Celebrating 20 years at WDW - Bonus features, A few posts from May, Updated 9/11

franandaj

I'm so happy, I could BOUNCE!
Joined
Nov 15, 2009
I'm going with that title because it was either that or "Our last trip to WDW". Both titles can hold true. You see at this point, this is our last trip we are going to take to WDW. I have no future plans of returning to WDW with exception of two nights after a Fantasy cruise next Winter. And I'm not allowed to plan anything further than that trip. Seems rather harsh for a DVC member. But we are in a harsh situation.

June 12, 2014 we spent our first night in our beautiful new home with all our kitties and a house full of furniture and stuff. 28 months later the apartment we called home for 17 years still has a lot of our "precious items" left in it. Well maybe they're not that precious as we are probably going to be getting rid of a lot if the furniture. We own the building, and once the place is gutted and remodeled it will be a beautiful place for someone to live. Until then, a moratorium has been placed on vacation planning.

When I say "celebrating 20 years" this means from the anniversary of our first kiss. Most people, when they meet their mate, and figure it out, they set a date, get married and the husband is lucky if he remembers the one date, the anniversary of the wedding. In our case I remembered every milestone date, since never in our wildest dreams did we ever think that we would have an actual Wedding anniversary. Plus, this gives us more occasions to celebrate! I won't bore you with all the other occasions, but you may hear about them in future TRs. Provided there are any!

So this means I need to make the most out of this trip since who knows when we will actually be back! (Well, besides that weekend in March after our Fantasy cruise, but that's the last one I can plan until the place is cleaned out.) To maximize fun on this trip I've got meets planned with no less than five folks who are hopefully following along here! We've got plenty of eats planned, some of the fancy pants variety and some of the plain 'ol comfort eats.

This will be my third time attending the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. The only time that I was able to sample something from every kiosk was my first time in 2009. However, it was really rushed, so this year I will not try so hard, and just take it easy. I can only eat so much.

With respect to Special Events, the first time, we did a Sake tasting in Japan. It was good, but the food they served us was a little strange. Four years later we did a Tequila Lunch, a French Regional Lunch, and a Grand Marnier Tasting. All of them were enjoyable, but the French Lunch is the only one that we are choosing to repeat this year. The other special event that we will be participating in is a Mediterranean Lunch, I have no idea what to expect of this one, but it is being held at Spice Road Table so it should be pretty good!

We have a birthday celebration at a special place planned, and just a handful of other reservations, most of our meals will be from the kiosks if we can handle it. And of course we’ll be trying at least one new watering hole, and returning to an old favorite.

If you can still see my F&W ticker in my signature, you'll see that there are only days until we leave...I hope that you will join along in the fun and games. I'm sorry that I can't do the TR in scratch and sniff or virtual food, as I hope to enjoy some great tastes, and probably some rides in between.

Now that you have a rough idea of some of the plans, all that’s left is to introduce us, they players. On my last TR everyone seemed to enjoy the little trip down memory lane, so it only makes sense to take another stroll, but this time it won't be limited to previous trips to Alaska. Our first picture in this trip was taken in 1997 at the Grand Canyon on a band tour. For many years we played in community college bands and went to places like, Las Vegas, New York City, Vancouver, Seattle, and Lake Tahoe, just to name a few. Sorry about the bad lighting, there weren’t digital cameras back then so it’s a photo of a photo.



Back in our younger days, both of us were healthy enough to march in parades. Boy how times have changed!



Here we are in our natural habitat. We met sitting next to each other in a swing band, me on Tenor sax and she was playing baritone sax.



Back in 1999 our swing band was booked into a New Year’s Eve gig at the Flamingo Hilton, we even got our rooms paid for an everything, almost like the big time!



Over the Christmas holidays, we would go home to my parent’s house and entertain (mostly ourselves) playing Christmas carols.



Occasionally we would get out and about. The Queen Mary (now docked in Long Beach) held a dinner in honor of the Titanic and encouraged folks who were attending to dress in the period. We did our best.



I’ll apologize in advance for this picture and how grainy it is, but I couldn’t leave this one out! We were attending one of the AP holders Preview nights at DCA back in 2001.



Right around this same time the Star Trek Experience opened at the Las Vegas Hilton. We stayed there so many times during it’s run. I was so sad to find out when it closed a while ago. This picture was taken on our first stay at that hotel.



The years from 2002-2003 were very light on pictures. One reason is that most of our trips were for business purposes. We had a newly formed internet business and most of our trips were for trade shows to promote our store. I have many of the pictures in photo albums, but that was the beginning of digital photos and unfortunately we had a crash of our server somewhere around 2007 and I never went back to try and reconstruct those two years as I don’t think I had a lot of CDs (the way you got your photos digitally translated back then), so we move on to 2004 when we began Civil War reenacting. This was new to me, but Fran had done it way back in the day. In fact, when she did it, there were no roles for women, so if you wanted to do it, you did it just like they did it back in the Civil War, pose as a man.

As long as I wasn’t playing in the band Fran said that I could wear the women’s outfit, but if I was going to perform (as I ended up doing later on), I had to put my hair up under my cap, put on a uniform and pose as a guy. I don’t think I was ever very convincing. She was, though.



Around 2005 Fran’s parents sold some of their Real Estate, and we took the opportunity to go check out some of the potential investments. One property was in San Antonio and the River Walk has always been a favorite place for us, so we made the sacrifice to go there and check out the property. Afterwards we couldn’t resist having lunch on the Riverwalk and enjoying Margaritas almost as big as our heads!



That same year, I celebrated a milestone birthday and Fran rented out half of a Mississippi style river boat for a Murder Mystery Adventure set in the late 1800s. They encouraged folks to dress up and we were only about 20 years out of style when we showed up in our Union garb.



I had been planning our January 2007 WDW trip which I called “10 days for 10 years”. This particular trip encompassed the day we had set as our “anniversary” when we decided that we were officially a couple and then also the day when we registered our domestic partnership with the state of California six years later. We had hoped that they could be the same day, but we didn’t take into account the beauracratic system and the postal service. We should have signed it about six days before the actual date and then they might have lined up! But still we were in WDW for both dates!



And we booked the Chef’s table at Victoria and Albert’s to commemorate it!



The next year we received the surprise of a lifetime. I had no idea that a case was pending before the CA court regarding same sex marriage. I guess with dealing with the in-laws and their craziness, I had been living under a rock and not paying attention to the news. At first we decided that we wouldn’t take the plunge until it was really legal, meaning in all 50 states and such. However, while on a business trip in Texas, Fran was whisked away via ambulance on the morning that we were supposed to fly home. As she lay in the ER on a respirator, I decided that life was too short to wait, and plans for our wedding were going to commence as soon as we were safely home. Here we are on our wedding day.



In 2009 DCA got it’s own full fledged Food & Wine Festival, for the previous three years it had only been Food & Wine weekends (which we are relegated to once again, but at least we have that now). Fran and I diligently used our DVC points to stay out there and enjoy several different events, and photo ops.



In 2010 we took my parents to WDW, we took a few occasions to steal away by ourselves for own fun time!



The next couple years were marred with some health issues on Fran’s part and plan as I might, every trip to WDW was canceled. So instead we stayed close to home and started a Big Band, here we are getting ready to ride down the parade route in style for the Long Beach Pride Parade.



Finally in Dec 2012 Fran’s health improved to the point that we could take our second Disney cruise over 10 years after our first one. Ever since this cruise we have been lucky enough to take at least one Disney cruise each calendar year since.



We were fortunate to get Sorcerer's passes for the 2013 D23 Expo and we got to meet some fun people and see all kinds of fantastic presentations. Joe Rohde was one of those folks we got to meet.



Through our Sorcerer’s connections we were lucky enough to find out about a fundraising event for the Cartoon Art Museum of San Francisco which was going to be held on the Pixar Studios Campus. Though the auction was far too rich for our taste, it was sure fun seeing the place and spending a day listening to some interesting folks.



We attended our first (and last) Star Wars Weekends at DHS in 2014.



As we come to end of our little stroll down memory lane, we're back on the Wonder and experiencing Pirate night for our first time.



Splash Mountain also celebrated its 25th Anniversary this year and we got to meet up with these guys at a special commemorative dinner.



And our 2015 photo takes us back to the thing that Walt never wanted us to forget. It was all started by a Mouse.

 
Table of Contents

Day 0-1

Why do I have a bad feeling about this? Page 2 Post 36
We have arrived! Page 4 Post 61-62

Day 2

First crack at the F&W Festival Page 5 Post 92
Back at the F&W Festival Page 8 Post 155
What to do when you are kiosked out Page 9 Post 165

Day 3

French Family Traditions Lunch Page 13 Posts 248 & 249

Day 4

Early Morning at DHS Page 15 Post 283

Day 5

Avoiding Weekend Crowds at F&W Part 1 Page 15, Post 283 & 298

Day 6

Avoiding Weekend Crowds at F&W Part 2 Page 18, Posts 359 & 360

Day 7

A lot of Pooh Page 20, Posts 385 & 386
Our Afternoon at MK Page 21, Posts 409 & 410




OT post

Rose Parade Floats Page 17, Posts 321 & 322
 
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Wow! One of the first!! Nice start to the TR, I really enjoyed your trip down memory lane. Your wedding dress was beautiful!

Can't wait to read all about your trip!

I feel you on no plans for more trips, we don't have anything planned at the moment either and I hate it. Hopefully we will be able to do something next year.
 


Reading along. Love the old photos. You are Making Memories. I love reading trip reports about Walt Disney World so when I finally make it back I will know what to expect. Hopefully next year as my retirement trip or Disneyland. Haven't decided yet.
 
Heck of a start!! Really enjoyed the trip down memory lane! What are your March dates that you will be in WDW? Can't wait for more!
 


I'm here! :woohoo: Thanks for the bat signal.

Loooooooooove the nostalgia. :hug: So many great photos. The first band photo of you two is fabulous. So young and fancy free.
 
Thanks for all the history! I guess I didn't really need to ask about the band in your other thread! It's all here!
 
To maximize fun on this trip I've got meets planned with no less than five folks who are hopefully following along here!

I'm here, I'm here! Loved the trip down memory lane. You guys are too cute and I loved your wedding dress!
 
Thanks for the link on Facebook! What a great trip down Memory Lane. I didn't realize you guys met because you both played musical instruments! How cool! What type of flute are you playing at your parents house? An alto flute?

Beautiful wedding dress and bouquet!

Great pirate face Alison!

Have a safe trip. Wish you could do scratch and sniff pictures!
 
Guess what, I am here as well. Still need to read - just looked at all the photos and still need to catch up on a gazillion TRs I am reading but I am here and trying to stay on top of this.
 
What a wonderful trip down memory lane!! I absolutely adore your Titanic outfits!! What an amazing picture of the two of you!

Have a fabulous trip so that the memories can hold for a long time (and hopefully you are able to finish the moving process quicker than you fear!).
 
Enjoyed the history great reading it! 20 years congrats! We adored that Hilton Star Trek experience also.

You have to come back to WDW in 2021! 50 years!
 
first time joining in, avid reader of your trip reports. Very excited to read about your upcoming vacation! I loved the trip down memory lane, it was nice to see you and Fran through the years.
 

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