What Could Be Better Than This? An August 2024 Trip Report including Saint Augustine and WDW

[disneywlf]

Introduction:
Hello everyone and welcome to this happy place er Trip Report! My name is Wolf and I am a 33-year old (32 at the time of the trip) male living in Delray Beach, FL (formerly Westbury, NY on Long Island) with my Mother for 8.75-years now. Prior to this trip, I was last at the WDW theme parks at the end of 2021. Due to the fact that I had less PTO at my job due to being there just under a year, I spread out my trips over two different sets of consecutive days off. For my trips to the Magic Kingdom in November 2021, followed by DHS two weeks later in December 2021, I would go to the park on my first day and stay the night afterwards, so I could rest and not worry about driving home, even though it's only a 2.5-3 hour drive from South Florida. I went to Epcot for the day with my Mother about two weeks after I went to DHS. Since those trips,I went with my Mother to Disney Springs (a great way to get our WDW fix without going to the parks) in January 2022, January 2023, and November 2023. I had not been to the parks until August 2024 due to being very busy with work and additionally, traveling to other destinations both on my own and with my Mother. Additionally, because I have been so behind with my TRs due to life kind of getting in the way, I have since returned to WDW with my Mother in July 2025. That TR will follow this one as soon as I tie this one up, so please stay tuned! Since the time of my last TR, I have continued to work full time in front-facing customer service for a major hotel chain in Northern Palm Beach County and have been there for just over four years now (about 3.5 years at the time of our trip). I love being in the hospitality industry and even after all of these years, there are many thrills to working in the hospitality industry and I am truly blessed to be with amazing coworkers and most importantly, guests! I hope to stay and continue to grow with this job for a very long time! When I am not at work, I enjoy spending time with my family (including our Affenpinschers (or “Monkey-like” terriers in German) and friends, travel (including WDW of course!), swimming, classic rock, automobiles, history, and politics.

Another question you may ask is how this TR attained its title? Well, as of late, I have been on a bit of a "Moana" and "Moana 2" kick thanks to enjoying them a lot. Although the "Moana 2" soundtrack pales slightly (but it's still really good in my book) to its predecessor due to a lack of Lin Manuel Miranda, one of my favorite songs from "Moana 2" is "What Could Be Better Than This?" I love this song thanks to its vocal talent, its sweet harmonies between Moana and her wayfinding crew, and its message of just living in the moment, which was definitely one of the themes of this incredible trip!

Yours truly, disneywlf aka Wolf..,

-Favorite Characters: Hmm, it's a tough call but as of late...Mickey Mouse and Friends (they are classic and I love them!), Princess Jasmine, Aladdin, Genie, Iago (he's a jerk, but counting the "Aladdin" sequels and TV series between the two sequels, he has a good character arc and becomes a loyal friend to Aladdin and Jasmine after defecting from Jafar in the first sequel), Abu, Lumiere, Simba, Nala, Olaf, Moana, Pua (he may be a pig, but his mannerisms remind me of a dog, especially my Affens), Moni from "Moana 2" (he kind of reminds me of myself with his enthusiastic personality and even if it takes him time to learn new skills, he always gives it his all!)
-Favorite Movies: "Aladdin" franchise, "Beauty and the Beast," "The Lion King," "Toy Story" franchise, "Moana" 1 and 2, "The Incredibles"
-Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom (with Epcot very close behind)
-Favorite Attractions: Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Dumbo,Mickey’s Phillarmagic, Haunted Mansion, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Expedition Everest, and Soarin’ to name a few!

And of course, my partner in crime for this trip, my lucky and amazing Mother, My Mother, Paulette!

I am very lucky to have my Mother! She is very loving, kind, and has been an amazing friend to me! She loves spending time with our pets, shopping, and working out. Mom used to be an English teacher before I was born, but after having me, she became a homemaker and a full-time Mom. She raised me mainly as a single parent from the time I was 4, since my Father was not involved in my life as much after I was four and I think she did a darn fantastic job! Mom loves Disney and although she doesn't go quite as much as I do, she loves going whenever she is able, with this trip being no exception. I love my Mom and as she says, she is “the luckiest Mommy!”

-Mom’s Favorite Character: Minnie Mouse
-Mom’s Favorite Movie: "Aladdin," “Cinderella”
-Mom’s Favorite Park: Magic Kingdom
-Mom’s Favorite Attractions: Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Hall of Presidents, Soarin,’ Mission Space, Spaceship Earth, It's a Small World

 

[disneywlf]

Table of Contents:
Introduction
How?

 

[disneywlf]

How?
So originally, when I booked this trip in early August 2024, myself and my Mother were not planning on going to St. Augustine and Walt Disney World. Although we were planning to go back to WDW sometime in 2024 or 2025, this trip was not in the cards. Instead, we were planning to go to Vegas, which is one of my other favorite destinations besides WDW thanks to its stimulation, the larger than life hotels that are like attractions in themselves, other attractions like shows and museums, and the beautiful desert scenery. Contrary to perception, there is much more to Las Vegas than gambling, which comes in handy since I don't gamble all that much. We went the year prior in August 2023 and had a phenomenal time! We were scheduled to travel from August 15th, 2024-August 22nd, 2024, with our flight back from Vegas to Florida arriving back in the early morning hours of August 23rd, 2024. So why did we cancel our trip to Vegas?

Well, first off, it was for financial reasons. Although I had paid for the flights, I had a couple of expenses catch me by surprise that year. As a result of this, when me and my Mother discussed what had happened, we both agreed that perhaps it would be wise to do something else that would be fun, especially if we had to worry about money. While WDW is not cheap, we would be able to save money as thanks to being Florida residents, Disney released a very well priced 3-Day Ticket offer that made it an easy decision to go there.

Additionally, since we both have cars and WDW is only a 2.5-3 hour drive from where we live, we would only have to worry about fuel and toll costs, which would be far cheaper than flying in our case. What's more? Since I booked a refundable fare with the airline we were using, I would be able to get our money back. Sure, booking refundable airfare is more expensive up front, but for me, the peace of mind is worth it, as I have had life events throw off trips. However, even if life events throw off my plans, at least I have the peace of mind that I will not take a financial loss should I need to cancel a flight. Secondly, we felt good about cancelling Vegas due to the Crowdstrike outages, which affected the computer systems of major airlines and other industries like medicine, retail, auto dealerships, theme parks, and hotels. Crowdstrike's impact on the airlines caused a ripple effect of major flight delays, among other issues and my Mother was just not up for dealing with the chaos, so this made the decision to go to St. Augustine and Disney even easier!

Although our trip to Vegas was cancelled, the fact that we had three days at WDW still left some other time in the trip, since I already blocked my dates of August 14th, 2024-August 24th, 2024 as my PTO dating back to earlier that year, which meant I could not really change my PTO dates. Not one to make lemons out of lemonade, we decided to do 3 days of our new trip in a part of Florida we had not visited. After some discussion, we decided on Saint Augustine, as neither one of us had been there and we both wanted to go, as we had heard a lot of good things about it, from its beauty to its rich history. Since both me and my Mother are history buffs, we were excited to go to Saint Augustine for the first time! Another aspect of the trip that we had booked long in advance was our pet sitter for our dogs. Since the dates of travel were unchanged, we were able to leave the dates for our pet sitter in place, especially because they do an excellent job and tend to book up quickly, especially during busy travel seasons!

With our two theme park tickets purchased, we just had to book our hotels and figure out the dates. As I had mentioned in my previous TR, thanks to my employment, I am able to get special rates at certain hotels. For privacy reasons, I am unable to disclose the rates, however, if it were not for these rates, I would not be able to travel. Based on the dates the discounted hotel rates were available, we decided to go to Saint Augustine first from Wednesday, August 15th, 2024 through Saturday, August 18th, 2024. We would stay at a Homewood Suites by Hilton here, as in addition to a fantastic rate, we have had excellent luck with other Homewoods we have stayed at and this property was well regarded based on guest reviews. Another bonus was that it had a kitchen with everything but a full oven, which was handy so we would not always have to eat out. As for our hotel at WDW, we opted for the Buena Vista Palace, right across from Disney Springs. We have stayed here in January 2005 (my first WDW trip), November 2007, and January 2012 and I stayed here once on a solo trip in January 2016 and we have always had excellent experiences! Our past stays, a terrific rate, and a convenient location to WDW made it an easy decision to stay here from Saturday, August 18th, 2024 through Wednesday, August 21st, 2024.

Even more ecstatic for this trip than before, all we had to do after buying our tickets was to make park reservations, which although largely scrapped post COVID-19, are still required on certain tickets. For our three park days, we decided to go to the Magic Kingdom twice, as that is our favorite park. We opted for Sunday, August 19th, 2024 followed by Monday, August 20th, 2024 and we also decided to do Epcot on Tuesday, August 21st, 2024. Since I follow WDW news some and I am also in a couple of Facebook groups related to WDW, I was also excited as ever since Bob Iger returned to lead the Walt Disney Company back in November 2022, many were saying that the parks were in better shape than during COVID-19, when Bob Chapek was in charge. Although we had not been to the parks up until this point, even when we went to Disney Springs in January 2023, two months after Iger came back, we noticed a marked improvement in the maintenance and cleanliness of the Disney venues to where it was pre-COVID, which was amazing, as I love Disney and want to see it at its peak!

We could not wait and were beyond excited to be going to Saint Augustine and Walt Disney World!