YIPPEEE We are Finally Heading Home -- DVC Owners & Reservations At Last! 4/16 update

Moira222

Can't get enough of the Magic & Pixie Dust!
Joined
Jan 30, 2008
I don’t even officially have a real ticker yet but I am going to be doing my PTR/TR all together, right here, for your reading pleasure! :cool1:


What’s this you are asking? How can I plan and start a PTR/TR with no dates? Wait and see. popcorn::



First, the cast of characters for the upcoming trip.

Joe – my DH. If you recall from my last TR, Joe has asked that I not post his photo on the boards. Last trip I tried to take random photos like this:
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I’m going to have to try & change his mind. He’s such a handsome guy, I feel guilty blurring out his face. But I will if it keeps him happy. Joe is such a Disney-holic. (Does a side view count? I hope not! )
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I bet he watches a Disney related video on you-tube at least once a day. You’d never guess how I had to insist and stomp my foot before our first Disney trip. While we have done a Disney trip for Joe’s birthday, it was not a magical birthday trip. Let’s just say Wilderness Lodge fell from grace that trip.



Katie –
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Our little monkey. (oops, I’ve been asked not to call her that any more. SHHH don’t tell her). Katie is 9, and is every bit the early tween. The swings between little girl-ness and teenage attitude are crazy. She is so psyched that we are traveling with friends, as it means she will have a buddy to play and “hang out” with. She keeps asking me why we can’t just go adopt a girl her age so she has a sister. Sigh. I wish it were all that simple. But it’s just not going to happen in our family. She will have to be content with girl-friends & cousins.

Me- the planner!
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I love planning our Disney trips! I wanted to go to Disney when I graduated college, and while Joe said yes, he wouldn’t commit to dates or request time off of work. Life happened and we didn’t go. When Katie was born in 2003, I started a small savings account specifically for a trip to Disney World. Nothing huge, $10 a week tucked away. Our goal year was 2008 – she’d be four or five and just right in our minds. Turns out that 2006 just sucked. What a crappy crappy crappy year. My sister died, my best friend nearly died and was in a medically induced coma for a month, and our first child – our four legged one, died as well. Sometime late that fall, we decided that we really needed to do something fun, so our first Disney trip was planned. It was absolutely magical – everything that you dream your first trip would be. We were hooked completely. We knew that this was our new Happy Place and that it was where we wanted to spend as many vacations as we could manage!
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And our friends who will be traveling with us.
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O'Malley, Marie, and Duchess



I am waiting for permission to post photos but have given them Disney names for our trip. No faces here, everyone was working on painting ceramics on a recent camping trip:
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(Permission has since been granted provided no real names. Yay! )



We met when our daughters were in childcare together as infants, and hit it off while we waited and chatted during their gymnastics classes. We try to take 3 – 4 camping trips a season together (well you know, side by side) and get together randomly outside of “camping season” – we always have a great time.
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(Yes, we do get silly :rotfl2: :drinking1) They went to Disney World for the first time a month after we did in 2007. We’ve been back three times since then, this will be their first time back since ’07.


Duchess – aka Mom -
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is usually the trip planner for her family gatherings. She and I will share some of the planning here. We have a great time together, hiking, playing games, or just chatting over a glass of wine. Duchess has been to Disney World several times, in college, with her family, with hubby O’Mally in the pre-child years, and with their daughter Marie in ‘07.


I showed Duchess my spreadsheet for meal planning for this trip, and my trip binder for past reports. She seemed to think I was a little out of control,:p but with a giggle that says “I like it!” I think it was the games that I put in our pocket-planner for in the parks.

O’Malley – aka Dad or trouble – O’Malley is definitely our alley cat, keeping us going, laughing, and having fun.
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He & Joe hit it off right away. Between the two of them there is not a Mel Brooks movie that they can’t quote. Scary J I know O’Malley went to WDW with Duchess in their early married years, and with Marie in ’07, but am not sure if he went with his family when they were kids.


Marie – their daughter.
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Marie’s birthday is the first week of May, one of our potential trip weeks & she will be 10. It will be interesting to see how we survive traveling with two ‘tween girls.
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She and Katie are in different schools and are rather opposite when it comes to school work – Marie is very focused, and always strives to be the best at everything. Katie is pretty much her mom – enjoying life, doing her best at what she can, but shrugs off most things (but not all) that don’t go her way. But they both love music, arts & crafts, camping, and swimming among other things.
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Oh and drama. Definitely drama. We parents are not sure which of them will win an Emmy first, but they both will!


Typically when we have an extended trip, we make sure to break up our time so that we are not spending every second of every day together – it makes the girls quarrelsome sometimes:scared: (though not so much this summer I noticed). I am pretty sure that this trip will be the same way, with some breaks with families doing their own thing, or maybe the guys doing one thing & the girls another.



up next: the back story!


 
Thanks for the heads up...I'll be back to read later (saving my spot though so I make first page)
 




Thanks for telling me, so excited!!! :cheer2::cheer2:

I have a new TR, link in my siggie...sorry I didn't tell you! :blush:
 
(sorry this entry is rather dry on photos...)


We have been camping for a few years now, and really enjoy it. But this past year, we had some issues with our RV. Issues that we just couldn’t get past. So we decided to sell it. We didn’t get a lot for it – it was big, but had no generator, so that affects the selling price. A lot apparently. :worried: Anyway, after tossing around different ideas, we finally decided that instead of buying a smaller trailer to camp in (we bought a tent instead!), we’d rather use that money going where we love – Disney.

We’d looked at purchasing DVC directly from Disney before, and while we had our finger hovering over the button, it just wasn’t realistically in our budget. Then we explored the DVC resale market. I read through the boards, and followed links to the most discussed, recommended, and used resale brokers. I subscribed to their updates to see what was on sale and the pricing. We had a budget with not much wiggle room.

We explored the various DVC resorts through videos, TR’s, youtube, etc. but it didn’t take much to narrow it down to two resorts where we’d most like to own. Saratoga Springs or Old Key West. Those two more than any other just felt like home. (Mind you, we've never physically been to either, but have seen and read so much about them that we just knew) And OKW more than SSR. Then we saw the deal. It was a good one and I called Joe as soon as I saw it on my e-mail. 115 points, June use year, and the best part was that there were two years of points waiting to be used. It was totally in our budget financially, and the points would cover our little family of three for any season. I jumped on it! When our paperwork came, we took care of it right away & sent it back.

And we waited.

Our contract went to Disney for ROFR (If you are not familiar with DVC resale, Disney has the first right to buy back any contract. So if your bid is too low, or it’s a property that Disney is interested in, they can buy it out from under you. They have 30 days to review every DVC resale. Its called ROFR for right of first refusal).

In late October, we heard that while Disney was reviewing the paperwork, they saw that the sellers missed something, and it had to go back to them. :rolleyes2 Unfortunately, the sellers lived in NJ, which was pretty hard hit by Hurricane Sandy. So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

We contemplated walking away and trying for another deal, but this was really just what we wanted. So we waited more. I'm so sure that our broker was :rolleyes2 everytime he saw my name in his inbox. I checked in weekly. (and thought that this was mighty patient of me! :))

It took forever for the sellers to finally get all of their paperwork done right and returned. Finally in December the contract went back to Disney for another 30 days for ROFR. Oh we were close! :banana: So we really started looking at when we could go, what we would do, how we would use those 230 points before June 1.

We realized that we had enough points to get two rooms during the off season, and so asked our friends if they were interested in going with us for the trip. And waited more.

I came up with a list of 7 different weeks that would work with our point-budget, and emailed that list to my friend so that they could look at their schedules. We narrowed it down to 2 weeks in February, 1 week in March, 2 weeks in April, and 2 weeks in May.
popcorn::

In early January (the 8th maybe?) I got the email that ROFR was waived and the points were ours. WHOOPEEEEE If you are on the DIS group on Facebook you may have seen me whooping it up there. So we waited to get our contract so that we can sign & send our money.
popcorn::
In the meantime, we four adults all discussed those possible weeks with our respective supervisors at work. Hmm. that changed a few things. Now we were down to 1 week in February (My birthday, but also the week of President's day) and two weeks in May. dang.
popcorn::popcorn::
While Joe was hoping to go over my birthday, the more I looked at the crowd levels, read TR's and took input from fellow DIS'ers, I just knew that it would be a bad idea.
still, we were waiting.popcorn::popcorn::popcorn::

I messaged our broker & asked about the status of the closing paperwork, only to learn of yet another delay. AAAAAGGGGHHH. :eek:

Apparently there is some legal paperwork related to selling the property while the estate is going through bankruptcy that had not been filed. (will someone please tell me why the seller’s agent/broker did not notice this missing paperwork?:furious: SHEESH!) Long story short, we are now looking at our DVC purchase closing around March 31. Which means that we won’t have our points until probably mid-April.:scared1:

As soon as I can possibly do so, I’ll be on the phone trying to get our reservations.

Reservations?

What reservations?
 
We're taking a sneak trip to Disney World!

Last week I came home from work to this question: "Is it wrong to just sneak away for the weekend and go to Disney?"

now truthfully, my first answer was "Yes! its expensive! We'll be there soon" and then, when he mentioned going for my birthday, I pointed out how ridiculously crowded the predictions are - the end of President's week AND the Tinkerbell half-marathon. No way. .....but then the little voice in my head had to chime in. and she kept saying "You don't have to go to a park you can just visit the area"

Soooo after a little online looking, and a quick phone call to hubby who promised me that he'd had this little nest egg set aside specifically for a weekend getaway for two, and plans were made.:woohoo:

Did I mention that we will be going for my birthday? :love:

We'll be flying out Friday morning and reaching Sanford airport a little after noon. Picking up a rental car & driving to the Royal Plaza, right down the road from Downtown Disney.

So PSYCHED

I made reservations at Kona for dinner at 6:40, with plans to just sit on the beach afterwards to watch the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom.

Saturday we are planning to tour some of the resorts (OKW and SSR) that we never seem to have time to do, and to spend some time in Downtown Disney. Joe mentioned DisneyQuest - so we may do that. We'll be playing it by ear. I'm hoping to catch either some good entertainment at Paradisio 37 in DTD or maybe even do a bit of dancing over at the Boardwalk.

What would you do? No parks.

We fly out again Sunday morning

crazy I know! :upsidedow But isn't my hubby sweet? :love:
 
LOVE the intros, and love that you are getting away for a "birthday weekend" with Joe. How about going to the Coroando's Rix Lounge where they have a DJ on the weekends and it's a little more "romantic?"
 
I am here....:goodvibes

:cool1::welcome:

LOVE the intros, and love that you are getting away for a "birthday weekend" with Joe. How about going to the Coroando's Rix Lounge where they have a DJ on the weekends and it's a little more "romantic?"

OH I like that idea Kathy! I didn't know that they had a DJ on weekends. We were just talking today about how we'd like to go dancing. and we do enjoy the atmosphere at CSR. how can you not?
 
I followed you over from Judy's TR. I love the idea of dancing at Disney. Sounds like fun.
:welcome: I hope you have fun following along! Dancing at Disney has been on our "to do" list for the past few trips but we are usually so tired from doing the park commando that we just pass out at the end of the day!:lmao:
 
First a comment about our upcoming "quickie" :lmao::lmao::lmao: trip. I read over the activities inside DisneyQuest and I kid you not....just READING some of the virtual descriptions left me a little queasy -- I told Joe that DQ is off my list.
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and now back to our regularly scheduled PTR


[FONT=&quot]We don’t need no stinkin’ reservations![/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Well, we had this long list of potential weeks, which after delay after delay, and work responsibilities preventing certain weeks, we narrowed it down to only one week -May 4 – 11. Which is cool. It’s the week between Marie and Joe’s birthdays. I haven’t mentioned this to Joe, but I will be getting birthday pins for both of them. [/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Yeah. I know. Flower & Garden, and we won’t be able to make reservations till April. Sounds like fun, right? NOOOOO not for this planner girl![/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Where we want to stay:
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[FONT=&quot](borrowed from KatMark TR)

We are looking at staying at OKW, Boardwalk, AK or SSR sort of in that order. We have accepted the fact that we may end up staying at multiple resorts based on availability. OKW will be our home resort, and we are really looking forward to staying there. I hope we get lucky!![/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]We chatted with our friends about the whole delay, messed up, inability to make concrete reservations over the weekend. Happily we are all “go with the flow” type of people, and hey, if we have to resort hop, at least we will be able to experience several different deluxe villa resorts. That’s pretty cool, right?[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Regardless of where we are staying, we will be driving. Our friends have opted to caravan & follow in their car instead of us all going in our minivan. We’ll leave on a Friday night after work & dinner. It’s a 16 hour drive, so even with coffee & gas and a breakfast stops on the way (they really don’t take that long!) we should get there around 1 – 2 p.m. on Saturday. [/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Not sure “where” “there” is going to be, but it will be in DisneyWorld! [/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]I have to give a HUGE shout out to eandesmom, who has given me a ton of help in sorting out potential dates, crowd levels, etc. as I try to sort through all this planning. You really rock!!![/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]OH, and lest I forget, once I get my DVC member number & my points are in the bank, I also have a second trip to plan. WOOHOOOO. The real reason we wanted to finally just chug the kool aid is that we want to experience DisneyWorld at Halloween. That was our real goal for 2013. So how tickled are we that we get to go twice in one year!![/FONT]
 
The sneak trip sounds AWESOME! Although, I have to admit, I would have a hard time being there and not walking into MK or Epcot. But I still think it sounds perfect for a weekend getaway.:thumbsup2
 

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