The One With the Pre-Trip Saga

  Brooklyn, New York, United States
Saturday, July 7, 2007

That's right, this isn't just a pre-trip report... it's a pre-trip SAGA.  A journey, if you will.  If you haven't already been able to tell, I tend to go a little overboard when it comes to traveling, especially in the planning stages.  Everyone says that serendipity and surprise are the greatest tour guides, but I just can't let go of my planning.  Sure it's great to run into fun little (or big!) surprises while on a trip, but I can't imagine leaving for a vacation without having every single minute of my day planned out.  OK, maybe not every single minute... I just like being prepared and knowing what we'll be doing.  It's the same for every trip, but especially Disney ones.  Disney is supposed to be magical.  However, I just found the perfect quote to sum up most travel experiences...

"Most travel is best of all in the anticipation or the remembering; the reality has more to do with losing your luggage." - Regina Nadelson

How true is that?!  Well, Disney is supposed to be magical and it usually is.  But I'm sure we've all had those situations where the reality of certain parts of the trip just didn't live up to the fantasy.  Well I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen!  We're going to get on as many rides as possible, see all the shows, meet amazing people, eat delicious food and have nothing but amazing experiences.  And THAT is why I plan everything out so carefully, to make sure we have as good of a time as possible.  And so it begins...

Cast of Characters

01 - Cast of Characters

Melissa, AKA, me, your lovely guide into this crazy world of Disney vacation planning.  I'm 20 years old and going into my third year of college, majoring in early childhood education with a concentration in psychology.  I LOVE to travel and by love I mean LOVE.  It's really what I want to do with my life.  I plan to teach all the cute little kiddies in second grade from September through June and then travel all summer.  I really want to see and experience the world for all it has to offer.  It's not something that I want to do, but something that I HAVE to do.

Also, I'm a bit of a rock star, if I can say so myself... haha, OK, well, I have a tendency to fall for rock stars.  Music is my second passion in life and I'm in love with rock through and through.  I love both new stuff (Taking Back Sunday, My Chemical Romance, Muse, The Format, The Killers, The Strokes... the list goes on) and the classics (Cher!<3, Elton John!<3, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Tom Petty, Queen, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Steve Miller, Supertramp, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, the Rolling Stones... again, the list goes on).  I listen to all rock all the time.  But shhh... there is a dirty little secret hiding in my MP3 player. When no one else is around I sometimes revert back to my musical obsessions of the past and can be caught listening to Hanson, The Moffatts, 2Gether, the Backstreet Boys, the Spice Girls, Dream Street and other completely embarrassing, yet COMPLETELY AWESOME, music groups!  That's right, folks... I'm a closet teenybopper.  Just don't tell anyone...

What other things do I love?  Manhattan, that's for sure.  Home is where the heart is and there's no better home than right here in New York City.  As much as I love to travel, I can't see myself ever permanently leaving New York.  It's literally the greatest place in the world and I'll admit right now that yes, sometimes I can be one of those annoying and obnoxious New Yorkers who believes that the rest of the world revolves around the city and nothing else compares to it.  But hey, it's just the truth.  I also love Disney (obviously - especially all things Little Mermaid and Aladdin), concerts, THE YANKEES!, la vie boheme, Broadway, theme parks, tattoos, comedy clubs, Saturday mornings, summer nights, museums, thunderstorms, tropical drinks with little umbrellas, sarcasm, going against the grain, rooting for the underdog, the highest heels and just generally feeling alive.

And I have a ridiculous obsession with Boy Meets World. Can any show ever be any better? I think not.  But enough about me, on with the rest of the cast...

02 - Cast of Characters

Debbie and Ray, AKA my parents.  Now I have to tell you, I never went through that "my parents suck and I'm way too cool to hang out with my family" phase.  Neither did my brother.  I guess my mom and dad must have done something right!  I love hanging out with my family and they mean the world to me. My mom and dad are really a lot of fun.

My mom, Debbie, is a stay at home mom and one of the craziest people I've ever known!  She's always having fun and making the most of every situation.  She can turn sitting at home on a Sunday night into a party.  In fact, it was my mom who made up the infamous Vacation Dance.  That's right, the Vacation Dance.  On every vacation for as long as I can remember we've always found a spot to all just dance for the video camera.  There's really not much more to it than that, but it's become quite the tradition.  Look for video upon our return... so yes, my mom's the best and really is one of my best friends.  She's loving and caring and has always been there for me, and she turns family vacations and outings into all-out adventures.

My dad, Ray, does graphics for Saturday Night Live, Conan, the Today Show and the news at NBC here in the city.  He literally has the coolest job ever.  My brother and I grew up hanging out on the set on SNL and we've gotten to meet some of the coolest people (Blink 182, My Chemical Romance, Derek Jeter, Hanson, Fall Out Boy, Green Day, Natalie Portman, and so many others, including the different cast members from throughout the years with Will Ferrel, Chris Kattan, Molly Shannon and Cheri O'Teri being the nicest).  I've come to realize that my dad is the greatest dad in the world; I honestly couldn't ask for a better one.  When I was going through my Moffatts phase back when I was fourteen he got up at 5:30 in the morning to drive my cousin and I to some random high school in the middle of nowhere New Jersey to see them play and go to a meet and greet.  He also did the same for a 2Gether meet and greet in Manhattan.  He's done so much for my brother and I and he's the absolute best.  He's also a ton of fun and is always up for anything!

03 - Cast of Characters

Michael, aka my 18 year old brother who will be turning 19 in November.  He's a cool cat.  (Yes, I just said cool cat).  He's going into his second year of college and majoring in electronic engineering with hopes of someday creating and designing the newest hit video games.  He's definitely into electronics, a love both he and my dad share, and he's a whiz at all things computers/video games/math.  Yet, he manages to avoid being a nerd... but just barely.  Mike's also very into rock music.  He's into some harder stuff than me, though, which gives him a bit of street cred, I think.  We do love a lot of the same bands, though, and we've had a ton of fun going to different concerts and rock shows together.

Mike likes to go on vacation, but he isn't as big of a travel fan as I am.  He loves getting away but it isn't a priority.  And when it comes to Disney, he just doesn't get it.  When we drove into Orlando for the first time in 2005 I said that I might cry when I saw my first Disney billboard.  His response?  "Yea, and I might smack you."  Despite the fact that he isn't as Disney-obsessed as I am he does love going to both Disney and Universal and trying out all the thrill rides.  And I even caught him laughing (OUT LOUD!) more than once when we watched "Monsters, Inc" with my little cousin last weekend!  Mike's awesome and we're really close.

And last, but definitely not least, is...

04 - Cast of Characters

Oreo, aka our 9 year old Shih-Tzu and the cutest little poopie-face I've ever seen!  A lot of people include pictures of their pets in their trip reports, but then add that unfortunately they won't be going to Disney.  However, Oreo's one lucky dog and she'll be taking the trip down to Orlando with us... how many dogs can say they've been to Disney World three times?!  When we first got Oreo my mom didn't want to go on vacation anymore since we weren't sure how taking her would work and we didn't want to leave her home.  It was a big pain, but it's all thanks to Oreo that our trips these past few years have been so amazing.  Without her we would have flown down to Florida for a week and then came home.  Since we drive down to Florida with her, though, we now rent houses for a good three to four weeks at a time.  Thanks Oreo!  I have to admit that as cute as she is, she's a spoiled brat.  If she doesn't get her way you'll know it, and Mike and I have each been bitten more than once.  Yet we continue to spoil her...

So there you have it, the cast of characters for this trip!  Now that you know a little more about us, let's continue with our plans.

The Drive

Everyone says we're crazy for driving down to Orlando but it's really not that bad.  Yes it's 17 hours of sitting in the car, gas really isn't cheap and there's not much to see along I95, but we turn it into an adventure.  Who doesn't love a road trip?!  The first year we stopped overnight on both our drive to and from Orlando, but after stopping in one gross hotel after another we decided to just drive straight home last year, and that's what we're going to do this year.

We're planning on leaving at 5:00 in the morning on our first day and stopping for breakfast at a rest stop in Jersey.  We can't bring Oreo into any restaurants and we'd never leave her in the car so we always run in and get something quick from either McDonald's or Starbucks and then eat at an outdoor table with the dog.  It always works out fine.  On the drive down we stop at as many rest stops as possible and it's a lot of fun.  Well, the first few states are.  Jersey, Delaware and Maryland have actual rest stops with restaurants and shops but everything after that is just bathrooms.  And they're usually gross, dirty bathrooms.  Not fun.

This year we'll be stopping overnight in Savannah, GA.  We learned our lesson in the past two years by stopping at rinky-dink motels in small, unknown southern towns.  Haven't there already been too many scary movies made about this exact situation?!  The hotels we've stopped at have been gross and the towns were even worse.  We're not making that mistake again.  Friends of ours drive down to Disney every year and always stop overnight in Savannah and love it.  I've always wanted to visit Savannah, and I recently read "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" so I'm really excited!  Plus we found a really nice hotel, the Baymont Inn and Suites, which is only two years old and has two queen beds instead of doubles as we've always encountered.  My mom and dad are used to having a big bed and Mike and I have our own so sharing tiny beds isn't fun... having Queens should make things a whole lot easier.

On the drive home we're just going to drive straight through.  Yes, it's a long, long drive (last year we drove from 5:00 in the morning to midnight), but if you listen to music and take in the sights (trees, trees and more trees) it's not too bad.  Of course the drive home is a lot worse than the drive down to Florida (there's not much to look forward to!) but we always stop for lots of mini-corn dogs at Nathan's and Cinnabons from Cinnabon (my brother's secret obsession) and make the most of it.  But it sure did suck when my MP3 player ran out of batteries on the drive home last year... I have to make sure that doesn't happen again!

The House

07 - Sun Palace

The house is gorgeous.  What more can I say about the house?!  The condo we rented two years ago was amazing, and the house from last year was nice but we ran into some trouble.  It was never cleaned for us before we arrived and he had to do it all ourselves, and the girl originally taking care of the pool had NO idea what she was doing and just dumped a ton of chlorine in it and left... when the pool maintenance man came a week later he told us the chlorine levels were dangerously high and we couldn't go back in the pool until he fixed the levels, but he couldn't do so until he spoke to the owner of the home, who lived in England and couldn't be reached for days.

08 - Sun Palace

The house this year looks great and we've been in close contact with the owner.  The owners again live in England, but this time the house is in more of a vacation resort (Indian Ridge) than last year.  There is a clubhouse on property and professional maintenance people who take care of everything.  Also, last year we were told that the house was five minutes from Disney, when it was in fact a good twenty miles away.  It took us a half-hour just to get to Rt 192 where all of the attractions were.  It was the biggest pain ever!  This year the Indian Ridge resort is four miles from Disney and exactly three stop lights.  Sounds perfect!

18 - Sun Palace

The house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a huge private pool and patio, a living room and a lounge, a kitchen and a dining room, and a game room with a pool table!  That should be a lot of fun!  There's also a laundry room with a washer and dryer which always comes in handy on long trips.  I also just found out tonight that there is a computer with free high-speed internet access!  Last year we brought our laptop and had to try to connect to some random wi-fi.  It wasn't fun and we had almost no connection.  Now we can bring our laptop and use the home's internet connection, plus go on the desktop computer to check our e-mail and keep our family and friends updated.

The Parks

Of course we all know that the best part of an Orlando vacation is visiting the parks!  This year we decided to get the "7-days for $85" Universal Studios tickets instead of season passes.  With only two and a half weeks for this trip we won't have as much time to spend at Universal as we have in the past two years.  And after spending three weeks at only Universal last year we've really gotten to see and do all that we want.  Now we'll just be revisiting our favorite attractions and restaurants.  We were all psyched when we found out that the Blue Man Group would be getting a permanent show down at Universal Studios since we've been wanting to see them for a long time but just never had a chance, so we added tickets to the show to our theme park tickets.  We're set!

When it comes to Disney, we decided to go with the 7-day base tickets.  On our first trip we paid extra for the park hopper option and never, NOT ONCE, used it so this year we skipped it.  I know it's not something that most people do, but we like to sleep relatively late on our vacations.  We usually sleep until around 10:00, have breakfast in the house, lounge around the pool and then head to the parks at around 1:00, staying until closing.  By doing things this way we only need to go to one park a day.  Epcot is our ABSOLUTE FAVORITE!  I always thought the Magic Kingdom was my favorite until our trip in 2005, when we all just completely fell in love with Epcot.  The World Showcase is my favorite place on property and Soarin' is my favorite ride ever.  I'm just sad that Spaceship Earth won't be open since it's one of my favorites and an Epcot tradition.  It'll be very weird not to ride it on a Disney trip.

Anyway, due to our love of Epcot we'll be spending the most time at Epcot, three whole days.  Then we'll spend two days at the Magic Kingdom and one day each at MGM and Animal Kingdom.  I loved Animal Kingdom a lot more than I thought I would in 2005, and MGM was just OK.  I love the Tower of Terror, Rock'N'Roller Coaster and Great Movie Ride, but nothing else is really a must-do.  Well, being the HUGE Little Mermaid fan that I am, Voyage of the Little Mermaid was always a must-do until this year.  I just got tickets to see The Little Mermaid on Broadway with my Grandma, Aunt and cousin in December!!!  I couldn't be more excited and now I don't care so much if we miss the Little Mermaid.  Of course I'd love to see it if we have time, but it's ok if we don't.

The Food

I love the food in Orlando!  There's so much to choose from and all of the restaurants are so unique and fun.  Picking restaurants each year is always a whole big ordeal, though.  I always wind up picking out too many expensive restaurants and having to cut back.  Or I pick restaurants where someone else doesn't like anything and that someone else is almost always Mike.  He's the pickiest eater ever.  His diet consists mainly of peanut butter, pizza, Chinese food and chicken fingers.  And lots and lots of vegetables.  He even requested a special trip back to Beaches and Cream for their vegetable wrap which he had LOVED last year!  I didn't mind, though, since we've been to Beaches and Cream on every trip so it's now a tradition.

It's also hard to pick Disney restaurants due to the fact that we really want to eat at places that are uniquely Disney.  Sure there are lots of great restaurants in the World Showcase, but living in New York City we have hundreds of every kind of ethnic restaurant imaginable.  The restaurants in the World Showcase just aren't anything new or unique to us, so we like to stick to more "Disney"-themed restaurants.  This year the ADR's we made were changed more than ever.  The people at Disney Dining must have my information especially saved based on all the times I've called to change/cancel/reschedule everything!  They don't even bother to tell me that "the restaurant's are non-smoking, please allow ample travel time, and park admission is required" anymore!  Now our plans are finally set, though, and we'll be going to a lot of great restaurants, both new and old favorites and both in and out of the parks.

Old Favorites: Cracker Barrel on 192, Margaritaville at Universal CityWalk (my favorite restaurant!), the Kona Cafe at the Polynesian Resort, Mytho's at Islands of Adventure, Beaches and Cream at the Beach Club Resort, Cosmic Ray's at the Magic Kingdom (only an old favorite for me since I ate there with friends in 2001, and my parents and Mike haven't been there yet), the Electric Umbrella at Epcot and Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

New Restaurants: Sunshine Seasons at Epcot, the Liberty Tree Tavern at the Magic Kingdom, Tusker House at Animal Kingdom, the Trail's End Buffet at Fort Wilderness, the San Angel Inn at Epcot, Bahama Breeze on 192 and the Sci-Fi Dine In at MGM.

We're all really looking forward to all the restaurants we'll be going to.  I even have all of the menus printed out and in my planning folder thanks to Allearsnet.com!  What can I say, my dad's Italian and my mom's Jewish... we like to eat!

Our Other Plans

We're used to having a lot of time in Orlando and therefore having a lot of time to relax and take it easy and check out some of the smaller sites and attractions in the area.  On our first trip we went to Sea World, Ripley's, the Titanic Exhibition and the Kennedy Space Center, and last year we went to Busch Gardens and visited every Disney and Universal resort.  We got a lot done and have seen more than a lot of Orlando. H owever, we still like to have time to just lounge around and relax, and this year we just didn't have that time.

See, when we first planned our trip we were only going to stay for two weeks.  That gave us enough time to spend seven days at Disney, four days at Universal, and have two free days - one of which we were using to see the Blue Man Group and one of which was to just relax on our last day before the long drive home.  We didn't have time for any more free days and we'd be going to a park every day for two weeks straight.  That didn't sound very good to us so what did we do?  When we went out to eat last weekend we talked about it and my mom and dad decided to add two extra nights to the trip!  Sure it's only two night, but that would mean two free days to relax and do some other fun things in Orlando outside of the parks.  As soon as we got home I wrote to the owner of the vacation home and asked about renting the house for an additional 2 nights, and she got back to us the next day saying that it was no problem.  It would only cost us an additional $180 and our vacation was now up to a full eighteen days!  I couldn't have been happier!

I immediately got to planning out our free days and we again decided to visit some Disney resorts. I just LOVE the Disney resorts, they're all so magical, unique and exciting while still remaining completely relaxing.  Some resorts we'll be visiting for their restaurants and some we'll be visiting just because we love them.  My favorite resort on property is the Polynesian so we'll be spending a lot of time there.  Actually, our favorite Disney tradition is at the Poly!  On every trip we spend a night relaxing on lounge chairs on the Polynesian beach, watching first the Electric Water Pageant and then Wishes as we listen to the slight crash of waves and watch the palm trees blowing gently in the warm breeze.  Ahhh, it's amazing and pure magic! The Poly is followed closely by the Beach Club, Grand Floridian, Animal Kingdom Lodge and Port Orleans Riverside, so of course we'll be visiting all of those.  We'll also be visiting Fort Wilderness for the Trail's End Buffet, and no trip to Disney is complete without a ride around the resort monorail loop, so we'll also again be visiting the Contemporary Resort.

When we're not milking the Disney resorts for all they're worth we'll be at Downtown Disney!  I love that place!  I love the Marketplace the most, but Pleasure Island and the West Side are also nice and I completely look forward to dropping some serious cash at the World of Disney.  Along with Downtown Disney we all also love CityWalk at Universal Studios so we'll be spending some time there as well.  I actually like CityWalk better than I do Downtown Disney... we all do.  It's such an awesomely fun party atmosphere!  I love just walking around and hearing the live bands, watching music videos on the huge screens and seeing the many lights in the area twinkle and glisten off the lake.  Now that's special.  We also plan on going to some flea markets and outlet stores (to shop 'til we drop!) and I want to finally go to Celebration.  We've been planning on checking out the small, Disney-built town for the past two years but just never got a chance.  This year we'll definitely try to make our way down there.

Well that's really all there is for now.  Who am I kidding? That "all" there is for now... I just wrote a book!  And believe me, there's plenty more where that came from...