Fit to Burst!!! Pre-Trip Report AKL Sept 10-24th UPDATE 6th Aug

[tinkandonaldfans]

Well I can't quite contain my excitement for our upcoming holiday so I have decided to do my first Pre-Trip Report!

Me and my DBF are planning on returning to the world on the 10th September until the 24th September! So thats a a full 14 nights in the happiest place on earth!

I have been a lurker on these boards for a little while and have gained enough insider knowledge to ensure this trip will be the best!


Well let me introduce us:
(Please excuse my weird b**b line and my gummy smile)

Me: I'm Laura(25) and this will be my 6th trip. Although I'm English I used to live in North Carolina between the ages 2-10 and we drove down a few times as a child. This will be my third trip with DBF. I love Disney and will always try to persuade others to realise the amazingness of it! Many presents and birthdays are somehow related to Disney and on my 24th look what my DBF made for me
http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww48/flickr_us/IMG_0896.jpg?t=1244559949


DBF: James(will be 26 on this trip but not yet) He's a massive child and has an attention span of 2 seconds. I think he has ADD but this has never been confirmed. His family thinks I'm a saint for coping with his mass of energy. He's a real romantic at heart and has always spoiled me rotten.

Us and Disney: Before our first holiday together we went to a travel agent looking for a european holiday. However, James completely surprised me by asking about Disney. We ended up getting a great deal and went in 2005 (stayed off site). This was James' first trip to America and was very shocked at how nice people are here.

I thought I would show him what I enjoyed as a child and thought I had been there done that so wasn't as excited. However, we stepped into the world showcase and I saw Dopey and almost lost control. I grabbed James' hand and ran towards him. Since then I have enjoyed Disney even more as an adult!

We came again in 2007 and stayed at POP. We wanted to stay on site as we missed out on so much because of the stupid shuttle times before. We loved the flexibility staying on site gave us and had an even better time!

So in a bid to outdo our last holiday we have booked 14 night at the Animal Kingdom Lodge with free dining. I am so excited as on our previous holidays we always ended up at counter services and after 14 days we longed for a good home cooked meal. Now as we don't have to worry about money so much, we can go get some proper meals. Although I have a feeling James will just pick a cheese burger or pizza!

My 90 day for ADRs is on Thursday. I won't bore you with our intended list as this may drastically change depending on what is available. However I will update you with our final selection.

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

Well in addition to the usual Disney Parks I have a couple of extra activities to keep my beloved busy.

1. We are planning to spend 3 days at Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. This is always a must on our trips.

2 I am planning to visit MNSSHP as a surprise for James

3 My friend at work knows the manager at Discovery Cove so I have asked to see if we can manage a freebie visit! Not got high hopes though but it sounds like a really good day out!

4. I would like to see if we can drink around the world, but we don't drink much so we only make one or two countries but I think we should we give it a go.

 

[dseth]

14 days sounds perfect to me!!

 

[Raecheal]

Love your extra activities... I"m in.

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

Well in addition to booking the holiday, sorting out getting to the airport, researching restuarants, booking restaurants and buying addtional activities I feel that I still want to do something else for my DBF.

This will probably be one of our last trips to Disney for awhile (Well we want to go snowboarding again and see the rest of the world before children come along but we will be back!) and so I am wanting to try and make this trip extra special.

We have never collected autographs or done pin trading and thought it might be nice to get a little hamper together with a pin starter set and an autograph book. Any ideas of where to get these cheaply, would they send it to the hotel if it was an American retailer?

Any ideas would be really helpful!

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

well despite the adr calculator saying my date was 6/11/09 its actually tomorrow. So will have to keep you waiting until then to tell you about our finalised plans!

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

Well I got my ADRs booked apart from one or two that are outside of of the 90+10 rule. Here is what I have planned:

Day 1
Flight is at 11ish am travelling with Virgin Atlantic from Gatwick Airport. We should arrive at 3is pm Disney Time.
Just need to pick up our bags and a traditional McDonals snack at the airport and off we go on the first bus ride of the holiday!

ADR Number 1 - Boma Dinner at 7:30pm. I couldn't get any later so fingers crossed there arn't any delays!

Day 2
Planned to be at Epcot (this a traditional first day for us- breaks us in easily)

ADR Number 2- Teppan Edo at 6:20(got in early in case we are tired) We may stay on to watch ILLUMINATIONS.

Day 3
As its a saturday Animal Kingdom might be quieter than other places which leads on to:

ADR Number 3- Yak and Yeti at 1pm

After Animal Kingdom we are popping over to Downtown Disney for.....

ADR Number 4- Planet Hollywood at 8:15pm. James wanted to do this place more than me but I'm sure it will be nice.

Day 4

Magic Kingdom day!!!!

ADR Number 5 Crystal Palace Breakfast at 8:05 (before park opens- very excited to see empty Main St.)

In the evening off to Downtown again for......

ADR Number 6- Raglan Road 8:15pm (Ger's Bread and Butter pudding is calling my name)


Day 5

Universal Studios day- Depending on which side we go to will depend on where we eat. Although James has got his sights on the Burger King Whopper Bar thats just opened

Day 6

This will be a a waterpark day so fairly relaxed as we will be going to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in the evening.

Day 7

Universal Studios again- maybe dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe

Day 8

Magic Kingdom day followed by

ADR Number 7- Cinderella's Royal Table at 7:25 and hopefull will be done to watch Wishes

Day 9

MGM aka Hollywood Studios. We hope to hop on Toy Story Mania and then have lunch at

ADR Number 8 Sci Fi Drive In 1:00pm and if we are not to tired we might go and see Fantasmic.

Day 10

Another Waterpark day which may be substituted by Discovery Cove if we get the go ahead.

ADR Number 9 Chef Mickey's Dinner 8:00pm

Day 11

Epcot day and my most proud ADR..........

ADR Number 10 Le Cellier 6:40 for dinner. I didn't think I would get this one!


DAY 12 TO BE CONTINUED ...........

 

[lovedonaldduck]

I am here to check out your pre-trip report since you were nice enough to check out mine.

I am so jealous that you get to spend two weeks at Disney! I would love to stay that long. I'm sure it's almost necessary with international travel so you actually have enough time to relax and enjoy yourself without feeling like you are traveling the whole time.

The only places we have been on your list of ADRs is Raglan Road which we love and is a definite repeat for us in September and Planet Hollywood which was good but not our favorite. We've been to Planet Hollywood in Vegas so it was really no big deal for us and we didn't have the best service so I think that combined to cross it off our repeat list.

Hopefully I will get my Le Cellier also!

Hope you get Discovery Cove, I will be so jealous. I love dolphins and I have a friend who has been to DC many times and says it is the most relaxing place ever. We spent a lot of time at Sea World last year and had a blast, you may want to check it out if marine life is your thing and Discovery Cove doesn't pan out.

 

[SilverL]

Hey, I'll be there at the same time! Joining in on your planning. Wish my DH and I were going for 14 days!!

 

[crocko]

hey there! Just found your PTR. Sounds like you have a great 2 weeks coming up soon.

My family will be at Kidani Village around the same time (Sep 17 - 26).

I was checking out your "schedule" to see if there's any similarities.

You have two Day 9's....so, I'm assuming Day 10 is actually Day 11.
If so (a Sunday) then we will be at Epcot that same day!

[by the way, very cool that you'll have enough time to get over to IoA as well]

 

[Raecheal]

Well I got my ADRs booked apart from one or two that are outside of of the 90+10 rule. Here is what I have planned:

Day 1
Flight is at 11ish am travelling with Virgin Atlantic from Gatwick Airport. We should arrive at 3is pm Disney Time.
Just need to pick up our bags and a traditional McDonals snack at the airport and off we go on the first bus ride of the holiday!

ADR Number 1 - Boma Dinner at 7:30pm. I couldn't get any later so fingers crossed there arn't any delays!

Day 2
Planned to be at Epcot (this a traditional first day for us- breaks us in easily)

ADR Number 2- Teppan Edo at 6:20(got in early in case we are tired) We may stay on to watch ILLUMINATIONS.

Day 3
As its a saturday Animal Kingdom might be quieter than other places which leads on to:

ADR Number 3- Yak and Yeti at 1pm

After Animal Kingdom we are popping over to Downtown Disney for.....

ADR Number 4- Planet Hollywood at 8:15pm. James wanted to do this place more than me but I'm sure it will be nice.

Day 4

Magic Kingdom day!!!!

ADR Number 5 Crystal Palace Breakfast at 8:05 (before park opens- very excited to see empty Main St.)

In the evening off to Downtown again for......

ADR Number 6- Raglan Road 8:15pm (Ger's Bread and Butter pudding is calling my name)


Day 5

Universal Studios day- Depending on which side we go to will depend on where we eat. Although James has got his sights on the Burger King Whopper Bar thats just opened

Day 6

This will be a a waterpark day so fairly relaxed as we will be going to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in the evening.

Day 7

Universal Studios again- maybe dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe

Day 8

Magic Kingdom day followed by

ADR Number 7- Cinderella's Royal Table at 7:25 and hopefull will be done to watch Wishes

Day 9

MGM aka Hollywood Studios. We hope to hop on Toy Story Mania and then have lunch at

ADR Number 8 Sci Fi Drive In 1:00pm and if we are not to tired we might go and see Fantasmic.

Day 9

Another Waterpark day which may be substituted by Discovery Cove if we get the go ahead.

ADR Number 9 Chef Mickey's Dinner 8:00pm

Day 10

Epcot day and my most proud ADR..........

ADR Number 10 Le Cellier 6:40 for dinner. I didn't think I would get this one!


DAY 11 TO BE CONTINUED ...........

Your adr's look great!!

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

hey there! Just found your PTR. Sounds like you have a great 2 weeks coming up soon.

My family will be at Kidani Village around the same time (Sep 17 - 26).

I was checking out your "schedule" to see if there's any similarities.

You have two Day 9's....so, I'm assuming Day 10 is actually Day 11.
If so (a Sunday) then we will be at Epcot that same day!

[by the way, very cool that you'll have enough time to get over to IoA as well]

Thanks for highlighting my silly typo. I edited it now so hopefully it make more sense now!

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

Thanks everyone for joining in I was beginning to think it would become an unread report!


I have realised a slightly stupid error, on previous trips we have gotten a 11am flight and got in at 3is but this year we are on a later flight at 1pm so arriving later than expected.

This would be fine but I have the Boma ADR at 7:30 which may be a push so I booked a later ADR at 8:30 to give us a bit of a buffer! If there is a major delay I think we may have to give it a miss and try and squeeze it in later. I must go as its where we are staying! It will be a shame if we can't organise it.

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

Well after trying to get James involved in where we eat before our ADR day I got the usual 'oh you choose i'm sure it will be fine!"

So after my hard work of planning he starts to question the bookings. i told him the time of our CRT dinner and i said we would miss spectro but be in time for wishes as thought it would be a little more romantic than a really early dinner. I said we would watch spectro later in the holiday but apparently this was an issue for him so........

we have changed our booking from 7:25 to 5:10 (only booking left at the mo).

A little side topic ....

Me and James have been together for 6 years and so James as my loving boyfriend has been saving for the 'ring'! very excited but patiently waiting! So i kind of knew he had the majority of the money saved and thought maybe my birthday might be the day but that was a no. Waited at valentine's day but no. waited for anniversary but once again no!

So kind of decided to stop thinking about it but this weekend James has been acting a little weird such as

1. Being touchy about me using his iPhone (never usually does)
2. When I mentioned Epcot he said he had been looking at the park maps (this is really odd as he never gets too involved until the week before we leave)
3. His instance on watching spectro and wishes after the CRT dinner
4. He also wanted to know when this Dinner was happening in our holiday. I said i needed to look at my list and he got all demanding was just like 'is it at the beginning or the end or what?' and I was ' i think its in the middle' to which he went 'oh ok' like he was thinking about something.

This as made me started thinking about it again, you guys might be in for an engagement story!!!!!!!!!! but i wouldn't hold out for it

 

[lovedonaldduck]

An engagement story woud be wonderful. However, whether the engagment comes at Disney or somewhere else, it will be wonderful.

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

Well thought I would stop by and give a little update on our holiday plans!

We will start off with some sad news I couldn't get the freebie trip to Discovery Cove!!!!!!

My friend said she could get us some SeaWorld tickets if we wanted though, but we have never really been too interested in going so don't think we will be taking her up on the offer.

Managed to get a Tusker House Breakfast for our last day around 10 so that will give us a good meal and nice send off! Our flight is at 7:00pm ish (i think, not very good at rembering these sorts of things) so we wouldn't get picked up until 3ish so we will have a good couple of hours to go where we want!

I have 10 weeks today before we go so got to step up the holiday diet! I am so excited!!!! I can't wait!

 

[crocko]

Tusker House breakfast sounds like a great way to finish the trip.

Yay for 10 weeks to go....I'm only one week behind you with 11 to go.
Come on September!!

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

Well after looking at loads of different ways to get a hamper together (ebay, disney store, disney florist- who never got back to me etc) I have decided to go with memories by betsy. She quoted me $131.75 inc tax and delivery to our resort for the following:

1 Autograph book and Donald Pen
2 Lanyard and 4 pin starter sets
1 Hidden Mickey book
1 Plush Donald Duck
1 Squish Ball for the pool!

Its a little expensive but its too difficult to get everything (and make sure its genuine)in the UK and it will a nice surpise for James when we arrive!

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

Here is the Welcome Basket I have organised for James! Memories by Betsy have been very prompt and easy to work with. Hopefully the delivery will be done without any issues too

 

[crocko]

Fun! Love Donald!