Ssshhhh This Time It's A Secret! Dec 2015 pre-trip report

[vleeth]

I'm staying up late with you tonight and I also see to have a cold combined with only 2 1/2 hours sleep last night! Hahaha. Good luck to both of us!

I really thought I'd be excited for this, but I want it to be over so I can go to bed. I'm sure the excitement will kick-in in about 40 mins.

Here's some pixie dust for you.

 

[Gracefulskinny]

How did the FPs go?

 

[vleeth]

How did the FPs go?

Overall it went well. I was not able to get Anna and Elsa for my cousin and her family. I'll try again around the 45 day mark. I was able to get 7D on our party night.

I didn't realize Enchanted Tales with Belle FP went so quickly. The earliest I can get is 4:00 and we are hopping to Epcot around that time. I got Buzz instead.

I was happy that it only took me about 15 mins to do everything and I was able to go to bed!

 

[Sisa]

Sorry you haven't been feeling well. Glad your FPs went mostly good and quick so you could get your rest.

 

[vleeth]

Sorry you haven't been feeling well. Glad your FPs went mostly good and quick so you could get your rest.

Thank you so much for your kind words. I am feeling better than I was that night and I hope to be back to normal soon.

The FP is a whole other story. We are making some changes that will affect my FP selections so much that I really didn't need to stay up.

Stay tuned.

 

[vleeth]

Before I get to all the changes I wanted to post last weekend's Disney Movie Night. We watched the live action Cinderella for the first time ever. Hope cried quite a bit through this one, but we enjoyed it.

We had Cinderella's broken carriage pie for dessert.

 

[vleeth]

When Disney raised it's prices for parking and AP, Dave and I got to talking about the price of tickets and the rate at which they increase. Between that and the talk of them making the prices different at different times of year, we decided to buy tickets for a future trip.

We were trying to decide how many days to buy and then I remembered that the cousin that is traveling with me in December was able to get reduced tickets at her husbands job. I could get 5 day park hoppers for the 3 Disney adults for $1000.

I had over $500 budgeted for our meals for this trip. Between Disney Visa rewards and swagbuck gift cards we have the meals covered. So $500 of the $1000 was already accounted for. We decided to do it.

Except now that we have 5 day hoppers do we keep those or use those. We decided to use the 5 day hoppers. Our other tickets are 2 and 3 day hoppers and a 1 day base. Maybe we can one say use the base towards another ticket.

But as for this trip, we don't have enough days to have 5 park days, a Christmas party day, an off/mini golf day and a Disney Quest day. So the party is out.


It sure is a good day Dave added that cheap motel to the beginning of our trip. Now when we leave that place, I will hit the monorail hotels to check out decorations and visit the outlet while Dave and Hope go to Disney Quest.

Then we will have

MK/Ep/DHS
AK/DSH
off/mini golf/Whispering Canyons lunch
AK/DSH/MK
MK/Ep
Ep/? (wherever we feel like we need more time)

It sure seems like a lot of hopping. But we are trying to use EMH and spend the rest of the day in a less busy park. In the case of MK, we will spend most of the day there and then hop because they close early for the party.

We also got these for a future trip. They were buy 2 days get the 3rd free. I'm paying for these with swagbucks, ibotta & rewards from my credit card.

 

[vleeth]

Anyone know how to properly size pics in photobucket to put on here? I've been resizing them and that seems to be making the quality bad and I still have giant pics.

 

[vleeth]

Anyone know how to properly size pics in photobucket to put on here? I've been resizing them and that seems to be making the quality bad and I still have giant pics.

Ha ha, never mind...I see my Universal tickets pic is tiny!

 

[vleeth]

A week or two ago Hope & I made a countdown paper chain. They countdown was to our annual homeschool group camping trip in November.

Hope kept forgetting to take links off. I moved it into the living room and guess what we are counting down to now?

She thinks it's St. Nicholas' Feast Day.

 

[Sisa]

Awe, I love the broken carriage for your Cinderella movie night, cute idea!

Yay for getting tickets taken care of, but bummer no party.

Ugh, photobucket. I resize all my pictures and yet it doesn't seem to make a difference at all. It just frustrates me.

A count down, how awesome!

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

I love the idea of the countdown and that she doesn't actually know what she counting down to!

 

[vleeth]

Awe, I love the broken carriage for your Cinderella movie night, cute idea!

Yay for getting tickets taken care of, but bummer no party.

Ugh, photobucket. I resize all my pictures and yet it doesn't seem to make a difference at all. It just frustrates me.

A count down, how awesome!

Thanks!

I'm not really bummed about the party. We weren't going to see special characters, we were going for low waits for the rides. I did want to see the parade, but I'm okay missing it. I'm trying to schedule a day to see the Christmas Wishes from the TTC or the beach at one of the hotels. Of course, we planned on doing that last trip and we just didn't feel like it. So we shall see.

Probably the thing I wanted most was to get the Christmas Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom card for Hope.

I love the idea of the countdown and that she doesn't actually know what she counting down to!

I can't tell you how happy (and sneaky) it makes me feel to have that thing up.

She wanted to add links to make it fall on a certain day. I convinced her to leave it alone. I told her that whenever it ends, if it's not a special day already, I will make a treasure hunt for her. Guess how she is finding out we are going to Disney....a treasure hunt. And it makes it even better that she knows the hunt is coming. She really won't suspect a thing!

 

[Gracefulskinny]

She wanted to add links to make it fall on a certain day. I convinced her to leave it alone. I told her that whenever it ends, if it's not a special day already, I will make a treasure hunt for her. Guess how she is finding out we are going to Disney....a treasure hunt. And it makes it even better that she knows the hunt is coming. She really won't suspect a thing!

LOve this!! Perfect way to reveal!

 

[vleeth]

LOve this!! Perfect way to reveal!

Thanks! I really need to get to work on my clues.

 

[vleeth]

This weekend I took out my winter clothes and put away most of my summer clothes. While I was at it, I started packing for my trip. I already had the short sleeve Disney stuff in a pile, but I forgot how much long sleeve Disney stuff I have.

 

[vleeth]

Last weekend we watched one of my all time favorite Disney movies, Maleficent! It was my second or third time seeing it and I just love it.

We decided to make caramel apples with rice krispies for horns. I would say this was my first 'pinterest fail' for movie night. It didn't turn out so good, but it tasted great so it was a big win for my family.

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Cute!!!

 

[vleeth]

Cute!!!

Thanks!

 

[vleeth]

Hope helped me paint the flower pot that I will use in the treasure hunt. She just thinks I want a gold flower pot!



Now I have to figure out what to write on it and then do that and break it. She wants me to use 'dragonese' from How to Train Your Dragon in her next treasure hunt, so I think I'll write something in that language.

I'm thinking about putting a piece of the pot with each clue, then have her glue it together at the end.

Maybe I'll spell out Disney backwards.

Thoughts?