Her Surprise Anniversary Trip - February 2012

[macbitt]

Who - Paul & Kat

Paul, 34 - Me
Katherine (aka Kat), 38 - My DGF

We met in February 2009 and immediately hit it off. A year later we were sharing an apartment and helping our respective cats adjust to "the intruders."

We've both been to Disney World before, but as kids. She went in 1981, I was last there in 1987. In a lot of ways this will be like a first time visit for us.


Dates - Saturday, February 4, 2012 through Saturday, February 11, 2012

This will be the week of our third anniversary, conveniently the same as Disney's value season


Hotel - Dolphin Resort

We usually stay at Starwood hotels during our travels (we enjoy the Starwood Preferred Guest program), so when I found out they operated the Swan & Dolphin resorts inside Disney World I was quite interested. We do miss out on a few Disney resort perks, but we'll still get the big perks and the cost savings (compared to an official Disney deluxe resort) and Starpoints we'll earn will be nice.


Special Plans - Surprise!

That's right, DGF doesn't know!

This is a surprise anniversary trip. I usually plan our trips so I'm hopeful I can pull this off. I'm sure she'll catch on that I'm up to something, but I have some ideas for leading down some false trails.

For the unveiling of the trip I'm thinking Christmas. I'm putting together a video made up of Disney and other promotional material relevant to our stay, with a few extra notes just for us. I'll probably give her a DVD on Christmas and have it do the rest. In additional I'll probably get her one of the guide books I don't have (thinking the official one) so she can do some of her own reading and exploring beforehand.

 

[macbitt]

Introduction

Six Flags Scouting Trip

Learning To Plan

ADRs - Updated!

ADRs Made, Itinerary Up Next

 

[ZFamily5]

I'm in! And first! Can't wait to here all about your planning! How sweet of you to plan your DGF a surprise trip!

 

[macbitt]

Today DGF and I played hooky from work (ah, to be responsible adults) and spend much of the day at Six Flags Over Georgia. She just needed a day of fun away from her boss, I'm always up for a skip day.

This also provided me with some good intel gathering on how she'll respond to a Disney trip. This was her first time going to Six Flags in Georgia, though she's been to the one in Texas a few times. She's told me before that she isn't into thrill rides and always avoided anything that went upside down (loops, corkscrew, etc). This has had me a bit concerned about Disney thrill rides, though I know from my own reading they don't work like rides at other parks (less reliance on force, more sensory distraction).

I'm happy to report the outing and ride list went well. We started with Cyclone, a wooden coaster and it turns out she loves wooden coasters. Our last coast was the other wooden one, Scream Machine, and that was easily the most fun for her. We worked her up to the Mind Bender, a triple loop coaster and she liked that except for one non-loop drop. I even got her on Batman, which is a hanging seats coaster with loops and corkscrews. That was as far as she could make it and we ended up stopping the coasters except for the final wooden one because of those corkscrews, but she did better than she thought so I consider that a win. And now I have a good basis for seeing what rides at Disney might be a bit much for her (but that's what the singles line is for, right? ).

We left a little early most due to the heat (mid 90s, high humidity, heat index 101-105) but also once the crowd moved in a lot of the rides were being run by staff poorly, compounding the wait. I'm not anticipating those problems with Disney in February.

On the drive home we were talking about other parks we've done and Disney came up (by her, I'm not that stupid ). It actually lead to a very informal discussion on doing a few days in Orlando the next time a work convention she attends goes there (in June every five years or so). My paranoid side is wondering if she brought Disney up because she suspects something, but hopefully it was just natural conversation and she'll be surprised when she gets a longer Disney trip sooner than expected.

In trip planning news the second touring calendar I was waiting for just got released so I'll be comparing that with the first and checking my itinerary. I'll post those details later. I'm also thinking of posting a bit on my research process. Since this is my first Disney trip I thought it might be interesting to see how a newbie gets started, plus someone might see a gap in my resources or planning that I should know about.

 

[macbitt]

My planning for this trip got started in late May. I started with both Disney's official site and Google. Google lead me to MouseSavers.com and AllEars.net, which lead me to buying a copy of the Unofficial Disney World Guide, which lead me to TouringPlans.com. Some additional Googling brought up DISboards.com and easyWDW.com.

After a lot of reading I started to piece together the trip. I settled on dates (though I'm still debating doing 7 or 8 nights) and picked my primary hotel (Dolphin) and my backup (Pop Century). Found airport/hotel transportation with Mears. Bought discounted tickets when the price increase was announced, then I started to read up on counter service and sit down restaurants.

The food planning took a long time and a lot of reading, given the number of options out there. I finally narrowed it down to a list of about 10 restaurants and made a list of recommended counter services to do lunch at. I still don't have my final ADRs settled, but I've got a few more weeks until my 180 day mark.

Recently I've been working on our day to day itinerary. TouringPlans.com and easyWDW.com match up on recommended parks the last few days but are complete opposites (each recommending parks the other says to avoid) the first few days, which makes it fun. I figure with the lower crowds in February making a "wrong choice" won't matter too much as long as I know how to deal with crowds and lines, which these same sites are also helping with. I'm also going between a more details touring plan (these attractions in this order) and a more general plan (this section, then this section). The general is more relaxed, but having more specifics does help me remember adult favored attractions vs kid only attractions and I can see how timing will work for show times. Either way it won't be a hard and fast rule set for us, more of the plan but we'll see what happens.

It looks like once I settle on my itinerary and ARDs it'll mostly be a matter of watching for good deals on airfare and the hotel and a lot of waiting.

 

[ZFamily5]

Can't wait to hear where you want to dine!

 

[macbitt]

Edit: The itinerary went through a lot of tweaks over the last couple of weeks so our ADRs had some changes as well. Here are the new ADRs.

I'm planning to do breakfast in the hotel room, then counter service lunches and snacks in the parks. Since February has early closing times I'm making our ADRs all dinner. I wanted us to have one good quality meal (compared to the fast food like counter service offerings) each day, but not at the expense of losing too much time in the parks or preventing a mid day break.

Biergarten - Epcot
DGF is just two generations removed from her German roots and had a grandmother who cooked German food all summer long when she was a kid, so any opportunity for German food can't be missed.

50's Prime Time Cafe - Hollywood Studios
I may regret this, I'm very bad about elbows on the table

Rose & Crown - Epcot
We both like pub food from time to time and the patio space for viewing IllumiNations without having to stake out a spot in advance made this a winner. The downside is I felt the need to pull Raglan Road from our dining list since I didn't want duplicate cuisines during our trip.

Il Mulino New York Trattoria - Swan Resort
Rated as some of the best Italian in town, and we both love Italian. The fact that is it connected to our hotel and Mousesavers and Restaurant.com offered discounted gift certificates doesn't hurt, either. This is during our free day. I'm not sure what we'll be doing that day so dinner back at the resort made sense.

California Grill - Contemporary Resort
This is our anniversary dinner. The plan is to get a reservation to go along with the Wishes fireworks. With luck the fireworks view will be a surprise for DGF.

Yak & Yeti - Animal Kingdom
This was recommended to us by friends who love Animal Kingdom. We'll do an early dinner at the end of our Animal Kingdom day before park hoping to Magic Kingdom for the electrical parade. Better dinner early than late.

Benihana - Hilton, Downtown Disney
This is our final night dinner and we'll spend the evening in Downtown Disney. DGF loves hibachi and while we can get it at home nothing wrong with getting it on vacation as well. I know Teppan Edo in Epcot is popular, but they don't serve the usual hibachi appetizers and I wanted to get some time in DTD.

 

[macbitt]

The itinerary is finally set after a lot of tweaking. As such I've updated my ADRs listings since a few of those got changed as well.

This last week I made all of my ADRs so that's one more thing officially done. Now I just need to book a flight and hotel room I'm waiting for some deal offerings on those, but I'm budgeted for a the cost if I booked right now so if I see anything filling up I can go ahead and move on it.

I'll post the semi-detailed itinerary here soon.

 

[teekathepony]

Hello! I'm jumping in. Great plans so far! How sweet of you to surprise your DGF My DH wanted to surprise me this year, but he's terrible at planning and I'm a control freak so he "surprised" me early
I love your ADR list! I love the Biergarten. Great selection there. That's the only one I've eaten at. Looks like you really did your homework.
Well, can't wait to read more!