I can't stand PTR's...so here is mine

[crostorfer]

*Warning. You are about to enter a dark lair heavy on sarcasm with a splash of soy milk. Wait....that was my Starbucks order. But yes, heavy on the sarcasm. If you do not venture forth with a good sense of humor, I may appear more of a total witch than a witty and fun woman of wisdom. But then again, I may just be a witch. Just ask my husband. You have been warned.*

Let me begin by saying that I hate pre-trip reports. Can't stand them. Why would anyone want to read about someone's life outside of the realm of the former swamp land that is the world of Disney? Everyone knows that all we really want to know is how many towel animals you got and the only pictures we really want to see are of food porn on the Dining Reviews forum. Seriously, it has to be only narcasistic, attention hogs who write these things, right? That being said, I can't stand that I don't have one myself, so here is mine.

My name is Casey, X-Ray Diva extraordinnaire and your author for what is sure to be a pre trip report filled with mirth, merriment and the occasion zing. I am an avid Monty Python fan, a Twilight Mom, a Harry Potter Nerd, and the Queen of completely useless information about nothing. With me on this not so perilous journey is my 7 year old mini-me Kassidy. A Diva in her own right, she is my right hand girl and loves to spend hours looking at Disney guide books with me. Every morning before I leave for work she checks the wait times on Undercover Tourist for me. This is us at Christmas.

Along for the pre-trip ride, but unfortunately not along for the Disney journey is my husband. We'll call him Disney Hating Dad for fun. Unfortunately for us the Navy decided that they needed my husband more the last week of September than Disney does, so he doesn't get to make this trip with us. Here he is in all his Joe Navy glory.

We live in just the darn tootin'ist cute little tourist trap town in America at the gateway to the San Juan Islands just north of Seattle, WA. Because of this, I would never stay at the Wilderness Lodge, LOL, the theme would be lost on us.

Lovely isn't it? I wouldn't ever want to live anywhere else. But seriously, 62 degrees for a high in July? We might wilt like flower petals in the hot Florida sun. Stay tuned for my upcoming trip report, probably titled "Touring the World on a respirator while looking like a drowned rat."

Now that the introductions are complete, on to how this little venture came to be, and how the United States Navy always likes to step in and try to ruin my best laid vacation plans.....

 

[onescgirl]

Let me begin by saying that I hate pre-trip reports. Can't stand them. Why would anyone want to read about someone's life outside of the realm of the former swamp land that is the world of Disney? Everyone knows that all we really want to know is how many towel animals you got and the only pictures we really want to see are of food porn on the Dining Reviews forum. Seriously, it has to be only narcasistic, attention hogs who write these things, right? That being said, I can't stand that I don't have one myself, so here is mine.

So true & I'm loving your PTR!!! Your daughter is so cute & I'm sorry the Navy has taken your husband away from your WDW trip!

I am an avid Monty Python fan, a Twilight Mom, a Harry Potter Nerd, and the Queen of completely useless information about nothing.

I am also a Twilight mom & Harry Potter nerd! Team Edward here

 

[crostorfer]

Through the magic of the shoddy free wifi here at work, I'm here once again for my September pre-trip report, report. To begin, I need to go back in time, to the early spring of 2008...*cue wavy lines and harp music*

In the early spring of 2008, after a very uneventful few years living in Oklahoma City, I began to feel the itch of the travel bug. My daughter, then 5, was now old enough to travel without causing too much of a fuss, and it had been YEARS since my husband and I had gone anywhere other than my parent's house for a few days. On an excursion to said parent's home that spring I came across a series of photos in an old album. The pictures were from 1995, the one and only "family" vacation we ever took my entire time growing up before I left for college. Smiling back at me from the photo was 18 year old me, grinning mischeviously while "locked" in the stocks in Liberty Square. My one and only trip to Disney World. Ever. I can remember it like it was yesterday......*cue double wavy lines and extra harp music*

At the beginning of my senior year of high school I was promised a senior trip by my parents. I, being young and free, and knowing absolutely everything, demanded to go to Europe with my Spanish class. Because, of course, sending a wild teenage hell-raiser to traipse across four countries in Europe unsupervised sounds like a great idea, right? Wisely, my parents nixed that idea, probably knowing that if I had gone, I might not have come back and would still be dancing somewhere in a bar in Barcelona. Instead, my Mother suggested the two of us go to the Bahamas. Still not as good as Europe, but the thought of lounging on a beach while drinking spiked mock-tails sounded appealing. A couple of months later, the Bahamas turned into a Carribean Cruise. This too, did not sound so bad. By December of 1994, my Mother changed her mind yet again and annouced we were going to Disney World. Disney World. Are you kidding me? I was 18, I was crazy and wild, I didn't want to go to some kiddie place. I was FURIOUS. I rebelled. I wanted wild nights in Madrid or crazy days on the beach of Club Med, not some stupid mouse. Begrudgingly, I went. AND I HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE!!! I loved it! We stayed at Dixie Landings, (now POR), in one of the mansions. (I believe it was or is now Magnolia Terrace.) I took the boat to Pleasure Island by myself every night, I rode the Tower of Terror when it was still relatively new, I just had the most fun I ever remember having. What I thought would be lame turned out to be magical. I didn't want to leave.....*are you getting dizzy from the wavy lines yet? Fast forward back to 2008.*

I looked up from the pictures and over at my daughter, who ironically was wearing a princess costume, and decided right then and there that I needed to take her to Disney while she was still little. It became my life's mission. I immediately went out and bought a 2008 guide book. Then I bought two more. I planned and plotted deep into the night and finally nailed down a date and where I would like to stay. I can remember riding the monorail to the MK from the TTC and looking over with my sister and seeing the Polynesian. At nearly the same time we both asked my Mom why we couldn't have stayed there. It became my dream resort, just off of that alone. It was where I would have to stay, it would be a dream come true.

I announced to my husband in late April 2008 that I wanted to take a trip in April or May of 2009. It would give us a year to save. I was adamant about it. It was going to happen. All I had to do was book.....

Look up. Now, duck and cover. Here comes instance #1 of the Navy raining down on my parade. In June 2008, my husband announced that the base he was at was doing away with his job code at his squadron. We would have to move. He asked what my #1 choice would be, and of course I say, "Florida". And of course, nothing in Florida is open. The only thing available is West Coast billets. We ended up coming to Washington, which was a good choice, but about as far away from The World as possible. With the expense of moving, not to mention we were moving in the wrong direction from my vacation destination, that trip plan was squashed with the stamp of an order somewhere in Tennessee. So I had to settle for throwing my daughter a Disney Princess birthday party in June of 2009 rather than spend it at the World. She is the standing Belle in this pic.

 

[crostorfer]

So true & I'm loving your PTR!!! Your daughter is so cute & I'm sorry the Navy has taken your husband away from your WDW trip!



I am also a Twilight mom & Harry Potter nerd! Team Edward here

You mean there is another team? Warm, furry things don't exist in my world, LOL. Give me rock hard and ice cold any day!

 

[crostorfer]

That brings us up to January of this year. My husband was deployed, I had quite a bit of time alone to sit and think about things. Mainly, I began to think about how short life is, and how little time each of us really has with our kids. I spent a lot of time mourning all of the time I had wasted over the past decade, always saying that we would do things "someday", or that we would go somewhere "next week". Well, folks, for a lot of people "next week" never gets here. You can waste your life away waiting for "next week". I got tired of saying that it just isn't the "right time" to do things, or that we would have to wait until "blah blah blah" happened before we could plan something fun. Something inside of me snapped one day as I watched my then 6 year old switch off Special Agent Oso and turn on iCarly. My little girl, who was once very little, was getting bigger by the day. Soon, princesses and pixie dust just aren't going to cut it anymore. It will be cell phones, and drop offs at the mall to meet boys. I decided that you just can't wait for good times to do things. If you want something, you have to make it happen. And to make it happen, you have to be willing to go to any means necessary....(but more on that later.)

I set my mind in January. This fall would be Disney or bust. I went back into planning mode. I wrote out lenghty budgets and I crunched numbers. I decided that if I had to get a second job, or even a third, I was going to. This trip was going to happen. No excuses, no whining, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I was going to do whatever I had to do to get us to Orlando in September or October.

There were a couple of obstacles in my way, however. #1, I don't work full time. I am a fill in person. Whenever someone needs a day off I come in, kind of like a relief hitter in the Major Leagues. I get paid very well when I work, but I am never guaranteed that I am going to be able to work. #2, my husband. I never know when he is going to have to deploy, it's often spur of the moment. That and, as blasphemous as it sounds, the man would HATE DW. HATE IT. His three least favorite things in life are 3.) Heat 2.) Crowds 1.) Waiting in line for ANYTHING.

(Have you ever been in a restaraunt, waiting in a short line for a table? You see a guy walk in with his family, and upon being told it would be a 10 minute wait, the man stomps his feet, grumbles at his family, and then marches out announcing that the family will have to eat somewhere else because a 10 minute wait is ridiculous? Yeah. I'm married to that guy. Disney is not the place for him.)

With my husband, I decided to sugar coat things, without really giving him a choice. I would book everything on my own, with my own earnings, so that he didn't have a reason to protest or say no. If it doesn't come out of his pocket, he can't complain, right??? I started looking at things for him to do all day rather than spend all day in line for Toy Story Mania with us, like fishing excursions. I vaulted that hurdle. I decided that Disney Hating Dad was a managable situation.

The work issue was a little more hairy. Now, I was prepared to stand in the parking lot and take out people's knees with a baseball bat if I needed to in order to work for them while they recover. Luckily, fate smiled upon me and gave me a free pass from assault and battery. One of my co-workers got pregnant. Her entire maternity leave would have to be covered from May until July. That was a HUGE bonus. Still, with other bills to pay, I was sweating having enough to cover our stay. One by one, however, fate seemed to step in and give me a break. At the beginning of May I was able to get a second job, to add some extra into my budget. My days have been very long, (I often work 16 hour shifts between 2 places), but the money has been a HUGE help.

Now, I just needed Disney to throw me a bone. Ask and you shall recieve, they actually threw me several.

In April, waiting in my mail box, was a pin code. 40% off of a deluxe. My dreams of staying at the Poly were moving from a filmy haze to clearer reality. Then, checking this board for info, I discovered that Disney was running a promotion for military members and their families that enabled you to buy a 4 day base ticket for $99 a piece. $99 a piece??? Seriously??? With an upgrade to Park Hoppers for just $25 more??? SOLD!

When I called to book my room only reservation, armed with all of my newly found Dis info, I was told that military families are also able to add on dining packages to room only reservations with a 40% off military discount on a room. Once again, SOLD! I plunked down my $200 deposit, and our trip was set. September 26th through October 1st. At the Polynesian, my dream resort, for an absolutely fantastic rate.

 

[omghidanielle]

(Have you ever been in a restaraunt, waiting in a short line for a table? You see a guy walk in with his family, and upon being told it would be a 10 minute wait, the man stomps his feet, grumbles at his family, and then marches out announcing that the family will have to eat somewhere else because a 10 minute wait is ridiculous? Yeah. I'm married to that guy. Disney is not the place for him.)

This sounds like my Mother! You have made a very wise choice!