jagafen
Wine drinker, family CEO/CFO, uber planner
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2007
I have been away from the boards for a long, long, long time. I think our last trip to Disney was all the way back in 2012--DS was still a Disney kid. Granted, we did hold off a bit waiting for Galaxy's Edge to open, but still, 7 years is a long time, and I didn't realize how much had changed since our last trip. But that's ok...I"m a good crammer and I have dived head first into the new information and I'm kinda caught up to speed.
First, our introductions: I"m Jen, the mom/wife/uber planner. I really enjoy getting into all the little details, and hunting out the "best" hidden spots to visit (when we're not in a Toursit Mecca that is.) I'm a pediatric Occupational Therapist during the week, and like to spend my weekends relaxing as much as possible, because work, on a good day, is stressful.
DH is a High School Teacher (English) and 2 sport coach (wrestling and softball). That means I barely see him except on Sundays from Thanksgiving until the end of May. When he's not teaching/coaching, he enjoys couch surfing as well. Our hectic schedules just make us want to melt when we're home.
Together, we enjoy date nights, drinking wine, having dinner with friends, and going to the movies. I realize we probably sound like a boring old married couple, but when you don't see your s/o for 6 moths out of the year, the simple stuff like dinner and a movie is important. We've been together for almost 24 years, married for almost 15. This trip is probably going to be our last trip to Orlando for the theme parks, unless I somehow convince DH to do a couple's only trip at some point. We'll see. We are officially celebrating my birthday and our 15th year anniversary (which are on the same day thanks to my MIL, but that's a story for another time.)
Also in our party are DS, Alex-16, 17 at trip time. He's "meh" about everything. Typical teenaged boy who likes to sing, and got to perform at Disney Springs last February, which was parlayed into a 4 day park excursion plus one day of singing break from school. I don't see much of him either because when he's not working, he's squirreled away in his room. Whenever I try to get him involved in trip planning, I get "I don't care...." as a response. He just doesn't understand that a little bit of planning goes a long way, especially if you're talking about a Disney vacation.
Also joining us is Billy, DS's best friend, and coincidentally, an annual pass holder. We didn't know (or had forgotten) about the APs when we asked him to join us, but his mom clued me in, and I was happy to save some $$ on tickets! Obviously, when it comes to Disney, his family is all in. We had our initial planning get together, and Billy had an actual ANSWER for the questions I asked him, rather than Alex's "I don't care, do what you think is best". Although, in the future, those are probably the exact words his wife will want to hear from his mouth....
So basically, I want to adopt Billy, or at least hope some of his planning enthusiasm rubs off on my too cool for school kiddo. I consider it a great achievement that Alex let me buy him 4!!! new shirts to wear in the parks (as long as he doesn't have to wear them to school, and he doesn't).
Oh, and I played a mom card. Our family tradition is to wear matching T shirts on one day. Since we're bringing Billy and covering his costs, I told him he had to suck it up and wear it too. He's a smart kid so he acquiesced. I cut the teens a break though, they're all in different shades of blue, so they won't look like total dorks when they're in the parks together.
So, our details, which I almost forgot:
We're staying Club level at beach Club for the first time. We've stayed at Beach Club before, it's DH's favorite resort. I love my hubs...since this is "our last trip" he hasn't balked at any expense, since we should "do it right" (within reason, of course). So when Disney released the 25% room discount, it made sense to add a day and upgrade to CL. The price increase was minimal with the discount, and I'm happy with anything "on sale". We'll be at Disney for 4 whole days, and then transfer over to Universal for 5 days. Alex's favorite resort is the Hard Rock, where we'll also be staying club level (I mean, after living the high life at Disney, can I really expect 2 teens to give up free snacks and sodas?). The purpose of our Disney leg is to hit Avatar land and Galaxy's Edge as much as possible. There's lots of new stuff to see. Our arrival day we get in early, so we'll do an Epcot/MK split day there with hoppers. Then we'll have 1 1/2 days at HS (the boys will have 2 full days--DH wants dinner at V&A's), a full day at AK, and on our check out day, we'll probably end up over in HS again.
First, our introductions: I"m Jen, the mom/wife/uber planner. I really enjoy getting into all the little details, and hunting out the "best" hidden spots to visit (when we're not in a Toursit Mecca that is.) I'm a pediatric Occupational Therapist during the week, and like to spend my weekends relaxing as much as possible, because work, on a good day, is stressful.
DH is a High School Teacher (English) and 2 sport coach (wrestling and softball). That means I barely see him except on Sundays from Thanksgiving until the end of May. When he's not teaching/coaching, he enjoys couch surfing as well. Our hectic schedules just make us want to melt when we're home.
Together, we enjoy date nights, drinking wine, having dinner with friends, and going to the movies. I realize we probably sound like a boring old married couple, but when you don't see your s/o for 6 moths out of the year, the simple stuff like dinner and a movie is important. We've been together for almost 24 years, married for almost 15. This trip is probably going to be our last trip to Orlando for the theme parks, unless I somehow convince DH to do a couple's only trip at some point. We'll see. We are officially celebrating my birthday and our 15th year anniversary (which are on the same day thanks to my MIL, but that's a story for another time.)
Also in our party are DS, Alex-16, 17 at trip time. He's "meh" about everything. Typical teenaged boy who likes to sing, and got to perform at Disney Springs last February, which was parlayed into a 4 day park excursion plus one day of singing break from school. I don't see much of him either because when he's not working, he's squirreled away in his room. Whenever I try to get him involved in trip planning, I get "I don't care...." as a response. He just doesn't understand that a little bit of planning goes a long way, especially if you're talking about a Disney vacation.
Also joining us is Billy, DS's best friend, and coincidentally, an annual pass holder. We didn't know (or had forgotten) about the APs when we asked him to join us, but his mom clued me in, and I was happy to save some $$ on tickets! Obviously, when it comes to Disney, his family is all in. We had our initial planning get together, and Billy had an actual ANSWER for the questions I asked him, rather than Alex's "I don't care, do what you think is best". Although, in the future, those are probably the exact words his wife will want to hear from his mouth....
So basically, I want to adopt Billy, or at least hope some of his planning enthusiasm rubs off on my too cool for school kiddo. I consider it a great achievement that Alex let me buy him 4!!! new shirts to wear in the parks (as long as he doesn't have to wear them to school, and he doesn't).
Oh, and I played a mom card. Our family tradition is to wear matching T shirts on one day. Since we're bringing Billy and covering his costs, I told him he had to suck it up and wear it too. He's a smart kid so he acquiesced. I cut the teens a break though, they're all in different shades of blue, so they won't look like total dorks when they're in the parks together.
So, our details, which I almost forgot:
We're staying Club level at beach Club for the first time. We've stayed at Beach Club before, it's DH's favorite resort. I love my hubs...since this is "our last trip" he hasn't balked at any expense, since we should "do it right" (within reason, of course). So when Disney released the 25% room discount, it made sense to add a day and upgrade to CL. The price increase was minimal with the discount, and I'm happy with anything "on sale". We'll be at Disney for 4 whole days, and then transfer over to Universal for 5 days. Alex's favorite resort is the Hard Rock, where we'll also be staying club level (I mean, after living the high life at Disney, can I really expect 2 teens to give up free snacks and sodas?). The purpose of our Disney leg is to hit Avatar land and Galaxy's Edge as much as possible. There's lots of new stuff to see. Our arrival day we get in early, so we'll do an Epcot/MK split day there with hoppers. Then we'll have 1 1/2 days at HS (the boys will have 2 full days--DH wants dinner at V&A's), a full day at AK, and on our check out day, we'll probably end up over in HS again.