The Year of Disney - A 2018 PTR. Updated 10/12x4!

I'm impressed with all your plans. My trip is before yours. We have fast passes and some meals planned. Other than me wanting to strangle DH over his ideas for the trips, we have no set plans over our meals and fastpasses. I know one day of the 3 that my FIL is there we are going out for pizza. He loves the Chicago pizza from Giordano.
We are going to e there for 9 full days. Flight lands at 9:25 on arrival day. Our flight leaves Orlando at 10:30 I think. We will all be tired Tuesday morning.
 
I setup to follow the thread, but somehow I'm not getting notifications there have been updates. :sad2:

You and Jim are similar to DW and me. I love biergarten and DW is very ho hum about it. Unfortunately, for our trip, not planning EPCOT this time, so no biergarten for me. :sad:
 
Day 5, Saturday, January 6, 2018

Before I start Day 5, I thought I would share a few pictures from this weekend. It started snowing Friday morning and it didn't stop until Saturday morning. We ended up with a total of 9 1/2 inches at our house. This is unheard of in Georgia! I think the last time they got this much snow was back in 1993 when they had a blizzard come through. They didn't cancel schools or my work on Friday (one of the advantages of working for Government, they actually cancel work when the weather gets bad) but they did send us home at noon. That was NOT a fun ride as the roads were pretty bad by then. Luckily it warmed up Saturday and Sunday and even though there's still a lot of snow on the ground today, the roads were fine coming to work this morning. So here's some pictures of our snow weekend in GA!

Sorry, but I saw enough of this first hand and I don't like snow/cold, so could have done without these.

My doggie is much bigger than yours and she was having trouble getting through the snow (due to how deep). Did yours do the bunny hop method also?
;)

I think y'all may be one of the few in GA that have a snowblower. Where did y'all used to live and did Jim get any funny looks or questions asking what that contraption was? :rotfl:
 


Hello again and welcome back! I am so bummed we weren't able to coordinate and meet up :sad2: I had been so looking forward to it. Gosh darn that weather, it interrupted all our plans! I hope you had a fabulous trip, I'm anxious to hear all about it! :goodvibes

Hopefully it will be a cool day because heat usually just adds to his agitation.
Something tells me it was...
 
2 more weeks, so close! Your final day sounds nice. Hopefully Jim doesn't grumble about it too much ;)

Have a wonderful Christmas if you don't make it back on here! :)

It was definitely a fun trip but very different than I planned thanks to the cold! Hopefully I can get the TR started right after my next trip.

Hi Ariana! :wave2: Just joining in! Sounds like a great first trip! I will be there a few days after you leave so I'll be interested in hearing how everything went when you get back! Our countdown is 26 days!

Good luck on your first Disney 5k! I've been thinking about getting back into training so that I could do one too. I've run on 5K at home years ago and it was a good experience, so I should do it again.

Can't wait to hear about your February trip with mom too! So fun!

Hello! Well, the trip was fun but cold! I hope you had warmer weather than me.

I loved the 5K and can't wait to do another Disney race.

I am going to to a brief overview of the trip coming up in 3 days.


I can't believe how close we are! Plans look great!

Hi Ryan! I was great meeting you this last trip! I had a blast with the race and am definitely going to do another one sometime.

Hall of Presidents opens tomorrow!

Thanks! Jim was so happy to see his favorite show. I actually didn't see it with him but that's a story for the TR if I ever get to starting it. :rotfl:

I'm impressed with all your plans. My trip is before yours. We have fast passes and some meals planned. Other than me wanting to strangle DH over his ideas for the trips, we have no set plans over our meals and fastpasses. I know one day of the 3 that my FIL is there we are going out for pizza. He loves the Chicago pizza from Giordano.
We are going to e there for 9 full days. Flight lands at 9:25 on arrival day. Our flight leaves Orlando at 10:30 I think. We will all be tired Tuesday morning.

I hope you had a great time and much warmer weather than we did!

I setup to follow the thread, but somehow I'm not getting notifications there have been updates. :sad2:

You and Jim are similar to DW and me. I love biergarten and DW is very ho hum about it. Unfortunately, for our trip, not planning EPCOT this time, so no biergarten for me. :sad:

I hate when the DIS does that!

Biergarten wasn't bad this time but I was a little disappointed that the mousse cake I liked so much last time wasn't on the buffet.


Sorry, but I saw enough of this first hand and I don't like snow/cold, so could have done without these.

My doggie is much bigger than yours and she was having trouble getting through the snow (due to how deep). Did yours do the bunny hop method also?
;)

I think y'all may be one of the few in GA that have a snowblower. Where did y'all used to live and did Jim get any funny looks or questions asking what that contraption was? :rotfl:

Yep, lots of bunny hopping going on! Of course that's Ellie all the time, snow or no snow!

That's about the third time we've used the snowblower in GA so the neighbors are used to it. Our next door neighbor came over and borrowed it to do his driveway. I think he just wanted to play with it.
:rotfl:

Hello again and welcome back! I am so bummed we weren't able to coordinate and meet up :sad2: I had been so looking forward to it. Gosh darn that weather, it interrupted all our plans! I hope you had a fabulous trip, I'm anxious to hear all about it! :goodvibes


Something tells me it was...

Hi Tracy! I was bummed we didn't get to meet up! It was definitely cold which made for some interesting days but we made it through. Jim still got a little grumpy at the dessert party but he made it through.
 
Crazy Times In Between Trips

I am sorry folks for disappearing from this PTR! Things just got crazy when I got back from Disney. We had a wonderful time despite the cold and I absolutely loved running the 5K. I’m already plotting when I can get back for another Disney race. I still plan on starting a TR but I haven’t had a chance to upload pictures yet so it will be after this next Disney trip before I get to it.

So what happened that has kept me away from the DIS? Well, first of all, I got super sick when we got home from the trip. So sick in fact that I took my very first sick day in 15 years. Yep, it was that bad. Luckily my boss let me use hours I had saved from when I worked a few Saturdays before Christmas. If not I would have lost my yearly bonus. We get two extra days of pay if we don’t take any sick days.

It turned out that I just had a very bad sinus infection, probably from all the cold weather on our trip, but man did I feel awful!

And then once I felt better, we had a pipe burst in our garage that flooded our finished basement. The only silver lining there was that it didn’t happen while we were at Disney. Our insurance has been great so far. They sent out a company the day after it happened to assess the damage. They ripped out carpet, baseboards and linoleum and set up big fans to dry out everything else. Then a few days later, they came back and packed up everything in the room and moved it in the garage. Then they ripped out the rest of the carpet.

As some of you know, I’m kind of obsessed with and collect pretty much anything Pluto. The room that flooded was my Pluto room. Thank goodness that no Plutos were harmed but I was not happy that they boxed everything up without me there. Jim was home but I was not aware they were doing that until after it was done. I would have preferred to do it myself but then again it would have taken me a while.

So here’s some before pictures of the room. These were taken a few years ago so the collection has grown since then!








And this is what it looks like now. :sad1:



And this is my garage right now (with a few doggie photo bombs).



That area downstairs is L shaped and this is the front room right now. I don’t have any before pictures that I can find.



There’s also a small hall coming off the garage that has my laundry closet off of it. The carpet came out there along with the linoleum in the laundry closet. I didn’t get very good pictures of that area, just this one.



We are now at a stand still waiting for the insurance company to come back and let us know what our claim amount will be. I think we may spend a little extra money and replace the carpeting coming off the garage and the linoleum with tile. The carpet right off the garage was always filthy from the dogs so I wasn’t sad to see it go. I think a nice durable, easy to clean tile will work better there.

One more thing before I get back to Disney talk. Some of you might have noticed my “Merry Christmas to Me” present in one of the prior photos. Yep, I bought myself a treadmill for Christmas!






I love it and it beats staying after work to use the machines there. I was worried that I would lose use of it with the flooding but the packing company left it in the room rather than move it to the garage. They said it was too big to get out of the room so they left it. I did put it together in the room but I’m sure we could get it out of there if necessary. I wasn’t going to protest though!

So, let’s move on to Disney and the trip in 3 days! I’m going to do a separate post here that gives a very brief outline of the trip as I really don’t have time to pull photos for everything and do details for each day. A lot of the trip is still up in the air because I don’t know how much time we will spend with my Aunt and Uncle. They may want us with them every minute or they may not want us to interfere at all. I really think it will be somewhere in between those too. So stay tuned for the next update…….
 


Disney, February 2018

I’m going to list out our plans and also my Aunt and Uncles. I will label their plans “Chicago Gang”. I did manage to take pictures of my outfits so at least you get that. Oh, and here are our Magic Bands. Mine’s the pink one and Mom got her 4th or 5th orange one. I guess she really, really likes orange.




Friday, February 2nd



Chicago Gang – they are not arriving until Saturday so we won’t see them this day.

Mom and I: Mom is flying through Atlanta so I will pick her up at her gate and then we will board a plane together for Orlando. We land at MCO at 12:00 pm.

Our Hotel is Pop Century this time. The Chicago Gang is at AOA but there weren’t any rooms left there when Mom and I decided to book. So we chose to be across the bridge from them.

This will be our only Hollywood Studios day. I only made us two Fast Passes as there really wasn’t anything else we wanted:

Toy Story Mania 3:55 - 4:55 pm
Tower of Terror 5:10 - 6:10 pm

Other than those two Fast Passes, we plan on checking out the new Baseline Tap House and do some shopping. I would like to catch the Frozen show because Jim and I missed it in January but it’s not a must do.

Dinner is at Sci Fi Drive in Theater at 7:00 pm. The park closes at 8 pm and we will most likely just head out after dinner.


Saturday, February 3rd



Chicago Gang – most of their group land at MCO at 9 am. Four of them land at Orlando Sanford at 1 pm.

Their Fast Passes for the day are:

Pirates 3:40 - 4:40 pm
Jungle Cruise 4:40 - 5:40 pm
Haunted Mansion 5:40 - 6:40 pm

They have dinner reservations at Chef Mickey's at 6:35 pm

Mom and I – We will be starting our day with the Bon Voyage breakfast at the Boardwalk at 8:45 am. I plan to use Lyft to get there so we don’t have to leave so early.

After breakfast we will head to Disney Springs for shopping. As you probably recall from previous TRs, Mom and I love to shop!

I tried for a while to get a Chef Mickey’s dinner reservation at the same time as the Chicago Gang but I was only able to get 5:35 pm. We will head there after Disney Springs (or maybe after a stop back a POP depending on the time). I plan to mention to our waiter or waitress that we are surprising them and I’m hoping they will be able to help us out with the surprise.

I have one Fast Pass made for this evening which is to meet Tinkerbell from 7:30 – 8:30 pm. I honestly don’t know if we will use it or not but we both have Annual Passes so popping into Main Street for some shopping is on our minds. Mom mentioned that she would like to meet Tinkerbell so I went ahead and made the FP.


Sunday, February 4th



Chicago Gang will be headed to Magic Kingdom for the day. About a week ago I managed to snag them a BOG breakfast ADR at 8:55 am (for 11 people!). They are really excited about this ADR and I told them to preorder and also told them the secret that they can get into the restaurant any time after they open at 8 am even though their ADR isn’t till 8:55 am. I hope they do get there early because of the time of their first Fast Pass:

Big Thunder Mountain - 9:20 - 10:20 am
Splash Mountain 12:15 - 1:15 pm
7 Dwarfs Mine Train 2:00 - 3:00 pm

The will be having dinner at 1900 Park Fare at 7:45 pm

Mom and I will also be heading to Magic Kingdom for the day. Here’s our Fast passes.


Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 9:10 - 10:10 am

Pirates 10:25 - 11:25 am
7 Dwarfs Mine Train 2:45 - 3:45 pm

I had to make ours a day before theirs and I did go back and try to change some to match with theirs. I wasn’t able to move our 7DMT any earlier though. Also, Mom and I don’t do Splash Mountain so I made the Pirates one for us instead.

We have a lunch ADR at Liberty Tree Tavern at 12:30 pm. Then that night I have the HEA dessert party booked for Mom and me. Shhh, Mom doesn’t know, it’s a surprise. Jim and I did it a few weeks ago and while he wasn’t thrilled, I loved it. Spoiler alert, I also loved HEA and can’t wait to see it again.


Monday, February 5th



The Chicago Gang will be heading to Hollywood Studios in the morning for Jedi Training/Frozen Sing-a-Long then they will hop to Epcot for the afternoon. Their Fast Passes are for:

Nemo and Friends 12:30 - 1:30 pm
Figment 2:50 - 3:50 pm
Frozen Ever After 5:20 - 6:20 pm

They have dinner at Teppen Edo at 4 pm and then plan to head back to Hollywood Studios for the Star Wars fireworks at 8:15 pm.


Mom and I discussed heading to Hollywood Studios to see the kids in the Jedi Academy but we decided to just stick with Epcot for the whole day. We may still change our minds which we can do with our APs. Our Fast Passes for the day are:

Spaceship Earth 9:10 -10:10 am
Living With the Land 10:50 - 11:50 am
Frozen Ever After 5:25 - 6:25 pm

We have lunch reservations at Coral Reef at 12:05 pm. Coral Reef is one of our favorite restaurants but it wasn’t our first chose for this day. We wanted to go to Tutto Italia for dinner but for some reason I was never able to get us an ADR. I used Touring Plans and checked myself multiple times a day for months. The restaurant is not that popular so I’m thinking it might be closed for a private event that night.

It worked out though because we plan on sampling some of the Arts Festival food that evening. We are both really excited to check out the Arts Festival and all it has to offer. I definitely plan to do the Figment Scavenger Hunt since I loved the Easter Egg hunt so much last year.


Tuesday, February 6th



The Chicago Gang is headed to Animal Kingdom. Their Fast Passes are:

Safari 9:20 - 10:20 am
Flights of Passage 2:10 - 3:10 pm
Dinosaur 4:45 - 5:45 pm

They have a late lunch (or maybe early dinner?) at Tusker House at 3:25 pm with a Rivers of Light Package. Rivers of Light is at 7:15 pm that night.

Mom and I are also headed to Animal Kingdom. I’m hoping to get there early enough so that we can head to NRJ at rope drop. I wasn’t able to plan much around Chicago’s Fast Passes thanks to FOP but I do hope to get a Dinosaur one as our 4th so we can ride with them.

Expedition Everest 9:50 - 10:50 am
Flights of Passage 10:50 - 11:50 am
Safari 2:25 - 3:25 pm

We also have a lunch at Tusker House at 12:25 pm with Rivers of Light Package. I think I’m in the minority as I loved ROL when we saw it a few weeks ago and I can’t wait to see it again with Mom. We will be at the same show as the Chicago Gang so I’m sure we will sit together.


Wednesday, February 7th

No outfit this day as Mom and I will be flying home early that morning. My flight which is first isn’t till 1:00 pm but with Disney’s new 4 hour policy, we will have to catch the DME at 9 am.

The Chicago Gang flies out later that night so they are headed to Hollywood Studios for a few hours with the following Fast Passes.

Toy Story Mania 9:10 - 10:10 am
Star Tours 10:35 - 11:35 am
Tower of Terror - 11:55 - 12:55 pm

And that’s the end for this trip! I hope to get it together and start both TRs soon after I get home. I probably won’t start updates here again for the October trip for a bit because I’m only in the very preliminary stages of planning for that one.
 
You weren't the only one who got sick after coming back from Disney that week. Several did. I seemed to be one of few that didn't get sick but I think I am getting sick now as we speak. Congrats on the 5K and that awesome looking treadmill! Boo to the flooding...
 
Glad to hear the 5K went well! I look forward to that TR :)

I'm so sorry to hear you got sick and about your basement! Thank goodness nothing got ruined!

Your plans sound great! I'm sure it will be a nice balance of being with the Chicago gang and some alone time with your mom. Have a wonderful trip!!!
 
I didn't realize the flood happened IN THE PLUTO ROOM!!!!!!!! Thank goodness nothing was damaged.....and giant BOOOO to having it packed up without you there. I am way too Type A about my stuff--it's probably good Jim was there at least, but I would have been freaking out for sure.

Our Hotel is Pop Century this time.
I wonder if you'll get a refurbed room--did you do any room requests?? Pop Century has become our go-to since our trip when I was pregnant with Jimmy. We just never spend enough time in our room to make it worth paying more even though I'd love to stay at some of the other resorts just to try them out! I hope you love it :)

Mom and I – We will be starting our day with the Bon Voyage breakfast at the Boardwalk at 8:45 am.

Time to meet Prince Eric!!!!!! :)

I plan to mention to our waiter or waitress that we are surprising them and I’m hoping they will be able to help us out with the surprise.
That will be so awesome!! Can't wait to hear how this plays out!

Shhh, Mom doesn’t know, it’s a surprise. Jim and I did it a few weeks ago and while he wasn’t thrilled, I loved it. Spoiler alert, I also loved HEA and can’t wait to see it again.
The only time we saw HEA on our trip in Dec/Jan was from the Contemporary during our Highway in the Sky event. It was SO ungodly cold and windy on that balcony that we really didn't get a good feel for any of the soundtrack (so hard to hear over the gusty winds!) or projections. Definitely a fail on my part. I really want to see it from MK next time!

I definitely plan to do the Figment Scavenger Hunt since I loved the Easter Egg hunt so much last year.
That did look like fun!! I hope you get an exciting prize :)

My flight which is first isn’t till 1:00 pm but with Disney’s new 4 hour policy, we will have to catch the DME at 9 am.
Are they still doing the 4 hour?? It definitely was still 4 hours for our trip, but I thought I had read that it would be changing back to 3 hours....can't actually remember for sure, though I remember saying, "oh sure it's going back to 3 after we leave!!"
 
Oh man, being sick and the flooding...what a bummer!
Glad to have an update and can't wait for your duel TR for your Jan trip and your upcoming Feb with your mom.
I always enjoy your TR's :) Your outfits are awesome! How many bags do you have now?
 
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Sounds like it's been a rough couple of weeks with the sickness and flooding, but it can only go up from here right? If your not back before then, have a great trip with your mom!!
 
Crazy Times In Between Trips

I am sorry folks for disappearing from this PTR! Things just got crazy when I got back from Disney. We had a wonderful time despite the cold and I absolutely loved running the 5K. I’m already plotting when I can get back for another Disney race. I still plan on starting a TR but I haven’t had a chance to upload pictures yet so it will be after this next Disney trip before I get to it.

So what happened that has kept me away from the DIS? Well, first of all, I got super sick when we got home from the trip. So sick in fact that I took my very first sick day in 15 years. Yep, it was that bad. Luckily my boss let me use hours I had saved from when I worked a few Saturdays before Christmas. If not I would have lost my yearly bonus. We get two extra days of pay if we don’t take any sick days.

It turned out that I just had a very bad sinus infection, probably from all the cold weather on our trip, but man did I feel awful!

And then once I felt better, we had a pipe burst in our garage that flooded our finished basement. The only silver lining there was that it didn’t happen while we were at Disney. Our insurance has been great so far. They sent out a company the day after it happened to assess the damage. They ripped out carpet, baseboards and linoleum and set up big fans to dry out everything else. Then a few days later, they came back and packed up everything in the room and moved it in the garage. Then they ripped out the rest of the carpet.

As some of you know, I’m kind of obsessed with and collect pretty much anything Pluto. The room that flooded was my Pluto room. Thank goodness that no Plutos were harmed but I was not happy that they boxed everything up without me there. Jim was home but I was not aware they were doing that until after it was done. I would have preferred to do it myself but then again it would have taken me a while.

So here’s some before pictures of the room. These were taken a few years ago so the collection has grown since then!
So sorry you got sick. Glad your boss was nice/decent/cool about it. Any openings in your department? ;)

That stinks about the basement, but glad nothing Pluto was damaged. Holy cow!!! I knew you liked pluto from your name, but WOW!!! Also good the insurance has been good about it vs. trying to claim it was an "act of God". So, in a way, it's a blessing...you get a new floor out of the deal and get rid of the dirty carpet. ;)
 
So sorry to hear about your crazy in-between trips time at home! Your poor Pluto room :sad: Hopefully things will be back to normal soon for you :hug:

I hope you had a wonderful trip! Cannot wait to hear all about both :thumbsup2
 
Once again I have to apologize for disappearing. Things have just been crazy between work and the home renovations we have been doing. I promise to be back here soon with replies and an update on the October trip. And the possibility of a bonus trip before the October one.

For now I've managed to start the February TR. Yep, I started the February one before January mainly because I took no notes for February and very few pictures. I think I can knock this one out pretty quickly. I hope to get the January one started next week. In the meantime, here's the link to the February trip.

Shopping and Eating Our Way Around the World
 

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