On this episode, Virginia explains her Disney backstory including how she came to love the Disney Parks, the decision to buy into the Disney Vacation Club, and the inspiration for this podcast.
Be Our Guest:
Do you have an upcoming trip you'd like to share? Submit your trip information here to be considered as a podcast guest.
Episode Links:
VIP Tours at WDW and Disneyland
Other Podcasts Mentioned:
Follow:
Facebook: @whereilongtobepodcast
Instagram: @whereilongtobepodcast
Subscribe and Review:
My name is Virginia, and I will be your host.
Before I have any trip report interviews, which I do have scheduled and lined up for the next couple of months, I wanted to talk a little bit about myself and my Disney journey so that you could have a better sense of who I am.
Like I said, my name is Virginia, and I live in New York City.
I am not originally from New York.
I am originally from North Carolina.
And I have lived in New York City for a long time now.
My Disney journey did not start when I was a young child.
I did not grow up going to the Disney parks.
In fact, the first time I ever visited a Disney park was in high school.
So in probably 1993 or 1994, at the risk of dating myself, my high school marching band was invited to play in a parade in the Magic Kingdom.
And so our band raised money to go down to Disney World, and I joined the band on that trip.
Of course, I was really excited to go on the trip.
I was really looking forward to it, but I didn't really know what to expect because I had never been before.
This was also a time when there really wasn't any Internet.
I mean, there was Internet, but it wasn't widely available.
And it certainly was not like it is today where you could look up anything and everything on the Internet.
That coupled with the fact that it was a school trip meant that there was really no planning involved on my part besides fundraising to make sure that I was able to join the band on the trip.
On that trip, we played, like I said, in the parade in Magic Kingdom.
I remember we stayed off property, so I didn't have an experience where I got to stay at a Disney resort for that first trip.
It was a ton of fun.
We visited the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and what was formerly MGM Studios.
Animal Kingdom at that time did not exist.
It was an amazing trip.
I remember splitting off into small groups.
It was a big trip with a lot of people, obviously, so we didn't have a whole lot of say over what time we would get to the park.
There was certainly not a rope dropping strategy, and I was lucky enough that one of the people that was in my smaller group had a lot of experience in the Disney Park.
So she sort of led our group around, showed us what we should be doing and when, and she led the way.
So that was fantastic.
I had a great time.
I hoped to go back one day, but really did not think much of it after that.
It was not something that I was able to afford to do, and I was in high school and then off to college and busy with other things, and it just wasn't in the forefront of my mind.
The next experience I had with the Disney Park was on my honeymoon.
So, in 2007, I got married on Thanksgiving weekend, and for our honeymoon, we decided to go to Hawaii.
Because we were going out that direction anyway, we decided that we would stop in LA for a few days, both so that we could do a day at Disneyland, a day at Universal, and so that my husband could see a friend that lived there that wasn't able to be at the wedding, so we got to have dinner with him.
That was, again, another fantastic trip, and we had a little bit of an unusual experience that sort of locked us in to being future Disney fans.
So I had a friend who had been on her honeymoon on a cruise that left out of Florida, and so they did a day or two at Walt Disney World on the way to their cruise.
And when I was talking with her as I was planning my own honeymoon to Hawaii, she suggested that if I was going to be stopping at Disneyland on the way out there anyway, that I really should purchase the bride and groom ears.
She said, trust me, they'll give you special attention.
They had apparently gotten, you know, a couple of fast passes maybe and just a lot of positive energy from people as they walked around Walt Disney World with their bride and groom ears on.
And so she said, you should get those bride and groom ears.
They'll just make you feel really special.
So that's what we did.
We were only going to be spending the day in the actual Disneyland Park.
We were not going over to California Adventure because we only had the one day there.
So we said, we'll dedicate all of our time over here in Disneyland.
And the first stop we made was at one of the stores at the very front of the park.
So we spent our $40 or $50, whatever it was at the time, to buy the bride and groom ears.
And they were cute, but we put them on.
And I'm not even joking that probably within about 20 to 30 minutes, special treatment began.
When a cast member, and we refer to her as Pat because we think her name was Pat.
I'm not sure, and I wish that I had a photo with her.
Or if I do have a photo with her, this was before social media was really a big thing.
So I did not upload it anywhere.
I was taking photos with my digital camera, not with a phone.
So I don't really have any confirmation that's her name, but we call her Pat.
So Pat spotted us and said, are you newlyweds?
And we said, yes, we are.
And she said, hold on a second.
I will be right back.
So we stood there and we waited for a few minutes waiting to see what would happen.
We had no idea what was about to happen.
This was at some point during the Year of a Million Dreams.
So for those of you who don't know, there was this big promotion called the Year of a Million Dreams.
It lasted longer than an actual year like a lot of celebrations at Disney do.
For example, the 50th anniversary of Disney World just lasted for more than 18 months.
So this Year of a Million Dreams was still going on at that point.
And I think that this was part of that.
It was, she never explicitly said it, but thinking back to what time that was and what we received, it was, it had to be, it was crazy.
So she came back with a bell and we weren't sure what was going to happen.
And she ended up walking around with us and everywhere we went, she rang the bell and proclaimed for everyone around to hear, we've got Charles in Virginia, we've got newlyweds, give them a hand.
And everywhere we went, people were cheering for us and giving us high fives and clapping.
And it was, it was just amazing.
So if that weren't amazing enough, she ended up taking us around to a bunch of different rides.
Well, what she did was essentially give us a private VIP tour.
So if you're familiar with the Disney Parks, you know that you can purchase a VIP tour for up to 10 people.
And I think the price for those tours range anywhere from $400 to $800.
I'm not sure.
It's a lot per hour and I think there's a six or seven hour minimum.
So they are very expensive.
She acted as a human fast pass for us.
So she would cut us to the front of every line.
And every ride that she took us on, she would give us something to look for.
So she would say, if you can tell me on the Snow White ride, if you can tell me who is holding Snow White's hand in this particular scene, I'll continue on with you.
It was things like that.
So just little clues of things to look for.
We would watch for whatever she told us to look for.
And as soon as we got off, we would excitedly go over to her and give her the answer.
And then she would continue on with us because we got the answer right.
She continued to take us on ride after ride after ride.
She made sure that when we got on the carousel, that I got to sit on the horse that was in the movie Mary Poppins.
Little special things like that.
She got us free snacks.
It was incredible.
So at the end of about three or four hours, she finally said, OK, I have to leave you now, but here's a bunch of fast passes.
So she handed us a huge amount of paper fast passes.
I can't remember exactly how many, but it was a lot more than we needed for the rest of that day because we were only going to be there for the rest of that day.
And I think they were good for the following day or something, too.
So we started pixie dusting other guests and giving them paper fast passes.
And that was a ton of fun to be able to just give away paper fast passes to people.
It made a lot of people really happy.
So anyway, she said, before I leave you, if you'd like a surprise, go back to It's A Small World at 8 o'clock, let's say.
And so she said, if you do that, there'll be a surprise there for you.
And we had no idea what that was going to be either, but she had not let us astray up to this point.
So at about 8 o'clock or whatever time she had said, we went back to It's A Small World.
And at that moment, the lights dimmed.
There were projections on the outside of It's A Small World.
It was holiday music because Thanksgiving weekend had just passed.
So we were transitioning into the holiday time.
And it began to snope, which if you are a Disney fan, you'll know exactly what snope is.
But if you're not familiar with snope, it's basically Disney's fake version of snow that's made out of soap.
So it was snoping and it was amazing.
And we just left that single day at Disneyland saying when we have kids one day, we will definitely be bringing them to Disney.
They know what they're doing here.
They made us want to come back.
And that's really kind of where we had the next pause in my Disney journey because I didn't return until I actually was a mom.
So that was 2007, the honeymoon trip.
And then fast forward to 2010 when I had my son Alex.
And my in-laws said practically from the moment he was born, when he turns five, we'll take you all to Disney World.
And so that was just something we had in the back of our minds that when he was five, we would take this big family trip to Disney World.
We were excited about it, but we really weren't thinking much about it in our day-to-day lives.
Sooner or later, he was five and it was time to go.
And at this time, it was a hard time for me personally.
My mother had had breast cancer previously and experienced a recurrence of that during the year ahead of that trip as we were planning.
In the fall of 2015, she ended up having to go into hospice care.
And eventually in November of 2015, she did pass away from breast cancer.
And I have to say that this upcoming Disney trip that we were going to take in April of 2016 was really kind of the light at the end of the tunnel for me.
It gave me something to focus on.
I'm sort of a type A personality anyway, so I was already excited to kind of do the planning and get into that.
But I really dove into it head first and started doing all of the research.
And it just gave me something to look forward to during that dark time.
My in-laws were more than happy to let me take over for the planning.
They had arranged with the travel agent for the tickets, the dining plan, our resort.
We were going to be staying at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort, which is a moderate resort at Walt Disney World.
But after that, they let me do all the planning.
I got to decide what parks we went to on what day, what our priorities would be.
And I threw myself into it head first, just to give myself something to think about other than my mom's passing.
When it finally was April of 2016 and we made it on that trip, it was Easter week, it was spring break, because I remember it was a week that my son was off of school for kindergarten, which was a really busy week.
But it was honestly the best trip.
It was the first time since November, really, after my mom had passed, that I was able to really feel happy again.
And I spent that trip being able to immerse myself in the magic and watch my son experience everything for the first time.
We had an amazing time.
But what I really was impressed with was how I could go to a place like Walt Disney World and really turn off everything that was going on in the outside world, in my personal world.
I was just able to focus on the magic and being happy and being with my family.
And that feeling really is what did it for me.
That particular trip is where I drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak.
And I knew from that point on that I wanted to continue to come to Disney World.
In fact, when we left that trip, I said to my husband, I would like to come back every other year, at least.
So that was 2016.
Around 2017, the itch started to happen.
And I said, I think we need to start planning for our trip in 2018 because it will have been two years, so we should do that.
And so I started doing all the planning for our trip for just the three of us as a family.
And again, I loved the planning part.
This time we ended up staying at Port Orleans French Quarter because I wanted to see the other side of the Port Orleans Resort.
And we ended up going on that trip in February of 2018.
So spent that whole year planning, got everything ready, the dining plans, the fast passes.
And when we went in 2018, again, it just cannot be said enough how much fun these trips are for our family and how it feels like every trip just continues to get better in some way, better and better.
So it was on this trip in 2018 when we were walking through Epcot.
We passed a DVC booth in Epcot, in Future World, and they asked if we wanted to come see a presentation.
And DVC was something that I knew about Disney Vacation Club, I should say, for anyone who doesn't know what DVC is.
I knew a little bit about it, but not a whole lot.
I certainly was not planning on becoming a DVC member, but we were walking through Epcot.
They asked if we'd like to come to a presentation, and there were a lot of benefits to going to a presentation.
They were giving away at that time, I think, a $100 gift card just for going to the presentation.
They also would give you three, I think, extra fast passes.
They would also pick you up from your resort if you needed a ride to go to the presentation, or after the presentation was over, they would give you a ride wherever you needed to go.
So it was convenient.
It wasn't going to take too long, and we thought, why not?
We'll do it for the $100 gift card.
So we went to this presentation, and it was at the Polynesian Resort.
They kept my son busy while we did our presentation.
They gave him an iPad and some Disney stuff to watch.
He got some Disney snacks.
I think he might have gotten a Mickey bar.
And the guide sat down with me and with my husband to talk through what DVC was.
Again, I knew a little bit about it.
My husband did not know anything about it, but as he sat there and listened to the presentation and he knew that I wanted to come back at least every other year, he starts crunching the numbers in his head.
And he realized that for a family like us who would be coming back at least every other year, that this was going to be a savings at the end of the day for us.
So he turned to me at the end of the presentation and said, well, do you want to do it?
And I was shocked.
I said, yeah, yeah, I do.
So we signed up for DVC.
And I will say DVC is not for everyone.
If you are not going to go on a regular basis, if you're not going to stay at the Disney resorts, if you are okay staying off property, it might not be for you.
But certainly if you're not going to go on a regular basis, it's not for you.
Since that trip in 2018 when we actually purchased to now, I think we've probably gotten the value out, what we paid out of pocket for the DVC membership, just in the amount of accommodations that we've used up to date.
And it's 2023 right now.
So we kind of got back our value pretty quickly.
So between that and the 20% discounts that we get on merchandise and the 10% discounts we get at some of the table service restaurants and the discounts we get on our annual passes, all of that adds up and it really worked out for us.
So because we have DVC, I knew that I would confidently be able to come back at least every other year.
But now that we had that, I thought, well, now I should go every year.
And that's really what we've done is since 2018, it's now been an annual trip for us.
And some years we've taken more than one Disney trip.
In 2019, we did our first DVC trip and we stayed at our home resort, which is Copper Creek over at Wilderness Lodge.
Now, at the time that we made our DVC purchase, we had never even been to Wilderness Lodge before.
My husband, when he was younger, had gotten to stay at The Contemporary and places like that, but I had never gotten to stay at a deluxe resort.
Up till now, my moderate experiences were my only experiences staying on property.
So, I think the next to last day of our trip in 2018, we said, let's just go take a look at it real quick and make sure that we like it, because we did still have some time to get out of it if we wanted to.
We took a quick little jaunt over to Wilderness Lodge.
I loved what I saw.
I was excited about it while we were there.
There was a DVC guide on property that gave us a tour of the cabins that are out back, and we don't have enough points to ever rent those cabins for a week.
We maybe could get one for a night, although I am not spending that many points on one night in the cabin.
But anyway, they were just gorgeous, and the whole resort was gorgeous.
And so I knew that I was going to be happy at Wilderness Lodge.
But when we went back in 2019 and actually stayed there, that is, I fell in love with Wilderness Lodge.
And since that trip in 2019, we've, like I said, come back every year, sometimes twice a year.
We've stayed at a lot of different places.
So as far as the other deluxe resorts we've gotten to stay at at this point, we've stayed at Beach Club, Polynesian, Bay Lake Tower over at the Contemporary.
We stayed at Saratoga Springs.
I did a girls trip and I got to stay at Boardwalk.
And then we've also done some more out of pocket stays because we have annual passes.
So we've stayed now at Coronado Springs, both in the Casitas section.
And then we also did a trip where we stayed at the Grand Destino Tower.
We stayed at Caribbean Beach.
And one time we did a trip and stayed at Swan and Dolphin.
And then the only value resort that we stayed at is Pop Century.
And I don't know because I've never stayed at the other value resorts, but I do love Pop Century.
So if I'm going to stay at a value resort, that is definitely my preference with the Skyliner.
And that's really my Disney story and how I came to love going to the Disney parks.
It really was building up, but it all boils down to that one trip in 2016 when it was five or six months after my mom had passed and gave me that chance to be in the Disney bubble and tune out everything in the world, all of the sadness that I had been experiencing and just really focus on happiness and joy and being with my family.
And ever since then, I've felt the same.
Every time I go to Disney World, I'm able to put everything aside.
I don't think about work very much, and I'm able to just enjoy myself and relax and have a fantastic time.
The reason that I started this podcast is because I really love talking Disney with people, and I listen to a lot of Disney podcasts, a ton, actually.
I listen to The Dis Unplugged.
I listen to WDW Prep School with Shannon Albert.
I listen to this Park Life podcast and so many more.
I have a ton of favorites that I have in my podcast apps.
And some of the episodes that I love the most are the episodes that are trip report podcasts.
And what I have found is that most of the podcasts that I like do a combination of Disney news, interviewing people who work at Disney or are affiliated with Disney in some way, or they're reviewing food or reviewing resorts.
And there aren't as many trip reports as I want there to be.
I mean, there's a lot out there, but I wanted something that was just sort of dedicated to trip reports.
And so this felt like a fun way to try to do that for myself, to get a chance to talk to other Disney fans, to talk to people who've been a lot or to talk to people who this is going to be their first trip and they're so excited about it.
So if you have a Disney trip that is coming up and you would like to be a guest on the podcast, there will be a link down in the show notes for my form.
Please fill it out.
As long as you haven't taken your trip yet and you would be available to do an interview before the trip and after the trip, then I would love to hear from you.
If your trip dates align with a podcast schedule, then we can set something up.
I would love to talk to you about your upcoming trip.
In addition to interviewing other people about the trips, if I have any trips coming up, I will certainly talk about them.
I've actually already done our big family trip for the year.
We always go in February, usually during Presidents Week.
And so this year we did go back to our home resort of Copper Creek over at Wilderness Lodge and had a wonderful week.
So it's another year until my big February trip.
And that February of 2024 trip will be so much fun because on that trip we're planning for my sister and her kids to join us.
And we'll get a two bedroom and it will be amazing.
Until then, I do have my annual pass.
So there's always a chance that I'll pop down for a weekend or so if I see a good price on a flight.
The only trip between now and next February that I know for a fact I have planned is that I'm going to be doing my very first solo trip in May.
So mid May, I will be going down by myself for the very first time.
A little bit of a split stay.
I will definitely give you more details about the trip and talk about what happens on the trip after the fact.
I will, in a sense, interview myself, I suppose, for that trip.
So that is all for now.
I do hope that you will join us again for another episode.
Please click like, subscribe, leave a review.
But most of all, continue to come back and listen and tell your friends.
That's really the best thing you can do to share this podcast with others.
Until next time, thanks for listening and keep daydreaming about where you want to be.