Shopaholic, Workaholic & Bargain Betty Take On WDW A DM/DD TR-Last Day!

[PrincessCaitlin]

Hi and welcome to our pre-trip report! We are mother and daughter dissers and we're writing a joint report. Let us introduce ourselves...

Shopaholic- Caitlin DD of Bargain Betty and Workaholic. This will be my 8th time going to Disney World !!! I am currently attend Eastern Michigan University where I am in the student alumni organization and I am a field reporter for Eastern Weekly tv show. My major is communications/theater and my minor is currently undecided. I hope to go into Broadcasting. I am addicted to the Disboards. My mom signed me up and now everyday you can find me up late reading trip reports.
My favorite Disney character is Belle and my favorite Disney movie is obviously Beauty and the Beast . One of my many favorite Disney moments would have to be meeting Corbin Bleu on Mission Space!


Bargain Betty- I'm Dawn (dawnbu40) DM of Caitlin and wife to Workaholic. I am a SAHM and have been since Caitlin was 1. I am addicted to the disboards especially the BUDGET BOARD! I have learned so much from the ladies on that board and now get daily freebies as well as frequent House Parties and I've become a bzzagent. My first visit to WDW was when I was 5 and it was love at first sight! I remember getting a kiss from Mickey and feeling like he was a movie star. I have returned to WDW 11 times and I still get teary eyed when I see the castle. My favorite movies are The Little Mermaid ( I cry at the end when King Triton says how much he's going to miss her) and Mary Poppins. I love the strong heroines in those films and all the amazing music! I have way too many good memories from the last 37 years to pick one favorite memory of WDW.


Workaholic-Dale is DH to Dawn and DD to Caitlin. He is a retail manager (lucky for us his company sales continue to remain strong) and works A LOT! He is scheduled for 50 hours a week (and puts in more) and when you add the hour commute each way it means he is "at work" more than he is home. We love our family vacations at WDW because it allows us good quality family time and a lot of wonderful memories. Dale's favorite character is Buzz and the first time he met Buzz (1996) his face lit up like he was 6 years old! It was adorable! He always looks forward to the good food and good MaiTais at WDW.

Pics of the cast

Shopaholic and Bargain Betty (both pictures are from Shopaholics graduation party)

Shopaholic and Workaholic

In 2008 we were very lucky to visit twice. We went in April for Caitlin's graduation and then went without Dale in December for a "Girls only" trip with DG. When we got back Dale felt really left out and began saying he needed a "Disney fix" but we weren't sure if we should spend the money. Well after doing our taxes and thanks to the credit for college students we decided a trip was in order!! So we are headed back May 6-13. We are staying at the Pop since we decided to TRY and make this a "budget" trip and it seems to be well reviewed on these boards. Dale is very apprehensive about staying at a value because he HATES ASMo. Hopefully the dissers won't steer us wrong!






Our plans for day 1 come up next!!!

 

[DWGal210]

Looks good so far! A Dis family - I love it!

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

Looks good so far! A Dis family - I love it!

Thank you we hope you stick around

Day 1 of our Disney Adventure plans

[ Our plane leaves Detroit at 7:30 and we arrive at the Orlando airport at 11:55 if all goes on schedule.

We hope to arrive at POP Century by 1:00

and we plan on having lunch at the POP food court because by 1 o'clock in the afternoon we will be starving!!!!

I can't wait to try the tye dyed cheesecake! Are there any suggestions for what to eat the POP food court?

We will be going to the Animal Kingdom after lunch for the pm EMHs.

Out of all of the times I have been to WDW and to the Animal Kingdom I have never seen Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade! We usually are done at AK much earlier than the 3:45 parade time since we always arrive at rope drop. I am very excited to see the parade and I can't wait!

If you know of a good viewing spot for the parade please tell us

Up next what Day 2 has in store for us

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

Hey all you lurkers! Pull up a keyboard and let's chat about the land of happiness, dole whips and the only Mouse we want in our house!

Anyway Shopaholic here we got some really bad news yesterday

Our flight home was changed from 6:50 to 12 noon

Very coincidental since I had just called yesterday to add an 8th day onto our park tickets

We are all pretty upset since we will be losing an entire day at Disney

But the good news is on our first day we are going to Boma!

I have never been there before but I have seen lots of food porn involving those sexy little devils better known as ZEBRA DOMES! Ooo I am a total foodie and I am so excited to try those.

Just wanted to update you guys

Hope to hear from you lurkers

ttyl

 

[OhMari]

Call your airline,
just because they moved you to an earlier flight, doesn't mean you have to take it.
See what other flights they have and they should be able to move you to the flight you want.

I am going to move you to our Pre-trip board.
When you come back from WDW, give me a PM and I'll move you back to this board.

Happy planning.

 

[bitohoney]

I'm here! I'd be bummed too about the later arrival! Maybe see if there'a a park with late EMH that evening.
I added an 8th day to my upcoming trip in April!

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

Call your airline,
just because they moved you to an earlier flight, doesn't mean you have to take it.
See what other flights they have and they should be able to move you to the flight you want.

I am going to move you to our Pre-trip board.
When you come back from WDW, give me a PM and I'll move you back to this board.

Happy planning.

Thank you

Yeah we tried to look up Spirits flight plan and the reason they changed ours is because now they are only doing one flight in and out of Orlando a day!

I'm here! I'd be bummed too about the later arrival! Maybe see if there'a a park with late EMH that evening.
I added an 8th day to my upcoming trip in April!

Awesome I am happy you could join us!

Aww Yay dancing banana for you!

We are thinking about adding park hopping onto our tickets so we could still manage to get everything done that we had originally planned on.
Park hopping is a pretty big deal in my family since we haven't gotten in the past few times we have been to WDW

 

[dawnbu40]

Bargain Betty's Back.....Well I've been letting little Miss Shopaholic aka my DD Caitlin do the posting lately so I guess it's my turn to add an update. In her last post Caitlin mentioned we've decided to get Park Hoppers and that this is a "big deal" in our family. I'd like to clarify this because we always used PH passes until our last 2 trips. For last April's trip I used one of "those sites you pay to help you plan" the vacation. The site I used is adamant that you shouldn't spend the money on hoppers so I followed the plans and didn't (and had no regrets). Then when we went back in Dec. it was a quicky trip with my DM and I knew she'd be too tired to park hop. So this trip I am not following anyone's touring plans but my own as I have a pretty good idea how to see the parks after so many visits. I have used the UG to decide which parks we will visit which days for this trip though. I have found the best parks advice extremely valuable on our last 2 trips and it really helped to avoid terrible crowds at Christmas!

 

[dawnbu40]

Well now that we know what we're doing arrival day its time to plan our first full day back at the Wonderful World of Disney. Day 2 will begin bright and early with Tink gifts followed by breakfast at our very favorite character meal which is the yummy Akerhaus in Norway! We ate there in December for the first time and loved the food and the character interaction. We found the princesses to be much lovelier and more engaging than at CRT so this was the first ADR we made for this trip. This will be Workaholic's first visit to Akerhaus and I know he'll enjoy seeing his favorite princess Jasmine.After our great breakfast we will tour Future World and then World Showcase when it opens at 11. Our favorites in FW are The Living Seas and Test Track. (I don't do Soarin since I get a tad bit of motion sickness on certain rides. ) For pure cheesiness factor we never skip Journey Into Imagination. You gotta love Figment! We always leave that ride singing In FW our plan is to actually watch the movies this time! We have never seen the films in Canada or France. We've always skipped these but I am bound and determined to catch them this time around. I also want to take time for the live entertainment around the world. In Dec. we loved all the Holiday Storytellers! Lunch/Dinner will be counter service. I am a huge fish & chip fan so I will be dining in England and DH wants to try Morrocco (must be that Jasmine thing)Little Shopaholic wants to sample the world so she will be eating EVERYWHERE! She's a teeny tiny eating machine! We may or may not head back to the Pop for an afternoon break and we aren't sure if we'll do Illuminations. Somethings just have to be left for improvising. If you have any suggestions for our Epcot day please share! We love learning from our fellow dissers!

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

Shopaholic "the teeny tiny eating machine" here

I am very excited about going to Epcot!

I loved the Princess breakfast last year! The cheese they had on the cold buffet was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

I love the nachos over in Mexico so I have decided that instead of eating my way through the world ( I want to save that for when I finally get a chance to go to the F&W Festival) I want to buy candy from each country. I am not sure if every country has candy though I just know I want the same thing from each of the countries anyway.

When we went last April my mom and I bought my dad this cheese plate in Paris. O man did he and I love it! It has become tradition to buy one every time we go My dad didn't come with us in December so I bought one took a pic of it with my phone and sent it to him I am excited for us to be able to eat it again since I found out it's kind of big for just one person

I am a huge fan of Soarin' and probably one of the few people on DISboards who hates the first row! Seriously you are up so high! If you are looking for a scarier version of Soarin' then go ahead but I think I will stick to seeing people's feet

I am also excited to ride this with my dad! He and I are the ride junkies and I had to go solo for most of the rides last time Although I did get my grandma to go on Soarin' with me but not before she freaked out and almost chickened out at the front of the line but she toughed it out

I didn't use to be a huge fan of Epcot but it has grown on me and I am looking forward to returning to it

 

[AlohaPolynesian]

You two are adorable and I your plans look so fun!

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

You two are adorable and I your plans look so fun!

Thank you I am going over now to check out your pre trippie

 

[tinkgurl]

Just wanted to say I just found this TR and I'm hooked!

 

[AlohaPolynesian]

Thank you I am going over now to check out your pre trippie

Thanks girl! And ummmm let me say how jealous I am that you met CORBIN BLEU!!!! I want to hear all about it!!

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

Just wanted to say I just found this TR and I'm hooked!

Aww thank you so much! You don't know how excited I am that we actually have posters

Thanks girl! And ummmm let me say how jealous I am that you met CORBIN BLEU!!!! I want to hear all about it!!

Okay cue the flashback music

In April 2007 we went to Disney. I honestly had never watched HSM until two weeks prior to us leaving and I had also watched Jump In! Well also prior to our trip my dad had to be rushed to the emergency room due to a heart attack. This will have relevance I promise.

Anyways my dad and I go to ride Mission Space at Epcot. Now my mom was really nervous about us going on it because it says "DO NOT RIDE if you have a heart condition" but my dad is not the type to let something like that get him down so we rode it anyway. We get in line and I look over at the other line because there are two men standing between two CMs. I look at the dad and I knew I knew him from somewhere but couldn't place exactly where. So I start thinking about it and I realize "OMG IT'S CORBIN BLEU'S DAD!!!! So I look at the other guy, who I realized was Corbin, with this goofy smile on my face. I can only imagine what he thought . Anyway he smiled at me and said "Hi." It was pretty amazing

So I get off the ride and run to go tell my mom who I just met. I run ahead of my dad and by the time I get to my mom I am out of breath and sort of hysterical. My mom had been talking to a survey CM and she is freaking out because I can't speak and she thought my dad had just had a heart attack on the ride. Once my dad caught up and I caught my breath we told her.

Now the Disney Stars had all been there for the Disney Games and during the Disney Games Corbin had a music video with him at the Animal Kingdom wearing the exact same clothes I saw him in!

It was pretty exciting

Also the next day we ran into Brenda Song (London from the Suite Life with Zach and Cody) filming a Disney 365 so that was also pretty cool

 

[tinkgurl]

Oh my gosh! You met Corbin?! How awesome is that?!

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

Oh my gosh! You met Corbin?! How awesome is that?!

I know

I have now gone to both of his concerts and I plan on continuing to go to every one he has in the Detroit area

He is just as cute in person

 

[tinkgurl]

He is just as cute in person

Is he?!

Hey if you're bored sometime, head over to my '08 TR and catch up on my '09 PTR!

 

[AlohaPolynesian]

WOW - SO JEALOUS! How was Brenda?? She's so cute! I want to meet Ashley Tisdale and ummm Zac Efron lol

 

[PrincessCaitlin]

Is he?!

Hey if you're bored sometime, head over to my '08 TR and catch up on my '09 PTR!

Oh yeah he is ha ha and his music ain't half bad either


I will do that right now!

WOW - SO JEALOUS! How was Brenda?? She's so cute! I want to meet Ashley Tisdale and ummm Zac Efron lol

She seemed really cute from what I saw she was in the fenced in courtyard in front of the castle so we just watched and when I watched it on tv I guess she stuck around to give people autographs

Ha yeah it would be cool to meet them too. Although out of the HSM boys my heart belongs to Corbin