and we're back. [Walt, Wizards, and....Woolungasaurus?]

[Silly Little Pixie]

I figure I should talk about the MK! It's weird, but I'm the least excited and most weirded out by thoughts of entering that park.

I know the castle is going to freak me out. And I'm going to miss miss miss the Matterhorn! From looking at pictures, I'm probably going to have false starts and startles all day, when something isn't where my Disneyland brain thinks it should be, and when something unexpected suddenly appears. It's going to be interesting!

MK is our least favorite park. I know to the WDW fans, that is heresy, but it's true. DH only goes long enough to see Mickey's Philharmagic (because it's Donald-centric, and he's his favorite character, and it's awesome...). Otherwise he wouldn't go at all. Truly for us it's a one-day park, mainly so I can see Wishes at night! The castle is lovely- and enormous- and pretty- and enormous. It does take some getting used to. My DD and I enjoyed a very nice breakfast last year at Cinderella's Royal Table. That was a neat experience, and we had a wonderful server. But it was expensive, so it won't be on every trip.

When I went in 2003 with my brother, we both commented on how we knew where everything was at Disneyland - no maps required- and yet at the Magic Kingdom we were always on the edge of getting a little lost! You'll need to study up on some maps ahead of time.

But don't worry, after a few trips I think you will have it all down!

Christine

 

[bumbershoot]

MK is our least favorite park. I know to the WDW fans, that is heresy, but it's true. DH only goes long enough to see Mickey's Philharmagic (because it's Donald-centric, and he's his favorite character, and it's awesome...). Otherwise he wouldn't go at all. Truly for us it's a one-day park, mainly so I can see Wishes at night!

I really appreciate that feedback! I won't feel like a freak now, if that's how I feel.

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

I really appreciate that feedback! I won't feel like a freak now, if that's how I feel.

My DH really prefers DL to the MK, and since we go often enough to DL, he feels like it's a letdown at MK. I don't... I appreciate what's different... But still prefer to spend more of my time elsewhere. Plus we have had a great time at the waterparks, something not at DL.

 

[heatherleigh]

Just got caught up w/ your pre-trip report, and I'm getting excited for you! I cannot wait for your feedback upon your return.

I just realized it's actually less expensive for us to fly to Orlando than it is to fly to SNA, but it looks too overwhelming. I wouldn't even know where to begin w/ the planning. We are still doing DL this Nov, but next year we will take on WDW for sure.

I bet Eamon is super excited!

 

[bumbershoot]

But still prefer to spend more of my time elsewhere. Plus we have had a great time at the waterparks, something not at DL.

I hope it's decent enough weather to go to a waterpark! I don't mind *swimming* when it's cold, but that whole *getting out of the water* part can really ruin it for me, if the air is cold.

I'm super-excited for AK, I can tell you that!

I just realized it's actually less expensive for us to fly to Orlando than it is to fly to SNA, but it looks too overwhelming. I wouldn't even know where to begin w/ the planning. We are still doing DL this Nov, but next year we will take on WDW for sure.

I bet Eamon is super excited!

We can't even look at airfare yet. Plus, we're hoping that Robert snags a few more big trips and earns scads more air miles, to reduce the cost of a flight.

E is excited, but it's all sort of mysterious to him as well. We have these big maps on the wall, and he was asking (more like telling) about our trip, and how we'll go down to Disneyland first, then take a plane to Disneyworld. And while I couldn't bring myself to say absolutely NO to that (I mean, that sounds fabulous to me!), I did have to tell him that that is not very likely.

But now the kid put the idea into my head.

 

[kaoden39]

But now the kid put the idea into my head.

must....resist....the...temptation....must...not....answer....the....pull!!!

 

[rmonty02]

So I subscribed to this thread over a month ago and FINALLY got a chance to read it. I am planning our first trip ever to WDW. I wanted to be able to take my parents, as they are aging and slowing down. They took us to DL about once a year and since I've had my two boys we have gone with them three times the last three years. Our dream has been to go to WDW and now with DVC we're going to make it happen!
I'm looking forward to reading about any special trip must do's. However we will not be doing everything this trip. We're just doing the 4 parks and some quality resort relaxation. I'm tired just thinking about that.

I'm counting down the days to call in and make our ressie...

kaoden39...I live where you live! It's funny to see my city name under your avatar.

 

[kaoden39]

So I subscribed to this thread over a month ago and FINALLY got a chance to read it. I am planning our first trip ever to WDW. I wanted to be able to take my parents, as they are aging and slowing down. They took us to DL about once a year and since I've had my two boys we have gone with them three times the last three years. Our dream has been to go to WDW and now with DVC we're going to make it happen!
I'm looking forward to reading about any special trip must do's. However we will not be doing everything this trip. We're just doing the 4 parks and some quality resort relaxation. I'm tired just thinking about that.

I'm counting down the days to call in and make our ressie...

kaoden39...I live where you live! It's funny to see my city name under your avatar.

How funny!! There is another disboarder, pixiewings71 is from here too. What a small world. I'll make the world even smaller her daughter and my son are in the same middle school and are in band together.

 

[bumbershoot]

must....resist....the...temptation....must...not....answer....the....pull!!!

I think we all know how good I am at resisting Disney's pull. I don't hold high hopes for preventing myself from booking such a trip, IF the money's there.

Speaking of that, I gotta pack up these CDs! After hauling 18 million CDs around from place to place, and never EVER listening to them, we're selling almost all of them. Between abundatrade and secondspin (both .coms), it's going to be nice!

 

[bumbershoot]

And speaking of temptation...DS is watching Star Wars right now. I'm wearing my new glasses, which give me bionic vision again (20/15 instead of the pathetic-to-even-complain-about-it-but-I-did 20/30, with astigmatism corrected), and I looked across to the living/TV room from my desk/dining room table...and it looked just like I remember way deep in my brain, compared to when I first saw it.

Why the change?

Because we spent our Family Fun Fund money this month to upgrade to a blu ray player. A 99.99 player, but what seems to be a good one all the same. Made by Vizio, bought at Costco.

We are VERY impressed, and it's super-fun to watch all of our DVDs in it, because of course bluray "upconverts" the DVDs so they look even better than they usually do.

We watched Surfs Up the other day. Now that's a fabulous movie to begin with. Excellent casting, incredible animation, beautiful storyline. We'd seen it from a library rental a few times, then they were playing it all summer long at the free movie days 2 summers ago, and we saw it a few times on the big screen, which was even more incredible. Some months back I convinced Robert to mess with the TV/DVD player buttons and we finally got a true widescreen when playing DVDs, and that was even better (we'd since bought the movie). But this blows it ALL away. I mean...you can see the animated beach-ground under the animated surf in one of the scenes...it's that incredible. Made an amazing movie just mind-blowing, in our opinions.

So this is a "wow that lightsaber looks like how I remember it from the first time I saw the movie" post, a "what's on her mind" post, and a "wow, that new Vizio bluray player is a good bargain" post.

Plus, it was on my mind. It's a nice, non-caloric, way of spending our "fun" money this month!


Oh, and Robert's off on another trip in a couple weeks!

 

[kaoden39]

I think we all know how good I am at resisting Disney's pull. I don't hold high hopes for preventing myself from booking such a trip, IF the money's there.

Speaking of that, I gotta pack up these CDs! After hauling 18 million CDs around from place to place, and never EVER listening to them, we're selling almost all of them. Between abundatrade and secondspin (both .coms), it's going to be nice!

I on the other hand seem to add to my cd's. I listen to them in my minivan while running errands or whatever. If it is a run to the store around the corner I walk but most errands require a car in our town. With us books are what we need to get rid of, I need to take the boxes of books I have and donate them at the local thrift shop. You are better than I am.

 

[bumbershoot]

Well, you're donating, not selling, so in the grand scheme of things, YOU are better.

We donate almost everything else, and because we don't have enough deductions to actually do us any good, we don't even get receipts. That feels good, I do have to say that.

We kept making goodwill runs (of good stuff, not stuff they just have to toss) and feeling that it was a "karmic snowball", as opposed to the financial snowball we're "throwing" at the car (Ramsey-speak, sorry).

But for many of the books I've gotten rid of recently, I took them to HalfPrice Books. The ones I can't sell there (book club books, for instance) we'll just donate them...ooh though maybe abundatrade would take book club books? Hmm.

The CDs...there are just so many of them. The only CD that gets played in the car is the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack!

 

[kaoden39]

Well, you're donating, not selling, so in the grand scheme of things, YOU are better.

We donate almost everything else, and because we don't have enough deductions to actually do us any good, we don't even get receipts. That feels good, I do have to say that.

We kept making goodwill runs (of good stuff, not stuff they just have to toss) and feeling that it was a "karmic snowball", as opposed to the financial snowball we're "throwing" at the car (Ramsey-speak, sorry).

But for many of the books I've gotten rid of recently, I took them to HalfPrice Books. The ones I can't sell there (book club books, for instance) we'll just donate them...ooh though maybe abundatrade would take book club books? Hmm.

The CDs...there are just so many of them. The only CD that gets played in the car is the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack!

I tend to be really bad and I go cyclical I will like a type of music for a certain amount of time and then I feel the need to change. And then there are the other critics in the van. I am moody.

 

[Brady's Mom]

I don't think we've bought a CD in a REALLY long time. We have Mp3 players now and just download the music we like to the player and play it in the car instead of CD's. It works great since the CD player in the van isn't even hooked up anymore. I like being able to choose the songs I want from the band I want and not have to include the other songs on the album that I didn't really like.

Although, I don't always get to listen to what I want - we listen to a lot of Veggie Tales and Chipmunks in the car on the way to and from school!

I may have to download some Star Wars music - my kids would love that. Hmmmm... and maybe I should consider some music from Pirates.

 

[kaoden39]

I don't think we've bought a CD in a REALLY long time. We have Mp3 players now and just download the music we like to the player and play it in the car instead of CD's. It works great since the CD player in the van isn't even hooked up anymore. I like being able to choose the songs I want from the band I want and not have to include the other songs on the album that I didn't really like.

Although, I don't always get to listen to what I want - we listen to a lot of Veggie Tales and Chipmunks in the car on the way to and from school!

I may have to download some Star Wars music - my kids would love that. Hmmmm... and maybe I should consider some music from Pirates.

My cd's are mostly ones that I have downloaded the music from itunes and created, with the rare full albums. I like to mix and match myself. I learned a while back that I buy my kids cd's on itunes and burn them cd's because if they are lost or scratched no big deal I just burn a new one. I have an ipod but like cd's I get tired of the music on it.

 

[bumbershoot]

I may have to download some Star Wars music - my kids would love that. Hmmmm... and maybe I should consider some music from Pirates.

The Imperial March is MOST impressive in the car. DS conducts from the backseat and makes it even better.

Pirates music is a good idea! Have you watched all the special features with Hans Zimmer talking about the music? The music is amazing, and Zimmer has done the music for SO many good movies!


We were just watching something...a show talking about music and motifs...it brought me right back to a Music of Musical Theater class I took in college. How the characters have motifs and you'll hear them in various ways throughout the movies, etc etc. Oh what were we watching? even though I had that class and do pay attention, I hadn't even noticed that this one theme morphed into this really different sounding, but actually almost the same, bit of music at a different point.

Anyway, that makes no sense b/c I can't cite what we were watching, but music is cool. And a brain is a terrible thing to waste. Or so it seems from some of my twisty-brain posts I've made recently! Can't get my words to go in the right order, it seems!

 

[Brady's Mom]

Speaking of music - we were all excited to watch the opening ceremonies last Fri. for the Olympics since the ceremonies for Beijing were so great. SNORE! I was really disappointed and bored. The best part for us was the music/sports montage leading UP to the ceremonies. They had the montage set to music from Pirates and it was fun to see how well they actually made the clips match the music.

Molly, that college class sounds really cool. It would have been a class for me for sure!

It sounds like it's time to change up the music on the Mp3 player and add some Imperial music and some Piratey music.

I used to listen to a classical station in my area all the time when my DS 21 was a little guy. I've since gotten away from the radio since I get really tired of the inane chatter that always accompanies the music. And with the classical station I got tired of the sponsor drives all the time. I think my attention span and tolerance levels are going DOWN as I get older!

And just a note of good news - We Get to Go to Disneyland in April! We weren't planning on going any more this year since our son is coming home and we have a trip to San Francisco planned and have some other things that are going on - like some college expenses for him. BUT, we took the plunge and decided to go to DLR during our kid's spring break. It will be VERY busy and we know this - we also feel like we are seasoned Disney Warriors and will be just fine with the extended hours and crowded walkways. So the countdown has begun at our house - one for DLR and one for our son!

 

[bumbershoot]

Woohoo for a trip to Disneyland!!!!!!!!!


I noticed the Pirates music too!

Speaking of music, the music being played as the athletes entered the stadium was driving me crazy! It was *almost* the music from Love Actually, but then changed at the last second. Crazy-making!


The class was cool. I did Theater all through high school, but the San Jose school district never had any money for Musical Theater at all while I was going to school (no music classes from elementary school on), so I was never exposed to it, other than movies like Guys and Dolls, West Side Story, etc.

I can't even remember why I took the class, and I was so intimidated because it was filled with actual Theater and Music majors! (many of the people in the class were in choir and other groups, and one of my acquaintances actually became a proper opera singer (Robert McPherson) and they all sang with him...that's the level that some of the people in the class were at!) At the end of the course we got to actually create a song/motif for a scene, and it was really amazing that I could actually contribute to it.

I remember studying Sweeney Todd in that class, which is where I really heard what music does for us emotionally, and how it can queue us to things, foreshadowing and such. I have a soft spot for the broadway version with Angela Lansbury thanks to that course!

 

[bumbershoot]

I reorganized today. Yay!

My stuff is finally off of the dining room table. That will allow us to perhaps eat at the table every so often. And it will facilitate E doing his learning work more often (so we don't have to do 20 pages in one sitting, which he actually loves, but whines about the whole time) b/c I don't have to clear my junk off the table.

I am now at my desk (yep, I've had a desk this entire time, but somehow it had laundry on it?), I have the printer to the side, I have all my various binders lined up at the back of the desk, it's very thrilling. I still have some organizing to do within my organization, but that'll be much easier now, since it's all right here, on the same surface that isn't needed for other things!

I even have a basket to hold pens and sticky page marker things.



I ordered a Passporter last night! So excited.

 

[Brady's Mom]

I reorganized today. Yay!

My stuff is finally off of the dining room table. That will allow us to perhaps eat at the table every so often. And it will facilitate E doing his learning work more often (so we don't have to do 20 pages in one sitting, which he actually loves, but whines about the whole time) b/c I don't have to clear my junk off the table.

I am now at my desk (yep, I've had a desk this entire time, but somehow it had laundry on it?), I have the printer to the side, I have all my various binders lined up at the back of the desk, it's very thrilling. I still have some organizing to do within my organization, but that'll be much easier now, since it's all right here, on the same surface that isn't needed for other things!

I even have a basket to hold pens and sticky page marker things.



I ordered a Passporter last night! So excited.

Hooray for being organized!! I love to be able to find the things I need/want right away.

When our oldest was little we weren't very good about eating at the table - as he got older (7 or 8 ish) it became more important to do it. We started to make it more of a habit when we had our next baby and it's stuck ever since. Consequently our table gets cleaned off regularly. My big problem is the paper mess on the kitchen counter! I never seem to be able to get a handle on it - no matter how hard I try.