Trip Report The tale of two Disney-obsessed Atlantic Canadians, March 27-April 3, 2014

Alrighty, well, let me start off by saying that this isn't officially a trip report yet because we don't leave for another six days, but I have a few spare minutes so figured I'd lay the groundwork here.

This report is for me (Tom, 25) and my mom (Peggy, 40+ ...). Here we are last February in the French pavilion:
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It's my fourth trip to WDW and her fifth. We're absolutely WDW obsessed. We love everything about it -- thinking about booking, actually booking, make our ADRs, planning what to pack, booking our Fastpasses (we LOVE the new Fastpass+ system so far -- we'll wait and see how well it works at the parks), etc. We've stayed at POR, CB, and CS, and POR is definitely our favourite. This trip, we'll be at POR again, and we've requested Magnolia Bend for the full seven nights. We really like Alligator Bayou, but we want to give "the mansions" a try. Fingers crossed!

We have been planning the trip since Christmas time, and were actually supposed to be there at the same time as my uncle, aunt, and two younger cousins. We were really looking forward to experiencing Disney with some first-timers, and especially with the kids, but unfortunately my youngest cousin broke her leg badly this week while sledding, so they've had to cancel for the time being.

Back to mom and me. Disney is our thing. We generally get along pretty well anyway, but Disney is a bit of a no-brainer for us. We both love how it's such an easy vacation -- no worries, just relaxed for a week but also filled with our favourite activities, great food, drinks, and lots of fireworks. We also both like to shop so DTD is a big favourite, after Epcot of course. I say pretty often that as long as I can afford it, I'll head to WDW at least once a year for the rest of my life. Friends (and even some family, including my two younger brothers) think we're insane for the way we love Disney so much. When we told people we were considering going again this year, we got a lot of responses like "you're going AGAIN?!?!?" and "just you and your mom -- won't you kill each other?!?" Well, nope, I guarantee we'll have fun and we'll want to go back again this time next year!

So, you may be able to tell from my spelling of "favourite" that we're Canadian. We're from Canada's smallest province, Prince Edward Island, on the Atlantic coast among the Maritime provinces (across the Northumberland Strait from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia). Have you heard of PEI mussels? Well, they come from the bays around our island. Have you heard of Anne of Green Gables? Well, her story was based on the island and she was created by islander Lucy Maud Montgomery. The island is also famous for its beautiful white sand beaches, friendly and generous culture, and pristine world-class golf courses.

That said, we've had a particularly harsh winter. So far, we've had nearly three times the usual amount of snow, and it's been bitter cold since Christmas. It's a bit of a frozen wasteland at the moment, which is in stark contrast to how beautiful it is here in the summer. Proof:

Summer: gorgeous beaches all around the island (this is less than a 5 minute walk from my place)
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And beautiful hiking trails in our national park
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But then there's winter...still beautiful but completely frozen
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So, you could say that we're really looking forward to some Florida sun.

Next Wednesday, March 26, we'll drive the 3 1/2 hours from my parents' place in Stratford, PEI across the Confederation Bridge to "the mainland" (aka New Brunswick), and straight on through to Halifax, Nova Scotia. We'll stay overnight at an airport hotel and hop on an early morning direct WestJet flight to Orlando on Thursday. Then, we'll take the DME to POR, and we absolutely can't wait!!! I bought a new Canon T3 DSLR for the trip, so I guarantee some decent photos of the sights, the food, and maybe even a few good ones of us having fun. This is my first trip report, so be gentle!

If anyone's interested in some live action, I'll definitely be pretty active on Twitter and Instagram during our trip:
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@officialtom
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@officialtom

Just three more workdays...
 
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SarahBella82

Well-Known Member
Yea! It sounds like a great trip, and I love a strong mother/son relationship. So sweet.

My mom's mom's family came from PEI, and my mother tells lots of tales of summer vacations spent up there.
 

officialtom

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
My mom's mom's family came from PEI, and my mother tells lots of tales of summer vacations spent up there.

Cool! PEI and Boston have some very strong connections! I know of more than one family that ended up split between the two places over the years.
 

officialtom

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Merging in our itinerary from an earlier planning post:

March 27
-arrive at POR via DME around 9:30am
-drop bags at the concierge if the room isn't ready and hop on a bus to Epcot
-FP+ for Soarin, Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land
-Dinner at Boatwrights at POR (we've eaten there before and loved it) at 6:40

March 28
-hop on a mid-morning bus to MK after a good night's sleep
-FP+ for Jungle Cruise, POTC, it's a small world
-Monorail to the Poly for dinner at 'Ohana at 8:00
-Watch the beginning of the Electrical Water Parade at 9:00
-Monorail back to MK for Wishes at 10:00

March 29
-hop on a bus to MK again
-Keys to the Kingdom at 9:15
-Back to POR for afternoon pool time/naps, or take the water taxi Downtown
-bus to MK and boat to Grand Floridian
-Dinner at Citricos at the GF at 7:45

March 30
-hop on a bus to MK then monorail to the Contempo
-Breakfast at The Wave... at 9:45
-bus to Hollywood Studios
-FP+ for Muppets, the Great Movie Ride, Fantasmic
-counter service dinner somewhere at HS or back at POR

March 31
-hop on a bus to Animal Kingdom
-FP+ for Kali, Killimanjaro, Dinosaur
-Dinner at Boma at AKL at 4:50
-evening at DTD or POR

April 1
-morning at the pool
-hop on a bus by late morning to Epcot
-FP+ for Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land
-Dinner at Restaurant Marrekesh at the World Showcase at 6:30
-FP+ for Illuminations preferred seating

April 2
-hop on a very early bus to MK
-MK welcome show at 7:45 (our first time attempting to get up early enough!)
-FP+ for Haunted Mansion, Mickey's PhilharMagic
-potentially return to POR for late morning/early afternoon nap
-Dinner at Tony's Town Square Restaurant on Main Street at 5:50
-FP+ for Big Thunder Mountain at 8:00 (in the dark!)
-Main Street Electrical Parade, Wishes
-kiss goodnight

April 3
-take the water taxi Downtown
-use up all remaining meal credits!
-shop, drink
-hang around the pool at POR
-catch the DME for the red-eye home
 
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Weather_Lady

Well-Known Member
Appropos of nothing, one of my favorite college professors, Dr. J. Brown, was from Prince Edward Island. She spoke of it often. (I'll never forget her lesson on How to Speak Like A Mummer.) By the time we graduated we all wanted to visit!
 
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officialtom

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Appropos of nothing, one of my favorite college professors, Dr. Janice Brown, was from Prince Edward Island. She spoke of it often. (I'll never forget her lesson on How to Speak Like A Mummer.) By the time we graduated we all wanted to visit!

Funny - speaking while breathing in is one similarity (of many) between PEI and Newfoundland, although the term "mummer" is much more of a Newfie thing!
 

officialtom

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Pre-trip update

I was digging through the forums last night and saw that someone had posted about online check-in being available 60 days out. For some reason, we were thinking it could only be done 24 hours before, like online check-in for flights. So we're all checked in! Port Orleans Riverside, requested a corner room on the highest floor. We also faxed POR earlier in the week requesting Magnolia Bend, which is more important to us than the options available online for special requests. Fingers crossed!!
 

mattdenine

Well-Known Member
As a fellow Atlantic Canadian (living in Halifax, from Newfoundland) I have spent a lot of time in PEI. I lived there for 9 months while going to school. I look forward to your trip report as we leave on April 23.
 

officialtom

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The Winter Apocalypse: a pre-trip update

Well, in true Atlantic Canadian fashion, we're supposed to get an intense winter storm on Wednesday, our planned day to drive to Halifax to fly out early Thursday morning. This means our Thursday flight would likely get cancelled, and we probably wouldn't be able to make it to Halifax anyway.

CBC meteorologist Peter Coade says the storm could be "crippling," and might bring as much as 40 or 50 centimetres of snow. He said when he looks at his charts it reminds him of White Juan, the enormous blizzard that swept across Atlantic Canada in 2004 and dropped a metre of snow in some areas.

For those if you who don't speak metric, 50cm is nearly 20 inches. Plus, the winds are expected to be high enough to cause extensive power outages across the region.

So we may end up heading there tomorrow night to fly out ahead of the storm early on Tuesday - meaning our Disney vacation might start two days earlier than planned! Our options right now are:

1. Halifax Monday night, fly to Orlando early Tuesday, and check in to Pop for two nights -- as of right now there's availability at a very low rate. We'd then move to POR for our "normal" reservation on Thursday.
2. Same timeline as above but check into an Orlando Hyatt for two nights (we have some points to use up) and spend some time shopping and maybe heading to the dark side for a day -- we've never been there and I'd love to see the Harry Potter part.
3. Same timeline but fly to Toronto on Tuesday and spend the night there, then to Florida on Wednesday either to Pop or the Hyatt.

We'll nail it down early tomorrow once the weather advisory officially becomes a storm watch or warning. For now we're leaning toward option 1. Westjet advises travel agents to fly their clients out before storms once official watches or warnings are issued, so we won't get hit with a change fee if/when that happens.

Interesting start to our vacation! More to come tomorrow...
 

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