Pre-Trip #5:
"Oh, Mike Goodness!"
It was with no small amount of glee that I
r-r-r-ripped the April page from the calendar to expose the page beneath…...Ahh, May!
Marvelous May! Magnificent May! Month that holds the most monumental day on the trip-planning timeline:
180 days from check-in!! Since we were checking into a WDW resort on November 3rd, this meant that our magical ADR date was
May 8th. Whoo-hooty-hoo!!
Let the “active planning phase” begin!
Step One: Figure out where we all want to eat!
As a family, we had already discussed which untried restaurants we would like to visit this year. We also debated which of our old favorites we would like to frequent again. Uh, we actually had many such discussions.
Every Sunday we pick Aunt Rae up from the senior apartment complex here in town and we go to Mass together. Usually we all go out to lunch afterwards. Well, for some reason, the topic of WDW dining always comes up!
Now, let me tell you,
Aunt Rae (age77) is probably my greatest ally when it comes to talking Disney. While Ed and Tricia will roll their eyes and make good-natured jokes about my “addiction”, Aunt Rae doesn’t even bat an eyelash when I want to talk about November vacation plans in March or April! Her first trip to WDW with us last year more than exceeded her expectations and, although she had always loved Disney, the experience made her a true WDW fan for life. Especially where Disney Dining was concerned.
You see, a few months before our vacation last November, Aunt Rae was diagnosed with gluten intolerance and placed on a gluten-free diet.
Gluten is found mostly in wheat-based products: breads, pastas, baked goods (oh, just shoot me if I ever develop this!), so if she wants to eat any of these foods they need to be made with gluten-free rice or corn flower. She had adjusted to making her own meals at home, but she was very concerned that she would not be able to eat at any of the restaurants and stay on her special diet. I kept telling her that the WDW chefs would accommodate her needs. I even printed out menus and articles about special needs diets at WDW for her to read, but she continued to fret about it.
Despite all of my reassurances, Aunt Rae was convinced that she needed to pack gluten-free bread, cookies, and crackers in her suitcase and that she would lose weight while at WDW. She’s about 90lb soaking wet and her doctor would like her to gain some weight. (*When oh when will medical researchers develop the person-to-person Fat Transplant? I would gladly give her some of mine!)
On the first day, AR carried a lunch tote with “her” food inside, sure that she would not find “anything she could eat” at the Magic Kingdom. The next morning, the lunch tote stayed in her room.
I think AR’s favorite thing is when the chef comes to the table and personally reviews the menu with her. We met so many great chef CMs that way! And some of them are pretty cute!
If there was nothing on the menu that was suitable or that appealed to Aunt Rae, the chef would make something special just for her. She just couldn’t get over it! Oh, and she gained 5lbs! And was happy about it!
Here is Aunt Rae with Nelson, the chef at
50's Prime Time Cafe:
Here are some more pics from last year to help you get better acquainted with the family.....
Ed and I enjoying an adult beverage at the
PTC:
A rather blurry family pic at
Pizzafari in the Animal Kingdom.
Me with
Pooh-Bear at the
Crystal Palace.
Ed goofing around at the
CP:
Tricia and Billy arriving at
Epcot.
Sigh*, I guess this would be a good time for me to talk about the kinds of
pictures I will be posting on my report.
I love pictures and think that they really add to a report, but I have a sort of paranoia about posting pics of my children’s faces on the internet. Even on a family-friendly site like the DIS, because they could still be copied and pasted. I wasn’t thinking about this last year and wound up not having many to post because 99% of my pics were of my kids. Kids with the characters. Kids in front of the Castle. Kids riding Dumbo, etc. This year, I will take pics with a TR in mind, so I will have lots more to share.
So, back to the original question: Where do we want to eat??
Well,
50's PTC was a big hit with everyone, so we’ll do that again for sure. Ed made the suggestion of the
Hollywood Brown Derby, but he withdrew it when I told him it required two table service credits, not just one. Nah, not the best bang for the buck there!
I love
character meals because it is just such a nice way to meet the characters; no time “wasted” waiting in a queue…you just eat your meal and they come to you! Definitely going to need to coordinate one or two of those with my sister and her family! Hmmm, perhaps the
Princess Breakfast at
Akershus (Norway)?? No, wait, Marilyn will probably want to try for
Cindy's Royal Table since it’s the girls’ first visit. Maybe the
Crystal Palace? Pooh-Bear!
Ed wants to eat at
Restaurant Marrakesh (Morocco). Is that for the food or the entertainment, I wonder?
Nevermind, why did I even ask?
We’ll have to include
Whispering Canyon Cafe at Wilderness Lodge! (I’ll ask for a table off to the side, though.) Everyone would get a kick out of the zany antics of the servers, but too much noise and commotion might be a bit over-stimulating for Billy. We do better when seated by a wall or a window, so I always request that when checking in at the podium. It sometimes means a little extra wait, but its worth it in the end for a more relaxed dining experience.
I was
not having a relaxed time
planning our dining experiences, however! I wanted to make my parks itinerary
first, and
then fit my ADRs into my plan. No sense planning lunch at the Crystal Palace if we are going to be in Animal Kingdom that morning. The problem was, I couldn’t decide which parks to do which days yet!
I’ve learned a few things about itinerary planning from the past four family trips to WDW. Because we’ve got Billy and all his autistic behaviors/issues to deal with, we can’t do commando-style touring, even though it’s my first knee-jerk reaction to try and cram as much as possible into every waking moment! Add to that, the fact that we have a 77yr old woman with us who, despite being in good health, does not have the stamina she had when she first took little Ed to
Disneyland back in
1968!
My #1 rule is to try to visit the parks on the least crowded days /times of the week. (I have other rules, but since I have
3 months,
3 weeks, and
5 days to tell you about them, I think I will spread them out!) How will I predict which will be the least crowded parks on each day? Crystal Ball? Psychic Detectives? Secret Spell to be revealed soon in
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? No. I will let Mike make the necessary prognostications. Have you met my friend, Mike, yet? Where are my manners!
Friends, this is my friend, Mike.
Tour Guide Mike.
Mike, these are my
DIS-Friends.
Mike and I became very close last year when I was in the active planning phase of my trip. Ed was working steady night shift back then and that’s when I got into the habit of late night DIS-ing after putting the kids to bed. I read about TGM on the attractions board and took a look-see. It was one of the best things I have ever done when it comes to itinerary planning.
Night after night, Ed would IM me from work and interrupt my trysts with Mike. Eleven o’clock. Twelve o’clock. One o’clock in the morning.
“Are you still talking to your boyfriend?” he would type.
“Not talking, just reading,” I would reply.
“So he sends you love letters, huh? I’m gonna have to have it out with this guy soon!”
“Oh, Ed! ......Sign off, I can’t see the screen.”
I think Ed was actually a bit jealous.
Out of all the pages and pages of advice that Mike has on his website, the most valuable to me has always been the
LCCs (
Least
Crowded
Charts.) I followed them last year and they really helped us avoid the bigger crowds during our first
Jersey Week I really, really wanted to use them again.
But, there was just one problem this year. Well, actually there were a couple of problems that joined together like two amorous amoebas to form one larger problem.
First, WDW stopped using a set schedule of
EMHs (
Extra
Magic
Hours) and began releasing the EMH schedule on a month-by-month basis with the park hours. That made it darn near impossible for Mike to analyze the data and get the LCCs out prior to the beginning of the month in question.
Second, for whatever reason that month, Disney was late posting the official park hours and EMHs schedule. And so,
May 1st….no November park hours. May 2nd….no park hours. (Hmmm. What’s up with that?) They’re usually out by the first of the month. May 3rd….still no park hours for November. Uh oh. Wait…..wait a minute.…
Huzzah! Late that afternoon, the November park hours are finally announced!
Whew! Okay, Mike, you’ve got what you need, now get to work!
(Cue the musical theme from
Jeopardy!)
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Four days later....
Um, uh… hello, Mike? This is Kathy, remember me? We met last year. Yeah…yeah….I had a good time, too. Well, the thing is.…I mean, what I really wanted to say was…..
I really, really need those LCCs!! What the heck is taking you so long?? My 180-day window opens tomorrow, and I need to figure out my itinerary!!
(Um, call me, okay?)
Kathy
Last December, we were in the car and I put a Nick JR DVD on for the kids. We have 3 screens so we can all watch, and it was a Little Bill episode. My kids love LB so they were all happy to watch it. Well, the episode took a bad turn when Alice The Great (is she his grandma? I could never figure that out) got stuck in an airport and couldn't come home for Christmas. 
All that emotion over a cartoon... 
and giving the waitlist fairy a few more months.
for the moment; it was time to roll up my sleeves and get to work on our itinerary and our ADRs!
More Jell-O!
YAY!!! Another installment! Pays to stay up late, all the good TR writers are up like me 
.
I... I... think he's seeing other people! 
