A (MAY)be PTR Updated 5/1

[BMC423]

This is a May 2012 PTR. It is my second attempt at writing a PTR so be patient with me! For those of you who read my first one I hope I do better this time around!

For those of you who don't know me my name is Bickiana, and you can all call me Bicki. I was born, raised, and still live in New York City. I currently work at a bank part time while going to grad school. I'm working on Masters in childhood education both general and special education. I have been a Disney lover since I was a child and I don't think I could ever get enough.

I'm married to my great, supportive, and helpful DH John. We have been married for almost five years and are the proud parents of DS Michael aka Mikey who is currently 2 but will be 3 for this trip.

I have been flirting with starting this PTR for a while now, I just needed to start already.

Thanks for joining me on planning this trip. All suggestions are welcome

 

[BMC423]

Links To Updates

Who's Going

A Trip is Almost Born!

A Blessing from the Disney Gods!

Royals or Pirates?

From where do we leave? When do we leave?

Breaking News!

Day 1: Arrival Day Part I

Day 1: Arrival Day Part II

Day 2: DHS Part I

Day 2: DHS Part II

DHS: The Food List

Day 3: Epcot Part I

Day 3: Epcot Part II

Life Update I

Epcot:The Food List


Life Update II

Day 4: Animal Kingdom

 

[BMC423]

What trip report would be complete without pictures of who will be going?

Here is our list, which is very similar to last years list....

Me:

My Dh John

Our Ds- Michael

Here we are on last years trip...

 

[mickeystoontown]

Another May Diser joining in!

 

[Echo queen]

Ok, I'm in I have never really followed a PTR.

 

[BMC423]

Another May Diser joining in!

Yay!! Are you staying are CBR as well?

Ok, I'm in I have never really followed a PTR.

Welcome, and thanks. PTR's are a lot of fun to create (at least for me) and a very good way to give and get feedback!

 

[disneydiva16]

Hi Bicki, I am also on your May thread and can't wait to hear all your plans. Afterall, planning is half the fun of any trip

 

[KellyWasHere]

Another May traveller joining in! It's always fun reading other people's plans.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Yay!! Are you staying are CBR as well?



Welcome, and thanks. PTR's are a lot of fun to create (at least for me) and a very good way to give and get feedback!

We will be staying at the CBR for our 7th time (we've been to WDW 17 times altogether) but we also have a cruise booked. We'll be at All Stars Music for the first night, driving to Port Canaveral and boarding the Disney Dream May 24th to May 27th and then check into the CBR May 27th through June 2nd. I'm super excited!

I can't wait to hear about all of your plans!

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

I'm in! Great start, can't wait for more!!

 

[BMC423]

Hi Bicki, I am also on your May thread and can't wait to hear all your plans. Afterall, planning is half the fun of any trip

Welcome! Yes, planning is half of the fun for me too.

Another May traveller joining in! It's always fun reading other people's plans.

Welcome! I thinks so too, I've always gotten an idea or two out for my trips after reading other DISers PTRs

We will be staying at the CBR for our 7th time (we've been to WDW 17 times altogether) but we also have a cruise booked. We'll be at All Stars Music for the first night, driving to Port Canaveral and boarding the Disney Dream May 24th to May 27th and then check into the CBR May 27th through June 2nd. I'm super excited!

I can't wait to hear about all of your plans!

Wow! That sounds amazing! This will be our 1st time at CBR and we are quite excited about that. I'm glad you are here I'm sure I will be asking CBR questions as we go along

I'm in! Great start, can't wait for more!!

Welcome!

 

[BMC423]

If you are like me (chances are that you are) you start planning your next Disney trip before your current one is even done. This was the case on our last trip in March of 2011. John and I had a discussion during dinner one night about how it was a great idea to have taken our son when he turned 2. We agreed that a trip every two years seemed like a good idea. It would allow us to save for a year and maybe even go somewhere else every once and a while.

So we when got home and I started learning more and more about the Fantasyland Expansion and reading TRs and PTRs I was itching to go back. I kept my thoughts too myself since we had already agreed. Then one day my son grabbed his backpack and said "bye Mommy, see you later" So I asked him "Where are you going?" His response... "Disney Worerld"

I mentioned it to John, and he said you want to back next year and I was like Did he even have to ask??? So this is where I would like to say so we booked it and that's it... nope not that easy.

First of all we had told my parents we would be traveling out to the Dominican Republic this summer. My family owns a home out there (not on the beach or anything, just in the town where my parents grew up). So I did some calculating and a trip to DR for just the 3 of us would cost up to $3,000 (for airfare alone). We would have had to get my son a passport, and send some stuff over (food, diapers, etc). If the house was hooked up then I would have considered it, but it still a work in progress and if I'm going on vacation, I want to feel like I'm on Vacation . So I disappointed my mom by telling her we would not be joining them on their yearly trip to DR.

Then I priced our Disney vacation, we were looking to go in the Summer since we have never really been. It was out of our price range completely Then I checked again for something late Spring, still too pricey. So John and I decided we would wait and see if you could get a deal later on. If not well then we would not be able to go.


Up Next: The Disney Gods Send Some Blessings Our Way!

 

[BMC423]

I spent most of the late Summer and early Fall obsessively checking the WDW site in hopes of finding something. I asked my husband to give me a make it or break it figure so he said if you can find a room for about 1,000 or less we can go. I was in a mission and I was able to meet that requirements at the Values. The problem was we didn't want to do a value. We really liked the CSR last year and have never stayed at a deluxe but we didn't want to stay at a value.

So we were looking at the mods and saw the the Royal rooms would be ready by then so we were looking into them. When I got an email about the Spring discounts I was on the booking website in a flash. So we are a bit indecisive about our dates. We wanted the end of May but thought the crowds would be much larger. My husband also has a vacation blackout period at work in the beginning of June so those dates wouldn't work. So looked at my school schedule and the semester would be over the week of May 6th. My last two classes were online so we decided to go on that week.

Next: Do we want to be Royals, or Pirates?

 

[BMC423]

I mentioned we wanted to stay at the new Royal Guest rooms. Unfortunately they weren't available with this promotion. So we thought about staying at Port Orleans anyway, but we remembered the pirate rooms over at CBR. We thought our son would enjoy them so we looked and yes they were available with our budget so we have a when and a where.

Some CBR Pictures that I borrowed from the Web:

Here are some of the Pirate Room:

NEXT: When and from where do we leave???

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

YAY for CBR and the POTC room!! We've never stayed in a pirate room, but they sure do look cool! We've stayed at CBR 3X now and we just love it!

 

[BMC423]

Next we had to decide on how to get to Disney. Driving is not an option for us yet, so we would have to fly. One of the best thing about living in NYC is having a lot of options when it comes to flying. I compared prices from all three airports (JFK, LGA, and Newark). Last year I decided that we would not take the early morning flight out to Orlando again because we had decided to not make "arrival day" a park day anymore. I had to rethink that decision when I was looking at ticket prices.

So we are flying Jetblue (I love Jetblue). We leave from LGA at 7:55am arriving at MCO at 10:39. So we have to be at the airport at about 6:00am... which means we have to leave our house at 5:30. Not as early as last year but still early.


Up Next: Arrival Day!!!

 

[SOUTHERNtinkerBELLE]

Hi Bicki! I'm coming over to check out your PTR! Can't wait to hear about all of your plans!

 

[BMC423]

There has been a big development in our household today! I sat John down for a talk and said I really had to get moving on the planning side. I learned from my last trip that having a commando style plan will not work for my family. We need a plan but one that allows us to be flexible.

That being said we needed to discuss dinning, yes I had already made some ADR's but I wanted to go over what we had with him to make sure he understood our options. Last year we did the deluxe DP and thought that it would be too much for this trip. As I started mentioning dinning options to John he reacted the way I knew he would. We really like to sit down and enjoy our meals, so while a counter service here and there is ok for the most part table service is the way we prefer to go. So when John kept saying let's eat there for a lot of the TS restaurant I pulled out my calculator and started crunching numbers.

Turns out if we ate the way we would like we would spend just about the same money as if we did the deluxe dp ... even less when you factor in the character meals. So I called Disney and yeah we are doing it again! In a way I'm relieved I really liked the not having to budget for food last year since I had already taken care of it. I do not have 3 ADRs everyday, giving us the flexibility we need. Also I got all the ADR's we did want meaning we get to try some new places. More on this later!

 

[BMC423]

Hi Bicki! I'm coming over to check out your PTR! Can't wait to hear about all of your plans!

Hi Courtney! Thanks for joining in!

 

[BMC423]

YAY for CBR and the POTC room!! We've never stayed in a pirate room, but they sure do look cool! We've stayed at CBR 3X now and we just love it!

Welcome! I read your CBR review, it really made me feel like I made the right choice. We did love CSR last year so the layout wasn't that big of a deal.