Happy Birthday, Dear Dude - A Sept 2010 PTR - 9/22 Trip Report Started p34

[Flossbolna]

Swim suit and dresses look great!

I am happy to hear that Caitlin is the friend that will come along for your summer trip! The cruise sounds wonderful!

 

[Charleston Princess]

I predict you'll have at least one piece from Athleta by the summer.

I think you are very intuitive, Susan!

 

[cdotla]

Oooohhhh.....I love shopping posts!!!

I still haven't bought anything from Alethea, but I must try it out one day.

I love your selections, especially the dress you wore to wine tasting! I agree...you have a lot of options with these! Great choices!

 

[AuroraRose]

The dresses you got are really cute! And a (belated) congrats on that awesome savings!!

 

[swwake]

Swim suit and dresses look great!

I am happy to hear that Caitlin is the friend that will come along for your summer trip! The cruise sounds wonderful!

Thank you! Yes, we are so glad to get to have Caitlin along with us on the cruise. I hope you're enjoying your Disney vacation this week!

Oooohhhh.....I love shopping posts!!!

I still haven't bought anything from Alethea, but I must try it out one day.

I love your selections, especially the dress you wore to wine tasting! I agree...you have a lot of options with these! Great choices!

I have now worn the Santorini dress twice and get lots of compliments. I think I love Athleta!

The dresses you got are really cute! And a (belated) congrats on that awesome savings!!

Thanks so much! We are thrilled about the savings and still getting CL!

 

[swwake]

My Distickers disappeared! I don't have the energy to find new ones. I'll leave them and hope they'll come back. I hate to start back over on the farrrrrr left side again.

Thought I'd post some photos from earlier Disney trips for everyone's enjoyment.
My sister, Katie, my niece Haley, and Mom at Disneyland. (I wasn't there for this one - we stayed in San Diego to surf.)

Katie at the Hoop-De-Doo Revue 1997

Somewhere at WDW - does anyone recognize this?

Waiting for our reservation at Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney. Gotta love the belly shirt!

Three shots from Camp Minnie-Mickey

 

[swwake]

More old pics. These are from when I was a little girl and we went to WDW. Circa 1975.

With Mom and my cousin Amy on Dumbo

That's me, the tallest of the three in matching overalls, with my younger sister and cousin Amy

On the carousel. That's Mom in the pigtails and my sister on the right.

 

[cdotla]

Love the old photos! And it seems like you are so on top of things too with the old photos in customized albums and everything!

 

[MHTeacher]

Love the old pictures, Susan! It's so much fun to look back and see how everyone's changed.

I'm glad I don't have to wear belly shirts anymore!

 

[Native NYer]

Great photos!

 

[Charleston Princess]

It's hard to believe Katie is graduating this year after looking at your Disney photos! Where does the time go???

 

[irishdancer86]

Hi! I've read most of your pre/trip report this evening and your photo's were just the cheering up material I needed after a medium-bad day in work(also accountancy)

Those desserts at bluezoo looked so amazing, but if they objected to Caitlin asking for the child's menu i'm pretty sure they'd just kick me out!

Club level at Animal Kingdom is something I only found about through the DIS and it sounds amazing! and you were so lucky with the discount, your trip is shaping up so nicely!

The girls in my family are hoping to travel to Disney next May and my aunt's one request is to go to the AK just to see the resort and maybe a meal, i will have to show her the photo's of your visit!

 

[swwake]

Love the old photos! And it seems like you are so on top of things too with the old photos in customized albums and everything!

Oh, I'm so far from on top of things! That was a couple of pages I did at a crop my Creative Memories friend had a few years back. It was supposed to motivate me to work on Katie's scrapbook, but I have been so bad about it. All of her photos and mementos are in about 3 file boxes. At least they are filed by age year or school grade, in case one day I am inspired. Maybe it will be a good college graduation gift for her. I sure am not gonna get it finished by her HS graduation! I'm such a bad Mommy.

Love the old pictures, Susan! It's so much fun to look back and see how everyone's changed.

I'm glad I don't have to wear belly shirts anymore!

I think it's fun to see how the people AND the clothing change. Yeah, I'm glad the Britney belly shirts are "out" now.

Great photos!

Thanks! (BTW, poor Bret. I hope he gets better. The brain "injury" and rehab sounds so similar to my Mom's situation. It took 9 months for us to get her back to almost normal. I hope he can bounce back pretty quickly.)

It's hard to believe Katie is graduating this year after looking at your Disney photos! Where does the time go???

Hard for YOU to believe? It's so hard for me to believe it. I sometimes I wish I had that little cherub-faced 5-year-old girl again. Hug your kiddos and squeeze 'em tight. Every day. Time literally flies.

Hi! I've read most of your pre/trip report this evening and your photo's were just the cheering up material I needed after a medium-bad day in work(also accountancy)

Those desserts at bluezoo looked so amazing, but if they objected to Caitlin asking for the child's menu i'm pretty sure they'd just kick me out!

Club level at Animal Kingdom is something I only found about through the DIS and it sounds amazing! and you were so lucky with the discount, your trip is shaping up so nicely!

The girls in my family are hoping to travel to Disney next May and my aunt's one request is to go to the AK just to see the resort and maybe a meal, i will have to show her the photo's of your visit!

Didn't know you were an accountant too! More proof that we're not ALL boring.
Bluezoo was awesome, but we were so tired that night, from being up most of the night before waiting to hear about Magic's life-saving surgery and the travel day, I'm not sure we enjoyed it as much as we should have. May have to do a re-do.

I can't wait for the AKL CL experience. May be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us! And yes, very lucky on the discount.

 

[swwake]

I have a few things to share in this update.

First, look! My tickers are back! And they're moving! Hooray!!

Also, we got a Disney phone call the other night. A few weeks (or was it months?) back, I ordered a (second) DVD from DVC. I never received the first DVD back in 2008, and I never received the second one this year. The call was to our home phone, which we NEVER answer. We were listening to them leaving a message, and the nice lady said "we're calling to confirm that you received the DVD we sent..." At that point, I told Chris we had never received it and he picked up the phone and told the lady.

That's where the sales push began. But it was ok because we are truly interested in DVC. Chris was transferred to a sales manager, who eventually sent us two emails with links to info and said they will be FedExed a Dream Book and DVD. I haven't had time to look over the websites yet, but I'm looking forward to the package.

I also wanted to update on the book I just finished, Castmember Confidential. Here's my short review:

I am glad that I read the online reviews before reading the book. These reviews, as well as the author's preface, warn you that not all information is accurate. Names, job assignments, and physical descriptions of other CMs have been changed to protect them. And some stories are exaggerated.

Without giving anything away, I will warn you not to read this book if you want Walt Disney World and everything related to it to remain magical and sacred. This book, whether true and accurate or not, will spoil it for you. I know that I will now have a certain amount of skepticism about certain elements of my WDW experience when we go in September. Truthfully, I am putting this book away and I hope that I have forgotten much of it before our trip. I really believe it could spoil the magic for most Disney lovers. So there's my warning to you. (For this reason, Chris has decided he will not read the book at all. Ever.)

It is also like a train wreck. Your morbid curiosity will capture you at the beginning and keep you turning the pages wanting to know what will be revealed next. Some of it is believable, but much of it I refuse to believe.

Some of it is interesting. Like how characters are cast. Both the "furries" and the face characters. I can tell you that it is said to be a very selective process, where all characters are selected based on their ability to constantly have certain mannerisms and movements (think Tigger) and to always stay in character. And face characters are cast even more selectively, (obviously) based on physical features. It's interesting that some Ariels may also be Snow Whites, for example.

It's also interesting that there is an unspoken hierarchy among cast members, with characters being at the top of the hierarchy, face characters top amongst characters, and princesses top amongst face characters. It is said that often the CMs do not date outside of their level. (Face characters only date other face characters, etc.)

Finally, the book isn't really about Disney at all. It's really about one year in a man's life and the obstacles he faces, how he deals with them, and ultimately overcomes them, somewhat through a position as a cast member at Disney World.

So there's my synopsis. It was an OK book. After the initial shock factor of a few revelations, it gets a little slow, and the ending is WAYYYY predictable. I can't say I'd recommend this book. Especially for Disney lovers who are active on this board.

Ok, in other news, Katie was inducted into National Honor Society last Sunday. Yay Katie! Mom is still improving and is now using her walker more than her wheelchair. Yay Mom!

And I'm worried about my friend Bret Michaels. Well, ok, he's not really my friend, but I like to think he is. I really hope he'll be ok.

We are very busy working on plans for Katie's prom, her graduation party, and the cruise this summer. Chris and I are also trying to plan something special for our anniversary weekend May 15-16. We have lots of options, but nothing is really calling out to us.

On the Disney front, I am checking dining reservations every couple of days for openings at LeCellier for dinner. I'm losing hope for that. I'm also watching for the MNSSHP tickets to go on sale and for possible Free Dining. And I'm still contemplating what to do with my "solo day".

 

[Charleston Princess]

Thanks for the book review! I think I will skip that one -- I don't want the magic removed from Disney for me -- I would like to continue looking at it through rose colored glasses. How interesting about the hierarchy, though -- I wonder if the fairies now are ranked higher than the princesses since they are more popular.

Congrats to Katie getting into the National Honor Society!

I am worried about Bret Michaels, too.

 

[swwake]

Thanks for the book review! I think I will skip that one -- I don't want the magic removed from Disney for me -- I would like to continue looking at it through rose colored glasses. How interesting about the hierarchy, though -- I wonder if the fairies now are ranked higher than the princesses since they are more popular.

Congrats to Katie getting into the National Honor Society!

I am worried about Bret Michaels, too.

You're welcome. Yeah, I recommend you skip the book. I can't look at pics of the characters on the DIS anymore without thinking about who/what's underneath the costume. I hope that goes away in the next 4 months.

Thanks for the congrats. Very proud of our girl! Haven't heard an update on Bret in awhile. I'll have to google.

 

[swwake]

We got our "dream" book from DVC last week. I've looked through it many times in the past several days. I am very tempted to start the number-crunching to see how long it would take for the membership to pay for itself, but I just haven't done that so far.

I'll throw out my thoughts (and I have lots of them! ) and ask you guys for comments on them.

- we are about to be empty-nesters. We think we'd like to visit WDW at least once a year, but we want to wait until after our September visit. I am afraid we might get "tired" of it and decide we don't need it every year. (I know you will think I'm crazy for saying that.)
- we want to take Katie and a friend back in a couple of years. Maybe at Christmas time.
- we like to travel a lot. Really like to try new places. Want to explore parts of Europe, Hawaii eventually. DVC would allow this, but it looks like it costs LOTS of points for this.
- on that note, it seems like the value in the points is to use them at a DVC resort at WDW. Using them at any of the other options seems to be very "expensive" point-wise.
- we want to try to do at least one snow trip a year, and it needs to be close to Boulder for the next 4 years, since that's where Katie will be. The only snow destination in DVC is Keystone, which I really don't like (so steep!).
- I'm thinking maybe if we bought into DVC, we would only use it for Disney properties and forget all the rest. Maybe Disney would be a short annual trip and we could still do something else like Europe/Hawaii, etc.
- I know you can roll your points, so maybe if we decide to skip a year, we can just stay in a nicer place or for a longer time the next year.
- I'm so tempted to buy lots of points so I can take my sister and her family whenever we go to WDW.
- It would be great to be an owner when we have grandkids, but I am thinking that's at least 5 years away before grandkids and another 5 years before the oldest would be ready to go to WDW. So that's 10 years.
- I can't really tell if it is worth it, since the "70% off" claim is compared to rack rates, and Disney is always running some sort of discounts, like our 40% PIN.
- I hate the idea of no mousekeeping. Maybe I would get over that.
- I love the layout of the rooms and suites. Especially those 3BRs that are two levels! I just think it would be so cool to take a bunch of family and friends and pile into one of those (or a Treehouse Villa) for a week!

Right now, we're actually thinking of holding off on DVC for a few years and buying a boat instead (maybe next year) with the same money. We want to get another boat (haven't had one since 2003) while we are still young enough and our bodies are still agile enough to wakeboard and surf. Throwing in the grandkids thing, that gives us at least 10 years of boating before DVC. Not to say we couldn't do both...

 

[Native NYer]

Have you considered buying a small contract? Then you can bank points one year and go the next.

 

[swwake]

Have you considered buying a small contract? Then you can bank points one year and go the next.

Thanks for the idea. That may make sense. Do they have to be used in a certain amount of time? Do they expire? What about the whole membership - does it run out over time?

 

[MHTeacher]

Hmmmm, I think I may need to skip the book, too.

DVC--I would love to have it, but DH is a different story. He will take much convincing..............