Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Swan Here We Come!!!!

Did you know I won a free stay at the Walt Disney World Swan Hotel? Well, I did!!! Thanks to the DIS Unplugged podcast and my timely suggestion for a new segment idea, my Mom and I are off to WDW again. We go once or twice a year - it is our "thing". We don't exclude other family members from coming with us but Mom and I are the most flexible schedule-wise so it just works out that we go by ourselves most of the time. (Not having children, I don't have to worry about school schedules. So, in effect, by my not having children I get to go to Disney World a lot more. Hmmmm, odd how that works out.)

This trip we are starting off at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort for the first two nights and then we move to the Swan Hotel for the next two nights. (In Disney fan lingo this is referred to a split stay.) The free Swan stay is the catalyst for this trip. We tried to schedule the trip so my sister and niece could go with us but school doesn't get out until May 20ish and that is the beginning of the busy season so Mom and I just couldn't wait that long. It is just too much for me to have a free hotel stay at WDW and not use it immediatly. I was wanting to go the instant I won the trip. :) We got the Annual Passholder rate for the All-Star Sports portion of our stay. So, for hotel purposes, this trip is costing us less than $200. SWEET!!!!!!!!

On these Mom & Tonya trips we like to go with the flow to a certain extent. Usually I have determined what parks we will be at on certain days based on the Crowd Calendar on TouringPlans.com but we don't have a definite schedule as to what attractions we will see. (The Crowd Calendar lets you know what parks are best to go to on certain days and which parks to avoid. And it is always right!!!) I usually have a wish list of things I want to do but depending on the lines and our moods, we wing it. And usually on these trips I make a fun dining reservation. This year I am going to try to make a Crystal Palace reservation for when we are in the Magic Kingdom. It is a character meal with Pooh and his friends. We don't normally stalk the characters for pictures and autographs in the Parks so a character meal is a fun way to get a picture or two with some characters and get a meal at the same time. (Notice my picture with Goofy - a character meal at Animal Kingdom.) :)

This trip will be during Epcot's Flower & Garden Festival. We've never been to F&G so it will be nice to see all the different displays. We were at the Epcot's Food & Wine Festival last year and had a wonderful time. F&G won't have free wine tastings or international food booths but it will have lots of pretty flowers and fun topiaries. And what could be better than seeing Epcot at its best? Answer: Nothing!!!!!

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