So, a few thoughts….
1. We booked our Fastpasses!
Friday night (technically Saturday morning – Orlando time) I logged in and booked our fastpasses. There wasn’t a TON we wanted to do, since Chase isn’t big on rides and most everything else we’ve done a lot. We just missed the Mine Train when we went earlier this year, so that one was obviously one we wanted to snag. Got two for it – once on our first day there and once our last day. Yay! Also got Anna and Elsa on our last day. Everything else was pretty basic, just grabbed some old favourites. The only ones I had issue with was Animal Kingdom – we aren’t going til the afternoon so trying to get all my fastpasses into that timeframe didn’t work out so well. But there was only two things we wanted to do – I got one of them, and the other one is Expedition Everest, and I can just do single rider line for that (since Chase won’t ride!)
2. We made a travel decision
Plane tickets are always ridiculously expensive from Memphis though we’ve lucked out in the past and gotten round-trip, non stop for around 200-250 a ticket. This past trip, we ended up flying out Nashville because Memphis was too expensive – we saved nearly $1000 doing that. STUPID. This year, though, everything we’re finding is $400+ per ticket, and if we want nonstop it’s like double that. Per ticket.
Even looking at Nashville flights, they’re more than we want to pay. I’m just not comfortable paying over $1000 (once we factor in additional costs like luggage and parking) for a stupid 1 hr 20 minute flight there and back again.
So since we were going to be renting a car once we got down there anyway (since we’re doing non-Disney stuff this trip – gasp), I broke down the costs of driving. Renting a car here (since neither of cars would be up to the long distance drive), leaving the night before, driving halfway there, getting a hotel room and gas costs – and then driving all the way back on the last day – is less than half of what it would cost us to fly, and we’d be on our own schedule. I’m very much for this, and very excited about a good long road trip (I love road trips), and Chase agreed it was probably the smartest thing to do, but we did agree that if we found decent ticket prices we’d fly.
3. Foot training
I’ve never had any issues with my feet being sore or blisters or anything at Disney – because for most of my adult life, I’ve worked at a job that had me up on my feet and moving all day. So walking around Disney was just more of the same for me everyday. Well, I got a new desk job last year, and this past trip, I realized how just being off my game I already was. By the third day my feet were SWOLLEN so badly I could barely fit my shoes! That has NEVER happened to me, so this year I’m preparing for it. Chase and I are walking this month and next to try to get our feet ready. Haha. Disney prep.
4. Blog stuff
So for a while I had a Disney blog. I actually still do, but I’m shutting it down soon and I think I’m going to port everything over here. I haven’t written in it in over a year – I started it as a distraction when my old job got really really bad last year. Sitting down and writing some Disney thoughts in my offtime got my mind off how crappy my job was now. So since I got the new job, I just haven’t paid any attention to it.
So I’m going to bring them over here – they’ll have their own blog tag and won’t be in my main blog, but I’ll probably link them in the sidebar, so anybody who is interested can read them over there. I personally love reading other people’s Disney parks experiences and stories, so I figured other people might want to read mine as well 🙂