Ewoks and Egrets: summer break at POP PTR!!! - updated 03/25

[Bookstamper]

Hello there!

to my PTR! I'm a long-time lurker on the Dis so I figure it's finally time to get writing and tell y'all about our up-coming trip this June. So let's get started with the who's in the crew:

There's me - Lizz (26) - Library assistant by day, Disney planner by night:

Favourite ride: Pirates of Caribbean and the American Adventure
Favourite park: Hmmm...EPCOT, DHS, MK - I really love all of them except for AK. (I don't know what it is but that park is just jinked for me!)

And my DP - Sal (27):

Favourite ride: ToT, Animation Academy, TSM
Favourite park: DHS (I think - see above!)

So when are we off?

June 3rd - June 15th: a whole 12 nights in the World! Woo hoo!

This will be our fourth trip to WDW and our first time in the summer! I guess we've been a little spoiled by lower crowd levels on our previous visits but we are sooo looking forward to this June! Big crowds? Boiling heat? Star Wars fans? Bring it on! As for the weather, I don't want to see a single poncho this holiday - we've had our fair share of rain!

This is also our longest trip to Disney by quite some way So...we'll be looking to try out some new things, more on those coming up!

And where are we staying?

POP Century will be our HQ for this trip. This is our first visit to POP, and I'm sooo excited! Sal and I decided that we would try to stay at a different hotel on each visit to WDW - well, we've done WL, POFQ and AKL so I guess that's 3 down and loads more to go. Sal is a great one for taking photos and I reckon all the larger-than-life memorabilia is sure to keep her busy.

So please follow along as we get ready for this trip and take a quick look back at our last few visits!

Next up: What do you mean I have to run 10k before I can get on the plane??!

 

[Bookstamper]

So with our trip getting pretty close, here's a funny story. Last week I figured that I would bake a cake and perhaps do something special to mark our 100 days til Disney time! I get everything from the store and then go online and log on to one of those count down websites to check out how many days til I should get baking! I figured I would have a few days to go - but obviously I was in a time warp....

Woah - wait up, last week it was just 89 days to go!! So I'd already missed the hundred day mark - doh! I guess we will just have to celebrate our fifty day count-down instead!

This then got me thinking about training for the 10K run I'd decided to do BEFORE we go on vacation To give you a little back story: at New Years I had decided it was time to get into better shape. I've never been all that fit and I seriously needed to get motivated - so what better way than to have a target? I set about looking for a 5K or 10K road race I could enter and soon found the one! On May 18th, there's a 10K run in Oxford - which is my family's home city. So this will be the perfect chance to catch up with my parents AND take part in a great run.

The run is in aid of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign and I have seen it happen round the streets of Oxford in previous years. This year I will be taking part - and i'm pretty much just looking to finish! It's my first ever running event and I haven't been able to get in as much training as I had hoped - so far but with the weather picking up and lighter evenings coming round I am hoping to get some jogging in most days after work. According to the count-down website, there's 70 days to go until race day (so that's only 1690 hours) - I'd better get started

Well, that lets you know that there might be a few running schedules in amongst all the Disney plans over the next few weeks! I will keep you posted! Do let me know if there are any new runners out there - it'd be great to hear from you.

Next Up: When do we get to all the eating? Our ADRs!

 

[jenniferkeala808]

Hello! I'm here! Joining in on your PTR! Can't wait to hear more!

 

[Bookstamper]

Hello! I'm here! Joining in on your PTR! Can't wait to hear more!

Hi there! Many thanks for postings- it's great to hear from you! I see your trip is just a little over a month away: how exciting!

 

[Bookstamper]

So I've now pretty much planned out our ADRs for all twelve days and thought I'd share our choices with you. Gotta say that a lot of menu-checking, dilly-dallying and outright panicing went into these - but with the power of spreadsheets I think we're pretty much organised!

To Plan or not to Plan?

On our last trip to WDW (November 09) we were lucky enough to take advantage of free dining - and boy, did we take advantage! It was sooo cool being able to choose items off the menu without checking the prices. Steak? Yes please! Dessert? Go on then! We were totally stuffed by the end of our trip and had to agree that DDP was really too much food for us - but hey, it was free!

This year we would be paying for DDP if we took it so some hard decisions had to be made! Did we really want all those desserts? Were we going to eat $1000 of food anyway? Would everywhere we wanted to eat accept the plan? Well to cut a long story short we decided to wing it and go without. We'll be eating at a fair few places that don't do DDP (T-Rex, Garden View Tea Lounge) and I'm a huge fan of starters (which aren't included on the plan).

Places so good we had to go back!

So here's a few favourites that we'll be visiting again on our trip:

Sci Fi Diner
I just love it in here! I know it's corny but growing up I ALWAYS wanted to visit a drive-in movie theatre! Well I still haven't been to one, but Sci Fi is pretty close. Here's Sal posing outside with the terrofying creatures from outta space:

Kona Cafe
We've had breakfast here quite a few times - Sal is a mahoosive Tonga Toast fan and I've been defeated by the Big Kahuna more times than I care to mention! Last year we ended up eating here for dinner because O'hana was fully booked, and were we pleased to have tried it! The Tuna Oscar was amazing and then Sal stumbled across this bad boy for dessert:

Le Cellier
Yum, yum and yum! We visited Le Cellier on our first visit back in 2007 and haven't been able to get a reservation since. This year we'll be heading there for lunch - hope they've still got that cheese soup on the menu!

Tusker House

Last year we tried the character breakfast at TH and really enjoyed it - although the funniest thing happened! I want to say that we were still a little jet lagged (I think it was on our second morning at WDW) but we got seated and were having a great time when the characters started coming round. Now Sal is a big Minnie fan and was looking forward to meeting her for a photo. A giant mouse duly appears and Sal says (really loudly!) "Hi Minnie, it's great to see you Miinie, can I get a photo Minnie?"

Well I'm cracking up and she has no idea why. "Minnie" seems pretty rushed and the little kid next to me is looking surprised! So the characters quickly head off in the other direction. At which point I have to tell Sal that was Mickey!!! Sal was really embarrased and said couldn't tell the difference with the safari gear - whoops! So here's a photo of Sal with Micky - or is that Minnie?!

And here I am still cracking up when Daisy appears:

Hoop de Doo Revue
Yee-har! Had a total blast at HDDR and we're going again! This time we have category 1 seating so will be right in the middle of the action and I won't forget to bring the camera. I'm a huge fan of ribs, chicken, beans and corny jokes so this should be a great night out!

Up Next: Trying something new: ADRs at different places!

 

[Bookstamper]

OK, so we are pretty excited to be eating at some new places this June - here are our first-timers:

Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show
I can't wait for this! Sal and I did HDDR on our last visit and had a blast, now I'm really looking forward to the luua. Plus, bottomless refills on punch? What could be better?!

T-Rex
I love me some dinosaurs...and some burgers, so this should be the perfect combo! We walked past this at DTD last year and looked into the Build-a-Dino place, which was totally over-run - there was a que out the door from 11:30AM. I'm not sure if this place will have quietened down a bit now that it's been open a while?

Beaches & Cream
I'm determined to try this after hearing so many good things about the burgers on the DIS. As they don't accept ADRs we will probably try to fit in a lunch there one day that we're at EPCOT??

Yak & Yeti
I made reservations here last year and then cancelled in favour of a breakfast at Tusker House (see how that turned out in my previous post!). Now we're back and going to Y&Y - I think Sal will really like it here, but I may take more convincing...

Raglan Road
I booked this for our first dinner and am having a few doubts now? I know everyone says the food is good, and I'm certainly liking what I see on the Allears.net menus BUT this is food that we can easily get at home, plus Guiness isn't really my tipple of choice. I reckon we'll stick with it though - I've certainly got a keen eye for the Shepperds Pie, let me know what you think!

So there you have it: all of our dining plans! The only thing we're seriously missing is Biergarten, but without cancelling one of our ADRs I don't think we'll be able to fit it in. Last year I tried doing 2 TS meals on some days and just got way too full - plus this was supposed to be a budget trip! Whoops!

Up Next: To Tour or not to Tour?

 

[Peter Pan Fan 22]

12 nights!! That's so awesome! I know you must be super excited about all the stuff you'll get to do with that many days!

I totally agree about the DDP! We're big eaters in my family and it was really just too much food. We're doing OOP this time too.

Good luck on the 10K! I'm sure that will be great stamina building prep for all the walking in the parks.

 

[Bookstamper]

12 nights!! That's so awesome! I know you must be super excited about all the stuff you'll get to do with that many days!

I totally agree about the DDP! We're big eaters in my family and it was really just too much food. We're doing OOP this time too.

Good luck on the 10K! I'm sure that will be great stamina building prep for all the walking in the parks.

Hi there and welcome! I'm glad we're not the only ones who were defeated by DDP!

Your trip is coming up really soon - you must be so excited! Thanks for reading along with my plans

 

[Bookstamper]

Hello again folks! So when I last left off it was with all our dining plans. Now I figure that with all that eating, we'll need some activities to burn off the calories - so I'm thinking about a walking group tour, perhaps Keys to the Kingdom. Has anyone done one of these??

As I see it there are The Pros:

1) We are big history buffs and would LOVE to know more about MK

2) This is a new thing we haven't done before, so might make for a nice break from doing the same attractions (not that I've a problem with riding POTC 10 times in a row...)

3) Sal is a pin collector and I hear that tour participants can receive a special KTTK pin which would be awesome!

And then there are The Cons

1) I give regular tours as part of my job, so this might be a bit like work?? On holiday I just want to have FUN!

2) The cost....

3) The planning: this trip was supposed to be go-with-the-flow chillaxed. Now with 2 dinner shows, Star Wars weekends and my determination to make rope drop it's all getting pretty scheduled. Whoops!

So what do you guys think - to tour or not to tour?

Coming Up Next: It's Time to Get Shopping!