All It Takes Is Faith, Trust, Pixie Dust... and planning! First-timers' PTR

[reyasmommy]

Your DD is a cutie! She's going to have so much fun.

I was reading that one of her dislikes is bugs.

My DD is terrified of any and all bugs!!! The other day there was a moth on the ceiling upstairs in the hallway. My poor baby was clinging to the banister, screaming her lungs out, frozen in fear. "bug, bug, bug, help momma, help" It was absolutely NO WHERE near her.

I recall Florida being swarmed with bugs, so I can't wait to see her reaction on our next trip.

 

[NLD]

My DD is terrified of any and all bugs!!! The other day there was a moth on the ceiling upstairs in the hallway. My poor baby was clinging to the banister, screaming her lungs out, frozen in fear. "bug, bug, bug, help momma, help" It was absolutely NO WHERE near her.

I recall Florida being swarmed with bugs, so I can't wait to see her reaction on our next trip.

OMG too funny! Yeah totally sounds like Sunshine. She has literally refused to go out to play because of seeing bumblebees!

Supposedly lovebugs can be an issue in September in FL? We'll see what Sunshine does with that!

Hope Reya does okay on your trip and isn't scarred for life! LOL.

 

[NLD]

Contemplations on Dining

Ahhhh, food. One of life's great pleasures...

We are going during free dining, so I've been checking out the restaurant forum and menus on AllEars.

Matt LOVES food. It is probably the only thing about this vacation that he might be the tiniest bit interested in.

So, in an effort to pull him into the Disney spirit, I just emailed him the Epcot dinner menus. They are formatted nicely in a Word document, with a title page, numbered pages, and a table of contents. After the name of each restaurant is a notation about the type of cuisine served.

He's been asked to pick two that look good. If he doesn't... hey, I'll pick.

In the meantime, here are the ADRs under top consideration:

MK area: Cinderella's Royal Table, Artist's Point, Ohana
AK area: Yak and Yeti, Boma
DHS area: Sci-Fi Dine-In, Mama Melrose
Epcot area: Akershus, Le Cellier, Biergarten, Teppan Edo, Tutto Italia... or whatever Matt decides

Sunshine's excited to maybe eat with the princesses. I really really really really really (really) want to get an ADR for us at CRT on our last day, but CRT can be tough...

Will we get that CRT ressie?
Will Matt give a rip about dinner in Epcot?

Come on, June 21!

 

[NLD]

Okay so it's not great, but I took a pic of myself just to have something for this PTR! Dang, it's hard to take a pic of yourself with a DSLR without setting up a tripod.... well, it'll do for now. It's added to the "About Us" post.

I'm such a dork!

 

[NLD]

Lens Lust

First, an ode to my hubby. Remember I said he was good at gift-giving? He really is. Here's some of what he's given me over the years:

A star named after me
A first-British-edition, first printing of Lolita (this is a rare book of my favorite title, Lolita)
A beautiful black pearl ring (after I mentioned on our honeymoon an affinity for black pearls)

And there's more, but that's the idea... he's pretty romantic and has a knack for picking out meaningful, personal items.

But one of my favorite gifts from him has to be my Nikon D60. Last year's birthday present.

I'm still learning. It's a STEEP learning curve, as I knew nothing about photography prior to this camera. What's to learn with a DSLR? Well...

1. How the camera itself works (and all the gear associated with it).
2. How ISO, shutter speed, and aperture work together to make an exposure... what white balance is... what depth of field is and how to use it creatively... and on and on (in other words, the fundamentals of photography itself).
3. How to post-process a picture.

To be honest I'm still totally novice at ALL of this, even after a year. I practice, but not as often as possible. And post-processing.... Photoshop still scares the crap outta me, so I've been using a freebie program just for basics. At some point.... well.

Two things have helped with learning the fundamentals of photography:

Bryan Peterson's book Understanding Exposure
The DIS boards photography forum!

And again there's still lots to learn, but that book and the forums here at least helped me get the camera out of auto mode!

As for the camera and gear: Right now all I've got is a kit lens. (Well, two kit lenses, but one's basically redundant.) It's the 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6. No tripod, no filters, no other lenses, nada.

(This is leading up to Disney, really.)

So here's the thing: I am lusting after a faster lens. And Nikon finally came out with a cheap f/1.8 lens that will auto-focus on the D60.

I am SALIVATING after this lens!

And it's hard to find. Because it's new and the demand was high and it's back-ordered everywhere.

And anyway I haven't been comfortable throwing $200 at more camera gear yet this spring.

Anyway. Point is I am dying to get this dang lens before Disney. That lens will at least allow me to ATTEMPT to take some low-light shots.

But that's not the only item on the photography shopping list for this trip.... nope.

Photography Shopping List for Disney Trip

Nikon 35mm 1.8 AF-S lens
A tripod and head (or maybe a gorillapod?)
A remote shutter release
A camera bag
A new camera strap
Some more memory cards

Those are the bare essentials. There's more to be lusted after, oh heck yeah, there's more... but I'm trying to be reasonable.

So we'll see. My birthday's coming up, and I may just have to splurge and buy myself a gift.

 

[NLD]

ADR Frenzy!

7:45 AM. I woke up on the couch, where I'd fallen asleep last night. Glanced at the clock... OH NO! It was 7:45 and today was our date to make ADRs! I'd completely forgotten last night...

I jumped off the couch, grabbed a coke, and RAN upstairs to the computer. Grabbed the phone and dialed WDW Dining while pulling up my trip planning documents on the computer.

The message on the dining reservation line told me it was over a 30 minute wait. Great.

So I'm listening to the hold music and it starts cutting in and out. Uh-oh...

Meanwhile, I pull up the DIS restaurant forums to check out other people's experiences this morning. Are they getting what they want? Is there ANY availability for CRT?

...And I find--ohmygosh--the online dining reservation system for the public has been launched!

(I had missed this because Disney planning has taken a backseat to work and, well, life, the past two week...)

So I find my way to the online reservation site and start fiddling. Still on hold via the phone. I enter my trip confirmation number and... voila! Our trip is retrieved and it looks like I'm able to book 90 plus 10 days.

Well, first thing's first: CRT. I check availability for 9/24, lunch or breakfast. And there's... nothing.

Time to regroup. How about 9/23?

Yes! Several lunch times available!

So I scoop one up and "add it to my cart." The website tells me the reservation time will be held for two hours as long as my session is still active. After 20 minutes of inactivity, though, it will no longer be held.

No problem... I start searching availability for other dining ressies. One after another, they are successfully added to my "cart."

Finally, about 9:30 and after multiple second-guessings and tweakings, I've got all the ADRs for the trip in cart. I go to check out... and I need a credit card confirmation for the Princess character meals. Shoot, forgot about that. And on my card the three-digit security code is rubbed off the back.

So I run downstairs and grab DH's card, enter that info, and proceed to the final checkout....

Success! A page comes up saying "You've successfully booked the reservations below." And it lists all our ADRs with a confirmation # for each. Yay! Yay! Yay!


So here's what we ended up with:

Sunday 9/20: Yak and Yeti lunch 1:00 PM
Monday 9/21: Askershus Princess lunch 12:10 PM; Artist Point dinner 5:35 PM
Tuesday 9/22: SciFi lunch 11:45 PM; Marrakesh dinner 6:00 PM
Wednesday 9/23: CRT lunch 1:05 PM

90 more days until we can START EATING!

 

[crocko]

whew! Glad you got your ADR's....I know that's a stressful morning.

 

[NLD]

Ch-ch-ch-changes! Resort, ADRs

Long time since I've updated. Busy at work.

First thing's first: our resort has changed: to Port Orleans Riverside!

In this economy we just started feeling uncomfy with what we were spending on deluxe lodging. Despite downgrading, I felt relief and happiness after the call to switch, so this was definitely the right decision for us.

A tiny bit sad about losing the boat to MK, that beutiful WL lobby, and the geyser. Very excited about saving $700, the boat to DTD, the POR foodcourt, and all those shady walkways and river views at POR.

We requested Alligator Bayou, as close to the main building as possible.

On top of the resort change, we switched up our ADRs. Artist Point didn't make much sense anymore. So we now have:

Sunday 9/20: Yak and Yeti lunch 1:00 PM
Monday 9/21: Askershus Princess lunch 12:10 PM
Tuesday 9/22: SciFi lunch 11:45 PM; Marrakesh dinner 6:00 PM
Wednesday 9/23: CRT lunch 1:05 PM
Thursday 9/24: Kona breakfast 10:40 AM

As of today we are two months away exactly. So excited I can hardly stand it!

Oh, and by way of a photography gear update: my fabulous dh bought me the 35mm 1.8 Nikon lens for my birthday. Love, love, love it. Dad got me a cheapie tripod (still not sure about it for WDW though), and I bought myself a remote shutter release. Still need a bag (thinking Crumpler 5 million), another memory card or two, and maybe the gorillapod.

 

[NLD]

Strategy: A First-Timer's Guide to Planning an Itinerary

Thought I'd talk a little about our basic strategy for this trip.

We have five full days at WDW. For the first three, DH will be with us. For the last two, it's just DD and me.

I wanted DH to get a taste of all four parks. So we either needed parkhoppers or tickets for MNNSHP 9/22 (which would allow us to go to one park that morning, and MK that night).

Debated a long time about MNSSHP. In the end I decided, hey, parkhoppers give us more flexibility; what if there's a downpour MNSSHP night? no fun; MNSSHP would cost more (for less flexibility!); and it's our first trip, we can afford to focus on "regular" things to do at WDW.

So parkhoppers--in. MNSSHP--out.

Once September hours came out, I worked up an itinerary with these thoughts in mind:

1. Fit all four parks into the first three days.

2. Avoid morning EMH if possible. (We're not morning people. Rope drop at 9 will be hard enough, nevermind at 8.)

3. Dedicate at least one morning to each park.

4. Avoid DHS on a Fantasmic! day. (Not worth it.)

5. Must see Illuminations. Would like to see Wishes and Spectro.

6. Maximize park time. Make the use of evening EMH possible.

7. No waterparks. (DD can't swim, resort pool will be fine, for a first trip we're concentrating on the main parks.)

7. Leave some flexibility in the plan. Don't get locked in by ADRs. Structure our days so that if desired we can leave anytime after lunch and spend the afternoon and evening however we like, without needing to rush to get somewhere. Make it possible to parkhop if we want or to skip an evening park and just chill.


Sounds like a lot. It actually fell together fairly easily.

Park hours for our dates look like this:

Sat 9/19
MK 9-9 (Spectro 8pm)
EP 9-9
AK 9-5
DHS 9-7 (AM EMH)

Sun 9/20
MK 9-8 (PM EMH)
EP 9-9
AK 9-5
DHS 9-8 (Fan! 8pm)

Mon 9/21
MK 9-9 (Spectro 8pm)
EP 9-9
AK 9-5 (AM EMH)
DHS 9-7 (PM EMH)

Tues 9/22
MK 9-7 (MNSSHP)
EP 9-9
AK 9-5
DHS 9-7

Wed 9/23
MK 9-8
EP 9-9 (PM EMH)
AK 9-5
DHS 9-7

Thur 9/24
MK 9-9 (AM EMH; Spectro 8pm)
EP 9-9
AK 9-5
DHS 9-7

Fri 9/25
(Departure day, hours irrelevant)

In order to comply with the requirement #7, flexibility, I decided lunch ADRs (rather than dinner) would work best. Without knowing whether we'll want an afternoon break, the lunch ADR gives us an air-conditioned break midday, and the chance to stay as long as we want without feeling like, if we do break, that we must go back out for the evening.


The first full day, 9/20:

With MK evening EMH on our first full day, I quickly decided that's how we'd get Matt his MK time. Those are the longest hours MK has the entire trip--we'll take 'em!

Then the question was which park that morning? DHS was out due to it being a Fantasmic day. AK seemed like a good pair with MK EMH--it closed at 5 anyway, so we wouldn't feel like we were missing something there to be at MK EMH.

I scheduled a lunch ADR for AK, locking us in there that morning, but allowing the flexibility to leave AK anytime after lunch and arrive at MK anytime we wanted.

On to the second day, 9/21:

We now had an AK morning and MK evening. Before Matt's departure, we still needed a DHS morning, an EP morning, and an EP evening (for Illuminations). On 9/21 DHS had PM EMH, so I couldn't see starting the day there. So EP it was.

I scheduled a lunch ADR for EP, locking us in there that morning, but again allowing us a flexible evening. We can stay at EP all day, we can hop to MK in the afternoon, we can take an afternoon break and then head to DHS for evening EMH, we can do DTD... the night's wide open.

Now the third day, 9/22:

With an AK morning and EP morning under our belts, we needed DHS--perfect, no Fantasmic, no EMHs for DHS this day.

I scheduled a lunch ADR for DHS. However, for this day I also scheduled a dinner ADR (the only one of the trip) at EP. This was done for a few reasons: Matt wanted to eat at Marrakesh, so I wanted to end the night with his restaurant of choice; no great CS dinner choices at DHS anyway; needed to make sure we see Illuminations.

So 9/22 is our most "scheduled" day.


Fourth day, 9/23 and fifth day, 9/24:

Matt would be leaving the 23rd, catching DME in the morning. So these last two days were just for me and dd were really about two things: a CRT reservation if possible, and the chance for more MK time...but of course with flexibility so that we could repeat any of her other park favorites.

CRT only had openings the 23rd (none on the 24th), so I made a lunch ADR for that day. It's the only thing on the schedule for the day, but being in MK for lunch, I expect Sunshine and I will spend some time there. And we still have freedom to hop around the rest of the day.

The 24th... well, I really wanted a nice breakfast ressie at some point in the trip. MK has morning EMH this day. So... while I don't know if we'll actually make it to MK at 8... I scheduled a late breakfast for Kona. This puts us in the MK area on our last morning, and if we can make ourselves get up for EMH, we'll get a good 2 plus hours in at MK prior to breakfast. Rest of the day is open.


So there you have it! It's long and detailed, but on the off chance another newbie reads it maybe it will be helpful to see another first-timer's reasoning.

The key to it all is lunch ADRs. It gets us out of the brutal September heat midday, and gives us lots of flexibility in the evenings. And on the off chance we decide to entirely ditch rope drops... we could just get to a park midday for our lunch ressies and then spend the rest of the day there (with the exception of that DHS day--we're locked into an Epcot dinner--though even there we could cancel).


Our final schedule looks like this:

Sat Sept 19: Arrival day; head to MK for Spectro and Wishes if there's time (MK closes 9 pm)

Sun Sept 20: AK morning (rope drop 9 am); Yak & Yeti lunch 1 pm; afternoon open; MK evening EMH (closes 11 pm)

Mon Sept 21: EP morning (rope drop 9 am); Akershus lunch 12:10 pm; afternoon and evening open (EP to 9? MK to 9? DHS EMH to 10? DTD? Chill at resort?)

Tues Sept 22: DHS morning (rope drop 9 am); Sci-Fi lunch 11:45 am; afternoon open; Marrakesh dinner 6:00 pm; Illuminations 9 pm

Wed Sept 23: open morning/probably MK? (rope drop 9 am); CRT lunch 1:05 pm; open evening (Note: EP EMH to 12 midnight if we want to take advantage...)

Thurs Sept 24: open morning/note: MK EMH available (8 am); Kona breakfast 10:40 am; rest of the day open

Fri Sept 25: Departure day

And that's it!

 

[crocko]

Great planning!

Especially with how you put together those first 3 full days. Well thought out and it looks like you'll maximize your time very well.

Places we might be at during the same time:
9/22 -- We are planning on seeing Illuminations that night as well.
9/24 -- We plan on hitting the 8am rope drop at MK this day.

 

[NLD]

Hi crocko,

So sorry I've been absent! Haven't gotten the hang of this pre-TR thing yet!

How cool that we have some overlap! We will DEFINITELY be at Illuminations 9/22 (barring a catastrophe!).

 

[NLD]

In Need of Pixie Dust!

Ohhhhh, Pennsylvania. You are scaring me.

You see, it's August 10th. You were supposed to pass a state budget by June 30th. You still have no budget.

Yes, my little family is getting caught in budget crisis. Or... will be soon, anyway.

A couple weeks back it was all over the news about how PA's state workers weren't getting paid. The feds (Department of Labor) were breathing down the Governor's neck, investigating, saying it was illegal to require people to work with no paycheck.

So last week the Gov signed a "stop-gap" budget that allows for state workers to be paid.... and ONLY for state workers to be paid. All other monies are still in negotiation.

Which means?

Now the pressure is off the legislature and the Governor... but state money is not flowing to counties, schools, hospitals, and--mental health nonprofits.

I work for a mental health nonprofit.

It's getting scarier as each day passes. If this continues much longer, we'll be the ones facing no paychecks and/or layoffs. And once the budget does pass... well we've got a serious gap in the PA budget. There's likely to be (more, in addition to what's already been passed down) cuts to mental health services, anyway.

Meanwhile, our 45 day final payment for Disney World was due last week. I called Disney and they said they wouldn't cancel our trip until there'd been nonpayment for 15 days. So we've stretched it out and have an auto-payment set up to go through this week, trying to buy a teeny bit more time.

But in reality? Things won't be resolved, and I know that.

So my stomach is in knots. What do we do? Oh yes we can afford that final payment--but SHOULD we be going to Disney just now?

The thought of cancelling is breaking my heart, and I know it would break Sunshine's. But but but...

Meanwhile the money we lose if we cancel just goes up and up the closer we get to the trip, yes?

Airfare is paid for. Once the final payment goes through, lodging, dining and park tickets are all completely paid for.

What to do?

And to throw another wrench into the plans: this weekend we got Sunshine's Welcome to Kindergarten info in the mail. They did not provide a student handbook (yet), but reference the attendance policy in said handbook, and from the sounds of it a five-day Disney trip in September doesn't sound exactly compatible with the attendance policy. Something about a fine for over three days of unexcused absences. Impossible to tell from the letter, though, whether a family vacation could be considered excused.

Wish they'd send the student handbook!

However, this attendance thing? Frankly, just makes me roll my eyes. Kindergarten, for heaven's sake. She'll learn more in one day at World Showcase than she will for a week in afternoon Kindergarten....


But man oh man, we need some serious pixie dust our way! Too much anxiety a month out!

Maybe I'll wish on a star tonight with Sunshine.

Come on Pennsylvania, pass that budget!

 

[NLD]

We're Still Going!

No Pennsylvania budget yet. And it doesn't look hopeful that we'll have one soon.

But we've decided... we're going to Disney anyway. Heck, it's paid for. And if we cancel we lose enough money (trip cancellation fee, insurance, airfare) that at this point it just makes more sense to go.

So Disney got our final payment.

DME package came in the mail Saturday.

So now? It's a matter of counting down the days. Packing. Counting down the days. Making sure I have all our info organized and printed out. Counting down the days. Last minute trip purchases. Oh and counting down the days!

Disney World, here we come!

 

[crocko]

Woohoo!! Yay for the vacation staying on!

Hope PA gets its budget soon. Sheesh!