toonaspie
Just a poser
- Joined
- May 30, 2010
CHAPTER ONE - THE PTR I guess.
Part A: the backstory
Hello everyone.
I'm probably gonna regret this (and the ticker below) when our plans get changed or cancelled last minute or we ultimately decide not to go at all.
But I guess I better start at the beginning. Hope you love long stories.
So a couple of years ago, I attempted to surprise my friend, (let's call him D.) with a Disney World Vacation as a present for his completion of graduate school. He came down to visit me twice when I doing College Program down there and loved it. I guess the second trip for him was much more meaningful considering his father has just passed away so his mother sent him back down there to cheer him up.
Anyway, the plans I had back in '14 I think it was weren't working out financially and timewise. And eventually I decided to cancel. Plus it turned out D. was having trouble completing the necessary requirements for grad school completion.
Then in March 2016, his mother surprised him with a WDW vacation for him and me through her AAA agent. It was okay at first but things started falling apart when they had gone to the travel agency without me to make the arrangements. (I was out of state at the time.) The reason this peeved me off was because I was the only one who had experience and better know-how of planning a Disney vacation. D's mother did not. So needless to say alot of things had to be altered over the course of the months and the trip would be shorter than it should have been. And the date we would fly out for the trip conflicted with what was supposed to be D.'s graduation in December which meant we would have arrived really late in Orlando that night.
The stress took a hold. I ended up missing the ADR deadline by several months when I finally was mentally ready to start planning. Parts were fun. Others were stressful. I was able to finally pull everything together when last minute kerfuffles began happening. One annoying one was that my friend wanted to spend one day driving to the University of Central Florida so he could interview for a job there. What went through my mind was "You've got to be kidding me?!" I thought the whole idea was ridiculous. The chances of him moving to Florida for this job were low anyway. Plus I lived in Florida for 6 months when I did the college program and it's not a place you want to live when your attire consists always of long sleeves. Thankfully his mother talked him out of it and since his plans to graduate fell through for the 1000th time, we were able to book an earlier flight into Florida that day.
Just our luck, the morning we were to fly into Florida, our city has a nasty morning ice storm. My friend didn't want to get on the road to the airport until it was brighter out for him to see the roads. But by then and halfway to our destination it was obvious we weren't going to make our flight. We went home and booked another flight for the next morning. The insult to injury was that the storm had delayed all other flights...except for ours...the one we had to miss was the only one that was departing on time that morning. So this time around, as a precaution D's mom arranged us to have a hotel room near the airport that night and after waiting nearly one hour to check in we were able to sleep. I managed to alter our dining plans in spite of the changes.
The next morning we make it to the airport. Unlike the flight we had booked the night before, this flight had a connection to Atlanta. We get to the gate and onto the plane. We're sitting in the plane still at the gate for a whole 30 mins after our departure time. Then everyone is forced off the plane. The navigational controls on the plane were broken and could not be fixed. A new plane is arranged for everyone to get on. As my friend and I were waiting at the gate to board the new plane, my name is heard over the announcer and I'm asked to go to the Southwest desk. They inform me that no more flights were going in Orlando today AND the next day. They were pretty much telling me that due to the delays we were going to miss our Atlanta connection and that was pretty much it. My friend and I both agreed that the vacation was over because our vacation originally meant for five days was now cut down to two (including the return flight).
Thankfully D's mom bought travel insurance so everyone got 95% of their money back and we got two plane tickets that D. and I must use before Christmas of this year before they expire.
D. understandably did NOT want to do a 2nd attempt at WDW in December again. If we were to go it would have to be during the one week he had off between the end of university semester and summer school (2nd week of May). And he didn't want to plan ahead because he felt that planning ahead everything (including our flight) was what cursed our trip.
He and his mom don't understand how insane it is to plan a Disney trip and how much advancement is necessary. We had already missed the ADR booking since this return trip would be under the 6 month deadline. But what happened in December took such a toll on me that I even avoided these boards for a while.
Now closer and closer to May, we have to decide what to do with our plane tickets. They're under our names so they're nontransferable. After some hesitation I explained to D. how stressed I was with the idea of trying to do last minute planning for a WDW vacay and I proposed Universal Orlando-only vacation instead.
I saw the pros over cons of UOR. Aside from it being a new experience for us, we wouldn't need so many days to take in and experience everything so I won't be missing too many days of work, plus the package deals and the crowd control situation looked good. Plus this might be the only time we'll ever be able to go. (No way in heck would it be possible for us to ever do Disney AND Universal together.) Best of all: Less planning ahead! No having to race against others to make reservations for rides and restaurants!
And it looks like D's on board with it.
So here we are. Are we going to make it to Orlando this time? Will D. finally graduate in May? Am I crazy for starting this PTR before anything is even bought or reserved? Stay tuned and we'll find out together.
Part A: the backstory
Hello everyone.
I'm probably gonna regret this (and the ticker below) when our plans get changed or cancelled last minute or we ultimately decide not to go at all.
But I guess I better start at the beginning. Hope you love long stories.
So a couple of years ago, I attempted to surprise my friend, (let's call him D.) with a Disney World Vacation as a present for his completion of graduate school. He came down to visit me twice when I doing College Program down there and loved it. I guess the second trip for him was much more meaningful considering his father has just passed away so his mother sent him back down there to cheer him up.
Anyway, the plans I had back in '14 I think it was weren't working out financially and timewise. And eventually I decided to cancel. Plus it turned out D. was having trouble completing the necessary requirements for grad school completion.
Then in March 2016, his mother surprised him with a WDW vacation for him and me through her AAA agent. It was okay at first but things started falling apart when they had gone to the travel agency without me to make the arrangements. (I was out of state at the time.) The reason this peeved me off was because I was the only one who had experience and better know-how of planning a Disney vacation. D's mother did not. So needless to say alot of things had to be altered over the course of the months and the trip would be shorter than it should have been. And the date we would fly out for the trip conflicted with what was supposed to be D.'s graduation in December which meant we would have arrived really late in Orlando that night.
The stress took a hold. I ended up missing the ADR deadline by several months when I finally was mentally ready to start planning. Parts were fun. Others were stressful. I was able to finally pull everything together when last minute kerfuffles began happening. One annoying one was that my friend wanted to spend one day driving to the University of Central Florida so he could interview for a job there. What went through my mind was "You've got to be kidding me?!" I thought the whole idea was ridiculous. The chances of him moving to Florida for this job were low anyway. Plus I lived in Florida for 6 months when I did the college program and it's not a place you want to live when your attire consists always of long sleeves. Thankfully his mother talked him out of it and since his plans to graduate fell through for the 1000th time, we were able to book an earlier flight into Florida that day.
Just our luck, the morning we were to fly into Florida, our city has a nasty morning ice storm. My friend didn't want to get on the road to the airport until it was brighter out for him to see the roads. But by then and halfway to our destination it was obvious we weren't going to make our flight. We went home and booked another flight for the next morning. The insult to injury was that the storm had delayed all other flights...except for ours...the one we had to miss was the only one that was departing on time that morning. So this time around, as a precaution D's mom arranged us to have a hotel room near the airport that night and after waiting nearly one hour to check in we were able to sleep. I managed to alter our dining plans in spite of the changes.
The next morning we make it to the airport. Unlike the flight we had booked the night before, this flight had a connection to Atlanta. We get to the gate and onto the plane. We're sitting in the plane still at the gate for a whole 30 mins after our departure time. Then everyone is forced off the plane. The navigational controls on the plane were broken and could not be fixed. A new plane is arranged for everyone to get on. As my friend and I were waiting at the gate to board the new plane, my name is heard over the announcer and I'm asked to go to the Southwest desk. They inform me that no more flights were going in Orlando today AND the next day. They were pretty much telling me that due to the delays we were going to miss our Atlanta connection and that was pretty much it. My friend and I both agreed that the vacation was over because our vacation originally meant for five days was now cut down to two (including the return flight).
Thankfully D's mom bought travel insurance so everyone got 95% of their money back and we got two plane tickets that D. and I must use before Christmas of this year before they expire.
D. understandably did NOT want to do a 2nd attempt at WDW in December again. If we were to go it would have to be during the one week he had off between the end of university semester and summer school (2nd week of May). And he didn't want to plan ahead because he felt that planning ahead everything (including our flight) was what cursed our trip.
He and his mom don't understand how insane it is to plan a Disney trip and how much advancement is necessary. We had already missed the ADR booking since this return trip would be under the 6 month deadline. But what happened in December took such a toll on me that I even avoided these boards for a while.
Now closer and closer to May, we have to decide what to do with our plane tickets. They're under our names so they're nontransferable. After some hesitation I explained to D. how stressed I was with the idea of trying to do last minute planning for a WDW vacay and I proposed Universal Orlando-only vacation instead.
I saw the pros over cons of UOR. Aside from it being a new experience for us, we wouldn't need so many days to take in and experience everything so I won't be missing too many days of work, plus the package deals and the crowd control situation looked good. Plus this might be the only time we'll ever be able to go. (No way in heck would it be possible for us to ever do Disney AND Universal together.) Best of all: Less planning ahead! No having to race against others to make reservations for rides and restaurants!
And it looks like D's on board with it.
So here we are. Are we going to make it to Orlando this time? Will D. finally graduate in May? Am I crazy for starting this PTR before anything is even bought or reserved? Stay tuned and we'll find out together.
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