad to spend the time with my family. The whole family went to dinner after we dropped the puppy off, and then it was time to go home and get to bed! We were going to Disney World first thing in the morning!

Up next: Our first day, a surprise visitor at the Beach Club, and our first glimpse of the Food and Wine Festival!

 

[schoen]

I woke up early, at around 6:00 am, and I was not thrilled to be doing so, even though I was going to Disney World. I quickly woke up though and got myself into the shower. I was running late of course. I was crabby because of this and was picking fights with Matt, but it was all nerves. I am a little bit of a nervous traveler. I am not such a fan of flying, and it always makes me a little antsy. I know that in the end it is all worth it though, because I know that a trip to my favorite place on earth will follow.

I was checking and double checking all of my stuff to make sure I had packed everything I needed. I was a little distracted when I was packing because I was about four or five hours late in getting home from work. I work at a restaurant, and we were busy. It was crazy that we were busy because there were tornados ripping through the area, and I felt like all these people should be at home taking cover, but no one else seemed overly concerned. My plan had been to come home, pack, watch grey’s, survivor, and the office, and get to bed at a reasonable hour. But I didn’t get home till after nine. I had to watch the storm trackers to make sure that my house was not in the line of storms, and pack. I was certain that I had forgotten something.

I was of course shocked when I realized that I had in fact not forgotten anything, I had everything I needed. We were off. My dad drove us to the airport. He dropped us off in plenty of time, but we had no time to waste. I was a little sad about this because I was starving, and I had been counting on stopping at McDonalds for breakfast. Oh well.
We checked in and got through security, and within 30 minutes we were up in the air!

The flight was generally uneventful. Matt and I watched Old School on the way over. I will never make this mistake again. As a general rule of thumb I have to encourage people to keep the movies they watch on planes in the PG-13 range at worst. The first shot of the Old School DVD is naked women. Seriously, before the movie even starts. Do you know how many small children are on a flight to Orlando? Lots. It wasn’t a great idea. Matt and I were not thinking, but we were able to be in control of the situation for the rest of the flight!

We are old pros by now and were able to find our way to the magical express area quickly and efficiently. We were a little taken aback when we got there though. The last time we used ME it was on a Monday morning. We were the only ones there! This time it was PACKED. Matt stood in the line and I watched our stuff. It only took him about ten minutes and then we were in line waiting to go to the Beach Club Villas.

We only waited about ten minutes for our bus. We always try to get the first seat on the bus. I like it so I can take pictures of the gate, and also so I can be the first one off the bus. That was not going to happen for me this time though. We ended up near the rear. There was an older couple also in the rear with us. I was a little concerned because I did not want to wait forever to check in. I knew that we would have to check in at the BCV lobby. I also knew that there was only one computer with which to do check in with. I wanted to get there first. I tried to kind of listen to the people around us so I could determine who was going where. It turned out that the couple near us was also going to the BCV. I took a look at them and laughed to myself. They seemed clueless enough. They wouldn’t be a problem for us. Then when the driver announced that Beach Club was next they ran up to the front of the bus. As far as I was concerned it was war! I made Matt get the money out to quickly tip the driver, and make sure that he was well prepared to grab our stuff and get off the bus.

When we finally pulled up to the hotel we were quick as we could be without knocking down small children or elderly folks. We made a beeline for the Solarium (which is my favorite part of the Beach Club) and hustled to the front desk. At one point I turned around to see where my competition was, and they were still fiddling with their luggage back at the bus. Amateurs.

When we got to the small BCV lobby it was very clear that where we were supposed to check in, and to my delight it was also very empty! Check in was quick. They said our room would be ready shortly. They made it seem like it would be a few minutes.

Matt and I were both hungry, so we headed to find some grub for lunch. I hadn’t really planned much for the first day. It is always so different. We decided to go to Beaches and Cream for lunch. It is a bit of a first day tradition for us. We debated dropping our bags at bell services so we didn’t have to carry them around, but decided not to.

When we got to Beaches and Cream the wait was about an hour. We would normally have been fine with that, but we were STARVING! And we had a 7:30 ADR at Le Cellier. It was about 12:45 at this point. I wanted to make sure there was enough time in between dinner and lunch for us to actually be hungry for dinner. We put our name in and discussed a few options. We thought about eating at Hurricane Hanna’s. It wasn’t traditional first day fare, but it was quick. We talked about ESPN zone, but decided against that because we figured college football would make it crazy busy. We talked about walking to Epcot and grabbing a fast lunch there. In the end we decided to take a look at the menu at Hurricane Hannah’s to see if that was interesting.

We had a hard time finding it, but once we did we decided against it. We figured that it was worth it to wait for our favorite first day lunch. Then Matt got an interesting phone call from our good friend Ray. Ray has been a friend of mine since I was a sophomore in high school, and a friend of Matt’s since he was a sophomore in high school. Ray was in our wedding, and he is a good, good friend. It turned out that he was in Orlando on business. His he had to be at the airport at four, but he was already on his way to see us at the Beach Club! I was obviously shocked. Matt wasn’t. He knew Ray would be in town, but wasn’t sure what his schedule was, so he didn’t want to get me all excited and start planning stuff to do with Ray if he wasn’t going to have time to see us.

I was thrilled. I went to Beaches and Cream and changed our number from 2 to 3 and waited impatiently for them to call us, and for Ray to get there. We didn’t have to wait too long for them to call us. We drank root beer floats while we waited for Ray. It was very nice. Finally Ray showed up. He told us about his business and we talked and ate burgers. It was really fun!

After lunch I wanted to get rid of our bags so we went to the front desk to check on our room. They were shocked that we hadn’t been called, but our room was ready, so we were happy. We showed Ray the room and talked about what we should do with his ninety minutes that he had to visit us. We decided we would either go to a grocery store so Matt and I could get some supplies, downtown Disney, or just hanging out in the Boardwalk area. In the end we choose to just stick around.

We walked around the boardwalk, and ended up back at the Beach Club. We took seats on the lounge chairs on the beach and just relaxed. That was fine with me because I was exhausted! We just chatted and played tick-tac-toe in the sand for a half hour or so, and then Ray had to go. It was really nice that he got to come see us though. It felt a little like Matt and I were letting him in on our little secret. Usually it is just me and Matt in WDW, but it was nice, even if only for a few minutes, to have Ray there too.

While I was sad to see Ray go, I was thrilled to be able to get back to the room. I wanted a nap before we left for Epcot. I was tired and fell asleep pretty fast!

Up next dinner at Le Cellier, super busy Epcot, super dead wonders of life pavillion.

 

[OhMari]

Up next dinner at Le Cellier, super busy Epcot, super dead wonders of life pavillion.

I don't know how I missed the wonders of life pavillion. Need an update.

 

[Ricky's Girl]

Great report. Families are great but I know what you mean about enjoying Disney most when it's just you and your dh. Glad to hear others have there first day traditions as well. We always head to MK first, have lunch at The Plaza and head over to the Enchanted Tiki Room.

We always go to Beaches and Cream when we're at EPCOT. We love their burgers. One of these days we are going to order the Kitchen Sink!

Looking forward to reading more.