Araminta18
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2016
- Messages
- 3,016
Hi Everyone! I'm back with another trip report - we got back from Disney about 3 weeks ago but it takes me a little bit to sort the photos and the videos and figure out which ones I want to share (and if this is not your first time joining me on a trip report you know that I go super extra with the photos...#sorrynotsorry). And has become a little bit of a pattern since we got our annual passes last year, we have another trip in a little over a month for Festival of the Arts, so we'll see how far I get before we head off. 
The details:
who: me and my husband Trevor
when: Wednesday Nov 13th through Thursday Nov 21st (Nov 13th through Nov 17th was primarily Universal; Nov 17th through Nov 21st was Disney)
where: 4Points Sheraton, Portofino Bay, and Grand Floridian (Club Level!!!!!)
Introductions:
I'm Tiffany, I'll be your ghost host for this trip report. I'm 37 and while I'm a librarian by education, I currently do federal records management, since records management is where the pay is, and I gotta pay for Disney! Favorite princess is Sleeping Beauty, but I also love Mary Poppins and Beauty and the Beast and Rapunzel. Favorite rides are Haunted Mansion, Jingle Cruise, Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, Expedition Everest, Tower of Terror...I feel like I should stop before I just list all of them.
My traveling companion is my husband Trevor. He turned 39 on this trip, and loves Star Wars and Marvel, but has grown to love Disney--his favorite characters are Boba Fett, Vader and Stormtroopers, and on the non-Star Wars side, Grumpy. I recently turned him into a roller coaster fan (after him not riding them for our first several trips), so now he likes Cosmic Rewind and Everest...I think Rise of the Resistance and Star Tours are his favorite rides though.
Ok, let's get started! We watch a lot of Disney vlogs, and one of the vloggers we'd seen vlogged about going to the Orlando Informer event at Universal, where they buy out the park and the crowds are super light and food is all included. It seemed really interesting, and then they released dates, one of which was the day before Trevor's birthday, so...we decided to go! And if we're going to Universal, of course we're going to Disney. We'd originally booked Animal Kingdom Lodge, but staying at the main building of the Grand Floridian (aka club level) has been on my bucket list, and after looking at prices with discounts, we realized we could swing it, and therefore would be at the Grand Floridian with the Christmas tree and the gingerbread house! So had to go and do that.
Then about a month out I was looking at leave and flights and to EVERYONE's surprise (I can feel your surprise), we decided to fly in the night before, stay at a nearby hotel on points that Trevor had (aka free), and then we'd have a full park day on the 14th, vs only a half day cause we were originally flying in during the afternoon. Woot. We didn't do a TON of reservations or plans beforehand, it was a bit more of a loosey-goosey trip, except for the fastpasses at Disney - I did enjoy taking advantage of booking those ahead of time so we didn't have to wake up early!
We packed up a day or two in advance because we knew we'd need to do a half day on the day we flew out, so Wednesday morning we were basically all ready - just had to get through a couple hours of work and then pack the last couple of things!
The details:
who: me and my husband Trevor
when: Wednesday Nov 13th through Thursday Nov 21st (Nov 13th through Nov 17th was primarily Universal; Nov 17th through Nov 21st was Disney)
where: 4Points Sheraton, Portofino Bay, and Grand Floridian (Club Level!!!!!)
Introductions:
I'm Tiffany, I'll be your ghost host for this trip report.
I'm 37 and while I'm a librarian by education, I currently do federal records management, since records management is where the pay is, and I gotta pay for Disney! Favorite princess is Sleeping Beauty, but I also love Mary Poppins and Beauty and the Beast and Rapunzel. Favorite rides are Haunted Mansion, Jingle Cruise, Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, Expedition Everest, Tower of Terror...I feel like I should stop before I just list all of them.My traveling companion is my husband Trevor. He turned 39 on this trip, and loves Star Wars and Marvel, but has grown to love Disney--his favorite characters are Boba Fett, Vader and Stormtroopers, and on the non-Star Wars side, Grumpy. I recently turned him into a roller coaster fan (after him not riding them for our first several trips), so now he likes Cosmic Rewind and Everest...I think Rise of the Resistance and Star Tours are his favorite rides though.
Ok, let's get started! We watch a lot of Disney vlogs, and one of the vloggers we'd seen vlogged about going to the Orlando Informer event at Universal, where they buy out the park and the crowds are super light and food is all included. It seemed really interesting, and then they released dates, one of which was the day before Trevor's birthday, so...we decided to go! And if we're going to Universal, of course we're going to Disney. We'd originally booked Animal Kingdom Lodge, but staying at the main building of the Grand Floridian (aka club level) has been on my bucket list, and after looking at prices with discounts, we realized we could swing it, and therefore would be at the Grand Floridian with the Christmas tree and the gingerbread house! So had to go and do that.
Then about a month out I was looking at leave and flights and to EVERYONE's surprise (I can feel your surprise), we decided to fly in the night before, stay at a nearby hotel on points that Trevor had (aka free), and then we'd have a full park day on the 14th, vs only a half day cause we were originally flying in during the afternoon. Woot.
We didn't do a TON of reservations or plans beforehand, it was a bit more of a loosey-goosey trip, except for the fastpasses at Disney - I did enjoy taking advantage of booking those ahead of time so we didn't have to wake up early!We packed up a day or two in advance because we knew we'd need to do a half day on the day we flew out, so Wednesday morning we were basically all ready - just had to get through a couple hours of work and then pack the last couple of things!
), and then security was also a breeze - yay pre-check! The only mishap with security was that I forgot my water bottle was about half full and so with like 3 people ahead of me to get their IDs checked I was trying to chug my water, and spilled it all over myself. Oops! But otherwise super smoothly, and by 6:17 we were at our gate. About an hour until we boarded, so not horrible. Thank heavens for noise canceling headphones - the Southwest terminal at DCA is super loud and chaotic but the noise canceling helps. 
