Booking BBB & CRT

[itsreally4mommy]

I am hoping to get an ADR for CRT this time, but can't decide two things.

First of all, which meal? And second, I would like to treat the girls to Bibbidi Bobbidi Bootique beforehand but am not sure how much time to allow so I can make the ADR at the right time. We are staying at Pop Century, so that could also affect our ressie time, to ensure a timely arrival. And it also wouldn't be very convenient for us to stop our fun, run back to the room to get ready, and then go to MK.

 

[ConnieB]

You could make a day out of it (that's what we're doing). We have 11am and 11:20am BBB at the castle; then we'll wander around Main Street shops enjoying the attention they get ; then we'll hop the Monorail to GF for tea at 2:15pm; then I have a Photo Shoot at GF for 4pm; then it's back to the Castle for dinner with Cinderella at 6:20.

It's planned to be a slow paced, enjoy being a princess kind of day for the girls (pre-teens). If your girls are younger you may want to consider the Alice in Wonderland tea instead of the more "adult" tea we're doing.

Oh...and my girls only know about the BBB and the dinner at the castle....the other two are "Mommy Surprise #1" and "Mommy Surprise #2" and they are just dying to know what they are.....it's really adding a lot of fun for them to speculate (and they actually guessed the tea, but I would neither deny nor confirm). They know I'm always good for a surprise!

We went to DTD the evening we arrived and it was a little sad to see the girls that were getting all dolled up at 5 or 6 in the evening.....you knew they were going to spend most of their time sleeping on their hair dos. I have heard there is enough hair spray to last a day or two, but still, it just seemed anti-climatic to do the whole thing and then go back to your room so soon afterwards. My girls are going to milk the attention for every drop they can get,

 

[itsreally4mommy]

By photo shoot do you mean your own, or from Disney?

My girls are will be 8 and 11. I didn't count on the salon treatment holding up through the day, so I assumed we'd need to do it right before dinner. We aren't getting Parkhoppers so we will have to make the most of our MK visit while we're there. Although since MK is my favorite I will try to plan on us going twice, but still there is so much to do it takes planning.

 

[mommy2mrb]

we have an 8:00 am BBB appt and 8:50 breakfast at CRT for our DD so she will have a Princess day too!

 

[ConnieB]

By photo shoot do you mean your own, or from Disney?

My girls are will be 8 and 11. I didn't count on the salon treatment holding up through the day, so I assumed we'd need to do it right before dinner. We aren't getting Parkhoppers so we will have to make the most of our MK visit while we're there. Although since MK is my favorite I will try to plan on us going twice, but still there is so much to do it takes planning.

By photo shoot, I mean the special photography session at Grand Floridian. It's connected to the Photopass CD....we already pre-purchased the CD for $99 (regular price is $124). There is a $25 charge for the photo session, but they'll put all the photos on my photopass so I'll be able to add borders and special effects, print them out (the photopass gives you the release needed to legally print them), etc. I probably wouldn't pay the $25 just to have photos taken of them "regular" because my camera does a really good job too, but something about them being all dolled up makes it worth it. The photographer will take them around to various places at GF for the photos. I figure they know the "best" spots....plus it's worth $25 for the girls to feel extra glamorous and having a professional taking their pics instead of mom.

From the photos I've seen here on DIS...and from the few girls I've seen in the park this past week, I can tell that they put a TON of hairspray. There was a little girl that brushed at her hair and go a wisp out of place and that wisp just stood out straight by itself, . There have been many reports of the hair lasting through the next day (albeit a little less perfect) and other reports of having to wash the hair several times to get all the stuff out of it, so I think it's safe to assume it will last all day.

There is a really long thread on BBB that includes a ton of photos from both DTD and the castle location. You might want to check it out.

 

[madfelice]

We're doing an 8am BBB and a 12.25pm CRT lunch. I thought it would be good for her to have some time to adjust to the new look before the CRT experience.

 

[mommyaof2]

We did the BBB around 10am on our trip in April last year and then did the CRT lunch. I thought this worked out great! We went to the one in DTD though and they had a photo shoot at DTD after the BBB. We had like a 1:50pm lunch adr. We had plenty of time to do BBB, have the photo shoot, and walk around DTD before our lunch. My girls got lots of attention too! When we were walking down Main street, my oldest DD had people asking for her autograph because she really looked like a miniature Snow White! Of course, I did not let her give autographs though. But, it made her feel special!

 

[itsreally4mommy]

Thanks for the feedback. Although DH is already sucking the joy out of the trip by squashing the idea of any extras. We'll see...

I am not sure if the photoshoot would be an option for me, but I do intend to get a photopass this time. Even if you have a good camera, they are so much more experienced at knowing how to get all the perfect angles so you don't have a diaperchange in the background of your MK family picture Yeah, it happened!

 

[PrincessBelle39]

On December 8 we did the castle package at BBB for our girls at 10:30 and had an ADR at CRT for lunch at 12:20pm. We didn't make our ADR time. We were 50minutes late. By the time we finished at BBB and then had to go up to near the entrance of the park for the photos there just wasn't enough time to get back. We were lucky in that the man in the photo shop rang CRT and they held our place for us. But it was a bit of a hike due to the crowds and we didn't get out of the boutique until nearly 12:00pm.

 

[mommyaof2]

I just wanted to let you know that our photo shoot was on our photopass. It did not cost extra! This was in April 07. I don't know if they still do it that way, but our photo shoot was on our photopass cd and we just had them printed when we got home. So, if you are doing photo pass, do the photo shoot.

 

[KitKate]

Where do you call to make a photo session reservation at the GF? We are going there on our first day.

 

[DCDisney]

We went to DTD the evening we arrived and it was a little sad to see the girls that were getting all dolled up at 5 or 6 in the evening.....you knew they were going to spend most of their time sleeping on their hair dos. I have heard there is enough hair spray to last a day or two,

We did do BBB in the late afternoon and then ate at 1900 Park Fare. It worked out perfectly for us as it didn't eat into park time and the hair do lasted 3 days including 1 day of swimming. The next day we went to Akershus so I wanted to time it so that she had her do for both meals. My daughter was 7 last year and loved BBB but this year at 8 she was not nearly as interested so I canceled this year. You may want to let your 11 year old see some pictures to be sure that she is interested. This year my daughter wants to wear a tiara but not a BBB style which makes life easy BBB does seem to run quite late fairly regularly so I wouldn't schedule a meal directly after.