Monday April 15-Friday April 19, 2012
Me: Tink, Age 34
Resort: Coronado Springs
Transportation: Drive to Baltimore, Southwest Airlines, BWI to MCO
Experience: Veteran with WDW and Disneyland Paris
Plan:
Monday, a.m. pool time and check in, nap, get AP in order, dinner at Chefs de France and Flower and Garden Fun, Illuminations and wine.
Tuesday: Early a.m. rope drop at MK, monorail to Epcot for pictures, p.m. nap, dinner at San Angel Inn and a margarita.
Wednesday: AM at AK, afternoon pool and sangria, evening MK Fireworks, parade, close
Thursday: AM at MK, then afternoon pool. Dinner at California Grill with wine, MK fireworks
Friday: AM at the Pool, shower and check out, lunch at Gasparilla Grill monorail to epcot for last few hours of flower power. Try drinks in England.
Back to hotel for DME at 6:00 p.m.
Land, get car and drive back to hotel to re-check in and get ready for the conference.
Planning and Long-winded back story
Ever wonder how you ended up where you are in your life? I seem to be knee dip in some sort of limbo in my personal and professional life lately and I cant bring myself to really make any big changes and overall just am left feeling kind of meh about everything right now. I guess I just always pictured myself in a different place by now and it looks like some really tough decisions are lurking around the corner. I decided that I really needed to get back to my place of zen, which of course, is in Disney World. So I am planning my first solo trip. It is actually kind of neat how life seems to fit all the puzzle pieces into the right places some times and this certainly turned out to be the case with several aspects of this trip. The first being that my niece has decided to go back and work for Disney again and she starts a few weeks before I arrive so I hope to be able to spend some time with her and hopefully have a sleep over or 2 at Coronado, doing our nails and talking about boys ; )
The second has to do with transportation. When I finally made the decision in January that the trip was a go, I checked for flights out of my local airport which is 10 minutes away and apparently all of Connecticut is going away for spring break because there were no direct flights left! I totally panicked. Once I recollected myself I started to think, well, where else could I fly out of? The answer lies with the third piece of the puzzle that fell into place. I had wanted to go the New England Conference for Teachers of Foreign Languages in Baltimore this year which falls on the weekend of my spring break. So I put 2 and 2 together and BAM! BWI airport! I figured it was perfect since I had to drive down to Baltimore anyway for the conference so I moved my trip dates from Sat-Wed to Mon-Fri. I was super excited to find out that BWI-MCO departs regularly throughout the day and with some crafty points and a SouthWest rewards credit card, I booked a free flight.
But wait, thats not all! Come to find out that my other niece just accepted a management position with Marriott Hotels in Washington DC and will be able to come and see me in Baltimore! Hopefully her work schedule will allow her a little get away that weekend.
Since I make my annual trip with my sisters to WDW in August every year, I am debating on whether or not to get an annual pass. I figure I could get 5 days out of it this trip and 8 days on my August trip. With tickets being so expensive, I figure this should save me at least $100. Of course the real reason for splurging on the AP is that then Ill have an excuse to do a quick Food and Wine weekend or maybe even a February break tripthe possibilities are endless
I have my nights booked at the Spring Hill Suites near BWI for the night before my flight and for the conference and thankfully I can leave my car there all week for $6 a day, which is about .70 cents cheaper than the Park and Fly lot. It also looks like the drive to the Marriott Inner Harbor for the conference is only about 18 minutes! Score on some big savings there!
The last piece of the puzzle that I am working on is the food! I am debating on whether or not to purchase the dining plan or pay for the Tables in Wonderland card. The TiW card is very tempting and as you see, I have planned in some time for adult beverages throughout the trip and the card would certainly offset those costs. I am just not sure that when I come with the whole family in August that we wont do the dining plan. In this case, I am not sure that paying the $60 would make sense her for these 3 dinners. I received some great feedback from all of you in regards to the perks of the TiW card and it certainly is going to be a tough choice.
Officially this is going to be my first stay at CSR since last year it didnt go so wellremember the flooded fridge? I am looking forward to spending time there and especially swimming in the pool and maybe using the gymmaybe not. I am going to have to pick a building that is close for my morning coffee walk.
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