Trip Report - September / October 2023

[Noreen411]

Introduction
Noreen - I am a Senior Vice President at an Investment Banking firm in New York City. I will be the author of the report.
Scott - my husband. Scott is an independent contractor.

I’m going to post a picture (or few) of Scott and I from our trip so you see what we look like.





Others that joined us for parts of the trip:
Jen & Kevin - My sister and brother in law. They were on a cruise on Oasis of the Seas and had a port stop in Port Canaveral so we met them there
Dana & Aaron (Aaron is Dana’s son). They live in Florida. The met us the same day we met Jen & Kevin in Port Canaveral
Justin, Minal, and their families - Coworkers/Friends from the Tampa office of the company I work for. We met at Disney Springs.

 

[Noreen411]

Planning
We were away from Thursday 9/21/23 until Saturday 10/7/23
We were in Florida from Friday 9/22/23 until Friday 10/6/23

We planned to meet up with Jen, Kevin, Dana, and Aaron on Tuesday 9/26/23 at Cocoa Beach
We planned to meet up with some of my friends/coworkers (Justin, Minal, and their families) from the Tampa office of the company I work for on Saturday 9/30/23 at Disney Springs

Transportation:
We drove to Florida from Northern New Jersey. We’ve done the drive a few times and prefer the flexibility it gives us over flying. We’ll do the drive over two days normally stopping in either North or South Carolina for the night. We don’t book a hotel for this part in advance, we’ll do it on the fly once we decide we’re just about ready to stop. We’ve done the drive straight through a few times and realized we prefer to break it up over two days.

Lodging:
We’re going to stay at the sister resort to our timeshare. We own one week in a 2 bedroom / 2 bath villa at Vistana Resort. We are staying at Vistana Villages. Both are great resorts. We like the large 24 hour gym at Vistana Villages so have been booking this resort more recently. When it’s just Scott and I, I like to book the 1 bedroom premium villa. If you don’t just book a week, you can use “options” and we have enough to stay for about 2 weeks in the one bedroom villa.

Since we already used our timeshare options this year for our February 2023 trip, we booked this as a regular cash (American Express) reservation. When you book using your options, you can choose the section of the resort you want, but as a cash reservation you don’t have that option. I booked the one bedroom premium and put in a request to be in the St Augustine section (where the big 24 hour gym is located).

Activities:
We have annual passes that expire during our trip. As out of state pass holders we have Incredipass. We had to make reservations for the parks; with the Incredipass we can have 5 reservations at a time. With the expiration of our original pass at the beginning of the trip, I made the first few park reservations. I was able to renew our annual passes online 60 days before they expire and once renewed was able to make the next few reservations. Once at Disney at the end of the day, I would make another park reservation so we would have a rolling 5 reservations at a time.

We would buy Genie+ most days and Individual Lightening Lanes for the attractions we wanted to enjoy. I didn’t keep track of exactly what times we booked, but in general would buy Genie+ just before 7am and make our first selection right at 7. For the Individual Lightening Lanes, being offsite, I would buy those as soon as the park opened and they became available to us (we don’t have to be in the park to do this)

Dining:
I had a handful of restaurants I wanted to try to get reservations for. I went on the app 60 days out each morning and would book reservations for dinner each night (except the first night) and also booked one breakfast. I kept checking and changing our dining reservations as we went along.

Routine:
We have a normal (maybe boring) routine in the morning at Disney. We would go to the gym, then when back in the villa start a load of laundry, use the jacuzzi, take showers, then have breakfast before leaving for the park.

Miscellaneous:
This is pretty normal for me, but I didn’t keep many detailed notes this trip so will try to recreate it. I would send myself quick texts throughout the day when we were there to remind me what we did. Between the texts and the pictures, I’m hoping to remember most of it.

 

[Noreen411]

The month before the trip
We tried on clothes to bring and did the bulk of the packing a few weeks before the trip. We are going to take my little car again rather than Scott’s big truck. Since we both overpack, before we started packing we pulled out the empty suitcases we think we’ll bring and put them in the car to ensure everything fits.

We normally decorate early for the holidays. For the last few years we had the inside of the house fully decorated for Christmas before Halloween. Not wanting the neighbors or anyone driving by thinking we are nuts, we don’t do the outside decorations until late November. Knowing we won‘t be home from Disney until mid October we got started. Scott brought two of the Christmas trees up and we have the corner tree in the living room fully decorated. This one I call my Disney tree since all the glass balls are Mickey shaped. The big tree that rotates is standing in the family room but wasn’t decorated before we left. There will be plenty of Disney ornaments on this tree too, but it also has other non Disney ornaments. When we get back we’ll get into full on decorating mode.

We decided we want to do a 4 park challenge and hop among the 4 theme parks one day during the trip. We started discussing strategy and which park we’ll start at, where to go next, where to end, and the best way to get from park to park. During our trip, you couldn’t park hop until 2pm. We didn’t decide what the goal for each park would be other than at least some pictures and a few attractions at each park. We decided we would do this our first park day.

I’m dating myself here, but back in the 1990’s Step classes were popular and I used to enjoy doing that. I saw a Step on Amazon as well as a Step DVD so ordered those. Scott found an old DVD player that still works so I started using the Step; it’s a lot of fun but harder than I remembered.

 

[Noreen411]

The week before the trip
I received an email from Vistana Villages asking me to reply with information like what time we’re arriving, any preference on floor, how many keys we needed, etc. I responded back requesting the St Augustine section near the big 24 hour gym and not on the first floor.

 

[Noreen411]

Wednesday 9/20/23 (Day before our trip)
I took the extra day off since I have plenty of vacation time to use and can only carry 10 days over to the next year.

It was a nice way to get into vacation mode since the day before (my last day at work before vacation) was stressful.

I went to the spa for my manicure/pedicure. I did a shellac manicure so it will last the whole trip. The pedicure is a normal one but they usually last for a while.


While I don’t know how to cook, there are a few things I can make. One thing I’ve been making recently is Kodiak waffles in a waffle maker. I usually put banana or blueberries into the waffle mix. I decided to make some to bring with us tomorrow for me to eat in the car when I’m ready for breakfast. I put them in the fridge and will toast them in the morning even though they will cool off sitting in the cooler bag before I eat them; hopefully they will still have a bit of crispness to them.

We finished any last minute packing.


Once Scott got home, he packed the car so he won’t have to do that in the dark when we leave.

We tried to go to bed early.

 

[Paulaparm]

Following!

 

[Noreen411]

Following!

Great to hear from you. Hoping to get a bit more written this weekend.

 

[Noreen411]

Thursday 9/21/23
I was up at 1:45am and Scott shortly after. We took care of the cats feeding them, giving them medicine, playing with them, etc.

I did a Step workout knowing we would be sitting in the car all day. We showered and got ourselves ready to leave.

We left at 4:30am, a little later than our goal of leaving at 4am. The navigation in the car said 1,122 miles until we get to Disney World.


We were in Delaware at 6:58

We were in Maryland at 7:11. It’s exciting crossing into a new state as we’re driving and Delaware is a very quick state to drive through.

I know it’s corny and old fashioned, but I have a TripTik from AAA that I’ll bring and refer to as we’re driving keeping track of where we are. Of course we also have the navigation in the car set to Disney World so we’ll follow along in both places.

There was some traffic in Maryland which wasn’t surprising since it was a weekday. The traffic started to get a little backed up around 8:30ish.

We were in Virginia at 9:25

As we’re driving south, the regular rest stops are move vending machines and bathrooms rather than the larger travel plazas you see further north. The Welcome Centers are usually larger.

We got off I95 in Virginia to get gas for the car, McDonald’s breakfast for Scott, and Starbucks around 10:45. This little detour took a bit and we were back on I95 by 11:20. I ate my breakfast (the Kodiak waffles) brought from home that I made yesterday. It wasn’t as good as eating them straight out of the waffle maker, but it was still pretty good and I enjoyed having a normal breakfast while on the road.

During our last trip there was fraud on my credit card that we think was from a gas station during the drive so we’ve been using cash for gas hoping to avoid that from happening again. In New Jersey you don’t pump your own gas, someone working at the gas station comes over to put your gas in the car for you so you just hand them cash or a credit card. I don’t know if it’s the whole state or just Northern New Jersey that doesn’t allow you to pump your own gas. However, in every other state that we stopped to get gas you pumped it yourself which meant having to go into the store to pay cash rather than a credit card at the pump (since we didn’t want to chance fraud on the card again).

We were in North Carolina at 12:40.

We were in South Carolina at 3:59. We stopped at the cute welcome center with swings outside. This is a very clean welcome center. We always make a point to sit on the swings for a few minutes; it’s a cute little tradition.


At 6pm we booked the Fairfield Inn & Suites Santee South Carolina when we were about 10 minutes away. There weren’t any king bed rooms available so we booked one with two queens. We were thinking of driving into Georgia, but decided to stop in Santee, SC. It’s so convenient to just book the hotel on the fly from the phone when we were ready to stop.


We stayed here before when we stopped in Santee so knew what to expect. It’s a solid hotel for a nights stay. It’s a standard hotel room that’s clean and comfortable. The hotel has a small 24 hour gym, a pool, included breakfast, etc. Scott brought the suitcases in, but we left some things in the car. So we don’t have to search through the suitcases during the night’s stay on the road, in the suitcases I use a packing cube for the clothes, underwear, gym clothes, pajamas, etc that we’ll need for the one night. Even in the toiletry bag, I’ll have a little separate bag with stuff needed for the one night. Of course, all the stuff in the suitcases, toiletry bag, etc is there if we need something different but it makes it a bit easier.

We are in room 315

 

[Noreen411]

Thursday 9/21/23 Continued
We took showers then headed out for dinner. We went to Clark’s and sat at the bar. We enjoy sitting at the bar for dinner and like the interaction with friendly bartenders and other customers.




I had a White Sangria and Scott had a Martini.


Scott ordered the Fried Chicken. While the fried chicken was OK, mine was the better choice. Scott ended up having some of his chicken wrapped to go.


I ordered the Roasted Chicken. Scott took the chicken off the bone for me. I have some weird food quirks and won’t eat food that looked like it did when it was alive or if it’s on the bone. My dish was the better of the two; it was really good. Scott ate some of mine as well.


We shared the Butter Pecan turtle dessert.


We enjoyed our meal at Clarks.

We went back to the hotel and watched Jaws. I’m not sure what made us start watching it; it’s such an old movie but we got involved in it. We went to bed fairly early.

 

[Noreen411]

Friday 9/22/23
We were up about 4:30. We went to the hotel gym which is small but had most of what we needed. We both appreciate hotels that have 24 hour gyms.




We showered and got dressed.

We went to the included breakfast. They have these cute make your own waffle makers which we both used. They have a nice selection of food/beverages to choose from.






Another few food quirks of mine…I don’t like my food touching each other and I like to dip. Things like waffles into syrup or French fries into ketchup; I don’t pour it on top, it has to be one the side to dip, preferable in a separate little dipping bowl/ramekin.

My plate:


Scott doesn’t mind his food touching. His plate:


We left about 7:25 to continue our drive to Florida. We would definitely stay at this hotel again if we stop in Santee.

 

[Noreen411]

Friday 9/22/23 Continued
We were in Georgia at 8:50. Another tradition at the Georgia Welcome Center is taking a picture on the cute train.


We talked about stopping at Peach World. There are two of them. Somehow we managed to miss both of them. This cracked us up and it’s not the first time that happened. We will have all intentions of stopping, see the signs reminding us which exits we can choose for Peach World, and we’ll be chatting or singing or something and realize we’re at the end of the state and missed Peach World again.

We were in Florida at 10:35. We always stop at the Welcome Center here to use the bathroom, take a few pictures, and walk around a bit. We know we still have a few more hours before we get to Disney. These last few hours always seem so long, we’re in Florida but not there yet.



The rest stop on I4 near exit 94 was the dirtiest one we stopped at the whole ride down. We both commented on it. We’ve been pleasantly surprised that most of the other rest stops were pretty clean and well maintained.

 

[Noreen411]

Friday 9/22/23 Continued
We arrived at Vistana Villages a little before 2 and checked in. Even though this was a cash (American Express) reservation, we’re still considered owners so check in at the VIP area rather than the regular check in area. It’s actually kind of nice how they do that. You sit at a desk with a person, they offer you snacks and beverages, etc. Of course, they want you to sign up for the “Owner’s Update”. Often we’ll just say no after we had a bad experience a while ago, but every once in a while we’ll agree to go and see if there is anything new for us to learn about our ownership. We signed up to attend one.

Our originally assigned villa on the 6th floor isn’t ready but they found one for us on the 4th floor that is. That’s fine by us, we just didn’t want the first floor, but other than that, don’t really care what floor we are on. They were able to accommodate our request for the St Augustine section so we were happy about that. It’s awesome that the villa is ready for us already and we don’t have to wait.

We are in the St Augustine Section, building 25, 4th floor; Villa # 25-422.


This is a premium one bedroom villa which we really like. It has a great layout.

When you first walk in, it’s pretty open concept. You can see the kitchen, dining room, and living room.

The kitchen is well equipped with a fridge/freezer, sink, microwave, and has things like pots, pans, silverware, etc. The island has stools and three shelves that were great for putting miscellaneous things on. Those baskets on the shelves at the end of the island nest inside each other to get them out of the way. The dining room area has a table with four chairs and a bench seat.





There is a stacked washer/dryer in a little alcove like room in the kitchen.


The living room has a couch, chair, coffee table, foot stools under the coffee table, a dresser, TV, and a closet with a vacuum, broom, iron, etc.

 

[Noreen411]

Friday 9/22/23 Continued
From the living room, there are sliding glass doors that lead out to the screened in balcony with a table and four chairs.



The bedroom has a bed, dresser, TV, chair, two nightstands, and a closet with a safe in it. There was extra bedding in the closet since the couch also pulls out to a bed.




The bathroom is a three part interconnected bathroom. While we normally prefer a self contained bathroom, the set up of this one works well and we like it. You can enter the bathroom from either the living/dining room or the bedroom.

From the living/dining room you enter into the section that has the stand up shower and a sink (this was Scott’s sink). Also in this section is a separate water closet (toilet in it’s own room).




You can also enter the other part of the bathroom that has the jacuzzi tub and another sink (this was my sink). From the jacuzzi side of the bathroom, there is a door to the bedroom.



Each section of the bathroom has a door so you can close them off as needed.

We cleaned the villa. I know they clean it before we arrive, but we (Scott really does most of it) like to do a little more. We unpacked and got everything put away which takes a while since we both overpack.

 

[Noreen411]

Friday 9/22/23 Continued
We headed out to Publix (a grocery store) around 4:45. When we got back we put the groceries away.

We filled the jacuzzi and poured bleach in it and ran it, drained it, then did that again. I know some people think the jacuzzi is a waste of space but we’ll use it so like to make sure it’s clean.

We put the dishes/glasses/silverware/etc that we expect to use in the dishwasher and tried to run it. It started but then stopped, it filled a bit with water, but the water just sat there.

We showered and changed to head out to dinner. We called about the dishwasher not draining before we left and they will send maintenance to fix it while we’re out.

We headed out around 7. We didn’t have a dinner reservation tonight since we didn’t know what time we would get here, get settled, or how we would feel. We tossed around a few ideas of where to possibly go and ended up at Saltgrass Steakhouse on 535 and sat at the bar. We’ve been here before and always enjoyed it.


I had a Tropical Sangria and Scott had a Martini


We shared Salmon Oscar with macaroni & cheese, with a fried shrimp add on. Scott loves macaroni and cheese and will always order it when he sees it on a menu. I can take it or leave it. We’ll often share meals since otherwise it’s just too much food. Before our entree came out, we received bread and salad that remind us of Outback. That’s not a complaint since we like Outback, it’s just a comparison. Scott thought the food was really good; I thought it was good.






We shared the chocolate cake for dessert. This was super rich and we barely put a dent in it.


We were excited about our plans for tomorrow and our 4 park challenge. We continued discussing our strategy, order of parks, etc.

This is probably my favorite time on vacation. We’re here already so the travel part is done. We’re unpacked and settled into the villa. We have the whole vacation ahead of us to look forward to.

When we got back to the villa, we saw a bag with dishwasher pods in front of the door so assumed they came to fix the dishwasher, but they didn’t. It was still as we left it; something must have been misunderstood when we called. We will call in the morning for them to come fix it.

We started watching a cute move on Netflix “Just go with it” with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler.

 

[Noreen411]

Saturday 9/23/23
We went to the gym a little before 6. This is why we request the St Augustine section, we really like this large 24 hour gym. There is a good selection/amount of equipment, it’s clean, and we are often the only ones here. You can use any of the fitness centers in the different sections of the resort but we like being closer to this one.







While I didn’t keep track of exactly what I booked when, as we did most mornings, just before 7am, I bought Genie+ for the day (always multi park) and booked our first attraction right at 7. Since we are off-property, we can’t book the Individual Lightening Lanes (ILL) until the park opens.

Once back in the villa, we did our pretty basic morning routine at Disney. We started a load of laundry, used the jacuzzi, took showers, and made breakfast before leaving for the day. Scott went to pick up Starbucks for us while I was finishing getting showered/dressed (he’s quicker than I am getting ready). He went to a regular Starbucks near where Publix is. The Marketplace (kind of a little general store at the resort) which is near the big gym we use also serves Starbucks, almost everything a regular Starbucks has but not quite. When Scott got back we ate our breakfast

Today is the day we’re doing the 4 park challenge so we were pretty excited about that. We couldn’t park hop until 2pm (those rules changed January 2024 to being able to hop at any time so we’re happy to hear that). We booked an ILL for Avatar Flight of Passage for Scott; I can’t go on that ride.

Before leaving we called about the dishwasher and Tony showed up 5 minutes later to fix it. We chatted with him for a few minutes then headed out leaving him in the villa to fix the dishwasher.

 

[Noreen411]

Saturday 9/23/23 Continued
We arrived at Animal Kingdom around 9:30.


There was a live show in front of the Tree with birds. As they flew around I tried to get a picture and this one came out really good. I was surprised since I just was holding my phone up and clicking away taking pictures.


We went on Dinosaur. We always enjoy this attraction. When we saw the picture we couldn’t help laughing at the guy’s expression in our row.


We went into the Dinoland carnival type area where you can play various games for prizes. We played this cute game that we’ve played before where you toss balls and if they land in a colored hole you win a prize. Different colors for different sized prizes. I was surprised that I won 3 small prizes. There was a little kid playing who didn’t win anything so I gave him one of my prizes.




We headed over to the Pandora section when it was time for Scott to ride Avatar.


I went on Avatar once and it made me feel very dizzy/woozy when I got off so I don’t go on anymore. I don’t mind waiting so Scott gets to ride. I made myself comfortable on a shady rock and was looking at some stuff on my phone when a bird pooped on my hand and phone. I think that’s supposed to be good luck? Luckily I had tissues and hand sanitizer so cleaned my phone and hand. Once Scott got back from enjoying his ride and laughing at my bird poop story, we stopped at a bathroom so I could properly wash my hands with soap.

We headed onto the Safari next. This was a good ride, even though we didn’t see any lions.

This picture cracks me up; Scott looks scared of the bird.


We went on Tough to Be a Bug and then posed for this picture. I like this shot and am glad we found the Animal Kingdom version of it.


We decided to head out of Animal Kingdom around 1:15 stopping for another picture on the way out.

 

[Noreen411]

Saturday 9/23/23 Continued
We drove to Hollywood Studios. We entered the park just after 2pm (when you were allowed to hop)



We watched the 2:30 Frozen Show. This is always fun and the historians are what make it extra special



We went to Tower of Terror. This is my favorite attraction at Hollywood Studios.




We headed out of Hollywood Studios.

 

[Noreen411]

Saturday 9/23/23 Continued
We drove to the TTC and took the monorail to Epcot



One of my favorite types of pictures; we’ve seen this before at Epcot and we always stop for it. I like that the photographer has a picture of the type of picture you are taking.


We went to pick up our annual pass holder magnets and waited maybe 15 minutes. This picture was taken later but I’m including it here since this is when we picked them up.


We bought a few shirts in Creations.

We were starting to get tired and hungry. Instead of going into World Showcase where we originally thought we would find a snack at one of the food & wine booths, we went to the Land to Seasons for something to eat. Everything was basically closed; Scott got a bag of potato chips. This was around 5:30

We went on Soarin. It’s the California version rather than the World version. It was kind of nostalgic to see the original version.

We headed out of Epcot.

 

[Noreen411]

Saturday 9/23/23 Continued
We took the monorail to the TTC, then switched to the other monorail to Magic Kingdom




We went on Carousel of Progress around 7:45. In the second scene Scott asked me if something was always there or if it was new. It was something that always was there, but he usually missed it since he would often take a nap during Carousel of Progress. He stayed awake for the whole show tonight.

We went on the People Mover next.



We headed out of Magic Kingdom around 8:20. Fireworks were scheduled for 8:30 but we wanted to get out before it got even more crowded.

 

[Noreen411]

Saturday 9/23/23 Continued
When we got to the car we were trying to decide what we wanted to eat. We were hungry and tired. We didn’t make dinner reservations for tonight since we didn’t know exactly where we would be with the 4 park challenge and didn’t want to lock ourselves into a set meal.

We decided to go back to Saltgrass Steakhouse and sat at the bar.

Scott had an Old Fashioned and I had a Pomegranate Mojito.


We shared a burger and fries


Scott also got Mac & Cheese. We ordered the grilled shrimp add on. Scott put shrimp in his Mac & cheese and thought it was great. He likes lobster Mac & cheese too. I don’t like to mix shrimp or lobster in Mac & cheese; it seems odd to me to put seafood with Mac & cheese, but I know many people like it. I’m not a big macaroni & cheese fan normally so putting more stuff in it, not really my thing.



We shared the pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.


We enjoyed our meal. Scott wants to come back again even if just for the cheesecake.

We like to recap our day and sometimes do more planning for the next day while at dinner. While we are glad we did the 4 park challenge we set for ourselves, we probably wouldn’t do it again. Instead of enjoying what we were doing, it felt like we were constantly planning our next move. Maybe it was too hot and crowded for us to enjoy it. Maybe we shouldn’t have done it our first park day of the trip. We like to start our trip (and end the trip) at Magic Kingdom since that gets us right into that Magical Feeling of being at Disney. By the time we got to Magic Kingdom tonight (the 4th of 4 parks) we were too tired to really enjoy it.

When we got back to the villa we were happy to see that the dishwasher was now fixed.