We're having a sister-moon! Two sisters taking on the World! A pre-trip report

**AllieBee** · 10-10-2007, 09:45 PM

OK, first of all, sorry for the cheesy title. Hopefully it'll grab your attention, cheesy or not.

This is my first trip report, please be patient.

This pre-trip report is for a mini trip I'm going to be taking with my sister at the end of October. A little background is in order:

My best friend from the University of Florida lives in Ft. Myers and we used to go to WDW all the time in college since it was just about 1.5 hours away. A few months ago, we decided to have a long weekend together in WDW, she would drive up from Ft. Myers and pick me up at the Orlando airport and we'd be able to catch up and relive our fun college days.

Well, of course nothing can go according to plan, and sure enough, I had only just purchased my plane ticket when my friend had to cancel on me. She is being sent to Boston for work, something she absolutely cannot say no to. Grrrrrrrr. With the tickets already purchased and the fact that it costs almost as much as the original ticket to change or cancel, I didn't feel like I wanted to cancel my trip. I considered going by myself, which I wouldn't have minded at all. And then all of a sudden, I was lamenting my situation to my sister who lives in St. Louis, when she said, "Why don't I come with you?" HOORAY!

So, here is the current cast of characters:

Me - Allie - early thirties - married to a wonderful man and mother of DD-2.

Sister - Stephanie - a little less-early thirties - married with 2 kids, DD11 and DS7.

We're both very excited to be going away without our spouses and children, even though we're going to a big family destination! The truth is, we've both been on vacation quite a bit with our families - our parents included - to Orlando. So we really don't feel even a tiny bit guilty about this Sister Getaway!

Unfortunately we'll only have a little bit of time there. We both work part-time and can't take time off any additional time right now, plus we need to get home for our kids, so we're flying down and meeting at MCO around noon on Thursday, October 25th. We're staying until noon on Sunday, October 28th, and we're just going to have 2 days in the parks, Friday and Saturday. We've decided to stick with our favorite things, and in the interest of time and cost, we're going to buy my sister non-park hopper tickets. So Friday will be our day in the MK and Saturday will be our day in Epcot. I have an old non-expiring Park Hopper Pass that I bought several years ago that has 2 days left on it, so that's one extra cost I can avoid right now.

So that's all for now. I'm going to need some serious help figuring out how to get the most out of our short time in WDW, I'll take any and all suggestions!

More to come soon, including lodging and ADR's! Thanks for tuning in!

**vixen101485** · 10-10-2007, 10:39 PM

LOL....I liked the title it caught my eye. Have fun and I will add you to the Pre-trip report thread.

**DisneyDreamer13** · 10-11-2007, 06:21 AM

2 whole days with my sister & no kids at WDW would be a blast, who needs luxury spas and girlie stuff like that. I hope you have fantastic time, looking forward to reading all about it after.

**Chrissy&Tayen** · 10-11-2007, 07:44 AM

i would love to go on a trip like that with my sis or good girl friend.... but my hubby freaks when i go to visit my mom..LOL he hates to be away from me and bug

**AllieBee** · 10-11-2007, 08:36 PM

OK, onto Part 2 of the pre-trip report.

Lodging:

I have a friend who has a timeshare in Orlando and she has been offering it to us for years, knowing how much I love WDW. So I finally decided to take her up on it. She said we could stay at Star Island, but when I looked on the timeshare's website, I noticed that Bonnet Creek is also one of their properties and it's RIGHT ON DISNEY PROPERTY! For those who don't know, it's very close to CBR, DTD, Typhoon Lagoon. That area. Anyway, her husband made a call and get this, we're staying in a 2BR condo for 3 nights for less than it would cost us to stay at a Value Resort! Now granted, there's no Disney perks, but there is a shuttle and it's supposed to be beautiful. And did I mention, 2 bedroom CONDO?!? So I'm very excited. We'll be renting a car so we might not even use their shuttle, I've heard it's a little inconsistent.

OK, so onto Thursday. My sister and I will both be arriving at MCO - me from Washington Dulles and her from St. Louis - right around noon. We'll catch up with each other, go find our rental car, and...

...***This is where I need your help!***

We have no plans that day, nothing to do at all. No ADR, no plans (or tickets!) to go into the parks that day, so we'll need to find some stuff to do. My original thoughts for that day was:

- Leave airport
- Grab lunch at DTD and walk around a little bit and buy sister's tickets (I already have 2 days on my parkhopper pass I bought a few years ago.)
- Go check into the resort and have a rest
- Find somewhere off property for dinner
- Do some very basic grocery shopping so we can eat breakfast in the condo and have some drinks and stuff there
- Come back and get to sleep early so we can get to MK the next day for Rope Drop!

So, how does that sound? Or would you do something else besides go straight to WDW? Anything else sound like fun or worth doing on the way from MCO to WDW? I'd love some input.

Other than that, how does that sound for our Thursday?

**disneydame2004** · 10-11-2007, 08:51 PM

Technically, Bonnet Creek is NOT on Disney Property, although it is bordered on three sides by Disney-owned land. Common misconception.

Sounds like a good plan, though I'd probably go to dinner at one of the Disney resorts or on the Boardwalk.

**AllieBee** · 10-11-2007, 09:05 PM

OK, onto my plans for Friday, Day 1 in WDW:

My sister and I are planning to have our Friday in the Magic Kingdom only. We can certainly fill 10 hours there, surely more if we had them, so we see no need to park-hop.

For the first time ever, I want to get there in time for Rope Drop. This is for 2 reasons. I don't want to miss a second of time there, seeing as we only have 2 WDW days in total. Secondly, I've never been to Rope Drop before. Oh, and there's a 3rd reason, I want to get in line for the new Haunted Mansion right away! I figure we'll get to TTC by 8:15-ish, head over to MK on the monorail, and get as close to Liberty Square as we can. Then we'll go right onto HM and then over to Fantasyland to get onto Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, all the rides that get really crowded and whose queues move SOOOO slowly. My sister's only "need" that day is to ride Space Mountain, which I'm so happy to do, as many times as needed!

For our meals that day, we'll grab some breakfast in our condo before leaving. Lunch for me will probably be a turkey leg over near Splash Mountain, love those things! I'm sure we'll have a snack later in the day. Then we have an ADR for 7:30pm at Kona cafe, if we're still awake!

The only thing we are weighing right now is whether or not we'll want to stay in the park for longer. MK closes at 7pm that night with no Wishes because of MNSSHP. We could buy tickets and stay later, but we also want to get up early the next day for Epcot, so I think we're going to pass. I know, how can I give up extra hours in MK?!? So we'll see. What do you think about that?

**Chrissy&Tayen** · 10-18-2007, 09:46 AM

your leaving the day i come into orlando! and i check in to all star movies the next day.. to bad..

**AllieBee** · 10-18-2007, 10:19 AM

OK, so where are we? After our Kona Cafe ADR at 7:30pm, I would like to take a monorail tour (if we aren't too tired). So we'll get off at the GF, and maybe get over to the Contemporary to watch the fireworks. They have an observation deck besides just for California Grill, right? I'm sure we'll be exhausted by then so we'll get back to the TTC, get our car and head back to Bonnet Creek.

Saturday:

Yay, Epcot Day! I'm so excited. We are going to try to wake up early again and head over there for Rope Drop. One thing I really don't want to do is plan our whole day around Soarin'. So if we can get there right away and either get on the first or second seating, we'll be set for the rest of the day. We can even pick up Fast Passes for a later viewing, but at least we'll have done it one time. Both previous times I've ridden Soarin', we sat in the back/bottom row all the way on the end, literally the same exact seats both times. So I might be one of "those" people who ask the CM if I can wait one viewing and get a prime seat!

After that I have absolutely ZERO agenda in Epcot. My sister is wonderful and will literally go wherever I tell her, but I want her to feel like she has some say in the matter, too.

We have a 12:00pm ADR in Morocco for lunch - one of the few things my sister really wanted to do, so how could I say no - so we'll head over there for that and then I think for dinner we're just going to sample the Food and Wine Festival offerings. Woo hoo!

And now the sad part, here's where the trip speeds up quickly and I have very little else to add. For after only 3 nights in our wonderful BIG condo, and two (very full!) days in the parks, it will be back to reality. Sunday we will wake up, strip the beds and towels and straighten up the condo, and head back to MCO. WAAAHHHHHH! I know it's going to go way too fast, but reality does beckon. I know I will be missing my DD2 so it will be nice to have her to look forward to. Makes departing WDW a little easier!

My flight back to DC is at noon and my sister's flight back to St. Louis is at 12:15pm, perfect! And I get to see her plus the rest of her clan at Thanksgiving, yay!

Thanks for sticking in here and reading my pre-trip. I guess there's nothing left to do but wait for my trip now! Oh, and try to lose a little weight before it gets here!

Thanks again for reading!