Disney Vacation!

Hello blog readers...all 5 of you. If you follow my posts of Facebook (which if you are here, you most likely do) you now know that I get to celebrate my 25th birthday at DisneyWorld! I could not be any more excited. Read on for details and how we came to decide our vacation!

Why: I had been to DisneyWorld for my first time in 4th grade with my Odyssey of the Mind team and GATE teacher.

What's Odyssey of the Mind? Glad you asked! Each team has 6 people I believe, 1 person being the director-I was the director in my group. It is a creative, problem solving competition for elementary-college. Our team created and performed a short skit about make-up coming to life to help an actress prepare for her debut, I still think it's pretty creative so many years later. The teams also compete in an event called Spontaneous. The judge gives you a problem and you go around the circle coming up with as many creative solutions as possible. Anyhow, those 2 scores are added together to get your final score. So, my team competed at our local competition and moved on to the next round. We then flew up to Reno to compete at state and won that competition which sent us to...DisneyWorld for the World Finals! (World is held in Iowa this year, I think we won the right year...) All that to say, that was my first time in DisneyWorld and it was a complete blast. It was the first year Animal Kingdom was open, so there wasn't much there yet but I can say I was among the first people to go! We ended up placing like 52nd out of over 100 teams, so we did pretty well, but had a great time in Florida.

Phil grew up vacationing in Orlando for Christmas with his family. They weren't really 'Disney' people though, having 2 boys, so they spent most of their time at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.

Phil and I honeymooned in Orlando and spent the week at Universal Studios because those tickets are far cheaper than Disney tickets, plus we love thrill rides and Universal is known for that! We ended up going to Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios for 1 day and had a great time. Very short lines in January!

Then, we went back about a year later and did another week at Universal, centered around seeing the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Again, we did 1 Disney day but this time we did Epcot (only 1 ride and it made me incredibly sick) and Magic Kingdom.

I told Phil that I while I love Universal Studios, I really wanted to do a Disney vacation just the two of us before we have children. Once we have kids, our vacations will be about them and making sure they have a great time. And after they are grown, we probably won't be interested in a Disney vacation by ourselves. So, the time has come for us to take our adult Disney trip!

We were planning to visit family this July; Vegas and Boise. We were going to be out of town for about 2 and a half weeks to be able to see everyone long enough that made it worth while. After crunching numbers and really sitting down and figuring this out, we realized that this trip was going to be very long, tiring, expensive, and not give us time to really vacation and just be the two of us. We know we will be in Boise for Christmas this year, so we will be seeing our family then. After realizing this, I went to my favorite website www.disneyparks.com/fun and entered in my dream vacation information to see what that would look like, all while Phil rolled his eyes. After getting all the details right, we were both surprised that we could totally afford this wonderful vacation-just the two of us! Alas, our Disney vacation was taking form...

When: We were originally planning on being out of town for 4th of July, so we thought about going then. But then I kind of jokingly said we could go on my birthday, totally expecting to go for 4th of July. Phil thought about it for a quick second and said, yes for your birthday! Ahhhh!! It took me about 30 minutes to realize this year isn't just another birthday, it's the big 2-5 (Phil realized this immediately and is the reason we are going then)! What a special way to welcome that age! Then we realized that we went on a mini-vacation for Phil's 25th, and the Eastman 25th birthday vacation celebration was born.

We will be flying out early Thursday, July 25 and coming home Thursday, August 1. My birthday is July 27, so we'll be able to be in one of the parks that day and get my birthday button!

Where: Well, if you haven't realized by now, we are going to Orlando....we are going to be staying on-site at Disney's All-Star Music Hotel. It's one of the value resorts, AKA the cheapest they have and kind of corny with the themed decor, but its cute and fun and a place to sleep. I wanted to stay in the All-Start Movies hotel, but since Phil was being so wonderful in letting me take this trip, I let him choose the hotel and he wanted to do the music one :) I actually stayed at this hotel when I was there for OM, we were stuck in the Country building (bleh) so I'm hoping this time we get the rock-n-roll building ;)

What: We have 5 day tickets to the Disney parks, we opted out of park hoppers since it adds like $150 to be able to go to different parks in a day. We figured we can commit to one park a day and save $150. We'll get to go to each park once, and then repeat our favorite on our last day-I'm curious to find out which park we'll repeat, what do you think it will be?!

While this is a DISNEY trip, we do love our Universal Studios....and we have 1 day of no park activity available...Usually we take 1 day to just sleep in and take multiple naps, so we might do that. But, we are also thinking of doing Universal one day, and to be clear it would be Islands of Adventure so we can do Harry Potter again (even Phil who isn't a fan of HP LOVES the new addition to the park) and the Hulk, Spider-Man...so many amazing rides there!

If you haven't noticed yet, I am SO excited this dream vacation is finally happening! I can't tell you how many times I have visited the Disney vacation planning website trying to find a way to make this happen. I love how Disney really helps keep up your excitement for your trip, they send you emails with details, videos, ideas, etc to get you ready. Of course a lot of this is trying to get you to spend more money, but it makes me feel like a 5 year old on Christmas morning. The video they sent us today (you can see it here) literally had me covering my mouth is awe of how it is customized and how fun and exciting it is! I love getting my "Eastman Family Vacation" emails and I can't wait to get our adorable package with tickets, coupons, and final details in the mail in June.

Well, that is all for now. I apologize now for the massive amount of Disney things I will be posting on Facebook and pinning in the coming months. I am excited and will be sharing my excitement with you :)