Doesn't everybody have Disney on speed dial? Seriously? Mickeystoontown does! 5/14

[natebenma]

I'm guessing I missed the "First Responder" honors!

Subscribing for now and I will catchup later, hopefully before you actually leave for your trip!

 

[stacy~**]

I'm famous! It's ALWAYS the OTHER Stacy that gets the TR/PTR mentions. Although the call out for being an obsessed ADR changer may or may not be a compliment....but at least I am in good company.

Louisiana doesn't seem like it should be that far away (I've never been good at geography) and I can't imagine driving that far. But I am sure the money saved is a great thing.

I like that you are happy to keep returning to CBR because for you that is "home". I have this thing about wanting to stay at all the resorts but the more we go the more I have resorts I prefer and want to return to but then I feel like we need to try something new. It's always a struggle.

I'd say Beaches and Cream and Boma are some great first day choices! Boardwalk area and AKL touring could probably fill most of the day too. Not sure if you know about the free resort tours offered at the Boardwalk and Wilderness Lodge resorts. Aaron and I really wanted to do them last month for our "no park" trip but we didn't make it. Anyways, that's a free option for you!

Can't wait to hear more and see if we have any overlapping ADRs!

 

[DEDHead]

According to Bing Maps, it's 1114.5 miles from my house in the north Dallas area to my doorstep @ Wilderness Lodge. The fam thought it'd be interesting to drive this time and looks like we'll be taking the same route you do so we'll see how interesting they find it to be! Looks like I've got 300 miles more to go than you but we are leaving on a Sunday so my traffic should be good getting outta Dallas, which on a workday morning could be horrible. We're planning on getting moving around 8am and hope to make it to Tallahassee in 13ish hours.

On the way back they have the idea of taking the longer way and going through New Orleans since I'm the only one who has been there. But I'm hoping they won't want to cause I know I'm just going to want to get home , have one day of rest and then back to work me, but the rest are off for the summer (DW is a teacher)!

 

[oopsiDAISY]

Wow! Two REALLY fabulous ADR's!! SCORE!!!!

Beaches and Cream is on my must try list. I would LOVE to just have lunch there, then get some sand toys and play on the beach for a while! That would be a fantastic way to while away some time outside the parks, in my opinion.

Of course, you all have your own beaches at your resort, so I am sure you will find some other sort of fun to get into while you are at BC.

 

[farrahalex76]

Can't wait to hear what you think of Beaches and Cream. I love looking around at other resort my DH not so much. We were at the WL for dinner and I wanted to go look around and he was like its nice lets go.

 

[Clarf]

Add us to the driving club! It's 1192 miles from our front door to CBR, but we do it. It saves SO much money. My kids are also good travelers, though, and we threaten them with turning around and not going if they ask "how much longer," too often. (yeah, like that would happen!) We leave about 9am and will drive until we can't drive anymore. The way down, we usually make it to south of Atlanta so we don't have to deal with that traffic during the day. Then we have just 5 or 6 hours the next day. I think I want to try your way down Hwy. 192 this time and see all that crazy stuff. We usually take a different way in, the tollway/turnpike I think, so we don't see all that stuff. This year, though!

I do most of the driving also because my DH is a terrible driver. And then, he can deal with all the kids needs and I can just drive. I get the good end of that deal!


Beaches and Cream sounds awesome and we'll definitely have to try BOMA sometime. I've heard nothing but good things about that place. I'm so excited for you that your trip is so close!

Also, non-trip related, but my girls have been wearing their dresses a lot lately! I have to remember to take some more pictures next time so you can see them.

 

[Curiouser&curiouser!]

I love that you guys just go with what feels right and don't care that you have been to the Caribbean Beach resort a bunch of times. I always go through the dilemma every time we plan a trip- I want to try all the resorts at some point, but sometimes a particular resort that we loved just 'works' better!

We have stayed at the Caribbean Beach resort once and really enjoyed it. It was a shorter trip (maybe 4 nights) and we stayed in a Pirate Room which our little boy loved!

We have only had ice cream at Beaches and Cream so far, but I must say that I am happy about them now taking ADRs!
Boma is a personal favorite of mine. It is so nice to try so many unusual dishes, but still have a great variety of solid favorites to fall back on!

 

[DEDHead]

Forgot to add before that our first ADR the day we there is Beaches & Cream. We stayed @ BC last trip and ate there the first night as well. We have fond memories because we were starving when we got there and it was like 9:30PM due to some delayed flights due to weather. We hadn't eaten there before but since it was about the only thing open we tried it and got lucky there was seating (before ADRs). I gotta say, it's the best darn cheeseburger anywhere on property IMHO. I been there a couple since and still really like it. I think this time we may go all in and get the Kitchen Sink!

 

[jenseib]

I lovebeaches and Cream...and we made our first ADR for this poast trip and we still have not had anything but icecream. LOL we went with the no way jose again. I asked Claire if she wanted real food and she said no, and I really was only hungry enough too tackle the ice cream.

 

[KatMark]

I don't think I could take the drive to Florida again (unless it is when we permanently move there). I don't even remember how long it is...18 or 19 hours? Nope...I'd go crazy.

I knew you'd end up at CBR again.

I like the Beaches & Cream for lunch and Boma for dinner. There's always the Boardwalk to visit as well after strolling around the Beach Club.

 

[teekathepony]

Wow, that's quite a long drive! But so worth it. Beautiful water view at the beach club!
I think it's great that you can get an ADR for Beaches & Cream now, I'm in the same boat as you, never tried it but want to.
Mmmm Boma. One of my favourites!
I think the plans sound great so far!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[Mndisneygirl]

We have a 24 hour drive from home to WDW and we do it only because it is SO much cheaper than flying 4 of us down. I probably would only get to go every 3 or 4 years if I had to pay for flights. We have a pretty good system - we leave in the evening around 5 and I drive until we get close to Chicago. DH is supposed to rest/sleep so he can drive all night. The kids have movies and sleep in back and they are pretty good with the rules - don't ask if we're there yet, "go" when we stop and let us know if you have to before it's urgent! The only problems arise if there's bad weather to slow us down.
Plus then we have our own vehicle to use and can pack however and whatever we want. I discovered how hard it is to pack for flying this last trip. Although I love how fast flying is, really you usually lose a whole day for travel when you fly too, so what's another 12 hours?
We joke that if we lived within 12 hours we'd be going two or three times a year! it would seem so close!

 

[Cindy-rella]

Enjoying your pre-trip report. We stayed at Caribbean Beach last year and loved it! We try to get to the world every other year, so this isn't our year. We did Beaches and Cream last year, yummy!

 

[RooRach0906]

Our drive is just under 800 miles but we are lucky and only live about 50 minutes from international airport; so we can get pretty decent fares and with only 3 of us it is only a little more to fly than drive. DH also does a lot of driving for work and would rather pay the extra for a break. However we have and will drive if we can not get cheap enough flights.

I have always wanted to try Beaches and Cream. Can't wait to hear how it is!

 

[Aristocath]

After reading your plans I just added an ADR for Beaches and Cream for our family trip. Thanks for that idea!

 

[pwdebbie]

On this day a year ago I was on the road for WDW. With no trips in our future, I'm going to live vicariously through your trip report. So far so good!

 

[EstherS]

Following along. I'm bummed we were going to go this year and would of been there at the same time as you. Unfortunately with me not having steady income and the harsh winter no trip for us again this year. So I live through you and Kathy's trips.

 

[DisFanAmI]

Our drive is a little over 1200 miles from Norther IL. Flying just isn't in the budget and we've come to enjoy the drive. It's nice to have our car if we get tired of the buses and it takes the pressure off as far as packing. If it fits in the car, we take it

 

[mickeystoontown]

We drive 650 miles from Mississippi. Flying is so expensive and I can plan Disney trips all day long but trying to find deals on flights I can't do. But with 3 kids I think it's probably easier to drive anyway. We haven't decided if we are going to leave the night before and stay halfway or just get up early the day of.

You sound like me.....I can find Disney deals but no flight deals.

We usually leave at 6:00 p.m. or so and drive as far as we can for the night. Makes the next day's driving seem not so bad.

Wow two installments in one day, must be a slow day in the office

After lunch you could always walk over to Boardwalk and check that out.

Yes m'am. I had my part of the work done and it was on the boss' desk waiting for his part.

I'm thinking that we will walk over to Boardwalk since we've never done that before.

I'd like a day to have lunch at B&C and dinner at Boma!! I agree - you could go nose around the Boardwalk area too, take a boat ride or rent a bike?

That sounds like a great plan.

My DH just heard about ADRs at B&C and he is very excited! I think we'll be eating there next trip!

I happened upon the fact that B&C was taking ADRs when I saw it pop up on the Disney Dining Reservation sight.

My DH and Hunter share a birthday - he was bummed that he's missing another 24 hour party around his birthday this year - it just doesn't work for us to go then, our kids are still in school.

School hear ends around the same time every year. Poor Hunter, almost everybody is gone for either Memorial Day or on vacation when his vacation rolls around.



As to your title - I sure thought everyone had Disney on speed dial! I have Disney Dining in my phone!

Glad that I'm not the only one!

800 miles doesn't sound all that bad. We got 1321 miles. No way would I drive. Chris is a truck driver so he does our driving. He makes a bad passenger. I mean last time I tried to drive him to work, we didn't make it down the street before I pulled over.
I love the idea of touring the resorts. Both BC, YC and then boardwalk. Not to mention AKL. And a free room. I think I might be turning green. lol I couldn't think of a better family to get this free time at Disney.
I do vote for DTD your arrival day. I can't wait to eat at WG again. I am slowly trying to come up with plans for our first day and that was the first place my mind went. But, like you and so many others it changed just as fast.
Can't wait for more plans!!

Whoa! I don't know that driving 1321 would be cheaper than fling. At least your husband let you give driving a try.

I'm pretty sure that we'll be at DTD that first day. We always do.

I drive about 900 miles when I do drive to WDW, so I sympathize. I am similar to you in needing to do something, even when sitting.

We really need to figure out when we will meet up, since we will both be at CBR for the same few days! Water view will be a nice way to start your trip, and so is relaxing! I hope to eat at Boma one day, though that won't happen on my next trip.

And you do it solo!

We'll definitely have to figure out when to meet up. There's no way that I'm going to let the perfect setting to meet slip by.

This trip will be my third time flying. When I drive its over 1300 miles one way, and although cheaper to drive in my prius it's much faster to fly and more relaxing.
My 180 day Mark is coming up. I need to get with my daughter and her friend so we can make ADR decisions.

I would love to fly but it's just soooo expensive. Yay for ADR time coming up! I love doing that but John hates it.

I'm guessing I missed the "First Responder" honors!

Subscribing for now and I will catchup later, hopefully before you actually leave for your trip!

I'm so sorry Dee! I should have sent out a private message but didn't think about it.

I'm famous! It's ALWAYS the OTHER Stacy that gets the TR/PTR mentions. Although the call out for being an obsessed ADR changer may or may not be a compliment....but at least I am in good company.

Heck yeah, you're famous! I'm sure that you and I aren't the only ones who are obsessed with changing up our ADRs.


Louisiana doesn't seem like it should be that far away (I've never been good at geography) and I can't imagine driving that far. But I am sure the money saved is a great thing.

I like that you are happy to keep returning to CBR because for you that is "home". I have this thing about wanting to stay at all the resorts but the more we go the more I have resorts I prefer and want to return to but then I feel like we need to try something new. It's always a struggle.

I wish that we weren't the "stuck in a rut" kinda family and would feel comfortable changing resorts but we just aren't.

I'd say Beaches and Cream and Boma are some great first day choices! Boardwalk area and AKL touring could probably fill most of the day too. Not sure if you know about the free resort tours offered at the Boardwalk and Wilderness Lodge resorts. Aaron and I really wanted to do them last month for our "no park" trip but we didn't make it. Anyways, that's a free option for you!

Can't wait to hear more and see if we have any overlapping ADRs!

I had no idea that they had the free resort at the Boardwalk. Only knew about the one at Wilderness Lodge.

According to Bing Maps, it's 1114.5 miles from my house in the north Dallas area to my doorstep @ Wilderness Lodge. The fam thought it'd be interesting to drive this time and looks like we'll be taking the same route you do so we'll see how interesting they find it to be! Looks like I've got 300 miles more to go than you but we are leaving on a Sunday so my traffic should be good getting outta Dallas, which on a workday morning could be horrible. We're planning on getting moving around 8am and hope to make it to Tallahassee in 13ish hours.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of our route will be the same. Hopefully, the traffic won't be bad since it's Sunday. I wouldn't want to get into the work traffic in Dallas, that's for sure.

On the way back they have the idea of taking the longer way and going through New Orleans since I'm the only one who has been there. But I'm hoping they won't want to cause I know I'm just going to want to get home , have one day of rest and then back to work me, but the rest are off for the summer (DW is a teacher)!

Ugh! I wouldn't want to take any detour if we were on our way to Disney. We want to get straight there.

Wow! Two REALLY fabulous ADR's!! SCORE!!!!

Beaches and Cream is on my must try list. I would LOVE to just have lunch there, then get some sand toys and play on the beach for a while! That would be a fantastic way to while away some time outside the parks, in my opinion.

Of course, you all have your own beaches at your resort, so I am sure you will find some other sort of fun to get into while you are at BC.

I'm excited about our first day's plans even if they are just ADRs for now. I would give two thumbs up to playing in the sand right now!

Can't wait to hear what you think of Beaches and Cream. I love looking around at other resort my DH not so much. We were at the WL for dinner and I wanted to go look around and he was like its nice lets go.

This will be our first time eating there and I'm looking forward to it. I know that we'll have to get ice cream for dessert despite the fact that I'm allergic to milk products.

 

[disneyshea]

How are we getting from Louisiana to Florida and where are we staying?

The drive from our house to Walt Disney World is 800+ loooooooong miles and we drive. As I tell everybody at the start of my pre-trip reports, I would love to fly since it would take just 2 ½ hours to get there. But, our local airport is little...I’m talking, you walk out to the airplane and board, little. Airfare from the airport here to Orlando is outrageous. The closest airport that has even halfway decent airfare is in Jackson, Mississippi which is about 2 ½ hours from our house. For our family, it’s cheaper to just drive.

To say that I’m blessed with wonderful traveling kids is an understatement. Just give them some music, a portable DVD player, some snacks and they are good to go. Very rarely have they ever asked “are we there yet?” and, then, it was only when we were fairly close to Walt Disney World.

I’ve always done the majority of the driving with everybody else lazing around. In John’s defense, I don’t like his driving so I’d much rather let him sit to the side and take a snooze or two. He is one of those people who looks over to the right and then over to the left and then back behind him. A typical conversation while John’s driving goes something like this “Oh look at that over there. Is that a deer?” “Did you see that big tractor over in that field?” “Was that an armadillo or raccoon that was run over?” Yeah, he pretty much pays attention to everything but the road.

Another thing is that I think that I have ADD when it comes to just sitting still. I’m not being facetious. I’m serious! I am not good at just sitting there and doing nothing. Even at home when watching a television show, I think of all of the things that I should or could be doing. At least when I am driving, I’m doing something.

Anyway, the plans are:

Friday, May 23rd: John usually has Friday off and I get off at Noon. Hunter’s last day of school is May 22nd, so he’ll be home anyway. I will come home, change clothes, throw the last of my things in our overnight bag and toss in the “snack bag” in the backseat. I hope to be on the road by 1:00, 1:30 at the latest.

From our house to our first stop (which I’ll talk about in a minute), there’s nothing really. Just fields of crops and...and....well, there’s just fields of crops.

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Told ya!

After going through Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi, we’ll hit another section of nothingness, then, Hattiesburg and nothingness, then, Mobile and Pensacola, Florida where there are at least some pretty buildings and I’ll get to honk my horn in the tunnel in Mobile. In the past, we stopped somewhere around Crestview, Florida for the night. But, since we are leaving at least five hours earlier, we can make it a lot further.

I’ve been doing some mapquest/hotels.com research and am pretty sure that we’ll make it to Tallahassee before it gets too terribly late. However, since Tallahassee is the State Capitol, and traffic is heavy, I’d like to get a little further. We’ll simply play it by ear and see how it goes. We’ve been known to drive until 1:00 in the morning in order to get to a good stopping place.

Saturday: May 24th: Hunter’s 17th Birthday and our Disney arrival day! We aren’t super early risers even when there are hundreds of miles ahead of us. It just works better for us to leave around 9:00/9:30 a.m. We’ve tried the getting up at 4:00 a.m. and driving but that just makes for a bunch of tired people by the time we get to Disney (or anywhere for that matter).

Depending on where we stop for the night, we will have between four to six hours of driving this day. Because we travel in May, it seems to be inevitable that we’ll run into rain and traffic on the way down I-75. Happens almost every time. That’s why our travel time varies so much. Oh well, in the words of Mama June of Honey Boo Boo fame... “It is what it is. Get over it!”

When I was given the two free days by Disney, I couldn’t figure out if I wanted the two free days at the beginning of the trip or at the end of the trip. I posted the scenarios on my trip report and on Facebook. In one way, it sounded better to add it to the first. But, on the other hand, it sounded better to add it to the end of the trip. You see, at the time, we thought that Lacey and Jesse were going and they were coming at the end of the trip. Meaning, we’d have to pay out of pocket for two full days of meals. If I add it to the first of the trip, we’d only have three counter service meals to pay for out of pocket. (Of course, as Stacy...one of our Dis friends, not Disney’s Stacy...can attest by my posts on the May ADR cancellation thread, I’ve done some ADR changing. ) That made the whole thing a moot point but “It is what it is. Get over it!”.

Good gosh, I’m getting in that “chatty, wordy, no-picture posting” mindset again. Let me throw in a picture of what I’m betting ya’ll look like right now:

(By the way, be careful using google images to search for “passed out cartoon”. Let’s just say that you’ll see some nudey pictures and they ain't cartoons .)

Let me get back to the rest of this “How are we getting from Louisiana to Florida and where are we staying?” post. I’ve told ya’ll how we are getting from Louisiana to Florida and now it’s time to talk about “where are we staying”. We are creatures of habit. We tend to lean towards what we know we like. And what we like is Caribbean Beach Resort. Even though we had our choice of where to stay with those two free nights, we knew that we’d end up at Caribbean Beach and didn’t want to try something new for just two nights. We did the whole split stay last year and it didn’t work for us at all. I didn’t like moving around. I want to get settled in and relax.

So, we’ll be relaxing in a water view room (that’s what Disney comped us) at Caribbean Beach. I’m so looking forward to being back on the beaches there:

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Ahhh! That’s all I can say is “ahhh!”. Who am I kidding, I ain’t stopping with just “Ahhh!”. I’ve got plans to share.

As I said, May 24th is Hunter’s birthday. We haven’t made any ADRs for this night because we aren’t sure what time we will arrive and given the new ADR cancellation policy, we decided to just wing it. It’s possible that we’ll just eat in the resort food court or, if I know Hunter, he’ll be ready to get to Downtown Disney. If so, we’ll stop in Wolfgang Puck Express:

If we do go to Downtown Disney, I know that we’ll stroll from one end to the other just taking in the sights and smells. If we stay at the resort, it’s very possible that we’ll watch the movie in the Old Port Royale courtyard. Either way, we’ll be more than happy to be back in the Disney bubble!

**Up next: What do we have planned for our “free...literally free"...day at Disney?

I'm really enjoying your PTR so far. You've already given me tons of great info. This is our first Disney trip.

Your travel plans sound just like ours except that we're a one state West of you (Texas). Leaving on a Friday afternoon, stopping somewhere along the way (still trying to decide where) and arriving on Saturday. Sounds like you are pretty flexible on your stop-over. Do you normally make a hotel reservation or have you found it pretty easy to just find somewhere along the way. I'm a little OCD about where we sleep so I'm afraid of taking the risk with somewhere that I haven't researched to death but would LOVE to make more progress and get closer to our destination. Also, I haven't heard about the traffic down I75. Is that always the case on the way to Orlando?

Love the beach pics. Looks like you will have a great spot to relax and unwind and relax. We may look into this resort for our next stay. This time, we are staying offsite.