Saturday, June 18, 2011

Our countdown timer for the Disney trip

I am removing the timer as this trip is over...stay tuned for a full update along with pictures to help tell the story.

Going someplace magical and new work schedules...Oh my!

Good morning! So we have some crazy news and updates to post. It has been a while so sit back and relax and enjoy that cup of coffee.

First, it looks like new schedules are coming soon. A lot sooner than we hoped for. =( We really like our team and are sad to see it break up possibly. On the plus side there will be 4 ten hour schedules which has me excited. We will see what hours those shifts go to as everything is eluding to much later start times and I can't go to a shift that starts later than 6PM currently. We will be bidding on these early next month, find out which shift we get mid month and start on them at the beg. of August.

So that leads me to my next post. We won't be getting to take a week vacation and visit my sister in AZ. I'm bummed because it's been awhile since I have seen her and her family. We don't want to be out on a week vacation when the new team is meeting each other and you are learning the dynamics of who is who and what they can do.

This brings me to my next point. We had heard Disney was coming to TX for cruises in 2012 so I was researching and have discovered there is one that leaves on my birthday but usually our work conference is held right then so that would make it hard for us to take off that week. So we are debating between the week before my birthday or after which would make it a Halloween cruise. It's going to Grand Cayman, Costa Maya and Cozumel. We would probably do something in Grand Cayman and have the other two ports be ship day ports as we will have just been to those two places in Jan on the Mariner of the Seas.

While researching the Disney cruise I opened up our joint email and discovered we had received a coveted "PIN offer" for Walt Disney World for the Animal Kindgom Lodge Resort for travel this year. So Ian was like price it because it's somewhere he has never been and he has wanted to stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge for a while. Well, as it would be the rooms were going for only $169 a night which is like half off their normal rates. They normally sell for $300+ as this is one of their Deluxe Resorts. So after pricing out a vacation for 3 nights/4 days in July for when we had a 4 day weekend scheduled, it was in our budget. This includes airfare nonstop from Austin via Jet Blue, 2 day park hopper passes, their dining package for three nights, transfers from the airport, etc. So, we are heading to the land of the mouse next month. I was quite surprised we did this as we are never this impulsive when booking a vacation.

So here's the skinny....We are flying out of Austin on July 24th, at 2:30 arrive in Orlando at 6:30ish. Go to the Magical Express meeting area, don't even have to pick up our luggage at the baggage area, they do it for us. We will go to the resort and get checked in and pick up our keys to the world. It's our room key, park admittance key, charge card while we are there. Then we plan on hitting up downtown Disney for dinner, shopping, and some live music. We will possibly check out the hotel some and go to bed. We plan on getting up for early on Monday, for early magic hours at the Animal Kingdom Park. Stay until we have done everything we want to and are ready for a break. Go back to the hotel for some pool time fun, a nap. Then up by 4:30ish to head to Disney's Hollywood Studios as we have our first dinner reservation at the Sci Fi dinner at 6PM. We will play in this park tonight as they have the extended hours for resort guests from 9pm - midnight. I don't know if we will make it till midnight but we will sure try.

Then Tuesday we will get up early for the Magic Kingdom as we have early magic hours here. We don't have a whole lot we plan on doing here so we will probably head back to the hotel by noon for some pool time and a nap. We have dinner reservations at 5pm at Kona which is in the Polynesian Resort. Then we will go from the Poly to Epcot for the extra hours there.

Then we fly back home on Wed at 2pm and get in to Austin around 4pm. I have a feeling we will be ready for the bed when we get in. We have to be back at work on Thursday at 3pm so at least we can sleep in the next day. I have a feeling this will feel like a very rushed trip but worth it at the same time. Got to love having an extra paycheck in a month that lets you do fun things like this.

I should be able to finish paying on our Jan cruise too within the next two months. Yay for that as well.

I promise to take lots of pictures while we are there and write a review of everything once we are back as well.