Pre-Trip An August pre-trip report (with a mini Nov trip report thrown in)

Hi again everyone…did you miss me? LOL. Unfortunately, despite @Tuvalu ’s promised/promotion of a non-existent November trip report that I was supposed to write, I just got way too busy. I kind of dropped off the WDWMagic radar for a while, but now I’m slowly coming back…which is great because it’s just in time for…
Our annual August pre-trip report.
Here’s the details

Who
Tammy and I
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Our recent high school graduate Steph (I have no idea where the years went)
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And our “just finished his first year of high school" son Liam.
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Dates: August 11th to the 21st
If you’ve read any of my previous trip reports, you may realize that this is a bit earlier than our usual trips. There is a method to my madness however. We have annual passes that expire on the 20th of August (we got them on our last August trip since we were going to be there in November (2018) for the World Karate Championships). We decided to move our trip up about two weeks so as to take advantage of not having to buy park tickets.

Where: Somewhere we haven’t stayed before...Old Key West. We booked a 1 bedroom. We’re looking forward to staying here to check this one off the list. After this stay only the GF will be left on the list of DVC resorts we haven’t stayed at (until the Riviera resort opens)

Anything new this trip: Yup, a few things
1) We’re renting a car – when we were down in November we rented a car and really loved the freedom and flexibility it gave us. It also really allowed us to see what life outside of the parks was like, and we kind of liked it. This fact, coupled with the sticker shock we had at some of the on-site restaurants we ate at when we were there last August (I e.g. almost $300 for ‘Ohana once tip and exchange (to CDN) are factored in), and we realized we would actually end up quite a bit ahead even with the cost of the rental car, if we ate off property more (and there were a lot of restaurants we liked offsite)
2) Since we’ll have a car and, as mentioned earlier, we don’t need to buy Disney park tickets…We’re going to Universal. They have a ticket deal for Canadians right now (5 day – 2 parks/day for $240). The kids have always wanted to go, and this seems like the best year to do it.
3) I picked up a GoPro, so I may try to get some interesting footage while we’re there

Anything else
Kind of…this may be our last trip for a while. We decided we’d probably take a year off after this one and then go back in 2020 when Galaxy’s Edge has opened and, hopefully, some of the madness will have died down. We’ll see how things work out, but that’s the plan for now.

Thanks for following along…
 
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gwhb75

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Oh yeah…want to know what happened in November?

OK, I’m not doing a full trip report, but I thought I’d at least give some details of what happened.

Let’s start with the karate stuff

As you may remember, Steph and Liam both qualified to represent Canada at the World Karate Championships. We were staying offsite at one of the hotels on International Drive (it was a requirement for all team Canada members to stay at the same hotel). The tournament was huge, with representatives from countries all over the world.
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The first big concern Liam had was making weight. When he qualified back in May, he was at the upper end of his weight class (within a pound of moving up to the next weight) and was warned that if he went over the weight he would be unable to compete…. And a few weeks later he hit a huge growth spurt. He was pretty stressed about the whole thing. His sensei ( who came with us – and is a 2 time world champion himself), had a lot of weight cutting plans in place if needed…but they weren’t. While Liam shot up in height, he slimmed out quite a bit, and actually ended up lighter than when he qualified.
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Post weigh in picture
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This picture was followed by Liam finding the nearest all-you-can-eat buffet since he hadn't eaten in about 36 hours.

Unifrom picture
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and a picture of the three competitors from the dojo the kids train at:
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In terms of the competition itself…really tough. You’re competing against the best of the best and it was a great experience for both Steph and Liam.

Some competition pictures
Steph getting in the zone:
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Ready to fight
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Liam's fight prep
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Having said that….they both did really well, and both ended up with podium finishes in their weight classes (they both got bronze medals).

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I would post videos of their fights, but we try to keep that kind of stuff off the internet so that it’s harder for potential competitors to research them (and trust me, that happens a lot). Needless to say we were very proud of both of them.
 

gwhb75

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
In terms of Disney Stuff… I’ll do some quick points;
1) We had an early morning flight out of Buffalo.
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In Orlando
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Picked up our car (a Kia Soul),
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and went to AK.
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Had fun.
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In the evening Steph and I went to MK, while Liam and Tammy stayed at the hotel (Liam wanted to swim).
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Steph really wanted to see HEE, so we staked out a great spot just outside the hub on Main St.
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We had a great time
One last ride before calling it a day:
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More to come later...
 

krause

Well-Known Member
Yay! I’m glad your back! OH CANADA!! So cool that both your kids were able to represent Canada, and podium finishes! Congrats to them! 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 Looking forward to this mini recap report, and the upcoming August trip! We usually stay offsite and don’t eat at “fancy” restaurants but have had positive experiences at Buffalo wild wings, TGI Fridays, and Sweet Tomatoes. I dont know what you have at home, but we don’t have any of those in Winnipeg so they’re all “special” for us! :hilarious:
 

LisaBelle

Well-Known Member
Glad to see you back! Congrats to Steph on her graduation! My daughter just graduated from high school as well. It’s unbelievable how fast they grow up!
Congrats to both Steph and Liam on their podium finishes! Such an honor to represent their country!
Loving the mini trip report. Looking forward to reading about your August trip.
 

ScarletBegonias

Well-Known Member
I'm in!!! Can't wait to read about your next trip!! Our trip this year is probably going to be the last one for awhile for us as well. Harper will be starting Kindergarten next year, and so that will begin and make it harder for vacations.
 

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