Food and Wine and First Anniversary Pre-Trip Report

[SleepyTimeNinja]

Hi all! I started this pre-trip report over on another board, but I've decided to move it here for various reasons. Here's the gist of it ...


The Basics
Who: Me and my hubby, Rob.

We went on our Disneymoon back in December 2010. It was our first trip to Disney as a couple, and we got bit—HARD—by the Disney bug. We can’t WAIT to go back.

What: Our first stay as DVC members! I told you we were bit hard. We joined the best club on earth during our honeymoon, and this will be our first trip as members. SO EXCITING!

When: October 15-18, 2011

Where: Garden View Studio Villa at Boardwalk Villas (requested a Village Green View)

Why: Two awesome reasons, and they’re both in the title of this PTR!

First, we’re sort of huge foodie dorks, and we’ve wanted to go to the Food and Wine Festival forever. We actually signed up for the Grape Getaway last year, but then canceled at the last minute because the price was just too steep for us.

Second, it’s our first anniversary gift to us! If you don’t give yourself the gift of Disney, who will?

This is our first of two trips in 2011, the second being in December. I'll start a PTR for that trip here in a few days.


The Tickets
After a lot of going back and forth and back ... and forth, we've decided to get Annual Passes. We're planning to spend 12-14 days in WDW between October 2011 and October 2012, so it just makes sense.


Touring Plans
Since this is such a short trip, we've changed out touring plan a couple of times. At first, we intended to hit a morning park, eat lunch at Food and Wine, nap, then hit an evening park. But since we travel without a car, that started to make me feel a little bit ADD: too much traveling, too many opportunities to get stuck waiting for (or on) a bus.

So we changed the plan: morning at one park with lunch in that park. Then a nap back at Boardwalk. Then walk to Epcot for dinner and 3-4 hours of touring. After that, we can hop to another park if we want to or we can walk back to the villas if we're tired. Much more manageable.

Here's our day-by-day plan:

Saturday, Oct. 15
AM Park: Animal Kingdom
PM Plan: Dinner at Narcoossee's
PM Park: Magic Kingdom OR Boardwalk Activities
Sunday, Oct. 16
AM Park: Magic Kingdom
PM Park: Epcot
Post-PM Park: DHS (for second Fantasmic show?)
Monday, Oct. 17
AM Park: Hollywood Studios
PM Park: Epcot

Tuesday, Oct. 18

AM Park: Magic Kingdom
PM Park: Epcot

We've been working on a list of attractions, events and other special things we want to work in during one of our 2011 trips. These are things we either skipped last year or have never done.


We’re not real picky about WHEN we get them done. I figure we’ll do as much as possible in October, then try to experience the rest of them in December. And, if we don’t get through it all, it’s a great starting place for the NEXT time we get to visit!

Here's the list:

• Get a Marketplace Discovery Passport
• Get a wristlet gift card
• Do a tequila tasting in Mexico
• Ride Peter Pan’s Flight (neither of us have done this!)
  
• Hit all three MK Mountains in one day (haven't done this since we were kids; never done it together)
  
• Ride AstroOrbiter (I've never done this!)
  
• Shop at Mickey’s Star Traders
• Do the Behind the Seeds Tour
• Ride Test Track, Gran Fiesta and Maelstrom (I've never done any of these!)
  
• Meet Phineas and Ferb in Hollywood Studios
• Ride Star Tours II
• Convince Rob to ride TOT
  
• Tour One Man's Dream
  
• Get a mini-cupcake sampler (from Scary Apothecary)
• Ride Kali River Rapids (I've never done this)
  
• See Finding Nemo (Neither of us have seen this)
  
• Collect Transportation Cards

We also really wanted to add the Wild Africa Trek, but it really doesn't fit into this trip anymore, unless we decide to give up our second Magic Kingdom morning and do the Trek on Tuesday. Like as not, we'll skip it.

We have also been talking about Food and Wine special events. We are seriously considering attending the Party for the Senses during our October trip. We LOVE Cirque. We are also considering attending Sweet Sunday, but I think Rob has been pretty clear on the fact that he’d prefer Party for the Senses.



The Dining
At first, I knew I didn’t want to do ANY ADRs before we left for this trip.

I know. That sounds insane. But I was totally inspired by Erin Foster’s experiences “stuck” at Disney World with no ADRs at an extremely busy time. (She detailed her adventure on the Disney Food Blog.) If she could do it at Christmastime with a party of five, certainly Rob and I could do it with just the two of us!

But then we decided that we HAD to have a special anniversary dinner at Narcoossee's, and then we HAD to have a Yak and Yeti reservation ... and it just devolved from there.

Here's where we landed:
Saturday, Oct. 15
Lunch: Counter Service / Yak & Yeti for dessert
Dinner: Narcoossee's

Sunday, Oct. 16
Lunch: Trail's End
Monday, Oct. 17
Lunch: 50's Prime Time Cafe
Tuesday, Oct. 18
Lunch: The Plaza (or Columbia Harbour House)

As mentioned above, we plan to eat samples from the Food and Wine Festival for the dinners not listed here. Also as mentioned above, we're considering adding the Party for the Senses.

Breakfasts will be quick. Either grab-and-go from Belle Vue Lounge or Boardwalk Bakery. We're hoping to squeeze in a breakfast at Kouzzina (our favorite on-site breakfast), but we'll play that by ear.

I've been doing some math, trying to decide between Tables in Wonderland or adding DDP. I think, for this trip, TiW will be the better bet. Any advice about this would be great!


The Travel
We're flying JetBlue our of Syracuse, N.Y. Paying a little more than we'd like, but less than we could be paying! I've added our flights to our reservation, and we'll be using DME and internal Disney transport.




That's where we stand right now. Feel free to post any comments or advice! This trip will sort of be a learning experience for us because we’ve never traveled as DVC members before.

 

[SleepyTimeNinja]

Work is finally slowing down after 9 weeks of being too busy for words. On top of the crazy hours, I’ve also had a ton of family functions and weddings to go to. All in all, it’s been crazy lately, and I have been extremely tired.

I haven’t been doing much Disney planning (or much participating in these boards). As a result, not much has changed. Well, I made a couple of little changes today.

For our final morning in October, I had us in Magic Kingdom, but I decided to trade some days … now we’re in Hollywood Studios our final morning, and in Epcot on our Hollywood Studios day. That means only one morning in Magic Kingdom, but that’s okay with me. I was thinking about it, and I’d rather have more time in Epcot to tour Future World, and I’m afraid we won’t do that with all the F&WF activities if I don’t specifically schedule it in there. The only thing we “lose” in this scenario is lunch at The Plaza, but that’s okay. We’ll replace the lunch with Beaches and Cream or another Epcot-area resort eatery.