Yep, we're actually went w/out the kids!

[LISAMWDW]

WDW without the kids! I know, I know! It’s just not right!!

Chapter 1 – The Cast

Cast:
Me – Lisa: Designated Family Vacation planner. I’ve always loved Disney since I was a child however I never was able to go. After my divorce, I went for the first time with my daughter, then 3, as a Celebration/Healing trip. That trip was amazing and it holds some of the best times of my life! Since then, we have gone every year, sometimes twice a year, except during the time I was laid off. While not our only travel destination, it is the most important. Well, also Hawaii, our honeymoon destination! Anyway, I remarried in November 2006 to a very sweet man.

DH – Troy: New Disney fan! He remembers his childhood Sunday nights as a big family night because The Wonderful World of Disney was on. However, he was never too interested in going to WDW. Actually, he made fun of me while we were first dating because I was such a Disney nut! hehe Anyway, this will be his second trip, we went last year as a family, spring break 2006.

DS-15: Lives with us, but not going with us!
DD-10: Lives with us, but not going with us!
DD-8: Lives with her mother, not going with us!

Here’s us:

Basically, this trip started with me saying……”Honnnney, guess what? Disney is having a free dining promotion! Can we go? We’ll have to book right away as it sells out quick!” BTW, I already booked us! Just kidding! Seriously though, it took me a few days and offering to make it a WDW/Golf trip! Yep, that was the kicker, golf! He said okay, let’s do it and make it an early anniversary trip, no kids! Yahoo, WDW, here we come!

As the family designated vacation planner, I first had to decide where we were staying. Don’t get me wrong, I always ask his opinion for all our trips and he almost always says, whatever you decide honey. YES! Hehe Anyway, if we go with our kids, our resort opinions are more limited so I wanted to stay somewhere we couldn’t if we did go with the kids. Capish? So I picked Port Orleans FQ. I’ve never stayed and it was the first resort on my list to try, mental list anyway. So, I made our reservations and chose a 3 day park ticket and with the free dining! Yeah baby Yeah! I made our golf reservations for 2 - 18’s. My Dh picked Opsrey Ridge and I picked the Magnolia course. We got our airfare and rental car with points! Yep, we roll like that cuz my DH travels for business. WooHoo! We’re all set!

Well, all you Disers know, we can’t leave plans alone! Hehe! As my husband travels a lot for business and his flights kept getting cancelled/delayed on a regular basis, I was getting more and more worried about our Disney plans! I didn’t want anything to mess up my well made and perfectly thought out plans! Especially free dining! Also, our first day’s schedule was really tight with trying to squeeze in a full round of golf. If our flight was delayed any length of time; we were SOL. We discussed it and thought lets see what happens the closer we get to August. Well, my hunky DH mentioned that it’s too bad we didn’t have more time because he really wanted to go to Gatorland. We missed this on our trip last year as we didn’t have enough time. My DH loves gators! We went on an Everglade boat tour a few years ago and he was just fascinated! Well, the little comment was all I needed to hear! I said, “honnney, maybe we should go ahead and add a day to our vacation? This would relieve a lot of stress about getting our clubs from Magical Express on time, getting 18 holes in before dark and any flight delays messing up all my perfectly made plans! Our new first day would be completely open except Gatorland. It makes perfect sense right?? What, that isn’t laughter that I hear is it? Good, I didn’t think so! Hehe

Well, back to planning again! I know your thinking, there is no way she will leave the day open except Gatorland! Hmmmpf. So anyway, I added a day onto the front of our trip, made the change with NWA and used a discount code that expires this week (7/28) to book our room only. Most rooms were sold out with this code. So, I had to choose between Saratoga Springs, Villas at the Wilderness Lodge or Contemporary Resort. I hmmmed and tapped my pen over this one, Saratoga doesn’t interest me so it was the WL Villas or the Contemporary? I finally selected the Contemporary because of several reasons.
1. larger rooms
2. new refurbished
3. monorail
I am actually looking forward to staying at this resort, even for just one night. I’ve never been interested in this resort before, not sure why, it just never caught my attention.

Next, I added and changed a few ADR’s, moved our tee time for the second day, originally the first day, up an hour and changed our arrival with Magical Express. Yes, I did decide to add an ADR for our first day for dinnner. Ok! Your right! I couldn't leave a day without and ADR! Well, we had to have breakfast too! So I added Ohana's character breakfast as Chef Mickeys was booked. Whew! There, all done again!

This is my first pretrip report, hope you like it! I just love reading everyone’s trip reports and laughing with you, never at you (seriously ) and hearing about your moving stories so much. Also, it is a lot of fun to share with you all!

 

[klbest]

Lisa! Hi! Just the title of your report caught me eye! DH and I could SO use a vacation without the kids!!!! LOL!!!! Since there's none in our near future, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy reading about yours!

We've stayed at Coronado twice and POR (doing POR again this year - LOVE it!!!) A friend of mine just stayed in the CR with a view of the castle and she said "It just doesn't get any better!" - they saw Wishes from their room!

BTW, what a beautiful pic of you and your DH!!! We honeymooned in Hawaii also!

Can't wait to hear more!

Laurie

(DH posts under our username sometimes, too!)

 

[LISAMWDW]

Thanks Laurie! My first reader!

I loved staying at CSR and POR! I think POR AB is my favorite so far! CSR was so long ago, it's hard to remember too much about it. It was beautiful! I was in the ranchos area and it was alittle too far out so hopefully the next time we stay there we're alittle closer! As I'm thinking about it I'm remembering this incident I had with my daughter in the pool area! She was 5years old I think and she kept taking off her googles and then back on again. Well, what happened was her long hair got all tangled up in the back of her neck. It got so tight that it pulled her skin really tight and she started screaming! Poor little girl! The CM's came running and took her up to the main building and ended up having to cut the rubber of the googles out of her hair! I was so happy that we didn't have to cut her beautiful long hair! They were very helpful! BTW, I never bought that type of speedo goggles again!

Isn't Hawaii incredible? We want to go back every few years! We just feel in love with it!

Thanks for posting!!

 

[klbest]

Thanks Laurie! My first reader!

I loved staying at CSR and POR! I think POR AB is my favorite so far! CSR was so long ago, it's hard to remember too much about it. It was beautiful! I was in the ranchos area and it was alittle too far out so hopefully the next time we stay there we're alittle closer! As I'm thinking about it I'm remembering this incident I had with my daughter in the pool area! She was 5years old I think and she kept taking off her googles and then back on again. Well, what happened was her long hair got all tangled up in the back of her neck. It got so tight that it pulled her skin really tight and she started screaming! Poor little girl! The CM's came running and took her up to the main building and ended up having to cut the rubber of the googles out of her hair! I was so happy that we didn't have to cut her beautiful long hair! They were very helpful! BTW, I never bought that type of speedo goggles again!

Isn't Hawaii incredible? We want to go back every few years! We just feel in love with it!

Thanks for posting!!

We really liked CSR too! The second time we stayed there was during Hurricane Floyd in 1999. You just reminded me of a really good experience we had there too! They were preparing all the guests to be quarantined to their rooms for an indefinate period of time while the hurricane moved through and alot of the services in the hotel were already shut down. I realized, in a panic, that I might not have enough formula for our then 7 month old DD. We went to the hotel store and it was already locked up but completely surrounded by hoards of angry guests demanding to be let in. We went to a CM in the lobby and explained about the formula and he snuck us around to a back entrance to the store and let us get whatever we needed!

We stay in the POR AB section too! It is so beautiful and peaceful.

We are still dreaming of a second honeymoon in Hawaii!!!!

I'll be looking for your next update!

 

[punkin413]

i'm in!!! can't wait to hear more.

you look beautiful in your wedding pics, by the way!

 

[dismom9761]

HI!! I kidless trip.is just what I need to read about.We will be taking a trip without the kids in January and I am getting pretty excited about it.Looking forward to more...

 

[Avivasmom]

It sounds fun to go kidless...I think if I did that my DD may need lots and lots of therapy. It would hurt her to much if we left her home.

You are both gorgeous!!

 

[LISAMWDW]

Hi Dawn! Thanks for stopping by!

Dismom9761, Good for you! I can't wait to read your pre-trip report! Thanks!

Avivasmom, we do feel alittle guilty about not taking the kids! However, we plan on taking them for at least a week and half next year. My DD went twice last year! Once as a family during spring break and a mother/daughter trip last fall. So, they're okay with it! Whew! hehe Thanks!

 

[LISAMWDW]

Here's a picture of all of us at AK last spring break:

Here's the kids on a boat we rented from POR:

I'll update some more later!

 

[tristessaFL]

Hey Lisa! I wanted to visit you in your thread since you were the first visitor in my thread! The way you and your husband vacation-plan is exactly the same as my husband and I. I go nuts organizing, researching, and booking everything and DH just wants to know when and where and whether he'll be driving (for road trips). Sometimes I wish he'd be more into planning, but then I think about how I would hate to NOT be the one doing all the planning because I enjoy it so much!

Can't wait to read more!

 

[txvjc]

Hi Lisa, wanted to come check out your child-free trippie since you checked out mine

 

[dismom9761]

Great pics of the kids. Good to have faces to put with poor kids being left behind. Just Kidding of course.My kids are already making me feel guilty for leaving them and its not until January.

 

[LISAMWDW]

tristessaFL, it's pretty cool being the one that gets to do the planning! I'll ask his opinion because I want to make sure he'll have an interest. He'll say whether he does or not but says honey, you know what you are doing!

txvjc, thanks for stopping by!

dismom9761, I know my poor kids! I told my DD-10 that she was going to be staying with her dad for a week and she is so excited! She actually screamed yeah! I'm thinking, isn't she going to miss me? or the Mouse?

 

[dismom9761]

Just be glad she is excited And that you know where she will be.I have no idea who is going to have mine. Nobody wants to keep four kids so I will have to split them up somehow.

 

[Chris]

Hi Lisa~
I can't wait to hear all about your kids free trip! I always said we would NEVER do that, but I'd SO love to that NEVER is no longer in my mind!!!! LOL
Someday............. Plus dh and I both want to stay at Contemporary, so be sure to share all the details!!

 

[LISAMWDW]

Just be glad she is excited And that you know where she will be.I have no idea who is going to have mine. Nobody wants to keep four kids so I will have to split them up somehow.

You are right! I won't be worried about her at all. She'll be enjoying some great quality time with her dad! Good luck with your kids! I'm sure they'll have a great adventure too!

 

[LISAMWDW]

Chris, thanks for stopping by! I'll be sure to report all the details and take alot of pics of CR!

 

[LISAMWDW]

Here's our Itinerary:

Aug. 29 Gatorland, resort time, dinner at Trails End
Aug. 30 Breakfast at Ohana’s, Shopping at the Premium Outlet Mall, Golf 18 holes, Dinner at Kona Café
Aug. 31 AK, MGM, Fantasmic Package/Mama Melrose
Sept. 1 Epcot, dinner at Le Cellier, MK
Sept. 2 MK, Epcot, dinner at Chef De France, MK for Wishes
Sept. 3 Golf, rent Searacer, resort time, dinner at Boma, Downtown Disney Nightlife
Sept. 4 Downtown Disney, ME to airport


What do you think? I know it looks pretty busy but we have enough downtime to relax too! Notice what we are attempting to do on Sept 2nd! Watch Illumnations and Wishes in the same night!

Reading this reminds me how fast time will fly! I hate that!


Guess what disers? Today is my Birthday! Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me!

 

[tristessaFL]

You know, even though I've lived in Central Florida for 17 years, I have never ever been to Gatorland! Can't wait to hear what you think of it!

I think your itinerary sounds fun! Except for the golf...but then I'm not much of a golfer. My dad, brother, and my mom's parents love it though. To each their own!

 

[dismom9761]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Your plan looks good but I can't believe we won't be at any of the same places. No wait a minute we will both be at EPCOT at dinner time on 9/2.I will look for you!!