"Congratulations! You've birthed a solo trip!"
Ok! Time for a Pre-Trip Report!
I'll introduce myself more below. I'm somewhat new here, but I've been a long-time reader on this forum! This particular profile shows a start date of 1999. I almost decided to use another profile since I don't love the user name on this, but I love the fact that I've had an account since the 90s! And I'm pretty sure I've been on DisBoards since at least 1996, since that was when I first helped plan my very first Walt Disney World trip for my family when I was in high school. But that historical data is lost. And even though I've had an account since 1999, I've only posts 3 times (including a review of CA Adventure when it first opened - reminding me that I rode the worst ride in the history of Disney Parks at least twice - Superstar Limo- and apparently I enjoyed it).
(A LOT) About Me:
Hi, I'm Ann. I just turned 42 years old this week. I got married later and had kids later in life - my DH and I just celebrated 7 years last month. We have two kiddos J (3.5 years old) and A (20 months) - so you can imagine my life is pretty full with two toddlers. On top of that, I work full-time in a fairly demanding job as a pastor at a church in the LA area. My days involve caring for and carrying a lot of people with my family and the church I'm a part of. I'm so grateful for all of them and so privileged to live the life I do, but it is really non-stop. I'm also grateful for being an older mom in the sense that I carry a lot more life experience and things don't really shake me as much --- but dang, I look at my peers who have kids my age, and all tend to be 10 years younger than me, and they see tired! I'm pretty good at pushing through things (which you'll see when you start seeing how I'm planning this trip), but thinking about all I'm carrying - wow, how am I doing this in my 40s, and how much easier would it be 10 years younger?
I've been to Disney World 2 times in my life. The first time when I was 16 years old with my family, as mentioned above. Back then, we stayed at All Star Music. I don't remember that much about the trip except I enjoyed it, but I remember a few key things. 1) We ate at Garden Grill - I probably learned about it from this board - and my family loved it. I also learned I love the ride LWTL. 2) We went to Animal Kingdom and I thought it was the best thing ever. FOTLK was so amazing and I've wanted to see it again since. 3) We went to Blizzard Beach, and I got a major sunburn. My complexion is fairly dark, and I rarely burn. But I burned that day. The reason it was such a big deal was because the week I returned, we took our senior portraits, and you can see major tan lines on my photo. The second time was 9 years ago. A friend of mine invited me on a teacher trip with her (I used to be a teacher also) that she had earned for taking kids on trips. It was a quick trip, maybe 2 nights maximum. We stayed at Grand Floridian. I don't fully remember which parks we went to. Because it was an educator trip, it was almost more like a conference. I remember getting taken by bus into the backstages of Epcot and having a banquet in the pavilion behind America. I also remember spending time exploring the monorail resorts - as I definitely remember eating a meal at Polynesian. Hot take: our trip was free, so it was great to stay at GF, but honestly, it was fine. I can't imagine spending that much money on that place.
So though my Disney World exposure is limited, I am a West Coast girl, and have spent a lot of time at Disneyland. I had annual passes in college for two years, right as CA Adventure was opening (and back when I think the annual pass was $100). I got Disneyland passes again around 8 years ago right as I was dating my husband - in fact, I remember going when we were dating, and I bought us Mickey and Minnie Tsum Tsums. We ended up having Mickey and Minnie Tsum Tsums on our wedding cake. I know the CA parks pretty well, at least from 8 years ago. But as you all know, ticket prices have increased a lot, and my husband finds theme parks just okay - so it didn't seem worth it to get a pass. I took a break from the parks these past few years.
My brother is a HUGE Disney fan, much bigger than me. I know the theme parks, but he's a true Disney fan - he has Oswald tattooed on his leg. We both had kids around the same time, so of course, as we had kids, we had to start to get to know the parks again, and we took our two sons when they were about 1.5 years old - the year after the parks opened up again. It was so fun to take kids - totally new experience!
Then, my best friend moved back to CA (they're in the military). She also has a son around my son's age. Since she had access to great discounts, we all got a 4 day military pass last year. So we went a lot! My daughter went for the first time when she was 2.5 months old. My son loves Carsland, and both my kids love IASW.
My son turned 3 this past March, and then it seemed we wouldn't visit Disney again, since I didn't want to pay for his ticket also. One of the young women at our church that I've been close to got transferred as a independent contractor to employee at Disney. Since she has free access and LOVES my kids, she invited us out to go again, and we got to experience Runaway Railway together. So grateful we get to still go when she invites us.
Disney World Foundations:
When I was pregnant with J, one of the things I had hoped to do with my best friend was take our kids to Disney World when he was around 9 months in Dec 2020! She was stationed on the East Coast, and we thought it'd be a fun thing to do. So I started planning a baby-centric trip. We had booked our reservations at Pop Century already. And I entered into research mode - and found myself exploring a whole new world of Disney planning via youtubers. I started watching the Trackers and All Ears (as well as Disneyland youtubers like Ordinary Adventures), and found myself re-entering the world of learning the new Walt Disney World.
Well, as the whole world knows - COVID happened. My son was born and the world shut down. Even though Disney World had reopened and by the time we were going to do the trip (and my best friend still did it), having high-risk factors, we chose not to do unnecessary travel and cancelled that trip. And we didn't reschedule it because my best friend wasn't going to be on East Coast anymore, so it didn't make sense to go.
My hobby continued to be learning about Walt Disney World. I've traveled a LOT of the world - I've lived in Malawi for a year, gone to dozens of countries. I do enjoy travel, but somehow, Disney World and cruises feel most relaxing for me to research about. In the little free time I had, I continued to follow youtubers (eventually expanding to Paging Mr Morrow and Mammoth Club as they became bigger) and occasionally reading Trip Reports here. I did it with no trip planned and no intention to go. Along the way, I gave birth to my second kid, and life became even crazier.
The Birth of this Trip:
As mentioned, my life is full. Work has been particularly demanding as we navigate a number of big transitions these past 2 months. My younger is now full-fledged toddler and gets into everything!
A few weeks ago, my husband and I were thinking about whether there was anywhere we wanted to go before my daughter turned 2, since she still flew free. We briefly talked about Orlando, and I quickly nixed it, thinking how exhausting it'd be to take kids to Disney World right now, especially when they wouldn't remember much.
I don't know where it came from - I have never had this thought ever in my mind - but I suddenly thought about how if I were to do Disney World, I wouldn't want to do it with my kids. I wanted to do it as an adult. I wanted to ride all the rides, and do what I wanted. I wanted to utilize all this information I've collected in my brain these past 3 years, and see what I could explore.
Then, I realized I have a ton of credit card points that could be transferred to miles. And I began searching and realized I could do it without using too many miles, if I chose an off season. I could do an off season with my work - in fact, off season was better!
I thought about whether I wanted to go with somebody - but then I thought about the pace I wanted to go at (fast), and also just the non-stop nature of my life with people, and then realized a solo trip would be amazing! It'd be good for my soul.
My heart began to get excited. My birthday was the following week - I threw out out to my DH about what he thought just as a teaser, and at first, he was like, "if you really want to," but then a few hours later, he told me, "You should go. This could be your birthday present."
That solidified it, and this trip was born!
Stay tuned for trip details.
(Thanks for reading, if you got this far. I think part of the fun of this trip is having something to plan. I figured I'll post on this board, and hope some people follow along. It's fun for me to have an outlet, so when I have free time, I hope to be able to share through PTR as well as a Trip Report!)
Ok! Time for a Pre-Trip Report!
I'll introduce myself more below. I'm somewhat new here, but I've been a long-time reader on this forum! This particular profile shows a start date of 1999. I almost decided to use another profile since I don't love the user name on this, but I love the fact that I've had an account since the 90s! And I'm pretty sure I've been on DisBoards since at least 1996, since that was when I first helped plan my very first Walt Disney World trip for my family when I was in high school. But that historical data is lost. And even though I've had an account since 1999, I've only posts 3 times (including a review of CA Adventure when it first opened - reminding me that I rode the worst ride in the history of Disney Parks at least twice - Superstar Limo- and apparently I enjoyed it).
(A LOT) About Me:
Hi, I'm Ann. I just turned 42 years old this week. I got married later and had kids later in life - my DH and I just celebrated 7 years last month. We have two kiddos J (3.5 years old) and A (20 months) - so you can imagine my life is pretty full with two toddlers. On top of that, I work full-time in a fairly demanding job as a pastor at a church in the LA area. My days involve caring for and carrying a lot of people with my family and the church I'm a part of. I'm so grateful for all of them and so privileged to live the life I do, but it is really non-stop. I'm also grateful for being an older mom in the sense that I carry a lot more life experience and things don't really shake me as much --- but dang, I look at my peers who have kids my age, and all tend to be 10 years younger than me, and they see tired! I'm pretty good at pushing through things (which you'll see when you start seeing how I'm planning this trip), but thinking about all I'm carrying - wow, how am I doing this in my 40s, and how much easier would it be 10 years younger?
I've been to Disney World 2 times in my life. The first time when I was 16 years old with my family, as mentioned above. Back then, we stayed at All Star Music. I don't remember that much about the trip except I enjoyed it, but I remember a few key things. 1) We ate at Garden Grill - I probably learned about it from this board - and my family loved it. I also learned I love the ride LWTL. 2) We went to Animal Kingdom and I thought it was the best thing ever. FOTLK was so amazing and I've wanted to see it again since. 3) We went to Blizzard Beach, and I got a major sunburn. My complexion is fairly dark, and I rarely burn. But I burned that day. The reason it was such a big deal was because the week I returned, we took our senior portraits, and you can see major tan lines on my photo. The second time was 9 years ago. A friend of mine invited me on a teacher trip with her (I used to be a teacher also) that she had earned for taking kids on trips. It was a quick trip, maybe 2 nights maximum. We stayed at Grand Floridian. I don't fully remember which parks we went to. Because it was an educator trip, it was almost more like a conference. I remember getting taken by bus into the backstages of Epcot and having a banquet in the pavilion behind America. I also remember spending time exploring the monorail resorts - as I definitely remember eating a meal at Polynesian. Hot take: our trip was free, so it was great to stay at GF, but honestly, it was fine. I can't imagine spending that much money on that place.
So though my Disney World exposure is limited, I am a West Coast girl, and have spent a lot of time at Disneyland. I had annual passes in college for two years, right as CA Adventure was opening (and back when I think the annual pass was $100). I got Disneyland passes again around 8 years ago right as I was dating my husband - in fact, I remember going when we were dating, and I bought us Mickey and Minnie Tsum Tsums. We ended up having Mickey and Minnie Tsum Tsums on our wedding cake. I know the CA parks pretty well, at least from 8 years ago. But as you all know, ticket prices have increased a lot, and my husband finds theme parks just okay - so it didn't seem worth it to get a pass. I took a break from the parks these past few years.
My brother is a HUGE Disney fan, much bigger than me. I know the theme parks, but he's a true Disney fan - he has Oswald tattooed on his leg. We both had kids around the same time, so of course, as we had kids, we had to start to get to know the parks again, and we took our two sons when they were about 1.5 years old - the year after the parks opened up again. It was so fun to take kids - totally new experience!
Then, my best friend moved back to CA (they're in the military). She also has a son around my son's age. Since she had access to great discounts, we all got a 4 day military pass last year. So we went a lot! My daughter went for the first time when she was 2.5 months old. My son loves Carsland, and both my kids love IASW.
My son turned 3 this past March, and then it seemed we wouldn't visit Disney again, since I didn't want to pay for his ticket also. One of the young women at our church that I've been close to got transferred as a independent contractor to employee at Disney. Since she has free access and LOVES my kids, she invited us out to go again, and we got to experience Runaway Railway together. So grateful we get to still go when she invites us.
Disney World Foundations:
When I was pregnant with J, one of the things I had hoped to do with my best friend was take our kids to Disney World when he was around 9 months in Dec 2020! She was stationed on the East Coast, and we thought it'd be a fun thing to do. So I started planning a baby-centric trip. We had booked our reservations at Pop Century already. And I entered into research mode - and found myself exploring a whole new world of Disney planning via youtubers. I started watching the Trackers and All Ears (as well as Disneyland youtubers like Ordinary Adventures), and found myself re-entering the world of learning the new Walt Disney World.
Well, as the whole world knows - COVID happened. My son was born and the world shut down. Even though Disney World had reopened and by the time we were going to do the trip (and my best friend still did it), having high-risk factors, we chose not to do unnecessary travel and cancelled that trip. And we didn't reschedule it because my best friend wasn't going to be on East Coast anymore, so it didn't make sense to go.
My hobby continued to be learning about Walt Disney World. I've traveled a LOT of the world - I've lived in Malawi for a year, gone to dozens of countries. I do enjoy travel, but somehow, Disney World and cruises feel most relaxing for me to research about. In the little free time I had, I continued to follow youtubers (eventually expanding to Paging Mr Morrow and Mammoth Club as they became bigger) and occasionally reading Trip Reports here. I did it with no trip planned and no intention to go. Along the way, I gave birth to my second kid, and life became even crazier.
The Birth of this Trip:
As mentioned, my life is full. Work has been particularly demanding as we navigate a number of big transitions these past 2 months. My younger is now full-fledged toddler and gets into everything!
A few weeks ago, my husband and I were thinking about whether there was anywhere we wanted to go before my daughter turned 2, since she still flew free. We briefly talked about Orlando, and I quickly nixed it, thinking how exhausting it'd be to take kids to Disney World right now, especially when they wouldn't remember much.
I don't know where it came from - I have never had this thought ever in my mind - but I suddenly thought about how if I were to do Disney World, I wouldn't want to do it with my kids. I wanted to do it as an adult. I wanted to ride all the rides, and do what I wanted. I wanted to utilize all this information I've collected in my brain these past 3 years, and see what I could explore.
Then, I realized I have a ton of credit card points that could be transferred to miles. And I began searching and realized I could do it without using too many miles, if I chose an off season. I could do an off season with my work - in fact, off season was better!
I thought about whether I wanted to go with somebody - but then I thought about the pace I wanted to go at (fast), and also just the non-stop nature of my life with people, and then realized a solo trip would be amazing! It'd be good for my soul.
My heart began to get excited. My birthday was the following week - I threw out out to my DH about what he thought just as a teaser, and at first, he was like, "if you really want to," but then a few hours later, he told me, "You should go. This could be your birthday present."
That solidified it, and this trip was born!
Stay tuned for trip details.
(Thanks for reading, if you got this far. I think part of the fun of this trip is having something to plan. I figured I'll post on this board, and hope some people follow along. It's fun for me to have an outlet, so when I have free time, I hope to be able to share through PTR as well as a Trip Report!)
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