J and K's Adventure Book - The Wilderness Explorers Disneymoon PTR

[kayely]

Welcome, welcome fellow adventurers to my first PTR for my Port Orleans Riverside Disneymoon! In this PTR you will read and experience a few things:

1. My first trip to WDW in 15 years!
2. My fiancé’s first trip ever!
3. Over excitement at the littlest things about Disney!
4. And tons of posts about my (hopefully) well thought out plans for travelling to Disney.

Guys I can’t even begin to express how excited I am to go to Disney. And I want to thank all of you for actually taking the time to read my first PTR. A big welcome to everyone joining me in on this adventure that I think a lot of you can relate to.

As many of you see, I am relatively new here and for the past few weeks I’ve been an avid reader of the trip reports. I enjoyed reading other members experiences and then an idea occurred to me. I figured, what the heck, I could try writing one of these things!

So, let me start by giving you some background on why I’m doing this exactly and why I love Disney.

I’m definitely a kid at heart when it comes to loving Disney. Like most people, I grew up on Disney movies. Always going to the theaters to see the newest one, watching the latest one on video about a hundred times and memorizing all the songs and lines. Disney was popular in my household growing up.
When I was eight, I started to beg my parents to go to Disney World. Of course the commercials were all over the place on TV and in previews in front of said Disney movies that I watched religiously. My parents weren’t so sure about taking us to Disney because of our ages. As stated, I was eight and my little brother was three. They weren’t sure we could go on many rides and wouldn’t be able to have as much fun or remember it. But after careful thought and consideration they booked us a trip to Disney World!

I remember dancing around and being so ecstatic about going the following summer. We went in June of 1997. I had recently turned nine and we had recently moved into a new house as well. We ended up driving from Maryland to Orlando, which was about 16 hours in a car. The ride was pretty long but I can recall seeing signs for Disney starting in Georgia and I couldn’t wait to get there!

My parents, brother, and I stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort for a week. Animal Kingdom hadn’t opened yet and Hollywood Studios was still called MGM Studios. Sadly, just as my parents predicted, I didn’t remember too much. I remember riding POTC, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan’s Flight, It’s A Small World, Tomorrowland Transit Authority, Tomorrowland Speedway and visiting Mickey’s Starland (as it was called then). But hardly remember much of EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. We also went to Blizzard Beach for a day. My poor brother doesn’t remember anything and wants to go back so bad.

We wanted to go back a few years later but my dad, who had vacationed at the beach his whole life, never wanted to go back. The Disney bug never caught him and he didn’t see the appeal in going ever again.

The years went by and I began dating Jeremy and we got engaged in 2011. When picking places for our honeymoon only one location popped into my mind and that was Disney World! I had begun reading about people’s Disneymoons and I fell in love with the idea of going for our honeymoon.

Jeremy had never been to Disney World and he seemed to like the idea of going. I began telling him all about Disney, little facts from books I had collected over the years to what I remembered from when I went. We watched something about Disney on the Travel Channel and that was it. He was hooked! We decided then and there to go to Disney for our honeymoon!

Wow guys, sorry this is so long! I didn’t realize I had written this much. As you can see, I just get excited when talking about Disney. But that brings us up to now to when I decided to write this PTR and soon to be TR when we return.

So now, without further ado, let me introduce ourselves!

THE WHO!​

That’s me, Kayla. I LOVE Disney, writing, reading, watching the same movies over and over again, my dogs, board games, and genealogy. I am currently searching for work and am having difficulty but I’m keeping my head up!
I’m generally really quiet if I don’t know you but I am known to be really goofy and silly (look at how psyched I am to see the mommy anteater and her baby!). I am such a planner and am organized, which is a good and bad trait of mine I think. I loved having fun and I know how to make fun in any situation I’m in.

My Favorites
Disney/PIXAR Movie: Tangled, The Little Mermaid, Up!
Disney Character: Flynn Rider, Scuttle, Dug, Boo, Ariel, Belle
Disney Villain: Prince John and Sir Hiss, Ursula
Disney World Attraction: I really loved Pirates and Haunted Mansion when I went last time
Disney Park: Magic Kingdom
Disney Restaurant: ?, Soon to find out!

Geez! Sorry his picture is huge! This guy is my partner in crime, my fiancé Jeremy. We met two years ago and just knew we were meant to be! We’re getting married this October. As stated before, he’s never been to Disney and he’s excited to go. He likes Disney but I’m achieving to have him love Disney. He loves video games, hockey, football, board games, Harry Potter, and playing the drums. He also loves to make up fake lyrics to songs, which always gets me laughing.

He’s the nicest, kindest person I know. I am so lucky we found each other and we complete each other. He’s my best friend in the entire world. He’s more outgoing than me and he can always make me more comfortable in situations. He’s also a total thrill seeker and he’s looking forward to riding Expedition Everest, Test Track, Rock n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror.

His favorites
Disney/PIXAR Movie: Monsters Inc, Wall-E, Toy Story, The Lion King
Disney Character: Sully, Boo, Wall-E, Woody, Buzz Lightyear
Disney Villain: No idea, he doesn’t really say if he loves villains or not
Disney World Attraction: All the ones I listed above will probably be his favorites
Disney Park: I have a feeling it’s going to be between Animal Kingdom or Magic Kingdom
Disney Restaurant: ?, Soon to find out!

Whew! All done, finally with the intro! So sorry if this way too long and boring and thank you if you stuck around. If you did stick around I hope you’ll continue reading and hearing about my plans for Disney!


Entry 2 - The Where and the When
Entry 3 - Why We Added Another Day
Entry 4 - Our ADR's

 

[kayely]

THE WHEN AND THE WHERE​

Okay, now that we’ve got the boring background stuff about the two of us out of the way, it’s time to fill you all in with the WHEN and the WHERE of what we are doing for our Disneymoon.

As I stated in my previous post, I stayed at Caribbean Beach Resort when I was nine with my family. I remember little of the resort but I liked it. When looking at the different hotels I wasn’t so sure I wanted to stay there again.

But first, before we even booked out Disneymoon, we had to figure out the WHEN of the wedding. Originally, I wanted to get married in August. I loved the idea of a late summer wedding and when we set our date Jeremy wasn’t too keen on it. He didn’t think fourteen months were long enough to plan our wedding.

Looking at the calendar he decided the fall or beginning of 2013. I, however, didn’t want to wait until 2013 to become husband and wife so I agreed to the fall. We settled on October, which was already crowded with events.

Jeremy’s brother’s anniversary was in October, as was his mother’s birthday and now our nephew was born in October of last year. Needless to say we picked the only weekend where something wasn’t going on. Which just happened to be the first weekend in October.

After settling on October 6th for our wedding it was only right to leave for Disney the next morning. Our plan was to leave October 7th and come back October 13th, but that date soon changed. More on that in a later post.

Jeremy wanted to come back on October 13th so that we would have Sunday and Monday to recuperate before heading back to work. I was afraid he would want to leave in the morning but after talking he said that coming back at night would be fine. So at least we would have most of Saturday to spend in Disney.

And now this is when I get to the WHERE in our planning.

After about a month or two of deciding of going to Disney, I began to do research about Disney World honeymoons. I then went on Disney’s website to look at hotels and price packages. Jeremy thought I was jumping the gun, he said it was too early to plan. I told him to bite his tongue as I ordered the Free Vacation Planning DVD from Disney. Haha!

Anyway I tried to get him excited by asking if he’d watch it with me. He said no because our honeymoon was over a year away and he didn’t want to watch it yet. Whatever, I watched it on my own and wishing I was already there.

One Saturday afternoon I began looking at hotels. I settled on falling in love with Port Orleans. It looked so romantic for our honeymoon. I loved Poly too but we couldn’t afford to stay there, oh well, I’m keeping it in mind for a future trip.

Finally after a few months I had Jeremy’s interest hooked and he sat with me as I showed him PO and Poly. He thought them to be just okay and he decidedly fell in love with Wilderness Lodge.

Now, quick story on Jeremy, he grew up camping for his vacations. He loved anything having to do with outdoors and camping and because Wilderness Lodge was similar to that without actually having to camp (as he decided he wouldn’t want to stay at Fort Wilderness) he made his decision.

I liked Wilderness Lodge fine. And it was actually a better package than Poly. I considered it. We held off booking for a little so I could find work and ultimately I decided Wilderness Lodge was ideal for our honeymoon. If we could save up enough money we could swing it.

But work around here became harder and harder to find and my English degree wasn’t as helpful finding employment and suddenly our dreams of staying at Wilderness Lodge became a passing dream. We finally sat down and discussed our options.

We both didn’t want to stay in a Value Resort and we couldn’t afford a Deluxe so Moderate was our option to go to. I went back to my original love of Port Orleans and after some consideration, Jeremy was on board. He loved Riverside more than French Quarter so finally we had our decision!!!

Port Orleans Riverside it was!

Later on, I’m going to discuss our ADR’s, booking our honeymoon and changing the dates, my Disney book obsession and Jeremy’s desire to go to Universal Studios and my apprehension.

I really thank you if you are taking the time to read this. I don’t blame you if you aren’t; I know I’m still really new around here! I’ll just keep updating for my own personal sake because I like keeping a blog about my travel plans!

 

[kayely]

WHY WE ADDED A DAY ONTO OUR HONEYMOON​

Ya’ll before I get into my next post of our PTR, I must share with you this awesome book I picked up at Barnes and Noble on Saturday.




I wanted to find an awesome travel book on Disney so I perused the travel section for awhile when my hands finally fell upon Passporter’s. I flipped through it and immediately fell in love! I loved the little pull out maps of the parks.



And I loved how it separated everything into sections and made it easily accessible for everyone to read it.




I spent most of Saturday evening highlighting and paper clipping pages for easy access while Jeremy played Call of Duty. I shared tons of info to him, but I don’t think he was really listening.

Okay, so anyways, getting back to this pre-trip report, I mentioned in my previous post we were heading to Port Orleans Riverside from October 7 to October 13. Originally we planned to leave Disney sometime in the evening or at night on the 13th.

When I called and made our reservations back in January the nice and helpful cast member asked me if I would like to extend our reservations to the 14th and just add an extra night to our package. I remember asking Jeremy and he said no. I didn’t think anything of it so I told her no thanks. She then replied that if we wanted to we could always call back to change.

The weeks went by and I didn’t think anything of it. I figured we would have enough time to do what we wanted that Saturday and still leave in time. So I began to plan and look at plane tickets.

We were flying Southwest and the latest direct flight that Southwest had back to Maryland was in the evening. Which meant we needed to grab the Magical Express around three in the afternoon. I was a little disappointed to be coming home so early in the day, especially because we would lose some of our meals from the DDP and wouldn’t get to take advantage of the parks for most of the day.

I didn’t say a thing to Jeremy, knowing full well he wanted to come home on the 13th. So I just went on planning not saying a word. It didn’t really bug me after a few days, I was just grateful to be going in the first place.

Two weeks ago I was doing stuff for our wedding and Jeremy was playing video games. During a break he turned to look at me and said, “You know what I was thinking? I was thinking we should add an extra day onto our honeymoon. I feel like we’re going to be rushed coming home on Saturday.” I was so excited to hear him say that!

We made plans to call Disney on Monday morning. I called Disney and got a hold of a cast member right away. She said it was no problem adding another night and after telling her that on the 14th we would not be attending the parks as we were leaving in the morning. She fixed everything for us and then told us there was a chance we would have to switch hotels. I really hoped we didn’t have to for one night.

In the end we didn’t have to switch hotels, just rooms. Not a big deal to me. So for our last night we would be having a garden view instead of a river view. I didn’t mind at all. I began to make more ADR’s and started to finalize more plans.

I was so happy to have another night to be at Disney and to be on my honeymoon.

My question for you guys is, has this ever happened to you? Have you had to add on extra days because of not wanting to rush? Or did you just add an extra day because you wanted to?

Next post: Our ADR’s!

 

[kayely]

OUR ADR’S​

Okay, so I think I finally got our ADR’s finalized for the trip. I might be making a few more but haven’t really decided yet. Jeremy and I are using the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan. We wanted to just have the DDP but Jeremy didn’t think that would be enough to tie us over for the day so I went for the deluxe plan.

I was so excited to finally make ADR’s and I was up at 6:30 to log on to Disney’s site to make our reservations. Because it was our honeymoon I wanted us to have a few nice dinners and then have fun for some of the other dinners. Jeremy’s only request was he didn’t want to go to a place where he had to get really dressed up. I agreed, we weren’t the type to go to really fancy dinners and if I didn’t have to wear a dress, make up and have my hair done perfectly then the restaurant was perfect.

Without further ado, here are our ADR’s!

Sunday, October 7

Dinner: Sci-Fi Dine In Theater

Sci-Fi really appealed to me and I’ve heard great reviews about their milkshakes! Jeremy thought the décor was cool and upon seeing the online menu he’s dying to try the All-American Picnic Burger! I think this is a great restaurant for our first night.

Monday, October 8

Breakfast: Crystal Palace

I wanted to do a character meal and I always had a fondness for Winnie the Pooh. I was excited for the breakfast buffet and once I told Jeremy it was a buffet he was sold! He wasn’t too sure he wanted to go to a character meal but now he doesn’t mind. And bonus, getting into MK early!

Dinner: Yachtsman Steakhouse

Jeremy’s pick for the week. He loves a good steak and I’ve heard good things about this place. We’re excited to go!

Tuesday, October 9

Dinner: Ohana

This is my top pick. I’ve seen tons of food pictures and I cannot wait to eat here! Everything looks so good. And after this dinner we’re going to watch Wishes from the Poly beach. This is supposed to be our romantic night of our honeymoon.

Wednesday, October 10

Dinner: Raglan Road

I’m Irish so I love Irish food and Irish restaurants. When I read about Raglan Road I had to make a reservation! This is perfect too because on this day we’re going to Universal and since we’ll be staying at POR then it’ll just be easy to catch the boat to DTD for this dinner.

Thursday, October 11

Dinner: Via Napoli

Thursday is likely the only day we will go to EPCOT. Due to the Food and Wine Fest, all other days the week we are going are label as bad to go. Jeremy wanted to eat good Italian and after hearing of Via Napoli we both fell in love.

Friday, October 12

Dinner: Le Cellier

This was a jump at the chance ADR. I heard mixed reviews about Le Cellier. Some make me want to eat there, others not so much. And because my fiancé likes steak (and poutine!) he wants to eat here.

Saturday, October 13

Dinner: Whispering Canyon Café

For our last night we are going to be having dinner at Whispering Canyon, per Jeremy’s request again. He is so excited to eat the Skillet meal.


I might be making another breakfast ADR somewhere. Jeremy seems to think we’ll be okay eating at the hotel every morning for breakfast. I however want to eat at other places. So what do you guys think?

 

[potc]

Hey! I read your PTR and I'm subscribing! Congrats on the wedding and honeymoon! We are doing everything about a month later than you
I'm also 24!

Well I hope you keep posting! And goodluck finding a job! It took me 100's of applications during my senior year of college to find the job I wanted! Don't give up hope

 

[kayely]

Hey! I read your PTR and I'm subscribing! Congrats on the wedding and honeymoon! We are doing everything about a month later than you
I'm also 24!

Well I hope you keep posting! And goodluck finding a job! It took me 100's of applications during my senior year of college to find the job I wanted! Don't give up hope

Oh my gosh, my first response! Thanks for reading! I am soooo behind on this but only because things got hectic in my life. Thank you so much for the congrats on the wedding and honeymoon we are so excited to go!

Congrats also you for your trip! I promise I will keep posting on this PTR but I don't know how much because we are getting so close and we still have so much to do with the wedding but I promise I will try!

But I will definitely have a TR afterwards! And if you're wondering, I did get a job! Which I will share more of in a new update! Thanks for reading!

 

[RachVH]

Just wanted to drop a note to say that we will be at POFQ for our Disneymoon almost the same dates as you! And we have an ADR for Raglan Road on Wednesday the 10th of October as well!

Good luck with the rest of your planning and enjoy your wedding day!