Trip Report One enormous BirthdayversaryPalooza! aka 2 Broke Guys & a dog & Irma COMPLETED

We've been using the "2 Broke Guys" moniker for so long now, we've outlasted the TV show "2 Broke Girls" on which it was based. (Canceled!)

The idea was a year+ of saving Disney Chase Visa points to see if we could go to Victoria & Albert's for our 10 year wedding anniversary completely on their dime - and keeping a running total including additions and withdrawals (for little WDW trips along the way) much like they did at the end of every episode of that TV show - like this:

$1,678.91

And that figure is actually what we have left to spend on our trip - about double what we would need for our V&A dinner! Not to mention: points paid for our 2 AP's, some of our lodging for this trip, and many mini-trips along the way. All that meandering, planning, brainstorming and trip reporting is on this thread:

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...table-of-contents.909657/page-43#post-7874545

But that can take awhile. I'll give a little background in another post. Shout out to @dizfan917 for accidentally naming this thread in a post on that one, and to @Tuvalu for inspiring the "mother thread" with links to other thread(s) format.

Also to all those who have been following all this time! As those folks know, I go back and forth between posting with my phone and my laptop, and I'm more comfortable on the laptop. I'm using the phone now, whilst not asleep in Orlando, and anxious to get this first post out of the way before I do something to accidentally make it go poof! I will tag the others in a separate post.

Can't believe we're finally here!!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

We finished our drinks and were a little hungry. I whipped out my bday Visa gift card...and it was declined.

They explained because it was a restaurant, that might happen. Use it on merchandise.

Ok, no problem, paid with alternate card.

Random pic in Mexico:

As if we hadn't had enough of Mexico, we stopped at the Mexico booth to use the gift card on a corona with elderberry liqueur floater - nice!

One of the senoritas at the booth said something including my name with a giggle and gave me a Mickey sticker!

No matter what you all say, I'm going to take that to mean I looked cute in my sleeveless tee that day. There are no pics, you'll just have to trust me. Other than this close-up:

I checked wait times, and Frozen was 30 minutes. We had missed our Frozen FP the other day. By the time we walked over, it was showing 35 minutes, but we actually waited 25 minutes. Not bad!

Here's Brian in the Frozen tunnel, un-posed:

We got a little splashed in the front seat. Mostly him.

Check off two more things we wanted to do that we didn't get to do by Saturday - tequila bar and Frozen. We're just getting it all done today!

 

[Courtney6682]

I just spent the last few hours catching up...

First and foremost, I'm so glad your house made it thru the storm safely

Also glad to hear that V&A was incredible. It sounded wonderful! Great pix! I'm also a very adventurous eater, there isn't much I don't like. Now my husband on the other hand...is a little more picky and it annoys me. He has gotten better tho, like he tried sushi and sashimi since we've been together. He is also newly on insulin shots, so we're adjusting to that....

We missed Irma by 3 weeks, not that I wanted to be there lol...

 

[MississippiBelle]

And here we are, Friday, 9/8/17. 10 years ago on that date (it was a Saturday) Brian and I were married by a reverend from the Unitarian church before God, our families, and our friends.

We did this in NJ where I grew up. While planning it, civil unions became legal there, so we decided to partake of that also. Our license was #0001 and they had to cross out "wife" on the paperwork because there was no new paperwork yet.

Regardless of the law, that is, was, and will always be the day we were married. When various branches of government decided to recognize what already existed is a separate issue.

So Friday morning, I was able to reveal my surprises for Brian.

View attachment 231008

View attachment 231011

The top item is a keepsake box. I brought with us all of our wedding cards to read, plus our save the date card and invitation samples.

The idea was to look at those, and then use the box for new pics from this trip.

The bottom item is a photo album. Most of you know the story from the pre-TR. If not, if you read my notes inside the book, you'll understand.

I'm still on page 10, but I skipped ahead to comment on this! What a great present idea! Y'all are adorable and your trip report has been a joy to read (even with the hurricane stress--glad everything is alright with y'all!) Happy happy (late) anniversary and I can't wait to read the 20 year trip report

Edit: Okay, I finally finished. Still loving it! Also, I also have a dog that I love like my own little human child and his name is... wait for it... Tony! He's a little guy, but he and Kylie would probably have a blast together!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

I just spent the last few hours catching up...

First and foremost, I'm so glad your house made it thru the storm safely

Also glad to hear that V&A was incredible. It sounded wonderful! Great pix! I'm also a very adventurous eater, there isn't much I don't like. Now my husband on the other hand...is a little more picky and it annoys me. He has gotten better tho, like he tried sushi and sashimi since we've been together. He is also newly on insulin shots, so we're adjusting to that....

We missed Irma by 3 weeks, not that I wanted to be there lol...

My goodness, thank you for investing all that time!

Check that blood sugar regularly. Any time the blood gets sludgy with sugar, major organs can be damaged, little by little.

I'm still on page 10, but I skipped ahead to comment on this! What a great present idea! Y'all are adorable and your trip report has been a joy to read (even with the hurricane stress--glad everything is alright with y'all!) Happy happy (late) anniversary and I can't wait to read the 20 year trip report

Edit: Okay, I finally finished. Still loving it! Also, I also have a dog that I love like my own little human child and his name is... wait for it... Tony! He's a little guy, but he and Kylie would probably have a blast together!

You are so sweet! And so smart to name that pup Tony!

I bet he's very special.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

After Frozen, we hit another booth or two. At first, I didn't want to spend an $8 ticket on a $5 item.

I grabbed a tuna poke from Hawaii with the gift card.

Then, we were kind of ready to go. I remembered some kind of banana dessert from a nearby booth - it was the Almond Orchard booth. A non-dairy banana ice cream (woo hoo!) that was kind of ruined with waaaay too much berry sauce. (We banana folks like pure banana flavor - maybe enhanced with peanut butter or chocolate - but not hidden by a bunch of berry sauce!!)

It was ok. I used my last ticket on that even though it was under six bucks. Also grabbed a risotto that was really good.

I had been wanting to do something, and even though it wasn't practical, it gave another element of "celebration" and "special" to this day. Heck, our house was good, we were good, B's job was good, and my store was open and picking up again, so...

Oh, yes we did! The Minnie Van!

We walked to the front of Epcot (stopping to do SSE along the way) and took the quickest route back to HS.

Our driver was so nice. She said they are official CM's (vs. Lyft drivers) and she took us right up to the entrance of HS.

Cross another "wannado" off the list!

Julie, here we come!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

In HS, we made a beeline to the Tune-In Lounge. Brian had already confirmed Julie was working (and Dave, too!)

They were really slow. She said they had been most of the day.

Brian ordered a Crown & Diet (the usual) and I couldn't think so I ordered a Stoli O and soda. I've had that there before, years ago, which is what made me think of it, but I'm not doing a lot of vodka lately (except as a palette cleanser for my tequila lol.)

We had the usual fun chat, and by the time we were ready for drink #2, I said I didn't know what made me order that Stoli, but I need to switch to something else.

Thinking of doing what we hadn't gotten to do, I still hadn't gotten a banana dessert. I started asking about a banana milkshake. Take a vanilla milkshake, pour in some Stoli vanilla and crema de banana - presto! Brian went further and asked for a real banana. He said since they have a blender, they have milkshakes, and they have bananas for sundaes, why not? I said no, too much trouble, just the liquor in the shake.

Now, all these years we've been going to the Tune-In, we've never eaten at the 50's Prime Time Cafe. I didn't know how I'd react to the acting servers.

Well, here was my chance to find out. Julie called over a female "security guard" and said, "This guy thinks I'm going to make a banana milkshake!" The woman looked at me with such a stare! I just started cracking up. She did not break that stare. She started "yelling" at me: "Oh, you think you're gonna get a banana milkshake?!?"

It was so darn funny. She kept going on and on and said she would bring me a vanilla milkshake, and just to be nice, she would put a whole banana inside it! Omg, it was hysterical. She was fantastic.

 

[ScarletBegonias]

I have enjoyed your TR so much! I am glad you guys were thrilled with V&As! It really seemed like a very special dinner! I've never eaten anything quite that fancy, but I'd love to try it!

 

[riverside]

Thank you!! Keep trying on that FP, they open up at random times, and especially as it gets closer to your date and even while you are there. Trust me, I do it all the time!

Just wanted to say thank you again!! Guess what I just got for Wednesday!!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Just wanted to say thank you again!! Guess what I just got for Wednesday!!

Woooooo hoooo!!!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

I have enjoyed your TR so much! I am glad you guys were thrilled with V&As! It really seemed like a very special dinner! I've never eaten anything quite that fancy, but I'd love to try it!

Thank you!

I think it (appropriately) took us about six years to work up to that dinner, first starting with some signature restaurants and then pairing events, etc. I think I enjoyed this more because of what I learned and experienced previously.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Security woman never let up. She never broke character. She would leave for a while, then come back and say, "I'm gonna get you a banana!"


Just made the whole thing that much more fun.

We split a meatloaf entree, and I can't even remember what drink I ordered next.

We talked with some other guests who I think were CM's on their day off, they were very nice. The husband kept laughing at me laughing at security banana woman.

Eventually we split a lasagne entree, and before you know it, it was about 9pm.

One last thing we never got to do: the nighttime Star Wars show!

Woo hoo!

Brian tried to take a video of the whole thing. I took a couple of pictures and realized I just wanted to stand there and be immersed in it. It's not the most brilliant show in the world, but when you have grown up on Star Wars, it's awesome to just stand there and be enveloped in a celebration of it.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

After checking the Star Wars show off our bucket list, it was time to get the puppy.

Now, I mentioned previously I was having issues with her doing her business since we got to the timeshare. I thought she would've been better there because she was with us all the time. We were not giving her any more anxiety meds for that reason. She seemed fine, and as I mentioned before, got to play with her much smaller doggy cousin.

Brian said when he walked her twice she went "a little bit."

When we picked her up at Best Friends Pet Care, they said she hadn't done anything and barely ate.

And we couldn't take her out back for the usual runaround thing that typically works.

We went back to the timeshare and I walked her. It was then I realized she was having issues. She would squat, try, move a few steps, repeat. Eventually she did a little business, but it was "not normal."

We went upstairs and she was antsy. I gave her a half an anxiety pill and she calmed down for a while.

I couldn't sleep, either. I took my back meds which usually help, but I was wide-awake.

Kind of groggy, 1:30 AM, Kylie jumped on the bed came over to me sat down and was panting. She kept trying to get me up. I thought there was no way she had to go again already.

But I know my dog. I knew something was off. So I got dressed and took her downstairs again.

Sure enough, there was a repeat of the earlier episode. I felt so bad for her. But after that, she seemed much better. No more panting, not stressed. What a good girl, that she waited until she could wake me up and would never have an accident in the room, even in a strange building.

The next morning, as usual, I wanted to stretch it out. On the one hand, I didn't want it to be over. On the other hand, I wanted to get home and see everything we had to see, and be relieved that we are home.

I also wanted to make sure we weren't going to get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and that we would get home with as full a gas tank as possible, because there were long, long lines for gas at home. Facebook was so helpful in letting us keep tabs on what was going on down there and what we would need to bring home with us.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

This traffic map made everything look good. We were watching the news and researching the Internet and it seemed the worst traffic was on I-75 past (north of) Orlando.

We checked it again in the morning, and it looked exactly the same. It seemed like a good time to make our move. We packed up, again not rushing, and Brian made breakfast out of leftovers.

One last hard soda toast on the balcony.

Hey, that's not such a bad selfie. Although Brian looks like he got a haircut with a bowl.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

How did I forget the biggest bonus? While we sat at the bar with Julie, eating our meatloaf, we got a text from the next-door neighbor saying that the power was back at our house!

Boy, did that take a lot of stress out of the rest of the night and next day. The house would be cool by the time we got home. There would be no suffering in the heat while Brian went to his new job. That was the third big weight lifted off our shoulders. Blessings, all.

We had to be smart about getting gas, and I have to say, we did very well with that.

We wanted to top off the tank before we got onto the turnpike somewhere along wherever GPS was taking us on our way to the turnpike.

We didn't happen to pass a gas station, so we took the last exit before the turnpike into some random area of town. There was a gas station right there and it was empty. Was there no gas?

There was plenty of gas. We filled up with no wait.

As we drove past the first rest areas on the turnpike, we were so glad we had done that. The lines to get to the gas stations came all the way out to the exit ramp on the highway.

We passed the second rest area, and it was almost as bad as the first.

We decided to cut over to I-95, which we knew would be better, and also if anything did happen, there are more things around.

There was some uneven pavement, and when we went back-and-forth over it, it felt like the wheels were going to come off. Even after we got back onto flat ground, it felt like the steering wheel almost wasn't connected. In an abundance of caution, we pulled over.

We didn't see anything obvious other than a small (oil?) leak, and I thought some of the tires looked low.

We resumed hour drive, going to a little more slowly, and skipped the first exit, assuming most people would use that one. We got off at about the third exit, and the first gas station we saw had bags on all the pumps.

The second one had gas and a lot of people were there, but we got a spot right away.

We put some air in the tires, some oil in the crankcase. We filled the tank again. We walked the puppy.

This gas station was right next to some strip mall.

Here's a creepy statue Kylie and I walked past.

Aaah! What the...

As we walked, we saw more in the series. They were just awful, but this one with the umbrella was super creepy.

Brian took the wheel for the rest of the ride, and we stopped one more time after West Palm Beach, and a smaller town to get gas one more time so that when we got home we would still be pretty fall. We heard gas was really bad down here, and it was. But he had to go to work. I could always bicycle to work if I had to, as I do sometimes, anyway.

Plus he had my car as an option, which still had about a half a tank.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

We got home I think between 4 and 5 PM. Everything looked as we had left it. There were some big tree branches down, but within one hour we had all of them dragged out to the curb. We were very fortunate they did not cause any damage when they broke off.

Now we understood what everybody was saying about the fence.

The wooden fence that fell over is our next-door neighbor's fence. The metal fence, still standing – just old, which we already knew! – is ours.

(The stones around the bottom of the fence are to prevent our lovely puppy from digging under one side and coming out the other side faster than bugs bunny digging to Albacoykee!)

With some rope, we helped the neighbor (Oscar) put his fence back upright, and he kept it there by putting some posts in the ground leaning up against it until he can get it fixed.

One thing I thought was doomed: we had a blue glass ball that was suspended in nautical netting that hung in the front of our house. ( it used to hang at Brians' dad's house where Brian grew up.) We forgot to take that inside before we left. Oscar at one point texted me and said he noticed it, took it off the hook on the front of the house, and put it on the ground by the house.



Tree branches break off, whole trees and electric poles are down, the fence blew over, but he left the glass ball on the ground by the house?

That was the first thing I checked.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

And then I hung it back up where it belongs, in amazement.

At my store, we have this 1950s refrigerator made by a company that still makes turntables today.

We filled it up and posted on social media that anyone could come and help themselves.

It kind of belongs in carousel of progress, doesn't it?

It's called a Shelvador, because it was the first to innovate having shelves on the refrigerator door!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

The next morning, Brian went to work and someone posted on Facebook that a gas station nearby had just gotten filled up. I went right over with my car to fill my tank. That's how things were down here. You watched Facebook and you would see some store just got a shipment of water. Another just got a shipment of ice. You saw people getting their power on hour by hour, and you saw others trying to remain cheerful as long as they could while their power was still out. Many of those did not get restored until just in the last two days.

We got reports back from the Keys. It's not good. Friends are moving from there permanently. There's a weird rivalry between people who stayed and people who left. We've made a point to absolutely go down to the keys and patronize businesses as much as we can, as soon as we are allowed, and as soon as we can afford it. (they don't take Chase Disney points LOL.)

For us, it worked out absolutely as perfectly as if we had planned it that way. Again, blessed. That is the word.

But the one thing is Kylie was worse. She was now vomiting in addition to the other problem. She was drinking a lot of water, but I was still obviously concerned about dehydration. I didn't know if she had caught something from another dog, had eaten something, or was just utterly stressed from moving place to place, eating different food ( I had to get whatever Publix had left on the shelf because we didn't bring enough food for that many days for her.)

So the day after we got home, when she had gotten sick for the second time around 1 PM, I called the vet and we went right in.

They said they could spend a whole lot of money on tests to test her blood, and x-rays, or they could do a simple stool sample to check for parasites and otherwise medicate her for her stomach issues.

She had no parasites. They gave her a shot. She was so good. They gave me three prescriptions, and she was better by the next day. Her head wasn't right, but that was from the meds.

Now she's happy and begging for tummy rubs.

 

[ScarletBegonias]

So glad Kylie ended up being okay! Poor Pup!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Regarding the keepsake box: originally, I thought I would put pictures from this trip into there.

I also saved the last two pages of the photo album for pictures from this trip.

We didn't take a ton of pictures on this trip. You've seen almost all of them LOL.

We kept forgetting to ask someone to take our picture, even when we had dinner with our friends. We're not millennials LOL. (No offense!)

We did do a few photopass pictures that you haven't seen yet; I have to decide which are worth buying. I know there's one from my birthday that was good, there may be another surprise one in there from a ride or something.

But those will mostly fit into the back of the photo album, and I think at least one will be framed.

So the keepsake box will be just that. It will hold all the trinkets and souvenirs and memories of this grand trip. It's surprisingly full:

Included: our anniversary pins, our KTTK badges and pins, our Food & Wine memorabilia, our cards to each other, our cards from Disney, the maps to our rooms given to us at check-in, menus including the Victoria & Albert's menu (we did it wooooo hoo!) and two of our personalized magic bands with the date on them. Plus a few other odds and ends. (I have to find that Mickey sticker that was on my shirt!)

Plus we have this wonderful trip report to memorialize everything. I'm grateful to this forum for that, and may just upgrade my membership as a token of thanks.

I have to leave notes for Brian with passwords so if anything ever happened to me, he could read these. I think they'd be comforting. When I read them, I remember things I had forgotten. Maybe I should document more of life lol.

Thanks so much to all of you who read this, stuck with me, made such helpful suggestions - and I have to mention showed us respect as a married couple.

It didn't feel like it was over until just now, now that the trip report is done. Until a few moments ago, I was still there.

And it's worse because we don't plan to go back soon. (I mean, you never know, but...lol.) We have to get used to Brian's new schedule (he won't get a proper vacation until after a year - which will be just after our anniversary lol. He's doing fantastic at the new job, though, still in training but impressing the top brass. My Mr. Handsome, of course he is.)

I'm tentatively planning on a short trip next Christmas-ish without park tickets, just a Christmas party and some resort stuff.

My friend D, who was there with us for a couple of days in the pre-TR is going in January and asked me to visit - but that would be another non-park thing. Maybe DS and karaoke at the Swolphin.

But we are shooting for a cruise in 2019. I have a lot of research to do on that. And a lot of Chase Disney points to save up...

How soon should we start that pre-TR?

Currently, we're at:

$172.00

But more points get awarded in a couple of days!

Thanks again, all. Very much.

And, cheers.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

So glad Kylie ended up being okay! Poor Pup!

You and me, both!