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November 29 – December 5, 2003
Courtyard by Marriott and Boardwalk Villas Resort
The Cast
Steve - The planner, tour guide, official photographer, driver,
luggage carrier, Disney veteran, and your humble narrator. DVC member
since 1999.
Barb - My bride of 31 years. Also a Disney fan but less fanatical
than her handsome, dashing spouse.
Prologue
Our last WDW trip was in January 2003 and I believe it’s
fitting to begin this report with the closing comments from that
one:
“We‘ve talked about postponing our next trip until late
2004 or early 2005, mostly due to the impending nuptials and tuition,
but I’m now thinking a short trip in December 2003 might be
just what the doctor ordered. I’ve never really seen the Christmas
decorations… or the Osborne lights…or the Candlelight
Processional….or…..”
The “nuptials” I spoke of referred to our daughter’s
(Michelle’s) wedding in October. Writing that check was only
slightly more painful than writing the one for our son’s (Stephen’s)
first year college tuition. I still tear up just thinking about
it. 2003 is a very expensive year for us but, I was unwilling to
completely forgo a WDW trip and it didn’t take much to convince
Barb (she’s such a pushover). Anyway, we had already resigned
ourselves to living in a cardboard box with a steady diet of Alpo
in our retirement years. Our children’s inheritance? Bwahahahaha!
This trip, for the first time ever, would be just Barb and me.
No kids, no friends, no parents. Could we stand a week together
– just the two of us – without her beating me senseless
with a Pal Mickey? Stay tuned.
Pre-Trip Planning
We started planning with the assumption that this would be a short,
bare-bones trip in December. I say “bare-bones” because
I just couldn’t use the word ‘inexpensive’ when
talking about a WDW trip. To cut costs, we’re planning to
hitchhike from the airport, share a Park Hopper (child’s of
course), use our 1995 CBR refillable mugs at the Boardwalk, get
our meals by fighting the seagulls for scraps in Frontierland, and
walking out of restaurants before the check comes. I’ll let
you know how it goes.
We started planning on 4 or 5 days. As DVC members, there’s
no real expense for the room (beyond the monthly dues, of course)
so, once the airfare is paid, you shouldn’t be that concerned
about the length of stay. Right? Based on that sound reasoning,
the trip stretched to 6 days (11/30 – 12/5). Barb was OK with
it (damn, she’s easy) so I called DVC and booked a studio
at our home resort – the Boardwalk Villas Resort.
I started watching the Southwest Airlines web site to see when
they would begin booking for our dates. I also began thinking that
we may as well travel down on Saturday rather than Sunday. Recognizing
genius, Barb was quick to agree (OK, this is getting a tad ridiculous!)
so we now had a 7-day trip. When Southwest opened up, I snared two
round-trip tickets for $254 each. It was a bit more than normal
(we typically get SW for $200-225) as there were no heavy discounts
for the flight down. Flying on Thanksgiving weekend was something
I had neglected to consider – d’oh!
For the first day’s stay, we decided to book the Courtyard
by Marriott near Downtown Disney. The chief reason is that we had
some leftover money on several Marriott gift cards. They were given
to us, for our 30th anniversary, by our 3 children and were intended
to be used for a trip to Montreal, which we took in September. Why
did we have leftover money despite my best efforts to drink it down
to the last Loonie (that’s Canadian for a $1 coin, eh)? It’s
a long story that involves US/Canadian exchange rates, a very self-serving
Marriott policy, a mayonnaise jar, a rope and a monkey (OK –
just kidding about the rope).
I learned over the summer that the Osborne Lights were taking
a one-year sabbatical. Ah, that ‘Russo luck’. While
disappointing, we still had the Candlelight Processional and all
the Christmas decorations that we had never seen. It would also
provide an excuse (like I need one) for another December trip.
We spent the late summer and early fall discussing a number of things
that would affect our decision on passes. Our APs had expired so
renewal wasn’t an option. We may spend our first day just
visiting resorts and Downtown Disney. We may take another trip next
fall for the Food and Wine Festival. We may visit Universal and/or
Islands of Adventure for a day. We may spend a day shopping at Downtown
Disney. Four-day? Five-day? UPHs? Plus features? APs? Oh...we also
planned a wedding.
We celebrated Michelle’s wedding in October. The ceremony
was beautiful and the reception even better. More than a few of
the guests indicated it was the best wedding they’d ever attended.
Can I throw a party or what? It’s not often I have the chance
to buy dinner and drinks for 150 of my closest friends (thank God!).
Michelle and her new husband, Will, opted for an 8-day honeymoon
in Aruba despite my repeated pleas for WDW. “C’mon.
Mom and I can join you. Why are you rolling your eyes?”
In late October, we finally decided on 5-day Park Hopper Plus passes.
Looking at our next 2 trips (planned for November 2004 for the Food
& Wine Festival and January 2005 for a ‘whole family’
trip), we decided we’d go with 5-day passes for this trip
and Annual Passes for the trips in November/January. That would
give us 2 trips on the APs. A quick run to the local Disney Store
and we purchased our passes for $250 each, after DisneyClub discount.
About this time, the dates for Mousefest were announced. The festivities
would begin just as we were leaving. While I think it would be fun
to hook up with some of the ax murderers from this online community,
we just couldn’t move our dates.
For the next several weeks, I basically bugged the hell out of Barb
with impromptu ‘planning sessions’. What do you want
to do? How about if we eat here on Tuesday? Shall we rent a car
or use Tiffany? Shall we make Wednesday a non-park day and do some
shopping/sight-seeing? I find that these sessions add to the trip
and increase the excitement in the weeks prior to leaving. Anyone
else feel this way? Barb hates them and has, on more than one occasion,
threatened to stuff the 2004 Birnbaum into one of my body orifices.
Still with me? Wow, what stamina. Now for the trip…
Day 1...
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