Trip Report A Very Merry and very expensive 50th Birthday Celebration

Who: Brian and I
When: November 12-19
Where: Pop Century and Cabana Bay
Why: My 50th Birthday

Hello again everyone! My husband and I were able to make it back to Orlando again this year to celebrate my 50th birthday. I have to be honest I was not looking forward to turning 50 this year so a figured spending some time in the sun at 2 of my favourite places would help make it a lot more magical .



Our flight left at 2pm and we had a connection to catch in Ottawa. Due to the weather our flight from our home to Ottawa came in a bit late so it was a race to get to customs. When we got there they would not let us through because our luggage had not been transferred yet. I think I've mentioned before that I have really bad anxiety so I had a panic attack in the airport. It was embarrassing but I cannot control it and it can be quite scary. I was shaking and couldn't catch my breathe and trying hard to keep it together. Luckily for me Brian was able to get someone to help us with the luggage situation and they finally let us on the plane. The airline ended up holding the plane for all of the passengers that were running late so thank goodness for small miracles.

The good news is when we were at the airport in our hometown I saw someone who knows me from my job and she works for the airline we flew with so she had our tickets upgraded to 1st class on both flights! What a wonderful surprise that was for both of us.

Sunset

Menu for 1st class


We played it safe and we both got the cheese and fruit tray and I got a margarita because I really needed it .


We arrived in Orlando at 7:20pm and this is the next picture we took almost 2 hours later...


We quickly checked in, dropped off our luggage and hopped on a bus to Disney Springs to get a late dinner at Polite Pig.


After a delicious meal we did a little shopping until 11pm and then it was time to head back to Pop to unpack and get some sleep.
We really wanted these 2 decorations but they definitely would not fit in our luggage .

 

[Beastly74]

Happy New Year!

We wandered around until we finally found Gideon's again and luckily for us it was less than a 15 minute wait. I was planning on purchasing one slice of cake and 3 cookies but Brian decided he wanted some merchandise so our final bill was ridiculous. Everything was good but it is not something I would stand in line for longer than 15 minutes. I think the slice of cake was salted caramel and the cookies were all banana bread/chocolate chip. We ended up bringing 2 of the cookies home with us the next day. We both enjoyed the decor too.







Our bag of goodies

 

[Beastly74]

After our treat we did some more shopping. We saw this Christmas band walking around a few times.


I checked in the Lego store to see if they had any Disney minifigures but they are no longer available. I have a strange addiction to anything miniature . Brian bought me the Cinderella castle for Christmas years ago so I have some of the figures already.


Of course we had to check out the World of Disney store. We both ended up buying a few things but sometimes I had to keep reminding myself that we were going to pay exchange on every purchase.



My favourite store though is the Christmas store and I spent way too much in there. I collect Disney ornaments and I try to only buy an ornament for the current trip and 1 for every year that we did not make it to Disney so if I was already there in 2023 then I should have only gotten 1 new ornament for 2024. I did not stick to that rule this year . Oops!
I will show you all some of the ornaments that I bought in my last post for the trip (which is coming up way too soon)


We also stopped in a few other shops and I ended up buying Brian a pair of fuzzy PJ pants with Mickey on the leg (no pic sorry). He loves them and even wore them to my work PJ Christmas party along with a Disney spirit jersey while I wore PJ's with a cat on them. What is funny is some of my friends accuse me of making him always go to Disney World but here he is rocking the Disney clothes more that I do sometimes .

We enjoyed looking at the Christmas decorations and listening to the live music around Disney Springs then I am a little ashamed to admit that we ended up back at Polite Pig for a late dinner.





One last picture before we called it a night about 9:30pm.


We actually spent over 5 hours at Disney Springs and had a great night just wandering around enjoying the atmosphere. We took an uber back to the hotel and packed up for our flight home. It was a very relaxing day but I struggled so much with the urge to do more. At the end of the day I was glad that we decided to take a more leisurely pace.

Total step for the day - 24,118.

 

[Tiki Traveler]

We also stopped in a few other shops and I ended up buying Brian a pair of fuzzy PJ pants with Mickey on the leg (no pic sorry). He loves them and even wore them to my work PJ Christmas party along

I’m writing this w/the wind howling and my phone stating it’s 21 degrees. My first thought was those fuzzy PJ pants will keep him warm this winter! (I’m from Buffalo, NY.)

It was a very relaxing day but I struggled so much with the urge to do more. At the end of the day I was glad that we decided to take a more leisurely pace.

Total step for the day - 24,118.

Leisurely pace and 24,118 steps?

But I get it, you weren’t running around one of the parks trying to score rides. Your day(s) all sound fun!

 

[Tuvalu]

We actually spent over 5 hours at Disney Springs

 

[Beastly74]

I’m writing this w/the wind howling and my phone stating it’s 21 degrees. My first thought was those fuzzy PJ pants will keep him warm this winter! (I’m from Buffalo, NY.)



Leisurely pace and 24,118 steps?

But I get it, you weren’t running around one of the parks trying to score rides. Your day(s) all sound fun!

It currently feels like -17C or 1.4F so he really appreciates the PJ bottoms. He told me that I should have bought him the matching fuzzy sweater .
I cannot imagine walking 20,000+ steps a day when I am home. I am more of a couch potato especially in the winter.

I go a bit crazy when we are at Disney World and try and see and do everything even at Disney Springs .

 

[Beastly74]

Tuesday, Nov 19th,

Our flight was not until 2pm so we checked out of Cabana Bay at 10:30am and took an uber to MCO. We had some time to check out the Disney and Universal stores.

Bye Mickey and Minnie .

This would make an amazing dollhouse.

]
I did buy a classic Mickey t-shirt at the airport.

I want this statue of Pluto .


The theming for Harry Potter in the Universal store was cool.





Then it was time to fly home.


We switched planes in Toronto and then arrived home around 10pm I think. No issues on the flight back home. I would have been okay if we got stuck in Toronto because Brian's brother and our nephew live not far from the airport. That actually happened to us one year on our way home from Disney and I had to message my boss to tell her I would not make it to work the next day.

Tomorrow I will make the final post for this trip and that makes me a little sad .

 

[erstwo]

This has been so fun the follow along!

 

[12in12]

Thanks for writing this trip report. I really enjoyed reading it.

 

[Beastly74]

This has been so fun the follow along!

Thanks so much! I enjoyed writing it and reliving the memories.

Thanks for writing this trip report. I really enjoyed reading it.

Thank you! I am glad you enjoyed it .

 

[Beastly74]

I really had an amazing time on the trip. My only regret is that it was not longer so that we could have experienced all 4 of the Disney World parks. I choose Epcot and Hollywood Studios because they were accessible by Skyliner and because they were open later (compared to Animal Kingdom). Also I knew we would be going to MK for the Christmas party.
The weather was wonderful. I think the coolest day was the last day of the trip but it was still warm enough to go swimming during the day. I think it was a high of 73-74 that day.

Brian lets me plan everything but he is the calm one in our relationship so he keeps me grounded. Honestly I did try and take it easier this trip and there were things I wanted to do like resort hop and look at Christmas decorations that we did not do because of time constraints (we did make time for that back in December 2019).

Total steps for this trip (excluding arrival and departure day) 168,190 over 6 days.

My plan for 2025 was to do a DW trip in May to see the Flower and Garden festival again and then visit Universal in November for Orlando Informers and Epic Universe. However we both agreed after this trip that the exchange rate was just too ridiculous right now to justify going back. It is currently sitting at 1.44 . Hard to believe but when when we took our very 1st trip to DW in September 2011 the exchange rate was 1USD = 1.0353 CDN . So I think we will probably go to Niagara Falls, Ontario in June (we have been there a couple times and it is beautiful) but I am still holding on to the November dream.

As promised here are the ornaments we bought this trip:



Brian bought me this snowman from Universal (I have a huge collection of snowmen/women/people).


Thank you to everyone that patiently followed along as I tried to prolong this trip report . I appreciate it so much and even though I rarely comment on other people's trip reports please know that I absolutely love reading them.

Thought some might enjoy this picture of Jax and Brian with Santa (Jax looks calm here but 2 seconds after this picture was taken he went nuts .

And here he is back to work after the Christmas holidays. What a good boy!

 

[TheMouseFan]

So glad you had a great trip! I loved following along. We kept thinking about doing an Orlando Informer Meet Up, but I never pulled the trigger and now I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to Universal, but it was nice to hear a first hand experience instead of just seeing pics on Facebook. I hope you get to return in November!

 

[MickeyCB]

Thank you for sharing your trip it looks like you had a wonderful time!

 

[Piglet_the_brave]

Really enjoyed following along. I’d not heard of the Orlando Informer meet up before your report, and I’ve just watched the Mammoth Club video on it, looks like a great event.

I can relate on the exchange rate pain coming from the UK, I remember when we were first going to Disney in the early 2000’s getting $1.80-$1.90 to the £ now it’s more like $1.20. Hope it starts to get more favourable for you

 

[MinnieM123]

Very enjoyable TR, with some great photos as well. Thank you for sharing. (P.S.: I love the photo above of the dog "back at work" after the holidays! )

 

[fractal]

The dining area




We got an early lunch using the gift certificate I had gotten for my birthday.


Then we went back up to the room to get changed to go swimming. Brian only went around the lazy river once and then he decided to go back to the room to relax. I went around 3 times in a row and then swam in the heated pool for a little while.
Our room was in this building.






My only complaint I have is there were 2 young girls going around the lazy river and one of them kept splashing other people and her poor friend kept apologizing to everyone. The sign says no splashing but the lifeguards saw it happening and did nothing. I wish I could speak up more because it was very annoying. If you want to splash around go to the pool. Thankfully they finally left after my 2nd time around the lazy river. Besides the 2 kids it was a nice way to spend 2 hours enjoying the warm weather.

Regarding the girl splashing...