(please forgive me up front because I have no idea how to attach pictures into a trip report. I've read the "how to's" on the board on how to do it but I can't find a paperclip icon to get them to attach into the report. If someone could help me, I would appreciate it!)
Well, it’s that time again. Our anniversary trip to Walt Disney World is now 30 days away so I thought it would be a good time to let my fellow Passporters in on our plans. Sorry if this is a really long explanation, but behind every Disney trip is a story and here is mine. Every year we go to the Word during the same week – the week before Thanksgiving. It seems to be manageable in the crowd department as well as the weather department. Which is great because I’m neither a fan of crowds or hot weather!
This trip was planned on Thanksgiving weekend of last year, pretty much when we had come back from our last trip. My husband fell in love with the Boardwalk Inn during the last trip so he definitely wanted to stay in that hotel again. Which was fine with me because the Boardwalk Inn is so very easy to get to Epcot and MGM. We pretty much walked over to Epcot every evening. So, our $200.00 in hand, we went over to our local AAA travel agent and decided to throw caution to the wind and book a trip for May. May? Yup, we were trying to sneak in two trips for the 2007 year. Great! We booked the Grand Floridian hotel instead of the Boardwalk. Excitement abounded. You know that feeling you get deep down inside as soon as you book another trip to the Happiest Place in the World? Man, were we flying higher than a kite! We had never stayed at the Grand Floridian but in trips past we had stayed in the Contemporary and the Wilderness Lodge and found the Magic Kingdom resorts quite nice in getting to the Magic Kingdom.
Plans were happily in the works. You know that feeling, too. Planning for the upcoming trip, deciding on where to eat, where to go, what to see. The holidays came and went and then came the huge wrench to be put into the great planning machine. In mid January, I got laid off from the title company where I worked. I had been there for 14 years and they told us on a Friday that they were laying off 8 people and guess what? I was one of them. I wasn’t too worried because in reality it was a blessing. I had been pretty unhappy with the job for quite some time anyway so I was looking forward to a break. However, it was three weeks later that it finally occurred to my husband and me. We simply wouldn’t have the money to pay off a May trip to the World, even if it was just a short one. Tinkerbell had left the building, my friends. Captain Hook had won.
With heavy hearts, we called AAA and cancelled the trip. As February came and I still hadn’t found another job, I settled into collecting my meager unemployment checks. The real estate market in the Indiana area seemed to have generally collapsed and I couldn’t get hired as a secretary anywhere else for any decent amount of money. March rolled on and we were desperate to go back to the World. So, talking about it and deciding that if we used the unemployment money and saved really hard, we could go back in November.
Back to AAA we went. This time we booked the trip for the week before Thanksgiving at the Boardwalk. Standard room. No exciting view. But at least we were going, with the dining plan at that. Aladdin had just rescued Princess Jasmine! Spirits soared again, this time tempered with worrying about money.
Along about my hubby’s birthday in May, I made the coveted ADR’s and then he decides to re-visit the trip again after reading through my Passporter. How about upgrading the room to a deluxe, he asked? Fine with me as long as we could pay for it. Again we crunched the numbers. If we cut out our eating out expenses we could do it! Hubby called AAA and changed the ressies. Very exciting stuff here, kids. June came along and we were recalling our last trip to the Boardwalk. Good times. Hubby asked, will we be on the concierge level this time? We looked into the ressies. Nope. Then hubby says, I’d really rather do the concierge thing again.
Come on folks, you know how it is. It’s like eating potato chips, right? You can’t eat just one? That’s how booking a Disney trip. You can’t just leave it alone until you’ve made a handful of changes to it. But, I was not about to call our poor AAA agent up and change the ressies once again. How embarrassing! So, hubby ended up doing it. So, now the changes were we would only stay five days instead of 6 at the Boardwalk to cover the cost of the switch to concierge level. That’s it. No more changes to the room. Tinkerbell had spread her pixie dust on our trip!
We finally paid the trip off in July. Gotta love the government. They pretty much paid the bulk of our trip, thanks to unemployment! I guess if there is one good thing about not having a job, besides the fact that the housework is all caught up and we eat dinner at a decent hour now, is the fact that I have so much more time for planning the Disney trip. I’ve never had that luxury before. And boy did I plan! I had a spreadsheet in Excel thanks to the generosity of someone on one of the many Disney message boards on the ‘net. I knew exactly what we would be doing on any given day. I booked the hotels we would need at the front and back of the Disney stay.
Then I had a brilliant idea! Never in my life have I had the time to scrapbook. Now, I had all the time in the world. I purchased a three ring binder at Walmart because we usually put the itinerary, packing lists and maps from AAA online in the binder because we drive down. Now, I would incorporate the information book into a scrapbook of sorts. Here is a picture of the front of the binder:
http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...5&d=1192113078
Here is a picture of one of the pages:
http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...7&d=1192113115
It’s the Cast of Character page with my hubby and I. Cool, huh? My husband is a computer programmer who loves all things Star Wars, Star Trek and anything Sci-Fi. He’s also pretty fond of Disney World. His favorite characters are Grumpy and Donald Duck. In fact, his screen name on the Passporter site is Renegade Duck. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a whole lot of time to post but maybe he’ll get into the whole trip report writing thing. I’m a stay at home wife and all around domestic goddess. I love Disney World, reading, writing and baking and not necessarily in that order. My favorite characters are Pooh Bear and Alice. Then I went to Hobby Lobby because they had all of their scrapbook supplies on clearance. I got many sheets of Disney stickers and what not. After that, I motored over to the Flower Factory and bought more Disney scrapbooking stickers. Very cool. So, now there’s a section for each day of the trip, a page for receipts for each day and two pages per day for pictures from each day. I’m actually pretty impressed with myself.
Then I had a brainstorm. Home Depot has paint color cards in the shape of Mickey heads. I made a couple of trips over there and got different color of cards and made a Countdown Calendar for the 30 and under mark. Here’s a picture:
http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...6&d=1192113100
We don’t even have kids but we’ve got a countdown Mickey head calendar! Who says the magic is only limited to the younger set? In fact, my sister and I were talking on the phone and she was complaining that I was going to Disney yet again. I said there are two kinds of people in the world: those who have the magic and those who do not. What set do you think she belongs to? That’s right, if we lived in Harry Potter’s world, she would so be a Muggle.
Here’s the bones of the trip:
November 10 – Residence Inn in Macon, GA
November 11 – Buena Vista Suites in Orlando across from Downtown Disney
November 12-16 at the Boardwalk Inn.
November 16 evening – Comfort Inn in Valdosta, GA
November 17 – home sweet home
ADR’s so far:
November 11 – dinner somewhere at Downtown Disney
November 12 – 5:40 p.m. dinner at Spoodles. (moved up once already so we can enjoy the Osborne Lights)
November 13 – 1:05 p.m. lunch at Kona Café. We probably won’t make this ressie but I’m keeping it just in case. Regardless, this will be a OOP expense
November 14 – 8:15 a.m. breakfast at Crystal Palace. Have to eat with Pooh Bear! Then 7:40 p.m. dinner at California Grill. This was hubby’s choice to celebrate the anniversary
November 15 – 4:50 p.m. dinner at the Garden Grill. (moved up once already so that we can perhaps enjoy the MK before closing)
November 16 – Lunching somewhere between the MK and Downtown Disney before we hit the road
I have surprise for hubby in the works but I’ll post that when it has become an actuality.