You Want to Stay Where?! A July PTR* TR LINK 8/8!

shan23877

I make lists about my lists
Joined
Jul 9, 2011
Hello Friends! And Welcome to my first official Pre Trip Report

I’m Shannon, the mommy, planner, OCD ADR freak, reality TV junkie (Kristen was robbed on Top Chef! Teams Project Runway? Really? Amanda Brown should have won the Voice!), sports fan (ILL-INI! Go Cubs!) and of course WDW fan.


I'm on the left ;)


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This is my DH Bryan. He enjoys playing golf, Risk-type games on his iPad, watching the History Channel, and lurking on my Trip Reports.


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And the real star of the show is our majorly Disney obsessed soon to be 6 year old Princess Maddie. If it’s pink and sparkly it’s for her. She loves doing craft projects, playing with her princess dolls (too many to count), and already considers herself a WDW expert. (Today’s game involved saying the name of a ride at WDW and the quizzee had to name the park in which it’s located) This year she decided that the fair way to plan our vacation was to give her parents a choice. We could either visit WDW at spring break or summer break.


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Unfortunately it wasn’t that easy. Of course I had hoped that his trip would happen and had begun doing some initial research and planning just a few months after our last trip. However, since we moved and started new jobs this year we just weren’t sure a WDW vacation was in the cards.

By now though we’ve settled in, and we’re excited to report that we’ll be headed back to Walt Disney World again this year.

To add some excitement to the PTR I’d like to steal Marissa and Stringbean’s “Guess the ADRs Game” (patent pending). However, we have 16 ADR and plans for 4 Counter service for this trip. I don’t think it would be much fun to try to guess all of them at once, so I was thinking that as I begin to breakdown each day’s plans I’ll let you know how many ADR we have for that day, and you can guess each day’s individually. I’d love your feedback (choices would include Boo! Games are stupid! **Yay!!! An ADR Game!, this is how I think we should play it…** or I really don’t care, just tell us already.)

And don’t worry! There will be plenty to keep us entertained until it’s WDW time. I’ll be able to share Maddie’s reaction when we finally tell her, a trip to American Girl, Easter, dance recital, and of course the shopping. I already have over $500 worth of merchandise “favorited” on DisneyStore.com.

Join us, won’t you?
 
When I first started planning this trip I decided to see what it would cost us to stay at a Deluxe. I feel that Bryan really agrees to these trips for Maddie and I (he enjoys WDW, but isn’t opposed to vacationing elsewhere occasionally), so I was thinking that it might be nice to stay his dream resort.

Initial research proved that the Beach Club was out of our budget, so I started looking into other options. Having followed several TRs in which the vacationers rented DVC points, I decided to look into it myself. I perused the DVC postings here on the DIS, but was immediately made nervous. It seemed to me that most of the people offering up their points for purchase had just a few postings here on the DIS, and my main concern in renting was that we’d be bamboozled. On the advice of friends here, I looked to David’s Vacation Rentals. His website is really easy to use, and I was tickled pink to find that we could not only afford to stay in a Studio at the Beach Club, we could do it for less than we’d pay to stay at Caribbean Beach!

I was still apprehensive though. At the top of my worry list was the fact that we wouldn’t be booking this trip until 6 months out, and that no rooms at the Beach Club would be available. I decided that BLT would be my second choice (the walk to the MK is quite desirable to me), and that the BWI would be our third choice. We stayed at the Boardwalk on our honeymoon and loved it, but I was concerned that the pool wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as SAB. SAB was one of the main draws for me at the BC.

Since I had concerns, I did what any good DISer would and began to price moderate resorts through Disney too. I looked into prices for CBR (I really loved it there), POFQ (Bryan really loved it there) and POR (Maddie would likely love a princess room there).

Then, I started the spreadsheets. One thing that we could agree on was that we’d be doing DxDP again. So, I made spreadsheets of possible ADRs based on each resort location. (I’m not crazy right? You’d all do the same thing?) Having done all of that I just needed to wait for Bryan to come around and tell me to book the darn thing.

Finally during the first week of January, Bryan caved to the constant pressure of his wife and daughter. He gave me a surprising amount of input concerning the dates we’d be traveling, the ADRs we’d try for, and the resort that he’d like to stay at.

This trip is 6 months away. You know I can’t give everything away yet! Stay tuned and I’ll reveal where we’ll be staying!

 
I'm here! Yayay another trip!pixiedust:

I love the idea of an ADR game! Don't know how it should be played but I love the idea.

Can't wait to see where you end up staying! Personally I hope it's the Beach Club- it looks amazing!

P.S. Maddie's spring vs. summer break options, of course, were perfectly reasonable ;)
 


Girl, you know I wouldn't miss this for the world! There is nothing wrong with lists, lists for lists and don't even get me started on the beloved spreadsheet:cloud9:
 
Hello! I'm o excited you decided to start a PTR! I followed along with your trip reports and figured I'd come out of lurkdom for this one :). I like the idea of the ADR game - should be fun!
 


I'm in! I love games and am especially fond of games involving food, restaurants, or a delicious combination of both! I can't wait to find out where you are staying and am so looking forward to Maddie's reaction.
 
I'm so curious as to where you are going to stay!!!

Are you going to give us clues for you ADR game? You could even do a guess the resort game!
 
Looking forward to this one. Read your previous one and enjoyed it! (Oh, and i totally agree with you about Kristen being robbed. Josie angers me everytime I see her face:furious:)
 
Hello Friends! And Welcome to my first official Pre Trip Report

And don’t worry! There will be plenty to keep us entertained until it’s WDW time. I’ll be able to share Maddie’s reaction when we finally tell her, a trip to American Girl, Easter, dance recital, and of course the shopping. I already have over $500 worth of merchandise “favorited” on DisneyStore.com.

Join us, won’t you?

Yeah! So glad you're doing a PTR! Can't wait to hear all about your plans! And, can't believe I'm on the first page! :cool1:

Here's some pixiedust: Karen
 
OF COURSE I'M HERE! I would go into Maddie withdrawals without it!

I will go ahead and tell you that I stink at ADR games, but I'm going to give it a try anyway. I may just put down character meals for every one:lmao:.

Maybe I should look into renting points...hmmm...Brandon will be so pleased with you;).
 
Joining in! I really enjoyed reading your last trip report and am looking forward to hearing all about this next trip too!

I will be taking my 3 princess-obsessed daughters (and my son too!) to WDW for the first time in Sept :dance3:
 
YAAAAY for new plans, so excited, UGH! 16 ADRS?!?! WHAT? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say one of them is gonna be for Be Our Guest…

Dear God, I just popped over to that DVC renting points website and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to use that for my next trip! Hands down!! Like, 1500 for Bay Lake Tower, YES PLEASE! Looks like my next trip with Mom will actually be at a deluxe! I like how easy the website is to use, THANK YOU for posting about it!

Ah!! That’s so not enough information for now! Lawl, you best be doing lots of real life updates to keep us all update on life and the excited plans for Disney. Eeek, this is awesome, I’m excited to read more!!
 

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