Laid back planners.... where ya at?! *DESPERADOS UNITE!*

[Pineapple Whip]

Ironically, I am currently following a semi-commando family (on the normal side) around the parks. This scheduling stuff is really painful, and the stacks of fastpasses are impressive, but we're still having a good time.

 

[mickeysaver]

We are most likely becoming regular WDW attending Deperados. We put in a bid on a house that we are hoping to have built for us in a small town about an hour away from the parks. I can't imagine what it's going to be like to be able to go get my pixie dust fix whenever I want. It boggles my mind.....in a very wicked awesome kind of a way.

 

[Pineapple Whip]

We are most likely becoming regular WDW attending Deperados. We put in a bid on a house that we are hoping to have built for us in a small town about an hour away from the parks. I can't imagine what it's going to be like to be able to go get my pixie dust fix whenever I want. It boggles my mind.....in a very wicked awesome kind of a way.

Congratulations!! Best wishes on the build.

 

[jaci-h]

We are most likely becoming regular WDW attending Deperados. We put in a bid on a house that we are hoping to have built for us in a small town about an hour away from the parks. I can't imagine what it's going to be like to be able to go get my pixie dust fix whenever I want. It boggles my mind.....in a very wicked awesome kind of a way.

I am extremely jealous! I told my husband we should do this and he scoffed at me because he loves being a Texan so much

 

[smileycrissy]

We are most likely becoming regular WDW attending Deperados. We put in a bid on a house that we are hoping to have built for us in a small town about an hour away from the parks. I can't imagine what it's going to be like to be able to go get my pixie dust fix whenever I want. It boggles my mind.....in a very wicked awesome kind of a way.

Yay! Good luck, I hope you do get the house. How exciting having the chance to not only own a house but be able to put some input on the design for it (or at least I imagine you'll be able to give some say on some of the stuff).

I know what you mean about being able to go when you want. I love being able to tell DF 'I feel like going on the Haunted Mansion right now' or 'Let's go see the Parade tonight'.

 

[jaci-h]

I love being able to tell DF 'I feel like going on the Haunted Mansion right now' or 'Let's go see the Parade tonight'.

I am green with envy right now!

 

[smileycrissy]

I am green with envy right now!

Uh-oh! I've upset the Queen. LOL.

We'll have to come up with a plan for the Pirate King to make him want to come more often. Maybe you guys can consider purchasing a condo (I've seen some 2 bedrooms go for like 60-70K) in the area instead of the DVC. I think DF says you get to write off the mortgage on your taxes (I'll ask him later to verify). It's not too bad if you think about it - what would the mortgage be, like $500-$600? And then you could rent it to family members from time to time.

Plus since you own property, you get the FL resident discounts.

I'm trying to convince my sister & brother-in-law into this plan in hopes that I'll be able to see them more often. Being so far from them all really makes me miss them.

 

[Happy Mom2]

I am a type A planner, and I envy the non-planners. My best friend is a non-planner. Last year, they were planning to go to Six Flags in Atlanta (I think), and somewhere on the drive over decided to go to Disney instead. They just drove down, found a hotel, and went to Disney. They had a great trip. Because they hadn't planned anything they didn't have any idea if they missed anything or not. They just had fun!

 

[nessz79]

Just wanted to join the club! We have a basic plan down for our December trip, but we won't be doing any 12 hour park days, we plan on taking frequent breaks at the hotel to swim or just relax, and we don't have a ride-by-ride itinerary. If we can't do it this time, we'll do it next time!

Love the thread!

 

[Pineapple Whip]

Welcome to the new members, I'm glad to see you survived heck week and the hazing. Put some aloe on that and it'll heal faster

Someone will get around to welcoming you eventually, as soon as one of us gets out of the pool and finds a computer.

Enjoy your time relaxing on vacation; remember to stop and enjoy yourselves. I know it's hard to do and a foreign concept, but you'll survive.

If you want one of the green pirate thingy's in your sig, refer to: http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=37639647&postcount=52 Just copy the code, edit the brackets as described, leave your current sig in place, or wipe it out, or add something new, or do whatever you feel like. Surprise us, we like living on the edge.

If we ever get around to calling roll one day, we'll understand if you miss it.

It's understandable if you take the entire stack of alien green paint samples at home depot; we're too laid back to make unnecessary trips to home depot, and they'll get more.

 

[Lillian Gracey]

I was a type A planner up until my boyfriend smacked some sense into me. I had plans to have dinner ADRs every day and stuff like that. Now, I only have 2-4 ADRs planned. 2 of the ADRs are for special occasions (anniversary and birthday), 1 is because I'm not sure I can go to it as a walk-in and the last one is the Fantasmic! package, but I'm not sure if I will do it.

The only other things I'm planning are what days to do what parks and what days we will relax/go mini-golfing, etc. and that's it. It'll probably be up to my boyfriend if he wants to get up early or not. If I get up and he tells me he wants to sleep in, then I guess I'm sleeping in.

We are gonna try and take it easy and get the most of each day. We have park hoppers so we can hop from one park to another if we wanted to.

 

[Pineapple Whip]

Desperado tip for bosses, blackberries, etc...:

Separate your work phone and pleasure phone. If you're on vacation, leave your work phone locked in your desk, with the loudest ringer set. It's amazing how much more relaxing your vacation is if you don't use your phone, and the only people who can contact you are those that matter.

Google voice is a good tool for blocking annoying people and forwarding the calls you want to your actual phone. If your work phone is your personal phone, get a google voice number and give that to the annoying people who want your phone number. You can then group, block, or disable forwarding on them as you need.

A little work in the beginning, but you get to install an on / off switch on the annoying callers in your life.

 

[Lillian Gracey]

Desperado tip for bosses, blackberries, etc...:

Separate your work phone and pleasure phone. If you're on vacation, leave your work phone locked in your desk, with the loudest ringer set. It's amazing how much more relaxing your vacation is if you don't use your phone, and the only people who can contact you are those that matter.

Google voice is a good tool for blocking annoying people and forwarding the calls you want to your actual phone. If your work phone is your personal phone, get a google voice number and give that to the annoying people who want your phone number. You can then group, block, or disable forwarding on them as you need.

A little work in the beginning, but you get to install an on / off switch on the annoying callers in your life.

My boyfriend has a work phone that isn't one of those fancy dancy blackberries/iphones, etc. It's a slide up phone from verizon that work gave him. He does HVAC so the phone is for customers to call/get address for places he needs to go to/etc. Should he just leave that in the hotel or leave or leave it at home? Or should he take it along with him to the parks? He probably won't be needing it since we will be a little over 1200 miles from home.

 

[Hallowishes]

im happy to be a new member of the laid back club. after my last trip, ive sworn off my planning and re-planning and oh wait! the parks hours have changed again so lets take another look at those ADR's! I will be returning to the world in january and have another trip in september. i dont have to see and do everything this trip. THERE WILL BE A NEXT TIME!

 

[Pineapple Whip]

I was a type A planner up until my boyfriend smacked some sense into me. I had plans to have dinner ADRs every day and stuff like that. Now, I only have 2-4 ADRs planned. 2 of the ADRs are for special occasions (anniversary and birthday), 1 is because I'm not sure I can go to it as a walk-in and the last one is the Fantasmic! package, but I'm not sure if I will do it.

The only other things I'm planning are what days to do what parks and what days we will relax/go mini-golfing, etc. and that's it. It'll probably be up to my boyfriend if he wants to get up early or not. If I get up and he tells me he wants to sleep in, then I guess I'm sleeping in.

We are gonna try and take it easy and get the most of each day. We have park hoppers so we can hop from one park to another if we wanted to.

Happy Birthday, because I'll forget it 6 months from now.

Tip: Coordinate your late nights at Jellyrolls, drinking responsibly from 8pm-2am, with your sleep-in the following day. You wake up with that relaxed feeling and wanting a big breakfast. I wish I could've done my "legal drink" at Jellyrolls. Eat big before you go, then booze, water, booze, water... You don't want to look stupid at JR, so stop after 8 or 12 drinks. You don't want to miss the rest of the show or get a ride home from security.

The only park I endorse early days on is AK. The animals and staff are fresher, and the park closes really early. Yak and Yeti has great food.

DHS (MGM) is a commando dream since it's a lot of scheduled shows. We despise this park somewhat, but tolerate it as the shows are okay, the muppets are there, and sometimes there's something stupid in the street that makes you laugh.

The other two parks are pretty much whatever, and a Desperado can walk or sit aimlessly enjoying frosty, sugary, meatyness and booze.

 

[Lillian Gracey]

Thank you so much!

I want to go to JellyRolls! I hear it is so much fun! I'm definitely gonna go there some of the days after my birthday because I'm going to the bar at Ragalans with my boyfriend and one of my friends.

I definitely won't be drinking much. If I can resist the home brew that my boyfriend's cousin makes and not take advantage of the fact that my boyfriend is plenty old enough to buy me drinks, I think I will be pretty good. Plus, I made a bet with my mom that I will remember my birthday and trip. She thinks I will "fall flat on my face drunk like every other person who turns 21."

I'll make a note to do an Early EMH for AK.

As for MGM, we will get there at RD because we want to get to TSM. We aren't gonna get fastpasses because it's probably easier to hop in line than to fight people to get fastpasses. As for the shows, we will play those by ear. We are for sure going to do Light Motors Action because my boyfriend really wants to see it. I just saw The Lion King on Broadway so I'm not worried about seeing TFOTLK and I'm seeing Beauty and the Beast on Broadway two weeks before I leave for my trip so I'm not worried about that either.

We will be there from April 30th to May 8th so we have plenty of time do stuff.

Thank you for wonderful tips! I want to have a general idea of what I want to do so I'm not wandering around aimlessly and wasting time trying to figure things out, but I don't want hour by hour or minute by minute plans. It's my boyfriend's first trip so I want him to get the most out of it without having to make a billion plans.

 

[Pineapple Whip]

My boyfriend has a work phone that isn't one of those fancy dancy blackberries/iphones, etc. It's a slide up phone from verizon that work gave him. He does HVAC so the phone is for customers to call/get address for places he needs to go to/etc. Should he just leave that in the hotel or leave or leave it at home? Or should he take it along with him to the parks? He probably won't be needing it since we will be a little over 1200 miles from home.

Assuming he has another phone for personal use in the world, and his boss doesn't have an agreement with him to reach him on it while on vacation, put it under the rules of business etiquette:

• Out of office email autoreply with contact info for the rest of his team.
  
• Record a voicemail message on cell and landline with contact info for the rest of his team.

Ditch the business phones if they annoy you (and you're not like a doctor or something life threatening). If you have to be reachable, make plans you can live with.

I explained the situation to my boss and left him my personal cell number, with an agreement that he should only call it if all hell was breaking loose and he had no choice. He was also not to give that number out to anyone else. I also trusted him to that extent, unlike other bosses in that chain of command. Depending on what was going on at work, I ditched my blackberry at home / work, or left it in my suitcase / safe with the ringer off. I vowed to only check it in the evenings, and if I forgot, oh well. I think I checked the thing once every few days on vacation. My bane was more email than phone calls... but the phone calls were the most poisonous if they occurred. Not because of my boss, but because of the idiots charged with calling me after hours.

Most bosses respect uninterrupted vacations and special requests if they're reasonable and you talk it over with them. All in all, most of my problems were poor implementation of things by my bosses. However most of my aggravation was that the idiots carrying out those instructions outnumbered the competant people on the team.

 

[Pineapple Whip]

Thank you so much!

...because I'm going to the bar at Ragalans with my boyfriend and one of my friends.

Whiskey heaven, but don't miss the bread pudding and scallops.

 

[Lillian Gracey]

I'll tell him what you said.

His manager is an idiot though. She will tell him to go on break and then talk to him throughout his whole break and say, "Oh. I just talked through your break didn't I?" I swear she is on her period 24/7!

Last week (or two weeks ago) he asked if he could leave early on this past Tuesday so he could get his sport bike down to his friend's house to put in his friend's trailer before it got dark (he was going down with them to Indiana for a track weekend) and so he could change my mom's van's front brakes. She said that would be fine. That Tuesday, she ended up telling him that he couldn't leave early.

There are so many other bad stories about her. The two other guys that he works with told him a lot of guys have quit because of her. He started this new job in August.

I don't trust his manager at all, but hopefully everything will be good. He does have his own personal phone that he could be reached with.

Bread pudding and scallops sounds awesome! We are definitely gonna try a lot of new things. My boyfriend will eat anything. Even bricks.

 

[nessz79]

Happy Birthday, because I'll forget it 6 months from now.

Tip: Coordinate your late nights at Jellyrolls, drinking responsibly from 8pm-2am, with your sleep-in the following day. You wake up with that relaxed feeling and wanting a big breakfast. I wish I could've done my "legal drink" at Jellyrolls. Eat big before you go, then booze, water, booze, water... You don't want to look stupid at JR, so stop after 8 or 12 drinks. You don't want to miss the rest of the show or get a ride home from security.

The only park I endorse early days on is AK. The animals and staff are fresher, and the park closes really early. Yak and Yeti has great food.

DHS (MGM) is a commando dream since it's a lot of scheduled shows. We despise this park somewhat, but tolerate it as the shows are okay, the muppets are there, and sometimes there's something stupid in the street that makes you laugh.

The other two parks are pretty much whatever, and a Desperado can walk or sit aimlessly enjoying frosty, sugary, meatyness and booze.

Oh my gosh, I love this thread! I have so much to learn...er...not learn? I'm still trying to get a grip on this whole laid-back thing, but I like it!