51 days, 3 hours and 59 minutes...Plans have changed again, and dinner plans...

[acejka]

Until our vacation... according to Disney's nifty little vacation countdown clock they supplied me with when I bought my DVC....


Hey everyone!!!
So this is my first attempt at planning a Disney vacation.

I don’t plan for real, only for fake.
I can plan a vacation any day, but do I actually go on these vacations?? Nope. I just like planning things.

Now for the actual vacations that I take, I never plan too far ahead, anywhere from 3 months out to a few hours out….
Not to stray off topic or anything, BUT... the last time I went to Disney was for my Honeymoon, and we decided that approximately 6 hours before we left on it. I thought it would be a horrible dorky decision for a honeymoon, but boy was I wrong! It was the creating of a monster… I am now obsessed with Disney.


Here are some pictures of me and my DH from the honeymoon. It was his first trip to Disney, my second time ever.

Somewhere in-between our honeymoon in October, and January of 2007 I got bitten by the DVC bug. All of a sudden, I just wanted a DVC. This after saying on the honeymoon, when approached by the DVC reps. I said geez timeshares are so stupid. What can I can I ate my words, and did some research… I never knew about this kind of timeshare, only the kind where you are stuck with a certain week at a certain spot each year. So after doing my research and falling totally in love with the idea of a DVC, it was all I talked about for months. Finally we bought into AKL for their 100 point special back in late May, early June.

A lot of people say that it won’t work for me to have a DVC since I don’t like to plan too far ahead, but right now I can always know that the week of October 14 is something I should book since we will always want to go then since it was the week of our wedding. So there it’s settled. I have a planned vacation for the next 50 years.

We are taking our first trip in September using our points.

Our original plan was Vero Beach September 27-29 on 2008's points then Spetember 29-October 4th on Developer Points, but I decided that I didn't want to risk not using all of my developer points since I got them by the skin of my teeth anyway (apparantly when I bought, me and a handful of other people got developer points with out 100 point contract when we weren't supposed to) so I changed my plans to September 27-October 4 at Saratoga Springs... Know as SSR from here on out.

I've never been in Disney for this many days! I am scared yet excited!

 

[acejka]

Here is our initial breakdown of how the days will go:

Friday September 26 around lunchtime, drop the babies off at the boarders.
Oh and since I am completely 100% obsessed with my puppies, here they are:

Anywho… back to the plan.
So after dropping the pups off at the boards, we will drive to Savannah for the night. Yup you heard me right, driving. From Springfield, VA. I don’t care for flying. I’ve done it a couple times and I’m not quite comfortable with the experience yet. I will get there. Eventually. Not to mention that, but we need a car in WDW. I don’t do park transportation unless absolutely necessary and there are very few reasons whey I would do that.

The next afternoon after lunchtime, we will drive the remaining few hours to Orlando for the next week! I was told its about 4.5 hours to get to Disney providing that you don't get stuck in traffic. I think we will leave Savannah around 1:30ish to drive to Disney. We don't want to get there very early because we've heard that you usually don't get to check in right away at the DVC resorts. Plus I really want to look around Savannah and hopefully *fingers crossed* have lunch at Paula Deen's.

We will do Downtown Disney that 1st evening. I love Downtown Disney, and I feel like I never spent enough time there on my previous two trips. Now I also heard about this dueling piano bar at the Boardwalk that I am dying to try out, that is a possibility as well. I really want to get a chance to walk around the Boardwalk area and explore. I've heard it can be very pretty at night.

Right now I don’t have a park itinerary because I don’t know park hours quite yet. I will be keeping an eye on those though.

 

[acejka]

Here is a list of must-do’s for us:
Dueling Piano Bar
Pearl Popping at Downtown Disney
Rockin Rollercoaster
As much photography as we can stand.
Sci-fi Diner even if we wait so long it hurts
50’s PrimeTime Café even if we wait so long it hurts
Cinderella’s Carousel
A baked Potato at the baked Potato Cart if they still have it
Chase Visa Meet and Greet
I must try this “DoleWhip” thing
Oh yes, the food and wine festival will just be starting up!!! Must do!
Illuminations
Fantasmic
Wishes
We have have HAVE to eat Fish and Chips in GB at Epcot.
Malestorm (However you spell it...)
I want a picture of us together in every country at Epcot
Figment
The animation thing at Hollywood Studios (Ok I am sick of typing all that... its still MGM to me)
Backlot Tour
Dumbo no matter how dorky we look.
Muppets
Toy Story Ride




We are really only going to do Magic Kingdom, Epcot and Hollywood Studios. We don't like Animal Kingdom too much. Maybe this trip it will grow on us...

Friday though…. Friday is my big day.
I am having a bridal portrait session with Randy Chapman. See when we got married up here in the DC area, my photographer and I didn’t see eye to eye on the style of pictures I wanted, and I rushed through planning my wedding (anyone who is reading this and not yet married… slow down, don’t rush and really think about all of your decisions! You can do it over later but it will never feel the same!) so I didn’t stand my ground for what I wanted, but Randy does awesome work, so as part of our Anniversary gifts to each other we are bringing my dress down and he’s renting a tux and we are doing some outside shots and stuff that were missed the first time around.

Now I just have to fit my fat self into my dress again. Ugh. Dieting. Exercise and lots of it. I need to loose 14 lbs in 2 months. Not too bad. And to top it off I have a stomach bug as we speak! This is a positive thing. That or I have salmonella. That’s not so bad either… My DH lost 24 lbs while in the hospital with salmonella a couple years ago. Just kidding. Well not about the 24 lbs, kidding about wanting to go through that. Not worth it. I will suck it up and not eat anything good and sweat butt off. Literally...

*Update it was some kind of bacteria in my stomach mixed with 2 ear infections-bad ear infections. Cipro cleared that stuff up, and left me 4 lbs closer to my goal!

 

[acejka]

So I called today and got a reservation for Le Cellier at 5:55 pm during our trip.

I've heard great things about this place and its going to be our anniversay dinner. I am going to order a cake that says Happy 2nd Anniversary and have it sent to the resturant if its possible.

Also, I found out how to get the hours for the parks so that I can plan those as well.

 

[OhMari]

I"m going to put you in the PRe-trip boards. Let me know when you return, and I can change you back.

What are your day's?

 

[acejka]

Ok so I finally looked up the extra magic hours for my dates and here it is… my official plan to the parks.

Saturday September 27
· Extra Morning Hours at Hollywood Studios
· Evening Extra Magic Hours no Park

Sunday September 28
· Extra Morning Hours at No Park
· Evening Extra Magic Hours at Hollywood Studios

Monday September 29
· Extra Morning Hours at Animal Kingdom
· Evening Extra Magic Hours No Park

Tuesday September 30
· Extra Morning Hours at Epcot
· Evening Extra Magic Hours at No Park

Wednesday October 1
· Extra Morning Hours at No Park
· Evening Extra Magic Hours at Animal Kingdom


Thursday October 2
· Extra Morning Hours at Magic Kingdom
· Evening Extra Magic Hours at No Park

Friday October 3
· Extra morning Hours at No Park
· Evening Extra Magic Hours at Epcot


So I feel a little jipped on my Extra Magical Hours… Seeing this I will make the best of it.

We will be taking great advantage of the Epcot hours. We love Epcot so that was great.

Wednesday will be good. We can get the couple hours we care to spend at Animal Kingdom that evening. I think it will be cool to do this park in the evening.

 

[acejka]

So we have changed our plans again... We may not do the bridal pictures now. For more than one reason... We kind of want to save the money for a vow renewal, and we also realized that it is going to end up being more money than we wanted to put out right now, all the little costs of taking bridal pictures are adding up...


We have decided on one thing though!!

We are doing the dining plan!!
Normally we don't eat that much, or eat out that much especially since I am trying to loose weight, but we are treating ourselves.

We now have reservations at:
Le Cellier
Narcossee's
Primetime Diner
Whispering Canyon
Kona Cafe
Coral Reef

I am super excited. I've never eaten at any of these places...

Time to go exercise! I need to get my stamina up for all the walking I will be doing at disney in not that many days.