January 2009. . . Calling all Snowbirds ~ Part II !!!

[Pinkdiamond816]

Shelly, I read somewhere that it is possible to see and HEAR Wishes from the beach at the POLY - do you - or anybody else know anything about this?

I haven't done it, but I'm 99.9% sure they pipe the music onto the beach and you can watch it from there. It's a wonderful location in the day, and must be nice at night, but I prefer to be closer to the castle!

 

[Disney Mommy 3]

Crud--I forgot to ask this over the weekend. Do any of you have a super, easy, and family favorite recipe, or dinner you want to share? I am always on the lookout!! In a family of 5 it's hard to ever fix an entire meal and have everyone like every part of it!

I am not that great in the kitchen--due to a lack of creativity! But, I can pull it out when I have to. Just to let you know, we don't do really spicey. My kids (okay, all of us) are just weinees!!! Can't handle it! Also, we eat a lot of Chicken and turkey. So, anyone want to join in, or do you think it would get to crazy?

 

[Momof2Disneyboys]

Shelly, I read somewhere that it is possible to see and HEAR Wishes from the beach at the POLY - do you - or anybody else know anything about this?

I'm sure you can see them from the beach at the Poly! And I think I also heard that they have the music/narration playing on speakers there too!

 

[MindyLuvsMickey]

Shelly, I read somewhere that it is possible to see and HEAR Wishes from the beach at the POLY - do you - or anybody else know anything about this?

I haven't done it, but I'm 99.9% sure they pipe the music onto the beach and you can watch it from there. It's a wonderful location in the day, and must be nice at night, but I prefer to be closer to the castle!

I'm sure you can see them from the beach at the Poly! And I think I also heard that they have the music/narration playing on speakers there too!

Yay me for Multi-quoting, too! Now I can be part of the cool crowd.

You can definitley hear Wishes from the Poly. We are looking forward to being able to walk out of our room to the beach to enjoy Wishes. We only watched from our balcony last trip and our view was a little obstructed. We definitely weren't complaining since we had a garden view room.

I'm really looking foward to seeing Illuminations. I've not seen it since 1998.

 

[sharadoc]

We are going to see Wishes and Fantasmic this time. We try to see 2 out of 3 of them on each trip. In May we saw Wishes and IllumiNations. Us making all 3 of them just does not happen.

I think we'll be skipping Fantasmic - DD is still afraid of giant monsters, so we'll be skipping a giant dragon and villains

I know we'll see Illuminations a few times. I haven't seen it in such a long time, and it is my favorite. Since it runs every night - you just may see it even if you don't plan to.

I'm not a fireworks over the castle person, so I don't know if we'll see Wishes either. Plus DD doesn't like fireworks from up close, so we plan to catch the Water Parade and may be able to combine that with a Wishes viewing from one of the monorail hotels.

I do want to see Spectro, but I think I've seen that parade so many times that I wouldn't miss it. The kids have never seen it, but they won't have the patience to hang around. Now that it's only running a few times when we're there, I expect it to be crowded every time it runs, so that may take away from the appeal - I absolutely refuse to sit around and wait for something for more than 15-20 minutes. Hopefully we can stake out a spot back in Frontierland or something. Plus with my RA, I can't stand for a long time, so we'll need to find someplace with seats (my stools and tables again over the bridge, I hope).

 

[sharadoc]

Hey Guys I need your advice! I have signed up to have a fridge placed in my room at the POP. However as I keep thinking (especially on ways to save money) about it, I wonder do I really need one. The only reason I was contemplating taking it was to keep my bottles of water cold. I plan on bringing breakfast items, but that is going to be cereal bars, muffins, nothing that would require frigeration and I'm definitely not a milk drinker. So I was thinking that I could just bring a cooler with me (I'm driving down) and keep in filled with ice (I'll be taking a break each day so I could dump out the water and refill) to keep my drinks cold and my ice packs. This would save me about 60 dollars. Do you think a refridgerator is a must??

What do you do if you are in a value and don't have a refridgerator?? Any tips would be appreciated!

Hi Jen,

Cooler has worked for us MANY times. We are frugal on vacation. Here's a few ideas:

Bring ziploc bags and fill them with ice, rather than loose cubes in the cooler - much neater and don't melt as quickly, plus you don't have to worry about the cooler seeping/leaking.

Make sure someone in "in charge" of filling up the ice every day.

There is a thread in here somewhere about living out of a cooler - not sure if it was on the Budget Board or here on the Resorts Board, but it had a LOT of really good ideas for food to bring and strategies for refilling.

Remember, you're going to be there when it's cool, so you won't have as much of a strain on your cooler from the hot weather so it should work well for you.

Alternatively, a fridge swap could work great for you.

You mention ice packs - is that for medical reasons? If so, you could get one in the room for medical reasons at no charge, I believe.

Good luck!

 

[sharadoc]

Hi to everyone who is asking about the spreadsheet. If you PM your e-mail address to me, I'll send it out to you.

I have it available in Corel Quattro and Microsoft Excel 97. That should work in any version of of Excel that you may have in Microsoft Office, or will also open in Microsoft Works.

Let me know which version you want. My plan is to update it over each weekend and send out a broadcast e-mail with the new version each week.

 

[jenjolt]

Hi Jen,

Cooler has worked for us MANY times. We are frugal on vacation. Here's a few ideas:

Bring ziploc bags and fill them with ice, rather than loose cubes in the cooler - much neater and don't melt as quickly, plus you don't have to worry about the cooler seeping/leaking.

Make sure someone in "in charge" of filling up the ice every day.

There is a thread in here somewhere about living out of a cooler - not sure if it was on the Budget Board or here on the Resorts Board, but it had a LOT of really good ideas for food to bring and strategies for refilling.

Remember, you're going to be there when it's cool, so you won't have as much of a strain on your cooler from the hot weather so it should work well for you.

Alternatively, a fridge swap could work great for you.

You mention ice packs - is that for medical reasons? If so, you could get one in the room for medical reasons at no charge, I believe.

Good luck!

Thank you for some great great tips I think I'm going to do the cooler and print off all these tips to add to my trusty binder LOL and do it that way. Now to call Disney (again LOL) and cancel the fridge for my room!!

AND GUESS WHAT CAME IN THE MAIL TODAY: My Maps that you wonderful people told me about. I love them, simply love them! They are such a cute collector's item!! I'm so excited to have them. HUGE THANKS to you guys for pointing me in the right direction to get my super cool and FREE maps!!

On a sadder note, I was just bit by a fire ant on my foot. Going to go rub some alcohol on it and start dinner! My friend is coming over to eat Mexican Lasagna and watch Little Women!

 

[sarbah77]

OMG I vanish for a week and you get 61 pages in a new thread?! Holy WOW!!!

Vacation to Atlanta: check
Trip to Parents: November 6-9
Surgery: November 14
Thanksgiving: sometime in November
Christmas break: 12/24-1/1/09

THEN EIGHT DAYS UNTIL DISNEY! WOOHOO!

My in-laws are still seriously considering it - looks like they're out for the same long weekend as my parents (...won't that be a trip!) and the marathon. I'm pretty geeked, still.

 

[Pinkdiamond816]

OK you seasoned snowbirds, I'm having some planning issues!
I just can't find enough time on my vacation to fit everything in! Sadly, I can't change my airfair either!
Alright so here's my biggest issue. I know I want to spend at least 5 hours in WS, but I can't settle on a good estimate of time to allot for Future world!.
If I arrive around 10am, how long do you think it will take me to ride the following: Soarin', TT, MS, Energy Adventure, Seas, Turtle Talk & Imagination?
What do the wait times usually peak at for these attractions?
Thanks!!

 

[Dancegrl624]

It's so quiet around here tonight! Well, I'm in the process of uploading some old trip photos to photobucket right now. I'll try to post some tonight!

 

[MindyLuvsMickey]

Ok my Mousersize friends. . .

*moved to the Jan Weightloss thread!*

 

[Dancegrl624]

My 1st Trip!! 1984 (age 2)

My older sis, me and my mom with Pluto

My grandparents, mom, older sister and me (in the stroller) at Epcot

Me and my mom with Tigger in the backround (her favorite)

Me and my mom with Mickey (I'm told he would not let go of me!)

Me and my mom with Pluto again!

 

[MindyLuvsMickey]

My 1st Trip!! 1984 (age 2)

My older sis, me and my mom with Pluto

My grandparents, mom, older sister and me (in the stroller) at Epcot

Me and my mom with Tigger in the backround (her favorite)

Me and my mom with Mickey (I'm told he would not let go of me!)

Me and my mom with Pluto again!

Look at that! Pluto hasn't changed one bit! You, however, have just a bit. Very cute pictures.


I'm looking for pictures but got sidetracked. I love looking throught my old pictures.

 

[trixiequilts]

OMG I vanish for a week and you get 61 pages in a new thread?! Holy WOW!!!

Vacation to Atlanta: check
Trip to Parents: November 6-9
Surgery: November 14
Thanksgiving: sometime in November
Christmas break: 12/24-1/1/09

THEN EIGHT DAYS UNTIL DISNEY! WOOHOO!

My in-laws are still seriously considering it - looks like they're out for the same long weekend as my parents (...won't that be a trip!) and the marathon. I'm pretty geeked, still.

Welcome back, hope you had a great trip. Looks like you got your surgery all scheduled, too. Will you be good to go 7 or 8 weeks after surgery? Hopefully yes, and here's some so you'll feel better than ever!

 

[Monny2AE]

MegHan- had to make sure it was spelled right for you
I love the childhood pics- that antiquated stroller and the 80's clothes made me laugh. My how times have changed! I'll have to dig out some of my old pics tomorrow! Thanks for sharing!

 

[mana_liz]

We have 9 days, so I plan on seeing Fantasmic, Wishes, Spectro, and Illumination. I love Spectro and Wishes so we may actually see them twice. We haven't seen the Water parade yet, but we plan to this trip. I want to watch Wishes from the beach, that sounds great.


We are also in a free fridge swap. We were going to buy a cheap cooler at Walmart, but decided to give this a try. Disney charges so much for the fridges at the value, not worth paying $10 a day. But I'm all for things that are free.

 

[kaos928]

If you're driving you could also see if anyone you know has a mini fridge you could just stick in the car. You could look on craigslist.org or probably get one at wal-mart for about what it would have cost to pay $10/day rental. More convenient that a cooler and that way you can use it for your next Disney trip, too!

 

[MindyLuvsMickey]

Here are some Disney related pictures from our last trip.
The view from our room at the Poly

DH and DS in line for Buzz

After his first Mickey bar

I am going to have to search for some of my old Disney pictures from my childhood trips.

 

[trixiequilts]

Could he be any cuter???