A Cancellation, A Proposal and A Lot of Food - Marathon Weekend 2017 COMPLETE!

fallonkendra

DIS Veteran
Joined
Nov 2, 2015
Welcome! Thank you for joining me on my trip report of our latest journey to the Most Magical Place on Earth (our trip to the Happiest Place on Earth is coming up next week - I'm not even joking).

I'll start with a few introductions for those of you who haven't read any of my reports yet:


My name is Fallon, and I'll be the primary trip report writer. I am 29 years old (but I was 28 for the duration of our trip, my birthday was the day after we returned home). I love Animal Kingdom and roller coasters, churros, almost anything Pixar and recently have discovered a love for Star Wars.

My partner on all Disney trips is Luke. He is 34, almost 35, and loves Dole Whips, Wall-E, thrill rides, Dole Whip and any kitchen items that are Disney related. Oh, did I mention he loves Dole Whip?

We've been together for almost 4 years now. We started this trip off as boyfriend/girlfriend, but by the time we came home we were fiancé/fiancée. [SPOILER ALERT] That's right, this trip report includes a proposal (in case you didn't figure that out from the title).

We live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada with our two cats, two dogs and seven degus (a rodent that's larger than a hamster, smaller than a guinea pig). I love our little fur family!

This was our 2nd trip to WDW, and our 4th Disney Park trip overall (the other two have been to Disneyland). We discovered our love of Disney Parks accidentally during a trip we took to Anaheim in 2015 for NHL Playoff Hockey, and it has only grown since. Right now we have three trips in planning stages - one next week (January 26-31) to Disneyland, another one in November to Disneyland and then back to Florida in early January 2018. We've talked about trips to other places, but for now we are content to just keep going back to Disney.

Here are the specifics of this trip:

  • We were in Orlando for 9 nights, January 3-12, 2017, with a split stay between Old Key West and Saratoga Springs
  • We were there for Marathon Weekend - my first ever 5km, and Luke was scheduled to run the half (which we all know by now ended up being cancelled)
  • We had 7-day park tickets, no hoppers.
  • After using the dining plan on our first trip, we opted to pay out of pocket for all meals on this trip. I have a dining report started, you can find it here: So Many ADR's, So Little Time
I didn't take as many photos as I normally would, but there will still be lots in this report. I can also get a little long-winded sometimes, so please bear with me!
 
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Jumped on over from your other TR, which I loved reading! Looking forward to this one, especially when it's written by a fellow NBer!
 
Joining in! I'm looking forward to reading this report and your dining report!
 




Before Vacation Started:

The company I work for shuts down for the week between Christmas and New Year's, so I was off for a week and half before we even left for our trip. This gave me time to do laundry and make sure everything we wanted to take was clean and ready to go, I had time to go pick up any items we had wanted to buy, take down my Christmas trees and get most of my decorations put away. It was actually pretty nice to not be entirely stressed leading up to a trip. It also gave me time to post this on my Instagram (remember, these are in celsius since I'm Canadian!)



The day before we left, we drove out to my best friend's and dropped off our two dogs. She has a dog of her own, plus she was looking after her dad's two dogs. Her husband works away, so she looked after five dogs all on her own - I don't know how she did it, but I was so grateful for her! My dogs are so much happier staying there than they are at a kennel...



Also - yes, I only posted that stuff so I could post pictures of my dogs :love:. Our neighbours would be looking after our cats and degus, so they came over to make sure they knew where everything was. Their three year old daughter figured she should just come with us on our trip, and climbed into my suitcase haha:


January 3, 2017

Our alarm went off at some ungodly hour - I believe it was 3:30am. We had completed most of our packing the night before, so it was just a matter of getting dressed in the clothes we had laid out, brushing our teeth/hair and putting the final few things in our bag (phone chargers, etc). We filled up the food dishes for our cats and degus (our neighbours would be checking in on them every day, but we knew they wouldn't be over until after work - so at least 13 hours later, loaded everything into my car, and we pulled out of our garage at 4:15am. We had originally said our aim was to leave around 4am, so we weren't doing too bad. Luckily we live close to the outskirts of the city, so we have easy access onto the highway, and we were pulling into the parking lot about 25 minutes later. Since it's January, and we're Canadian, we had decided to treat ourselves and book valet parking, since they will scrape all the snow off your car and have it turned on and heated up when you return. We had a discount that made the price comparable to regular-priced normal parking, so I was happy with our decision :)

Another perk to the valet parking we used is that it's owned by WestJet - the airline we were flying to Orlando with. Inside the main building of the valet parking, they actually have a gate agent so we were able to check in, get our boarding passes and check our bags there - instead of lugging our suitcases onto the bus to the main terminal, then lugging them inside, then standing in line to see a gate agent there. This turned out to be a great thing, by the time we reached the main terminal the line up was HUGE! Since we had already completed it, we were able to head directly to security. Security wasn't bad at all, within 15 minutes we were through and heading to our gate - which of course was all the way at one end. The Edmonton airport isn't insanely large, so it really wasn't a big deal. Once we reached our gate and verified that boarding hadn't started yet, Luke went to Hudson News (the chain store that seems to be in every airport) and grabbed a microwaved breakfast sandwich and a coffee he deemed "terrible", and a bottle of water for me.

On our first flight, we were row 6 so nice and close to the front of the plane. It was a really short flight, we were flying from Edmonton to Calgary which is only a 3 hour drive by car. I was of course checking in on facebook - I have some worriers in my family and they always want to know if we made it to our destination haha.


The flight itself only lasted about 45 minutes, and was very uneventful. Once we landed, we were off the plane very quickly since we were so close to the front. Calgary has a new International terminal that just opened a few months ago, so it was all new for us. We hopped on the new "Link" Shuttle to take us to the customs area. Here's a little video I found, it was pretty neat and the new terminal looks great! When we got there, the line up was HUGE! We had to go through security again, which did take about 20-30 minutes due to the size of the line. It moved fine, but they could probably use a few more lines. Once through security, our boarding passes were scanned to check on the status of our suitcases. It popped up on the screen that it had not been processed yet, so we had to wait off to the side in a little seating area. Luke decided to use that time to go to the washroom, and he had barely closed the door when our names popped up on the screen saying we could proceed to a customs agent. We went to the electronic custom kiosks without any wait, got our print-outs and then went up to a customs agent (again, no wait). He scanned our boarding passes, and an actual picture of our suitcases appeared on the screen - we had to confirm that they were ours. This is so much easier than claiming your bags, and then checking them again once you reach the International terminal (like I've always had to do when I go through Toronto). Once we told the customs agent where we were headed, he made a few jokes about it and told us to have a great time :)

We made a stop at the Duty Free Store where Luke picked up a small bottle of Baileys to enjoy with his coffee while on vacation. I decided to run to the bathroom, and when I came out Luke had ordered us some food from Burger King. We had tons of time before our next flight left, so we sat and ate, and I checked in on facebook again.


We eventually headed to our gate. My only complaint of the new terminal was that there is not enough seating at the gates. I know there is still a lot of construction ongoing, so hopefully more will be installed soon! We boarded the plane, and were getting ready to push back a few minutes early but of course there was a pair who was late. The pilot came on and told us he was going to wait for them, since their luggage was already stored under the plane and it would take longer to pull it off the plane. So we ended up leaving a few minutes late.

I was able to sleep a bit on the plane. Luke watched the newest X-Men movie (his review was: meh?!). I woke up right before the flight attendants came around with food, so we both had a ham & swiss croissant (my WestJet go-to!). After eating, I slept a bit more, then woke up and played games on my phone. The flight was over 4 hours, and despite our late start we landed in Orlando right on time. We got onto the Fake-O-Rail and enjoyed our first view of the Florida sunshine



Yes - Luke had a Donal Duck backpack :) You can see a better picture of it in my PTR.
We had booked our stay with a DVC Rental, and had asked them to add the Magical Express to our reservation. We had received a letter in the mail a few weeks prior to our departure with information on our pick-up from Saratoga Springs at the end of our trip. Since we were doing a split stay, we assumed our Old Key West info would show up before our trip - it didn't. I had contacted the points rental company we had used, and they assured us that we were on the list, and would be allowed to board a bus at the airport to take us to our resort. But, because we never received our OKW Magical Express packet, we also never received our bright yellow luggage tags :( So our first stop after getting off the fake-o-rail was baggage claim. It's not the end of the world, but it's one of my favourite parts of using DME. Of course, one of our suitcases was one of the first ones to appear on the baggage carousel, and the other bag was one of the very last ones...

After collecting our bags, we went and checked in for Magical Express. They were able to find our names quickly, and instructed us into a line for Old Key West, Saratoga Springs and Port Orleans. We got into line - and were the only people in any of the lines. It was quite strange, that place was jam packed on our trip last year. We only stood in line for a few minutes before being directed to a bus. We were obviously the first people to load the bus, but then we ended up sitting for almost half an hour before we got moving (the bus was not even half full by the time we left the airport).


Pretty soon, we saw this glorious thing:


Sorry, it's not the best picture but it's the best I could do from the window of a moving bus in the dark...

Old Key West was the first drop-off location, and we were the only ones on the bus getting off there. We were also the only ones on the bus who had luggage under the bus, everyone else had correctly received their yellow tags :( We tipped our bus driver, and headed in to check-in - our trip was about to begin!
 
Wow! The new Calgary airport terminal looks great, and I love how the shuttle is indoors - so neat.
 
Jumped on over from your other TR, which I loved reading! Looking forward to this one, especially when it's written by a fellow NBer!

Thanks for joining! What part of NB are you from?

Joining in! I'm looking forward to reading this report and your dining report!

Thanks for joining!

Joining in. I just read your other TR. -Amanda

Thanks for reading my other report! Welcome to this one :)

Following along!

So glad to have you here! I promise to get caught up on your reports at some point!

joining in! can't wait to read more

congrats on the engagement :jumping1:

Thanks so much!

Funny story - my cat just tried to attack those jumping smileys...

I'm here :yay: Coming back in a bit to catch up!

Thanks for joining Ariane!
 
Came across your 2016 TR, and loved it! Followed over here, and looking forward to reading about your most recent trip.

Congrats on your engagement! A Disney wedding in the works?

I'm also from Canada, and have recently planned (and put down a deposit on) a fall trip....this will be our third family trip, but it feels verrrrry far away, so I'm looking forward to reading a few PTR's and TR's to tide me over :thumbsup2

How did you find renting DVC points? I think once our kids are a little older, we might look into that (when we're no longer doing the dining plan).
 
Following along!! Congratulations on your engagement.... such a special time in your lives :love:
 
Yes! I'm so excited to read your report. (Also, I'm very entertained that Luke wore last year's 10K shirt for the 5K)

I like that they allow you to identify a picture of your suitcase rather than making you claim (and then recheck) your bags. Sounds like so much less of a hassle!

Yay for arriving in Orlando - it's Disney time!
 
:fish:

Don't mind me.....

Actually, really don't mind me.
I'll be reading a bit later. Just marking my spot.
 
Leaving home at 4:15 am and not arriving in Florida until it's dark really stinks, except that you're in DISNEY!!!!
 
Came across your 2016 TR, and loved it! Followed over here, and looking forward to reading about your most recent trip.

Thanks for joining!

Congrats on your engagement! A Disney wedding in the works?

Thank you! And actually yes, we are planning a Disney wedding!

I'm also from Canada, and have recently planned (and put down a deposit on) a fall trip....this will be our third family trip, but it feels verrrrry far away, so I'm looking forward to reading a few PTR's and TR's to tide me over :thumbsup2

It's always nice to meet more Canadians on here! How exciting about your fall trip - which resort are you planning on staying at?

How did you find renting DVC points? I think once our kids are a little older, we might look into that (when we're no longer doing the dining plan).

We really loved renting points! It kept the cost down, while still allowing us to stay in a much nicer resort than last year (nothing against the All-Stars, it just can't compete against OKW and SSR). You can add the dining plan when renting points! We just chose not to, paying out of pocket made way more sense for us.
Following along!! Congratulations on your engagement.... such a special time in your lives :love:

Thank you so much!

Yes! I'm so excited to read your report. (Also, I'm very entertained that Luke wore last year's 10K shirt for the 5K)

I'm so glad you're here Sarah! Luke doesn't like wearing run shirts until after he's completed the race (he feels he needs to "earn it"). It was really cold on the morning of the 5k, so he was glad he had packed a long sleeve shirt!

I like that they allow you to identify a picture of your suitcase rather than making you claim (and then recheck) your bags. Sounds like so much less of a hassle!

It's so much easier! My suitcase is pretty loud, so it's easy to tell it's mine just from a picture.

Yay for arriving in Orlando - it's Disney time!

:dancer:

We live just outside of Fredericton. I am interested to know what you thought of the points rental. Might be a nice change for our next trip.

I lived in Fredericton for a few years when I was really young (my mom went to UNB). I spent most of my life about an hour outside Fredericton.

I really enjoyed renting points. We have already submitted our request for our trip next January :)

:fish:

Don't mind me.....

Actually, really don't mind me.
I'll be reading a bit later. Just marking my spot.

How nice of you to join :) There's all kinds of Canadians reading my trip report now :)

Leaving home at 4:15 am and not arriving in Florida until it's dark really stinks, except that you're in DISNEY!!!!

There is a 2 hour time difference between us and Orlando, so when we left our house it was 6:15am there...not that it makes it much better haha. If we could get a direct flight there, we'd save so much time! Apparently they do exist from Edmonton, but I think it's only on certain days or something because I've never seen it in a search for flights. Our layover in Calgary was about 3 hours, so that was a good chunk of the day.

Following along! Congratulations on your engagement!

Thank you and welcome!
 

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