It's Your Birthday - You're Going to Disney! (A Jan. 2019 PTR)

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Hello everyone and welcome to my newest PTR!

For those of you who don't know me I'm Elle and this is Liz!

Don't we look so wide awake and happy to be alive? This picture was taken at like 6 am lol!

So I'm Elle - i'm 30, and by trade I am an ELA teacher/theatre teacher at the middle school level. I love Disney, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, basically everything pop culture. I'm an Annual Passholder and love taking pictures and video of my trips just for fun.

Liz is one of my oldest friends. She's a former parks CM and has recently become an Annual Passholder as well. She loves Big Thunder, Belle, and Peter Pan.

Liz and I have gone to Disney together twice, but I used to visit her whenever I went down to the parks so we have had many adventures in the parks together.

This time we're going just the two of us!

A minor amount of backstory - I kind of hate my birthday. I don't hate getting older or anything like that, I just hate where it physically sits on the calendar. It's right after New Year's so I have to go back to work, no one's able to get together because of the holidays, and up here it's usually snowy. I like having it in January, I've just always wanted it to not be the same week as a big holiday.

I've been talking about how much I have wanted to do another birthday trip for a couple of years. So this year, Liz suggested that since we are both AP holders, we should head out on a girls weekend.

So now we're going over MLK weekend! I'm super excited, and I have no idea how to plan! This PTR will be a lot of me panicking into the void, but I hope you enjoy!

 

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Plans, Plan, Plans...

It's been kind of a weird past two weeks for me. I was super sick last weekend and while I'm feeling 1000 times better I still have this really annoying cough and runny nose that nothing is touching - not even my allergy medicine! So last Thursday I struggled through Parents' Night where I had to give 5 10 minute long presentations with a low-grade fever. I am shocked I made it in all honesty. I was not the most fun to be around that day - I feel bad for my students. When my principal popped her head in at the end of the night she told me to take Friday off.

So....I did. Which was definitely what I needed! Between rehearsals, parents night, and my sinuses waking me up all week I was dead on my feet. I slept until 8 AM! I got out of bed at 9 AM! These are unheard of things for me!

While I was sick at home, I did what any normal person would do - I spent time looking at Disney.

I first bought some of the Colourpop x Disney collection - the eye shadow palette and the luxe lip set because they are so gorgeous (they should be at my house today - I'm so excited!)

Then I started planning this trip.

Which was a ridiculous thing for me to start doing for two reasons:

1. I am going to Florida with my mother TOMORROW after work for the long weekend (we did Food & Wine last year and as much as I want to go back, she wants to see all the Harry Potter stuff in Universal because she hasn't been back for 8 years.

Do you want to know how much planning I've put into this trip? 0. I mean, we have our hotel and tickets and planes and transport to/from the airport. But I have nothing else planned. Which I mean, is kind of nice because we can just do whatever, but I have been more focused on my August trip next year than this one.

2. Also, Liz goes to Food & Wine with her DBF next weekend. She has also not planned for that trip. You would think both of us would be more interested in/think our next trip is more important than the trip we have coming up in three months' time.

But I had the time, so I looked. Thursday night between work and Parents' Night I booked a hotel room for us, at All Star Movies from Thursday-Monday. My hope is that I can take Friday off and head down Thursday night. I'm not sure if I'll be able to, so if I can't I'm going to tell Liz to head down a day early and do a solo day/spend a day with friends since we have the room and I'll be down the next day.

I also made our first ADR of our trip Friday - I booked us a 7:30 PM reservation for Saturday night at the Edison. It was my biggest request for my birthday meal. I've never eaten there before because we never had the opportunity in July when we went and it wasn't open yet in October of last year. i had originally made a reservation for Friday night but then my panic about the possibility of not being able to get there in time took over.

Then this week happened. While it's not been a bad week, I've just been super stressed all week and last night was the first time I really had to sit down and just really have a night to relax.

Liz has been having kind of a hard time at work recently so last night was a nice night for us to just talk, figure out Disney plans, and relax. While talking we went from thinking about maybe getting brunch the Sunday we're there to making an ADR for Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' at 10:15 AM on the Sunday we're down. We both love brunch and Southern style cooking and we figured that if we got brunch, our plan could be to go to Epcot and have a couple snacks at the World Showcase if we get hungry.

So, plans so far:

Plan A -
* Take an evening flight THURSDAY, Jan. 17 from either ORH or BOS (depending on Liz's work schedule)
* FRIDAY, Jan. 18: Spend the day in the parks, no ADR
* SATURDAY, Jan. 19: Spend the day in the parks, ADR for Edison 7:30
* SUNDAY, Jan. 20: ADR for Homecomin' 10:15 am, Epcot afternoon
* MONDAY, Jan. 21: Spend the day in the parks, Evening flight to BOS

Plan B would be the same, except only Liz could get in Thursday, I'd have to go Friday.

 

[disney-inspired]

I'm joining in! We are going to WDW in January too.

 

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I'm joining in! We are going to WDW in January too.

yay! Welcome!

 

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So, this trip? Cannot come soon enough.

I was asked to direct the musical at school, which is fine. But I specifically said I cannot do more than simply direct because I am also in charge of the one-act competition that we do. And of course my big boss decided to put me fully in charge anyway. Which is...already stressful and I haven't even done anything yet.

So this trip will be at the beginning of that madness and it cannot come soon enough.

We have no plans still outside of our meals. Which is fine. I actually forgot that I could make FPs soon, so I just remembered to put that into my calendar to remind me.

But I have been super stressing about what to bring to wear? Like, I know the average temperature in January according to the internet is in the low 70s, but last year I know it was super cold (30s, 40s? I think?) so now I'm just super skeptical about anything to bring.

I know one of my outfits is going to be jeans, a Lost Bro's Princess shirt, and a Cakeworthy Merida plaid with a pair of fairygodsisters ears (or my Whosits and Whatsits hat if it's windy), and that would definitely be a cute Magic Kingdom outfit for a day that was in the 60s or 70s. There is also a cute Tangled-inspired sweater at Torrid right now I would love to get and have a cute Rapunzel-themed outfit.

But my biggest issue is the Edison day. I want to dress up a bit - I was thinking a cute Disney dress - but I just don't know which to get. And it's hard to find Disney dresses in the style I like. It's super frustrating.

 

[disney-inspired]

So, this trip? Cannot come soon enough.

I was asked to direct the musical at school, which is fine. But I specifically said I cannot do more than simply direct because I am also in charge of the one-act competition that we do. And of course my big boss decided to put me fully in charge anyway. Which is...already stressful and I haven't even done anything yet.

So this trip will be at the beginning of that madness and it cannot come soon enough.

We have no plans still outside of our meals. Which is fine. I actually forgot that I could make FPs soon, so I just remembered to put that into my calendar to remind me.

But I have been super stressing about what to bring to wear? Like, I know the average temperature in January according to the internet is in the low 70s, but last year I know it was super cold (30s, 40s? I think?) so now I'm just super skeptical about anything to bring.

I know one of my outfits is going to be jeans, a Lost Bro's Princess shirt, and a Cakeworthy Merida plaid with a pair of fairygodsisters ears (or my Whosits and Whatsits hat if it's windy), and that would definitely be a cute Magic Kingdom outfit for a day that was in the 60s or 70s. There is also a cute Tangled-inspired sweater at Torrid right now I would love to get and have a cute Rapunzel-themed outfit.

But my biggest issue is the Edison day. I want to dress up a bit - I was thinking a cute Disney dress - but I just don't know which to get. And it's hard to find Disney dresses in the style I like. It's super frustrating.

We are feeling the same way about clothes. We've never been during this time of year and have heard extremes on both sides. I guess I'll have to play it by ear and just keep checking the forecast when we get close to our trip.

Yay FP! I have to wake up early twice since we have to separate reservations.

 

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We are feeling the same way about clothes. We've never been during this time of year and have heard extremes on both sides. I guess I'll have to play it by ear and just keep checking the forecast when we get close to our trip.

Yay FP! I have to wake up early twice since we have to separate reservations.

For clothes I went full on obsessive (oops?) on Monday and I looked at the weather for the weekend we're down there for the past 5 years to try and find an average temperature. It seems to be in the 60s mostly so I'm thinking lighter sweaters and leggings/jeans with a couple t-shirts to be on the safe side this time around.

Good luck with FPs! I just did mine this morning!

 

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Fastpasses are done!

YAY!

I woke up around 6:30 this morning to get myself ready for 7 am and was able to get almost everything I wanted. The only thing that wasn't available was a Peter Pan FP but we plan on rope dropping it anyway.

January 18:
- 10:10 Pirates
- 11:45 Mansion
- 2:05 Thunder Mountain

January 19:
- 9:15 Spaceship Earth
- 11:10 Soarin'

January 20:
- 12:30 Thunder Mountain
- 1:40 Mine Train
- 2:40 Space Mountain

January 21:
- 10:10 Flights of Passage
- 11:35 Dinosaur
- 1:30 Festival of the Lion King

We tried to front load everything mostly because we want to have the opportunity to go to more than one park a day or grab dinner in other places. We'd like to go to Sanaa lounge and Trader Sam's (personal favorites) for drinks and some dinner, try the new Tambu Lounge menu, and just have some time to have fun. Woo!

Now I have to go spend 12 hours singing Christmas carols. How is the end of November already?

 

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Yay!! Another trip to read about!!

and I need to go catch up on the rosegold rat pack after this.

I'm glad you get to celebrate your birthday in a big way this year - I always considered mine to be at a terrible time, too. It's always at conference time, right in the middle of Odyssey of the Mind season, and just never convenient to make any plans in advance.

I'm sorry work has been stressful - I swear November just started and now it's already over!! Where has the year gone??

 

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Yay!! Another trip to read about!!

and I need to go catch up on the rosegold rat pack after this.

I'm glad you get to celebrate your birthday in a big way this year - I always considered mine to be at a terrible time, too. It's always at conference time, right in the middle of Odyssey of the Mind season, and just never convenient to make any plans in advance.

I'm sorry work has been stressful - I swear November just started and now it's already over!! Where has the year gone??

I've been seriously slacking on TR and PTR so don't worry about the catch up lol.

I had a student be incredibly polite to me today (he knew I was redoing seating charts for the new month) and I told him he should be that nice to me tomorrow as a birthday present

Thankfully work's gotten better I'll put that in my update for this woefully neglected PTR lol

 

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I have been very negligent to this poor PTR! I had a show at the end of November and right after it ended I got strep. I still don't fully have my voice back, which is fun for me. Then, last week I got the stomach flu. Then I was away from Sunday to Tuesday. So I haven't really been online at all, and I definitely haven't been on the DiS because I have not had the ability to focus for longer than a couple of minutes. I finished editing my videos for my TR and that was about it.

Real life update: work slowed down a bit at least. I ended up having a breakdown and went to talk to my boss who helped to take some of the stress out.

But tomorrow is my two week mark! I'm super excited! Tomorrow's also my birthday so I'm going to use that as an excuse to start packing for my trip.

I have yet to buy a plane ticket - prices went skyrocketing around the holidays when I could have bought it so we put it off until afterwards. I should be able to buy it tomorrow though, which is good!

I still have no idea what I'm wearing to the parks, but I'm super excited to be going!

 

[sheri18]

Hi. Joining in. Wea regoing in 9 days...getting so excited

 

[disney-inspired]

I have been very negligent to this poor PTR! I had a show at the end of November and right after it ended I got strep. I still don't fully have my voice back, which is fun for me. Then, last week I got the stomach flu. Then I was away from Sunday to Tuesday. So I haven't really been online at all, and I definitely haven't been on the DiS because I have not had the ability to focus for longer than a couple of minutes. I finished editing my videos for my TR and that was about it.

Real life update: work slowed down a bit at least. I ended up having a breakdown and went to talk to my boss who helped to take some of the stress out.

But tomorrow is my two week mark! I'm super excited! Tomorrow's also my birthday so I'm going to use that as an excuse to start packing for my trip.

I have yet to buy a plane ticket - prices went skyrocketing around the holidays when I could have bought it so we put it off until afterwards. I should be able to buy it tomorrow though, which is good!

I still have no idea what I'm wearing to the parks, but I'm super excited to be going!

The weather has been all over the place lately in FL. We will probably have to wait until the week before we leave to decide how to pack.

Just this week it’s been 80s and then dropped down to 69.

 

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The weather has been all over the place lately in FL. We will probably have to wait until the week before we leave to decide how to pack.

Just this week it’s been 80s and then dropped down to 69.

My basic plan is to throw a bunch of t-shirts into a bag that have already been laundered and I know I'll wear either by themselves or under a light sweater/jacket/sweatshirt/whatever I end up needing for the day.

Basically I'm just trying to make outfit themes with layers and hoping I can downsize from there

 

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We leave on Thursday!

And it looks like I miss a storm up here - it doesn't look like it will be huge, but it looks like it's still better to be in Florida than here!

Our plans almost went to freefall and had to be super changed!

So, here's what happened:

* First, we decided that we definitely want to go to MK and not DHS our first day, so we switched back to our original plan. Which is fine. We don't have a set day to go to DHS yet, but we figured we can go one evening if we can.

* As I have mentioned, 90% of flights home on Monday have been excessively expensive. We decided that since prices tend to be better on Tuesdays we'd get our flight last Tuesday. Well, the flight we were going to go with via American rose in price in the 20 minutes between my finding it and us agreeing on it. And by "rose in price" I mean it went from under $300 to almost $400 in 20 minutes. There was one flight that was under $400 that seemed viable - but our biggest issue was that it was at 1 pm and we would lose a park day. If we were staying longer it wouldn't have been an issue, but we had specifically planned that day as our DAK day and we had FoP FPs that we really didn't want to have to part with.

So Liz, who is a last-minute flyer anyway, has been super okay with this. Me, who is NOT a last-minute anything type of person, has been super stressed about this the entire time. I keep making jokes about the fact that we live in Disney forever now, but in my head I've been super worried that I would have to miss work on Tuesday and I'd get flagged for missing two days around a long weekend or something bad was going to happen.

Last night I sent Liz a message (we've been trying to stay on the same page but since our work schedules are so different right now texting has been our best bet for getting organized) saying that if flights stayed consistent with where they were last night then we would need to just bite the bullet and lose the park day. Neither of us wanted to do it, but it was the only option we had at that point.

This morning when she got to work Liz was able to look at flights before she had to open. There was a flight into Providence that was $40 more expensive than the flight that was leaving at 1 pm, it was a direct flight, and it didn't leave until 9 pm, so we wouldn't have to give up our park day or try and rearrange our weekend to get to DAK (since we both do love the park). It was also a Jetblue flight so I was able to earn points which is always a bonus. We actually saved $2 off the listed price when we booked, which was a nice bonus as well.

So, we are officially coming home! Which honestly up until this morning I didn't think we were.

So now everything is great! I have rehearsal with my students tonight and tomorrow for our school musical and our competition play which will help time go by faster. I need to finish packing and charge up all my devices tonight so I don't have to worry on Thursday - in October I was able to take the morning I was leaving to pack up my last things because I had a meeting day and not a teaching day (they start about a half hour later and I can leave to get lunch so I don't have to make lunch and can leave my house 15-20 minutes later without it being an issue to get to work) but this time around it's a normal Thursday.

 

[disney-inspired]

I'm glad you were able to get a flight at the time that works best. I've never been able to do that - buy my return flight close to the trip. I would just be wayyy stressed out.

You are gone in 2 days - WOW! I leave on the 26th so I'm here sitting at 11 days.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

So Liz, who is a last-minute flyer anyway, has been super okay with this. Me, who is NOT a last-minute anything type of person, has been super stressed about this the entire time. I keep making jokes about the fact that we live in Disney forever now, but in my head I've been super worried that I would have to miss work on Tuesday and I'd get flagged for missing two days around a long weekend or something bad was going to happen.

Oh my goodness! I would have gone batty waiting that long to book. Glad to hear it worked out for you.

Have fun!!!!