[Bookend One- This is the first time in McGinley Disney Vacation History that an extended countdown file was initiated knowing the actual launch date.]
H Minus 366 Days
She [Anabelle) ranted, “Next time we’re in a Park we’ll be in Disney World, and it will be less confusing, ‘cause these hippies don’t know how to do anything. It should not have taken five days to find Princesses. That place wasn’t on the App at all! There’s more variety, but really, put Cinderella everywhere and just tell me what time! Aladdin and Jasmine have a sign in Adventureland with times they appear. How hard is that?!"
(Foreshadowing- This “next time” would be sooner than expected.
I remain clueless about this fact.)
H minus 261 Days
When we finish dropping off Anabelle at Villanova for her Senior Year (and start missing her) Rosa begins thinking the three of us should go away together to celebrate the end of her Undergraduate Career.
I remain clueless about this fact.
H minus 158 Days
The schedule for the 2025 EPCOT Flower and Garden Festival is announced. Anabelle remembers how much she loved it, and how it was one of the few saving graces of her High School Disney Band Trip. She wonders about the chances of experiencing it again.
I remain clueless about this fact.
H minus 114 Days
The closure of Muppetvision 3D in June is announced to make room for the new Monster’s Inc. Land. Sure, they claim to be preserving the final performance of Henson and Hunt, but without details. An announced Electric Mayhem overlay to the Rock N Roller Coaster softens the blow a little, but it’s still a huge loss. We all think about how it would be nice to see it one last time. Anabelle, with many online connections to Disney and Muppet Influencers, thinks about it far more seriously than I had.
I remain clueless about this fact.
H Minus 106 Days
Rosa starts thinking more actively about us traveling together to celebrate the Graduation. She also knows the only place Anabelle and I ever want to go is Disney. Without starting to check anything or talking about it, Rosa begins getting multiple clickbait Disney based articles on her feed. This leads her to asking me random questions about weird and incorrect Disney news as she continues wondering if we could go.
I remain clueless about this fact.
H minus 76
Rosa’s calculations indicate we really could go. She starts actively checking prices and dates, increasing the number of questions she asks (both from more frequent clickbait, and practical questions) as she continues to plan.
I remain clueless about this fact.
H Minus 74 Days
The 2025 EPCOT Flower and Garden Festival begins. Anabelle is frustrated as she has to work Student Teaching over the Villanova Spring Break. The frustration is enhanced by many of her fellow students telling her about plans to visit Disney World over the break. Expecting we can’t all go; Anabelle begins wondering if she can pull off a couple of days solo trip after Graduation to see the Festival and bid farewell to the Muppets.
I remain clueless about this fact.
H minus 72 Days
I work a half-day remotely because Rosa and I are going to drive down and pick up Anabelle for my birthday weekend. Since Anabelle has to finish teaching before leaving, my plan was to grab an hour or so nap before the drive.
When I finish working, Rosa drops the idea on me that going to Disney World in two months is a very real possibility.
I no longer remain clueless. (About this fact, anyway.)
I am now full blown panicked
as I have done ZERO GRIDDING!
She mistakes my confusion and fear for a lack of
excitement. We clear that up pretty quickly. YAAAY!
She shows me the packages she looked up, (though our usual All Star resorts are missing for reasons we didn’t yet understand) and we start talking about our typical weekday to weekday, week long trip.
At dinner, Anabelle brings up annoyance at several classmates mentioning the Disney trips they went on over this week’s break. Every time I stare at Rosa expecting her to reveal the plans- she does not, and Anabelle simply assumes I have lost my mind again.
(Foreshadowing- Close enough!)
March 8, 2025
H minus 71 Days
Rosa and I bring up the idea of the Disney trip to Anabelle. As she is my child, she goes through the same stages of panic as I did.
She recovers much quicker, having had her own plans I remained clueless about.
When she finds her powers of speech again, she leads with, “Funny you should mention that.”
YAAAAAY!!
After she spills her internal plans, she and Rosa concluded “Great Minds Think Alike.” Clearly one of us was excluded from being considered a Great Mind. (Meme credit- Anabelle)
Luckily, Anabelle pays more attention
than we do, and realized we were originally planning to go over the full
Memorial Day Weekend, which we did not want.
She shows me the packages she looked up, (though our usual All Star resorts are missing for reasons we didn’t yet understand) and we start talking about our typical weekday to weekday, week long trip.
At dinner, Anabelle brings up annoyance at several classmates mentioning the Disney trips they went on over this week’s break. Every time I stare at Rosa expecting her to reveal the plans- she does not, and Anabelle simply assumes I have lost my mind again.
(Foreshadowing- Close enough!)
H minus 71 Days
Rosa and I bring up the idea of the Disney trip to Anabelle. As she is my child, she goes through the same stages of panic as I did.
She recovers much quicker, having had her own plans I remained clueless about.
When she finds her powers of speech again, she leads with, “Funny you should mention that.”
YAAAAAY!!
After she spills her internal plans, she and Rosa concluded “Great Minds Think Alike.” Clearly one of us was excluded from being considered a Great Mind. (Meme credit- Anabelle)
We do some quick counts, Anabelle offers to foot the price of the Park Hopper Addition to allow more flexibility, meaning we have a target of a baseline of two days per park with hopping adjustments to balance things.
(Foreshadowing- And exhaust ourselves.)
More quick calculations (naturally including Rosa’s “Oso Bucco”) showed even the handful of "Must Do" meals would cost more than the difference in Quick Service and Regular Meal Plans. This allows greater sanity both from a pre-planning and keeping us fed perspective.
(Foreshadowing- For the most part.)
Rosa did some online magic and set up the flights. It involved first thinking she would set up Anabelle and I separately from her and also Rosa booking without a seat. She assured us she would be sitting in the plane. Another option was one-way tickets. (I assume two of them.) She ended up trading in miles and in yet another thing I had no clue about, we ended up with seats all together to go and come. A discount was earned by booking the Six AM flight out.
A) That gives us almost a complete first Magic Kingdom Day.
B) Not like we were sleeping that night anyway.
(Foreshadowing- Which we were unceremoniously booted from, yielding seat upgrades on a slightly later flight after stressful shenanigans. What remained the same was we did not sleep that night.)
We placed a call to Awesome Happy Disney Person Chardonnay. (Spelling is questionable here, but not his Awesomeness or Happiness). All the All Stars were available. There were allocated rooms for a certain sale that filled up. However, even without being part of the sale, our normal resorts were WAY cheaper than a Moderate, and also less than the Art of Animation with the sale. (There was the additional bonus that we wouldn’t have to be terrified by dangling in the sky any time we went to EPCOT or MGM.) Chardonnay set up our hotel, our Park tickets, our Park Hopper, Anabelle’s Celebration Button (Foreshadowing- plus some other stuff, apparently) and confirmed our Meal booking day.
We also got information about the death of the original Magic Band times. However, the old ones might still work. Magic Band Plus didn’t tempt any of us, (nor Chardonnay based on our discussion) so we’ll be getting Key to the World cards and bringing our last Magic Bands to see if they still work.
(Foreshadowing- Or something like that.)
I knocked out the prototype grid to get
started, and we kicked off listing food targets. Anabelle initiated the Shirt
Grid for all of us, and her more complex outfit grid. There were conversations
to allow her to already plan out her “Two Days Each” selection of four Minnie
ear headbands.
March 9, 2025
H minus 70
Anabelle repurposed her Disneyland notebook from last year to serve as planning for this trip. In protest over a lack of App usefulness, she simply crossed out the California titles on the cover, and paperclipped that section together, rather than reversing the book. She also applied stickers to her new Park backpack, made plans to have a lanyard for swappable pin trading, (Foreshadowing- that went in an entirely different direction) and anchored Tiny Donald in his riding pocket in the backpack in preparation.
Therefore, in about twenty-four hours
since finding out we were truly having a Disney trip, we have a “short, easy
going” Disney World vacation booked in May where we expect to go from rope drop to Park
close for eight days straight. The Grid is drafted, outfits planning is deep in
progress and the meals we want to book in under a week and a half are listed.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
H minus 70
Anabelle repurposed her Disneyland notebook from last year to serve as planning for this trip. In protest over a lack of App usefulness, she simply crossed out the California titles on the cover, and paperclipped that section together, rather than reversing the book. She also applied stickers to her new Park backpack, made plans to have a lanyard for swappable pin trading, (Foreshadowing- that went in an entirely different direction) and anchored Tiny Donald in his riding pocket in the backpack in preparation.
Click to Continue
booooo what is this garbage
ReplyDeletego back to transformers
HOORAY
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to know the genes for my insane sense of humor are thriving in the next generation!
ReplyDelete