Where Does the Time Go…2023 Milestones and What We Have Coming for 2024

Where Does the Time Go…2023 Milestones and What We Have Coming for 2024

Hey everyone Dan Lesley back for another video this time we’re chatting about time and how it flies hey everybody all right so today we are talking all about the major Milestones from 2023 and the things we’re looking forward to for 2024 because it’s New Year’s Eve so Happy New

Year’s y’all Happy New Year’s this year has flown by and honestly like I can’t believe how much stuff has changed and happened since Co we are coming up on four years now since that thing that pandemic affected everyone’s lives so much I know it affected our Our Lives a

Ton um we have gone we have hello you’re being funny we have done so much since we moved down to Orlando we’ve done a bunch of videos on moving to Orlando and how that’s gone and everything and this is the first year that has really been like

Solidly like like we’ve lived here from start to finish um we feel like locals now like it is uh really becoming home here and I think that’s amazing and I want to celebrate some of these Milestones of everything we’ve done this year and everything we plan to do next

Year one of our goals whenever we moved here was to travel more and boy have we successfully done that in 20 23 so we went to Disneyland and to Alani over spring break earlier this year it was amazing and if you ever thinking to go

To Alani I think um that is such a nice little stop off for a couple of days at Disneyland just to kind of experience the parks and get your um your theme park in your rides your uh food all of that kind of stuff and then head over to

Alani and just relax it makes a lot of sense if you’re not already coming from the west coast and experienc a lot so for us we are very familiar and used to being at Disney world but it’s a 4 and 1/ half hour non-stop flight to LAX from

MCO once you’re at LAX it’s a very very short trip over to Anaheim uh to Disneyland and if you spend two or 3 days there it’s a nice break between that 4 and a half hour flight and then the six plus hour flight to Honolulu airport uh before making your way over

To Alani it’s such a good trip highly highly recommend that from there we did two cruises this summer we went to uh Alaska on Disney Cruise Line on the Wonder we did our 20-year V renewal so we’re celebrating that this year that was very special and a very cool way to

Celebrate that it was really really cool from the different uh Port Adventures to just seeing the mountains we did one uh Port Adventure which wasn’t really a port at all we actually got off the ship onto a smaller boat and took us back up into the fiords up like really close to

The glacier way closer than the Disney winter could ever go um cool and just to get to have our family and friends on board with us that was a really special uh occasion as well it was and then the next month we turned around and we went

To Europe and we did a 10day northern Europe Disney Dream Cruise on Disney Cruise Line obviously it was fantastic it was our first International Cruise it was a perfect way to do it on Disney Cruise Line um I I I highly recommend if you uh want to get the Nostalgia of

Disney but also explore the world to check that out as well yeah we got to spend a couple of days in London prior to going on that trip and see some great friends of our um and so it was just that was just kind of like a special add-on to that trip as

Well and then we did another Cruise because this is the year of cruising for us and we went on the Disney Fantasy over Thanksgiving which was really really cool to get to celebrate Thanksgiving on board a Disney ship we were on that ship with several friends

As well so uh we’ve had a lot of great um experiences traveling with other people this year as you know in addition to the great places we’ve been we’ve got to be with great people so if you are looking to plan your next magical vacation please reach out to us over at

Fantastical vacations we would love to help we plan Disney destinations including cruises uh Universal cruise lines and all-inclusive resorts then we went to uh Oklahoma twice we just got back yesterday actually from celebrating with our friends and family for Christmas in Oklahoma and then in early

November we went to Oklahoma to um uh I got inducted into the uh Broken Arrow High School band hall of fame in their inaugural class so was really really cool and a very very special moment for me so let’s talk about the business real quick we touched on several of these

Things when we did our 2-year update a couple of months ago um but we we had a number of Milestones with the business and a lot of that just kind of resolved itself at the end of the year when we got to see where everything settled out

Um we started a mentorship program this year which has been fantastic for the culture of the agency and for uh developing new agents which has been so so wonderful and then 17 of our agents have done so well um in their their uh Fantastical vacations Journey that they

Are actually senior agents and Premier agents which uh just demonstrates their proficiency and their dedication to helping their clients we are so proud of them and can’t wait to see where all of the agents go over this next year we accomplished two things this year that

We have been meaning to do it’s been on radar for years and years and years um a newsletter which uh is fantastic it is twice a month on the 15th and the last day of the month if you’d like to sign up for that visit us at Fantastical

Vacations.com and you can sign up for that newsletter uh we uh we share personal things we share uh Disney news Universal news and everything that’s going on which is um always new and exciting and the other thing was merchandise a lot of you have asked about addicted to the mouse

Merchandise um so we opened a store called addicted to the merch it is addicted tothe merch.com you can check it out right now if you’d like to but we have Fantastical vacations merchandise as well as addicted to the mouse merchandise over there yes and we couldn’t have done that without the help

Of of our growth coordinator that we brought on board this this year as well and so that has been uh she has been a great addition to the team and helping us out in accomplishing a lot of these goals that we haven’t been able to in

The past and we are almost done with our table service restaurant dining reviews this has been going on for almost 2 years we have got just uh one left I think two one or two left anyway we’re so excited because this is definitely not the end we are going to

Continue with dining reviews for not only Disney but we’re going to sprinkle in some Universal as we go so we’re going we’re excited to do Quick Service dining reviews over at Disney we’re excited to do specialty dining so like brunches and lounges at Disney and then we’re also going to start doing table

Service reviews over at Universal as well so if you like our dining reviews there is way more to come we will probably never stop these things they’re so fun for us to do as well so follow as we go along into 2024 because that is coming all right so personally we

Mentioned a lot of these in our 2-year update as well but here you go um we finished out some tattoos so Dan has finished both sleeves they look incredible you can’t see them right now look look how great they are um but he finished out uh both sleeves I got a

Couple of more but it’s been a a fun year of tattoos we’re taking a break um as well as our bank account is taking a break from that let’s go ahead and jump into 2024 and talk about what’s coming so for travel we don’t have everything

Planned just yet which is a little bit exciting and a little bit scary the first thing we are going to do however is go on another Disney Cruise Line Cruise so we’re going on a three night in just um a couple of days actually this will be our first Disney Cruise in

Coner so we wanted to do a short Cruise because it’s really expensive to sale concierge but we wanted to experience coner so we could bring that experience to you so we’re going to be doing a three night on the Disney wish um out of pork and Naval very very soon all right

So Dan and I were invited to experience the the preview cruise on icon of the Seas for Royal Caribbean so we’re experiencing that in later January as well I’m excited about this so we have never actually sailed Royal Caribbean we pretty much only sell Disney Cruise Line

We have selled other cruise lines in the past but we just love Disney so much so uh when we were invited on this uh because our because Fantastical vacations does sell quite a bit of Royal Caribbean so we were invited on this um we were excited to get on and who knows

Maybe we’ll fall in love with Royal Caribbean but um expect a short video on that from our experience for icon of the season and then in March we’re doing something a little different this year for spring break and we are actually going skiing we’re taking the boys

Skiing we didn’t know that this was a lifelong dream of theirs until we just kind of mentioned it one day and both of their eyes lit up and they were like we’ve always wanted to go skiing so we decided that we were going to uh just

Make a full trip of it and head out to Utah and experience a ski trip I don’t know how much content we’ll do from that trip because we don’t it doesn’t really align with the business and and theme parks and cruises and all of that so

We’ll see um we might want to preserve a couple memories in a video or something but uh there’s not going to be like a whole series on that from there in June we are going on another Disney Cruise Line sailing we’re going on the fantasy again we are going to a double dip

Cruise we’re going to Castaway Key once double dip triple dip triple dip and Lighthouse Point twice so in that cruise series we are going to be able to compare Disney Cruise Lines Castaway Key Private Island and Disney Cruise Lines whatever it is Lookout something at Lighthouse Lookout key at Lighthouse key

At Lighthouse Point so Lighthouse Point is their new Private Island I’m very very excited because we love cway key it’s one of our favorite Port ports to go on on Disney Cruise Line and so being able to go to a second Disney Cruise Line Private Island on the same cruise

And compare them I’m very much looking forward to that cannot wait then in July we want to go somewhere we haven’t totally figured this one out yet it may be another Disney cruise maybe a little Europe maybe an ABD I don’t know yet we’re still to around and talking that

Through but we’ll let you know whenever we figure it out and then we’re also going to go somewhere over uh Thanksgiving week because we used to kind of stay in and do Thanksgiving with family and Christmas with family but it’s just too much to go back like uh to

Oklahoma like a like several weeks apart just a month apart between Thanksgiving and Christmas so we like taking Thanksgiving for our family now and doing little excursions so two years ago we went to Disneyland last year we did the fantasy cruise I wouldn’t mind doing that again to be honest with you but

We’re going to do something over Thanksgiving um as a little getaway uh the only question mark right now which is probably why we haven’t gotten a little further down the planning process is Aiden’s college and his work schedule so real quick let’s touch on the business and then we’ll touch on

Personal so business-wise we’re going to continue what we’re doing we’re going to continue to grow and develop the culture of Fantastical vacation and take care of all of you wonderful clients thank you thank you thank you so much for trusting us with your magical vacations we cannot tell you how much we

Appreciate that we will continue the newsletter we will continue the merchandise store um and then we will continue to bring you uh as much content as we possibly can so that you can make some informed choices on your next trip yes and we had such great growth this

Last year particularly in our um with our agency with our um agents that we’ve brought on board that we are having our next next Fantastical vacations agency meeting at Walt Disney World we do this annually but I’m so excited about it just because I can’t wait to get to

Interact in person with all of these um wonderful amazing advisers and get to experience Disney World together and just get to know each other a little bit more than you can behind a screen whenever you’re you know doing a zoom meeting or a zoom happy hour or whatever

Okay let’s talk personal stuff real quick so things that have uh come up over the last couple of months jinnings has developed an interest in theater musical theater to be exact he has been in drama this whole semester and he uh was toying around with the idea of uh

Trying out for the Middle School Musical which is anything goes this year uh so that developed into like diligently practicing the song that he had to prepare for this thing and we just found out that he got one of the leads in anything goes so we’re super super proud

Of him cannot wait to see that yes it is just he I can’t wait to see his little light shine up on stage he’s this going to be amazing and then Aiden is graduating from high school crazy how is it even possible I remember details from

Him being a baby and now he’s getting ready to flee The Nest so uh fortunately he’s not going too far he is going to start college at University of Central Florida next year so he’ll just be down the highway from us but he is going to

Um plan on living on campus and so you know it’ll things will change and we keep talking about how life is going to look with you know in our household without him here coming home every night so it’s going to be weird yeah I think the biggest uh change is going to be

He’s probably going to um he’s going he wants to be a scare actor for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights next next fall so I think once he moves on that side of Orlando and he’s closer to Universal and he’s going through classes uh that align with that career path I

Think he’s probably going to try to do that so we will see what we can do for the Thanksgiving holiday if he is working uh if he’s working for Universal if he can get that week off that’s you know we we may not be able to do a

Family of four weekl long vacation for Thanksgiving so uh that’s definitely going to affect what we do for the Thanksgiving holiday I think definitely uh the three of us um we’ll we’ll still do something but uh we’ll see if Aiden’s uh able to join us or if we’ll have to

Link up for the holiday once we get back yeah it’s going to be such a year of transition for us uh personally I think so it’s it’s uh thankfully hopefully everything else will kind of stay stable and just um continue to grow and and all of that but it’s definitely going to be

A weird year of transition for for our family I I don’t know I don’t know where the time goes to be honest with you like it feels like yesterday that we were looking for this house it feels like uh you know a couple of days ago that you

Know we were talking about starting a travel agency and naming it Fantastical vacations and moving to Orlando and it definitely does not feel like 2 years ago that we actually moved down here and moved our lives and um it it has gone by fast it’s been wonderful yes I cannot

Wait to see where the next two four years go decade however long like I just I am so having fun doing um life and and seeing where this takes us yep but right now I’m going to focus on 2024 so happy New Year to everyone out there I hope

You’ve had a safe and happy holiday and that 2024 only brings you joy and happiness and good things as well so if you are liking this video please hit that like And subscribe button so you don’t miss the next one happy New Year everyone we will see you on the next Video

From epic adventures and personal life changes to business milestones and where we are headed, this is everything that has happened this year and what is coming in 2024!

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