Our First Disney Vacation! A journal on the journey to September 7, 2011!

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Loving the chart!!! Look at your getting all creative!!! Great job!!!

 

[L-Harper]

Well, I have yet another change. I'm so excited! When our agent called Disney to cancel our AKL days he some how pulled strings to get 2 days of free dining on our Pop Century reservation added!!!! It wasn't that we couldn't go for those 2 days, we just didn't want to pay the price of AKL plus the cost of food. I am SO excited!

The down side... I have to remake that calender.

 

[annmarieda]

Well, I have yet another change. I'm so excited! When our agent called Disney to cancel our AKL days he some how pulled strings to get 2 days of free dining on our Pop Century reservation added!!!! It wasn't that we couldn't go for those 2 days, we just didn't want to pay the price of AKL plus the cost of food. I am SO excited!

The down side... I have to remake that calender.

Congrats! Does this mean you are staying at Pop or AKL? Either way...

 

[L-Harper]

Congrats! Does this mean you are staying at Pop or AKL? Either way...

We will be staying at Pop for 10 days, no AKL.

 

[Smile4Me]

Well, I have yet another change. I'm so excited! When our agent called Disney to cancel our AKL days he some how pulled strings to get 2 days of free dining on our Pop Century reservation added!!!! It wasn't that we couldn't go for those 2 days, we just didn't want to pay the price of AKL plus the cost of food. I am SO excited!

The down side... I have to remake that calender.

HOW EXCITING! Happy re-planning! Again!

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

YAY for 2 extra days!!!

 

[WDWfanatic2]

Wanted to let you know that the reservations were available online for me before the 7 am call time. It was so much easier to do the reservations on there than having to call. I had them all set in like 10 minutes Good luck!

 

[L-Harper]

Thanks for the info! I plan on starting my ADR's at 6:00 on the dot! Tomorrow is my ADR day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[TheDisneyGirl]

Thanks for the info! I plan on starting my ADR's at 6:00 on the dot! Tomorrow is my ADR day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ADR DAY!

What i want to know is how easy ADRs are to make, so I will be lurking back here to find out!

 

[L-Harper]

After MANY changes to our itinerary and plans, here are the ADR's I'm hoping for tomorrow:

7th- Chef Mickey's (5:30p)
8th- Tusker House (8:10a)
9th- none
10th- Crystal Palace (8:10a) & Cape May Cafe (6:15p)
11th- Raglan Road (5:30p)
12th- The Garden Grill (6:00p)
13th- Boma (6:00p)
14th- Ohana (5:00p)
15th- Le Cellier (12:00)

FINGERS CROSSED!

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Yay for making your ADR's tomorrow! If you hop right on the computer at 6am I bet you'll have no problem getting what you want. That's what I did last Friday!

Fingers crossed for you!

 

[heatherbynum]

I got bored today while my husband was gone and my boys were sleeping. Now that I got a lot of advice on my itinerary and that DH gave me his opinions, I feel very confident in our plans.

I'll fill in our flight and ADR times once I know them. I plan on printing the park times and crowd calendar for the week on the back so we can take it with us to the parks each day. I'm also going to put a copy up on our dream board.

I got the idea from this awesome trip report!

Awesome Idea. I should do something similar to this. You are really organized and I love reading your pre trip report. It has been really helpful in my planning too

 

[L-Harper]

Awesome Idea. I should do something similar to this. You are really organized and I love reading your pre trip report. It has been really helpful in my planning too

Aww! Thank you so much! I don't feel so organized most of the time.

 

[L-Harper]

I got my ADR's made!!!!!! I even got everything I wanted! Here is what I got:

September 7 - Chef Mickey's at 5:30p
September 8 - Tusker House at 8:00a
September 10 - Crystal Palace at 8:05a & Cape May Cafe at 5:45p
September 11 - Raglan Road at 6:00p
September 12 - The Garden Grill at 6:30p
September 13 - Boma at 6:15p
September 14 - 'Ohana at 5:15p
September 15 - Le Cellier at 11:45a

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

I got my ADR's made!!!!!! I even got everything I wanted! Here is what I got:

September 7 - Chef Mickey's at 5:30p
September 8 - Tusker House at 8:00a
September 10 - Crystal Palace at 8:05a & Cape May Cafe at 5:45p
September 11 - Raglan Road at 6:00p
September 12 - The Garden Grill at 6:30p
September 13 - Boma at 6:15p
September 14 - 'Ohana at 5:15p
September 15 - Le Cellier at 11:45a

Awesome choices!!! I knew you would get everything you wanted!

 

[photographymom517]

ADR DAY!

What i want to know is how easy ADRs are to make, so I will be lurking back here to find out!

Hi! Just wanted to respond to your post real quick! ADR's are super easy to make! Last trip was my very first time making them. I was a little nervous, but I ended up with everything we wanted. In my personal opinion, I think its alot quicker to make them online. What I would suggest is logging onto the Disney system ahead of time & familiarizing yourself with the process. That way, on day 180 when you can make ADR's, you will be a pro & know exactly what to do!

For example, if you go onto Disney's website, go under "Where to Eat" and "Make Dining Reservations." Don't worry, you won't actually be able to make them, but the system will show you what's available.

I just put in an example...I choose Animal Kingdom at 6:30am tomorrow for 2 guests. The system brought up these results: Rainforest Cafe is available at 8:30am & there are no ressies available for Tusker House or Yak & Yeti from 4:30am-8:30am. What's nice about the online system is that it will show you 2 hours prior and 2 hours later than the time you search for!

If its your first time making ADR's, I would do this a few times just to get used to the system, but don't worry its super easy!!! If you do have questions, please feel free to PM me!

 

[photographymom517]

I got my ADR's made!!!!!! I even got everything I wanted! Here is what I got:

September 7 - Chef Mickey's at 5:30p
September 8 - Tusker House at 8:00a
September 10 - Crystal Palace at 8:05a & Cape May Cafe at 5:45p
September 11 - Raglan Road at 6:00p
September 12 - The Garden Grill at 6:30p
September 13 - Boma at 6:15p
September 14 - 'Ohana at 5:15p
September 15 - Le Cellier at 11:45a

So glad you were able to get everything you wanted!!!

​

 

[L-Harper]

I agree, it was SUPER easy to do the dining reservation. I booked through an agent for our vacation, so I had to enter our confirmation number into Disney's site to load our reservation. After I logged in this morning, I had zero problem getting everything I wanted. It started off a little bumpy at first because I didn't realize that I wasn't all the way logged in. From the time I sat down to start until I was done was 25 minutes and I had 9 ADR's to make.

What I did was type the name of the restaurant I wanted in the search function then hit "make reservation" on it's page. Then I went from there. I am a little surprised at just how easy it was.

Make sure you play around with it some before your actual ADR day though. Just search for a day that is like 2 months out or something. You can stop the process before you click confirm. I "practiced" before and was very glad I did. It would have taken longer if I hadn't played around with it a bit last week.

 

[L-Harper]

In other news, we've obviously have been looking at flight prices. This has always been what we had intended to do, especially since we're from Michigan. Well, flight prices = Our youngest will be 25 months so we have to get a seat for him, too. I'm kicking myself that we didn't book flights before, but I didn't think they would go up as much as they have. We also haven't flown since 2006 so I had no idea about all of these fees for checking bags and just the government fees and taxes for us would be over $250. After a lot of talking last night we are strongly considering just driving. I shouldn't say "just" though. Straight drive time is 20 hours. Again, ! With 2 very little ones we, of course, wouldn't be able to drive straight through.

If we drive, our plan would be something like this:

-leave home around 3:00am on Tuesday the 6th
-drive as long as we possibly could until the boys woke up and were starving
-stop for breakfast for an hour and a half to two hours so the boys could also run around and stretch
-drive as long as we possibly could until lunch
-again, stop for a break at a place like McDonald's so we could eat and the boys could run around and play
-again, drive as long as we possibly could until dinner
-eat dinner
-drive again until we're all too restless to continue (we'd have AT LEAST 13 hours of drive time behind us... I'm hoping for closer to 15+)
-get a hotel and try to get a good night's sleep lmao
-eat breakfast before we head out {hopefully we'd be back on the road before 8:00}
-stop somewhere for a short break and quick snack
-get to Disney before 3:00 {fingers crossed}

 

[TheDisneyGirl]

I got my ADR's made!!!!!! I even got everything I wanted! Here is what I got:

September 7 - Chef Mickey's at 5:30p
September 8 - Tusker House at 8:00a
September 10 - Crystal Palace at 8:05a & Cape May Cafe at 5:45p
September 11 - Raglan Road at 6:00p
September 12 - The Garden Grill at 6:30p
September 13 - Boma at 6:15p
September 14 - 'Ohana at 5:15p
September 15 - Le Cellier at 11:45a

AWESOME! That is what I wanted to hear Harper!!!​