A September 2012 Pre Trip Report

We are the Miller family from Ohio. Our family consists of myself, my husband and our sweet daughter, age 10. DH and I had both been to Disney during college for brief visits. I had gone with my parents and sister and he had gone with his college marching band several times. Neither of us had ever been for a lengthy trip staying on property prior to 2009. However, we had become quite close with dh's aunt and uncle who were Disney veterans and were anxious to share their love and knowledge with the three of us.

After losing my mom to an infection following surgery for breast cancer in March of 2009, we realized life is too short to not do the things you dream of doing and we booked a 7 day trip with his aunt and uncle and stayed at All-Star Movies and took advantage of free dining in September 2009. We had a blast and couldn't wait to go back.

012.jpg


During that trip, we both developed a true love for the magic of Disney and knew that we would be returning sooner rather than later. Life kind of got in the way and we didn't get another trip booked until Fall of 2010 with plans to travel in September 2011 with aunt and uncle again. DH couldn't take the wait and suprised me with a long weekend, adults-only, trip for January 2011 to celebrate our 15th anniversary. We stayed at Pop Century and visited only two parks, but it was a magical 3 day whirlwind trip.

In the Spring of 2011, I entered a contest through Downtown Disney for A+ Teachers. Our daughter has some significant special needs and her teacher (who also happens to be our friend with a love for Disney) had managed to accomplish some pretty amazing things with her in the 3 years she had her. I wrote a brief essay explaining her signficance in our life and the impact she had on our dd and low and behold....we WON!!! We were one of 10 families selected to receive a Disney package including one day park tickets, flights and hotel accomodations for our family as well as our dd teacher's family! We decided on the first week of December for that trip. We spent a wonderful 3 days celebrating her teacher. Our 16th anniversary happened to fall during our day at Epcot, and her teacher was kind enough to take her for a few hours so we could have dinner alone. So sweet. We also celebrated dd's birthday since it was only 2 weeks away. Needless to say, we were treated like celebreties the entire time and had the most magical trip ever!

So now, it had been 16 months since we had been to our favorite place on earth and now we had taken 3 trips 12 months. It was an amazing year with 3 amazing trips!!

Returing home in December was kind of a buzz-kill. By Spring of this year, dh couldn't take it anymore and started researching the possiblity of a Fall trip again this year. I was honestly ready for something different. Maybe a beach vacation or sight-seeing elsewhere, but dh had his heart set on Disney and it didn't take long to convince me. Free dining was offered again so here we are counting down to a September 2012 trip staying at All Star Music. We will be travelling alone this time, just the three of us, with the hopes of meeting with some online friends who live in Orlando that adopted at the same time that we brought our dd home from China in 2002. We will have to wait and see how that turns out.

Dining reservations are made, countdown is hanging on the fridge, and flights are booked. September cannot get here soon enough!! :sohappy:

286102300020005.jpg
 

SweetEvangeline

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Today we do the 40's dance!!
1940.jpg

49 days from today we will be walking the streets of the happiest place on earth! Final payment will be made this week, then all we have to wait for is our packet, our 10 day online check-in and TRAVEL DAY!! And we did decide to add 2 days to our park tickets, so now we have 5 days to enjoy the magic rather than 3.
 

PolynesianPrincess

Well-Known Member
Pretty soon you'll be doing the less than 1 month dance!!! lol

Sounds like you guys have some awesome ADR's picked out. Ohana is my FAVORITE dinner as well! Yum-o!! :)
 

SweetEvangeline

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
27 looonnnggg days until we leave! The summer has gone quickly, but not quickly enough. Looking at our plans we decided to make a couple of adjustments. We had planned to leave a day in the middle of the week for a resort day, Downtown Disney time and relaxing. Now that we added 2 more park days to our plan, that has changed. We decided to use our arrival day and our departure day as flex days and do a marathon 5 days in the parks. That means HS on Monday, Epcot on Tuesday, MK on Wed and Thurs and AK on Friday. It fits in well with our dining reservations and doing 2 days at MK will allow us to take things at a slower pace. I am sure plans will be tweeked even more once we are there, but for now we are happy with these ideas.
Is it September 2 yet??????
 

SweetEvangeline

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
It totally pays off to watch your flights with Air Tran after you book. We booked flights in May and got round trip for $222 per person, which we thought was pretty good. In the last two weeks, the prices have dropped twice and we now have a $75 credit to use toward our luggage or a future flight. 16 more days.....could the prices possibly drop any more before then? That would be awesome!
 

Jkhawks

New Member
So excited for you! You are arriving on my birthday, which happens to be 12 days before our arrival. We are also starting at Whispering Canyon and ending at O'Hana. Can't wait to see your report.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom