Making New Friends - One Coffee Crisp At A Time! EPIC trip May 2019 Update 2/24

fallonkendra

DIS Veteran
Joined
Nov 2, 2015
Welcome! To anyone who is just joining one of my trip reports for the first time, thank you for joining! For those of you who have read my reports before - maybe I'll actually finish this one?

I should probably get to introductions! My name is Fallon, and I'm a 31 year old tradeswoman currently living in Alberta, Canada. (Also - can you see the pictures below? They look to be working on my laptop but not on mobile? Just me?)

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Favourite Park: Animal Kingdom
Favourite Ride: Expedition Everest

Also joining me on this trip was my husband, Luke! He has actually joined the boards recently, so I'm sure he will add some commentary throughout this trip report :)

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Favourite Park: Animal Kingdom
Favourite Ride: Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission Breakout (at DCA)

Both of us are fairly new Disney Parks fans, but this was our fifth Walt Disney World trip since January 2016 (and we've done five trips to Disneyland between April 2015 and June 2018). Here are the trip reports I've started (and mostly abandoned...)
January 2016 WDW: Zip-ah-de-doo-da, Zip-ah-dee-EH (I actually finished this one!)
January 2017 WDW: A Cancellation, A Proposal and A Lot of Food (I finished this one too!)
January 2018 WDW: Something Borrowed, Blue, COLD & New (I do want to finish this one sometime, since it was our wedding trip, but I've been kind of absent from the boards for months now - I'll get back to this report eventually!)
December 2018 WDW: No trip report started, I might eventually do one?

Disneyland Trip Reports: D3/D4/D5 - The Mighty Nucks
We've been together since May 2013, and married since January 2018. We share our house with our miniature zoo - 2 dogs, a dachshund named Jax and a shepherd mix named Magoo, and four cats - Hero (orange tabby), Pita (tuxedo), Loki (grey tabby) and BK (diluted calico - according to our vet). We also still have one degu (we had seven at one point, but time hasn't been kind to them - the one we still have is almost 6.5 years old, so he's getting up there :sad:)

 
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First off - the trip basics!​

Last summer, I was working night shift. The hours were long, the crew was small and I had down time. Of course, this led to me thinking about future Disney trips... I had already completed #Disneymath and knew I was going to be purchasing an Annual Pass for our trip in December, so of course I wanted to figure out how to get at least one more trip out of it. I reached out to a few of the ladies I knew from here on the Disboards who I was Facebook friends with, and the Epic Trip was born! It evolved from a few people into almost 30, and was definitely a trip to remember!

Here are the people we met up with on this trip: @chunkymonkey , @Lesley Wake , @ariane37 , @pepperandchips , @Pluto0809 , @missjackiemcg , @kastoney , @buzzrelly , @Elevationist , @IowaTater , @Steppesister , @paradesintherain , @Malia78 , @Mollydolly334 , @disneyAndi14 , @ArielSRL , @Jenny Sanders , @MissMaryQC , @Chrystmasangel , @LindseyJo22 , @StarWarsMomofGirls! @cinderkelly (let me know if I missed anyone!). Quite a few of the other ladies have also started trip reports, you should definitely read them all!

Originally our trip was going to be a week or so, but we kept extending it until it was finally 12 nights/13 days.

Dates: May 1-13th, 2019
Hotels: Old Key West (May 1-6), Animal Kingdom Lodge (May 6-11), Pop Century (May 11-13)
Tickets: I had an AP, Luke had 10-day hoppers

PS: @Lesley Wake is awesome and actually linked everyone's trip reports, so I 100% stole this from her:

Everyone else's Trip Reports!

Su-Lynn: We. Are. CHUNKY! Disboards Epic Girls Trip May 2019

Caroline (She added it onto the end of a previous TR): Beware of Poachers and Look at the Little Gorillas - Epic added on

Ariane (another tacked onto the end): Pixie Dust or Pixie Mountain

Melinda (a Dining Tr): How about a couple of EPIC quickies? Drs, that is!

Jenny: Sister Wives, First Times, and lots of Wine/An Epic Girls Trip

Liesa: The ABCs of an EPIC Girls' Trip! May, 2019

Ariana: So Much Freakin' Epicness

Fallon: Making New Friends - One Coffee Crisp at a time

Kelly: French Quarter to the Fantasy with an EPIC Cherry on Top

Lesley: Enjoy These Moments, They Are Precious
 
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Whoo I am the first person here that isn't related to you!! Looking forward to your report, I'm loving reading the different details from all our EPIC friends since we weren't all in the same place at the same time. And I'll say again how happy I am to have finally meet the two of you :hug:
 
Joining in, It was very nice to meet you and Luke! It is always a pleasure to meet Disney loving people like myself!

I am seriously thinking about OKW for our January trip, I would love your honest opinion. We have never stayed. I do like the idea of 2 queen beds in the studio. Andi is getting tired of the pull out sofa beds when I rent points!!

I can’t see your pictures:confused3
 
Wonderful intro, Fallon! It was so fun to meet you and Luke both and I'm excited to hear all about your adventures on your super long trip!
 
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Whoo I am the first person here that isn't related to you!! Looking forward to your report, I'm loving reading the different details from all our EPIC friends since we weren't all in the same place at the same time. And I'll say again how happy I am to have finally meet the two of you :hug:

I’m so happy I finally met you and Steve!

Joining in, It was very nice to meet you and Luke! It is always a pleasure to meet Disney loving people like myself!

I am seriously thinking about OKW for our January trip, I would love your honest opinion. We have never stayed. I do like the idea of 2 queen beds in the studio. Andi is getting tired of the pull out sofa beds when I rent points!!

I can’t see your pictures:confused3

I loved meeting you! You’re such a sweetheart!

We love OKW, it’s such a relaxing place to stay! That was our... third time staying there I think? And for our wedding trip we did 11 nights there haha. It’s a bit spread out, but we always stay in the Turtle Pond area in building 35, and it’s only about a 7-8 minute walk to the main building. You can always take a bus too, but we find it takes a bit longer. The boat to Disney Springs is really nice, and Olivia’s is a bit of a hidden gem!

Hmm, I was trying something new with my pictures, but I think I’ll have to go back to my old way.

Wonderful intro, Fallon! It was so fun to meet you and Luke both and I'm excited to hear all about your adventures on your super long trip!

It was great to finally meet you Liesa!
 
I'm here Fallon and I can't wait to read your TR!!!! I had NOOOOOO idea that this was all your idea!!!! I thought it was Su-Lynns. I'm eternally grateful that she invited me but even happier that you thought the whole trip up!!!!!:love:
 
I'm here Fallon and I can't wait to read your TR!!!! I had NOOOOOO idea that this was all your idea!!!! I thought it was Su-Lynns. I'm eternally grateful that she invited me but even happier that you thought the whole trip up!!!!!:love:

Thanks for joining in Jenny! I loved meeting you and Joe!

It was my idea, but Su-Lynn and Lesley did all the work to pull it off! All I did was suggest it, and they made it actually happen :)
 
Ooooh yay, I can't wait to read all your adventures - you guys did so much more after the girls trip part ended! I can't see the pictures either, where are you hosting them?
 
April 30th / May 1st - Travel

On April 29th, we headed out to my best friend’s acreage and dropped off our dogs. Just because I think they are adorable, here's pictures of them…

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Magoo always has to grab something when it’s time to go for a walk…on this particular night, it was a hand towel from the pile of clean laundry I was folding…
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Jax hates the rain – but he hates his jacket even more…
On April 30th, Luke and I both had to work for the full day. The hours dragged, but we both got home around 5pm and started putting together our last minute things – packing our toothbrushes, phone chargers, etc. We cleaned the litter boxes, loaded up my SUV, made sure our cats and degu had plenty of food and treats (my Mom was going to be checking on them daily) and then headed out around 9:30pm.

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After a quick stop for gas, we were on the highway to the airport and arrived at our preferred parking lot just shortly after 10pm. We took the shuttle to the terminal, checked our bags, made it through security quickly and found ourselves with lots of time before our flight left. I’m the type of person who is late for everything – except flights. I’d rather sit at my gate early than have to run to catch my flight (which happened on the last flight I took before this one, due to a system crash and the longest check-in line I’ve ever seen. The lady checking my bag told me I “should have been more responsible and been there earlier” despite the fact I was over 90 minutes early for a domestic flight *facepalm*).

Anyways, back to this trip… we decided we had more than enough time to sit down to eat. There’s a few options in the Edmonton airport, but we headed over to my old-faithful, Boston Pizza.

While we were sitting there, we saw on the departure board that our flight was delayed by about 20 minutes. Once we finished eating, we headed off to our gate and found a pair of seats – only to hear an announcement a few minutes later that our flight would now be departing from a different gate. I always think it’s hilarious when you’re sitting in an airport and you see an entire herd of people changing gates, and now I was one of those people :rotfl2:.

We eventually boarded, and left about half an hour past our original departure time. We both managed to get a bit of sleep – but not much. We landed in Toronto, and they made an announcement that anyone not connecting to Orlando was to remain seated, and anyone heading to Orlando – head straight to customs. We were cutting it close, but we made it through security and customs quickly, and made it to our gate while they were still pre-boarding!

Our flight from Toronto to Orlando was uneventful, and we landed around 10:30am on May 1st. We took the Fake-O-Rail to the main terminal and headed straight to the Magical Express.

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Since we’re Canadian, Disney won’t mail us our Magicbands before a trip. To get on the Magical Express we typically have a letter that’s mailed out to us, but then I’m always struggling to get it out of my bag when we get there – so this time I was thinking ahead and brought one of my Magicbands from our December trip and it made things so much easier! We didn’t have to wait too long and we were boarding a bus for our first hotel of the trip! Of course I had to take a selfie to document the moment (with a Snapchat filter of course to hide the exhaustion) :thumbsup2
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Exactly 31 minutes after taking that selfie, I took this picture of the sign for hotel #1 – one of our favourite places to stay on Disney property!

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Are my pictures working now?

Yes, they all seem to be working!

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Magoo always has to grab something when it’s time to go for a walk…on this particular night, it was a hand towel from the pile of clean laundry I was folding…
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Baaaabies! They're so sweet!

made sure our cats

Ok, discrimination! Where are pictures of the cats?!

We were cutting it close, but we made it through security and customs quickly, and made it to our gate while they were still pre-boarding!

That's some lucky timing! I know you guys didn't get so lucky on the way home though, so thank goodness it wasn't both ways
 
I've never stayed at OKW (it's on my list) but I sure do love Olivia's for any meal!!!! Have you been???
 
I'm here to follow along too!! Next time there's an epic trip I hope to be another Canadian on board lol!!

so this time I was thinking ahead and brought one of my Magicbands from our December trip and it made things so much easier!

I'm confused...how does this work?
 

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