Got the Gang Together and We're going to Disney a Sept 2011 PTR

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Well I said I wasn't going to do a PTR for this trip since I couldn't seem to find the time to do a TR from our Dec 2010 trip, but, I love planning Disney trips and all the fun and excitement that surrounds them, so I figured why not? So sit back and enjoy the ride, because I got the Gang together and we're going BACK to Disney World!!!

Now, where to start??? How about some introductions on who is going on this magical vacation to the Mouses house?

Me- I'm Reese a single mom to the most amazing son Devon! He is the love of my life and can ALWAYS put a smile on my face. I am a HUGE Philly sports fan! Go Eagles!!! Go Phillies!!! I developed my love for Disney late in life. I made my 1st trip to Disney when I was 19 and it was at that point that I was bitten my the mouse and my love for the World began! Ok enough about me...

Devon- He is my 9 year old DS and like his mom has a true love for Disney. This will be his 9th trip to the World. He is a handsome and smart little guy who is always playing a sport at any given time during the year. Right now as I type this he is getting ready for this basketball game!

Tim- My little brother, we I guess I shouldn't say little since he does in fact tower over me, so I'll say my younger brother! He is in his junior year in college and loves when his school schedule allows him to fit a trip to Disney in with us. Like me he is a die hard Philly sports fan. Win or Lose he is ALWAYS supporting his Eagles and Phillies!!!

Patty- My Aunt. 1st time Disney goer!!! She is so excited to be vacationing with us on this trip.

Danny- My cousin and Aunt Pat's son ^^^ This will be his 2nd time going to Disney with us. He came with us on Devon's first trip to Disney and is so excited to experience Disney with Dev all grown up! Like Tim and myself Dan loves the Phillies and Eagles. If were not all down the Linc or the ballpark cheering on our teams we're all together watching the game somewhere! Oh did I mention not only are we cousins, but we are neighbors too! Yep we live next door to each other! So it will be very convenient when the cabs have to take us to the airport in a few months!

Last but not least my "new" cousin Kristin- Dan and her were married about a year ago and she too has NEVER been to Disney before!!! She is very excited to be vacationing with us in our favorite place on earth and has been helping me with the planning since we booked the trip last Sept. I think I may have got her hooked on Disney and we haven't even got her there yet!


And that my fellow DIS'ers is the cast of characters for this much anticipated trip!

So you want to see what we look like??? Ok... Ok... You twisted my arm! Here we are!

This is Myself, Devon and Tim on our quick trip to Disney and WWOHP last August.

And here is my Aunt Pat, Dan and Kristen. (Dan and Kris are on the left of this photo and my Aunt is in the middle behind Devon. The other guy and gal in the pic is my other cousin Dave and his wife Jess, unfortunately they can't make this trip b/c Dave is a doctor out in San Fran and is in this 2nd year of residency and can't get the time off to join us.)

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the start of my PTR! I look forward to the journey of planning with you all!

Coming up...

How the trip came to be, when we're going and where we'll be staying!

Until next time... TTFN

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Last year I surprised Devon with a trip to Disney for Christmas. We stayed at AKL from 12/3-12/11 so there was a lot of secret planning going on and since I couldn't talk about my trip with my favorite Disney partner in crime (aka Devon) I have to share all the details with my family.

Well one Sunday afternoon in September 2010 we were sitting in my mom's kitchen chatting about my upcoming Dec trip and my Aunt Pat said I really want to go with you guys to Disney the next time you go! What? You want to go to Disney? That's all I needed to hear... I told my Aunt that Disney just released a Free Dining promo for this time next year that we should go then? She was in! YES!!! We tried for a good hour to talk my mom and dad into coming, but 1 they don't like to fly and 2 well their just not big into walking around the parks all day. Oh well! In the midst of this discussion, half the neighborhood walked into my parents house to watch the Eagles game... My parents house is the party house so to speak during football season... Including Tim and Dan, who asked what we were talking about. My Aunt told them of the trip and they both said they wanted to go too. Woo hoo!

So later that week we talked about what dates we wanted to go and I said that I really did not want to take Devon out of school so early in the year, but if I had to I would, but then we realized with Tim's college classes that going late Aug, early Sept would probably be best, so we settled on Aug 31th to Sept 6th! Now all we needed to do what decide where to stay. I personally am very easy going with where we stay, as long as I'm in Disney I'm fine! I'm not going to lie thou after staying at AKL for over a week, I sort of got a little spoiled, but knew staying at a deluxe 2 years in a row was out of the question, plus I knew the rest of the fam didn't want this trip to break the bank either, so I showed them pics off all the value resorts as well, as CSR and POFQ and said you guys decide... In the end they decided they wanted to stay at... [/B]

Yep, so our home for this trip is Pop Century, which of all the values is definitely my FAVORITE!

With dates set and resort picked I called the next morning and booked 2 rooms at POP with the dining plan, 6 day park hopper and requested connecting rooms in the 70's section.

 

[Tinkermom76]

Hey I'm following along, we will be there the end of Sept.

So sad you don't have time to do a TR from December cause i was looking forward to hearing about it!

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Hey I'm following along, we will be there the end of Sept.

So sad you don't have time to do a TR from December cause i was looking forward to hearing about it!

Hey girl! So glad you're following along... I know, my such a geek for not doing a TR from the Dec trip, but between my work, and Devon's schoolwork plus his sports it will be July before I finish it! If uploading and posting pics was a bit easier I'd totally do one.

Do you have Facebook? if so PM me and I'll give you my info to friend me... All my pics are up on there!

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

With our Disney vacation package all booked the only thing we needed to do was to wait for airfare to be released in early February. Living in Philly, we typically fly down to Orlando with Air Tran, as we always seem to get the best deals with that airline, but we always check with SW too!

I had told everyone that is going on this trip that when airfare comes out in Feb if its reasonable we really should book right away and they were all on board with that. On 2/8 SW released their airfares thru October, so I immediately checked their fares when I got into work that morning and non-stops from Philly for our travel dates were running about $125-$142 each way. NO thank you, that's alittle too steep for me, so I proceeded to check Air Tran, and for our travel dates airfare was $78 each way!!! YES!!! That price worked for me!

I made my rounds to all my travel buddies and ask them if they were cool with that price and they were, so they told me to book it!

I don't know about you, but once my airfare is booked, it always makes the trip seem that much more REAL!

Here's are flight details:

On August 31st, we have an 8a flight from PHL, getting us into MCO around 1030a. If all goes well, we should be checking into POP by noon! Here's hoping our rooms are ready! I honestly never had an issue checking into a resort early until our Dec trip. We arrived at AKL a little after noon and our room was not ready till after 5pm!!! I was beyond annoyed! Now, I have no problem waiting for my room to be ready, but when check in time is 3p I see NO reason having too wait from a room after that time! Ok, I will now step down off my soapbox!

On Sept 6th, we have a 447p flight from MCO, which gets us into PHL a little after 7p. Just enough time to get Mister Devon ready for his 1st day of 4th grade!

Well there you have it! It's not even March, and are airfare is booked! I feel so ahead of the game so far!

 

[photographymom517]

Hey Reese! Your plans sound great so far!!! Its awesome that you got $78 airfare from AirTran! I don't understand why my tickets always cost so much since we're in PA too but it always seems to cost us at least $150 or more per ticket (each way) I have a feeling its because I have to wait until about a month before we leave to book it...this year I'm really, really shooting for mid-July to book everything. Hopefully I can still get the ADR's that we want.

I completely "guessed" at my trip dates on my report. I just really wanted to start my PTR, so I picked a few different choices, but most likely we won't be going until around mid-September (I'm thinking the 14th through the 23rd)...but like I said, who knows!

I think its awesome that you can travel with your family!!! There's NO way I could ever mesh my family's travel style with ours & my inlaws don't seem to like traveling My parents go to the parks for Rope Drop every single day & stay through evening magic hours! They don't make a schedule or anything like that, but they fly through the parks like crazy people! LOL They also like to eat at places like McDonald's & pizza chains...every single day! We definitely enjoy eating on our trips...Disney's table service restaurants are delish PLUS who can pass up the dining plan??? I try to talk them into it every year, but it never ever works! lol

Anyway, enough about all of that! I can't wait to hear more about your plans!!!!

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Hey Reese! Your plans sound great so far!!! Its awesome that you got $78 airfare from AirTran! I don't understand why my tickets always cost so much since we're in PA too but it always seems to cost us at least $150 or more per ticket (each way) I have a feeling its because I have to wait until about a month before we leave to book it...this year I'm really, really shooting for mid-July to book everything. Hopefully I can still get the ADR's that we want.

I completely "guessed" at my trip dates on my report. I just really wanted to start my PTR, so I picked a few different choices, but most likely we won't be going until around mid-September (I'm thinking the 14th through the 23rd)...but like I said, who knows!

I think its awesome that you can travel with your family!!! There's NO way I could ever mesh my family's travel style with ours & my inlaws don't seem to like traveling My parents go to the parks for Rope Drop every single day & stay through evening magic hours! They don't make a schedule or anything like that, but they fly through the parks like crazy people! LOL They also like to eat at places like McDonald's & pizza chains...every single day! We definitely enjoy eating on our trips...Disney's table service restaurants are delish PLUS who can pass up the dining plan??? I try to talk them into it every year, but it never ever works! lol

Anyway, enough about all of that! I can't wait to hear more about your plans!!!!

Hi Hope!!! Thanks for joining in the fun!!!

I totally understand what you mean... I tried SO HARD to get my mom, dad and my other brother to come with us, but like I said they all hate flying and just aren't PARK people! Tim and Dan have both been to Disney with me before and they know my touring style and can keep up. Now my Aunt Pat and Kristin are Newbies to the whole Disney epxerience so they won't know any better and will have to just adapt to our style! But honestly, I talk about this more when I discuss my itinerary but I am definitely allowing my schedule to have afternoon breaks back at the resort. It's just too hot in Aug/Sept to go Commando from morning till night that time of year in my eyes! And I too enjoy the break from the parks to eat a nice meal. I get sick of the fries, hotdogs, nuggets and hamburgers real quick! I honestly don't think I'll do Disney without a DDP anymore. Then again, next year Devon will be 10 and considered an adults so unless it's free I am not paying that much a day for that boy to eat. It would be a waste!

Airfare... YES, I was VERY excited to able to get it that cheap. Its wa a good $30 less then what I paid for Airfare when we went in Dec so I was HAPPY!!! You fly out of Pitt right? Have you tried possibly checking traveling on different days of the week to get sheaper airfare. I have a friend who is flying out of Pitt to MCO a few days before we are and he said he can't get reasonable airfare thru SW right either!

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Well, I don’t have many following along, but I’m going to keep going anyway… By now you have all the basic info on our trip like the who, what, when, where and why!

So, now it’s onto the fun part of planning a Disney trip!!! That’s right… Today we’re going to talk about ADR’s!!!! As I type this we are a mere 8 DAYS away from making our ADR’s for our trip. How exciting is that???

Let’s rewind here for a minute…. When we booked this trip, everybody felt pretty comfortable with me just doing my planning thing, I mean I been there 9 times in the last few years, so they know I know what I’m going, but I really wanted to have everyone involved in the planning process!

I especially wanted EVERYONE to have a say in where we eat, so last week I printed out all the menus of the various restaurants that I though everyone would enjoy eating at based on everyone’s likes and dislikes and had the whole gang over my house to make the final decisions, and this is what we came up with….

Our ADR’s:

Sci Fi Café
Teppan Edo
Chef Mickey’s (breakfast)
Tusker House (breakfast)
The Grand Floridian Café
The Captain’s Grille

Well there you have it, Our Sept. ADR’s!!! So what do you all think? Devon and I have eaten at all these restaurants except The Grand Floridian Café and The Captain’s Grille, so if anyone out there has any thoughts on these two places I’d greatly appreciate them!

Last thing… I’m sure you all have a “method to the madness” when it comes to booking your ADR’s, me, I usually book in order from what I think will be the hardest to least hardest reservation to secure. So I’m thinking I should book my ADR’s in the following order. What do you all think????

1. Chef Mickey’s (breakfast)
2. Tusker House (breakfast)
3. Sci Fi Café
4. Teppan Edo
5. The Captain’s Grille
6. The Grand Floridian Café

Coming up in my next installment…. Our itinerary!

 

[NateNLogansDad]

Last thing… I’m sure you all have a “method to the madness” when it comes to booking your ADR’s, me, I usually book in order from what I think will be the hardest to least hardest reservation to secure. So I’m thinking I should book my ADR’s in the following order. What do you all think????

1. Chef Mickey’s (breakfast)
2. Tusker House (breakfast)
3. Sci Fi Café
4. Teppan Edo
5. The Captain’s Grille
6. The Grand Floridian Café

Coming up in my next installment…. Our itinerary!

That's the way I would do it Have you booked ADR's online yet? If you hop on today you can do the 31st and Sept 1st.

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/reservations/dining/

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

That's the way I would do it Have you booked ADR's online yet? If you hop on today you can do the 31st and Sept 1st.

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/reservations/dining/

Glad to see we're on the same page! I just tried to book the 31st and 1st and can't!! Disney's a little trickster. You click on the dates and they tell you it's more then 180 days out! Darn it!

 

[NateNLogansDad]

Glad to see we're on the same page! I just tried to book the 31st and 1st and can't!! Disney's a little trickster. You click on the dates and they tell you it's more then 180 days out! Darn it!

Well that's just rude

 

[Tinkermom76]

Airfare already, that's awesome!

Out of all your ADR's I have only tried CM's but I am trying Tusker House this trip and one day I really want to try Teppan Edo, I think the kids will love it!

I think your order is good, but I also find 180 days out is usually pretty easy to get what you want, not like when it was 90 days

My ADr date is March 27th and it can't come soon enough

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Well that's just rude

TELL ME ABOUT IT!!!

Airfare already, that's awesome!

Out of all your ADR's I have only tried CM's but I am trying Tusker House this trip and one day I really want to try Teppan Edo, I think the kids will love it!

I think your order is good, but I also find 180 days out is usually pretty easy to get what you want, not like when it was 90 days

My ADr date is March 27th and it can't come soon enough

I know I feel like we had to wait forever to book airfare for our dec trip b/c it was so expensive at first! When I saw $78 I jumped on it! I didn't want to take any chances of it going up! Glad we booked when we did too... I checked Air Tran the other day and our flight prices went up $16 each way already!

You will LOVE Tusker House. It is seriously my favorite character breakfast! And Teppan Edo... You HAVE to try that place! It is one of our MUST eat at establisments every trip!

Yes I agree, at the 180 day mark it shouldn't be too hard to get everything I want. Chef Mickey's is really the only place I am nervous about getting b/c it is so popular. And YES... I absolutely HATED when ADR's were made at 90 days! It was a nighmare! So glad that DID NOT last!

My fingers are crossed that March FLYS by and April for that matter! I am so ready for the SUMMER!!!

 

[NateNLogansDad]

I'm surprised you haven't seen the same with southwest. Last year and this, we got $78 each way and without the bag fees you can't beat it! Two years ago I had booked with them for $79 and $89 for there and back but I kept watching and the price dropped down to $59 EACH WAY so we got a $250 credit that we used last January which kept us from driving

We try to book airfare as early as possible and the hotel gets booked around the cheaper days to fly. Originally we were going to go down on Monday but the airfare was cheaper on Saturday. When we looked at the price difference in Airfare and compared it to the more expensive weekend rate at the hotel, it just made sense I put way too much thought into it

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

I'm surprised you haven't seen the same with southwest. Last year and this, we got $78 each way and without the bag fees you can't beat it! Two years ago I had booked with them for $79 and $89 for there and back but I kept watching and the price dropped down to $59 EACH WAY so we got a $250 credit that we used last January which kept us from driving

We try to book airfare as early as possible and the hotel gets booked around the cheaper days to fly. Originally we were going to go down on Monday but the airfare was cheaper on Saturday. When we looked at the price difference in Airfare and compared it to the more expensive weekend rate at the hotel, it just made sense I put way too much thought into it

Really??? I have not seen flights that cheap on SW out of Philly in a long time? I wonder if it just the days we are going that its so much! Huh?

Even now I was just checking SW and for our travel dates all non stops are over $125 each way!

Oh well, I;m happt with $78 on Air Tran and the baggage fee is only $15 and I only check one bag, so it's not breaking the bank too bad!

But I totally know what you mean by putting too much thought into thinks, but that's what you HAVE to do these days to save a penny!

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Happy Thursday everyone! Now I know that I said for my next installment I would be discussing our itinerary for the trip, but before I get to that I thought I give you all a little warning!!!!

As some of you might have noticed that not only do I have a ticker in my signature counting down the days to our September trip, but I also have one for our 1st DISNEY CRUISE!!!

Yep! I finally bit the bullet, sucked up my fears of being stuck on a boat and being sea sick the entire time and booked the Disney Dream for next year!!! Come on now… Who could resist sailing on the DREAM after all that media coverage last month? I know I couldn’t! It just looks to darn awesome not to experience it firsthand!!!

So why the warning you ask? I wanted to give you all a heads up that I am sure throughout this PTR that I will occasionally throw in info about the cruise. Hope you all don’t mine, but since I am in the midst of planning both trips, I figured a little cruise info here and there wouldn’t hurt you all, right?

Well then now that I have addressed that issue, let’s talk some Disney Cruise shall we?

After some debate I decided after our December trip that I would NOT take Devon out of school for more than a week EVER again… Now that he is getting older the amount of school work he had to make up was very intense and I saw the toll it took on him trying to complete his makeup work and keep up with what he was currently learning in school, and as much fun as we had when we were away, I hated to see him so frustrated after the fact!

With that said… We decided that we would sail on the 5 Night Cruise to the Bahamas over spring break next year, sailing to Nassau and Castaway Cay (2 times)! The cruise leaves on Thursday 4/5/12 and returns Tuesday 4/10/12. We will each be staying in a Deluxe Oceanview stateroom on Deck 2!!! We are pretty freaking excited! We also decided that we will be spending at least 2 days in Disney World before the cruise as well!!! WOO HOO!!!

So are you asking who the “WE” I speak of above refers to yet? Well… Not only are Devon and I sailing on the Dream in April, but so is my friend Jen and her son Luciano! To those who followed my December PTR, I’m sure these two names ring a bell, they came with us to Disney in December and we had such a blast we decided to do it all over again!

Ok, ok… Now that you have the basic info on our 1st cruise, I’ll stop rambling on about it since it’s more than a year away and get back to the topic at hand… Our itinerary for our September trip! But… Looks like you’ll all have to wait until next time for that!!!

Till next time!

 

[longing2Batdisney]

Hey! Reese joining in the fun!

you have a great looking group going with you this year to WDW! and how fun to have all those in tow who LOVE Disney! certainly makes for easier planning...

your plans look great so far, we have only eaten at Tusker House, last year, and we really enjoyed it! Ashton does not eat much but he really loves the characters and since we have to eat why not get some interaction in at the same time

I am so excited for you guys that you decided to take a cruise, too! Danny and I love cruising and to add Dinsey into the mix makes it so much better. One day we will give it a try!

can't wait to hear about all your plans!

Connie

 

[DevonsDisneyMom]

Hey! Reese joining in the fun!

you have a great looking group going with you this year to WDW! and how fun to have all those in tow who LOVE Disney! certainly makes for easier planning...

your plans look great so far, we have only eaten at Tusker House, last year, and we really enjoyed it! Ashton does not eat much but he really loves the characters and since we have to eat why not get some interaction in at the same time

I am so excited for you guys that you decided to take a cruise, too! Danny and I love cruising and to add Dinsey into the mix makes it so much better. One day we will give it a try!

can't wait to hear about all your plans!

Connie

Hi Connie, so glad you made your way over to my PTR! Yes, I am so excited to have so many people coming with us this year. It's usually just me and Devon who make our yearly pilgramage to the Mouses' House! While I love my mommy and me trip with Devon, after a few days I am crazing some adult interaction!

We LOVE Tusker House! This will be our 3 time eating here! I personally find the food to be delish here compared to some other chacter breakfasts!

Yes, we are so excited to try the DCL, I have heard nothing but great things, I just hope I don't built up my expectations so much that I end up being disappointed!

 

[Tinkermom76]

you are so lucky, I am dying to go on a cruise but I refuse to miss Disney for a year so I would have to do the cruise and a week at Disney which could get pretty expensive.

Maybe I will get lucky and win the lottery then I can do the 5 night cruise and 10 days in the world

 

[eecteacher82]

I'm here! I'm so sorry to hear that you are not doing a TR from December! I was looking forward to reading it!!!!!

Sounds like you guys have an awesome trip planned! I wish I could talk my family into going with us to WDW! My mom has gone for the day with Olivia and I a few times, but other than that, nobody is interested!

Can't wait to hear what you have planned!