****August, 2012!!!****

[wallawallakids]

Ideal trip length?

We normally do 8 nights (one being a park and fly night the day prior to our Orlando arrival) which is great, but I wish it was longer. I would say 10 days would be perfect.....not so long as we get totally worn out, but long enough that we feel we had time to do everything we want to do.

That said, we have a "senior citizen" living with us who despises our absence. We normally won't ask a caregiver to have to look after her longer than 8 nights.....its not fair to her, or them either!!! So I can't see us extending a trip any longer than what we currently do.....until such time as our house is pet-free. Here's my girl:

She's 14 years old now, but still the family princess.

Don't be fooled by that angelic face, though......she can be a spiteful little thing when she wants to be. After our Disney trip in 2009, once the "woohoo! they are home!" warm and fuzzy feelings wore off, she decided to punish us by peeing places that aren't intended to be used as bathrooms . Thankfully, that phase passed relatively quickly, but let's just say not so quickly that she didn't make her point.

When we are cat-less (and kid-less) I would love to do a full two week getaway with the hubby. I don't care where .

We have the same issue. We are trying our first vacation that is longer than 6 nights this Aug. (Going for 7 nights....) Our cats, Lewis and Clark, get sooo mad when we are gone. My sister stops by once or twice to check in on them, but they really like to go outside and when we are away they have to stay in and they get very upset. They like to be able to come in and go out when they want. Luckily they always forgive us after a few days. But oh, the reactions we get when we do finally come home!!

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

First off, your cat is adorable!

Thank you!

Our cats, Lewis and Clark, get sooo mad when we are gone. My sister stops by once or twice to check in on them, but they really like to go outside and when we are away they have to stay in and they get very upset. They like to be able to come in and go out when they want. Luckily they always forgive us after a few days. But oh, the reactions we get when we do finally come home!!

Misery loves company.........tis good to know I'm not the only one who gets a good dose of "cattitude" once the luggage is unpacked!!!

And by the way.......are you guys Superman fans? (I am thinking Lewis & Clark sound alot like "Lois and Clark"!)

I am envious for all you cat-people who's felines can get away with being cared for every couple of days. Our princess seems to require daily maid service!!!

 

[crostorfer]

To be honest the past few months I haven't been all that excited, everything seemed so far away and I've been stressing the money part. All of a sudden, however, I'm jumping for joy. Just a little over 2 months to go, I can't wait!!!!!!

 

[wallawallakids]

Thank you!



Misery loves company.........tis good to know I'm not the only one who gets a good dose of "cattitude" once the luggage is unpacked!!!

And by the way.......are you guys Superman fans? (I am thinking Lewis & Clark sound alot like "Lois and Clark"!)

I am envious for all you cat-people who's felines can get away with being cared for every couple of days. Our princess seems to require daily maid service!!!

Yep. I guess we are lucky they don't need someone every day. My oldest DD named them after the the explorers that Jefferson sent out to discover the West. My daughter thought they were so inquisitive when they were babies and that they were so busy exploring every inch of our home that she called them "explorer kitties" and dubbed them "Lewis and Clark." The names fit them. And they are twin boys...so it worked out perfect.

 

[litlpixie]

We are not a cat family, but we do have a dog "Princess Drool" (not her real name) who could care less. We leave her w/ family who dotes on her, and she loves the attention I think she forgets all about us after a couple hours When we arrive home, she treats us like we're brand new friends she just met..lol dogs, gotta love em'!

 

[Mousemom234]

Originally Posted by Victoriasmom98 :When do you start saving for your next Disney vacation?
We're always saving - but thanks to the DIS, I've discovered new ways to save. .
We put almost everything on our Disney Rewards, pay it off when due, and use them for dining. But this trip, mine is going to pay for the room.
We both stash stray 1s and 5s in a secret location, and save coins, then we get gift cards at the Disney Store. And compete to see who saved more
I do a couple of online surveys, land et them accumulate for a few years; the money this time went to paypal, which Southwest takes as payment.
Tax refund, if it isn't needed to take care of any other needed expenses, which it usually is...

Originally Posted by litlpixie: Do you have your own vehicle (rented or owned) during your vacations or do you rely on WDW transportation?
Both. I love to drive, and we've found that for us, a car is a necessity. We always try to eat at Logan's Roadhouse and shop for supplies asap after arrival, and take a drive around the general area, just to enjoy it. We also eat a few meals OOP, and then there's always the little side trips that pop up...
This time, we'll be taking ME in and back, but renting in-World for the rest of the trip. (Airport pick-up is just too expensive).
But we'll take DisTrans to MK, 'cause it's simply easier, and we'll also use it during the day to park hop.

Originally Posted by pigletto: What is the food item or meal you are most looking forward to???
For DH it has to be the first Mickey Bar of the trip.
For me, it's something new, either a new restaurant or a new food - may be good, may be bad... but it's 'New & Different'

Originally Posted by Nurse_Mommy4: QOTD: What's your ideal length for a tip?
6-8 days works out for us most of the time. That way we get the lowest airfare (Tues-Tues), and get a weekend in. Depends on what package we have, if any, though. Less is too short a time to do much - but we have done a 4 day. More, and it's difficult to get cat-sitters (we have 3: a meezer geezer, who's 12 and a pair of 8yr old 'kittens' )
Of course, the dream is to live close enough that we could go for a day or 2, several times a year, instead of several days, every 2-4 years.

 

[littlezar]

QOTD: What's your ideal length for a tip?


My answer: 10 nights is my minimal and two weeks is my max. We usually end up going once a year for two weeks. I like a nice long trip so that I can slow down and smell the roses and still see and everything we want.

Not including a travel day on each end, we've done 6 days, 7 days & 7 days. This trip is 9 days - I'm hoping this will feel like enough time to do what we want in the parks and to be able to relax.

 

[pigletto]

Ideal trip length?

We normally do 8 nights (one being a park and fly night the day prior to our Orlando arrival) which is great, but I wish it was longer. I would say 10 days would be perfect.....not so long as we get totally worn out, but long enough that we feel we had time to do everything we want to do.

That said, we have a "senior citizen" living with us who despises our absence. We normally won't ask a caregiver to have to look after her longer than 8 nights.....its not fair to her, or them either!!! So I can't see us extending a trip any longer than what we currently do.....until such time as our house is pet-free. Here's my girl:

She's 14 years old now, but still the family princess.

Don't be fooled by that angelic face, though......she can be a spiteful little thing when she wants to be. After our Disney trip in 2009, once the "woohoo! they are home!" warm and fuzzy feelings wore off, she decided to punish us by peeing places that aren't intended to be used as bathrooms . Thankfully, that phase passed relatively quickly, but let's just say not so quickly that she didn't make her point.

When we are cat-less (and kid-less) I would love to do a full two week getaway with the hubby. I don't care where .

Gina!! She's lovely!
We have two cats. Lena who is 3 years old and a lovely calm girl. And then there's..the other one
My parents live on a farm and my sister found kittens in the dog house. There were three. 2 were dead and then there was Marvin. We left him for half a day but the mom was gone so we brought him in. I took him to the vet the next day and the vet said he was 4 or 5 days old and unlikely to live.
I bottle fed him around the clock and he slept beside my bed for midnight feedings.
It's a year later and he is happy and healthy .. and very very strange

When we went to Disney last, my neighbour came every morning and my sister came every evening. They both said Marvin would go around the house collecting our socks and make a pile in the kitchen. My sister threw them all downstairs for the laundry and when the neighbour came in the morning he had brought all 12 of them back to the kitchen and made the pile

He eats with his paws too Strange little guy

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Gina!! She's lovely!
We have two cats. Lena who is 3 years old and a lovely calm girl. And then there's..the other one

When we went to Disney last, my neighbour came every morning and my sister came every evening. They both said Marvin would go around the house collecting our socks and make a pile in the kitchen. My sister threw them all downstairs for the laundry and when the neighbour came in the morning he had brought all 12 of them back to the kitchen and made the pile

Thank you . She is not overly smart but she is a good lookin' girl.

Your Marvin (LOVE the name!!) is quite an industrial little fellow!!! Don't you wonder what goes through their heads sometimes? (I mean, what the heck was he doing with all those socks?!?) . Oh, to have the energy of a kitten......mine hasn't seen that kind of get-up-and-go in many, many moons. She is .... shall we say, "sedate"? (sounds better than lazy ).

We have a lot of cat people in our August group. We may have to share pet pics in lieu of a Question of the Day!

 

[DisneyMomFanatic]

QOTD: Ideal length of a Disney Trip?

We have almost always done 8 or 9 days. 2 travel days, 6 park days and if we did the 9 days, a pool/DTD day. If I had my way, I would love to do a 2 week trip. That would have to happen when we are empty nesters (at least kid wise- which won't be anytime soon). I would love to see universal again, visit with family for a full day and Disney as many days as I want while not going too fast paced. If we are kidless, we would save all the money from their tickets and food, we could put it to a longer vacation for us.

We also have cats. We have a senior citizen also 15 1/2 years old) and she verbally assults us when we get home. Like "how dare you leave me for so long, do you know what I had to deal with while you were gone?"
Our other one is the normally vocal one. She just rubs herself all over our suitcases when we drop them in our living room and says "HI"

Our neighbor, who we pay a little something and buy a souvinier comes over every evening for lap time with them and a chat. We only ask her to come everyother day to clear out litter and fill food and water but since she is also a cat person, she comes and loves our babies every day. Love her.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

We have a senior citizen also 15 1/2 years old) and she verbally assults us when we get home. Like "how dare you leave me for so long, do you know what I had to deal with while you were gone?"

Our neighbor, who we pay a little something and buy a souvinier comes over every evening for lap time with them and a chat. We only ask her to come everyother day to clear out litter and fill food and water but since she is also a cat person, she comes and loves our babies every day. Love her.

Ah, the welcome home tongue-lashing. No vacation can be considered complete without it!!!!

We have two of those saintly neighbours, and they are so humble about it. How wonderful it is to be able to relax and know that the old girl is so well cared for (she might be completely ticked at us, but she's well fed and her litter is kept to her immaculate standards). We always leave the kind souls a $50 gift card to enjoy a dinner out for their efforts.

 

[ceemys]

Question of the Day...Ideal trip length...

The last 3 trips I have gone 10, 8 and 4 days. I will NEVER do 4 days again. lol Way too short. My trip this August is 10 days. I would say 8 days at a minimum for us anymore. Although I do feel relaxed the best at 10 days; no stress to rush through things.

 

[3Leafs]

QOTD: 2 weeks.. I have a ds9 who is Autistic. This is perfect for us because we can go at his pace and take as many breaks as we need!

 

[cinnderly]

Ideal length of trip? I'm not really sure yet, as this will be our 3rd time going. Our first trip was 5 years ago and we stayed for 6 days, 5 park days. Then we went again the following year and stayed for 7 days, 6 park days.

This trip was going to be 7 days again. But now my job is such that I can make my own schedule, I recently learned that the WPF&M means we can do 7 days at the parks and then separate days at BB & TL... And then Travelzoo sent an email for a great price on a DTD hotel. So this trip will be 10 days. I have to say, it's been much easier to plan. I don't have to squeeze everything into our agenda and plan every spare evening and morning to make sure we do everything we want.

So we fly in by noon Friday the 24th, check in at Wydham and stay there for 3 nights. Then we head over to Coronado for the following 7 days, flying out at 10am on Labor Day. It will be the longest vacation I've ever had in my life, and it almost feels too luxurious. Like...I don't deserve it or something. But that's crazy talk! RIGHT?

 

[jm106]

QOTD: What's your ideal length for a tip?
We haven't figured it out yet, we vary it each time. DH and I did 7 days with out kids(1 at each WDW park, 1 each universal and 1 sea world.)
We did 7 days with kids 5 WDW 1 sea world. Was good but off site and it rained horribly ALL WEEK LONG.
We did 6 days last trip but only 5 park days so this time we are 7 park days with 8 nights 9 days including travel days(arrive early leave on later flight.) WE think it will be enough or a close second

 

[CRdisMom]

help...I need to pick a place to eat on the 8th. Blue Zoo or Cali Grill. We aren't on property so no dinning plan and the DH and a co worker are joining me, both are super big foodies. I know not to do steak but thought about the flying fish but really want to WOW them with the disney service. Thoughts?

 

[Whereisalyssa]

Ideal trip length?

We normally do 8 nights (one being a park and fly night the day prior to our Orlando arrival) which is great, but I wish it was longer. I would say 10 days would be perfect.....not so long as we get totally worn out, but long enough that we feel we had time to do everything we want to do.

That said, we have a "senior citizen" living with us who despises our absence. We normally won't ask a caregiver to have to look after her longer than 8 nights.....its not fair to her, or them either!!! So I can't see us extending a trip any longer than what we currently do.....until such time as our house is pet-free. Here's my girl:

She's 14 years old now, but still the family princess.

Don't be fooled by that angelic face, though......she can be a spiteful little thing when she wants to be. After our Disney trip in 2009, once the "woohoo! they are home!" warm and fuzzy feelings wore off, she decided to punish us by peeing places that aren't intended to be used as bathrooms . Thankfully, that phase passed relatively quickly, but let's just say not so quickly that she didn't make her point.

When we are cat-less (and kid-less) I would love to do a full two week getaway with the hubby. I don't care where .

Hahaha!! what a coincidence... our little princess Boots (who thinks she runs the household) is 3, when we left her for the first time she was only 5 months old (we wouldn't have left her so young but we won the trip and didn't have any choice in choosing our dates!) anyways, we left her at this adorable place called catnap cottages and she was totally fine when we came home... but the LAST time we went on vacation she decided to get us back by peeing in her own bed and then sleeping in it!!!! we didn't even leave her alone either, my dad doesn't join us on our vacations so he was with her all week!! She's such a drama queen!
this is her:

Now we just got a new kitten Mittens (she's about 13 weeks old now) and we'll be going with the rest of you to disney in august... again my dad will be with the two of them the whole week and i'm going to get my boyfriend to see if he can come and check on them too but i'm a little nervous as to how she'll be because she's much more attached to us and she hates being alone!

ps your cat is absolutely adorable!!!

 

[donac]

Gina!! She's lovely!
We have two cats. Lena who is 3 years old and a lovely calm girl. And then there's..the other one
My parents live on a farm and my sister found kittens in the dog house. There were three. 2 were dead and then there was Marvin. We left him for half a day but the mom was gone so we brought him in. I took him to the vet the next day and the vet said he was 4 or 5 days old and unlikely to live.
I bottle fed him around the clock and he slept beside my bed for midnight feedings.
It's a year later and he is happy and healthy .. and very very strange

When we went to Disney last, my neighbour came every morning and my sister came every evening. They both said Marvin would go around the house collecting our socks and make a pile in the kitchen. My sister threw them all downstairs for the laundry and when the neighbour came in the morning he had brought all 12 of them back to the kitchen and made the pile

He eats with his paws too Strange little guy

Our cats do the sock thing even if we are home. They used to bring balls of yarn from the basement until I put them all in a container, now they do socks.

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Hahaha!! what a coincidence... our little princess Boots (who thinks she runs the household) is 3, when we left her for the first time she was only 5 months old (we wouldn't have left her so young but we won the trip and didn't have any choice in choosing our dates!) anyways, we left her at this adorable place called catnap cottages and she was totally fine when we came home... but the LAST time we went on vacation she decided to get us back by peeing in her own bed and then sleeping in it!!!! we didn't even leave her alone either, my dad doesn't join us on our vacations so he was with her all week!! She's such a drama queen!

Now we just got a new kitten Mittens (she's about 13 weeks old now) and we'll be going with the rest of you to disney in august... again my dad will be with the two of them the whole week and i'm going to get my boyfriend to see if he can come and check on them too but i'm a little nervous as to how she'll be because she's much more attached to us and she hates being alone!

ps your cat is absolutely adorable!!!

whereisalyssa .... your babies are soooooo precious!!!

I have to say its so refreshing to be surrounded by all of you great people who have so much love for their pets. Do you know how often people look at me funny for worrying about the old girl while we are away? If I had a dollar for every time I heard the response "OMG, she's JUST a cat!".

Who else is willing to post a pic of their furry friend(s)?

 

[NikkiLovesWDW!]

Oh my GOSH, these cat pictures are just TOO cute!!! When we went on our two week honeymoon, our cat (child) Jack was devastated. He died a month and a half later and DH swears the fact that we were gone for so long had something to do with it. That was almost three years ago and I think about him and miss him every day. He was the best can in the whole world!


It took a long time before we were ready, but this past January, we finally got another cat, Minvera. We only had her for about 2 weeks when we went on a 5 day trip and she was fine by herself. BUT at that point she had been in a shelter for a few months so she wasn't used to companionship anyway. I'm afraid that she will be upset when we go for this 8 day trip now that she loves us!

I'll post pictures of them both later!