It wouldn't be spring without an Epcot F&G Festival! New pg 35

[DisMomAmy]

With just over three weeks to go, I thought I'd check in with my to-do list today! Everything I had planned for this week is done! ​

4 weeks to go: (March 23 – 29)
• Prepare for Easter (shopping)! - Mostly DONE (kids shopping done/need groceries)
• Coordinate pet care - DONE
• Make grocery list - DONE
• Inventory batteries – buy more if needed - DONE
• Buy more Ziploc bags - DONE
• Pre-Order Photopass CD – DONE
• Figure out camera settings - DONE, I think?
• Update touring cards - DONE
• Update surprise book - DONE
• Figure out surprise - DONE
• Buy Tim new water shoes – DONE

So how are we going to surprise the boys? At 4:45am, we're just going to wake them up and tell them we're going to Disney! I think the 4:45 wake up will be enough of a surprise for them! We'll give them the surprise books & goody bags that I'm putting together.

My list for next week looks like this:
3 weeks to go (March 30 – April 5)
• Get ready for Easter/Groceries
• Put ADRs in phone (cancel any extra ADRs)
• Put Touring Plans in phone
• Let schools know about kids – Half DONE
• Organize/label toiletries
• Roll coins from change jar
• Get quarters & pennies for pressed pennies
• Order any Rx refills (closer to 4/11)
• Submit Diamond Lane Form
• Add room request to Kidani ressie – Sunset savanna, near lobby, lower floor (& add Alex’s celebration) - DONE

Starting next Thursday, I will be posting my "in two weeks" updates every day! And of course, there will be some weather updates thrown in there too.

Now I'm off to see what I can get knocked off next week's list while I have some time this afternoon.

 

[ddluvsdisney]

Amy,
Can you tell me about Diamond Lane??
I've heard about it on the SVR thread but don't know exactly who is allowed to do requests and such. Is it just for owners??
I'm not really sure if I have any requests b/c we've never stayed there before. Would love to hear what you requested.
thanks

Deb

 

[DisMomAmy]

Amy,
Can you tell me about Diamond Lane??
I've heard about it on the SVR thread but don't know exactly who is allowed to do requests and such. Is it just for owners??
I'm not really sure if I have any requests b/c we've never stayed there before. Would love to hear what you requested.
thanks

Deb

Here is a link to the SVR page. If you look down on the right, you'll see "Diamond Lane". Even if you don't have any requests, you can fill it out then skip the long line at check-in. It's been a huge time saver for us. I think anyone can use it. We aren't owners & we have used it twice. We exchanged from our home resort both times. MRYPPNS used it last year and I believe they had a cash reservation.

http://www.starwoodvacationownership.com/sheraton_vistana_resort/welcome.html

At SVR, I believe I requested near pool, away from highway noise (some of the villas back up to the highway). We requested bottom floor two years ago & top floor last year.

This year, I'm going to list the sections of the resort in order of preference. We'll request top floor again - it's quieter & makes me feel better that someone can't come in the kids window! Unless they have a tall ladder...

 

[KatMark]

You are doing great on that "to do list." Keep it up. It will be here so soon.

 

[MRYPPNS]

You should be really mean to the boys and wake them up only to tell them they you have to meet me at the airport to pick something up from me!

You shouldn't need to roll your coins if you are depositing them at the bank....they just have to throw them in the hopper anyways.

My to do list is down to one piece of paper....yes it's crepping to the backside but it feels more manageable now.

 

[ddluvsdisney]

Thanks for the Diamond Lane info. Amy!!!

 

[disneyfan61]

I did print out my Mousekeeping envelopes over the weekend so that is done!!

I still have to:

Roll coin-my bank only takes it rolled now. No more counting machine.

Put ADR's in phone

Add balcony request to BC reservation.

Did you get a new camera???

 

[Lovemy3babes]

We have never done the pressed penny thing at Disney. Is it 51 cents Amy? (2 quarters and one penny)

 

[mommytothreeboys]

4:45 AM would be a surprise for me! The ONLY time I'm happy about getting up that early is if we are going to see Mickey!

 

[eandesmom]

• Put ADRs in phone (cancel any extra ADRs)
• Put Touring Plans in phone

You are in great shape!

Do you use tripit at all? It's a trip planning app, both online as well as an app for android, blackberry and the iphone. If you do, you can just forward your ressie confirmation email to tripit and it will show up in your phone in the tripit app. Any ressie really, car, hotel, dining... websites, links, you name it! You can also link your google calendar to it and it will show the information there as well.

I love it and put absolutely everything in there, it's so cool! I haven't tried linking it at all with touring plans, I manually enter it all into trip it right now but at least it's all in one place.

 

[Angies1274]

Wow! You are doing really well on your to-do list!!

What a great way to surprise the boys!!

Not too much longer now....

 

[ddluvsdisney]

Amy~ sorry, I have another question for you- Do you know how long it takes to get to WDW from SVR? I googled it but thought I'd ask you too.

 

[MEK]

Amy - that list doesn't have much left on it!

Love the 'learn to use settings on camera" That's one of those ongoing goals. AT least it is for me.

Interesting about the Diamond Lane.

You must be getting very excited now. I can't wait until its surprise time!

 

[MeMom]

So how are we going to surprise the boys? At 4:45am, we're just going to wake them up and tell them we're going to Disney! I think the 4:45 wake up will be enough of a surprise for them! We'll give them the surprise books & goody bags that I'm putting together.

Poor babies! They are going to be so .
Maybe they'll forgive you as soon as they find out why you are getting them up! Their daze will change to very quickly.

 

[JPFamilyMom]

your list looks great Amy
Wake them up at 4:45 am That is an early morning, but I think they won't mind once you tell them where you are going Can't wait to read about it
Hooray for 20 days

 

[DisMomAmy]

You are doing great on that "to do list." Keep it up. It will be here so soon.

Thanks Kathy!!

You should be really mean to the boys and wake them up only to tell them they you have to meet me at the airport to pick something up from me!

You shouldn't need to roll your coins if you are depositing them at the bank....they just have to throw them in the hopper anyways.

My to do list is down to one piece of paper....yes it's crepping to the backside but it feels more manageable now.

They'll be expecting to go to school that morning so they're going to have no idea what's going on.

Actually, I decided to skip the coin rolling. Our bank does want it rolled, but I'm going to save it for our summer NY trip so the boys can do the sorting & counting.

Woo hoo for a short(er) to do list!

Thanks for the Diamond Lane info. Amy!!!

Your welcome! Good luck - I hope you get a good condo - not sure there really is a bad one at Vistana Resort now that they've all been renovated.

I did print out my Mousekeeping envelopes over the weekend so that is done!!

I still have to:

Roll coin-my bank only takes it rolled now. No more counting machine.

Put ADR's in phone

Add balcony request to BC reservation.

Did you get a new camera???

Your list isn't very long! Yes, I did get a new camera! I got a Sony Cybershot DSC-HX7. So far, I really like it!

We have never done the pressed penny thing at Disney. Is it 51 cents Amy? (2 quarters and one penny)

Yes, $.51. But watch out for the pressed quarter machines. I think those are $1.25.

4:45 AM would be a surprise for me! The ONLY time I'm happy about getting up that early is if we are going to see Mickey!

I agree - Disney is the only good reason to get up at the crack of dawn!

You are in great shape!

Do you use tripit at all? It's a trip planning app, both online as well as an app for android, blackberry and the iphone. If you do, you can just forward your ressie confirmation email to tripit and it will show up in your phone in the tripit app. Any ressie really, car, hotel, dining... websites, links, you name it! You can also link your google calendar to it and it will show the information there as well.

I love it and put absolutely everything in there, it's so cool! I haven't tried linking it at all with touring plans, I manually enter it all into trip it right now but at least it's all in one place.

I have not used tripit. I remember reading about it on one of your PTRs. I'll have to check it out. I generally use Evernote & just stick everything in there. I do have to manually enter all of my ADRs into my calendar though.

Wow! You are doing really well on your to-do list!!

What a great way to surprise the boys!!

Not too much longer now....

We're so close!! There's a lot to do in the next 3 weeks so I'm sure it's going to fly by!

Amy~ sorry, I have another question for you- Do you know how long it takes to get to WDW from SVR? I googled it but thought I'd ask you too.

My notes say 8 minutes to Epcot, 11 to Studios, 13 to MK (I assume that's the TTC) and 19 to AK. I think I got those numbers by putting the addresses into MapQuest.

Amy - that list doesn't have much left on it!

Love the 'learn to use settings on camera" That's one of those ongoing goals. AT least it is for me.

Interesting about the Diamond Lane.

You must be getting very excited now. I can't wait until its surprise time!

I'm definitely plugging away at my list!

I thought I had the camera figured out but somehow I got it onto a setting that was taking forever to reset between pictures. I think I have it back to normal now.

Poor babies! They are going to be so .
Maybe they'll forgive you as soon as they find out why you are getting them up! Their daze will change to very quickly.

I'm sure they will forgive us once they know where we are headed!

your list looks great Amy
Wake them up at 4:45 am That is an early morning, but I think they won't mind once you tell them where you are going Can't wait to read about it
Hooray for 20 days

I'm sure we won't have a video this time around - that's too early for me too! But it will give me the chance to finish up the packing after they are in bed so we'll be all ready to go when we tell them.

 

[DisMomAmy]

Woo hoo!! We're in the teens!!

So yesterday, Alex says, "If I had to choose between going to camp (environmental camp he's going to with his 5th grade class after Easter) or April vacation, I'd choose camp." I said, "Well that was probably easy since we aren't doing anything special for April vacation." And he starts whining, "Can't we go to Disney?" I told him that it's way too close to plan something now. "Well are we going to go at all this year?" And I reminded him that we've already gone during this SCHOOL year. "But won't we go in 2012?" This continued on & on... I told him to talk to dad. He told me to talk to dad. So we brought it up with dad & he went through the same conversation I'd just had with Alex. It was too funny! Alex was even tearing up a bit. He wants to go to Disney so badly!

Other cool story of the week... One of the moms I know from school sent me an email with Disney questions about their surprise trip coming up in June. She heard that I'm the "Disney guru".

I made a couple tweeks to our touring plans this week. Seems as though the Peter Pan interactive queue that we thought might be done for our trip, was actually just an upgrade to the wheelchair ramp. The work on the interactive queue hasn't even started yet so we can head right to Dumbo at rope drop, rather than trying to squeeze in a look at the new queue at PP.

The other change, (still crossing my fingers), is that I added Test Track back into our Epcot touring plans. With the date still not confirmed, and actually changed from "April" to "to be determined", I'm hoping we'll get a chance to ride!

We don't have too much going on this weekend, which would normally make it a great time to start packing, but since the trip is still a surprise, I won't be packing. At least nothing too obvious.

I think we'll be planting some grass in the back yard. We took down the play structure in the fall so we need to do something about the patch of dirt. I'm hoping that if we plant this weekend, 2 1/2 weeks of consistent watering will be enough time to get things going before we leave for Disney.

Happy last day of March everyone!

 

[MEK]

OMG Amy you are tough! How did you not just crack during that discussion with Alex. He is going to be so excited and so certain that he talked you into this trip. Little does he know all the behind the scenes work you have been doing.

Keep up that straight face Disney guru!

 

[disneyfan61]

We are in the teens!!! I AM hoping we get to ride TT!! Fingers crossed.

I called the limo company this week for our pick up on the 19th. They will be arriving at 3:00 am!! So we need to get up around 2:30. You can tell the boys that they are not the only ones that got up early that morning!!

Good luck with the grass planting.

Right now I have HGTV on & they are showing WDW!!

 

[DisMomAmy]

OMG Amy you are tough! How did you not just crack during that discussion with Alex. He is going to be so excited and so certain that he talked you into this trip. Little does he know all the behind the scenes work you have been doing.

Keep up that straight face Disney guru!

I feel like this is Tim's surprise this time around & I'd hate to be the one to spill the beans! That's why I was encouraging him to talk to dad... but dad just played along!

I am a bit worried that the kids are going to think that if they ask enough, we'll cave in & give them a trip! They probably will think the whole thing was their idea!

We are in the teens!!! I AM hoping we get to ride TT!! Fingers crossed.

I called the limo company this week for our pick up on the 19th. They will be arriving at 3:00 am!! So we need to get up around 2:30. You can tell the boys that they are not the only ones that got up early that morning!!

Good luck with the grass planting.

Right now I have HGTV on & they are showing WDW!!

Woot! Woot! It's a perfect day for WDW on HGTV!

Not feeling too sure about the grass planting... Tim's at the field clean up at school so Zach & I went out to spread the rest of the soil and it started snowing! I'm also worried 2 1/2 weeks isn't enough time for us to water the grass daily. I hate to delay it too long because the kids can't play out there until the grass gets established.