8 Days: Disney Visa Rocks

We're terrible about discovering and utilizing the perks and rewards and discounts available through our Disney Visa, but even so, we are taking advantage of a few this year, including a couple of meet-n-greets exclusive to card holders. I bring this up because they've just moved the Epcot meet and greet location from Innoventions West to the Imagination Pavilion, and the new spot looks awesome!

We also saved 15% on our Keys to the Kingdom Tour by utilizing a Disney Visa discount I didn't even know existed until the cast member asked me if I was a cardholder. That's a decent bit of change, really. The card also gets you discounts at Disney Stores all over as well as many merchandise locations in the parks. Many restaurants, including the wonderful Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, offer a Disney Visa discount. I had no idea it could have saved us 10% at Artist Point last fall, which also would have been a not insignifcant amount of money.

The card also racks up Disney Dollars, redeemable for purchases throughout the parks and Disney Stores worldwide. I have no idea how many we've accumulated. I figure I'll check when I start planning our next adults only, non-park trip.

We've used the card's early shot at the Free Dining discount before, and many if not ll discounts are offered for a few days to cardholders prior to the general public. That's really helpful in getting the room you like in the resort you most prefer.

Here's a link to the Disney Visa site explaining all the perks and discounts. Give it a look, you might just find a way to save yourself some money!

The Just Us, No Parks, No Schedule 20th Anniversary 2015 Disney World Trip

This trip was just for us. For my sweety and me. Go ahead, gag, It's ok. She's my sweety though and I'm happy to say so. After 20 years of marriage, we are still very much in love, still enjoy each other's company over others', still giggle over stupid stuff, still love simply being around each other. And where better to be around each other than Walt Disney World?

Spoiler Alert! I got my mug

We even enjoy the car ride. It's a chance to talk :-)

This trip came about in classic Lisa and Jeffrey fashion. I was seeing photos from the newly opened Trader Sam's Grog Grotto and they included a souvenir mug shaped like the Nautilus. I HAD TO have one. We had some friends heading down to Disney World in November so I asked them to try to pick one up for me. But when I told Lisa, she was all like, "Hey, why don't WE go down for our anniversary and get one for you?" The boy told us since it was our anniversary trip, we should go without him. And so the Just Us, No Parks, No Schedule Disney Anniversary Weekend 2015 was born.

We always leave the driving to Disney

Lisa and I grew up in Pennsylvania, so the novelty of being able to leave home at breakfast time and eat dinner in Disney World has never worn off. And probably it won't ever, to be honest. We packed up, took the boy to the bus stop (it was raining) and left the island by 7:00. After a new-GPS-inspired detour to the Kissimmee DMV office, we found Pop Century Resort and were walking in the front doors by about 5:00. We had a plan to do the monorail bar tour Friday night, bum around the pool Saturday morning then hit the brand spanking new Jack Lindsey's Hanger Bar for lunch and cocktails, then have a look around Wilderness Lodge before our 7:30 Artist's Point ADRs and hopefully catching the electrical water pageant from the Wilderness Lodge beach. That was the extent of our plans. They included no parks and only one dining reservation, and that only because we wanted to make sure of a table at a nice place for a sort of anniversary celebration dinner. And this all
worked out PERFECTLY!

Having the window seat meant Lisa was on photo duty

We're on a boat!!!!!!

In the coming days and weeks I'll be blogging about all the different aspects of our trip. For now the short version is this--we completed the monorail bar tour including drinking with a retired Imagineer and experiencing Trader Sam's complete with Nautilus mug, we chilled at the pool reading books, we explored the new Hanger Bar, we loved Wilderness Lodge and Artist Point, we saw both the fireworks and water parade from the beach, and we got some very relaxed shopping time in at Downtown Disney before leaving in time to arrive home by 10:00 pm Sunday night.

We spent about 20 hours driving and pretty much exactly 46 on Disney property. There are those who

Jock Lindsey's Hanger Bar is PERFECT

would think that nuts. But for us it was a dream. We relaxed and unwound after a crazy summer, we enjoyed each other's company talking and laughing our way from doorstep to doorstep, we took a ton of photos, we people watched, we ate and drank without worrying about a DD, we rode the monorail and several different boats, we tried out a new resort and quite a few new bars and restaurants. We simply had a ball doing what WE wanted to do when we wanted to do it.....together.

People can decide to celebrate a big milestone anniversary many ways.

We chose wisely.