October 2024 - Marco Island & Disney with Blake and Stilyana

Source: Disney October 2024 - Blake.html

October 2024

October 22nd - November 3rd

Marco Island trip, swim with Manatees

Disney World with Blake and Stilyana

Ok another trip another story of who, when, where, why! We really enjoyed our beach trip in spring of 2022 but I also wanted to go back to Disney too of course. So, I thought why not do both and just have one flight to Florida but get it all done on the same trip.

I had talked to Blake on the phone in early spring of this year 2023 and he had mentioned if we decide to go to Disney in the spring or fall some time to let him know because they'd really like to join us. Well, Olivia and I were planning on going for a short girls only trip around Memorial Day weekend coming up but this fall trip wasn't even planned yet. Once I started planning it, I thought of Blake and I also knew this trip was going to be just me and Alan and I thought that would be a good time for Blake to join because not as big of a group and won't be as chaotic. I called him on the phone to invite him but before I could do it, he mentioned to me that they were going overseas the last two weeks in Oct to visit Stilly's family. Well, that was the time of our trip so I didn't even mention it because they had other plans.

I never hear from Blake in the summer because he's busy but he was planning a trip home to visit in Sept and so we had talked I think sometime in August about his trip home and I mentioned Alan and I going to Florida in October and he got a bitchy tone to his voice and said Well we would have liked to join you but you never invited us! This caught me off guard because I had called to invite him months ago but he said they were going to see her family. It turns out that trip is now cancelled and they are available. I didn't invite them while on that phone call. Instead, I hung up and festered about it for a while. I talked to Alan and was a bit made that Blake had an attitude with me when it was not my fault, he changes his plans so often. I listed the pros and cons to Alan and said should I invite him? I said if you invited one of your siblings to join our vacation, I wouldn't be happy so what do you think? he acted like it was no big deal and I kept reminding him traveling with other people you never know what you'll get! I was also in a head spin trying to decide if I should invite him on the ENTIRE trip including the beach or just the Disney portion? After much discussion with Alan where he was less then helpful and with Olivia, I decided its Disney that they can't do on their own and they need me for. They can go on a beach trip on their own any time they want so I called Blake and invited them to join us at Disney! WOW that was nerve wracking. I had also looked up some prices and gave him all that info too and then told him to think about it and let me know. He was bummed that our hotel Pop Century was already booked up and they wouldn't be able to stay at the same place. But it was at this point probably early September with the trip at the end of Oct.

After several phone calls back and forth with him some of which we'd hang up with him saying they probably weren't going to go and then calling me back and saying yes, he really wants to finally we booked his trip. I think the thing that made him cave in was that a discount was released that included $60 a day dining credit at value resorts so that would help with some of their food costs and plus he kept saying when will I ever get the chance to go to Disney with you again.

So, I signed him up with a Disney account and made him an email that I would have access to and got it all booked. He booked their flights and it was set. He then came home for a week at the end of Sept and stayed at my house and I saw a side of him that scared the hell out of me and that 1st night after he went to bed I literally cried and said WHAT have I done including him on our vacation and I was very happy he wasn't joining in in on the beach portion. He just drinks way too much!! I'll leave it at that.

Ok, back to the regularly scheduled trip. Alan and I are flying into Sarasota instead of Ft Myers because the prices for SW flights was much cheaper and good flight times. Also, Ft Myers airport is about an hour drive to Marco Island and Sarasota will be about a two-hour drive so only one hour longer anyway. I spent literally so much time looking at flights and point amounts and trying to pick days, times and cities it is just ridiculous.

While we are in Marco we will be staying at the Holiday Inn Club Vacations Sunset Cove Resort. All the rooms are three-bedroom condos and are about 1600 sq ft! This seems excessive and stupid for just the two of us but that's all they have. Earlier in the summer we signed up for a Holiday Inn visa card that came with a hell of a lot of points and we used them for a trip to Denver/Cheyenne for Shae'lees wedding in August and we are using them for 4 nights here and also one night in Crystal River after we leave Marco. It was a heck of a deal because the room we got here runs around $500-$550 a night! We got it for 35,000 points per night for this huge condo. Most Holiday Inn Express hotels are around 20-25,000 points and most fancy Holiday Inn Resorts (on a beach or something) are about 50,000 points a night so this was an awesome deal for points.

I was able to book the free points room for Sunday Oct 22nd- Thursday Oct 26th. Arriving at this hotel on a Sunday gave me difficulty in deciding to fly down on Saturday and stay somewhere else that night or just wait and fly down on Sunday? Well, I chose Sunday which I thought Alan seemed to like because no rushing but it turned out to be a mistake and we should have just left on Saturday because we were excited and packed and ready to GO!

Saturday Oct 21st

This turned out to be stupid because on Saturday we were going to drive to Indy and spend the night and it was a waste of time. We got up did our usual stuff and our last-minute packing and then we were ready to go and it was barely noon. But what the heck were we going to do in Indianapolis on Saturday besides just go to our hotel and sit! We ended up leaving town at 1:20 because that was as long as we could hold ourselves off. We arrived in Plainfield at 4:45pm Indiana time. Made a stop at Target where I bought a two pack of mini socks and then he ran into Kroger to check for Hot Wheels. My stomach hadn't felt great (nerves I assume) and so I hadn't eaten lunch today. I thought we'd go somewhere for a sit-down dinner because we've got nothing else to do all evening but nope, we went to Chick-fil-a and ate inside. We both just got the 8-piece nuggets so we could stop at the decent looking Long John Silvers next door for some hush puppies when we were done. That turned out to be a good decision they were very good but we only got 6 total and defiantly would have liked more.

Our hotel for the night wasn't in Plainfield it was over on the other side of the airport where there are no stores or restaurants so we drove over there and checked in. We were staying at the Hyatt Place which we used points for and paid $40 to park your car up to TWO WEEKS! Wow that was a deal!

Once we got to the room, we just both sat on the sofa watching TV and messing on our phones it was BORING! And I just kept thinking as I heard the planes taking off and landing that we could and should have just gotten an afternoon or evening flight out today. Good grief!