Intro and Cast of Characters
This is my first real attempt at an in-depth trip report, so I hope you will bear with me, as I’m sure it’s going to take a while to get all the way through it. Especially seeing as how it took more than a month to get this first part up. (Although I have been working on it a little here and there when I’ve had the time). I’m a writer, so my guess is generally there will be more text than pictures in places, so you’ve been warned. I’ll forgive you if you only skim!
First off, I’m Bill, the big Disney World nut of the group, and planner extraordinaire. Ok, the title isn’t official, but part of the fun of a Disney trip for me is the planning. And for this trip, with a group of eight, some planning was essential to keep us on track and from breaking down and fighting over where to go and what to do.
If you are interested, you can also view my pre-trip report here: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=683799 which includes some of the planning details and itinerary I put together prior to our arrival. Go ahead and click, I’ll wait here. Just don’t take forever… I have things to do, ya know.
So the short story for those of you not clicking on the pre-trip report is as follows. Our group of eight headed from northeast Pennsylvania down to the World from May 8th to May 15th. The whole reason for the trip was my youngest brother, Danny, was playing with his high school marching band in Magic Kingdom on that Friday. We stayed at All Star Music, were on the regular Disney Dining Plan (we got the quick service dining plan free through a PIN code and upgraded for the difference), had park hopper tickets, flew in from Allentown, rented two cars, and otherwise planned on spending most of our waking hours soaking up the sun and fun in the parks.
I guess now is as good a time as any to introduce our group of crazy characters. I say crazy in a nice way of course, but I do mean crazy, in any case. :lookaroun
Since I’m writing this thing, me first:
Bill, 4th trip to the World, planner and travel coordinator for the trip. My job was to plan it out (and detailed at that) to keep us together and on track, and deal with any issues as they arose. My goal for the trip was to waste as little time as possible, be proactive, and while keeping us together as much as possible (at the request of my father), also keep in mind that sooner or later we’d all want some time by ourselves or with our significant others.
Which brings me to my partner, Matt.
This is Matt’s 4th trip, second with me. We went on our first real vacation together to the World back in ’08, and before that trip, he didn’t really get Disney. After I showed him how much fun it could be, he has come around. Not a Disney nut like me, but he’s not against visiting on a semi-regular basis now.
Next up, my mom and dad, generous benefactors for most of the trip’s costs.
They actually surprised us all at Christmas saying they were going to take us to Disney as a family. What can I say, they are my parents and I love ‘em! This was their 3rd trip to the World, and my Mom is the closest to being a Disney nut in the family besides me. Dad, not so much. His idea of a vacation is sleeping. Not exactly what you get at Disney. But I give him a lot of credit… this trip he really was a trooper and for the most part hung in there with us and didn’t get too Grumpy on us.
My younger brother Tony, and his girlfriend Sasha are next:
This is Tony’s 3rd trip, and Sasha’s first! A newbie! Knowing that this was Sasha’s first time was actually a lot of fun for me, because I wanted to be able to show her the best and really create a new Disney World fan. She was definitely thrilled about the whole experience, and really looked forward the whole week to seeing and doing everything she could. Like me, she also enjoys thrill rides, and since my Matt and most of the rest of my family doesn’t like them, I was looking forward to being able to finally ride things like Tower of Terror. Tony is a bit more like my father in the sense that he would prefer a relaxing vacation. But I think the fact he had Sasha along for the trip helped keep him motivated and moving for most of the week.
My youngest brother Danny:
This is his 2nd trip (he wasn’t around for the first family trip back in 1992!) and the whole reason we were going to Disney World in the first place. His high school marching band was accepted to play at Disney World, and one of the best of the Music Days venues – a march down Main Street USA on Friday morning! Danny is a typical teen - a little too cool for everything - but every now and again during the week he got excited about being in the most magical place on earth. More pictures of him and the band will follow later in the trip report.
And last but not least in our cast, Matt’s mother Julie:
This was Julie’s 4th trip if I remember correctly. She visited once back in the 70’s, so she was really the veteran of the group in that sense. She also brought Matt down twice, the last being in 2002 on a group tour. Her main reason for coming down though, besides spending time with us crazies, was to see Harry Potter-land over in Universal.
And that’s the cast of characters. Next post will be a short one about our pre-party we had the week before we began out vacation.
That’s it for the first post… more to come (soon I hope!) :wave:
This is my first real attempt at an in-depth trip report, so I hope you will bear with me, as I’m sure it’s going to take a while to get all the way through it. Especially seeing as how it took more than a month to get this first part up. (Although I have been working on it a little here and there when I’ve had the time). I’m a writer, so my guess is generally there will be more text than pictures in places, so you’ve been warned. I’ll forgive you if you only skim!
First off, I’m Bill, the big Disney World nut of the group, and planner extraordinaire. Ok, the title isn’t official, but part of the fun of a Disney trip for me is the planning. And for this trip, with a group of eight, some planning was essential to keep us on track and from breaking down and fighting over where to go and what to do.
If you are interested, you can also view my pre-trip report here: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/showthread.php?t=683799 which includes some of the planning details and itinerary I put together prior to our arrival. Go ahead and click, I’ll wait here. Just don’t take forever… I have things to do, ya know.
So the short story for those of you not clicking on the pre-trip report is as follows. Our group of eight headed from northeast Pennsylvania down to the World from May 8th to May 15th. The whole reason for the trip was my youngest brother, Danny, was playing with his high school marching band in Magic Kingdom on that Friday. We stayed at All Star Music, were on the regular Disney Dining Plan (we got the quick service dining plan free through a PIN code and upgraded for the difference), had park hopper tickets, flew in from Allentown, rented two cars, and otherwise planned on spending most of our waking hours soaking up the sun and fun in the parks.
I guess now is as good a time as any to introduce our group of crazy characters. I say crazy in a nice way of course, but I do mean crazy, in any case. :lookaroun
Since I’m writing this thing, me first:
Bill, 4th trip to the World, planner and travel coordinator for the trip. My job was to plan it out (and detailed at that) to keep us together and on track, and deal with any issues as they arose. My goal for the trip was to waste as little time as possible, be proactive, and while keeping us together as much as possible (at the request of my father), also keep in mind that sooner or later we’d all want some time by ourselves or with our significant others.
Which brings me to my partner, Matt.
This is Matt’s 4th trip, second with me. We went on our first real vacation together to the World back in ’08, and before that trip, he didn’t really get Disney. After I showed him how much fun it could be, he has come around. Not a Disney nut like me, but he’s not against visiting on a semi-regular basis now.
Next up, my mom and dad, generous benefactors for most of the trip’s costs.
They actually surprised us all at Christmas saying they were going to take us to Disney as a family. What can I say, they are my parents and I love ‘em! This was their 3rd trip to the World, and my Mom is the closest to being a Disney nut in the family besides me. Dad, not so much. His idea of a vacation is sleeping. Not exactly what you get at Disney. But I give him a lot of credit… this trip he really was a trooper and for the most part hung in there with us and didn’t get too Grumpy on us.
My younger brother Tony, and his girlfriend Sasha are next:
This is Tony’s 3rd trip, and Sasha’s first! A newbie!
Knowing that this was Sasha’s first time was actually a lot of fun for me, because I wanted to be able to show her the best and really create a new Disney World fan. She was definitely thrilled about the whole experience, and really looked forward the whole week to seeing and doing everything she could. Like me, she also enjoys thrill rides, and since my Matt and most of the rest of my family doesn’t like them, I was looking forward to being able to finally ride things like Tower of Terror. Tony is a bit more like my father in the sense that he would prefer a relaxing vacation. But I think the fact he had Sasha along for the trip helped keep him motivated and moving for most of the week. My youngest brother Danny:
This is his 2nd trip (he wasn’t around for the first family trip back in 1992!) and the whole reason we were going to Disney World in the first place. His high school marching band was accepted to play at Disney World, and one of the best of the Music Days venues – a march down Main Street USA on Friday morning! Danny is a typical teen - a little too cool for everything - but every now and again during the week he got excited about being in the most magical place on earth. More pictures of him and the band will follow later in the trip report.
And last but not least in our cast, Matt’s mother Julie:
This was Julie’s 4th trip if I remember correctly. She visited once back in the 70’s, so she was really the veteran of the group in that sense. She also brought Matt down twice, the last being in 2002 on a group tour. Her main reason for coming down though, besides spending time with us crazies, was to see Harry Potter-land over in Universal.
And that’s the cast of characters. Next post will be a short one about our pre-party we had the week before we began out vacation.
That’s it for the first post… more to come (soon I hope!) :wave: