Family Vacation: We Must Be Crazy - A November PTR 11/06 - Conclusion!

deedee2177 · Jul 31, 2015

Our last trip in April 2014 was the first time we worked in a break every day...we had a 2 year old (my son) and 2 Grandmas with us so the break was a must. I ended up LOVING the break in the middle of the day. I have worked in a couple breaks on this Honeymoon Redo Trip even though it will be just me and DH.

I'm trying to tackle my day to day plan right now for our November Trip...it would help if I would stop changing my ADRs!!!

MarieLightning · Aug 1, 2015

deedee2177 said:
Our last trip in April 2014 was the first time we worked in a break every day...we had a 2 year old (my son) and 2 Grandmas with us so the break was a must. I ended up LOVING the break in the middle of the day. I have worked in a couple breaks on this Honeymoon Redo Trip even though it will be just me and DH.

I'm trying to tackle my day to day plan right now for our November Trip...it would help if I would stop changing my ADRs!!!

It definitely makes it a lot more relaxing when you take time to relax in the middle of the day! Somehow, we typically just can't bring ourselves to do it though. We're just always go go go commando style, which maybe we need to adjust on because it does make us pretty exhausted by the end of the week. I just hate the idea that we missed out on anything. But it'll definitely be necessary for the kids at the very least.

I guess that's the advantage of having very few ADRs!

We go those which we knew for sure we wanted so we don't have to worry about moving them around. Hopefully you'll get to a point that makes you satisfied soon so that you can get everything planned out to your heart's content!

MarieLightning · Aug 1, 2015

Mousekeeping Designs In Progress!

Anyone that has followed through with some previous Trip Reports will know that I've developped a habit of making tipping envelopes for our Mousekeepers!

I'm not entirely sure what started it off. I think it was probably spurred by other printing cute designs to bring along, or even just putting stickers to make their tipping offering prettier.

These past few trips, I've been going with themes. That wasn't a concern the first time around - I just picked characters, found images on the internet to copy from and drew away!

Then in May 2014, I decided I should pick more of a theme seeing as I had to make envelopes for two rooms. I went with baby Fab 5 and Winnie the Pooh characters for one room, and Mickey heads designed after Princesses for the other!

I followed through with the latter theme in September, finding more Mickey head designs for duos. I think those have been some of my favorites thus far!

I know some people probably think it weird or crazy to put time and effort in designing an envelope that'll pretty much just end up in the trash. But there's just something enjoyable to it, to spending some time designing it and drawing it all, because it's one more thing Disney related to pass the time until we get close to our trip.

Plus, I like to think it makes the Mousekeepers smile when they come across it!

So this year, this is the course I chose to take with my Mousekeeping tipping envelopes!

These are still a work in progress. I have yet to figure out how to complete them, though!

My initial though was to just color them in all black, but I like having a bit of color. Then I thought about maybe just picking one color for each character, and doing a gradient with darker on the edges until it gets lighter in the middle. I'm a little worried about messing it up though, because I definitely don't want to do the drawing process again!

Initially I had thought of making envelopes for the rest of the family in the other rooms as well, but that would mean an additional 21 envelopes, and quite frankly, I'm not even sure what their policy of tipping will be for Mousekeeping, so it's not really worth the work.

I do have a few more crafty projects to work on though, so hopefully I'll be keeping myself busy before we get ourselves ready to go!

deedee2177 · Aug 3, 2015

Your designs look great!!!!! I agree a bit of color would be nice, but I'm sure whatever you end of doing well be great!

MarieLightning · Aug 3, 2015

deedee2177 said:
Your designs look great!!!!! I agree a bit of color would be nice, but I'm sure whatever you end of doing well be great!

Thank you! I'm trying to think of the best way to incorporate color, hopefully I'll figure it out soon

And obviously I'll post the end result once it's done!

MarieLightning · Aug 3, 2015

More Park Time? More Food? Why Not!

Although this is a family trip and we are looking forward to spending lots of time with everyone, our plans do include some alone time for me and Amber!

Mostly, that alone time comes into play on travel days for the family, as although we are flying, everybody else is driving down from Michigan.

We fly in late on Friday the 6th of November, which means we will have the whole of the 7th at leisure!

Our return on the 15th is also a late flight, leaving from Orlando Airport just a little before 9 PM, so while everyone will pack up and get on the road earlier in the day, we'll have some time for one last partial park day.

Originally, we actually hadn't planned it like this, because there was some confusion about our tickets.

See, when we went in May 2014 with our friends, there was a mix up about Amber and I's tickets - the problem being, we did not have tickets bought. We had Annual Passes.

Yet, when the Cast Member checked our MagicBands to get our Memory Maker activated, she saw two 8 Day Magic Your Way base tickets linked under both Amber and my name.

She checked everyone's MagicBands to make sure their tickets hadn't somehow ended up linked under our accounts, but they were all clear and set to go.

Honestly, I'm still not sure what happened. But when we left that Will Call window, we had two additional tickets in hand to link at a later time - which is what we are using for this trip.

The confusion came from this - when the Cast Member handed them to us, she said they were non expiring tickets, so we could use them at any time in the future we came back!

At first, we took that to mean actually Non Expiring tickets - the kind they have now stopped selling, that you can use three days here and two days then and the last three days five years later if you want.

Then, we linked them onto our MDE accounts, and noticed they were just listed as plain 8 days MYW tickets. And I realized how crazy it would have been for her to give us such an upgrade to actual non expiring tickets for that kind of a mix up, and that what she'd meant by non expiring was that if we didn't need to use them for another 10 years, they would still be good then.

So, now we ended up with 2 park days more than the rest of the family! We could have used them on our rest day, but we don't really have time planned for Disney Springs at any other time of the trip, and with that being our Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party evening, it seems like a waste to use a day then anyway when we'll be entering the Magic Kingdom at 4.

We then decided to do the logical thing - hit the parks on the 7th and the 15th!

We started planning around what we wanted to do on those days.

Actually, for the 15th, we had been planning on going to a park for a while, even when still thinking our tickets were non expiring. We would have just kept the one single additional day for a short trip some day in the hopefully near future for a 24 hours event.

And seeing as we spent so much time in Magic Kingdom in September, and so little in Epcot, I promised Amber that was what we would do on that day!

Then, when we realized we would end up going to the parks on the 7th as well, we got ambitious.

We decided to do 4 parks in 1 day, modified version because the boys will be dropped off to spend the night with us so we couldn't stay late enough to catch either Wishes or IllumiNations, meaning we'd hit Fantasmic instead!

And then, in the midst and frenzy of planning an epic day of adventures across the four mains parks of Walt Disney World Resort, we realized...

We don't have Park Hoppers.

:headache:

Smart move, Marie. So brilliant. Wow.

We actually considered the upgrade for a moment - I mean, at this point, what's an additional 60$ per person?

Then we knocked some sense into ourselves and gave up that plan. Someday, we will do our 4 parks 1 day challenge. We will!

It was kind of forming up to be awesome too, guys. I had the whole day already scheduled out. I'm kind of sad now I can't show it to you all. Oh well, some other time!

So Amber being the awesome wife that she is, she told me since we were doing Epcot on our last day, she'd leave the first day up to me.

And I picked Magic Kingdom.

pixiedust:

I know, we just end up there so much!

But the logic is pretty simple. Hollywood Studios is forming up to be a mess right now, and for us, it's just not a park we need to hit twice unless we're doing a longer stay. Same goes for Animal Kingdom - it's such a beautiful place to be, and it has my favorite show and favorite coaster on property, but if we're gonna spend a full park day (or almost) by ourselves, it just didn't appeal to us to do it there.

We could have put in Epcot again - except that's the Wine & Dine Half Marathon Weekend. Nope!

Thus, Magic Kingdom! We'll just make sure to hit all our favorites, do the things we really want to do that we're not sure we'll get to do as much of when we have to take the rest of the groups' wants in consideration, and hopefully have a blast! We'll head out before Wishes, but we can probably still stick around until about 7 and still call it a successful day!

And now, here comes the extra food part! :mickeybar

Since we were temporarily willing to splurge on Park Hopper upgrade, I of course had to go ahead and suggest to Amber that we treat ourselves to an ADR on the 7th.

We toyed with a couple of options (because really, that's all there was to play with at this time with how scarce ADRs are) and ended up picking lunch at..

Whispering Canyon Cafe!

I'm excited about this one guys!

On our very first trip, back in November 2012, we had originally planned on eating there. Then, we dropped it because it would have meant paying one meal out of pocket and we elected not to, and also because at that time they had done a sacrilegious thing and pulled the skillet from the menu.

But it's been back for a while now, and so we're finally making our way there!

I'm also excited because we'll get to explore a bit the Wilderness Lodge for the very first time, and I'm eager to have a quick look around!

We decided to do lunch because of cost. Basically the same meal costs about 7$ less at lunch than it does at dinner, and the only difference is that they pull the salad and the cornbread from the offerings. I don't like cornbread and neither of us eats salad that much when it's not made how we like it, so for the nearly 15$ savings, we were more than okay with passing it up.

(Quick question for anyone who has been there - if you get the bottomless milkshake, are you tied to one flavor or are you able to switch between drinks? Amber's torn between Vanilla and Chocolate!)

We're not leaving it at that as far as additional ADRs go, though - we have one more!

We are returning to my Italian love on our last Epcot day, and having lunch at Via Napoli!

The logic here is simple. Amber and I will split a personal pizza, and as such, the cost will pretty much be the equivalent to what a quick service meal would have been, give or take a few bucks for tipping.

And now I'm so food happy guys. Mama Melrose steak, Teppan Edo chicken and noodles, and Via Napoli pizza - angels will sing. From all the things we have eaten at WDW thus far in our travels, those are my ultimate favorite food items :lovestruc

(for meals, not counting desserts/snack

). With the exception of the 'Ohana pork, but since that's now pulled from the menu anyway, it doesn't really apply anymore.

So there you have it! Now I get to schedule two additional park days, and eat some more delicious food! I mean, who wouldn't be excited about that?!

:jumping1:

alievans719 · Aug 3, 2015

Just caught up with your PTR! Loving it! I read you one trip report with your friends before, but I don't think I ever commented on it. You're going to be in Sports the day before I leave, and I've gotta say, I'm actually trying out Mama Melrose because of the report that the steak is great!

Can't wait to read more!

MarieLightning · Aug 6, 2015

alievans719 said:
Just caught up with your PTR! Loving it! I read you one trip report with your friends before, but I don't think I ever commented on it. You're going to be in Sports the day before I leave, and I've gotta say, I'm actually trying out Mama Melrose because of the report that the steak is great!

Can't wait to read more!

Hey there! :welcome:

and thanks so much for reading!

Oooh more Sports love, yay! I hope you have an awesometastic time! I see in your countdown you're listing it as a Halloween & Christmas trip - are you gonna try and fit in both MNSSHP and MVMCP? If so, that already sounds like a great time

We do give such raving reviews for our beloved Mama Melrose steak all the time. We've gotten this comment a few times, at this point I think they should start giving us a cut for all our referrals :laughing:

Thanks again for joining, hope you enjoy my ramblings!

MarieLightning · Aug 6, 2015

More Mousekeeping!

A few days ago, I decided to take the plunge and add some color to my Mousekeeping envelopes!

I picked one color per character, and did an inward gradient from darker to lighter.

I was pleased enough with the result of my first attempt, so I posted it on Facebook!

One down, eight to go!

Except shortly after posting, that turned into one down, fifteen to go.

Just kidding. Well, not about the fifteen to go - but I don't mind having more to do!

I had actually thought of making envelopes for all the rooms, but not knowing what their mindset would be on tipping, I decided to abstain and just make them for Amber and me.

However, after posting the picture, Aunt Sarah asked if she could put in an order if I had more time. So obviously, I said yes, because, well, this passes time.

Looking back, I should have known they were planning on tipping Mousekeeping. She and Uncle Butch are pretty stellar tippers.

So anyway, I then went to search for seven additional designs I could work on for their room!

At first, I thought of doing something different, but I couldn't really think of anything. I've once attempted the sketches that are found on the Animators Dolls collection, because those are adorable - then I was reminded I cannot draw human faces, even cartoonish, for the life of me. So that eliminates a lot of options.

I ended up sticking to the silhouette idea, and found seven more pairings!

Hmm... one of these things is not like the others.

I tried to find a slightly more ecclectic mix for them - they do like the classics, but the boys really love Pixar and Merida is Elsye's favorite princess. They also watch Disney XD and Disney Junior a lot, so Phineas and Ferb seemed like a good way to go. I included Mickey and Donald because, well, Mickey is Mickey, and Donald is Uncle Butch's favorite character.

I tried to find more Pixar and more Disney Junior designs, or even Winnie the Pooh as Aunt Sarah loves Roo, but nothing came up. See, I'm not too shabby with drawing, but I have to have a model. Especially for something like this, if I want to do it accurately.

So it came down to Aurora and Prince Philip. Which, I really liked the design as a starter, but to be honest, I don't even know if the kids have seen Sleeping Beauty.

And I know what you're thinking - Marie, you're a ridiculous human being. It doesn't matter. They're envelopes to stuff cash in. They'll take it out and maybe be like, cute, and then they'll hopefully recycle them because you shouldn't put paper in the trash.

Well, I know all of that kind reader.

But I'm a stickler for a good theme, alright!?

So, I'll just give them the Lilo & Stitch envelope from our set, and Aurora and Philip will join our lovely princesses! (And Peter and Wendy, but come on, I can't do miracles).

This project is advancing a lot faster than I'd like it to, considering the fact that we still have 92 days to go, but I've got a couple more crafting ideas up my sleeve. Of course, it could turn out like the countdown calendar I tried to make (spoiler alert - it didn't turn well), but it's still stuff to help pass the time! And since my wife has forbidden me to make shirts for the whole group (in hindsight I should probably be thankful to her for that), I'll be trying to think of as many alternatives as I can.

alievans719 · Aug 6, 2015

I love your envelopes! Saw them and went to DBF, "we need envelopes for mousekeeping!" He's just :confused3

about it all.

And we're going to do Halloween and Christmas in one trip! Both parties, first day we're there for Halloween, and day before we leave for Christmas.

deedee2177 · Aug 6, 2015

I definitely think you went with right choice of doing these with some color! I love them! I'm so not artistic or crafty in any way...my more mousekeepers will have to get boring envelopes

Li Li · Aug 6, 2015

Hi! Just found and caught up on your PTR! I've been a lurker, occasional commenter, on your TRs as I've already thanked Amber for the steak recommendation at MM. They should give you a referral fee!

We will be at the same party night as you as well!! I am super excited as it will be our first Christmas party.

Your envelopes look great! I keep thinking about doing some shirts but the crafty motivation has not struck me yet.

amberg93 · Aug 8, 2015

You need to post the finished mousekeeping envelopes because let me tell you guys, they are stellar. I mean it, I know I'm a bit biased and all because I'm married to her, but all of them look amazing. If I'm lucky, she'll let me write on them ::yes::

My art skills might be nothing, but my cursive is pretty solid.

Also, if you haven't gathered, Marie is the master planner. All my planning is super vague and results in us zig zagging all over the park as I make random suggestions. So that's why I haven't chimed in much. Well that and my full time French courses have been keeping me pretty burned out :/.

But thanks everyone for wanting to follow along

mustlovecats · Aug 8, 2015

I love your mousekeeping envelopes!! You are so very talented, I'm super jealous of your drawing abilities!!!!!

MarieLightning · Aug 9, 2015

alievans719 said:
I love your envelopes! Saw them and went to DBF, "we need envelopes for mousekeeping!" He's just about it all.

And we're going to do Halloween and Christmas in one trip! Both parties, first day we're there for Halloween, and day before we leave for Christmas.

I can definitely understand his point of view. I am probably a little insane for how much time it takes me to make them. But if you want to make something you definitely should! It's pretty therapeutic while waiting for the countdown to keep going down

That's gonna be so awesome! We've never been there at a time that we could combine both parties, but we did MNSSHP twice in September, and two parties in one trip was really fun!

deedee2177 said:
I definitely think you went with right choice of doing these with some color! I love them! I'm so not artistic or crafty in any way...my more mousekeepers will have to get boring envelopes

Thank you! I do think they would have been a little less pretty without the color so I'm glad I went for it

And I'm sure you could whip up something if you wanted! It could be as simple as drawing a pretty, colorful Mickey head on each envelope, or getting a cheap pack of cute Disney stickers to decorate them with

Li Li said:
Hi! Just found and caught up on your PTR! I've been a lurker, occasional commenter, on your TRs as I've already thanked Amber for the steak recommendation at MM. They should give you a referral fee!

We will be at the same party night as you as well!! I am super excited as it will be our first Christmas party.

Your envelopes look great! I keep thinking about doing some shirts but the crafty motivation has not struck me yet.

I do remember you commenting before! Thank you for joining in again!

I think I'm gonna print screen all the people from the boards who said they went along with our Mama Melrose recommendation and bring it in in November, maybe they'll give us a free drink or something :rotfl:

Oooh awesome! Maybe we'll cross paths at some point! It really is a great party, and we're looking forward to hitting some of the things we missed out on. I regret not getting to see it snow on Main Street, and having a decent fireworks view, so that'll definitely be at the top of the list. And the parade is really great, too

Thank you! It's alright, there's still time :thumbsup2

I think one of the reasons Amber forbid me to make shirts for this trip is not only the cost of the shirt itself and whatever crafting material is needed, but also because when I made some for May, they each took me about an hour and a half to make

amberg93 said:
You need to post the finished mousekeeping envelopes because let me tell you guys, they are stellar. I mean it, I know I'm a bit biased and all because I'm married to her, but all of them look amazing. If I'm lucky, she'll let me write on them My art skills might be nothing, but my cursive is pretty solid.

Also, if you haven't gathered, Marie is the master planner. All my planning is super vague and results in us zig zagging all over the park as I make random suggestions. So that's why I haven't chimed in much. Well that and my full time French courses have been keeping me pretty burned out :/.

But thanks everyone for wanting to follow along

I'll post them when they're all finished

I still have a couple to finish off. And I will let you write on them you goose

mustlovecats said:
I love your mousekeeping envelopes!! You are so very talented, I'm super jealous of your drawing abilities!!!!!

Thank you! :goodvibes

I love making them, and each time I tell myself it's the last because it gets pretty time consuming, but then the next trip rolls around and I have to do something :artist:

jennerjoo · Aug 11, 2015

Hahaha. After reading your past trip reports, I always thought you whipped those babies up in a few minutes after a long day in the park (which I thought was crazy!). Maybe I should read your PTRs! :rotfl:

They are amazing by the way! You are very talented! Love all the character pairs!

MarieLightning · Aug 16, 2015

jennerjoo said:
Hahaha. After reading your past trip reports, I always thought you whipped those babies up in a few minutes after a long day in the park (which I thought was crazy!). Maybe I should read your PTRs! They are amazing by the way! You are very talented! Love all the character pairs!

You definitely gave me a lot more credit than was due! :rotfl:

They definitely take a bit of time to get done

Thank you so much though! The credit really goes to my Dad for passing along his artistic genes

By now though it's just really such a tradition for me, to look up what to do and then just get down to work!

MarieLightning · Aug 16, 2015

Mousekeeping = Completed!

And there we go!

I finally managed to get some time to finish up my Mousekeeping envelopes, and so now they're pretty much ready to go!

So here is the ones we'll be using for our room.

Peter & Wendy

Snow White & Her Prince / Cinderella & Prince Charming

Aurora & Prince Philip / Ariel & Prince Eric

Aladdin & Jasmine / Belle & Beast

Tiana & Naveen / Rapunzel & Eugene

And then we have the ones for Aunt Sarah's room!

Mickey & Donald / Lilo & Stitch

Buzz & Woody / Sully & Mike

Phineas & Ferb / Agent P & Doof

Merida & Elinor

I'm pretty satisfied with how they turned out! I did kind of regret going with red for Prince Charming, but I didn't really have beige which is the other half of his color palette, and I didn't think until later that I could have just gone with black for his hair. Other than that though, I like how everybody else turned out!

I'm glad to be done with them, the coloring especially could take a while (a good part of which being due to silly coloring pencils breaking and having to be sharpened over and over).

At the same time, I kinda wish they had taken a bit more time to do! Now I find myself with so little left to plan and so much time to go!

We'll be starting our FastPass+ selections in 22 days, so that's what we have to look forward to next! I mean, officially that'll only be the FastPasses for when Amber and I have our pre-trip park day just by ourselves, and then 24 days from now is gonna be the real deal, but it's still something!

MarieLightning · Aug 18, 2015

Finally Good With Dining!

Just a really, super quick update to say - our ADRs are officially and entirely completed!

I know, it may have seemed like they kinda were before - and unofficially, they were.

But when Curtis came in late and we booked him, we were only able to rebook our Teppan Edo dinner, and then get him and Kameron a separate reservation from ours for the Fantasmic Dining Package at Mama Melrose, around the same time. We were not able to get him in on our Be Our Guest lunch.

Well, Sunday night, I was just aimlessly checking as I sometimes do, not thinking much of it, to see if something opened up.

And as you may have guessed - it did!

That was actually a stressful moment for me

I was logged in under my own MDE account, so I had to quick log out and then back in under the account we made for Curtis, hoping that nobody would snatch it up within those few seconds. Thankfully, it was still there, so I just had to rush upstairs to grab my wallet for the credit card guarantee. Amber sometimes tells me I should just save my card to my account, but I don't trust that for a second. It's weird, isn't it? I have no qualms doing it on Amazon, but I wouldn't on Disney.

Long story short, now we'll all be able to enjoy a Be Our Guest lunch together! His reservation is 15 minutes before ours, which I figured was close enough. We may try to all check in at once, but worse comes to worse, we'll just tell him to wait for us inside.

I might keep checking to see if something opens up for 11 for both that and Mama Melrose so we can all be under the same reservation, but I'm not holding my breath. Besides, it's not really that big a deal at this point - Be Our Guest being Quick Service, we can just sit wherever even if our entrance into the restaurant is a bit staggered. For Mama Melrose, I'll try and see if I can call a couple of days prior, or the day before, and explain the situation, that we're a group of 11 with two reservations around the same time and if we can all sit at the same table, or have two tables next to each other. If not, it's not that big a deal.

Ultimately, I'm satisfied with what we've got! Only 80 days to go!

:rainbow:

MarieLightning · Aug 21, 2015

Trip Essentials - New Purchases!

So, everyone has their own little trip essentials when it comes to packing. Things that are their Must Haves at the parks, or even just during traveling.

I know we have quite a few of those ourselves!

The good thing with most of them is that they are durable things, so we don't have to make additional purchases every time we plan a new trip.

However, sometimes, additional expenses are bound to happen, and I made two of those myself these past couple of weeks.

Thankfully, they were reasonably priced, so I'm not breaking the bank over it!

::yes::

My first purchase was a new pair of flip flops!

I have dealt many, many times with the consequences of not having a good pair of shoes at Disney World. For the most part, I don't really care about the overall quality of my shoes (maybe because I work from home and walk around barefoot pretty much all day, all week, but I digress), but spending a whole week walking and standing for hours at a time, it is a necessary investment.

Our first trip, I had bought a new pair of sneakers at Walmart. Now, I have nothing against the quality of products at Walmart, my newest tennis shoes actually come from there and are perfectly fine. The first pair was not.

The sole was a bit stiff at first, but I figured it would soften some upon use.

Guys, it did not. Even by the time the trip was over, it was still solid as a rock. My feet and my back killed me the whole of that trip, and it was pretty miserable.

Now, I'm heavier set, no surprise factor there, so my feet do always tend to get pretty testy after a while because of the weight I put down on them. I'm pretty lucky as far as other body parts go, I don't get back issues or knee pains, but sometimes my heels just want to kill me. So our second trip wasn't much better, because I wore sneakers every single day, and all the walking made my feet swollen at times, which made my shoes feel too tight, which was vastly unpleasant. I may or may not have accepted when Amber offered me one of her pain pills she was prescribed during her chemo treatments. (Okay, I'm not talking morphine here, but you know, a bit stronger than over the counter Advil).

Our third trip is when I came across the experience of walking on a cloud :goodvibes

Okay, I'm overselling it a little - I did end up getting feet pain even then. But it was a whole lot better, no doubt there. That trip was the first after making the purchase of Teva Mush flip flops. Both Amber and I got a pair, and it was pretty awesome. Not so much in September with all the rain, but that's a different story.

However, my pair has seen better days since then. After I broke my little toe on the Princess Cruise we took, I had to cut off one of the straps. The indentation also makes for lack of support during prolongued amounts of time.

So, the bottom line was, I needed a new pair!

Image from Teva's website as we made use of Free Shipping and had them mailed to Amber's family in Michigan (and lord am I terrified they will forget them)

Previously we'd gotten the Olowahu model, but the strap I ended up cutting off was a little uncomfortable on my little toes even before one them broke, so I opted for the classic Mush model (well, Mush II) this time.

I was definitely tempted to buy two pairs, and if we'd gone during a warmer time of year I probably would have, but knowing November can get chilly, I figure I'll probably alternate with my sneakers at times, so there was no point in getting two pairs.

Then, a couple of days ago, I made the second purchase - this is a new essential for us, but it'll probably become a pretty useful and frequent one!

I took to Groupon, and got a pack of two portable back up batteries!

Image from Groupon, as those have yet to be shipped

This will be useful in the parks for sure, as Amber and I do not have cell phones, and although we're planning on getting a couple soon, can you say Holy Roaming Fees?

So when we go to the parks, we just use up on the Wifi. However, I use it with my old iPhone 4 which has an extremely limited battery life, especially when using apps like Messenger (which we'll probably use a lot to keep track of everyone when we split up) or the My Disney Experience app. As such, it'll definitely be a good thing to have some back up batteries to get it recharged on while we're on the go.

This is an especially useful purchase, however, because of the fact that Air Canada flights from Montreal to Orlando are now operated by Air Canada Rouge. Now, I personally have no problem with Air Canada Rouge, most people complain about it but fly on Sunwing and those other airlines that are built basically the same. However, it does no longer have the free entertainment system on the back of the seat. They replaced it with an application that can be used in flight, on Apple or Android devices, and it is still free to use although the selection of movies and TV shows is a bit more limited.

However, they don't have outlets on those planes, and although when I used it last with my iPhone it was a marvelously low battery usage application (I watched movies for the whole 3 or so hours flight and when we landed my phone still had a 50% charged battery), I've never used it with my tablet, so I figure it'll be a safer bet to have those extra batteries just in case.

So those are our latest Disney related purchases! At this point we've got less than three weeks to go before FastPasses and Check In, so I'm definitely excited about that!

Family Vacation: We Must Be Crazy - A November PTR **11/06 - Conclusion!**

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Family Vacation: We Must Be Crazy - A November PTR 11/06 - Conclusion!