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Participants:
Regina Conlon (now Vinacco) - 26, at the time of this trip: Admin,
Currently: Database Administrator, Disney freak and veteran (my
first trip was while I was actually in the womb)
Clint Vinacco – 27, Operations Manager, not as much as a freak
as me but a close second
Planning –
When Clint proposed and we started planning our wedding and honeymoon
we gave no thought to where we were going to go. The answer was
always Disney and we didn’t even consider other options. We
met with a ton of opposition from others about this (as if they
were going to be there with us). A lot of people couldn’t
understand why we wanted to go there and how we could go to a place
where we will eventually take our children. You could argue that
with ANY place. Needless to say we didn’t take any ideas or
offers from any other place. It was Disney and that was final.
Here comes the rough part!!! We had a two week stay…Yes,
two weeks. Thanks to the help of my UOG friends, the only option
that seemed worthwhile was Annual Passes. There was a lot of conversation
with us about this and in the end, we opted for these for multiple
reasons: 1. it made a lot of sense (break even points, etc.) 2.
We could always get a second trip out of the passes.
Now where to stay - This is where we had a lot of issues. First
we were going with Wilderness Lodge because we wanted that hot tub
to soak in after those long days in the park. Wilderness Lodge was
entirely too expensive for us for the length of time we were going.
Money wasn’t a huge object on this trip but we were also paying
for the wedding and couldn’t afford to go too crazy on the
honeymoon. Then we were going with Port Orleans but we just wanted
something more. We didn’t want to scrimp but we didn’t
want to settle either. After a lot of research we ended up at Old
Key West. Got the AP discount and ended up saving a ton of money,
having a hot tub and not settling. All bases were covered.
The transportation to get there – I spent countless hours
on various websites for airlines. I checked out all of the “deal”
places like expedia and Travelocity and found nothing. I say “deal”
because I learned that you really aren’t saving all that much
when you use these places. In the end, you will most likely pay
the same amount you are paying when using the airline itself to
make the reservations. Although, this was what I found for our trip.
Other times of the year like the summer may have better “deals”.
In the end, I found the best price to be at Jet Blue from Kennedy
Airport. Now, we live about 5 miles outside of New York City and
were staying even closer, so this was no problem for us. We simply
had a the best man drive us the next morning so a car service or
cab wasn’t necessary. Unfortunately, the Mets thought it would
be a great idea to have a game while we would be on the road (how
dare they) so we had to leave extremely early to avoid the traffic
at Shea Stadium.
Itinerary – There simply was none. We were going somewhat
off season for two weeks. We didn’t have to worry about what
we were going to see and what day because we had plenty of time
to do it in. We made ressies in advance for the Hoop Dee Doo and
for the Poly Luau but that was it. Didn’t make any PRs until
we were there and had no problems whatsoever getting them.
Day 1...
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