A couple's first trip: Pre Trip Report

[Vernie822]

Some (and by some, I mean.. maybe 1 or 2) may recall that I had previously began a Pre-Trip report.

Well, that didn’t go so well! Between studying, working, coaching cheerleading, being in a cousin’s wedding, serving as another’s MOH, and agreeing to be in a third – I have somehow lost sight of my pre-trip report and have been doing nothing but planning wedding showers and Bachelorette parties! And maybe a Disney vacation

I took a look back at it and thought.. wait a second.. our trip is completely different! I am a complete obsessive planner when it comes to these types of things, and my first Disney trip would be no different.

I’ll start by re-introducing myself.

My name is Ashley, and I’m 24 years old. I’m a former DIS-lurker, turned poster. I listen to DIS Unplugged podcasts all the time & I feel like I know the gang as if they’re my BFFs. I kind of wish Sha Un was my real life BFF, to be honest. I think he’s hilarious! I work as an actuarial analyst for an insurance company. I basically get to do lots of math all day long. It’s not an easy job and is very stressful, but I really enjoy the work that I do and my awesome coworkers. My job requires me to take exams. I have passed 3 so far and I have 5 left. These exams require 300+ hours of study time each, so that’s where a majority of my free time is spent. I also coach varsity cheerleading at a local high school. It’s tons of fun, and the girls are always giving me a good laugh. In my not-so-frequent spare time, I enjoy running (I have run 3 half marathons), baseball, and cooking/baking some new recipes. I also love WINE. I live along lake Erie where there are tons of amazing wineries! It makes for a great Saturday afternoon with friends. Beer is great too, I won’t discriminate! I love trying new foods. I’m a big chicken and seafood eater. I love steak now and then, and pasta on occasion. I’m not a big pork or burger eater, but every now and again I love a good burger.

My boyfriend, we’ll call him “J” (26) and I will be taking our first big vacation together in a few weeks. J and I have been together since June 2012. We were coworkers at a part time job both of us held during college, and we met in June 2011. I was dating someone else at the time, but it didn’t last long and we went on our first date about six months later. We live Pennsylvania. He works as a case manager at a prison. J loves baseball too! He loves all sports, fishing, and all that kind of guy stuff. He’s not a huge drinker but enjoys wine and beer. His favorite is Angry Orchard Cider. J does not love trying new foods. In fact, he is quite the picky eater. He’ll eat salad, only if the lettuce is covered with ranch dressing, cheese, and croutons. He loves all meat, potatoes, rice, pasta, etc. I can squeeze broccoli in there sometimes, but he generally doesn’t eat fruits and veggies. He eats a ton. I swear, I will make 2 pounds of chicken to last us the week and it will be gone in 2 days! His “snacks” are my meals. He lifts 5 or 6 days a week, so his belly is always growling.


This will be my 6th real trip to Disney. My dad loves Daytona Beach and always went there with his friends when he was younger, so my parents used to take us there for 2 weeks every few years and take us down to Disney for a few days. I’ve actually only stayed on-site twice – somewhere my mom called the ‘Disney Institute’ when I was probably 8 (apparently this was a real thing?), and I stayed at All Star Sports in 2008 on a school trip. I also went down to DTD for just a day while on spring break in 2012, but I won’t count that.

J has NEVER been to Disney! Well, he was at Disneyland once in the mid 90’s, but he hardly remembers it. He doesn’t get all the hype, but he says he’s excited.

Now, we’ll get into how this trip came about and what our plans are for the upcoming event….

 

[Vernie822]

HOW THE TRIP CAME ABOUT

This trip came about when we started thinking of vacation ideas. We had been on a few getaways to Niagara Falls and Cleveland. We’d also taken a road trip in late 2012 to visit my aunt and uncle in Nashville, and we went to Baltimore for the Preakness Stakes in 2013. J never really vacationed growing up – the local state parks and maybe a trip to Ocean City were the only big vacations he’d ever had, aside from visiting his aunt in California (his only Disney experience), so I wanted to do something big for us. The idea of Disney came up. I love Disney, and have been dying to go back. Now that I’m not a poor college kid, I’ve been saving my money and could (with a little more saving) afford a nice trip. Well, this is our chance!

At J’s birthday dinner in March, he mentioned to his parents that we were “probably going to Disney in the next year.” WHAT! This was music to my ears! Sometime in the next year?! I thought we hadn’t even agreed to go at all? Woo hoo! That night I made sure he was serious, before I got down to planning.

At that time, J had only been working for the prison for about 6 months. He had put in for a few promotions, but didn’t think he had a shot since he was so new. Bragging moment: he does a great job at what he does! He has a bachelor’s in Criminal Justice and is very passionate about it. He got a promotion to “Case Manager” in April after only being there for about 7 months. He works so hard and really cares about what he does. So much that, they’ve given him some of his own programs. He develops programs and meets with local township officials to work on integrating the prisoners back into society upon their release. He teaches them and guides them so that once they are released, they will be productive and find jobs and get back into the swing of things! I’m so proud of him!

That being said, before his promotion, he was working odd hours. Night time shifts that were 12 hours long. We hardly saw each other! He was on for 3 days, off for 3 days, etc. It stunk at first, but we knew he had to start somewhere. He also hardly got any vacation. With working for a much larger company, I thankfully get a decent amount of vacation so I could save up some days and go any time. He, on the other hand, had to request off certain days and make sure that they could work around his absence. The prison never shuts down, I guess!

 

[Vernie822]

WHEN WILL WE GO?

We chose the month of September for our trip. We knew it was long enough away that we could save. We did research to find that crowds are lower and that there’s lots of fun things such as MNSSHP and F&W going on while we’re there. That was enough for me! I was totally sold on September. Part of what I do in reserving includes financial reporting - so the first six business days and the last 2 or 3 were out for me. Originally, we were planning on just 4 or 5 days in Disney. But, my obsessive planning self knew that just 5 days was not enough to see and do everything we wanted to. We were also planning to drive to Tampa one of those days, so I knew that just wouldn’t fly.

We added in a day for Tampa and a few days for Miami at the end of our trip. We LOVE BASEBALL! Our goal is to try and visit all of the MLB parks. I have been a fan ever since I was a kid – and this is something we just love doing together. It’s not expensive to grab seats to a Pittsburgh Pirates game, which is one of our favorite things to do when we’re down in Pittsburgh visiting my family (my parents and 4 younger siblings still all live there). What better way to knock out 2 ballparks than to pair my two favorite things, baseball and Disney!?

With J’s crazy schedule, I begged him to add just a few more days. With being “on 3 days, off 3 days, on 2 days, off 2 days,” he was able to schedule a whopping 10 days away from the office, with only having to take 4 vacation days away from work. Woo hoo!!!! It was now decided that we would spend 2 days in Tampa, 6 days in Disney, then 2 days in Miami.

But, this posed an issue – flying into Tampa, renting a car, driving to WDW, staying there, renting another car, and driving to Miami, then flying back to Pittsburgh, was going to be a huge undertaking. 2 airports, 3 cities, 2 rental cars, 3 hotels, WOW. I just couldn’t deal with that much craziness, especially considering I had never been to Miami or Tampa.

I was still concerned that 4 days in WDW wasn’t enough (especially with wanting to do MNSSHP and one of those days being an arrival day). It was now decided, with some help from the lovely CM’s at WDW, that we would fly into MCO, stay in Disney from Saturday to the following Friday, check out Saturday morning, and head to Miami until Monday. One of those days at Disney, we would just have to get a rental car and drive to Tampa to catch a game and some beach time. We would also rent a car to drive from Orlando to Miami, and keep it throughout our Miami stay. We looked to book flights through Expedia and Priceline, but Expedia was giving us issues and Disney’s CMs were quoting us about the same, so we booked our flights through Disney. Something I didn’t do that I should have done: a direct flight. I have never booked a flight before, so I didn’t realize that Southwest has direct flights from Pittsburgh to Orlando. Instead, we’re leaving Pittsburgh at 8 AM, flying through Atlanta, and arriving at MCO at 2:30 PM. On the way home, we’re flying from Miami to Atlanta, and then to Pittsburgh. Not a huge deal, but I wish we would have had some time in the parks on our arrival day. Right now it’s just looking like a dinner ADR and maybe some time at the Magic Kingdom.

Phew! It was settled. Our trip would be from September 13-22 (Disney is Sept 13-20). We have 5 day park hoppers, and MNSSHP tickets, too! So we have 4 park days planned, plus MNSSHP. We still have one more park day left, and I THINK I am going to see if we can use it either on our arrival day, or our departure day (all we have to do is grab the rental car and go to Miami).

 

[Vernie822]

WHERE TO STAY??
Originally, I thought J would prefer to stay offsite. We didn’t have too much of a budget for this trip – not that we had tons of money to spend, it was just that realistically, we had no clue! We thought about keeping the rental car from Tampa all the way through to Miami. J is 26 and we’re just not ready for kids yet (we aren’t even engaged), so I thought maybe staying offsite and getting away from the Disney bubble would be our best bet.

After looking into everything, I realized something. There are so many hotels that I haven’t even experienced, and with a discount (the prospect of one was looking good), it would just be so much more convenient. Plus, a few of the moderate hotels seemed like they would be so relaxing and fun! So, we decided to buy park tickets for 4 days, at this point, start off in Tampa from Saturday to Monday, then spend Tuesday through Friday at WDW, leaving Saturday morning for Miami until Monday. Our WDW stay would be at Port Orleans Riverside. After so much back and forth, it seemed like a perfect fit. Quiet, quaint, and beautiful. I was excited!

Once we had decided to just stay in Disney and drive to Tampa one day, I got J to agree to a split stay. The first 3 days we would be at Little Mermaid at AOA, and then we’d move to POR. Our dining plan and tickets would be at POR, and our AOA would basically serve as just our hotel as we arrived Saturday, did MNSSHP Sunday, and drove to Tampa Monday.

Another major thing I was excited about – THE FOOD! I was so back and forth about the dining plan. Being a numbers nerd and worrywart, I was so concerned with overspending via the dining plan, or worrying about what we are spending by paying OOP. I love the fact that the dining plan is a convenience to us. I realized that my need to plan and know what we’ll be spending is greater than my need to save a little bit of money. We want to experience all of the restaurants and not feel like we have to look at every price tag. Which we could have done by saving and budgeting, but knowing it is pre-paid for is music to my ears. I’m a sucker for Disney’s marketing strategy here. With this being our first major trip, if we go back, we may/may not do it again. Who knows. Maybe we’d rather stick with a few TS meals and pack snacks/lunch for the parks like we did when I was a kid. We’ll see once our trip is over how it really worked out for us!

I am not a huge eater. I love to eat, but if I eat a big lunch, I won’t eat dinner, or if I am satisfied from breakfast, I might just not eat lunch and eat dinner. So, I was a bit worried about that. But I just figured, whatever I don’t eat, J will polish off for me.. LOL!

Fast forward to early May, where I stalked Disbaords for a solid 3 weeks awaiting free dining. I was running all kinds of scenarios through my head and in Excel. I realized that it would not be too much more expensive to just make our split stay one big stay! With free dining, we may as well merge our stays and take advantage of it. Plus, we wouldn’t have to switch resorts, and could enjoy the food from the dining plan for those 3 days. I also contemplated doing our split stay but making our POR stay into a stay at a Deluxe resort, but I quickly backed down from that idea.

I was so worried – free dining was thought to be coming out the day after I was running a huge half marathon! I had already made a few of my ADR’s, but would we get FREE dining!? Running the PGH half, plus a 2 hour drive home afterwards, and having to be at work by 8 AM Monday morning was not going to work out for my free dining .. I could just feel it. Well thankfully, free dining didn’t come around until that Wednesday! By that time, I was so ready. I dialed in and got through after just 2-3 minutes on hold (WOO HOO!!) Disney was soooo on my side!!

I had a back up plan. If not POR, we would love to stay at CSR. So, since POR was not included, we hopped over to CSR instead. We were now officially staying at CSR from September 13-20!

YAAAAYYY!!!

 

[Vernie822]

ADR’s
We were able to make our ADR’s sometime in March (I think around St. Patrick’s day). At this point, our Disney trip had only been a reality for about a week, so I had a lot of planning to do in a short amount of time. At this point, we were still planning for a split stay with the dining plan. I called WDW at 7 AM on my 180-day mark and made the following reservations:

O’hana – AK day dinner
Crystal Palace – MK day breakfast
Be Our Guest – MK day dinner
Teppan Edo – Epcot day dinner

I can’t remember if we had any more ADR’s or not, surprisingly! I feel like we had one more.

After cancelling our split stay and just making it one long stay, we were able to add more Table Service ADRs. Prior to merging our split stay, we had 4 TS credits. Now, we had 7 because we are staying Saturday-Saturday.

Our current ADR’s are now..
O’hana – Arrival day
Yachtsman Steakhouse – Post Animal Kingdom dinner
Via Napoli – During ‘Drinks Around the World’
Crystal Palace – Still our MK day breakfast!
Be Our Guest – Still our MK day dinner!
Teppan Edo – Epcot day dinner. Same day as F&W (we are only there for the first day of F&W).. contemplated cancelling this ADR for something else. We’ll see how hungry we are throughout the trip. I may end up cancelling this and adding a breakfast somewhere instead.

We are so excited for ALL of our ADR’s! There isn’t one place on this list that we are so-so about eating at. I think each one will have something that both of us like, and hopefully it is a great deal of variety, too!

 

[Vernie822]

PARK TOURING PLANS
I grappled with the park touring plans for FOREVER. I am extremely Type A, organized, always have a plan. My BF is not – he would prefer to just go with the flow. Any time I am with him and his best friend, they never have a plan and it stresses me out! Haha.

I have come to the conclusion that, on this trip, there will be plenty of things I have seen before and J has not. All of the Disney memories I have are from when I was younger. I was always touring with my large family or with a large school group, so I wasn’t always able to break off and do my own thing. This time, we’ll be able to set our own schedule and see what we want to see – which I am so excited about. J will probably want to see a lot of things I may have already seen before, so I want to make sure I am empathetic to the fact that he has never been there. I want him to really enjoy himself and see things he wants to see!

That being said – I know we can’t see everything in one trip. I’ve used Touring Plans’ website to try and maximize our time, but I haven’t really followed it to a “T”. It had us going in all different directions at times, and I know neither one of us will want to be running around and we’ll want to take it all in. So I’ve adapted the touring plan and maybe switched a thing or two around to meet the expectations I have for us.

Here is our plan:

Saturday: Arrive in MCO @ 2:30 PM, take DME to CSR. Hang around for just a little then it’s off to O’hana for a dinner ADR. Maybe stop in the MK afterwards! The trip hasn’t begun until I see the castle!

Sunday: MNSSHP day! Hang around the pool for a little, explore DTD, and come back to the resort to get ready. MNSSHP from 4-12. No ADR’s today.

Monday: Tampa day. Pick up our rental car, head to Tampa for the Rays game. Explore the beach just a little if we have time, grab some dinner, and enjoy the game. If it rains during the day, we might check out a park (or Downtown Disney if we have time), then head to the ballpark that night. I know it’s a bit of a drive for one day, but it didn’t make sense to me to skip out on a few other days of Disney to stay in Tampa for one baseball game.

Tuesday: AK day! We probably will get back from Tampa around 11:30, so we will try to make it to AK by 9 AM. Stay there until about 3, then go back to the resort. Maybe a little time at the pool, heading to the Yachtsman for dinner that evening. Might end up at DTD afterwards.

Wednesday: DHS day! We will spend the morning/afternoon at DHS. Lunch is QS, probably Pizza Planet. Afterwards, walk to Epcot for the evening. Our evening plans include exploring the pavilions, Illuminations, and dinner at Via Napoli. Currently our ADR is for 9:15. I couldn’t figure out when I wanted it to be, but it looks like it will be right after Illuminations.

Thursday: MK day! I thought at the time that it was a good idea to try for Thursday because of the morning EMH – and then I ended up booking a CP reservation during that EMH!? Anyhow, we have a CP reservation that morning, and a BOG reservation that evening. Yay! I cannot wait for our MK day!

Friday: Epcot F&W day. We didn’t specifically plan the trip around F&W, but I am so glad we’ll be here for it. We’ll spend the day at Epcot, riding in the morning (there’s not too many rides we’ll want to do here, aside from Test Track, Soarin’, and a few others), and exploring F&W/World Showcase in the afternoon. We have an ADR at Teppan Edo that evening, but I’m not sure if we’ll keep it. I know I won’t be hungry, but J probably will be.

Saturday: Head to Miami! Pack up that morning, check out, maybe Kouzzina for breakfast (I have an ADR that I doubt we will end up keeping).
 

 

[skier_pete]

Sounds like a great trip - though I just scanned your posts. You should add a few pictures in there to make it more interesting. And if you want to do a TR - make sure to take LOTS of pictures.

Yes, there was a Disney Institute. It was a place you could go and take classes. It was across the lake from DTD, and it was mostly torn down and replaced with Saratoga Springs. Here's a LINK that talks about it.

Your ADRs sound mostly great. Awesome that you were able to get Be Our Guest, that's a tough one.You will definitely like Yachtsman, we finally got there on our last trip and loved it! I do have to say I was not very impressed with Teppan Edo. If you have a Hibachi style restaurant in your home town, you are better off going to that and trying a different place at Epcot, Teppan Edo has nothing above a Shogun restaurant except Disney prices. If you are on the free Dining plan, I would say try Biergarten if you like entertainment, or Chefs De France if you like higher quality food.

have fun and don't try and kill yourselves. (I remember DW and my first trip back when we were in our twenties - we crammed EVERYTHING into 7 days, including all 3 water parks (River Country still existed) and Universal and Pleasure Island we were so tired but had so much fun!)

 

[Vernie822]

Thanks!! Fortunately I had some time to kill at work today so I finished typing all of that up and I am definitely planning to add some pics!

Most importantly I am looking forward to spending time together and really enjoying ourselves. Though we have a plan, I'm not worried if I miss something because I've been before and I know I'll return. I definitely want J to see what is interesting to him!

We were considering getting rid of Teppan Edo. With plenty of other great food to eat at Food and Wine I know I won't be hungry and I figured it's the same hibachi we get at home. Maybe we'll switch to a breakfast one day instead!

 

[skier_pete]

Most importantly I am looking forward to spending time together and really enjoying ourselves. Though we have a plan, I'm not worried if I miss something because I've been before and I know I'll return. I definitely want J to see what is interesting to him!

That is awesome, especially as your DBF has been working the odd shifts and you haven't been able to spend too much time together. One of my top 3 planning tips (besides "use rope drop" and "understand and use FP+") is "Always have a plan, but be flexible." ADRs and FP+ do tend to tie you down, but don't feel you have to rush around and see EVERYTHING! I know its hard when you don't go frequently or like with DBF its his first trip. But just think if you are having a good time "Oh, we'll just have to do that next time!"

We were considering getting rid of Teppan Edo. With plenty of other great food to eat at Food and Wine I know I won't be hungry and I figured it's the same hibachi we get at home. Maybe we'll switch to a breakfast one day instead!

Well, I'm not a big fan of WDW breakfasts except for Crystal Palace for a few reasons. I'd rather be park touring first thing in the AM, and it's not a very efficient use of a dining credit - lower value for your credit.

How about some sort of early dinner on your MNSSHP day? There's very few food options open in MK during the party. It looks like you sprung the money for park hoppers even though you're only using them one day (DHS->Epcot Wed). Why not make a dinner reservation in Epcot, and then use the monorail to transport over to MK. How about the Coral Reef? Make a 4-5 PM ADR, and get there 30 minutes early and tell them you want a table right on the tank. Yeah, the restaurant is noisy and full of kids as any other, but when you're right on the tank you can kind of shut that out, and it can almost be romantic. The food is pretty good there in my experience. It's near the front of the park, so after dinner you head out to the monorail and you're in MK in <30 minutes. Much, much more unique a dining experience than Teppan Edo.