We’re going back!!!
Here we are on our last trip! Trip report is here:http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=834141
I’m Courtney (26), and I’m currently a graduate student, but not for long! My classes end at the end of April, and I graduate in May. I’ve spent the past two years devoting allllll my time and energy to getting my masters degree! I’m studying speech language pathology, so in addition to class work, I also participate in clinic many, many hours a week. It has been an exhausting two years, but I know it will be worth it! In order to celebrate graduating, I had been planning to take a beach trip with some of my classmates, but the trip was going to be pretty expensive—enough money that Austin and I could’ve taken a trip together—but he said it was ok for me to go with them! But a few months ago, when Austin and I found out we would be moving to Philadelphia this summer, we both decided it would be better for us to save that money to put towards our move instead of spending it on a trip. I was really bummed to not be going, and bummed to have no plans to celebrate my graduation, but Austin had plans I didn’t know about!
For my program, in order to graduate, all students have to pass comprehensive examinations – ten essay questions, five hours, any question is fair game, fail more than two questions and you don’t graduate! So after our trip in December, all of my spare time was spent LIVING in the library, studying as much as possible. My comps were March 9, and when I got home from the test (and from drinking too many margaritas with my classmates, I came home to flowers and sweet Disney card from my husband telling me how proud of me he was (he’s seriously the best).
Although the test was over, I still had to wait two whole weeks to find out if I passed! Those two weeks were an emotional rollercoaster to say the least. But luckily, when the day came, I opened my envelope and saw two words – Unconditional Pass – and felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders! I called Austin and shared the good news. He suggested we go out to dinner to celebrate, so that night we went out and had a great, relaxed meal for the first time in months. Towards the end of the meal, Austin told me he had a surprise for me. I got a little nervous (I always get nervous about surprises because I worry I won’t give the right reaction!). But there was no need for me to worry, because he then told me that he had booked a Disney trip for us and we would be leaving in just about a month!! If you saw my earlier post about this, you saw that my reaction was initially excitement and disbelief, but that was soon followed by lots of questions for him! “Where are we staying? Did you get a discount? Did you book ADRs? HOW ARE YOU PAYING FOR THIS? We have to save up money to move!!”
See in our relationship, I’m the planner. I do our budget, I pay our bills, I plan everything because if I let him plan things, I drive him CRAZY with questions. I of course include him on all decisions though. I was amazed that he pulled this without me finding out. He quickly informed me that he had booked the trip on a credit card, and had the money set aside from a side job he had done that would pay for most of the trip. We don’t carry a balance on our credit cards, so I don’t pay that bill monthly and didn’t see the charge! He also let me know that he had booked our room at Pop—with a discount, and had booked a few ADRs, but was prepared for me to cancel them all and replan every aspect our trip if I wanted to. (I didn’t!) I can’t believe he pulled it off, and I’m so thankful for him!
So since then, I’ve been planning, anticipating and getting SO excited for a trip that is so soon! Our anniversary is also two weeks before our trip, so we decided we will celebrate that while we are there as well.
Here are the details!!
Staying at Pop Century for seven nights, with eight days in the parks!
April 26th – Last day of my school semester, we will drive to Dallas that afternoon, stop by the Disney store just to build up some excitement, and we will eat dinner at the Rainforest Café there. We have never eaten at Rainforest Café in the parks, but just thought it would be a fun dinner to get us ready for our trip since we associate it with Disney in our minds! Then we will go to Austin’s mom’s house for the night. She will be dropping us off at the airport the next day!
April 27th – Our flight leaves early in the morning and we will land at MCO close to noon. This will be our first time flying to Disney and our first time taking the ME! I am really excited about this! We will check in at Pop, and then plan on heading to Downtown Disney. We have late lunch reservations at T-Rex, but may do WPE for lunch instead. We then plan to head to Epcot for the day, since it has EMH that night. I also will be upgrading my MYW ticket to an AP!! I am SO excited about this. With 8 days in the parks on this trip, plus two more trips tentatively planned just for 2012, the AP will certainly be worth it. I’m not sure if we are going to upgrade Austin’s to an AP or not. I’ll also be purchasing a TiW card as well, since we are paying for our meals OOP. No dinner ADRs right now, planning on getting CS in the world showcase.
April 28th – Epcot all day. Dinner at Via Napoli at 7:45. Austin is SO excited to try this pizza!
April 29th – Magic Kingdom (EMH til 2am!) No ADRs planned for this day. Planning on trying the waffle sandwiches at Sleepy Hollow for lunch, and Pecos Bills for dinner.
April 30th – DHS (EMH til 12) Another day with no ADRs. As you may have read in my last TR, we saw no shows DHS when we were there on our last trip, so that is a priority this trip. We decided to do no reservations this day so that we make sure and do everything we want at the parks. Austin is planning on trying the hot dogs at Fairfax Fair (mac and cheese and truffle oil on a hot dog? Sound strange, but he thinks it sounds amazing!)
May 1st – Animal Kingdom. Dinner ADR at California Grill at 9:25. This will be our Anniversary dinner! This was the only time that was open, so I hope we be able to see Wishes even though the ADR is a little late. I am so excited to try California Grill!
May 2nd – Epcot. Lunch ADR at Le Cellier at 12:55. We loved Le Cellier last time and we are really excited about eating here again!
May 3rd – Magic Kingdom (morning EMH) This will be our last full day! Lunch ADR at Sanaa at 12:55 ( I know it makes no sense to go that far for lunch, but we’re doing it). I’m really excited to try Sanaa. We love Indian food, so I think we will love Sanaa as well! After lunch we will go back to MK for the rest of the day, and probably have CS dinner at Cosmic Rays.
May 4th – Last day! Breakfast ADR at Kona Café at 8:05 am. We had an early breakfast at Kona on the last day of our previous trip, and decided this will be a tradition for us. After breakfast, we will head to MK for the day. Our flight doesn’t leave MCO til 7pm, so I think we will have most of the day before ME picks us up.
I can’t wait to be there! I will be done with school – so no looming projects or exams to stress me out. I also *hope* I will have a job by then ( I have a phone interview this afternoon, so send good vibes my way if you would!!). It is going to be a fabulous trip, and I really hope to not cry as much as a did last time.
I know some of you will be there at the same time, and I am hoping to run into some of you!!
Here we are on our last trip! Trip report is here:http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=834141
I’m Courtney (26), and I’m currently a graduate student, but not for long! My classes end at the end of April, and I graduate in May. I’ve spent the past two years devoting allllll my time and energy to getting my masters degree! I’m studying speech language pathology, so in addition to class work, I also participate in clinic many, many hours a week. It has been an exhausting two years, but I know it will be worth it! In order to celebrate graduating, I had been planning to take a beach trip with some of my classmates, but the trip was going to be pretty expensive—enough money that Austin and I could’ve taken a trip together—but he said it was ok for me to go with them! But a few months ago, when Austin and I found out we would be moving to Philadelphia this summer, we both decided it would be better for us to save that money to put towards our move instead of spending it on a trip. I was really bummed to not be going, and bummed to have no plans to celebrate my graduation, but Austin had plans I didn’t know about!
For my program, in order to graduate, all students have to pass comprehensive examinations – ten essay questions, five hours, any question is fair game, fail more than two questions and you don’t graduate! So after our trip in December, all of my spare time was spent LIVING in the library, studying as much as possible. My comps were March 9, and when I got home from the test (and from drinking too many margaritas with my classmates, I came home to flowers and sweet Disney card from my husband telling me how proud of me he was (he’s seriously the best).
Although the test was over, I still had to wait two whole weeks to find out if I passed! Those two weeks were an emotional rollercoaster to say the least. But luckily, when the day came, I opened my envelope and saw two words – Unconditional Pass – and felt a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders! I called Austin and shared the good news. He suggested we go out to dinner to celebrate, so that night we went out and had a great, relaxed meal for the first time in months. Towards the end of the meal, Austin told me he had a surprise for me. I got a little nervous (I always get nervous about surprises because I worry I won’t give the right reaction!). But there was no need for me to worry, because he then told me that he had booked a Disney trip for us and we would be leaving in just about a month!! If you saw my earlier post about this, you saw that my reaction was initially excitement and disbelief, but that was soon followed by lots of questions for him! “Where are we staying? Did you get a discount? Did you book ADRs? HOW ARE YOU PAYING FOR THIS? We have to save up money to move!!”
See in our relationship, I’m the planner. I do our budget, I pay our bills, I plan everything because if I let him plan things, I drive him CRAZY with questions. I of course include him on all decisions though. I was amazed that he pulled this without me finding out. He quickly informed me that he had booked the trip on a credit card, and had the money set aside from a side job he had done that would pay for most of the trip. We don’t carry a balance on our credit cards, so I don’t pay that bill monthly and didn’t see the charge! He also let me know that he had booked our room at Pop—with a discount, and had booked a few ADRs, but was prepared for me to cancel them all and replan every aspect our trip if I wanted to. (I didn’t!) I can’t believe he pulled it off, and I’m so thankful for him!
So since then, I’ve been planning, anticipating and getting SO excited for a trip that is so soon! Our anniversary is also two weeks before our trip, so we decided we will celebrate that while we are there as well.
Here are the details!!
Staying at Pop Century for seven nights, with eight days in the parks!
April 26th – Last day of my school semester, we will drive to Dallas that afternoon, stop by the Disney store just to build up some excitement, and we will eat dinner at the Rainforest Café there. We have never eaten at Rainforest Café in the parks, but just thought it would be a fun dinner to get us ready for our trip since we associate it with Disney in our minds! Then we will go to Austin’s mom’s house for the night. She will be dropping us off at the airport the next day!
April 27th – Our flight leaves early in the morning and we will land at MCO close to noon. This will be our first time flying to Disney and our first time taking the ME! I am really excited about this! We will check in at Pop, and then plan on heading to Downtown Disney. We have late lunch reservations at T-Rex, but may do WPE for lunch instead. We then plan to head to Epcot for the day, since it has EMH that night. I also will be upgrading my MYW ticket to an AP!! I am SO excited about this. With 8 days in the parks on this trip, plus two more trips tentatively planned just for 2012, the AP will certainly be worth it. I’m not sure if we are going to upgrade Austin’s to an AP or not. I’ll also be purchasing a TiW card as well, since we are paying for our meals OOP. No dinner ADRs right now, planning on getting CS in the world showcase.
April 28th – Epcot all day. Dinner at Via Napoli at 7:45. Austin is SO excited to try this pizza!
April 29th – Magic Kingdom (EMH til 2am!) No ADRs planned for this day. Planning on trying the waffle sandwiches at Sleepy Hollow for lunch, and Pecos Bills for dinner.
April 30th – DHS (EMH til 12) Another day with no ADRs. As you may have read in my last TR, we saw no shows DHS when we were there on our last trip, so that is a priority this trip. We decided to do no reservations this day so that we make sure and do everything we want at the parks. Austin is planning on trying the hot dogs at Fairfax Fair (mac and cheese and truffle oil on a hot dog? Sound strange, but he thinks it sounds amazing!)
May 1st – Animal Kingdom. Dinner ADR at California Grill at 9:25. This will be our Anniversary dinner! This was the only time that was open, so I hope we be able to see Wishes even though the ADR is a little late. I am so excited to try California Grill!
May 2nd – Epcot. Lunch ADR at Le Cellier at 12:55. We loved Le Cellier last time and we are really excited about eating here again!
May 3rd – Magic Kingdom (morning EMH) This will be our last full day! Lunch ADR at Sanaa at 12:55 ( I know it makes no sense to go that far for lunch, but we’re doing it). I’m really excited to try Sanaa. We love Indian food, so I think we will love Sanaa as well! After lunch we will go back to MK for the rest of the day, and probably have CS dinner at Cosmic Rays.
May 4th – Last day! Breakfast ADR at Kona Café at 8:05 am. We had an early breakfast at Kona on the last day of our previous trip, and decided this will be a tradition for us. After breakfast, we will head to MK for the day. Our flight doesn’t leave MCO til 7pm, so I think we will have most of the day before ME picks us up.
I can’t wait to be there! I will be done with school – so no looming projects or exams to stress me out. I also *hope* I will have a job by then ( I have a phone interview this afternoon, so send good vibes my way if you would!!). It is going to be a fabulous trip, and I really hope to not cry as much as a did last time.
I know some of you will be there at the same time, and I am hoping to run into some of you!!
Thanks! I'll tell Mickey you said hi!
