10 Night, 10th Anniversary Vacation Begins/Ends at Walt Disney World! PTR June 2017 - Updated 6/4

OH! And I checked out Gone with the Wynns. So cool!!! I love that kind of stuff. My husband would never travel that much, but I think it is fascinating (although I couldn't do it full time either). And along the lines of starting a blog, I love theirs! About 4 years ago, we bought a chunk of land and renovated an old house - we now call it Smithville (our last name is Smith). We have talked about starting a Smithville blog and/or Youtube channel to document our various renovations/expansions we have done and continue to do. We also have lots of antics at our house that I video. I need to get started on something like that. My job is crazy busy, so I don't have tons of time to dedicate to it, but I think it would be really fun to just have as a little side hobby!
 
Looking good! I can't wait for your TR - those excursions and dining options sound terrific!!! We really enjoyed Key West during one of our port stops, so I am really looking forward to hearing more about the Keys!

Thanks! We have been watching the live video feeds of Mallory Square on YouTube, and we get more and more excited to go every day. It is really fun finding restaurants and stuff to do. The planning and research is always one of my favorite aspects of trip planning! Yeah, Key West is a fantastic port of call, it is a pretty small area, and there is lots to explore there, we are so glad that we got to go there as a port on our Disney Cruise, otherwise this trip may have never even gotten this far!
 
OH! And I checked out Gone with the Wynns. So cool!!! I love that kind of stuff. My husband would never travel that much, but I think it is fascinating (although I couldn't do it full time either). And along the lines of starting a blog, I love theirs! About 4 years ago, we bought a chunk of land and renovated an old house - we now call it Smithville (our last name is Smith). We have talked about starting a Smithville blog and/or Youtube channel to document our various renovations/expansions we have done and continue to do. We also have lots of antics at our house that I video. I need to get started on something like that. My job is crazy busy, so I don't have tons of time to dedicate to it, but I think it would be really fun to just have as a little side hobby!

I remember back in the day reading some of your renovating posts on disboards, while trip planning! It is so great to hear that is all still going well!! If anything, making those videos would be an awesome way to look back on the experiences and everything, which is kind of the same reason we write trip reports and make videos of our travels! It would definitely be a change of lifestyle for sure to be full time travelers, we definitely wouldn't be able to do that for a while at least, but we are in the process of planning to get an RV by January of next year, so hopefully we would at least be able to go on weekend warrior type adventures!
 
I plan to lay out daily itineraries with hours, and then budget as well.
I love doing that stuff!

Costs of vacations can creep up on people so I don't mind sharing that type of info for restaurants and stuff to help people out!
Yes, I just went trough all our Disney menus and added up meal costs. I was comparing it to the DDP costs and figured up that OOP for this trip will be cheaper for us. I do want to add up snacks and drinks as well, but that wasn't completely necessary for the comparison I did.

18:30 - Arrive and Check-In at Beach Club
Evening Pool Time at Stormalong Bay!
Yay!

Gas (556 Miles) - $70
How did you figure on the gas? I know I can get about 225 or so miles out of a tank in city driving but I know it is more for highway. We are 461 miles away so we should only need two tanks but then we do drive around Disney, so we may should just fill up again before we get on property.

Plans sound wonderful!
 


I love doing that stuff!

Yes, I just went trough all our Disney menus and added up meal costs. I was comparing it to the DDP costs and figured up that OOP for this trip will be cheaper for us. I do want to add up snacks and drinks as well, but that wasn't completely necessary for the comparison I did.

Yay!

How did you figure on the gas? I know I can get about 225 or so miles out of a tank in city driving but I know it is more for highway. We are 461 miles away so we should only need two tanks but then we do drive around Disney, so we may should just fill up again before we get on property.

Plans sound wonderful!

Back to my old planning ways I guess!! I thought for sure this time I would just be chill and let things go with the flow, but nope, old habits die hard..haha!!

I am about to budget the rest of our Disney meals, we are pretty happy with the restaurants we ended up getting reservations for and now we get to try and pick out which QS restaurants we may go to, or anything else really too! Gotta get that popcorn though!! I remember one year I had a popcorn budget! We love it!

We can't wait to check out Beach Club, we have only eaten breakfast there once at Cape May Cafe, so we are really stoked about getting to check out Stormalong Bay and really just walk around and see the resort and find out if we would like to stay there again for a longer time in the future!

So, for our gas. We have a VW Beetle, and it gets around 300-350 miles per tank. Usually depending on prices it costs about $28-$35 to fill up so basically thats how I figure out the gas to be safe, just budget for one tank of gas at $35 for every 300 miles. Sometimes we do have extra but with the price of gas fluctuating as much as it does, I usually take the better to be safe than sorry calculations when I budget! Plus, I always gt happy when I have leftover money at the end of a vacation...hahah!!

You guys are getting so close to your trip too!! I am keeping our fingers crossed for all of us that we have good weather, safe drives, and of course an awesome time!
 
We have had a few more days to make sure everything is getting close to being in order with our plans and have finally gotten a little rough outline to update you guys on for the remainder of the vacation. We still need to get everything nailed down, pick out some more restaurants and then budget the rest, but this is a rough outline to get us started!

Day 6
Breakfast at Cafe Club by Les Artistes
Beach Time!
Lunch at Berry Fresh Cafe in Port St Lucie
16:00 Check-In: Villas at the Grand Floridian Resort
Dinner at Chef Art Smith's Homecoming
Relaxing at the Resort?


Day 7
08:10 Breakfast at Kona Cafe @ The Polynesian
10:00-16:00 Typhoon Lagoon Water Park!
19:15 Dinner at Artist Point @ Wilderness Lodge 10% Off DVC

Day 8
Disney World Open - Our Miniature Golf Tournament!
Morning Mini Golf at Fantasia Gardens: Gardens & Fairway Courses
14:05 Afternoon Tea @ The Garden View Tea Room
Afternoon/Evening Finale Winter Summerland: Winter & Summer Courses
Winner Chooses Where to Get Dessert...And Bragging Rights!

Day 9
Disney Springs Date Day! (See Post for Details)

Day 10
Breakfast
Canoe/Kayak at Fort Wilderness
Walk Around and Explore Fort Wilderness for Research Purposes
Lunch
Afternoon at the Resort Pool
Dinner

Day 11
Check Out when we wake up and Head Home :sad2:



 
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We have had a few more days to make sure everything is getting close to being in order with our plans and have finally gotten a little rough outline to update you guys on for the remainder of the vacation. We still need to get everything nailed down, pick out some more restaurants and then budget the rest, but this is a rough outline to get us started!

Day 6
Possibly hang around Hollywood, FL for some beach time and breakfast or lunch.
16:00 Check-In: Villas at the Grand Floridian Resort

Day 7
09:30 Breakfast at Kona Cafe @ The Polynesian
19:15 Dinner at Artist Point @ Wilderness Lodge

Day 8
14:05 Afternoon Tea @ The Garden View Tea Room

Day 9
18:00 Anniversary Dinner at The Boathouse @ Disney Springs

Day 10
To Be Determined

Day 11
Check Out and Head Home

As of the moment we are making sure which days will be good for which activities. We know that we would like to go to the water parks twice, maybe more. We would like to play some miniature golf, hang out at the resort pool, see a movie at Disney Springs, possibly bowling. Still up in the air exactly, luckily we still have a few more weeks to plan before anything needs to be set in stone! Soon we should be getting our new magic bands in and then we know that it is getting really close! Hopefully I should be able to do another update within a week or so with some more once we decide on things! I think that is about it for this time around!



OOOOHHHH such great choices!!! I can't wait to hear what you think of The Boathouse! That is a key one on my list of place to try! I also always love TRs that include the Afternoon Tea. I just love stuff like that!

Are you officially not doing any of the 4 main parks?
 


OOOOHHHH such great choices!!! I can't wait to hear what you think of The Boathouse! That is a key one on my list of place to try! I also always love TRs that include the Afternoon Tea. I just love stuff like that!

Are you officially not doing any of the 4 main parks?

We are looking forward to trying the Boathouse. We had a lunch reservation for it before but ended up changing it before we went, I don't remember why at the moment, we thought it would be a nice low-key anniversary dinner this year. Instead of doing V&A like we normally would. We didn't feel like getting dressed up for once...LOL! We had originally planned for Artist Point to be our Anniversary Dinner spot, we have made a great friend with one of the restaurant managers who has moved from V&A, to Narcoossee's, and now is at Artist Point, and we have a such a great time seeing her! She is off on the night of our anniversary so we moved Artist Point back and Boathouse forward. We have walked by it, studied the menu, and it looks like it is going to be a great restaurant, and right by the water, we are pretty psyched! Will definitely report on how we enjoyed it!!

If we are staying at Disney for any length of time more than a weekend, we just love going to Afternoon Tea! It is a great way to get out of the heat and relax in the middle of the day. The parks are always so crowded during that time and in the heat and humidity, its good to get away! I think it has been in a few of our TR's before, and I definitely know it was in the one where we were dressed as Bert and Mary Poppins! I can't wait though, I so look forward to that cheese plate, the scones and jam, the english breakfast tea, Mmmm!! I am salivating thinking about it!!

Officially...well for us anyway (which actually means I have no idea, but at the moment we aren't planning on it) we don't plan to go to any of the four main parks. You know us though, we could get there and see something, and be like, ok, now let's go to Magic Kingdom! So the of the moment answer is no...LOL. We are wanting to try and do things that we really enjoy, and maybe things that we have never done before. We have always wanted to go canoeing/kayaking at Fort Wilderness, or rent one of those 2 person bicycle thingies and ride around the boardwalk, or who knows really. I think this trip may actually look different from the PTR, well the Disney portion anyway, so that could be cool, maybe some surprises for once. We are really all about exploration this time around for some reason. Finding those things, and spending time with each other instead of MASSIVE summer crowds of people...haha! It will definitely be interesting to see what we actually do, at the moment, it is anyone's guess, including ours!
 
So, for our gas. We have a VW Beetle, and it gets around 300-350 miles per tank. Usually depending on prices it costs about $28-$35 to fill up so basically thats how I figure out the gas to be safe, just budget for one tank of gas at $35 for every 300 miles. Sometimes we do have extra but with the price of gas fluctuating as much as it does, I usually take the better to be safe than sorry calculations when I budget! Plus, I always gt happy when I have leftover money at the end of a vacation...hahah!!
Thank you! My biggest hurdle is not knowing my highway mileage...but I can probably figure it out via Google.

You guys are getting so close to your trip too!! I am keeping our fingers crossed for all of us that we have good weather, safe drives, and of course an awesome time!
Yay! It sure is dragging though....

Cars 3 Released yesterday!
We will be home by then but we will definitely be checking it out as my three year old is obsessed with Cars.

I think that is about it for this time around!
Looks great!
 
Disney Springs Date Day
After looking over some of the things we enjoy doing, certain DVC discounts, and things we always think about trying, but never do...we are actually considering having a Disney Springs area Day Date! Maybe even on our Anniversary actually! We are planning some activities up for that, and this is what we may end up doing! It sounds like it would be pretty fun to hang around the area there and see how many cool and interesting activities we can get in to! There are plenty of food options around, and that night we are planning on having our Anniversary Dinner at The Boathouse, so it would be a great day to do it...well hopefully it wouldn't be raining, but if it did...well, we will see in just a bit!

  • Breakfast - There are a few breakfast options here and the ones that usually jump to the top of the list are Starbucks and Earl of Sandwich. They are both quick and easy and we could have a low-key breakfast before we start with the activities for the day!
  • Characters in Flight balloon! - We have walked past this at least 50 times and always think about doing it, but never do. As I was researching for the Disney Springs Day, I found out that for DVC members, if you go on the balloon between 8:30am-10:30am it is only $10 per adult! We are usually early birds anyway, so going at that time wouldn't be a problem for us at all! It would definitely be a cooler part of the day and maybe even less people riding it with us. This activity is definitely going on the list of possibilities!
  • Early Bird Bowling at Splitsville Luxury Lanes! - The lanes open up at 10:30am and from then until 12:30pm Adults can bowl for an hour (including shoe rental) for $12 per person! Usually it is $17, so that will be a great little savings of $5 per person! We love to bowl, and we have only been to Splitsville once, but had a great time while we were there, they actually have great food too, if you ever get a chance to go! This is definitely being added to the activity list since it is a great deal and it would be a fun activity/workout and if it happens to be raining, it is indoors!
  • Lunch - One of our favorite quick places to grab something for lunch at Disney Springs is Wolfgang Puck Express...their pizzas are so fantastic! Going to grab an early lunch there will give us a bit of time to sit down and relax after bowling and as an added bonus, DVC members get 15% off lunch and dinner there! As you can tell, I love finding and using discounts! I am a huge budget person and any time I can find ways to do the things we want and save money...especially at Disney, is a huge win-win for me!
  • Surrey Bike Rental at Port Orleans - After lunch we will be near the boat launch so we might take the short boat ride over to the Port Orleans resort and rent a surrey bike to ride around for a bit. Riverside is such a great resort if you have never been there, they have such great paths along the waterway. I have ridden the surrey bikes before when they were available at Wilderness Lodge, but that was a while ago, and Jeremy has never done it, so this might be a great time! The bonus for this one: DVC members gets 15% off surrey bike rentals!
  • Shopping/Browsing at Disney Springs - We have not had a chance to get down to Disney Springs since all of the new stores/area have opened! We are excited to walk around for a bit and see the new shops and maybe even have an afternoon snack/dessert at the new bakery!
  • Dinner at The Boathouse: Our dinner is at 6:00pm on this particular evening, depending on how much time we have (and how hot/sweaty we were), we may head back to the resort and get showers and changed for dinner and the evening ahead! So we are really excited to try out The Boathouse for the first time, we have read over the menu and it looks great, the restaurant also looks awesome, so we are looking forward to checking it out! Did I mention the DVC discount of 10% off on dinner here...I know, I am discount crazy!
  • After dinner, we may walk around for a little while longer and slowly make our way over to the other side of Disney Springs. We have been to La Nouba a few times and every time we have such a blast! Since this show is going away at the end of the year, we wanted to try and make one last one! La Nouba would be a great cap on this night we both think! DVC members get a discount on tickets as well and instead of paying the $80 per person for Cat 2 seats, we will only have to pay $56 per person!
So there are a few things we may do on our Disney Springs date day! It is so many things crammed in, but there is plenty of time to relax as well! It should be a great day to spend some quality time together, not standing in ride lines, doing some great activities on property, having some delicious food, and topping it off with a fantastic show! If any of you have any other ideas to throw in, please let me know! This is still tentative as all of my PTRs usually are...things can change really easily with weather and stuff so let me know what you think and have you ever done a Disney Springs day? Or any of the activities I mentioned above?? Let me know!! Have a great day everybody! We are one month out!! So excited!







 
Small Update! Leaving A Day Earlier!
We have a very small update! We are going to be heading down one day earlier to WDW. We have booked a one bedroom at a DVC Resort different from the two we are already planning on staying at! The reason we are heading down deserves a little story actually. At the present time we are saving up to purchase an RV. Jeremy works out of town a lot and instead of staying in hotels or rental houses, it would be really nice if he were able to have a place to call his own. The bonus for that is that we will be able to travel a lot more if we have our own RV to stay in since we will save money on hotels AND on top of all of that, we will be able to bring our dogs with us when we do travel. So we had planned on going to the RV Super Show in Tampa in January of 2018, and we will still probably do that. We just found out that there is a Summer RV Show at the same place in Tampa June 8-11. Since we are already going to be in Florida for that time, Jeremy decided to take one extra day off so we can still do everything we were planning and be able to go and look around at the RV show for a few hours on the 8th. We will still be able to make it back in time for our check-in at Beach Club, probably earlier than we were planning on getting there in the first place, which is awesome because that will give us more time hanging out at the pool there!! We are really excited for this other little baby side adventure and can't wait to show you guys where we are staying during the Trip Report! Hint: It is one of the top 5 resorts on our original list! Remember, we are already staying at Beach Club and Grand Floridian! So which one is it, less than a month to find out!!

Now that we are in the home stretch we are playing the waiting game, everything is pretty much budgeted, we are patiently awaiting our new style Magic Bands and are really excited that we have pretty much finalized our plans on what we are going to do while we are there. This is definitely going to be an unorthodox vacation at Disney World and other Florida area, we can't wait to go on it and share it with everyone when we get back! Maybe you guys will see something you have never done at Disney and try it on your next trip! Who knows, but we can't wait to go!!
 
So, we are 23 days out from our trip and I have been filling in some of the gaps of places we want to get around to trying and I have finally found a few that are New to us that we definitely want to add to the list for the days when we don't have any reservations! I have been watching some of the DIS Unplugged videos on YouTube and found 3 possibilities of places to try during our unconventional Non-Park Disney World Vacation!

The first one we want to try is Blaze, which is like a Fired Pizza place at Disney Springs newer Town Center area. Apparently you can create your own pizza and they cook it for you super fast, it is still quick service but it looked great when I saw the pizzas from there. We thought this might be a good addition to our list of places to try. We are vegetarian, and this way we could literally put whatever toppings we wanted on our pizza! There are a lot of good options starting to pop up that will be great for us to try out!

The second one also in this area is called D-Luxe Burger. Yes, burgers, we are vegetarian, so we would be trying to Veggie Burger, but it still sounds fantastic. It has tzatziki sauce, green been salad, lettuce and tomato. They also have what looks like hand-cut french fries, with lots of delicious sounding dipping sauces to try out, curry ketchup, three mustard and honey, garlic ranch, and a few others! I think the burgers are like $9.95 each and then the fries are $4.99. On the scale of Disney prices, it sounds pretty reasonable to be, and definitely might work for a quick lunch or dinner if we can't decide on something to eat when we are out and about!

Another option at Disney Springs is the Morimoto Asia Street Food quick service. Eventually we want to make it to the Morimoto Restaurant, this time around it wasn't in the cards for the types of things we wanted to do and there were other places we wanted to try first. However, this street food option might work out! The have some noodle dishes, and a few seafood options we do occasionally eat seafood as pescatarian, so something to keep in mind if we choose to do so! I had no idea until today that there was even a quick service at Morimoto! I was glad to find out so if we find ourselves over there looking for a bite to eat, this is going to be on the option list.

The final place that we might check out I hadn't even thought to look at the menu for. Beaches Pool Bar at Grand Floridian. They have crab cake sandwiches and lobster sliders! They also have those homemade chips that are really good! Oh yeah and for dessert they have Pina Colada cupcakes! So if we are out by the pool area and want to grab some food, this place might just be where we go!

I guess that is about all for the moment, we did get the shipping notice for our magic bands, so hopefully those will be coming pretty soon, I have my budget notebook filled out and ready to go. Basically I listed every day on a separate page, put the budgeted numbers of the left hand side, and the columns for the actual numbers on the right. We have also been saving up some cash to have on hand and so I have an area to keep track of that also. The budget folder also has pockets inside so I can keep receipts and tally everything up at the end of the day, probably around when I am writing in the trip journal! So that has been taken care of! Other than that, we are getting pretty excited to go! Just barely over three weeks and this countdown will be over! Now, just waiting on those magic bands to get here!!

Oh yeah, one more thing, we have a reservation at The Boathouse for our anniversary and I keep checking every day to see if I can get a different time, I have it for 6:00 and I am looking to get 7:30-8:00. So I will keep you guys posted on whether or not that actually happens, I do check all the time though!! I am keeping my fingers crossed for it! Ok, I really am finished now...be back when I have another update!
 
20 Days To Go!
We have made it to less than 3 weeks away from our vacation! Every day we go over everything and decide whether we want to add any other last minute reservations for dining and things like that. So far in the past two days since the last update, I have added two more restaurant reservations. Both of them are early dinner around 5:05 pm or so. I like that dinner time, because we can eat and still have plenty of time leftover for the remainder of the evening! I am also going to keep these two under wraps, I can't give everything away right!

Still waiting on our Magic Bands, it is really strange this time around, they seem to be going everywhere but toward our house. First, they started in Florida, then went to Illinois (we live in North Carolina), now they are in Pennsylvania. Who knows when they are going to arrive, but I keep checking every day to see where they are!

Normally I stock up on sunscreen for the trip and this time is no different. I have slowly been checking deals and sales, and looking for coupons, and now I have enough sunscreen (lotion and spray) ready and stocked to bring along this time. I have also gone through my clothes and bathing suits and stuff to make sure I have everything I need to take with us. I did order a few things online just as some extras, a pair of shorts, a new shirt, and jut a few little things to bring on the trip. I have my sun hat, towels, and everything else washed and on stand by ready to be packed up in a few short weeks.

The other thing I am starting to get together is all of my camera stuff. Since we are going to be at the Florida Keys and Typhoon Lagoon, we are going to be taking our Waterproof camera, it also takes 1080p video, so I think that will come in handy if we go snorkeling or are just in wet environments anyway, especially if it happens to rain, that thing comes in really handy. We are also planning on taking the Canon t5i, so I am getting together the memory cards and batteries and stuff for that one.

Jeremy is still out of town working at the moment, so I have the house to myself to plan and get stuff together, but hopefully after this weekend he will be back home and getting in the vacation spirit too, I know he definitely needs it after this spring and his work schedule.

I have my journal all ready to go, that way I can take some notes and have everything ready to go for the trip report when I return! I think that is about everything for today that I can think of, now really, I hope the next post I make there are some magic bands to show...but I'll keep my fingers crossed and hold my breath at the same time! See you guys soon!
 
ADR Updates!
Nope, this time for once I didn't get rid of anything only added! Jeremy and I have been binge watching dining reviews on DIS Unplugged and found two more restaurants that we have never tried but want to go and see what they have to offer! The first one will be on the night we are staying at Beach Club since it will be in the area, and we can walk over which is awesome! We are going to be trying the re-imagined Flying Fish! We have not stayed over at the Boardwalk area since we purchased our DVC in 2009! That was the very first resort we ever used our points at. We never went to the other Flying Fish, we tend to be creatures of habit when making dining reservations or going places to eat. We always used to go to Sanaa for dinners, Boma for breakfasts, Earl of Sandwich and Wolfgang Puck Express for quick meals, but with so many more options opened up to us at Disney, we decided to add two more to the list that will be new to us. So for the first one we are super excited to try out Flying Fish. The menu looks freakin' awesome and we saw some photos of the food and needless to say, we can't wait to try some of the stuff here!

This trip is all about doing things at Disney we have never done, granted there are some old favorites in there too like Typhoon Lagoon and miniature golf, Kona Cafe, Afternoon Tea, however, those are still things focused outside of the main 4 parks, so they deserve to be there in their own right. With so many new food options all over the place, we need to get outside of our old comforts and try a lot of these new things. We have done the Ohana', the character dining, the V&A, Be Our Guest, and all of these other restaurants that seem to make the top of everyone's ADR list, so we are going to see just how all of these other options to compare to the old favorites!

The other restaurant we are planning on trying out will be the night we get back from the Florida Keys and check in to GFL. With our trip being all about Florida, we have to go to Chef Art Smith's Homecoming at Disney Springs, we will have driven all over the state from the Orlando area, to Tampa, all the way down to Key West, so we literally must go to a restaurant kind of all about Florida. This is supposed to be a farm-to-fork type of place showcasing Florida-Inspired food, so it had to make our list of places to go. We have not been to Disney Springs since all of the new options opened up. Actually we have not been down there in a while considering how much we used to go. So many things were happening around home that we have missed seeing all of these amazing new things opening up! I am sure it is going to be amazing, but we are still very happy with our decision to forego the parks.

Animal Kingdom is going to be a mad house I bet with Pandora opening, Rivers of Light etc. Hollywood is a big construction zone at the moment, and then with the new Happily Ever After at Magic Kingdom. We want to visit some of these places on a less busy time of year instead of in June with the heat and he crowds. We are about 18 days out! We keep counting down every day! I have also been checking the magic band tracking number and they finally arrived at our post office in town, so fingers crossed we should have those by the end of today, or at least Monday hopefully! I will keep you guys posted about that!

Oh yeah, one other thing, if anyone lives near a Walgreens. Our local ad next week Sunday June 21- Saturday June 26 has a Buy One Get One half off on Coppertone Sunscreen Products, plus in the digital coupons a $5 off on 2 coupon...so basically you buy one then get the second half off, then on top of that get $5 more off! The other bonus, which is why I am bringing this up is that if you buy two you get a $12 fandango voucher FREE to see Cars 3! Our local theater does not do online ticketing, but AMC Disney Springs does, which means we can get one free ticket to see that movie! How awesome is that! So anyway, check your local Walgreens ad and see if they have something similar where you live! Ok, that's all for now, I will be watching for the mail lady all afternoon, I want my Magic Bands already!!!!
 
:banana: MAGIC BANDS HAVE ARRIVED! :banana:

MagicBands%20June%202017_zpscaw0hhad.jpg


We are waiting on one more box of bands for the resort I booked most recently for our extra night at the beginning of the trip, so I think I got green and yellow for those? I should have a new set so I can coordinate with outfits again which should be cool! I was so very happy when these showed up today! Other than that today, I am making a few modifications to the budget for the added restaurants I had mentioned in the post before, but everything is looking great! This trip is getting so close I can smell the popcorn!
 
Final Trip Budget! *Fingers Crossed*

So, we have made additions, and gotten rid of things, I have counted up mileage, and looked at restaurants. I have looked for discounts, read over menus to try and figure out what exactly we are planning on eating, calculated tolls, found activity prices, DVC discounts, hopefully this is the final budget, since I have added a few more table service/signature restaurants in the last couple of days. This budget is for 11 Night/12 Days. We are staying at 3 different DVC resorts with points. 2 different 1-bedroom villas, and a studio for 5 nights. 4 hotels on our Florida Key portion of the trip, the map is going to look pretty fun with all of the driving!! So, there are also two of us, and we are not planning on going to any of the 4 main parks at the moment. We are planning on visiting Typhoon Lagoon, and that extra cost is added in. This trip sure looks a WHOLE lot different than when we started planning it, but I sat down last night and crunched all the numbers and hopefully we will have saved up enough for this one! You guys will get to follow along on the TR to see how well we did and if we came in *hopefully* under budget! So, let the final budget begin!!

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Day One:

  • Breakfast @ Port City Java $10
  • Lunch @ The Pickled Palate $30
  • Dinner @ Outback Steakhouse $25 (We have a 15% Off Coupon and a $25 Gift Card)
  • Fuel $70 (2 Tanks at $35 each)
  • Territory Lounge $20
Day Two:
  • Breakfast @ Geyser Point Bar & Grill $30
  • RV Show @ Florida State Fairgrounds $14
  • Lunch $20 (No Idea Where)
  • Dinner @ Flying Fish $200
  • Fuel $35
Day Three:
  • Breakfast @ Boardwalk Bakery $10
  • Lunch @ Fish House, Key Largo $60
  • Dinner @ Snapper's Oceanfront $100
  • Fuel $35
Day Four:
  • Breakfast @ Harriette's $20
  • Snorkel Tour @ John Pennekamp Coral Ref State Park $56
  • Lunch @ Islamorada Shrimp $50
  • Hotel in Marathon, FL $225
  • Dinner @ Island Fish Company $100
Day Five:
  • Breakfast @ The Wooden Spoon $20
  • Lunch @ BO's Fish Wagon $50
  • Parking $15
  • Dinner @ Latitude's Sunset Key $150
  • Hotel in Key West, FL $200
  • Fuel $35
Day Six:
  • Fuel $35
  • Breakfast @ Blue Heaven $40
  • Road Snack @ Robert Is Here $15
  • Lunch @ Crema, Miami $30
  • Hotel in Hollywood, FL $160
  • Dinner @ Sugar Reef Grill $100
Day Seven:
  • Fuel $35
  • Breakfast @ Cafe Club by Les Artistes $30
  • Lunch @ Berry Fresh Cafe $30
  • Dinner @ Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' $100
Day Eight:
  • Breakfast @ Kona Cafe $45
  • Typhoon Lagoon $100
  • Lunch @ Quick Service $30
  • Dinner @ Artist Point $150
Day Nine:
  • Breakfast @ Quick Service $25
  • Disney World Miniature Golf Tournament! $100
  • After Tea @ Garden View Tea Room $100
  • Dinner @ Quick Service $50
Day Ten: Our 10th Anniversary!
  • Breakfast @ Starbucks $20
  • Aerophile Balloon Ride $20
  • Bowling @ Splitsville $25
  • Lunch @ Quick Service $30
  • Surrey Bikes @ Port Orleans $50?
  • Dinner @ The Boathouse $150
  • La Nouba $120
Day Eleven:
  • Breakfast $20
  • Canoeing @ Fort Wilderness $20
  • Lunch @ Quick Service $30
  • Dinner @ Frontera Cocina $50
Day Twelve:
  • Fuel $70 (2 Tanks at $35 each)
  • Breakfast $20
  • Lunch $20
  • Dinner $20
TOTAL $3500.00

If you have read one of my trip reports before, you will know that I tend to budget on the high side. I would much rather have too much set aside than not nearly enough, I don't want to have to be transferring more funds from savings to checking during the trip. We have a Sunpass on our car...I know we live in North Carolina, but that tells you how much we go to Florida...LOL! For the restaurants, we looked at every menu, some of them didn't have prices so I tried to make educated guesses on those. The good thing is that all of the Disney ones do! So we looked at appetizers, entrees, desserts, and drinks. Basically we figured out in each category what our options were, and from that, I budgeted the most expensive choice. So like at Flying Fish for example, there were 3 options for me of entrees that I would choose, so out of those three, I picked the most expensive and budgeted for that one. So the budgeted amount is basically the maximum amount we would spend at any of these locations. Hopefully, they will all be less than what I think, but if we decide to go all out and get an appetizer, the most expensive entrees from our choices, a dessert, and two drinks, plus tax, and tip, that is where the numbers came from! It definitely looks expensive from where I am looking...LOL, however, we have saved for this trip all year, setting aside money here and there, we wanted to be able to experience exactly what we wanted during our 10th Anniversary Trip! I think the average it comes out to is around $300 per day. That price is definitely inflated a little because of the 4 additional hotel rooms we are needing for the Keys portion of the trip, as well as all of the extra fuel we will be using driving down there, back and to Tampa, and back. normally those costs would have been a lot less. We would have only need about 5 tanks of gas instead of he 8 or so we are going to be getting.

Next, I am curious if any of you budget for your trips? If so, how do you do it? Do you go all out like me and figure out menu choices, and mileage and stuff? Or do you just pick a certain dollar amount and not go over that? The way we do it has worked for us quite a few times and pretty much every time I have come in under budget, which is great because the extra money can always go back into savings, plus it makes me feel better to know that I spent less than I thought I would, instead of the opposite which is more than I thought, and that is no fun for anyone when you come back from a vacation and realize you spent way too much money on it and now have to figure out where that extra is going to come from! So, that is about all for this one! We are like 17 days out now, so getting hyped! With our magic bands arrival yesterday, everything is getting closer!! If you guys have any questions about the budget or anything else, just let me know! Have a great day!
 
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Just caught up. Things have been crazy busy at school. Wednesday is the students' last day and then Friday is mine, so it's been a lot going on and I haven't had any DIS time.

So my guess for the first resort is WL. Not that it was that hard to figure out from your itinerary. We will be at a studio villa 6/3-6/11!

Also, I don't budget as extensively as you but I did do a meal budget so I could determine what we needed but also to see if the dining plan would be best for us (it isn't). And I did figure up hotel and ticket costs ahead of time, as well. I haven't done a drink or souvenir budget, nor a gas or groceries budget though.

I do enjoy the budget/planning I do, as I'm sure you enjoy what you do...so I say go with what you enjoy doing!

It is getting so close!!
 
Just caught up. Things have been crazy busy at school. Wednesday is the students' last day and then Friday is mine, so it's been a lot going on and I haven't had any DIS time.

So my guess for the first resort is WL. Not that it was that hard to figure out from your itinerary. We will be at a studio villa 6/3-6/11!

Also, I don't budget as extensively as you but I did do a meal budget so I could determine what we needed but also to see if the dining plan would be best for us (it isn't). And I did figure up hotel and ticket costs ahead of time, as well. I haven't done a drink or souvenir budget, nor a gas or groceries budget though.

I do enjoy the budget/planning I do, as I'm sure you enjoy what you do...so I say go with what you enjoy doing!

It is getting so close!!

I bet school gets so crazy at the end of the year like this! My niece is graduating from High School this year and I feel like her schedule is so much busier now than any other time during the year!

Very good guess for the resort! (I debated not putting those details in the itinerary, but thought what the heck, why not!) We were very lucky to find a 1-bedroom open for that night when we decided to go down a day earlier, and since Jeremy has never stayed there before, we thought what a great time to do it, while all the construction is going on...lol! Just kidding! It is going to be gorgeous when they finish everything there, we have been watching some of the update videos and the concepts and stuff over the past week and, those cabins on the water...oh my!!

We have only ever done the dining plan one time, and that was because it was free. It is definitely a great thing for a lot of people, for us in particular though, because of where and how we like to eat, it doesn't really fit our food style. We would need way too many credits for all of the 2 table service restaurants we go to. I always used to include a popcorn budget too haha! Every time we went to the park I would figure out how many buckets I would want, no parks this time, but mayb I will still sneak some in at Disney Springs...lol!

I definitely enjoy knowing where my money goes, especially on a vacation. Which is why I like budgeting, for most people budget sounds like a restrictive word but for us it is knowing exactly where the hard-earned cash goes instead of it just vanishing into thin air...haha!

So close! You guys are like 12 days out and we are 16! So exciting...we can't wait for everything!!!

 
11 Days To Go!!

Less than two weeks away, we are finally starting our packing list and getting things together so we won't forget anything when we go. Yesterday we went and did some shopping for extra clothing, there are some Memorial Day sales going on at the moment so we figured we would take advantage of those. I needed a few new pairs of shorts and some shirts too for the summer. Recently we went thorough all of our clothing and weeded out a lot of stuff that we haven't worn in a long time, things that have been worn too much, and just some other stuff we found, may go in to a yard/garage sale but if not it will definitely go to charity. With maybe 50 things I got rid of, I ended up buying I think 3 pairs of shorts, a dress, a pair of jeans, and maybe 6 shirts. So not too bad, and this will help out a lot on the trip and at home too!

So, at the moment, I am looking through the itinerary and trying to figure out how many outfits I will need to bring with me so I don't overpack, we will also need some swimwear and a few nights of more dressed up attire for 3-4 restaurants we are going to. Also need to throw in casual travel day clothes and things like that. We decided on bringing two camera, our Nikon underwater camera for when we go snorkeling in the keys, and then my Canon t5i for regular photo taking. For video this time, I think we are just going to use Jeremy's iphone since he has so much room on it, and it takes pretty good video, well good enough for vlogging for ourselves anyway so we can make a recap video for my family and the friends that want to see the trip.

Other than that, sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen!! Over the past few weeks I have stocked up on all the sunscreen sales at Walgreens with the BOGOs and coupons and stuff so we should be set on sunscreen! Yesterday while we were out I also went to lenscrafters. It was time to order a new pair of glasses, so basically they were having a 40% lenses and frames sale if you purchased one pair, so I went ahead and ordered a new pair of sunglasses too. My current ones have seen better days, and since they are prescription sunglasses too, I definitely needed to update the lenses in the old ones, but it actually came out cheaper to buy a whole new pair instead of getting lenses put in the old ones.

I think that is about all for the moment, next weekend we will start packing. For now, we are going to hide in the house this Memorial Day weekend, we live in a vacation town and the tourists get pretty plentiful starting this weekend. Crowded streets and grocery stores and such, for our little town it swells from about 3000 people to about 25000, so we are really excited to go on vacation ourselves pretty soon!! Less than two weeks!!! So excited! Have a great day and weekend everyone!
 

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