Its Our Engagey-Moon! Deluxe PDR December 2011 *Update 5/24; Day 3 Plans*

[JessicaKnits]

Thank goodness I motored through and finished my last Dining Report earlier today. Its bad to start another of something if you haven't finished the first yet, right?

Lots has happened between our first trip (August 20-31st of 2010) and now! Last time we went, I tried to cram as much into our trip as possible, because I was quite certain that Adam would not ever want to go again. I have always wanted to go to Disney at Christmas time, but was never able to take that time of year off work because it also coincides with our busy selling season. As luck would have it though, some new rules have changed our selling season to now end on December 7th, which means there is just enough time to squeeze in a December Disney trip before things go a bit insane.

We also got engaged a few weeks ago, so I caught my new fiance in a moment of pre-marital bliss, and convinced him that THIS is our chance. See...he really DOES like Disney. So, its not a honeymoon, its definitely not a babymoon, its our Engagey-Moon and we are celebrating it at Disney! So hop in, fasten your safety belts, pull up on the yellow tabs, and enjoy the ride!

Planned Thus Far:

Friday, December 30th - Day 1
Saturday, December 31st - Day 2
Sunday, January 1st - Day 3

 

[rachel09985]

Wow congrats on the engagement!!! Just finished up your last report and am excited for this one. I was shocked when I read it was your name because I just read that you wouldn't be planning another trip ever or at least not for a while! I am glad that has changed.

Christmastime is wonderful. We went for the first time last November/Dec. and are probabaly going again this December. You will love it. Looking forward to hearing your dining plans!

 

[danalee]

Strapped in and ready!!

Congrats

 

[JessicaKnits]

Wow congrats on the engagement!!! Just finished up your last report and am excited for this one. I was shocked when I read it was your name because I just read that you wouldn't be planning another trip ever or at least not for a while! I am glad that has changed.

Christmastime is wonderful. We went for the first time last November/Dec. and are probabaly going again this December. You will love it. Looking forward to hearing your dining plans!

Thank you! The last trip was supposed to be the one and only. But thankfully my dear fiance is a mostly agreeable fellow, and I am a mostly persistent lady.

Strapped in and ready!!

Congrats

Thank you! Hope you have fun!

 

[JessicaKnits]

So, our arrival day is a Saturday, and keeping with our "tradition" we won't have any park plans made for that night. We live just outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Its half an arm and two legs to fly out of that airport though, so we will be trekking it down to Milwaukee on Friday night before we leave to stay with Adam's sister, who, once again, is kind enough to put us up for the night and take us to the airport in the morning. We flew Southwest last time and their flight times were less than ideal. This time we are hoping for an Airtran flight with more palatable flight times, and we will just eat the baggage fees.

Anywho...long story short, I hope to be landing in Orlando around 11:30 AM. If all goes according to plan, we will check in at the Coronado, and make our way over to Downtown Disney for a quick bite at Earl of Sandwich, which we will pay for out of pocket. I wanted to try them last time because I LOOOOVE sandwiches, but it didn't work with our hectic schedule last time.

Then it will be back to the hotel pool for awhile before we are off to dinner.

For our first Engageymoon dinner I have decided to go with Flying Fish Cafe. This was not on our list last time, but since we both enjoy fish, I think this will be a great fit for us. At the 180 day mark I will make a 6PM rezzie and a backup for 7:30, just in case our flight plans don't pan out.

After what should be an amazing dinner at Flying Fish, we plan to head to Jellyrolls for a cocktail and some entertainment. I had also planned on this for our first night last trip to follow up Raglan Road, but we got caught in a TORRENTIAL downpour, and were poncho-less, and thus ended up thoroughly soaked and freezing on that air conditioned bus ride, so we ended up going straight to bed...

 

[JessicaKnits]

For our first full day, we are going to Magic Kingdom. Even if touring plans has this listed as the park to avoid for the day. I just can't go to Disney and not have our first stop be at Magic Kingdom. It seems almost criminal. So, in keeping with tradition from our last dining report, we are going to plan for a breakfast at 8:05 AM at Crystal Palace. This was certainly the best buffet we had last time, and the characters were great. We had awesome service here as well.

I don't have a lunch planned, so we will probably use up some snack credits in the middle of the afternoon (egg rolls anyone?).

I don't have a lunch planned because we are going to go to the Christmas party this night. We are going to test out the waters with O'hana. Adam's a meat guy, so this could really be his cup of tea, if we catch them on a good night. I'm going to plan for a 5PM reservation. I am going to also book a back up reservation at Kona Cafe, in the event that something goes tragically wrong. However, having 2 hours between ADR time and Christmas Party time, being just the two of us, and not absolutely NEEDING to get there right at 7, we should be just fine.

 

[athenna]

I'm in And congrats on your engagement

 

[JessicaKnits]

I'm in And congrats on your engagement

Thank you!

 

[JessicaKnits]

Day 3 is off to Epcot! We plan on having a late morning after the Christmas party. Not being up for rope drop is sooooooooooo unlike me.

We plan to burn up some snack credits at the food court for "breakfast" whenever we decide to make our appearance that morning, and then its off to Epcot.

Then, our first order of business is me + a margarita at La Cava. No judging.

I am hoping that we can get a lunch reservation for the Candlelight Processional at Le Cellier. It would cost 2 credits to eat here at dinner anyway, so would work for us. Here's to hoping its still offered this year with its new-found status as a signature.

We are hoping to make it for the 5 PM Candlelight processional and then stop by Coral Reef for dinner on our way out of the park.

 

[JessicaKnits]

For our 4th day, we are headed to Hollywood Studios (My favorite park for playing, my least favorite for eating!).

I really want to try out breakfast at Maya Grill. I haven't come across any reviews of it, and the menu really sounds appealing to me. The price one pays for good research...

There is no Fantasmic! scheduled this night (I believe, no schedule out just yet). So, thus, no need to book the Fantasmic! package.

We are going to have lunch again at 50's Prime Time. Our first meal here was so pleasant, even if the service was seriously lacking. So, we will give them another try. Just because Sci-Fi appeals to me even less, and our meal at Mama's last time definitely did not leave me with the desire to go back.

If we are in the mood for a snack (as if we wouldn't be) we will be headed back to The Writer's Stop. We greatly enjoyed the cupcakes we had here last time, and I also got a brownie covered in white chocolate chips that I enjoyed as well.

On our way out of the park for the evening we plan on stopping by the Yachtsman Steakhouse. Now, I know if you read my first dining report, you know that our experience here last time was hair raising indeed. It was rather disgusting, and I won't re-hash it here. We are going to file it under the "Any restaurant can have a bad night" and move on. Adam is a MAJOR steak guy, and he really wants to like this place. And he agreed to go with me to Disney, and really only asked in return that we give this place another shot. So we will.

 

[JessicaKnits]

If you have followed my Pre-Trip Report for this vacation, you already know that there will be lots of changes that need to be made. Unfortunately, my job will no longer allow me to have off on the dates we originally had planned, so that means that we have to do some major reshuffling. We are now aiming for December 30th - January 8th, but are still awaiting a final confirmation. So, I promise that there will still be lots and lots of good restaurants to come up (and even more than originally planned, due to the extra day we added in!).

 

[JessicaKnits]

Its Official. We have now changed to December 30th - January 8th. So, with that I will need to revise our ADRs and plans, which I have feverishly been working on this morning. Hope to get a few days re-worked this morning. The great news is that we will be going to Disneyworld over New Years Eve, how cool! This past New Years we were in a bar in Madison on/near State Street. We paid a $20 cover to get in, and they didn't even do a New Years Eve countdown! Totally lame. So, needless to say, this will probably be way way way cooler than that!

So, in just a few minutes I will have our Day 1 plans up. The really didn't change much at all! But everything else going forward is going to be drastically different.

 

[JessicaKnits]

So, like I said. Hardly anything changed here except that we will be arriving on a Friday instead of a Saturday.

We will be bunking at Adam's sister's house just outside of Milwaukee Thursday night before we fly out so we don't have to mess with car parking/rush hour traffic on Friday. This pretty much means a McDonalds breakfast for us. That being said, I loooooove flying out of Milwaukee now. It is so nice since they have renovated it and I hope it stays like this for a long time!

If we have time when we get in (ie, avoiding any unforseen blizzards) we plan to make a quick stop at Earl of Sandwich still. I love me a sandwich! And it will be something nice to have rather than airline/airport food.

I would also like to try out a snack at Babycakes. Last time we were HORRIBLE about our snack credits. Really really awful. We used about 20 the last morning at the candy shop on Main Street on fudge (which he have no shortage of at places at home) and gave them as gifts to people when we got back. I plan to be much more conscious of them this trip.

Then it is off to Flying Fish at the Boardwalk for dinner. We both like fish, and this was an opportunity to try out a signature that we didn't on our last trip. I'm actually a little surprised that I didn't book us a spot here on our last trip, they seem to have a very very well-rounded menu here!

 

[JessicaKnits]

Day 2 for us will fall n New Years Eve, which we will be ringing in at Epcot.

For breakfast we are going to enjoy the buffet at The Wave. The Wave just narrowly missed our ADR list last time, and we went to the Grand Floridian Cafe instead. I was thoroughly disappointed in my decision afterwards. I am really looking forward to breakfast here. We plan to go a bit later, so that the day at Epcot isn't too long as I don't think we will be able to leave and then come back.

For lunch, we are going to go to Coral Reef. This was on our original list from last trip, but was the one sacrificed in order to go to the just opened Via Napoli. In the end, I think we made the right choice with that one, but that doesn't mean I don't want to give Coral a try this time around. Hopefully we will be lucky enough to grab a tank side table!

On to Dinner. I'm going to try and book Le Cellier. We went for dinner last time, and it was a very solid meal, with great service (Jill is wonderful!). I did not think it would make it on our "repeat" list, however, being that it is New Years Eve, I think it is the nicest option for us.

I'm sure we will also have to burn up quite a few Snack Credits here as well, seeing as we will be in the park anywhere from 14-15 hours. I think I would like to try a Kaki Gori, and probably some stuff from France and Germany.

 

[rachel09985]

Wow your plans did change drastically! Do you know when the Christmas decorations come down?? I hope they stay up until after the New Year because you should try to see as much as possible while you are there.

 

[JessicaKnits]

Wow your plans did change drastically! Do you know when the Christmas decorations come down?? I hope they stay up until after the New Year because you should try to see as much as possible while you are there.

I think someone told me in another thread they stay up about a week-ish after New Years. I hope they are right!

 

[JessicaKnits]

For our 3rd day, I don't have any park plans made, as I am sure we will need rest after our New Years Eve Extravaganza. I plan to take the opportunity to go to a few restaurants that are off the beaten path for us.

We will do "brunch" at Olivia's Cafe at Old Key West. Some really really delicious options here! The eggs benedict sounds to die for, and so does the banana bread french toast. I know I will have a hard time deciding.

We might try to do the Keys to the Kingdom Tour to break up the day. We will grab a snack at the Magic Kingdom after if we do. Otherwise its off to Downtown Disney, and perhaps another visit to Earl...of Sandwich that is.

For Dinner we are going to test our luck at Ohana. Adam is a big meat eater, so this will be right up his alley. After our horrific experience at Yachtsman Steakhouse last trip, I probably won't talk this place up so much to him, in the event we hit them on an "off" night.

Then its time for cocktails at Jellyrolls to round out the night.

 

[kris.c]

Congrats on your engagement, and i love your thread! I just joined disboards so I could follow it!