Pre-Trip Are we crazy?? Maybe a little! Food and Wine/Wedding Anniversary/Halloween Getaway!

Yes, it's us again! Yes, I already have another weekend pre-trip report open in this forum! Yes, we are leaving for this trip in less than a month!

A little backstory...

You may remember that my DW M and I got married in October 2014 in New York City. That means our one-year wedding anniversary is coming up this month! We had (naturally) considered a Disney trip for our anniversary but it just didn't seem like it was going to happen. Even weekend trips are difficult to coordinate because I am a professional section leader for a volunteer choir at a local church, which means I work every Sunday as a contractor and don't get any sort of paid time off. The church music director told us a few weeks ago that Sunday, November 1 would be a day off for the section leaders and I suggested to M that we go on a weekend trip somewhere close by to celebrate our anniversary at the end of October.

She said, "Can we go to Disney that weekend?"

I had been infected with the bug and there was no way I could be cured without booking a trip!

We had some travel credit on Hotels.com, we already have APs, and we found decent direct flights from Delta. It was just a matter of booking everything, which we finally did tonight!

The Cast
Me (B): mid-20s, opera singer/voice teacher
DW (M): mid-20s, writer/academic administrator

Hotel(S)
One night at Disney's All Star Sports Resort
Two nights at the Walt Disney World Dolphin
Our flight gets in late (after 10pm) on Thursday so we just wanted a cheap place to sleep and the complimentary DME. Neither of us are into sports. (Insert bad lesbian joke here.) We are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to stay at the Dolphin! We've never stayed in the Epcot area and we can't wait to WALK to our favorite park from our hotel!!

Flights
Delta, nonstop between New York and Orlando

Tickets
Annual Passes!

ADRs
None, yet. We'll be spending most of our time at Epcot enjoying the F&W offerings so we may not make any ADRs at all.

Itinerary
Thursday, October 29
Daytime: M works at her school until 5 and I will probably be teaching until about 5 as well. Then we will both head to the airport for...
7:55: Flight to MCO
10:59 Land MCO, go to B side lower level and board the DME to All Star Sports!
Later: Crash from a long day and a long week!

Friday, October 30
Morning: Check out of ASSp, and probably do the cheap thing and take a bus to Epcot or DHS and walk to the Dolphin, where we will drop our bags and then head to...
Later morning: Epcot! Where else??? We have FPs for Soarin', Spaceship Earth, and Mission: SPACE.
11:00: Commence the Food and Wine enjoyment!!! Our goal is to try every vegetarian item at least once.
Afternoon/evening: Depending how we feel we may go to MK, which will be open until 11:00 that night. Or we might just stick with Epcot and keep eating and drinking!
Evening: WALK back to our room at the Dolphin! Yes, WALK! (or if we are at MK we'll obviously not walk from there)

Saturday, October 31: HALLOWEEN!
Note: Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I have always loved dressing up and it's part of why I love being an opera singer so much! Last year I had a show on November 1 (RUDE) so I couldn't drink or party AT ALL on Halloween. M and I decided long before this trip that we were definitely doing SOMETHING and definitely dressing up as modern Disney princesses. We have been buying costume pieces since April and will basically be Disney bounding as Snow White (me) and Ariel (M). IN DISNEY!
Morning: DHS has morning EMH so we might take advantage of that. If not we will head right to MK!
Late morning/afternoon: We have FPs for Pirates, Under the Sea, and Seven Dwarfs. Ariel and Snow White can't go to Magic Kingdom without riding their respective rides!
Later: Back to Epcot for Food and Wine!!
Even later: WALK back to the Dolphin!

Sunday, November 1
Morning: Probably sleep in. Check out and leave our bags with bell services, then back to...
Later morning: Epcot, of course! Food! Wine! (and yes, beer and cocktails too)
Afternoon: Pick up our bags and take an Uber from the Dolphin to MCO.
7:20: Fly back to New York
9:59: Land and head back home

That's it for now! Thanks for reading!

 

[catmom46]

So jealous! And no, not crazy at all. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out a way to get another WDW trip in the books. No luck, so far, though.

 

[Figgy1]

So jealous! And no, not crazy at all. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out a way to get another WDW trip in the books. No luck, so far, though.

Sympathy like

 

[Figgy1]

What a magical way to celebrate with such wonderful plans

 

[bee]

So jealous! And no, not crazy at all. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out a way to get another WDW trip in the books. No luck, so far, though.

Okay, glad to know we don't sound totally crazy!! Sending good vibes your way for a WDW trip to work out for you!

What a magical way to celebrate with such wonderful plans

Thank you!! We are so excited and have been stalking the F&W news and practically have the vegetarian items on the menus memorized! I'm lucky that my wife is as obsessed with Disney as I am!

 

[Figgy1]

Okay, glad to know we don't sound totally crazy!! Sending good vibes your way for a WDW trip to work out for you!


Thank you!! We are so excited and have been stalking the F&W news and practically have the vegetarian items on the menus memorized! I'm lucky that my wife is as obsessed with Disney as I am!

My dh is starting to get that way! Are you vegetarian?

 

[bee]

My dh is starting to get that way! Are you vegetarian?

Yep! We have both been vegetarians since March 2008.

 

[Figgy1]

Yep! We have both been vegetarians since March 2008.

I'm very impressed!

 

[Mindy16]

Looking forward to your TR already!! I've always wanted to go to Disney for Halloween!

 

[bee]

I'm very impressed!

Thanks! It honestly hasn't been difficult for us because neither of us were big meat fans even when we ate it. Are you the resident vegan around here? I may be confusing you with someone else.

Looking forward to your TR already!! I've always wanted to go to Disney for Halloween!

Thanks! If we love it we may have to make it a tradition since our anniversary is so close!

 

[bee]

To add to the (good) craziness, I've been busy this week with a classical voice competition. On Wednesday I sang in the semifinal round and thought I did well but not like amazingly or anything. I was surprised to get a callback to the final round, which I sang today. This time I really felt great about how I sang. The audition monitor told us that the winners would be notified by email by early next week. The judges must have made their decisions quickly, because I just got an email that I won an Encouragement Award and will receive a $1000 grant! I'll try not to spend it all on one Disney trip!

(Actually it won't really affect the trip. The money will go toward advancing my career in a field that is really expensive! Singers have to pay for voice lessons, coachings, recordings, auditions [yes, many opera companies charge us a fee to audition! RUDE!], audition and concert attire, travel to/from auditions [one of the main reasons we moved to New York. 5-10 audition trips a year was getting REAL expensive], agent/manager fees [once we get to a certain point], and the list goes on. Not to mention most of us have a Master's or higher and school ain't cheap!)

 

[TheMouseFan]

Yay! Congratulations! I can't wait to hear about your trip when you get back!

 

[bee]

Yay! Congratulations! I can't wait to hear about your trip when you get back!

Thank you so much!

 

[catmom46]

To add to the (good) craziness, I've been busy this week with a classical voice competition. On Wednesday I sang in the semifinal round and thought I did well but not like amazingly or anything. I was surprised to get a callback to the final round, which I sang today. This time I really felt great about how I sang. The audition monitor told us that the winners would be notified by email by early next week. The judges must have made their decisions quickly, because I just got an email that I won an Encouragement Award and will receive a $1000 grant! I'll try not to spend it all on one Disney trip!

(Actually it won't really affect the trip. The money will go toward advancing my career in a field that is really expensive! Singers have to pay for voice lessons, coachings, recordings, auditions [yes, many opera companies charge us a fee to audition! RUDE!], audition and concert attire, travel to/from auditions [one of the main reasons we moved to New York. 5-10 audition trips a year was getting REAL expensive], agent/manager fees [once we get to a certain point], and the list goes on. Not to mention most of us have a Master's or higher and school ain't cheap!)

Congrats on the grant (and your anniversary)! I'm guessing opera is a pretty competitive field, but to have to pay for an audition? Do they do that in other musical fields?

 

[Figgy1]

Thanks! It honestly hasn't been difficult for us because neither of us were big meat fans even when we ate it. Are you the resident vegan around here? I may be confusing you with someone else.

Thanks! If we love it we may have to make it a tradition since our anniversary is so close!

I'll be completely vegan for 3 years next month. That's right I gave up everything right before thanksgiving

 

[Figgy1]

Congrats on the grant!

 

[bee]

Congrats on the grant (and your anniversary)! I'm guessing opera is a pretty competitive field, but to have to pay for an audition? Do they do that in other musical fields?

Thank you and thank you! Yes, it is very competitive because arts budgets are shrinking across the board and many opera companies are either closing permanently or producing fewer operas each season, thereby reducing the number of jobs available to singers. At the same time universities and conservatories are graduating a higher number of really good singers every year so the jobs:singers ratio is quite low. Companies charging audition fees is a pretty recent phenomenon that stems from the saturation of the market and the reduction in donations and grants from outside sources. In a way they are using US to do a large part of their fundraising, whereas in the recent past holding auditions was considered the cost of doing business. It totally sucks and is NOT standard for other musical/performing arts fields; fortunately some opera companies take the high road and make it a mission never to charge singers for auditions or to only charge a small fee to pay the audition pianist.

I'll be completely vegan for 3 years next month. That's right I gave up everything right before thanksgiving

Wow, three years is amazing! Is anyone else in your family vegan?

Congrats on the grant!

Thank you!

 

[Figgy1]

Seeing I do all the cooking in my house my family is mostly vegan, my youngest ds is totally vegan and gluten free except for a little roast at grandma's on Christmas. My dh and older ds like to play with our smoker and put meat in it a few times a year and real cream in the coffee sometimes when I'm not looking LOL

 

[bee]

Updates!

On our Magic Kingdom morning/afternoon (Halloween) we are having lunch at Be Our Guest! We had to make two separate reservations of one but they are at the same time. Does anyone who has experience with separate reservations have any tips to share for making it run smoothly? We already preordered (vegetable quiche for M and quinoa salad for me. No dessert this time since we'll be dessert-ing it up in Epcot later) and have had lunch at BOG before so we know generally how it works. EDIT: I found a reservation for 2 so no worrying about the 1+1 res!

I also adjusted our FPs for that day. We now have Pirates around 12, Haunted Mansion around 1 (because we can't be in MK on Halloween and not ride HM!), and 7DMT for after lunch. We decided to drop Little Mermaid since in theory it shouldn't be too long of a standby line.

Since our first FP is after 12:00, we may sleep in and head to the MK late-ish, or if we wake up ready to go early we might spend time in another park first. After a few hours in MK we will make our way back to Epcot as we originally planned.

We also went to the mall today and bought some accessories to go with our costumes/Disney bounding! I bought a red hair bow for Snow White and M bought some starfish earrings for Ariel. I also ordered some red apple earrings online and M is still trying to figured out how to make at least part of her naturally blonde hair red. She is thinking either hair chalk or small clip-in streak extensions.

EDIT: UPDATE to the UPDATE: I found a BOG reservation for 2 so we don't have to worry about two 1+1 reservations!

 

[Figgy1]

Updates!

On our Magic Kingdom morning/afternoon (Halloween) we are having lunch at Be Our Guest! We had to make two separate reservations of one but they are at the same time. Does anyone who has experience with separate reservations have any tips to share for making it run smoothly? We already preordered (vegetable quiche for M and quinoa salad for me. No dessert this time since we'll be dessert-ing it up in Epcot later) and have had lunch at BOG before so we know generally how it works.

I also adjusted our FPs for that day. We now have Pirates around 12, Haunted Mansion around 1 (because we can't be in MK on Halloween and not ride HM!), and 7DMT for after lunch. We decided to drop Little Mermaid since in theory it shouldn't be too long of a standby line.

Since our first FP is after 12:00, we may sleep in and head to the MK late-ish, or if we wake up ready to go early we might spend time in another park first. After a few hours in MK we will make our way back to Epcot as we originally planned.

We also went to the mall today and bought some accessories to go with our costumes/Disney bounding! I bought a red hair bow for Snow White and M bought some starfish earrings for Ariel. I also ordered some red apple earrings online and M is still trying to figured out how to make at least part of her naturally blonde hair red. She is thinking either hair chalk or small clip-in streak extensions.

I'd go with clip ons as some chalk can stain!