RAPstar
Proud Redhead
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2008
Hello and welcome!!
My name is Robbie, or Andy to some people on here (it's a long story). I'm pretty close to a month out from my upcoming trip, so I figured I should start my pre-TR, since it's become tradition to me start about a month out or so. I'll also be doing a separate TR for the Universal half of my trip, but it's only barely 3 days there, and Universal is so easy I barely need to do any planning, so I won't be doing a pre-TR. I'll post a link to my TR here when I do them both.
First thing's first: a face to go with the name
Recent pic:
and just because I love him, my furbaby Draco (who's currently living with his "mim", my mom, cause with my work and such I don't get much time to be with him, so it's better for him there cause there are other dogs and my mom lives on a farm so lots of room to run and play):
So, to begin, I should say this will be my 7th trip to the Orlando area in 6 years? Once a year since 2008, not counting 2012 since I was living in California most of that year (but I did make it to Disneyland quite a few times).
I got the idea the end of last year to do a trip in June for my birthday, since I hadn't been that season since the early 2000's, and because it's my birthday!! Well, unfortunately that week was full at work so I couldn't get it off (we have to do all our requests for the year at one time, and then it's done by seniority, and there is a max. of 6 people allowed off from each site each day). So I was pretty much stuck with my May backup dates since we also have to use half of our vacation time before June, everything else was pretty much full.
I was quite bummed when my original plan fell through. So much so I had a crises of what I wanted to do. For some reason, not going on my birthday took the thrill out of going to Disney. I went back and forth over several ideas: Disney, Universal, NYC, Disneyland/California, a cruise. Several ideas. I then just decided to do just Universal so I could get my money's worth out of the AP I got last year for my HHN trip. But even that felt lackluster. But then I looked at the prices for Disney again, and I realized if I only did a few days at UO, and then switched to Disney, I'd end up saving $100 (thanks to a very good CM friend of mine who will stay with me while I'm Disney, 50% off!!).
Now that I had a plan I felt happy with, I planned my little heart out. Especially with all the new adventures I was going to have! I'd never been in May before, so it was the draw of Star Wars weekends and the Flower and Garden festival that were getting me excited. I also decided to do some tours in Epcot, the Behind the Seeds tour (which I kept saying I was gonna do every year but never seemed to make it), and the UnDISCOVERed Future World tour. I'm also gonna get my haircut at the barber shop on Main Street. Plus, when making ADR's, I made it a point to try to go to more restaurants I always looked at going to, but changed my mind about. Plus there was all the "excitement" of the Magic Bands and FP+ to figure out. I found out on here that CM tickets weren't elegible for FP+, and with all I was wanting to get done, I decided to purchase a one day MK ticket, and then I got a complimentary ticket through a hook up I have (shhhhh, it's a secret, lol).
My big thing this trip was to relax more, instead of hustling about the parks trying to get everything done. Which is why I am only uber-planning my MK and SWW days. It looks like I'll have 3 days at Epcot around the busy days, plus the 3 days at the start, to chill out some.
And so here we are. Almost a month out, and I finally have all my ADR's finalized (people on here know me for changing my mind...a lot. Like a lot a lot). Got FP+ for the experiences I want (including Anna and Elsa!! Yay!!). Now to just get there and hope that most of my plans go off well (the best laid plans as they say). And that's pretty much it. I'll update with my itinerary and other fun stuff between now and May!
As I finish here, I figured I'd share one more pic from one of my previous Disney trips, and my performance when I finally made it into the American Idol show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz3jL-XsRxM
Hope y'all enjoy!! (oh, and I work nights, so I'll probably post more things at odd hours, just FYI, lol)
My name is Robbie, or Andy to some people on here (it's a long story). I'm pretty close to a month out from my upcoming trip, so I figured I should start my pre-TR, since it's become tradition to me start about a month out or so. I'll also be doing a separate TR for the Universal half of my trip, but it's only barely 3 days there, and Universal is so easy I barely need to do any planning, so I won't be doing a pre-TR. I'll post a link to my TR here when I do them both.
First thing's first: a face to go with the name
Recent pic:
and just because I love him, my furbaby Draco (who's currently living with his "mim", my mom, cause with my work and such I don't get much time to be with him, so it's better for him there cause there are other dogs and my mom lives on a farm so lots of room to run and play):
So, to begin, I should say this will be my 7th trip to the Orlando area in 6 years? Once a year since 2008, not counting 2012 since I was living in California most of that year (but I did make it to Disneyland quite a few times).
I got the idea the end of last year to do a trip in June for my birthday, since I hadn't been that season since the early 2000's, and because it's my birthday!! Well, unfortunately that week was full at work so I couldn't get it off (we have to do all our requests for the year at one time, and then it's done by seniority, and there is a max. of 6 people allowed off from each site each day). So I was pretty much stuck with my May backup dates since we also have to use half of our vacation time before June, everything else was pretty much full.
I was quite bummed when my original plan fell through. So much so I had a crises of what I wanted to do. For some reason, not going on my birthday took the thrill out of going to Disney. I went back and forth over several ideas: Disney, Universal, NYC, Disneyland/California, a cruise. Several ideas. I then just decided to do just Universal so I could get my money's worth out of the AP I got last year for my HHN trip. But even that felt lackluster. But then I looked at the prices for Disney again, and I realized if I only did a few days at UO, and then switched to Disney, I'd end up saving $100 (thanks to a very good CM friend of mine who will stay with me while I'm Disney, 50% off!!).
Now that I had a plan I felt happy with, I planned my little heart out. Especially with all the new adventures I was going to have! I'd never been in May before, so it was the draw of Star Wars weekends and the Flower and Garden festival that were getting me excited. I also decided to do some tours in Epcot, the Behind the Seeds tour (which I kept saying I was gonna do every year but never seemed to make it), and the UnDISCOVERed Future World tour. I'm also gonna get my haircut at the barber shop on Main Street. Plus, when making ADR's, I made it a point to try to go to more restaurants I always looked at going to, but changed my mind about. Plus there was all the "excitement" of the Magic Bands and FP+ to figure out. I found out on here that CM tickets weren't elegible for FP+, and with all I was wanting to get done, I decided to purchase a one day MK ticket, and then I got a complimentary ticket through a hook up I have (shhhhh, it's a secret, lol).
My big thing this trip was to relax more, instead of hustling about the parks trying to get everything done. Which is why I am only uber-planning my MK and SWW days. It looks like I'll have 3 days at Epcot around the busy days, plus the 3 days at the start, to chill out some.
And so here we are. Almost a month out, and I finally have all my ADR's finalized (people on here know me for changing my mind...a lot. Like a lot a lot). Got FP+ for the experiences I want (including Anna and Elsa!! Yay!!). Now to just get there and hope that most of my plans go off well (the best laid plans as they say). And that's pretty much it. I'll update with my itinerary and other fun stuff between now and May!
As I finish here, I figured I'd share one more pic from one of my previous Disney trips, and my performance when I finally made it into the American Idol show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz3jL-XsRxM
Hope y'all enjoy!! (oh, and I work nights, so I'll probably post more things at odd hours, just FYI, lol)
