Birthday at the Pop- PreTrippy

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

First off I would like to say welcome to anyone who is joining me and reading along on my ptr. This is my first try at a pre trip report but I thought it would be fun to share my plans and get input from all you dissers so here goes!

The basics:

Who: Me- Michelle. I have always been a huge fan of Disney (Aaron calls it addiction but what does he know?!?) and have been to WDW many times but this year was the first time in 11 years. I am a big time planner and organizer. My mom used to tease me because I would organize her cabinets and spice rack and she couldn't find anything. Once I even put all our kool-aid in an index card filing box and organized it alphabetically by flavor.

DH- Aaron. He is a great guys who just does not understand the hold that Disney has over me but thankfuly when I'm happy he is happy so he willingly goes along with most of my whims. DH lived in both Florida and California as a child so he has been to both WDW and Disneyland a few times.
DSS- Josh who is 9 and had never been to WDW before this summer but is a kid so of course he loves most anything Disney, but at times pretends he is too old or too cool for it.

Here we are in June at the most wonderful place on earth!

What:6 days, 5 night trip to WDW. It took me a while to talk DH into going to WDW in June but once we got there we all had such a fabulous time it was easy to talk him into another one! We started sort of planning it while we were still there which made the let down of leaving not quite so hard to bear.

When:April 11-16, 2009. We threw around the idea of May (Happy Birthday to me!) and February (Happy Anniversary Michelle and Aaron!) but ultimately decided that April is best for us despite the crowds for Easter.

WherePop Century. I am excited about this resort even though I have never seen it. I thought about a moderate but Pop just looks fun and I have stayed at All Star Music before so I know what to expect and it is acceptable... it is only 5 nights after all plus we will be spending most of our time at the parks right?

Why?Well if you are on the disboards you should know why.....

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

Table of Contents:
Early thoughts on dining
Crafts and the perfect Disney Park bag
Mousekeeping envelopes part one
T-Shirt making
Introducing Lizzie!!
Window decorations
Making more T-shirts and envelopes
Iron on transfer T-Shirts
LGMH tags for my park bag and tip envelopes
Disneyland Mini-Trip PTR
MTOTP T-Shirt ideas
Firming up the dining plans- Breakfasts
Dining plans- Lunches
Dining plans- Dinners
Booked our trip so we are official!
Welcoming Lizzie to her new home
Window decoratiosn and yet more T-Shirts

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

So we have decided to do the deluxe dining plan. We want to try several 2 table credit restaurants this trip so the deluxe just makes sense for us. I have been trying to decide exactly which places to go. So far my list is:
Want to go for sure:Narcoossees (2 ts credits )
Yachtman's Steakhouse (2 ts credits )
Boma Breakfast
Ohana Breakfast

Probably want to go:Grand Floridian Breakfast
Spirit of Aloha (2 ts credits )
Hollywood Brown Derby (2 ts credits)
Whispering Canyon Cafe Lunch
Crystal Palace lunch
Cape May Buffet Dinner
Chefs de France dinner

On the fence about wanting to go:Teppan Edo lunch
San Angel Inn lunch
Chef Mickey breakfast
Kona breakfast
Le Cellier lunch
Tony's Town Square lunch
Corral Reef dinner
Hoop de doo Musical Review (2 ts credits)

We will have 15 table service credits each and are thinking that over the 6 days we want to do 3 breakfasts, 3 lunches and 5 dinners. We are pretty firm on 2 dinners and 2 breakfasts that total 6 ts credits so that leaves 9 more to decide on.

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

I forgot to mention California Grill (2 ts credits) in the middle list.

 

[englishrose47]

Hi Michele ! I told you I was on my way over!! I too am going to Disney next year and twice !! I think I better start my ptr and if I can find any pix to post ( dog ate my memory card ) I will take you up on your offer. I think I can dig up some from 2007 ,my very first trip ever!!
You asked about Pop that's where I stay and I love it .Check out their thread Buckeye Gal has sooooo much info on it. The first page will probably answer most of your questions? Let me know what you think of it !!
Yep I am going to start my PTR VERY soon !!

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

Yay! You are my first reader! I checked out the Pop thread and it is very cool. I think Joshua will have a lot of fun there (me and Aaron too!)
I am so excited about the trips next year! Now it is just waiting around for Disney.
The nearest Disney store to me is like almost 3 hours away but I think I have convinced DH to go with me this weekend because I need some Disney exposure. I hope to have some awesome stuff to post on here after that.
I found some great projects on the crafts board here also so I will get some pics of that stuff.

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

Well Hanna is hitting between here and Myrtle Beach later this evening so we did not drive up to Myrtle Beach today and that means no Disney Store for me.
I did a little craft stuff this morning then made the mistake of going to the grocery store because I wanted to cook burgers for dinner and we needed buns and lettuce.
After spending 45 minutes in line I decided we really did not need buns after all but lucky for me just as I was leaving the manager offered to ring me up at the service desk because I just had buns and salad and the other 100 people in line were buying supplies to bunker down for a week or two.
Apparently half the people in Charleston think the entire city is going to be destroyed by Hanna who is not even actually a hurricane and not even actually going to hit us.
Well I guess I am done ranting and now I am going in search of where I put the camera so I can post some pics of the things I made earlier.

 

[englishrose47]

I booked my trip today I am going May 16 -24 nexy year Staying at Pop of course!Did you know they got ne w mattresses recently!!

 

[alan_renfroe]

YAY!!! I found your PTR! Looks like you started it about a week ago. Life has been crazy this week....but I'm glad I found it! Team Renfroe is subscribing.

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

Yay I have another reader! This makes me so happy. Welcome English Rose and Team Renfroe. I am so excited for all three of us actually since we are all going in 7 or 8 months!!

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

This morning I had a meeting at work but when I got home this was waiting for me!

It is the new bag that I ordered for our April trip. Last weekend I scoured the DIS Boards for advice on the best bag to take and finally decided on the Baggallini. It has lots of zips and pockets to hold all the essentials, a long cross strap to go across your body, a secret compartment for tickets and money plus (BONUS!!) it comes in way cute colors. I filled it with an example of stuff I would need to carry into the parks: Sunglasses, bottle of water, sunscreen, wallet, pens, notepad, lipgloss, hand sanitizer, zip lock bags, cell phone, batteries, memory card, camera, propel and crystal light packets and gum.

It was actually not too heavy or anything and all the pockets made organizing everything a breeze. I am going to carry this around for a while to make sure the strap will be comfortable but so far I am totally pleased with my purchase.
The bag put me in such a great mood about the trip that I pulled out some of the craft projects that I have been planning to do for the trip and got started!
I started with my Mickey Home Depot heads.

I read on here to microwave them.... well that is a pain and you have to be careful. Cutting them is a joke and trying to tear them out is even worse. What I found to be the best option is to put them in a big bowl of water for a few minutes and then the heads practically float off the backing. The down side of this is that the heads are now really thin and some of them are starting to curl up. You can see that a little bit in this pic.

I will have to paste these onto some paper or something. I have been collecting these for a long time now so that is why there are so many. I plan on using most of them to decorate our window at pop with them.

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

At this point I was on a roll. I then went to a great thread on the crafts board and printed off some envelopes to use for Mousekeeping and tips.
I found the ones I wanted and printed them out on cardstock. Then I cut them out, pasted them together and voila!

Some that I have yet to cut out...

Mousekeeping Envelopes

Restaurants and travel envelopes

Park envelopes
They are all really nice but I really love the Peter Pan, Princess and Animal Kingdom Ones best.
These envelopes can be found on Mcraft17's thread in the crafy section. http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1755694

 

[englishrose47]

YAY!!! I found your PTR! Looks like you started it about a week ago. Life has been crazy this week....but I'm glad I found it! Team Renfroe is subscribing.

Hey Alan I started my PTR too!!

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

After the envelopes my printer was just getting warmed up. Last trip I regretfully spent over $200 on t-shirts for the three of us. I wanted to wear a Disney shirt every day because, well, I am obsessed with Disney. I do not see anything wrong with that. I also saw lots of families there with cute matching shirts which Aaron would normally NEVER consider but when it comes to Disney lately it seems he just will not say no. Good news for me, BAD news for my credit cards. Instead of ordering custome made shirts from zazzle or some other site I decided it would be fun to make some and maybe order some more later if it prooves harder than I thought. Back to the DIS crafts boards I went and got some great designs from some of the talented artists there.
I plan on trying my hand at some tie died and spray painted (fabric paint not the other kind) shirts but as stated earlier today was all about my printer. I bought some iron on transfers and shirts for us all so I pulled all that out and got started. After ruining one transfer sheet because I misread the instructions I ended up with a really cute shirt for Josh. It has a stick family with our names and such on it. That was ironed on to the back of the shirt (Aaron's and mine will match but I ran out of time tonight) and I made little Mickey heads and put our first names on them for the front.

The back of Josh's shirt

The front of the same shirt

The transfers for the front of my and Aaron's red shirts.
The stick figures were made by Telynn
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1539336
So that was my day. After Josh's shirt it was getting late and I had to start dinner but I was super productive and am quite proud of myself. I do not know when I will have the time to get as much done as I did today but I am getting more and more excited and I am still 7 months off.
I will wrap up today with a pic of the stickers I plan on using to seal my envelopes

and all my finished stuff from today plus the shirts that did not get finished today

 

[englishrose47]

You are much more crafty than me I used brown coin envies and a Mickey head !!!
Smething I am doing for the family trip in Sept. is buying Tik gifts for the kids for each day!1 Another little gem I picked up on the Dis.Also have bought Note books with Pirates on for boys for autographs . From the Dollar store where I also picked uplittle bags of Disney stickers to decorate the pages with.

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

I booked my trip today I am going May 16 -24 nexy year Staying at Pop of course!Did you know they got ne w mattresses recently!!

Yay for booking! We are staying at Pop too and I did not know that they had gotten new matresses recently. That is really exciting because a crappy mattress can ruin even the best trip! Do you know if it is the entire place or just certain decades that got new ones?

YAY!!! I found your PTR! Looks like you started it about a week ago. Life has been crazy this week....but I'm glad I found it! Team Renfroe is subscribing.

I know what you mean about life being crazy. I have had some hectic times in the last few months but I am glad you are here! Welcome!

You asked about Pop that's where I stay and I love it .Check out their thread Buckeye Gal has sooooo much info on it. The first page will probably answer most of your questions? Let me know what you think of it !!
Yep I am going to start my PTR VERY soon !!

I finally found your PTR and am very excited to follow along with it. I have been trying to read the Pop thread you directed me too but whew it is LOOOOONG! I am wading through it though. It seems very good and informative. Thanks so much for telling me about it!

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

You are much more crafty than me I used brown coin envies and a Mickey head !!!
Smething I am doing for the family trip in Sept. is buying Tik gifts for the kids for each day!1 Another little gem I picked up on the Dis.Also have bought Note books with Pirates on for boys for autographs . From the Dollar store where I also picked uplittle bags of Disney stickers to decorate the pages with.

I'm sure the Mousekeeping appreciates your brown envelopes as much as they do mine.... it is what is inside that counts right!
As for being crafty I picked up a bit of it from my mom but she is way better at that stuff than I am. Unfortunately she is in Texas so I am on my own for Disney crafts.
The little gifts for each day is a great idea. I would not have thought about that. I am going to make Josh an envelope for each day and that will have his spending money in it. After the envelope is empty he is broke and if he looses it too bad. He will probably end up saving it up for a few days because we are only giving him a little bit each day.
You wanna know something funny! I have searched all over the city for Disney stuckers and never thought to go to the dollar store for them. I went to Target, KMart, Walmart, 3 party stores and nothing but those princess stickers I found. I will have to go to a dollar store and check them out.
Thanks for the tip!

 

[englishrose47]

You are welcome! for the tip !! I am still looking for Disney Clings & POTC clings ! to decorate the windows with!!

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

I am thinking pirate and princess as my window theme. The parties should be going on while we are there and I firmly believe that I am a Disney Princess while the guys want to be pirates so there ya go that theme is perfect for my family. I have seen on these boards where some people print out their own clings. I might have to do that if I can not find the perfect ones but I am hoping I can find them not have to make them.

 

[Michelle_and_Aaron]

So I have been thinking about changing our hotel to Caribbean Beach Resort but I just do not know what to do. They have these cool new Pirate themed rooms that I think Josh is still young enough to really love but then again it is a lot more money. It is a few hundred extra for that resort then a few more hundred for the pirate room as they are priced like the waterfront prefered rooms. In order to spend what I am wanting to spend on the trip I will have to cut down one night and it still is about 78 bucks extra. I just don't know what to do. So that is where I am for today. Aaron is in Philly right now so I am going to wait until he is back at his hotel tonight then I will call him and see what he thinks.