Who: Steve, 46, and Sue, 44, 11th trip to WDW
When: 9/30 till 10/10
Where: Old Key West/Hilton Head
Why: We own the perfect Florida car now, so LET'S GO!
A little background, and an explanation of dates and details:
(Don't you just love when a trip report starts with a disclaimer?
)
This trip came to fruition late last year. We were at the World for Mousefest 2003, and were thinking about coming back in May for the Flower show. Some discussion and planning later, we realized that October would be a better time to travel, as our schedules would make it easier to do a longer journey. There was no doubt from the beginning that we were going to drive. (This would come into play as we got closer and closer to the date...but I digress...) There were several reasons for this. First of all, we were had our basement finished in January/February and had gone way over budget!
Next, although I am not afraid to fly and have flown many times, I had a bad feeling about flying for this trip. It is inexplicable, and we are flying for our January trip and I have none of the same feelings! Then, although we didn't realize it at the time, all those hurricanes made driving a wiser choice. And last but not at all least, we had a new (to us) 2002 2 door green with black roof nice stereo drives great Chrysler Sebring CONVERTIBLE to travel in!!! WoooooHoooo!! The decision was made.
I called DVC at 7 months out and had no problem getting a one bedroom villa. I then booked 2 nights at Hilton Head Island in a studio for the end of our trip. We were set!!
The days dragged by. I put other things in my countdown timer because it seemed so long. I finally got down to 92 days....91 days...90 days...it was time to start calling for my Illuminations cruise! Did I get it? You'll have to read the trip report to find out!
At about 75 days I made round one of our Priority Seatings. These changed at least six times! I think my phone number came up in red when I called Diseny dining, and whoever answered the phone probably got the rest of the afternoon off. We were finally set, and then, with a free morning, we decided to do a KTTK tour. Called and booked that, too!!
I kept a running list of all I needed to do, and checked things off as I got them done.
Finally it was the week before. I had at least a million things to do that week. (Well it seemed like that many)I had to go to the post office (I needed to stop the mail and pick up a very special delivery package that was waiting there!
), shop for groceries that we were bringing, get maps, get traveller's checks, visit Dad and make sure he would be OK for the 11 days, get the oil changed in the car, get my nails done and pick up a few last minute things at Walmart. I had scheduled myself lightly for the week, and one of my co-workers offered to work the night before we were leaving for me. I took her up on her generous offer, since I was supposed to do a night shift on Wednesday and leave Thursday night. If we had been out all night Wednesday, I would have been in bad shape to drive!
The day we left, I slept in, took the dogs to "camp", dropped the cat off at my friends, went to the bank, paid some last minute bills, washed the car, packed and cleaned the house. Steve got out of work a little early and got home by 5. We packed, put the lights on timers, and by 7, we were ready to get on the road!!
OK, here comes the disclaimer/explanation part of our story:
Steve and I grouped our days like this: "The Drive", which started Thursday night and ended Friday afternoon. That was followed by "Day Half", which was Friday. "Day 1", our first full day, was Saturday. Therefore, that is how I am going to write the TR. It's how I have my notes broken down and how our video tape is broken down, so I can reference both for details.
Any questions, please feel free to contact me...oh no, wait that's what I put on Ebay! Sorry!
And now, onto "The Drive"....