~Your rainbow will come smiling through~ ... a PDR (Pre Dream Report)!

[AquaDame]

To all who come to this happy report,


Why a Dream report and not just a Trip Report you may ask..?

Because we won this trip in the Flip Side Sweepstakes!
(I'm still a little in shock - more in the backstory post to follow!)

So who are we you may ask?
Just a married couple from Portland, OR - no kiddos in tow, and no family or friends with the time to join us I'm afraid, but that won't stop us! No, I don't have any 'normal' pictures of us here... maybe I will swap this one out when I get home, but then maybe I won't. We don't get normal pics of both of us often.


As for me, I'm the planner in the family - I work in IT doing pretty basic stuff and there is a lot of downtime watching progress bars/waiting for things to break! I fill that time up with vacation and garden planning all too well... want to know where I will vacation in 2017? We have budget and vacation spreadsheets for that, lol! My childhood favourite Disney movie was The Little Mermaid but now that I am grown I tend to say Lady and the Tramp because it makes me all warm and happy inside. If you ask me what I want to watch right now though I would probably say Lilo and Stitch for what its worth. And if thats not a complete cop out on the question I don't know what is!

My husband works as a industrial engineer in aeronautics. When we were courting he wooed me by being a rally driver, but the smashed car in our garage reminds him it wasn't THAT much fun compared to how scary it can be.... his favourite childhood Disney movie is Robin Hood, but the one that can make him laugh the most is Emperor's New Groove. We're currently slowly watching all the movies in order though so maybe that will change.... he got tired of me making references and seeing stuff in the park that was meaningless to him and I'm always up for some lighthearted stuff to watch!

When is going to be Food & Wine of course! We had to submit three possible dates to Disney, so we are still waiting to hear back exactly when it will be. We took the four nights stay and are going to round it out to a full week either in October or early November. Will the backdrop be Halloween? Or a little bit of Christmas cheer? Only Disney knows! <3

Where is something only Disney knows as well! Same thing - you pick three choices (they had us choose from Deluxe since that was included in the prize) and they will book us based on availability. One of the nights will be in THE Cinderella Suite which I am insanely excited about! I added a note asking that they book the extra nights we will be there out of pocket at the Poly (also my first choice) so we will see if I get to stay there at all hopefully soon. I am not sure if they tend to keep you where you put you, but I wouldn't complain about that being the Grand Floridian or the Yacht Club either! The only deluxe we have tried to date has been Animal Kingdom - usually I'm either at POP or French Quarter!

Thats all for now, I will give the backstory in my next post! Its happy! Its exciting! Its confusing! Its sad! Hay, thats life! You can't have rainbows without rain! ​

 

[AquaDame]

So if we hop on into our Delorean and go back sometime before Christmas, we'd see a girl who was just told she was getting an extra week of vacation generously bestowed by her company revising their benefits package. As it was, I already had more vacation time on a per year basis than my husband, and with no way at all to carry over into the next fiscal year. Every year then, I have the dilemma of what to do with the extra time. We don't have kids, so one year I did a volunteer-a-bration where I volunteered at my local zoo for the week instead of going to work, and in 2013 I took a solo trip to WDW for a few days (in the end my husband flexed his hours and joined me for a few days of that one). Its what led to my husband tossing together a vacation spreadsheet where we track his hour accrual and my use so we can get the stars aligned over the next few years for some biggie lifetime trips. I tend to work down to the very day what I have available for both of us, because... well... I do love me some vacation!

That meant there was not a single hour free for my husband to join me anywhere this time. We have had a trip to Europe planned for years at this point, tickets bought, hotels and tours reserved, the works! We had tried to get my parents to join us for at least part of the trip - my brother lives in the Netherlands after all so they would be able to pop up and see him as well - but they kept declining while complaining that they had no plans at all for this year. They declined going to Hawaii with us over the winter last year also, and have nixed cruises... all sorts of ideas for vacation were out. Finally when I was bestowed this extra time I asked them the words everyone wishes to hear... Do you want to go to WDW? They, of course, said YES to that one.

So I planned the heck out of a trip for us. I found a great schedule to use our Alaska Air points so our flights were $25 each. I found a TA that snagged us a GREAT rate that allowed us to move from AoA to two rooms at the FQ for LESS money. We planned Universal, SeaWorld, set out and snagged every desired ADR. I paid for the Wishes dessert package for Christmas - we. were. set. Then my husband decided even three days would be worth it so he hopped on board too even though his flight was insane at that point, and I was able to register for the Expedition Everest Challenge which was on my bucket list (and is being discontinued after this year). Then, as it must, life with its twists and turns happened.

First, the Hallmark that my Mom snagged a job at went out of business right before she started (she has been searching for years at this point). Their dog got very sick and after more than a few expensive vet visits had to be put down. My Mom had expensive surgery on both her eyes. Do you see where this is going...? They were stuck somewhere between 'man, we NEED this vacation' and 'we really shouldn't do this vacation'. But then, something amazing happened...

I got an email from a swell lady called Betty asking if we'd like to be Flip Side Sweepstakes winners! I had been entering every single day in January, and lo and behold, someone somewhere decided that since it was my birthday one fateful day in January (I can't confirm that is actually true) that I would be the winner (I CAN confirm THAT is true, they tell you which day you won!). I immediately called my parents with the good news - they were so shell shocked it took a few more calls and emails before they believed me and even then, something was... off.

I'm going to be honest with you DIS... I am still not quite sure why they were so subdued. Maybe they could feel in the wind they wouldn't be able to go? Maybe they knew the wrench that would be tossed into the mix but didn't want to say yet? Either way, even showing them pictures of the Cinderella suite did not hasten their heartbeats.

Have you ever tried to get a square peg into a round hole? The couple of weeks following the initial rush are a blur. We found out we needed to give Disney at least 90 days to plan, which was completely reasonable. We all agreed that in order to perfectly mimic the trip we had planned we'd need at least 180 which pushed us out to Autumn after we return from Europe. Given my parents change in finances and the fact that my husband and I would be paying the taxes on the prize we decided to cancel our initial trip... no EEC for me after all! Between my parents needs and my work & volunteer schedule we found the only three weeks that the trip could work before the prize expires in January and we were set for that questionnaire from Disney, baby!

Let me pause for a moment. Have you ever seen Christmas with the Kranks?

*ring ring ring!*

"Yes hello?"
"Hi guys! Its [AquaDame's brother]! Guess what?? We're coming home in October!"
"What?! Thats GREAT! When?"
"We don't know! We won't know exactly when till May so keep October clear OK?!"

...Guess when we all can go? Wait... make that could go. I spoke with my brother and parents a few more times. He wouldn't change his timeframe but was OK if my parents were gone a few days or even a whole week while he was here since he's staying much longer, but when you only see your son every few years those weeks are VERY important. We did some more back and forth but there just wasn't any wiggle room for all of us, so my parents can't go after all.

I had a few coworkers joke that they would go but I don't know them well enough to sleep in the same room, and none of my other friends go to Disney. So, with a heavy heart we're just going to go by ourselves. It won't be as much fun as taking a little prince or princess with us (I don't have any young kids in my extended family to join in the fun) but we're going to have a blast as a happily married couple gosh darnit! My husband and I worked and worked and tweaked the vacation schedule until he has enough time to do it (our future vacations will just have to wait longer/be shorter!) My parents are excited to have my brother home for so long and to have finances freed up to go for a mini vacation somewhere close while he is here though!

Now that is all settled we... just wait for Disney to tell us when we are going!!!

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Joining in.

 

[AquaDame]

Getting excited..! A few other winners are starting to get their trip details from Disney now so I will hopefully hear from them soon! None of them have been able to get the monorail resorts due to them already being too full though, so I better come up with a backup plan quick in case I have to pick a different choice. At the very least getting my #3 yachts club is looking more like the winner if it holds true for us!

It sounds like one of the girls was able to ask them to rush her reservation and go over spring break which is great for her, but makes me so sad. If I had known I didn't need to stick to the rules I would have naturally asked to keep the week I was going to go with my parents and not have any of the scheduling issues... I should have been more pushy I guess.

 

[princessbelle2015]

Joining in. Congrats on winning the contest.

 

[AquaDame]

Joining in.

Welcome! Hopefully I'll have more to report soon!

Joining in. Congrats on winning the contest.

Hi there, welcome and thank you so much! We are stoked!