The Adventures of Miss Potts - Fall 2013 Trip Report NEW 3/17x3

[Miss Potts]

Welcome to the Adventures of Miss Potts' Fall Trip Report!

I'm excited to finally be starting this... as this is my very first trip report!
I cannot wait to recount all the details of my trip and share them with all of you!

If you want to get to know me better and see the planning that went into this trip, I completed a PTR which you can read here: LINK
If you have read it already, thanks for following me over here!!

Now, onto the details....
Who, What, Where, When, and Why

Who

This trip was just DH and myself!

About Me - Miss Potts aka Amy

I'm 28 and the Disney fan in this couple... I have been for as long as I can remember. In 5th grade, after a trip to Disney, I came home and announced to my family that I was giving up on becoming a ballerina and now wanted to be a Hotel Manager in Disney when I grow up! I'm a former CP from Spring 2005 and I currently work as a Front Desk Manager.

My disboards name "Miss Potts" comes from my love for Beauty and the Beast. I even wore a Mrs. Potts costume for Halloween in college! My favorite Halloween costume ever!

Favorite Park - Magic Kingdom
Favorite Ride - Tower of Terror
Favorite Attraction - Carousel of Progress
Favorite Hotel - Disney's Polynesian Resort
Favorite Restaurant - Le Cellier (does this change on our trip?!?! Foreshadowing!)
Favorite Snack - Popcorn! I swear the popcorn in Disney is just amazing!!!
Favorite Character - hard to choose: Mickey, Mary Poppins, Belle, Mrs. Potts (obvi)
Favorite Disney Movie - again, hard to choose but Mary Poppins & Beauty and the Beast


About my DH - Scott

DH is 27 and not a natural born Disney lover, but I think I've been winning him over trip by trip. I find him talking about Disney positively unprovoked now and then and I like to say that my DH "drank the juice". He is a Probation Officer (former mason) and loves golf and hunting. My DH loves to eat, so I can get him to agree to a Disney trip as long as it falls over the Food and Wine Festival. Easy enough!

Favorite Park - Animal Kingdom
Favorite Ride - Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
Favorite Attraction - Safari or Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular!
Favorite Hotel - BLT... loves the smell of the Contemporary Lobby
Favorite Restaurant - O'hana (this might change for him toooooo)
Favorite Snack - Grilled Lamb Chop at F&W
Favorite Character - for a classic character, he loves Donald Duck... for more mainstream he really likes Woody and Buzz
Favorite Disney Movie - Really depends on the day. Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and The Brave Little Toaster (awww)

What
A trip to Disney!

When
September 26 through October 3, 2013

Where
We stayed at Disney's Polynesian Resort!!! My favorite resort! I thought it would instantly become DH's favorite too... but it didn't.

Why
Does there really need to be a why when it comes to Disney trips?!! NO! But, there usually is...

For this trip, it's mainly because we had an AP this year and I wanted to maximize it.

Commercial Break to plug AP's:
We bought our AP last October in 2012 and were able to use it on that trip, again in February 2013 when my mom, sister, and I ran the Princess Half Marathon, and now again for this trip. We definitely got our moneys worth! It was a last minute decision before our trip last October and I'm so glad we did it! We got fantastic discounts on rooms in February AND with Tables in Wonderland we've been able to save so much!

Back to our regularly scheduled programming:
So in addition to our AP's, we got a fantastic rate on the room, AND we have airline miles too!!!

BESIDES all that, we do have another real reason for the trip. We've decided that we are in the position and ready to start putting our vacation money into other areas - like building a house and starting a family. So after this trip, Disney will be on hold for a few years... I can't believe I'm even typing that! We'll see if that actually stays the case!

I said it before, and I'll say it again! Thanks for joining me and reading my trip report!

 

[Miss Potts]

Table of Contents

Introduction
Things We Were Looking Forward to THE Most!!!

Wednesday, September 25
The Day Before
Thursday, September 26
The Arrival - Part One
The Arrival - Part Two
Friday, September 27
Saturday, September 28
Sunday, September 29
Monday, September 30
Tuesday, October 1
Wednesday, October 2
Thursday, October 3

 

[Miss Potts]

Obviously, being in Disney is in itself what I look forward to the most... but as with every trip there are a few specific things that you just can't wait to see and do.

For this trip, our most looking forward to list:

• Food and Wine Festival
• Dining at 2 new to us restaurants - Teppan Edo and Narcoossee's
• Staying at the Polynesian
• Spa Appointments
• Celebrating our 2nd Wedding Anniversary

Some other odds and ends before I officially start the TR...

You can follow me on instagram: amyb223
I thought I would post more on our trip but I'm really not as tech based as people may think. When I'm on vacation or doing things, I don't pay much attention to my phone, etc.

During my trip though, I DID post to the Live Dining Thread! It was SO MUCH FUN... I loved that thread all during my planning so I was happy to post my pictures too!

I'm kind of a lazy photo taker... I want the photos but I always forget to take them or bring my camera with me. Recently, I've decided that photography would be a fun hobby... however my DH thinks it's ridiculous that I want a $500++ camera and most of the time I forget to take photos. SO needlesstosay, I intended to take a lot of photos on this trip to prove I would use a grown-up camera. That was until I forgot my camera at home!!! Hahaha!!!

So, I'm warning you now... I used my iPhone for all photos in this trip report. BUT actually the pictures turned out great! I can remember when it was exciting to have a "camera phone" and now the cameras on phones take pictures better than my actual camera!!

OK that's all for today! Thanks for reading!

 

[rachel09985]

So excited for this!

 

[MiaBella05]

joining in

 

[Marsheliz]

Yay!! Finally!! ))) anxious to read more!

 

[saintstickets]

Subbed in! Looking forward to it!

 

[Volunteer]

Sounds fun, I'm in!

 

[wiigirl]

Following along!

 

[emmysmommy]

Amy, I'm glad that you are doing a TR!! I'm with your DH, I love BLT. Sounds like he didn't become a Poly fan.

As for Le Cellier... hmmm foreshadowing noticed.

I understand your reasons for putting Disney on hold for now. All good reasons... I will stay tuned to see if your resolve doesn't weaken. I know the strange mysterious pull that Disney has on my life.

 

[Miss Potts]

So excited for this!

Yay! Enjoy following along with my delayed TR!

joining in

Thanks! Popcorn IS my favorite Disney snack!

Yay!! Finally!! ))) anxious to read more!

Seriously! It's about time! Hahahaha - thanks for sticking around!

Subbed in! Looking forward to it!

Great to have you here - hope you enjoy

Sounds fun, I'm in!

It was fun! I wish I could go back right now! Thanks for reading!

Following along!

Thanks for coming on over from my PTR! Hope you enjoy!

Amy, I'm glad that you are doing a TR!! I'm with your DH, I love BLT. Sounds like he didn't become a Poly fan.

As for Le Cellier... hmmm foreshadowing noticed.

I understand your reasons for putting Disney on hold for now. All good reasons... I will stay tuned to see if your resolve doesn't weaken. I know the strange mysterious pull that Disney has on my life.

I kept putting it off - thinking too much time passed. BUT, I'm looking forward to reliving all the memories!

Thanks for staying tuned in! Enjoy!

 

[Miss Potts]

September 25, 2013 - THE DAY BEFORE



I always try to take the day before a vacation off, because I am officially the queen of procrastination when it comes to packing! But really, I have a day before vacation list of things I do... topping that is cleaning the house and doing all laundry. It's nice to come home from vacation to a nice clean house!

So this day before vacation was no different.

I also made sure we had our mousekeeping tip envelopes. This was the first time I made decorative envelopes... it was fun and a nice use of Disney stickers I had but never used!


We packed up our bags and made sure our yellow ME tags were attached:


Also note the pom-pom's on our luggage! I make those so that our luggage stands out and it really does work! Pink & Green was my luggage... the Blue & Orange was DH's. I usually leave the same ones on... but I made a new one for DH. He was sick of having pink and green.

I printed off my last draft of the itinerary:


I love making the itinerary! Seriously, it's so much fun for a crazy OCD planner!


I also packed up our plane bags and made sure I had my park bag.

I use the Vera Bradley Metropolitan Bag on the airplane... they retired this style and I don't know why! It's so functional!


For the parks, I use the Vera Bradley Hipster.


OF COURSE, I also packed up our magic bands! This is a previous photo of them:


I am always "too exited too sleep" on the night before we leave for Disney, but I somehow eventually drifted off to sleep dreaming Disney Dreams of course!

 

[Miss Potts]

September 26, 2013
The Arrival - Part One

In the morning, my alarm went off and I looked at my phone and saw:

YAY - Today is the day! After months of planning, it was time!

The alarm went off at 3:30am. The plan was to be out the door by 5am. We had to drive to Philadelphia and wanted to leave plenty of time. Our flight didn't leave until 11:30am, but I wanted to arrive between 8-8:30am. (Side note - I am usually late for everything EXCEPT when I'm traveling. When I'm traveling I am ridiculously early!)

I hit snooze... even though I was going to Disney... didn't mean I didn't want a few extra zzz's. Eventually, I got up and into the shower. Then DH showered and got dressed and ready. DH then took our trash out, went to the gas station to fill up, and got a coffee. By the time he got back, I was mostly ready.

I finished up while DH loaded the car.

Then we were off! We were about 15 minutes down the road, when DH realized he didn't have his wallet! I was annoyed, but happy he remembered close to home and NOT when we were 3 hours away in Philadelphia. So we turned around and got the wallet.

We finally were officially on the way by 5:30am!

Our trip was easy with no major issues.

We stopped about an hour outside Philadelphia for some breakfast, we were both hungry and needed to use the restroom. We went to Chick-Fil-A. I had never been to one before. We both had a Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Sandwich on an English Muffin, with hash browns, and orange juice. The hash browns were yummy!

We continued on our way and soon arrived at our destination... the Sheraton Suites. We had purchased discounted parking from a website called Global Airport Parking, and the Sheraton Suites is where we were leaving our car for the week. It was a nice little gated complex with two other hotels sharing the parking areas. By doing this, we saved about $30 compared to the price at the airport. The hotel shuttle took us to the airport and dropped us off right at our gate. It was perfect and really easy. We will definitely do that again when we fly out of Philly.

For this trip, we were flying on Airtran. I had purchased the flight through Southwest (because I had Southwest points)... it was confusing because the airlines weren't fully merged yet.

I had done online check-in and printed our boarding passes, but we needed to check our luggage. I also wanted to see if we could get seats together. They checked and were able to put us in the same row! As it turns out, the only 2 together were in the emergency exit row... so we had extra responsibilities on this flight and also extra leg room. ALSO... there was a gentleman who was supposed to sit on our side of the row but sat on the other side... so we ended up having the whole row to ourselves. It was the only open seat on the plane.

Anyways, so once we got to the terminal - I saw that the flight was delayed 1 hour. Ugh - I hate delays when I'm headed to Disney!! Normally, we always take the first flight out of the day but this time we didn't because we added days to our trip and didn't want to stay in Philly the night before so the timing worked better for us driving down. In the terminal, I liked where we chose to sit because there was a charging station right in our seats. I took the opportunity to charge up my phone and iPad while we waited.

I actually don't mind being in airports. I am a people watcher by nature and enjoy watching everything going on. I especially LOVE when we are in airports going to Disney - there is such an excitement in the terminal with all the families going to Disney as well. I always like to figure out how people are connected and if they are first timers or not. I also try to figure out where they are staying. It's a fun game to occupy the time but for some reason it drives my DH nuts!

Since we were going to be in the airport a bit longer, I suggested we get some lunch. DH didn't want to because he was full from breakfast. I told him that we wouldn't land until after 3pm at this point and then we still had to get to the hotel. I suggested he eat too otherwise he'd be cranky. (He later thanked me for this! Trust me, I know how he gets!)

I went to the bathroom and scoped the scene... the only thing I really wanted was McDonald's so DH went with that too. He went up and got us our lunch. I had a Chicken McNugget meal with a Coke and I forget what DH had! Oh well!

We ate and used the restroom and before we knew it, it was time to board the plane!

I had not flown Airtran for awhile, so I was confused by the "Zone" system. We were Zone 8 and didn't know if that would be first or last. In the end, we were pretty much the last to board. As we were walking back to our seats, a little girl told me she loved my earrings. My earrings were Minnie Mouse and she told me she was going to see her! It was really cute!

The plane ride was uneventful. I read some magazines and before I knew it we were landing in sunny Florida! Turns out we were in a good jet stream, and arrived in 2 hours!

It felt good to be home!

 

[Miss Potts]

September 26, 2013
The Arrival - Part Two

We exited the plane fairly quickly. It's always interesting to see the people that push their way to the front to get off. If everyone just took turns going, it would move so efficiently!!

Once we were off the plane, we made a pit stop in the restroom. Then we hopped aboard the baby monorail and continued on our way to WDW!

It was nice not going to Baggage Claim to collect our luggage. We did this for the first time on our previous trip in February and it worked so well. I worked at Disney when DME rolled out and it was not pretty. Took me awhile to get over it! Anyways, now I'm a fan and will let them collect my luggage from this point on!

We went straight to DME... and it looked like we had to the place to ourselves!

I went to pull out the paper information for DME, but they asked for our Magic Bands! We didn't have them on yet, so I pulled them out of my carry on and they scanned them! It was our first time using our Magic Band and it went perfectly! Our information came up on their screen and they directed us to the Polynesian bus line. We walked to the front of the line. I turned to DH and said... we might have to wait a bit, because we are the only people in any of the MK resort lines. But it seemed like as soon as I finished that a CM opened our line and directed us to a bus outside. We boarded a half full bus and in no time at all were on our way to WDW!!

Once settled on the bus, I asked DH what time it was to see if we were making good time, and he turned his wrist and said "It's Mickey Time!" It was really cute seeing DH get into the spirit especially because he isn’t a huge Disney fan!

Our bus pulled out and they announced that we’d be stopping at the Polynesian first! Woo Hoo! Besides our flight delay, we were making really great time!

The movie started...

Then we saw this... (we saw the whole thing, you only get a half photo!)

And then were pulling up here...

That's the Polynesian! Apparently I missed the resort sign when we pulled through the gate of the resort. Use your imagination!! Hehehe!

When we exited the bus, I saw a CM waiting there with an iPad. You can kind of see him in the photo. I had a feeling he was waiting for us, but another family started asking him questions. We walked into the GCH and joined the check-in line. We did online check-in, and that line was non existent - a CM helped us right away. She pulled up the reservation and then called over to the CM that was previously standing outside. She told him who we were and he apologized for missing us outside. He asked if this was our first visit to the Polynesian, and I said that it was for my DH but not for me. Then the CM asked if we wanted to walk or take a golf cart to our building. We opted to walk because we wanted to stretch our legs. He was a chatty CM and very friendly (I didn't note his name!). He saw we had our MB's on and said that he was supposed to get a cast member one soon to test out and was really excited!

He escorted us to the Hawaii building and then passed us off to the CM who would check us in!

The check-in was a little slow... all three desks in the Hawaii building had CM's at them and there was what seemed to be a manager standing behind and helping them each along the way. I figured it was because they were testing the MB’s and the system was new. The girl helping us needed his assistance quite a few times. In the end, we were checked in and our room was ready! We also got our request of a 3rd Floor Room. I requested 3rd floor because I hate ground level rooms and in the Hawaii building, the 2nd floor doesn't have a balcony. (Not that we ever really used the balcony - it's just nice to have the option!).

Next updates will include our room and our first night in Disney!

 

[Marsheliz]

I'm still here... Can't wait to see your room and hear about first night in Disney!! EXCITING STUFF!

 

[mtpelepele]

Following along too, looking forward to your trip report!