Trip Report Two broke guys & a dog (for the last time.) (now with Christmas 2024!)

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.

 

[93boomer]

Random pics on our way out of the Contemporary.

View attachment 831671View attachment 831672View attachment 831673

The Lyft back to the room was much cheaper at that hour and from that location (non-WDW surge pricing.)

As Miss Jackson would say as "Miss You Much" winds down: "That's the end?"

Beautiful tree

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Beautiful tree

I thought so! Especially up against that angled wall.

I was up early the next morning. Just so you know, I did look.

Lord, I was up at 7:18?

I thought about letting Brian sleep and rope dropping this or that.

I wanted to. I always wish we could.

B had to be to work by 5ish. Three hour train ride. We had to be on the train just before noon.

I know he genuinely wouldn’t care if I went, but I know I would feel bad leaving him out.

And it would’ve amounted to less than two hours in one park, rushing, with a $20 Lyft each way.

Not this time.

We got to the train station a little early so I could guzzle free wine in the premium lounge.

Oh, and have a snack. I grabbed a ready-made chicken salad sandwich and some pasta salad. Brian had potato salad and something else, I don’t remember. I did grab a mini eclair on the way out of the lounge to the train at last call.

In case any locals are interested, here are the Brightline menus.

Here’s what we ended up with:

The quinoa salad is tasty, but as small as that adorable mini tequila bottle. Hey, if it’s included, I’m drinking it. Brian clearly could not drink before work.

We did see this rainbow for several minutes.

Per usual, this trip did the trick, and did what I sort of hoped it might do: it made Christmas palatable again. We enjoyed the decorations, the electricity in the air, the purpose of finding an ornament.

I had been buying nice sized live trees that touched the ceiling the last few years. This year, I thought at best, I’d get the artificial one down from the attic. It seemed like too big a job, and too big a celebration for this year. While we normally have our tree up around Thanksgiving, no indoor decorating had been done prior to our trip.

I had an idea on the train, that I think was a good compromise.

When Brian went to work the next day, I got a small live tree.

I got all the decorations down from the attic. We haven’t had a chance to decorate yet, but the tree needed a day to soak up some water and breathe and take shape.

It will be less big a job and less big a celebration, and that’s appropriate. But I had to hang Kylie’s new ornament somewhere!

I’ll update once we’ve decorated. I will probably do lights and Garland tonight (see how my phone automatically capitalizes Garland, as if I talk about Judy all the time?) and we can put probably half the ornaments we would typically use on the tree tomorrow.

I have to decide if we want to drive all the way up on Monday night starting around 11 PM, or just take it easy and drive about halfway, to Fort Pierce. That would break up the drive and we would wake up Christmas Eve morning with a smaller bite ahead of us. We’d get past all the congested areas like West Palm Beach and Boca.

There don’t seem to be any hotels off the Florida Turnpike between Fort Pierce and the Orlando area.

Thanks for keeping up or catching up, we go right back into trip reporting in three days!

 

[93boomer]

I thought so! Especially up against that angled wall.

I was up early the next morning. Just so you know, I did look.

View attachment 831758
Lord, I was up at 7:18?

I thought about letting Brian sleep and rope dropping this or that.

I wanted to. I always wish we could.

B had to be to work by 5ish. Three hour train ride. We had to be on the train just before noon.

I know he genuinely wouldn’t care if I went, but I know I would feel bad leaving him out.

And it would’ve amounted to less than two hours in one park, rushing, with a $20 Lyft each way.

Not this time.

We got to the train station a little early so I could guzzle free wine in the premium lounge.

Oh, and have a snack. I grabbed a ready-made chicken salad sandwich and some pasta salad. Brian had potato salad and something else, I don’t remember. I did grab a mini eclair on the way out of the lounge to the train at last call.

In case any locals are interested, here are the Brightline menus.

View attachment 831759View attachment 831760View attachment 831761View attachment 831762

Here’s what we ended up with:

View attachment 831764

The quinoa salad is tasty, but as small as that adorable mini tequila bottle. Hey, if it’s included, I’m drinking it. Brian clearly could not drink before work.

We did see this rainbow for several minutes.
View attachment 831765

Per usual, this trip did the trick, and did what I sort of hoped it might do: it made Christmas palatable again. We enjoyed the decorations, the electricity in the air, the purpose of finding an ornament.

I had been buying nice sized live trees that touched the ceiling the last few years. This year, I thought at best, I’d get the artificial one down from the attic. It seemed like too big a job, and too big a celebration for this year. While we normally have our tree up around Thanksgiving, no indoor decorating had been done prior to our trip.

I had an idea on the train, that I think was a good compromise.

View attachment 831768

When Brian went to work the next day, I got a small live tree.

I got all the decorations down from the attic. We haven’t had a chance to decorate yet, but the tree needed a day to soak up some water and breathe and take shape.

It will be less big a job and less big a celebration, and that’s appropriate. But I had to hang Kylie’s new ornament somewhere!

I’ll update once we’ve decorated. I will probably do lights and Garland tonight (see how my phone automatically capitalizes Garland, as if I talk about Judy all the time?) and we can put probably half the ornaments we would typically use on the tree tomorrow.

I have to decide if we want to drive all the way up on Monday night starting around 11 PM, or just take it easy and drive about halfway, to Fort Pierce. That would break up the drive and we would wake up Christmas Eve morning with a smaller bite ahead of us. We’d get past all the congested areas like West Palm Beach and Boca.

There don’t seem to be any hotels off the Florida Turnpike between Fort Pierce and the Orlando area.

Thanks for keeping up or catching up, we go right back into trip reporting in three days!

First of all, thank you for sharing this trip with us!!
I am having bad WDW withdrawals. It’s only been a week.
I love your tree size. Perfect! Can’t wait to see it decorated.
I am soo excited for your next trip!! It’s like
“ let’s keep extending the Disney magic”. Love it!
Countdown begins!!