Boo to you, and Yo Ho Ho!! An Oct 2012 PTR. Updated 10/22!! Finally!!!!!

[Simba22]

So sorry you're not feeling well! Hope the nap helps!

I think the price for the Halloween Party goes up EVERY year like everything else, it seems.

I haven't done Spirit of Aloha since 2004! I remember liking the show but I was still in my "chicken fingers/pizza/cheeseburgers ONLY" phase so I remember I was freaked out about the food. Now...I'm considering giving it another try one of these trips....

I actually MUCH prefer Ohana for breakfast, to be honest. Something about it just REALLY makes me happy! Although it is NOT beneath me to take the monorail over there in the middle of the day JUST for a Pina Colava

 

[blessedby3]

Week Three:
C​

Cinderella Castle

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I think that is the most awesome picture of the Castle that I have ever seen!!! Thanks for posting
I hope you are feeling better soon. When Mama is under the weather...it is never good!! Glad you got your Spirit of Aloha ADR
Sounds like fun! I feel your pain on the MNSSHP tickets We have 4 Disney adults and 1 Disney child....a painful amount for a few hours of fun...but we are so looking forward to it and it will probably be our first and last.

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

So sorry you're not feeling well! Hope the nap helps!

I think the price for the Halloween Party goes up EVERY year like everything else, it seems.

I haven't done Spirit of Aloha since 2004! I remember liking the show but I was still in my "chicken fingers/pizza/cheeseburgers ONLY" phase so I remember I was freaked out about the food. Now...I'm considering giving it another try one of these trips....

I actually MUCH prefer Ohana for breakfast, to be honest. Something about it just REALLY makes me happy! Although it is NOT beneath me to take the monorail over there in the middle of the day JUST for a Pina Colava

I just realized that I never answered your question about the Pina Colava. You can get them at any resort pool bar and at most restaurants that have a bar. I remember getting them at Pop Century, Caribbean Beach and The Wave.

I think that is the most awesome picture of the Castle that I have ever seen!!! Thanks for posting
I hope you are feeling better soon. When Mama is under the weather...it is never good!! Glad you got your Spirit of Aloha ADR
Sounds like fun! I feel your pain on the MNSSHP tickets We have 4 Disney adults and 1 Disney child....a painful amount for a few hours of fun...but we are so looking forward to it and it will probably be our first and last.

Well, I called in sick for tonight. I was laying down to take a looooonnnnnggg nap when the coughing started and wouldn't stop. I think I may have hurt my back from it. Ferb just got home from buying me two different kinds of meds. One is a cough syrup, and the other is ice cream. Love him!! Poor guy doesn't yet realize that if that cough syrup doesn't work he is gonna be up all night with my coughing as well....

 

[jenny105]

That is an awesome shot of the castle! I hope you feel better soon

 

[MinnieLovesMickey]

Sorry you feel so crappy, hope you're feeling better soon!

Yay for your ADRs being done.

I had a sticker shock moment when I saw the MNSSHP ticket prices too. I knew we'd be paying a little more because we're going to the one on Halloween, I just wasn't ready for the price I saw. Oh well, it's going to be awesome to see DS trick or treat for the first time at the Magic Kingdom!

 

[jenseib]

I hope you are feeling better.
I got my tickets too. MNSSHP and MVMCP! I can't wait.
They are awfully high, aren't they?

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

To kill some time I am going to post, and hopefully finish, a short TR within this PTR of our adult only WDW/DCL extravaganza that we took in Oct of last year. I started posting this in our PTR from our January trip but never finished it due to lack of time...well, all we seem to have right now is time.. so here goes:

Who..Me and Ferb:

When:
Oct 26th-31st

Where:
Wyndham Bonnet Creek:

DCL The Dream to be exact:

And the Holiday Inn at Downtown Disney...no pics, sorry.

Why:
Ferb and I had a rough year last year...but things are good now and we wanted to celebrate...it was our 14th Anniversary on the 25th and boy did we celebrate...Disney Style!!

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

Oct 25th we dropped the girls off at my parents' who watched them for the first two nights followed by my cousin for the remainder. Early in the morning around 3:30 we got up on the 26th for our 6 AM flight out of Buffalo. We were worse than kids we were sooo excited! It had been 13 years since we had a vacation as just us..

Our plane took off on time and we had an uneventful flight.
Obligatory in flight shot...

We landed a little early and Ferb headed down to grab our luggage while I headed further down to the car rental area and did all the paperwork for our rental for the day. We rented with Budget for one day on either side of the cruise. Just as I was walking away from the counter Ferb was getting off the elevator with our bags!

We had no trouble finding our way to our car and the keys were in the ignition. Ferb got our GPS set up and we were on our way to Epcot!
I drove and Ferb was in charge of taking pictures...maybe I shouldn't have let him..he was a little obsessed with these things...

But he did a great job with this:

We were making great time and before we knew it here we were!!

Once we parked we realized it was pretty warm and we changed into shorts in the car...we waited until there wasn't anyone around . As we walked up to the entrance...no tram, we were parked pretty close, we took a couple shots of this:

We bought our one day entrance ticket..., and headed into the park. When I looked at my watch it said 10:30! We made awesome time!!

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

We headed straight for Soarin and grabbed some FP's. As we walked back towards Test Track we saw these guys setting up and stopped to watch...they are so great, really good at getting your blood pumping!

We got to Test Track and rode using the single rider line. This was awesome! I can't wait until Stitch and Rapunzel are old enough that they are comfortable with this...no wait practically! We headed over to WS because we were hungry and we had plans for F&W!! I had a sheet of paper with everything we wanted to eat and drink...we didn't get to all of it. There is just too much for one day, but we did pretty good. First up was this little beauty from Hawaii. It was a pork slider...

After this we forgot to take pics...everything was delicious and we were having such a good time wandering and not having kids saying "I'm bored..when can we go swimming, I'm hungry, Can you buy me this.". Well, you get the picture!!

We were feeling almost stuffed when we saw off to the side on a terrace there was a film crew set up. I thought I recognized the guy on camera...was it Mr Food? Yes it was...if you don't know him, he is a syndicated chef. He does bits for local news programs. And he is sort of a local to Upstate NY. Anyways, we were taking pics to show my family back home. I headed over to the Poland booth for pierogies and Ferb came running over saying that Mickey was there with him and took the camera to take more pics....next thing you know they are asking Ferb if he wanted to come closer for a better shot:

Then...they asked if we wanted our pic taken with Mr Food and F&W Fest Mickey...um, yeah?!

This one was funny because Mr Food told the girl with my camera he wanted one more and he wanted to know when she was ready...this is what he did!

Talk about Pixie Dust, huh?

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

We last left off having just met Mr Food and F&W Fest Mickey. What a great and unexpected bit of Pixie Dust! We walked away from there just dumbfounded about our luck....also eating those pierogies I had bought..yum! We walked and people watched and thought about whether we could stomach anymore food...then I saw Karamel Kuche and remembered that it was something I really wanted to try based on good reviews here. So we stopped and got little treat to share. It was a caramel brownie I think...Ferb loved it..I thought it was too rich...I was full, remember?

After this sugar attack we just kept walking and we stopped and got a drink in China which was lovely and alcoholic! And then we stopped in Norway to ride The Maelstrom but first we saw that the designer of Laila, the fragrance they sell there, was in the store that day. I have always wanted a bottle of this perfume but could never justify the cost. Well, he grabbed me and wanted to give me a hand massage with the lotion...I'm not gonna say no...OMG!! He had the strongest hands I have ever felt!! It started to hurt he was gripping my hand so hard..all the while he was trying to sell us the perfume and gift sets they had. It was so funny when I mentioned his strong hands he said...And please don't flame me when I say this (pun not intended)....in a totally stereotypical gay man's voice with a Norwegian accent "Well, my ancestors were vikings." Ferb and I said it just like he did all the rest of the vacation..it was sooo funny to picture gay vikings roaming Norway of the past!!

We left the store without buying because, again, I couldn't justify the cost. We rode Maelstrom (all the while thinking of gay vikings ). When we exited the ride into the gift shop Ferb dragged me to the register and bought me a bottle....he made me!! The Gay Viking signed our bottle and gave us a smaller sample bottle that he also signed and then a pic of himself...also signed. It was a wonderful present and I wore it for the dressy night on the cruise and for our friends wedding and our xmas party. I LOVE IT!!Again, we couldn't believe our luck...we had met such bizarre "famous" people today. At this point we needed to head towards the entrance of the park, but not before we rode TT again on the single rider line....I was nervous about time because we still had our Soarin FP to use and we wanted to be in our room and napping if we could before we got ready for dinner at O'hana. I also was worried about how long checking in at WBC would take, never having been there before. Well, of course that's when TT decides to shut down while we are on it! I was freaking because we were in different cars and I tend to get panicky in these situations. It took a LONG time to get clear. Because Ferb's car never even did the fast part of the ride they let us bypass the line and ride again..I know, I know I was pushing fate with this one! But we rode with no problems this time, and we got to ride together too!
Then we headed over to Soarin and used our FP...the screen was VERY messy this time...I don't know what is going on with this ride. I really wish they could do something about it. Loved it all the same..one of my faves! As we headed out of the park there was no line for SE so we rode that one...and again it kept stopping throughout the whole ride. I really didn't need any more delays, but thankfully it kept starting up again.
We love to make silly faces on this ride...this was the first time we got to ride together, we usually have to ride with one DD each.

We left Epcot and headed over to WBC...we knew it was close..but this was amazing! We were there in like 5 minutes! Woo hoo!! We found the front desk and checked in fairly quickly and got our parking pass with very little problems. Being that we were only there for 1 night they really couldn't expect us to attend a meeting. We found our room, it was in the same building as check in, and it was clean but there was an industrial fan in the bedroom from doing a deep cleaning we think. We got them to take that away and all was well.
Let me just say that we were blown away by this place. We only got a one bedroom, but it was huge compared to Disney hotels. We had a full kitchen, a huge dining table and a lovely balcony. I took these pics the next morning:
From our balcony looking right..

Looking left:

Sorry, no other pics...we just wanted to rest and chill. We did that and then got up and got ready for our dinner at O'hana. This was when I sprung the surprise on Ferb about our Jan trip!
Dinner was great, O'hana is lovely and we had a nice waiter. The food was amazing, and we love that dessert....YUMMY!!! We were trying to decide whether we wanted to stay in the restaurant for Wishes or head out to the beach. We finished dinner in pretty good time and we didn't wait long for our table in the first place, so we decided to head outside. We found a couple of chairs on the beach and waited. We got nervous because they were showing a movie for Poly guests right on the beach next to the pool, but they stopped it for Wishes. I was sooooo happy we made that decision, because we had a wonderful view, the music was loud enough and it was so romantic out there at night...even with all the other people watching with us...we got all weepy and loved every minute!!

We headed back to WBC to get some sleep...it had been a very long and full day. But what a wonderful day it had been. And we had so much to look forward to as well...we hadn't even started the cruise portion of our vacation!!

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

We had a good night sleep at Wyndham Bonnet Creek. We got up fresh and ready for our next adventure! Check out was a breeze, there was no one in line. We packed up the car and headed out towards Port Canaveral. We stopped on the way to grab a couple of six packs of wine coolers and hard lemonade so we could save a little money while on the ship. We also grabbed some muffins and juice for breakfast while on the road. Our GPS was great, I had mapquest directions too, but the GPS worked really well. It's an old one that Ferb got for free from someone...it's missing some of the newer updates but for our needs it was perfect.
The drive was interesting because we finally got to see other sides of Florida..you know the non-Disney sides! We now know where Sea World, Universal and the convention center are. Plus we got to see some of the marsh land that Florida is famous for. No pics of it, sorry..it was not on our "radar" so to speak.
We were on a mission...I had read so much about boarding the DCL cruise ships and how the terminal worked there. I wanted us to get on the ship as soon as possible since it was a short cruise. So, we couldn't concentrate on anything other than this:

It took about an hour to get from Lake Buena Vista to Port Canaveral...when I first glimpsed the ship I screamed! Not like me, I can assure you...but I was so excited!! Scared the crap out of Ferb! Ferb took a couple shots as we drove along the highway that runs into PC.

We filled up on gas and found our rental car company with no problems. We handed the car over, got our receipt and hopped right on a shuttle to the terminal. No worries there at all...I was concerned that we were too early and that we wouldn't be let into the terminal, but we got dropped off, had our id's checked and waltzed right in. Went through security and up the escalator to the main terminal room.

We filled out the health questionnaire and got in line to officially check in. Being from Canada meant that we could use the international guest line. There was no one in line so we walked right up. The CM there was so nice. We had our Anniversary buttons on from WDW and he chatted us up while he checked us in. We got our boarding pass number from him, and we got seriously pixie dusted there! Number 5 BABY!!!

Then we stood in line to meet the big cheese!

We had some time to wait so we walked around and headed out to the smoking terrace for a better look at the actual ship.

We still had more time on our hands but not much so we found an empty spot in the crowd and waited...look who walked by on her way to her meet and greet:

Next thing you know they are announcing groups and with such a low number it wasn't long until we walked through these:

Ferb's happy!!

We had lunch in Cabanas. The food was really good, we got a table by the window and had a wonderful time looking around and out and not believing that we were actually here! We had a nice conversation with a couple of servers about Thanksgiving and what it's about and where it came from. All kinds of people from all over the world work on these ships and it's kinda neat to talk to them!

After lunch we headed over to the adult only pool area. We got into our suits got a drink from the pool bar and headed into the pool. Then we got in the AWESOME hot tub. It's on the edge and the floor is clear. You can see down to the ocean!! On the bottom left you can sort of see my toe with it's dark nail polish..the big yellow thing is a life boat:

Ahhh...this is vacation:

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

That is an awesome shot of the castle! I hope you feel better soon

Pretty cool, eh? I can't remember where I pilfered it from, but I love it!!

Sorry you feel so crappy, hope you're feeling better soon!

Yay for your ADRs being done.

I had a sticker shock moment when I saw the MNSSHP ticket prices too. I knew we'd be paying a little more because we're going to the one on Halloween, I just wasn't ready for the price I saw. Oh well, it's going to be awesome to see DS trick or treat for the first time at the Magic Kingdom!

For sure, it's expensive but if we can swing it we will just for the experience.

I hope you are feeling better.
I got my tickets too. MNSSHP and MVMCP! I can't wait.
They are awfully high, aren't they?

Thanks guys, I am starting to feel better finally. It's been a week since this started, but I think if I didn't work midnights I would have been further along with getting better. It can really take it out of you when you don't sleep right. But, I am feeling better!

 

[jenny105]

I'm with you on screaming when I see the ship. That's exactly what I'm going to do in June and ours is only a two nighter! Don't you just love cruises?? So relaxing!

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

I'm with you on screaming when I see the ship. That's exactly what I'm going to do in June and ours is only a two nighter! Don't you just love cruises?? So relaxing!

This was our first cruise, and we are hooked!! We booked to return on the Dream in Oct 2013 with the girls this time!!

 

[Simba22]

Your mini TR is AWESOME! I can't believe all of the pixie dust you guys got! And Ferb got you the Laila perfume!? What a guy! I always want to buy a bottle of the lotion but $50 is a bit excessive! That was so nice of Ferb to do that for you!

I can't WAIT to do a Disney Cruise! A few more years and I'll finally get to do one! I'm excited to read how the rest of yours went!

 

[jenseib]

I'm lovin the minit tr. I remember some of those pictures from facebook, but it's so nice to hear the story.

 

[PixieMama]

But he did a great job with this:

LOL, you posted a pic of the gates, too! Love it. Goosebumps!

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

Your mini TR is AWESOME! I can't believe all of the pixie dust you guys got! And Ferb got you the Laila perfume!? What a guy! I always want to buy a bottle of the lotion but $50 is a bit excessive! That was so nice of Ferb to do that for you!

I can't WAIT to do a Disney Cruise! A few more years and I'll finally get to do one! I'm excited to read how the rest of yours went!

Isn't Ferb just the best?! He dragged me kicking and screaming to the counter to buy it. I felt so guilty spending that money when we were so lucky to just be on this trip...but I am glad that he did. It's a smell that always takes me back to Epcot and now DCL!!

I'm lovin the minit tr. I remember some of those pictures from facebook, but it's so nice to hear the story.

Yeah, FINALLY I am getting around to it. I just hope I am able to remember all the finer details.

LOL, you posted a pic of the gates, too! Love it. Goosebumps!

Great minds think alike!

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

Week Four:
D​

Daisy

 

[Chelley00]

I love reading other's DCL cruise reports. With 6 of us, we'll never be able to justify the cost of DCL so we cruise RCL with the kids. I'd love to convince DH we should take a kids free DCL but they'd hate us for it