Trip Report Two broke guys & a dog (for the last time.) (completed)

No, I’m not mad at Disney. We’ll be back (in fact, it can’t be soon enough.) But this turned out to be our last trip together as a family.

Who: Brian (R) Tony (L) and Kylie.

When: May, 2023.

Can’t tease this, so I’ll just come out with it.

We’ve posted TRs over the years under the “Two broke guys & a dog” banner (and other titles.) Our May trip was short, and we had already booked August for my birthday (complete with a planned meet up with @Tuvalu) so I thought I’d make one double TR after August.

I ended up with Covid mid-month and we had to postpone to December for Brian’s birthday.

In the meantime, Kylie, our 14 year old German Shepherd/Chow Chow was diagnosed with heart failure. That “heads up” turned out to be a gift and a blessing that allowed us to spend so much extra quality time with her.

Kylie’s 14th bday on Halloween:

She stayed with us through the holidays, rubbing on the Christmas tree when she walked past it, per usual (like a cat lol) and was really doing well - eating, going for walks, snuggling. I expected more of a slow, gradual decline…but she passed yesterday. Now my heart is failing.

I don’t know how far I’ll get with this today. It might actually be too soon. But I thought it could be therapeutic, and a nice tribute.

For some reason, since my 30s, if I cry even a little, my eyelids swell up and it’s hard to undo. Ice helps only temporarily. I fear typing all this out will continue the waterworks (it already has) and prolong that condition. OTOH, they’re already swollen, so WTH? I’ll play it by ear, if that’s ok.

This is my love letter to my pup.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

@Tony the Tigger after I lost my Clyde a few years ago I would start crying out of nowhere. I thought I was fine then wham, tears. I believe it happens to most of us and I'm so sorry you are going through it now.

View attachment 764302

Aww, sweet pup.

 

[fizzieee]

 

[Wicked Sisters]

We adopted Simba when he was 11 years and after 4 months he was diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy and sadly two months later we lost him but like you said with Kylie, we so hoped we could have had longer with him. So emotional reading you report and the photos of Kylie are precious.

Our Simba

 

[Tony the Tigger]

We adopted Simba when he was 11 years and after 4 months he was diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy and sadly two months later we lost him but like you said with Kylie, we so hoped we could have had longer with him. So emotional reading you report and the photos of Kylie are precious.
View attachment 764416Our Simba

I’m sorry.

 

[MinnieM123]

When she was younger, Kylie was never bothered by loud noises. For the last several years, she became afraid of both thunder and fireworks. The fireworks are bad where we live. It’s like a war zone without a moment’s break. So every 7/4 and 12/31 we take her to a hotel where it’s quieter and she sleeps peacefully, and we order in and make an event of it.

You two were the best dog parents! (As always, I really like reading your TRs, and your fond memories of Kylie make this one extra special.)

 

[Tony the Tigger]

No, I am not in a fit of depression, but while I’m waiting for another poster to make the reveal (anyone want to guess who it is? Anyone who hasn’t seen my FB posts, that is) I’m taking the moment to reminisce.

An old friend who learned of Kylie’s passing texted, “Remember when we had to chase her down the street at my house?”

That was an all too common tale. Kylie was a runner. She was, in fact, an escape artist. As I mentioned, the other family brought her back to the pound at least partly for that reason. (We adopted her at 7 months.)

She could dig under our backyard fence and have her whole 50+ pound body completely in our neighbor’s yard in seconds. It was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. We would let her out to pee, and 5 minutes later the doorbell would ring, with our neighbor holding her by the collar. Did we bring her back to the pound? No, we’re not aholes lol. We buried cinderblocks all around the perimeter, and that was that.

Speaking of doorbells, this dog never barked. Almost never. Other dogs barking in other yards? She was quiet. Squirrel? She’d chase it, but not bark. Doorbell? She’d wait for our reaction. If the doorbell rang and we didn’t answer it (UPS, etc.) she would look alert and watch us, but not react. But the second one of us got up to answer the door, she would bark. She was always looking out for us.

But she had no bad Chow traits. She was friendly with everyone, never bit, and was eventually very submissive and docile. She expressed her will and sometimes ignored ours, but never showed any kind of aggression.

Back to the top, the time she was the worst at listening to us was when she got out of the house. Brian let her get past him the most, and once she was out the front door, it was going to be awhile to catch her. We and various friends and family members found ourselves chasing her in various locations over the years - on foot, bike, or vehicle.

Miss Smarty Pants very quickly learned that if I pulled up alongside her in the car and she jumped in, her joyride was over and we were going home. Then, she learned that accepting a treat also meant certain capture. My best strategy was to cut her off on my bicycle and then grab her.

Sometimes I’d take the leash and she could run next to me while I pedaled. She loved that. It could be tricky, though.

Sometimes the easiest time to catch her was if she stopped to sniff another dog, and the owner would grab her for us. Once, the other owner was aggressive with her, and he got one f*****g earful of Jersey f-bombs. Then I drove around the block, took pictures of him and shamed him online. Don’t F with my girl!!

The friend who texted about the running had a Golden Retriever who Kylie got along with really well, and who put Kylie in her place. Goldie passed a few years ago. Wouldn’t it be nice if they were playing together again? I never would have thought of that it not typing this TR. I told you it could be therapeutic!

I’ll have to dig for a pic of Kylie & Goldie.

For now, here she is running with other pups at BFPC, and “hiding” in the bed.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Found the pic with Goldie on FB.

Found other pics there that I haven’t seen in awhile. This one is en route to WDW years ago. Peek-a-boo!

And these two are older than the one I posted earlier with the turntable in it. These are from the day we brought her home: May 10, 2010. Her belly was shaved from being spayed.

That was the first time I fed her with a fork.

*ETA that was in our old apartment. We weren't really supposed to have a dog there, but we knew we were moving out. We were supposed to close on our house right away, but it ended up being the end of June. She used to get attacked by stray cats sometimes when we walked her over there - I had to carry a broom!

She also had pretty bad separation anxiety. When either of us went to walk out the door, she would try to "untie" (nip at) our shoelaces! She tore the stuffing out of an old couch one day. After a few years, she knew we weren't going anywhere and weren't taking her back, and she very much chilled and settled in.

 

[Tuvalu]

 

[Tony the Tigger]

I have plenty of memories to fill these pages, and plenty of work to catch up on today!!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

I’ll pick up on the next day of our recent trip (Thursday) very soon. I think you’ll enjoy it! I know I did.

I did well yesterday - held it together when we got home, and when Brian went to work an hour later. What does keep happening is what I call micro-thoughts. It’s not a complete thought. It’s a flash, an impulse. In bed alone last night, I kept thinking, “I have to let her in.” And then, “Oh.” But it was all in a fraction of a second and not in complete sentences like that. It’s like forgetting and remembering over and over again. So many examples of that.

Brian keeps saying he feels her presence in the house. I don’t know.

His new temporary job starts tomorrow. Some of you know he went to nursing school after being in restaurant/stadium management for many years. Unfortunately, he’s had trouble passing the state test since. In the meantime, he’s been working overnights at a hospital (7pm-7:30am) as a personal care tech. That means he’s…cleaning people up all night for $15 an hour. We saw it as a foot in the door, but the overnight hours are brutal and the job for that pay is hard to justify. A former employee of his got him in touch with a bowling alley that needed a food & beverage manager. It’s nearly double the salary and much more reasonable hours, which will be less disruptive, and more conducive to nailing down the nursing test. The bills have been stacking up, and this should help that. (I’m not kidding when I say if we didn’t have the Disney Visa points, our trips would be verrrry different! Thank goodness we do.

The plan for Thursday was originally to do HS in the morning and MK at night. Then I realized that meant Epcot would get bumped to Friday during a festival, which would likely mean longer booth lines, etc. So I changed our morning park to Epcot. (No park reservations were required that day.)

It was around 10/10:30 I received a text from another board member saying they would be at Epcot that day. About an hour later, we were walking into Epcot from the parking lot.

Our first stop was in Mexico for a light lunch.

But we weren’t alone! (I didn’t take this picture! You can see where our four arms are lol.)

So who did take this picture?

 

[rshell68]

Oh, Oh Mr. Kotter, Mr. Kotter...I know, I know!!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Now that the cat is out of the bag…

The text from earlier that morning was from none other than @Tuvalu and we readily agreed to meet up with her and her fab friend, Kelly. Brian and I have met with Tu/Woody/Em several times, and it’s always a treat.

Brian ordered a chicken bowl and I ordered fish tacos, knowing full well we’d let each other sample, we do that all the time. Tu caught on and said she and Woody do the same.

It was so nice not just to see Tu, but to meet Kel, and to just have a normal conversation and not feel sad. Of course, we mentioned Kylie, and of course, Tuvalu knows who Kylie is, more than many of my friends “in real life” because she has read the TRs where we always talk about her and take pictures for so many years.

Brian and Kel talked nursing and…

Tony and I chick chatted (I feel that’s ok to say)

I might be insulted if you didn’t.

(You can see more pics of this day on Tuvalu’s TR if you haven’t already. I’m slow with a camera!)

And then the bonus surprise of meeting @riverside ! What a day this turned out to be. It went from somber, to fun and healing with one text. Everything happens for a reason.

…everything except Tuvalu ripping my phone out of my hand and getting us into a Guardians boarding group! There was no reason for that. I love ya for trying.

Every time she plotted and schemed at another customer service stand and came up empty, I gave it a good “aww, shucks” but I was so glad. She tried so hard to torture me, I mean, allow me to enjoy this ride with them - well, not really “them” because she was as chicken as I was and wasn’t going to ride it, either! Just send me to my death and cheer from the sidelines.

I kid. I appreciate the thought and I give Tu props for having gone on it before!

Patti is hella fun. It took me awhile to put screen names and real names together, so these may be the only two I remember!

But wait…there’s more.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Ok, she might get mad at me, but I’m now pirating Tuvalu’s trip report to save me some typing. Here’s my side of the story.

I’m glad we didn’t just have lunch and part ways. We started all walking together (how Wizard of Oz was this tale? Alright, maybe that’s a stretch.)

We all do Disney differently. B and I typically stroll the world, read each board, and nibble and sip whatever sounds good as we go. As we passed a few clunkers in a row (all the while protesting, “I’ll drink anything!” - but not that) I felt a little awkward like I might be holding everyone up to find a drink. France was at least acceptable, and I couldn’t bear dragging everyone around for my pickiness, so France would do.

When we got to France Tony’s interest was piqued. This came as no surprise to Brian.

“Look how long the line is,” he said to Tony. Tony would not be swayed. He wanted to try the Frozen French Martini and the Elderflower Liqueur Cocktail

Or something like that. The frozen Martini was for Brian, and I love elderflower drinks, but the martini was too sweet for him, so we switched, and I promptly got a massive brain freeze!

“I knew we’d end up in France,” Brian whined to me.

Wait…Brian whined? Do I need to address this?

It had started to sprinkle. As we approached Mexico, Tony suggested we pop into the pyramid to wait out the rain.

A visit with the Three Caballeros was a must.

As I recall, someone wanted to continue walking as the rain was obviously getting harder and harder. () If you read my old TRs, you know B and I rarely skip The 3-C’s. I thought it was a perfect opportunity. Kill two birds with three Caballeros.

When we came out, the rain had stopped, but it had clearly poured. I practically saved us from drowning! ️

 

[Wicked Sisters]

I’ll pick up on the next day of our recent trip (Thursday) very soon. I think you’ll enjoy it! I know I did.

I did well yesterday - held it together when we got home, and when Brian went to work an hour later. What does keep happening is what I call micro-thoughts. It’s not a complete thought. It’s a flash, an impulse. In bed alone last night, I kept thinking, “I have to let her in.” And then, “Oh.” But it was all in a fraction of a second and not in complete sentences like that. It’s like forgetting and remembering over and over again. So many examples of that.

Brian keeps saying he feels her presence in the house. I don’t know.

His new temporary job starts tomorrow. Some of you know he went to nursing school after being in restaurant/stadium management for many years. Unfortunately, he’s had trouble passing the state test since. In the meantime, he’s been working overnights at a hospital (7pm-7:30am) as a personal care tech. That means he’s…cleaning people up all night for $15 an hour. We saw it as a foot in the door, but the overnight hours are brutal and the job for that pay is hard to justify. A former employee of his got him in touch with a bowling alley that needed a food & beverage manager. It’s nearly double the salary and much more reasonable hours, which will be less disruptive, and more conducive to nailing down the nursing test. The bills have been stacking up, and this should help that. (I’m not kidding when I say if we didn’t have the Disney Visa points, our trips would be verrrry different! Thank goodness we do.

The plan for Thursday was originally to do HS in the morning and MK at night. Then I realized that meant Epcot would get bumped to Friday during a festival, which would likely mean longer booth lines, etc. So I changed our morning park to Epcot. (No park reservations were required that day.)

It was around 10/10:30 I received a text from another board member saying they would be at Epcot that day. About an hour later, we were walking into Epcot from the parking lot.

Our first stop was in Mexico for a light lunch.
View attachment 764693

But we weren’t alone! (I didn’t take this picture! You can see where our four arms are lol.)

So who did take this picture?

Totally agree with you about Brian’s hourly pay. I retired from our hospital working as a nurse assistant and was still only getting under £10 hour. No wonder they cannot get people to apply for nursing jobs. Wishing Brian the best of luck with his nursing test.

 

[Tuvalu]

Ok, she might get mad at me, but I’m now pirating Tuvalu’s trip report to save me some typing. Here’s my side of the story.

Pirate away!

I loved loved loved hearing your side of the story.

As my family likes to tease me, I have "selective memory" when recalling trips.

 

[MerMom1981]

Oh my goodness! I am so very sorry for your loss! We lost our 12 y/o black lab a couple of years ago. We all had dog-shaped holes in our hearts. Cried until my eyeballs hurt.
So sorry you had to say goodbye to your girl

 

[Tony the Tigger]

As we sipped & strolled & dished, I mentioned the schoolbread because I found out about it on this board a few years ago. It took me a few bites to warm up to what’s basically a roll with donut filling, but now I get one almost every visit just because it’s so different.

Tu wanted tu visit the Odyssey for a cider flight. We often stop there during festivals, but they usually have more food options. This time it was only desserts. B is type 1 diabetic since childhood, so we passed on the food…but not on the beer! Rainbow beer, no less. (Did they know we were coming?) There was a lot of rainbow going on at the arts festival…not that I’m complaining!

We and Patti got the beer flights and @Tuvalu got the cider. When you put them side by side, it made a rainbow.

Taste the rainbow!

Well, you couldn’t taste the rainbow (sorry, Skittles) because it had no taste. The blue and the green tasted like water. I usually reserve that designation for Coors Light, but these made Coors Light taste like Guinness.

The purple one had more of a sour taste, not bad.

This was what we ordered:

Don’t ever order those.

Here’s another pic from inside for the Figgy fans:

And since it’s the arts festival, here’s just one stand I found fascinating:

I do love my Star Wars.

Maybe because I brought up schoolbread, next thing I know our group was heading to Norway.

Once again, @riverside and I were ordering twins.

I asked for mine in a to-go container so I could eat it later. Then I sat down and took a bite. Then I finished it. Whoops! (Hey, I’m in mourning or something!)

As we continued down the yellow brick road, I mean the Epcot walkway, we met up with another WDWmagic member. (I still can’t decide if I’m the scarecrow or Dorothy in this analogy.)

We met up with Cindy @MickeyCB and her son. Yet another great and worthwhile meet up! We would see them again tomorrow, but our room was finally ready at CBR, our group for Guardians was still 90 minutes out, and we wanted to check in and chill before our big night at MK!

We stayed for a few pics at Guardians (you can see the rest on Tuvalu’s TR) and said our goodbyes with hugs and headed out.

See, everyone is happily waving goodbye to us.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

We’ve been to CBR many times, more than any other resort. You used to be able to request an “island” when you did online check-in. Just as you can no longer request a time before 3pm (this will come up again later in the TR) you can no longer select an island. No big deal for us, but it could be for people who can’t walk so far to get to the food court.

We ended up in Jamaica, which is fairly well centered. The rooms, while larger, were set up fairly similarly to the much-improved All-Stars. Now, we used to routinely get discounted CBR rooms in the $120 range. This time I think they were around $240. I mentioned to Brian, with the values being discounted to around $90, I wasn’t sure if it was worth the cost to upgrade to moderate for a short-ish trip. We would be at CBR for 3 nights. I wondered if we shouldn’t have stayed at the value longer and then get 2 nights instead of one at the AKL Club level at the end. (Or maybe compromise on something like Pop Century.) You’ll have to wait for my review of AKL Club to see how that line of thought holds up.

This time, there was something nice about being someplace familiar. Brian and I were kind of re-bonding on this trip after our loss. CBR was a good choice - despite the Skyliner being down until the day we checked out.

That, and there was no central a/c or heat in this one - just an old school blower by the window. It worked fine, though (and it got cold out Saturday night.)

As mentioned, Kylie’s Mickey was on the counter by the TV.

Brian slept a little, I rested a little, and he woke up just in time to give me his input on dinner. Truth be told, the man will do whatever I want. But sometimes when he says that, I say, “You’re not helping.”

We have always loved MK at night. It’s a different kind of magic, and often short to no waits on many attractions, especially during the fireworks. MK was open until 10pm, and we wanted to do as much as possible until then, knowing we’d arrive late. I was surprised to see a 9:55pm open for Be Our Guest.

We hadn’t been to BoG since twice when it first opened. We enjoyed it! I kept reading how it had gone downhill. We were willing to give it a shot for the convenience vs. trying to get over to California Grill through the exit crowd crunch and hoping we’d still have a monorail back. I booked it.

 

[erstwo]

We’ve been to CBR many times, more than any other resort. You used to be able to request an “island” when you did online check-in. Just as you can no longer request a time before 3pm (this will come up again later in the TR) you can no longer select an island. No big deal for us, but it could be for people who can’t walk so far to get to the food court.

We ended up in Jamaica, which is fairly well centered. The rooms, while larger, were set up fairly similarly to the much-improved All-Stars. Now, we used to routinely get discounted CBR rooms in the $120 range. This time I think they were around $240. I mentioned to Brian, with the values being discounted to around $90, I wasn’t sure if it was worth the cost to upgrade to moderate for a short-ish trip. We would be at CBR for 3 nights. I wondered if we shouldn’t have stayed at the value longer and then get 2 nights instead of one at the AKL Club level at the end. (Or maybe compromise on something like Pop Century.) You’ll have to wait for my review of AKL Club to see how that line of thought holds up.

This time, there was something nice about being someplace familiar. Brian and I were kind of re-bonding on this trip after our loss. CBR was a good choice - despite the Skyliner being down until the day we checked out.

That, and there was no central a/c or heat in this one - just an old school blower by the window. It worked fine, though (and it got cold out Saturday night.)

As mentioned, Kylie’s Mickey was on the counter by the TV.

Brian slept a little, I rested a little, and he woke up just in time to give me his input on dinner. Truth be told, the man will do whatever I want. But sometimes when he says that, I say, “You’re not helping.”

We have always loved MK at night. It’s a different kind of magic, and often short to no waits on many attractions, especially during the fireworks. MK was open until 10pm, and we wanted to do as much as possible until then, knowing we’d arrive late. I was surprised to see a 9:55pm open for Be Our Guest.

We hadn’t been to BoG since twice when it first opened. We enjoyed it! I kept reading how it had gone downhill. We were willing to give it a shot for the convenience vs. trying to get over to California Grill through the exit crowd crunch and hoping we’d still have a monorail back. I booked it.

I'm very interested in your BoG experience. My neighbor down the street took her 4 year old granddaughter to WDW before Christmas. She hadn't been in decades.

She loved every single thing about her trip - the on site hotel, the transportation, the parks - nothing but praise. But she made sure to tell me - don't ever go to that Beast castle restaurant. It was terrible - bad food, bad atmosphere, not worth the money or the time.

I haven't been in years - was so sad to hear that!

 

[Tony the Tigger]

We hadn’t really eaten since lunch, so I stopped at CBR’s Port Royale for a mobile order of a pulled pork sandwich for me (of course) and fish tacos for Brian. We ate and jumped in the car.

Before BoG, I needed to do CoP. I’ve become strangely attached to some of the tamer attractions like CoP and CBJ over the years. On the last several trips, we kept missing CoP by minutes. Once, we entered for a Halloween Party just as @Tuvalu and Woody were leaving. As we chatted in front of the Plaza, I had no idea CoP was closing early. Another time was during an after hours event. We didn’t prioritize it early enough, and it was closed when we came around. And on our last visit it closed early as well. When did all that start?

The app said it was open until 9, but we took no chances. Some people make a beeline for Peter Pan or 7 Dwarfs, we made a beeline for good ol’ Carousel of Progress.

Yep, sat right in front. Near the doggie.

Fireworks started going off (8pm) about midway through. It was fine.

We started to wander a bit aimlessly. TRON looked cool, but it was way too late to get on (and Brian didn’t want to) but we walked under it.

I am certain I took more pictures of it. I keep thinking pics are missing from my phone. Odd.

Without taking pics, and with very little occasional drizzle, we managed to do TLM and Pirates. Everything was a walk-on. CBJ had already closed for the day (here we go again) and it was possibly our last chance to see it in its current form. Oh, well.

Not wanting to be late for dinner, we could only choose one or the other of HM or Jungle Cruise. It was drizzling now. Since JC can vary with the Skipper, and HM stays the same, we opted for JC. It was a wise and fun choice.

As we walked past HM to get back to the Beast’s Castle, we noticed it was at a 13 minute wait now. 13 is considered a lucky number for Italians. 3 was lucky for me as a kid. I was born on the 31st. My dad had a bracelet with a 13 on it.

Kylie passed on the 13th. That number and versions of it kept popping up - as part of food orders, room numbers, a glance at the clock. Also Brian kept noticing 143 (I love you.)

We might have been able to pull off a quick Doom Buggy whirl and still make it on time but didn’t want to take the chance. So, we’re off to see the Wiz, er, Beast at his castle, to dine.