Day One: The Meet Up

Today started out early for me. I was up at four and had no way of falling back to sleep, there was just too much excitement! So I finally got up at six and putzed around for a half hour before getting ready. I felt soooo bad when I said goodbye to Yuka. No clue as to why. I actually cried when I left her. How horrible am I?

The baggage check was easy, they didn't even weigh my bag! haha! then it was a breeze through TSA and off to my gate to wait to board. I was hungry so I bravely decided to get a single hashbrown from McDonalds and a sprite. Ate that and then took the dremamine as it said to take it a half hour to an hour before the 'event'.

I was worried about the flight because there were a high number of young children (like under two years, younger) and I feared it would be a noisy flight, but shockingly it was uneventful in every possible way. I got to my seat and found that our middle seat would be empty, that is always a nice bonus! The gentleman sittin on the aisle helped me with my bag even though I didn't need it and then spent the next three hours ignoring me.

We made fantastic time, bringing a three and a half hour flight down to three hours. Apparently we had a good tailwind ha ha! The dremamine worked once I was in the air - on the ground it made me sick to my stomach, which is ironic. But I was thankful for the tummy that wasn't doing backflips!

I felt so good, in fact, that I got one of their crappy pay for meals. I got the cheese and fruit platter. It had definitely been sitting out a while. The grapes were shrivelled and very close to rotting. The Cheese was good, and the apple slices were firm. So it wasn't a total loss, but it didn't come close to filling me up. But, maybe that's a good thing.

Now I'm just waiting for Erin to get here with her mom. They're in between Spokane and Seattle right now. I'm watching an SVU marathon on TV right now but I think I'm going to log off and try to sleep to pass some time.

Might blog more tomorrow, but it's going to be a long drive so who knows. Will take pictures, I promise.

Single Digits, Baby!

We have officially hit the "get excited" mark as we are down to NINE DAYS before our whirlwind adventure begins! Erin says she's already started packing, which I guess is a good thing because she is now sick as a dog. And top it off she has to work! Poor girl!

Cannot wait to blog from the road!

Just a Video

We hit double digits for our trip (starting November 7 when I fly down to Seattle and Erin drives over from Montana) yesterday. In 102 days we will be driving into Walt Disney World properties! Check in at CSR and then head over to AKL for dinner at Boma! YUM! Cannot wait!

We're going!

Bought tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party last night for November 16!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New Plans...

Still doing Disney, still doing Disney in November...

STILL DOING A ROAD TRIP! Just going in a different direction. Instead of me flying to Montana and going through the mid-west we are now going to drive from Seattle down I-5 down to LA then across the southern states to Disney...

Call us crazy, but we're counting down the days; ha ha!

Dates are November 8 - 24, 2010. Yes, that's right, I fly home the day before thanksgiving lol.

This should give us 10 nights and 9 days in the World. We're going to try out the Dining Plan as we want to do a couple of the "signature dining" spots and this would probably be cheapest. California Grill during Wishes, here we come! <3

So everything is back on and almost as good as planned. Can't wait to book the trip, I might just do it this weekend! ha ha!

Holiday Travels

So Erin spent the week here in Alaska with me. She got in last Saturday and we immediately headed for Kenai. It was my parents' wedding anniversary so we surprised them with a "FedEx" package that was "late in arrival". Mom was so surprised she screamed, through her purse across the room and proceeded to squeeze teh life out of Erin. Hysterical.

Mom was voiceless for three days after.

Spent most of the week down there and travelled back to Anchorage this past Saturday. Roads were good till we dropped down into Portage. Fishtailed quite a bit, but survived (though to hear Erin tell it we nearly died. Whatev.)

Yesterday we saw Disney's A Christmas Carol which was FAB! go see it! and then came back to try to put our Disney vids onto disk and I couldn't find my DVD recorder's remote. We tore my room apart, still no remote, so at 10pm last night we drove all over Anchorage trying to find a replacement DVD recorder... no such luck! So we bought tapes instead and were just going to do that until I could find a DVD recorder... we sit down get halfway through the first tape and out of no where the remote appeared between us! Seriously! the weirdest thing!

So we had a good laugh.

Now we're just transferring the stuff to DVD and sitting on our bums. We didn't go to bed until after 1am last night. Crazy stuff.

erin leaves today and I am sooooooooooo bummed.

Just sittin here day dreamin...

and trying to figure out what life would be like if we got Free Dining while we're at WDW next year...

if I understand it free dining would be the basic plan, which means one table service credit, one counter/quick service credit, and one snack credit per night we're there.

That's 13 credits of each (and for each) for our trip... that would be fantastic!

IF that's what we get then here is how I would propose we do the Table Service credits...

Hoop-Dee-Do Review = 2 Credits each (this is something Erin wants to do and we will do with our without the DDP)
Chef Mickey's = 1 credit each
Akerhaus = 1 credit each
1900 Park Fare (dinner) = 1 credit each
Boma! = 1 Credit each
California Grill (during WISHES!) = 2 credits each
Maya Grill (first night we're there) = 1 credit each
Tusker House = 1 Credit Each
Whispering Canyon = 1 Credit each
Trex 360 = I would assume this is on the DDP, but I'm not sure

and there are credits left over...

I'm going to book these TS's when the time comes even if we don't know if the DDP is going to be a promo again or not. Better to get them and then cancel than not get them at all!

Yes, We're Going to Disney Again...

After a lot of back and forth, Erin decided about a month ago that Disney would be more fun than Canada. As much as we were both excited for it, she was being pulled towards the world's largest People Trap. So, three days of Toni being stuck in bed with a back/neck issue calculating expenses later: we find that it'd probably run a thousand dollars cheaper than the canadian road trip. Canada is expensive!

But we had a dilema! One of the main reasons we were doing the Canadian trip was for the road trip aspect of it! So, we thought, why not just drive down to Disney World! It shouldn't take THAT long, right? And if you think about it, gas is a heck of a lot cheaper for a car than two seats on an airplane. So I'll be flying down to Montana and we'll take off from there.

Basically, we're doing the same weeks/amount of time that Canada was going to be. Which, after figuring travel time to and from Florida, gives us twelve FULL days in the parks. We're going to stay (at this point in our planning anyway) at teh Coronado Springs Resort this time - for the FULL time - and with the average heat being what it is in August we will definitely be spending quite a bit of time there at the pool/in the rooms. Which I don't have a problem with. Naps are great.

So, yes, this will make three Disney trips in three years back to back to back. Disney 2009, Disney 2010, and then Disney[land] 2011. I am not worried of Disney burnout, but we are talking of changing it up for 2012! we have to, addiction is not good... right? ha ha!

So on that note I will close out this entry. Three entries in the span of 24 hours... I'm not excited at all, am I? ha ha!



Hope you like our layout... it was a pain to put together, but we got it up!

Disney Dreamin'

Had my first travel nightmare last night, it's actually why I'm up so stupidly early here in my room. Blah.

It basically started out with Erin and I driving up to the Coronado Springs Resort (so I assume this was, in fact, a dream about our road trip next summer) and unloading. For whatever reason I let Erin take my luggage and her luggage and she went and checked in while I guess I had a valet take her car away ?? Who knows why my brain had it that way. As I'm standing on the curb (why didn't I go in?) I noticed others also arriving and wheeling to their rooms and what not. My brain identified one as DisneyDiana from Passporters (whom I've never met lol) but she really looked like one of my coworkers! Go figure!

Anyway while I'm waiting for Erin to return with our room assignment I realize - I don't have my purse or my camera or laptop... they're back in ALASKA! All I have is a suitcase with clothes. Now, if we were really on the road trip I KNOW I would have figured that out well BEFORE we got to Disney (if I didn't have my purse I wouldn't have gotten on the plane because I wouldn't have an ID! lol), but apparently my brain wasn't thinking clearly [bad pun!].

So I start freaking out and then Erin comes back and says we'll just call my parents and they'll have to FedEx my stuff down. Um, okay, I don't live with my parents how the heck are they going to get my stuff and ship it down? Shouldn't Judy and Gaylord do that?? Then off we went to our room. We were in the Cabanas again, just a different "Cabana" lol... everything was pretty much the way I remembered it (I would hope so)... and then I woke up because I was still freaking that I didn't have my stuff.

*facepalm* is it August yet?

-Toni