So we're the adults now, huh? - A Pre-Trip Report [May 2025]

[cmbr]

Hello, all! I am a relatively new poster to the forums, and as such, this will be my first time posting and maintaining a pre-trip report and, eventually, a trip report as well. But this trip feels like the perfect one to write up my first report for. Why? Because this trip marks the first time that I will be planning and executing a vacation to Walt Disney World on my own, using all the knowledge I’ve gained over the past decade of helping my parents plan and tracking tips on the internet. This is both very exciting and also nerve wracking - the same kind of nerve wracking you feel when trying to carefully walk over a wet tile floor. The kind of nerve wracking where you’re like “I’ll be fine” but the thought of “What if I won’t be fine?” doesn’t quite leave your noggin. But it’s mostly exciting!

Part of the reason for my writing this report is also, admittedly, to spare my friends, family, and partner from bearing the brunt of said excitement. I’ve already talked all of their ears off multiple times at this point, and considering the trip this report will be covering is still over 7 months away… well, I just need a good ole’ outlet for channeling all that energy into. And the people here seem to understand the way Disney parks can stick to your brain like gum to the bottom of your shoe, so this seems to be the perfect place for that energy to be channeled. But also, since this is the first time I’ve planned a trip on my own, I think keeping a thread like this to document all the steps in the process could prove useful to myself in the future. What went well? What didn’t go so well? What was I thinking when I did this? Et cetera, et cetera.

Getting to this point has been quite the process, so the first part of this report will be covered almost diary-style, relaying the who, when, where, and why as they came about, as well as some relevant background. And hopefully you all won’t find it too boring to stick around for!

Just a little note - I'm uploading the first part of this trip report without any images (I'm not particularly comfortable uploading my face online) but I may come back and add some little illustrations at some point. Just to add a little visual pizzazz. Important info will be highlighted in red... I recognize how wordy I can get. I'll try to keep thing humorous and engaging as much as I can, though.

So, without further delay, on with the show!

Who am I?​

Let’s start at the beginning (I’ve heard it’s a pretty good place to start.) Who am I? Well –

My name is Cam, and I am a 26 year old (as of writing, will be 27 by the time we go to WDW) from Alabama. I’m an archivist - which I simplify the explanation of by describing as being like a “museum curator for paper records.” It paints a clean enough picture, but if you ask me, archival work sits neatly between the work performed by museum curators and librarians, and as such influences both professions as they influence my own. We’re a symbiotic ecosystem, you could say, a trio of crusaders against misinformation (to make it sound a bit cooler than it is.) But aside from my work as an archivist and historian, I have a number of hobbies including art, writing, crochet, cosplay, and theater, and a wide variety of interests including Japanese media, paranormal phenomena, internet culture and history, and, well, as you may guess… theme parks! Though, reading that… it sounds a little out of place with everything else, huh?

My love for theme parks was born when I was 14 years old, when my parents decided to take me and my younger brothers (11 and 9 at the time) to Walt Disney World for the first time. Some may say this is too old for a first trip for taking your kids to WDW, but my family would disagree wholeheartedly. Even if we were old enough to recognize that the characters were people in suits, that we hadn’t actually gone to a different, magical realm; that instead we were visiting a theme park, it didn’t make the experience any less magical. We all have crystal clear memories of that first trip, and I have no doubts that all five of us will remember it for the rest of our lives. It healed our family from a lot of the struggles we’d had in the 3 or 4 years leading up to it - and while a trip to Disney can’t fix everything, it can certainly give you the positive energy needed to get mending. That first trip happened in 2012, and was intended to be a “once in a lifetime” occurrence, a trip where we blew it out of the water because there was no way we could ever afford to come back, right? Right…?

Wrong. Come 2016, 4 years after our first trip, and we find ourselves making the day-long drive down to Orlando again for our second WDW vacation - a trip celebrating my graduation from high school. I wore my graduation Mickey ears to every park, and had cast members that went above and beyond to make the trip truly feel like a celebration. This ended up becoming a little bit of a tradition, with a 2019 trip celebrating my middle brother’s graduation, and then a 2021 trip for my youngest brother’s graduation. Whoops. We may have found ourselves a little addicted. The rest of my family also took a shorter trip in 2023 when my brother moved to Orlando to work in theme park construction (his job is cooler than mine, I know)… but I had just started a new job of my own after finishing my Master’s degree the year before, so it ended up where I was unable to join them. Boo. I’m still just a little bitter about it.

Blah blah blah, that all to say, I love Disney World. Some of my most cherished family memories have been made there, and even though I’m an individual completely unafraid to criticize the company and the decisions they make for the parks, I certainly can’t pretend that I don’t still love them. I love the atmosphere, I love the food, I love the theming, I love it all. Needless to say, I have been trying to figure out a way to get back down to Orlando ever since the 2021 trip.

I just had no idea when that trip would be. We all know that a WDW trip is expensive, after all. I work in a humanities based profession, notoriously NOT the kind of jobs that make the big bucks. And as I type now, I’ve only been in my current job for about a year and a half. I consider myself quite good at saving money, but survival is necessary and Disney is (technically) not. Even with responsible money management on my side, saving to take a trip on my own would take a little while. So, I’d just sucked it up and assumed I probably wasn’t looking at another Disney trip for another three or four years. Basically equivalent to a thousand years of torture, but whatever, right? That was, until…

My Compatriot​

… My compatriot entered the picture! This is not a solo trip!

Morgan, the deuteragonist of our tale, is my best friend who I’ve known since we were 13 years old. She knows me better than almost anyone, and certainly understands me more than anyone else. We pushed through some of the hardest years of our lives together, but unfortunately drifted apart during our college years - distance can be a cruel thing. Luckily, we’ve reunited in adulthood, now more mature and closer than ever. Morgan is the same age as myself, and works as a nurse about two hours away from where I live. However, we make an effort to spend a day together at least once a month, alternating on who has to make the perilous drive to the other. She shares many of the same interests as I, but she also adores animals and is an incredibly talented musician.

The idea of this trip was born one day when I - who has an incurable case of yapping syndrome - began rambling about my love of Disney parks, and how badly I wanted to go again. Every 2 months or so I go through an insufferable phase where theme parks are practically all I can think or talk about, and usually my boyfriend is the one who kindly suffers the consequences of my obsession. But Morgan also loves theme parks! However, she hasn’t been to WDW since about 2014. She’s been to Universal way more frequently, which included her last trip to Orlando a few years back, which she took with her husband who loves Harry Potter. However, she told me that even though she desperately wanted to visit Disney again, her husband had no interest in going, and balked at the price for visiting whenever she brought it up. Which, well… is understandable. I love the place, but I can’t fault him for that. My boyfriend does the same thing.

Of course, I (half jokingly, but honestly mostly seriously) said I would go with her if she wanted. And, of course, once I’d said that, we both became immediately attached to the idea.

From that moment on, we tossed the idea around for nearly a year; tonally non-serious, but emotionally dead serious. We’re both on a bit of a “healing our inner child” streak, and what better way to heal the inner child than to do something every kid certainly wishes for - a big vacation with their best friend. One where we’re the adults, we get to make our own (possibly questionable) decisions, and just enjoy a week together without worrying about the ever-present burden of the 9 to 5 grind. Oh, and also let our inner foodies off the leash. But, honestly, both of us knew what a huge financial commitment it would be, and it was a smidge intimidating to think about… so the conversations rarely ventured past “we should really do this one day, it’d be fun.”

 

[cmbr]

The Dream That You Wish… Will Come True!​

Okay, so, it’s April 2025, about a year since the idea of Morgan and I taking a Disney trip together was first seared into our hearts and souls. I believe there had been some Epic Universe news released that day which got me all excited, so what else do I do but pick up my phone and start texting Morgan about it. While it starts with Universal discussion, it quickly evolves into Disney discussion too. As is common by this point, we once again say that we really should do that trip together, but it would just cost way more than we’d find comfortable right now…!

Right?

“But what if it didn’t?” I ask myself, ever one to question the presumed norm. Forward thinking is key to a breakthrough, after all. “What if, just maybe, if we played our cards right… it could be doable in the near future?”

“Well, let’s just see.” I decide. Now, I’m a humanities girl, one who has a stomach-churning aversion to the numbery side of things. But I’m not bad at math, so I pull out the dusty ole’ mental abacus and start crunching some hypothetical numbers. I peek around at cheaper resort dates I find on WDW’s calendar, looking at value and moderate resort prices. I factor in ticket and travel costs, I ballpark some average totals on Genie+ and dining expenses, I use both online testimonials and my own past experiences for reference… and the number I come out with? While hypothetical and certainly still expensive… it’s doable. With travel and accommodations split between two people, it’s shockingly doable; given that we schedule the trip out far enough that we can save up and enjoy it to the fullest. I send Morgan my math, I ask what she thinks, and she has the same reaction I do. We absolutely could make this happen. She talks to her husband - because it still is a big chunk of change - and he gives the thumbs up too.

And so, we decided we’re making this happen, with a tentative decision to schedule the trip for September 2025… even though waiting that long pains us both. It’ll be less crowded though, and the rates I find for rooms on property are about as reasonable as they come.

Thus, my journey to making this trip happen begins. The inner vacation planner in me emerges. Like the alien in Alien out of that guy’s chest.

Off to the Races​

So, first things first, right? We gotta get a room to stay in. And this is the part of the pre-trip report where I admit to being a little bit of a snob. Morgan would’ve been perfectly fine with us staying off property. Grabbing a cheaper AirBnB or a room at a chain hotel and saving some cash by just taking an Uber to the parks each day. Unfortunately, I am the problem here, and I want to stay on property. I’ve always stayed on property when my family has visited Disney, and while I certainly wouldn’t be against an off property stay if we were just taking a day trip… when we’re gonna be down there for nearly a week? I want the experience of staying in the bubble, there’s just something special about it. I’ve already done the groundwork and calculations to show we can stay on property without breaking the bank, but now I’ve gotta execute it, and I know just who to go to for advice on getting deals on Disney rooms.

One of my coworkers is a huge Disney fan, and unlike me, she visits the parks typically at least once a year. So I go to her to ask if she has any tips, especially since she’s been doing this since she was where I currently am on the pay scale. She highly recommends Pop Century, as it’s where she typically stays when she stays on property, though she admits to often making use of the good neighbor hotels. I’d already been looking at Pop, as my parents had also recommended it after staying there in 2023 and thoroughly enjoying it. But she also mentions something I’d only heard about in passing up until that point - DVC rentals. But I’ve largely ignored anything DVC related as the idea of a timeshare thingamabobber sounds pretty darn scary. She’s never done it herself, she admits, but her friend swears by renting DVC points, that it’s the absolute best way to get a more affordable room.

I mull this over. May as well look into it.

I’m pretty immediately blown away by the prices I start finding on DVC rooms in deluxe resorts. Like, what do you mean I can get a room at the Contemporary for nearly half of what it’d cost me if I booked through Disney? I mean it’s still out of our price range, but it’s crazy on principle, right?! But there are other DVC rooms via rental that are in our price range - and very comfortably so. This includes rooms at Animal Kingdom Lodge - the resort Morgan has expressed the most interest in staying at. Again, she loves animals. I love AKL, it’s far and away my favorite resort I’ve stayed in up until this point, and they’ve got these things called value studios that go for only $800ish for 5 nights at the time we’re looking to book. $400 each. I’m gobsmacked. Befuddled, even, and all those other silly-sounding words. I’m also very excited to share this discovery with Morgan, who agrees that if we can get a room at such a reasonable price, we have very little reason not to.

It should be noted that up until this point, all communication between Morgan and I regarding this trip had been done over text. Again, two hours apart and all. So I propose that next time we meet up we sit down and basically do a spitballing session - going over resort numbers where she can take a look, throwing out things we want to be sure we get in during our time there, naming restaurants we want to make reservations at - those kinds of things. Because even if setting any of those plans in stone is a long way off, I feel that having that kind of free talk about it could be helpful moving forward. So we do this, and it's a lot of fun. I highly recommend doing this sort of thing if you ever start planning a trip with some friends. And while I’m not going to sit here and regale you with every minute detail of that conversation, I will share what some of the biggest takeaways were:

• AKL is at the top of both of our resort lists.
• Five nights (a full day at each park) sounds like the best option for us - we end up landing on late August 2025 as a tentative time, rather than the September dates I’d used for my hypothetical calculations.
• Morgan’s greatest wish for the trip is to go to Takumi Tei at the Japan pavilion.
• We want to prioritize the newer additions to the park that Morgan hasn’t experienced yet (and the handful that I haven’t experienced yet either.)
• We want to visit at least one highly themed bar while there, such as Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto or Oga’s Cantina.

Now, what I’d found in my research was that you couldn’t book with DVC rentals until 11 months out. Meaning that even though we now had a general game plan for what we wanted out of the trip, we still had a long while until that first step could be taken. So all we could do now was chill out, go about our days as usual, and wait for that time to come.

Throwing Things for a Loop​

… Okay, so maybe August 2025 felt a little bit too far away. Even though I know that will give me more than enough time to save up for this vacation, it just feels… so painfully… far away… to even planning the darn thing!

Morgan and I’s spitballing session occurred in early May, so let’s fast forward to July, where the expressed sentiment above really starts to settle in and gnaw at my bones. If we’re visiting in August, that means I won’t be able to even book our room until September, so we’re still looking at over 2 months until that opens to us. I consider myself a decently patient person most of the time, but… I’m starting to think my patience may not be strong enough for this one. Which, really, the reason we’d scheduled for so far out was my fault in the first place, Morgan had been saying that felt way too far away since the beginning. So, whoops. My bad.

“What harm would it do to do a little more peeping around at DVC rental prices for earlier in 2025?” I decide, fully aware that I have just put on a clown wig and honked my big red nose by failing my own attempt at having some self-restraint. That being said, I also know what our limitations look like. If I can’t find an earlier time of year for this trip with prices in the same ballpark as those we’d already been looking at, then moving the trip up would be a no-go. There was some wiggle room, but not very much. Luckily, we have just enough wiggle room that I’m able to find something.

Early May - after all the spring breakers have cleared out, but before kids are freed for summer break - has prices that are not that much higher than late August/September. Which makes sense, of course there would be a natural dip in attendance between spring break and Memorial Day weekend, why didn’t I think of that before? Plus, with early May landing right in the heart of the springtime rather than the summer, no doubt the temperatures will likely be way more comfortable than they would be in August. Not that it’ll be cool or anything, but it likely won’t be unbearably hot yet. An average hot comparable to what we’re used to, being from the Southeast ourselves. I contact Morgan about this, she’s immediately down, and she very kindly refrains from poking fun at me for being right about August/September being too far away. That’s real friendship right there.

So finally, we set the dates of our trip in stone. May 4th through May 9th, 2025.

There’s just one problem with this - it’s July, and we’re over the 11 month threshold for the earliest available DVC rentals for our dates. This is mainly a problem because we wanted to try and nab one of the value studios at AKL, but with their cheap price they go incredibly fast. Could I still manage to get one? I won’t hold you in suspense, dear reader, the answer is a big fat no. If we wanted to stick to these dates, we would need to be able to pivot to another resort or pay about $500 more to book a standard studio at AKL. Which, that price is still not out of our doable range, but I figure that I may as well look at what else is available and see if we can get something else closer to the price we’d originally been expecting. And the next cheapest studio I’m able to find is at a resort that, honestly, I hadn’t even thought to consider prior to that very moment… Old Key West. But despite the lack of prior consideration, I’m far from against the idea of staying there. It still receives all the benefits of the deluxe resorts, the only real downside is that it’s bus-only transportation; but AKL is also bus-only anyway, and call me a freak if you must, but I find an odd delight in riding the Disney buses to the parks. A pleasant nostalgia, if you will.

But I’m not sure if Morgan would be down for this change. After all, it’s a little pricier and she’d sounded very enthusiastic about staying at AKL. But it’s either we make the switch or pay even more to keep the AKL idea alive. So I propose this to her and, in a moment of pure comedic genius from me, I tell her that we can pretend that we’re Jimmy Buffett in the Florida Keys while we’re there. Maybe even arrive in pseudo-Buffett-like outfits to really get ourselves in the spirit. It’d be funny. And, to my surprise, she’s 100% game for making this switch - enthusiastic, even - and now the both of us are attached to the Jimmy Buffett role play idea. (Additionally, my boyfriend, who had been invited to join us on the trip but wasn’t interested, actually considered going with us solely so he could participate in the Jimmy Buffett bit. Jimmy Buffett is a powerful being even from beyond the grave.)

So with a thumbs up from Morgan, and a double check of my schedule to ensure that those dates are in fact available for me, I move forward with booking our studio room at Old Key West. And this is the point in time where I make my account here, so I can ask a few questions about the resort before I seal the deal. And aside from a little heart-attack-inducing moment where Disney changes our confirmation number and tricks me into thinking our reservation has vanished into thin air, it’s been pretty quiet on the vacation front since. May 2025 isn’t exactly right around the corner, after all. The greatest challenge now is keeping track of any parks news that could impact our trip. For example, Dinoland’s incoming closure, or all the construction fixing to start in Magic Kingdom. Or the switch from Genie+ to LLMP.

I’m super excited to chat with you all about this trip and my plans, and also looking forward to adding updates to this thread as we get closer and closer to May 2025. And I hope at least one person has managed to read all of this! If that’s you, then hi! Until next time!

 

[DenaRox]

Congrats on your first “planned by you” Disney trip. I look forward to following along on your journey. I just started my pre-trip report recently too (feel free to check it out if you’d like) and can totally relate on it being the space to spare your friends and family from all the planing details that they really don’t care about.

Love the idea of colour coded “important” stuff. I am also wordy and should probably do that too. Suggestion, could you pick a darker colour, the yellow is really hard to read.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Congrats on the new trip!!

I will be there in May with DD18. We rented points to stay at AKL. Our first time! I hear the value rooms are impossible to book!

I look forward to hearing more.

 

[gregskellington]

Best of luck with the trip! Hope you have a blast. If it makes you feel any better, you had a near 0% chance of booking a value studio, even at 11 months.

 

[cmbr]

Congrats on your first “planned by you” Disney trip. I look forward to following along on your journey. I just started my pre-trip report recently too (feel free to check it out if you’d like) and can totally relate on it being the space to spare your friends and family from all the planing details that they really don’t care about.

Love the idea of colour coded “important” stuff. I am also wordy and should probably do that too. Suggestion, could you pick a darker colour, the yellow is really hard to read.

I’ll definitely give it a read! I love reading about what people are doing with their own trips!

And yes, I absolutely can! Apologies, I use this website on its dark mode so I’d just naturally picked colors that showed up well with the dark background. Hadn’t even thought about the light background others use, so thank you for pointing it out. I’ll do my best to pick a good imbetween when I get back to my laptop.

 

[DenaRox]

I’ll definitely give it a read! I love reading about what people are doing with their own trips!

And yes, I absolutely can! Apologies, I use this website on its dark mode so I’d just naturally picked colors that showed up well with the dark background. Hadn’t even thought about the light background others use, so thank you for pointing it out. I’ll do my best to pick a good imbetween when I get back to my laptop.

Happy to help. I always encourage opinions and ideas on my posts so I tend to give out what I feel is helpful advice … sometimes it’s not welcomed though haha

 

[cmbr]

Best of luck with the trip! Hope you have a blast. If it makes you feel any better, you had a near 0% chance of booking a value studio, even at 11 months.

It is what it is, and hey, I get to stay in a resort I’ve never stayed at before thanks to it! Pros and cons.

 

[cmbr]

Happy to help. I always encourage opinions and ideas on my posts so I tend to give out what I feel is helpful advice … sometimes it’s not welcomed though haha

I know how that is, haha. Also, I've changed the highlight color to red, if it's not too much trouble could you let me know if it's easier to read for you?

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more .

 

[DenaRox]

I know how that is, haha. Also, I've changed the highlight color to red, if it's not too much trouble could you let me know if it's easier to read for you?

The red is perfect! Stands out nicely and is easy to read

 

[aidansmommy]

Ohhhh! How fun planning your first trip! AKL is a great resort but they really have a limited number in the value category. I can't wait to hear more of your plans for this trip!

 

[cmbr]

Ohhhh! How fun planning your first trip! AKL is a great resort but they really have a limited number in the value category. I can't wait to hear more of your plans for this trip!

Yeah, had to learn just how limited they are the hard way But oh well! I'm thinking of it as an excuse to stay at a resort I haven't before.

 

[Becky2005]

How exciting! I did read the whole thing because I totally understand the wanting to just talk Disney but people in your real life are like "ok, whatever". LOL! I am also a wordy one. I have been known to put trip reports on word first and then try to condense because I also have a tendency to want to go on tangents and want to give all the info.

This is the hard part where you are in the lull! You've done what you can do with reservations but can't really do anything else yet you want to! I have a trip booked in August 2025 (and one with a friend in May 2026) so I get that part. It is so hard waiting.

Can't wait to read more as things progress.

 

[cmbr]

How exciting! I did read the whole thing because I totally understand the wanting to just talk Disney but people in your real life are like "ok, whatever". LOL! I am also a wordy one. I have been known to put trip reports on word first and then try to condense because I also have a tendency to want to go on tangents and want to give all the info.

This is the hard part where you are in the lull! You've done what you can do with reservations but can't really do anything else yet you want to! I have a trip booked in August 2025 (and one with a friend in May 2026) so I get that part. It is so hard waiting.

Can't wait to read more as things progress.

Oh I absolutely wrote this report in a Word doc first. Having the word count staring back at me is the only way I can keep myself in check!

At least I know others are trudging through the lull with me.