How many bottle returns to pay for a week at WDW? November 2011 PTR

Great photos, thanks for sharing. However, unless Minnie has changed a whole lot, I'm pretty sure you're meeting Donald in that photo! :rotfl2:
I'm looking forward to the kids helping out with the planning, although my 6 y/o probably won't sit that long! lol
 
Great photos, thanks for sharing. However, unless Minnie has changed a whole lot, I'm pretty sure you're meeting Donald in that photo!

Um, yeah...about that...I seem to have a real problem when it comes to posting photos on this site! We do have a photo with Minnie...that's just not it...:rolleyes1

That ROCKS that Bug wants to help you plan!!! My 6 year old will give opinions, but I don't know that he'd actually sit here with me and help

Believe me, I was pretty stunned. But my wonderful husband flat-out refuses to help me plan anything at this point, so at least someone in my family is somewhat engaged. :laughing: No matter how many times I explain the 180 day reservations window to DH he can't wrap his brain around it. But when we're sitting down to lunch at Le Cellier at noon, he'll thank me. ;)

Anyway, thanks, guys, for reading. My ADR window opens up pretty soon so I should have at least some news to report!

My sister and BIL are still on the fence about coming to Disney with us. I think they will end up doing it, I just hope they let me know before May 5 if they want to eat any TS meals with us!! :lmao: I know my sister really wants to do it. We are the ones who will be running around the Magic Kindgom till 1 a.m. during EMH while the guys and the kiddoes are asleep back at the hotel!
 
I think it's great your son wants to help with the planning!

I don't know how to post pictures using Flickr... I use Photobucket and would be glad to help you if you'd like.
 
I use photobucket too, thanks to PixieMama:worship:
Sounds like it would be extra fun if your sis and bil were able to go with you! Hopefully they'll soon decide and you'll be able to plan accordingly. The ADR date is so exciting, seems like I was just counting down to it and it's been almost a month ago now!! Time goes by fast when you're planning a disney trip!!
 

Just joining in! Your PTR title caught my eye and I had to check it out! I wish we had a bottle/can return program!

Have you thought about the QSDP and just adding a few ADRS? With this plan, you the convince of pre-pay, but not as much commit to meals. Although, it sounds like you DS may want to go to the TS restrurants!

Can't wait to hear more!
 
Okay, I know this response might not be popular, but I was in a similar situation in January 2010 with not knowing how many were going to be in our party when it was time to make ADRs ... It might just be the 4 of us, it might be 6 of us (the ILs), or it might be 8 of us (the ILs AND FILs brother & his wife) ...

So I made 3 sets of reservations ... and then cancelled the two I didn't need as quickly as I could after they made up their minds as to which day(s) they were going to the parks with us...

So, I know, it meant that someone might not get their ADR at first, but eventually parties of 6 and 8 opened up :-) I only had to cancel 1 party of 4 ADR :confused3
 
Hi to everyone who's joining in! It's so nice to have people to bounce ideas off of...especially since my DH gets that glazed look in his eyes whenever I start talking about Disney World! :rotfl2:

Anyway, some good news: My sister booked her trip!! :cool1: They are not going for the exact same days as we are, but we will overlap for two full days. Actually I think this is perfect. We arrive on a Tuesday afternoon and leave the following Tuesday morning. They'll arrive late Saturday night. So our last two days will be spent with them. We'll have a few days of "just us" and then they'll arrive. We've requested adjoining rooms with a connecting door, so hopefully we'll get that. I hope that at least one park has late-night EMH so my sister and I can do that together. Not sure if that happens in early November or not...

The other good news is that I can now plan those ADRs. We already have a rough plan for those two days and I have figured out where we'll be eating. My sister's kids will be 3 and 5 when we are there, and they are both really into the "fab five" characters. So we're going to try to start that Sunday morning with breakfast at Chef Mickey's, then we'll take the monorail to Epcot. (When I suggested this to my sister, she reacted like a little kid: Her eyes got wide and she said "The MONORAIL?? AWESOME!" She's 33...) We're going to go to MK on Monday because the crowd forecast as of right now is absurdly low, much lower than Sunday, and also because I want to spend our last day there! So our ADR for that day will be dinner at Crystal Palace.

Now I just have to figure out the rest of the trip: Where we'll be going and on what days. I need to fit these restaurants in: 50s Sci Fi and Le Cellier (for lunch). That leaves me with three TS credits. We'll do HDDR one night and then I just need one additional restaurant. I was thinking of Liberty Tree Tavern...or maybe Biergarten...or Garden Grill...I'm having a problem with that last pesky credit. So many places to choose from!

I am going to get together with my sister this weekend to do a bit of planning and help her figure out what to do with her remaining two days. So excited!
 
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That is great news that your sister is going to go too!!:thumbsup2 Even better that the trips overlap, as you will have time 'alone' and time with your sister's family as well!
We're trying Garden Grill for the first time this trip. We went to Liberty Tree Tavern on our last trip and really liked that. Good luck deciding on that last TS meal:)
 
Yay! I'm sure you'll have a blast having your sister there for part of the time! And, like you said, now you can finalize those ADRs!!!!

I've eaten at Liberty Tree and it was good, but we're definitely trying Garden Grill this time ... I have a friend that goes to Disney just about once a year and swears it's one of her all time favorite "can't miss" places to eat :-)
 
I have heard great things about both Garden Grill and Liberty Tree Tavern. I guess it will depend on our park days, too. I was thinking that making a late lunch reservation for Liberty Tree and then stepping outside to catch the afternoon parade might be a nice way to spend a couple of hours.

This is one reason I really dislike this 180 day ADR thing. I want to have nice TS meals, but I wish we could be more spontaneous about it. What if, 187 days from now, what sounded like a good idea to me sitting in my living room on a rainy April afternoon is no longer a good idea? What if we're too full, too tired, or just plain don't feel like it that day? :guilty: I know we can always cancel but then what do we do with the credits, knowing that you can't walk in and get a table anywhere you want?

My poor sister, I've already overwhelmed her. She's booked and she's fine with that. She's like a normal level of excited. But she is nowhere near as crazed as I am at this point. I went to her house last night to watch Steve Carell's last Office episode and brought my Disney books and notes. She shut me down pretty fast! :scared1: However, her ADR window opens up just a couple of days after mine so she will be needing my advice soon whether she knows it or not. :rotfl2:

I do think I will have to tone it down for Bug's sake. He is SO excited, but he is just six. We have a great summer planned with a bunch of fun stuff to do, and he's in little league for the first time (the kid is baseball crazy). One of the benefits of being self-employed is that I can work my summer schedule in such a way that we can spend a lot of time doing fun things together, going to the zoo and other local attractions, spending weeks at a time at my parents' cottage, etc. (Since my dad has wireless internet there I can work from there -- it's great) I want to fully take advantage of that while I can and while he's still willing to hang out with his mom. And I don't want him to wish his summer away because it's just part of his countdown to DW! Plus, I don't want his expectations to get so crazy that there's no way our trip can live up to them.

I realized this when, two nights ago, Bug once again came to me with a pencil, a notepad and his Birnbaum's and said, "Mommy, I want to plan with you some more. We need to decide which rides to go on!" I said, "You know we aren't going for six months, right? We have lots of time to do this, we don't have to talk about the rides for a really long time." He said, "I know, I just want to. I think it's fun. I wish we were going sooner!"

Although, I have to say his list of "must-do" rides for the MK is pretty great. The only one we disagreed upon was the Jungle Cruise. (I was pro, he was con.) His reasoning: Boring, old-fashioned. My reasoning: It's one of the few rides that is still there and the same as when I went as a kid! I like that it's kind of old-fashioned, and I don't think it's boring! Finally, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Well, this trip is for all of us. Mommy, if you want to go on the Jungle Cruise, you just put it on this list. Daddy and I will go with you even if we don't want to." I swear, this kid. :love:
 
That's so great your sister will be there, too!

We love CP. It's one place my family will go to on any and every WDW trip!

Never been to GG or Biergarten... but those are 2 places I keep hearing great things about. Especially Biergarten. I'll have to keep that one in mind the next time we go.
 
Tomorrow is my ADR day! I am psyched. I spent a few minutes this morning (OK, more than a few) figuring out which parks we'll visit on which days and organizing my list of ADRs accordingly. My sister and I finally talked about which parks we'd visit together during our two overlapping days (MK and EP). So here's what I'm going to try to get:

Nov. 1: Arrival day. No ADRs. We will wing it, maybe go to DTD.
Nov. 2: HS. Early dinner at 50s Prime Time.
Nov. 3: EP. Lunch at Le Cellier.
Nov. 4: MK. Either lunch or dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern.
Nov. 5: AK. No ADRs in the park, but we will go to Hoop De Do Revue that evening.
Nov. 6: MK. Early dinner at Crystal Palace with the whole gang.
Nov. 7: EP. Breakfast at Chef Mickey's with the whole gang.

I don't plan on setting my alarm at 6 a.m. to do these, but will be logging on as soon as I wake up. Wish me luck!:goodvibes

I also had to spend a few minutes explaining to my sister why I needed to do this tomorrow. (Mainly Le Cellier and Chef Mickey's...) Her response: "Plenty of people to go Disney World and don't make their dining reservations six months in advance. I'm sure they manage to eat." My answer: "Of course they do, they just don't get to eat at the good places or at decent times!" She is skeptical, but once we're there I'm sure she'll understand.
 
Well, your well wishes must have helped me, because when I finally was able to get online at 8:30 this morning I was pretty much able to get every ADR I wanted at times pretty close to what I wanted! :yay:

Of course, this was not without drama. Or at least as much drama as I could muster up while sitting at my desk with my laptop in front of me. I signed on, signed in and got to the "make reservations" page by around 8:15. I went through the motions, started with Le Cellier, figuring that would be the hardest one to get, chose a 1:00 reservation time (all of the noon-ish times were long gone by then, no doubt taken by the REAL early birds) and hit "make reservation." And...proceeded to get an error message. "Internal server error." I tried again. Got the same message. Frustrating! (I am on a mac and was running Firefox -- sometimes Firefox doesn't play nice.) So I quit Firefox and launched Safari. Success! Also, relief.

Here's what we ended up with:

Nov. 1: Arrival day. No ADRs, no worries.

Nov. 2: HS. Was going to do 50s Prime Time for an early dinner but while making the reservation I decided to do Sci Fi instead. I just know Bug will love it. It looks like so much fun. So: Sci Fi Drive In at 5:15.

Nov. 3: EP. Lunch at Le Cellier -- 1:00. I was particularly proud of this one, and it's the only thing about this entire planning process that my DH was even remotely interested in hearing about. :rolleyes:

Nov. 4: MK. Late lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern -- 1:55. It's my hope that we eat a nice, leisurely lunch, then step outside to see the afternoon parade going by!

Nov. 5: We'll be at AK that day, then we'll head over to see the 7:15 Hoop De Do Revue. DH at first turned up his nose at this, then I told him about the beer that was included with the meal and he was suddenly OK with it. :rotfl:

Nov. 6: MK. This is one of our days with my sister and her family, so there will be 7 of us total. 4:55 EARLY dinner at Crystal Palace. I didn't want it to be quite that early, but by the time I got there it was either 4:55 or 7:50, and we will have 7, 5 and 3 year olds with us, so I figured earlier was better...:confused3

Nov. 7: We'll be spending this day at Epcot with my sister and her family. Going to have breakfast at Chef Mickey's. I wanted to do an early one, like 7:30, but that was a no-go. (And by the time I logged on it wasn't even available, so there's that.) I got an 8:50 reservation, after which we'll hop the monorail over to the park.

The 6th and 7th are the only days where I have a big dinner followed by a big breakfast, but I figured since our dinner will be so early it will be a non-issue.

I'm pretty pleased that I was able to get more or less what I wanted. I was also surprised at how many of the "prime" times were already gone by the time I logged on. What do people who don't obsessively plan do? Seriously?

Of course, now I have 180 days with pretty much no planning to do. My sister has seen the light and wants me to help her plan ADRs for the three days she will be in the park without us (she has another 4 days before her window opens up) so I'll do that and then...I guess I'll wait...

Who am I kidding, I will probably shuffle these plans around a ton. Or at least keep checking to see what's still available.

We're still saving and adding to our Disney Fund and will continue to do so. We've hit the halfway-there mark at this point. I am hoping to get everything paid off by August, which I think I will be able to do. I've been augmenting the fund by going online and paying a bit here and there, not a lot at a time, but it all adds up! So I guess counting what I've already paid we're more than halfway there! I was going to take the $$ out of our special Disney Fund account and pay it towards the trip, but I think I will wait until we have all of the money saved and pay it all at once. For some reason I feel like that will be more satisfying!

It's a good thing I have finished this portion of the planning though -- I have been so obsessive that I've kind of been slacking on my work (don't tell my clients!). Another perk of being self-employed: At least my boss isn't mad at me. But I really need to get my head back in the game. One of the things I've been slacking on is my own web site, which could be a powerful marketing tool for me (I'm a freelance writer who does mostly marketing and advertising writing). But until I write it, I won't have it. Right now I'm using this really lame online portfolio so people who want to hire me can see a few of my clips, and it's just not enough. I really need to get this done.

So what do you do once you've passed the 180 day mark and your ADRs are made? How do you make those six months fly by?
 
Those look great!!! Congrats getting most of what you wanted!!!

I'm starting to stress over mine ... Thank goodness I can bend my Mom's ear a little bit when I get to see my parents on the 19th ... Actually, I'll be with my parents from then until my 180 day window opens on May 31st ...
They don't understand the big deal EXCEPT for things like Chef Mickey's or Cindy's Castle because it didn't used to be this big a deal to have reservations for TS meals ... :confused3 But hopefully when I start explaining in person they'll "get it" :thumbsup2
 
Congrats on getting your ADRs.:cheer2:
I've had my ADRs made for over a month and since then I've been working on t-shirt designs and organizing my notes. I have made a few changes, and have started a list of things that I still have to do. Of course, there's always the saving. Seems like there's no end to planning even once the ADRs are made! I'm loving every minute of it though:cool1: :laughing:
 
Yay for getting all your ADRs! :woohoo:

I think they all look great. The only ones I haven't tried before are Le Cellier and HDDR.

I soooo know what you mean about wanting to get the months to go by! It does seem as though once you get your ADRs in place, there isn't much left to do. But when it gets closer to your trip, you can start to finalize things!
 
Yeah, I just sort of remembered that I started a PTR back when I was eating, sleeping and breathing Disney planning as a way to help blow off the excess excitement. Then once I made those coveted ADRs, I sort of forgot about this.

Like many, I got caught up in the "is it or isn't it happening" hysteria over the free dining "tip" that was put on the boards a few days ago. I didn't wake up with the masses at 6:59 this morning, but I did dial in to Disney as soon as I was up and my son was fed breakfast.

I was on hold for about an hour and a half, then I was put through to the lovely Sue, a cast member who, as it turns out, also hails from the Detroit area. She got all excited when I recited my address. Her dad still lives a couple towns over from us.

The reason I wanted to call in immediately was that I know POFQ is the smallest resort on property, and I was concerned that due to extreme demand, the number of allotted FD rooms would be snapped up quickly. As it turns out I needn't have worried. While I was on the phone I texted my sister to tell her the rumors were true and that she should call. She waited till around 9:30 a.m., called in and was on hold for less than a minute. Figures. My husband, who has merely tolerated my Disney planning obsession all these months, had to hand it to me -- that vigilance has certainly paid off for us this morning!

This promotion saved us almost $800, since I already had the dining plan on my reservation. That's a big savings! Our Disney Fund now officially has more than enough cash in it to pay off our trip, plus plenty of extra $$ for treats and spending money. Bug and I will go to the bank today, move the money around and come home and officially pay everything off. He is pretty excited -- it's pretty funny when a six year old gets pumped for a trip to the bank!
 
That is AWESOME!!!! :cool1:

I'm trying to figure out if the free dining offer would be better for us or if we're better off with the discounted room offer we originally booked under . . . maybe I should call . . .
 














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