Last time for ages. Honest!!! No really... PTR!!

[wdw_nutz]

Hi everyone!

Despite my challenges with modern technology, I'm going to try and do a Pre-Trip Report. I'm hoping having an outlet for my excitement and planning will stop me boring people stupid!

Now, I don't know how to post links so I'm afraid I'm just gonna have to add updates to the end of whatever comes before (unless one of you would like to show me? ) and I've just watched the video tutorial about posting photos so we'll see how that goes!

OK so here are the cast....

This is Hayley and me on our trip last year.

Hayley

From: Mold, North Wales, UK
Age: 30
Trips to WDW: 1

Hayley is my partner, we've been together for just over 2 years and she's the one in the turquoise top with the Minnie ears. She had no idea I had a master plan to infect her wih the Disney bug!! I took her to Disneyland Paris in January 2010 to guage her reaction as she'd never been to a Disney park before. She loved it and so we jumped right in with 2 weeks in Orlando in September/October last year! She's definitely a massive fan now and is excited to go back. (Not as excited as me, but I said she was a fan, not an addict! In the real world she's a nurse in Intensive Care in a hospital here in Wales, she's awesome at her job and works incrediably hard for long shifts. I'm so proud of her and can't wait to spoil her in Orlando again!

Diane

From: Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
Age: 27, turning 28 mid-trip!

Then there's me, in the pink Tink top and the massive grin. I've been to WDW a few times now, in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2010... Not nearly as often as I'd like as it's so bloomin' expensive from the UK. But I know I'm soooo lucky to have been and to be going again! When not dreaming of Disney, I teach piano, flute, saxophone, clarinet and singing privately and I love being my own boss. My pupils play far more Disney music than most others I think, but hey, any repertoire can be teaching repertoire, right??

Trip Background

So, last year we had a great time and although we wanted to come again in 2011, the finances just weren't going to work out and there was no way we could pull it off. Last year we spent 2 weeks in Saratoga Springs, with 14 day park hoppers and free dining which we upgraded to deluxe. We went to MNSSHP and did a resort photoshoot at the Polynesian. We didn't go off property at all, partly because there was so much to see at Disney but also because it was too expensive! The downsides of our trip were that I had a killer infected tooth and was in serious pain for the first week of the trip. Then I picked up a nasty cold and felt really awful from the first weekend onwards. And to really top things off, on our last afternoon I realised that I had lost an SD card from my digital camera, and had lost 790 pictures from our trip. They were the best ones, including the Halloween party, the baby gorilla at AK and basically all the decent pics of us and of our time there. I was totally destroyed - I knew that logically the memories were the most important thing but I love scrapbooking and framing pics, and I felt there was no point in doing either as I had very few decent photos. Sad Dee.

But anyway, roll on January and what did I spot on the website?? An **amazing** offer for trips in 2011... So I did some costing, and some cajoling and general puppy-dog eyes until we agreed on a plan.

We would book the trip and pay the deposit. If we saved the money, great, we would go. But if we didn't, then we would cancel and have to accept that.

(A couple pictures from the Resort Photoshoot to break up the text - sorry I'm a bit long-winded!)

So what offer did we get? Remember this was in the UK and our offers are way different to those in the US...

40% off at Old Key West
14 days Ultimate ticket (Park Hoppers and Water Parks and More) for price of 7 days
Free dining

Seriously, how could we refuse??

So there you have it, the rough details of the trip. Ooo, except you don't know the dates!!

3rd November - travel from Cardiff to London, UK
4th November - fly Virgin Atlantic to MCO
***2 weeks in OKW
18th November - check out and fly overnight back to UK. Boooo!!!

So how are the savings going? What about the flights? What do you mean you've UPGRADED your dining??? And the most important question of all, what are we doing on my birthday?? (13th Nov)

More soon! (And I have no doubt Hayley will chip in - she's way better at writing these things than me ) Also, can someone tell me how to resize the photos so they aren't so big?? That option doesn't seem to be available on photobucket like it was in the tutorial video!

D
xx

 

[Sapper383]

Great start, can't wait to hear the rest of your plans

 

[ariel_]

Hello! Your plans are looking great so far! I think that you have done really well with the pictures despite claiming to be a technophobe! I'm not sure why you can't resize them on Photobucket - when I do it I click on edit -> resize -> preset sizes and usually choose medium or large. And make sure to save before you go on to next picture as I keep forgetting that and ending up with supersize photos!

Looking forward to hearing more of your plans!

 

[wdw_nutz]

Hi both of you! Thanks for commenting on my pre-trippie - I got really excited when I saw I had some replies so thanks very much!

And I will try with the re-sizing photos thing - maybe it will be a stretch for my computer skills but I'll do my best.

OK so on with the plans.

First of all, the savings are going great and so now it's DEFINITE that we're going. So. Excited!!! Hayley and I have both managed to save the £150 each per month necessary to pay off the final Disney bill scared1 and I managed to get 6 weeks of supply teaching work before Christmas which paid our flights for us. In theory, she should have paid her own flight but I love her so I'll let her off! We booked really early with Virgin because we thought the prices would go up if we waited. Boy am I glad we did, they flights are now £622 per person, and I paid around £480, so altogether they would have cost me an extra £280!! That money is definitely better spent elsewhere.

So we probably won't have much spending money but with the package we've got it won't be too much of an issue, I hope. So, we happily began booking meals online (which was new to us - I'd never done it before but I really enjoyed the experience!) and settled on the following ADR's with our DDP...:

Donald's Safari Breakfast
Liberty Tree Tavern
Le Cellier
50's Prime Time Cafe
'Ohana
Whispering Canyon
1900 Park Fare
Boma
Cape May Cafe
Grand Floridian Cafe
Yak and Yeti
The Wave (breakfast)
Cinderella's Royal Table (breakfast on my birthday)

So we were pretty pleased with that selection. Then we started thinking about all the other restaurants we would like to eat in, but would have to pay OOP (a bit of a problem), and also about the other meals that wouldn't be covered by our dining plan. Although breakfast isn't the best use of the plan, we really enjoy all the breakfasts and want to go to them regardless, which means we have to pay OOP or use the TS credit for the day, meaning we have to pay OOP later. Hmm, what to do.

Sooo, after a lot of debate, and sums (including considering ordering groceries) we decided that it was NOT economical to upgrade to the deluxe plan - even adding in everything else we would have to buy like refillable mugs, extra drinks, breakfast stuff when we hadn't booked one etc.

OK, decision made. No deluxe plan. Plus, we had also discussed the fact that last year, I put on 15 lbs in 2 weeks in WDW. And, what's worse, it's now 11 months later and I still haven't managed to lose it. Hayley put on no weight on vacation despite the amount we ate, but has since put on weight (whilst trying to lose it ) and she's not happy about that either.

But ohhhh, there are so many amazing restaurants.... And we *did* get the basic dining plan free so upgrading it means paying a bit, but it's still a great deal... And we'd have to mess around with having cash to pay for stuff, and would always be thinking about choosing the cheapest thing on the menu... And, and, and, and....

So yup, you guessed it, we upgraded!! Well, we haven't actually told Disney yet, but we will. I like to save the phone calls for days when I'm feeling down or lonely *** they always cheer me up!!

So we added some extra meals to our plans, and in fact we're still adding some this week so we get to try as many awesome restaurants as possible. We will spend a lot of time eating, that's true, but seeing as it's just the 2 of us we can do what we want and not have to please anyone else. In a later update I'll tell you which restaurants we booked, when I go through our planned schedule for each day.

Here's a couple little pictures (hopefully!!) to see if re-sizing works...

Us on EE (LOVE that ride) and me with Cinderella at Akershus.

So there we are - our mission to not upgrade the dining didn't work but we are really excited about all the awesome meals. As for the weight thing... Hmm that's more of an issue. Hayley walks all the time so I think that's why she didn't gain any weight, but I can't walk far so have to use an ECV. Calories + sitting = weight gain! Plus, a lot of the clothes I want to take with me don't fit at the moment so I need to try really hard to get down again before I go. So on that note - off to the gym we go!! (I can't do much but I try!)

D
xx

 

[ebrill29]

Hi there

I am Hayley, the Welsh one, and I thought I ought to contribute a little to our PTR... since I'm going too!

We've got exactly ten weeks until our vacation begins, and I know for a FACT that Diane (Miss wdw_nutz) has already started packing. I have spied a box under the spare bed that contains some suspiciously holiday-centric items.

I'm not a great planner. It's hard for me to decide what restaurants I want to eat at in six months time, because I would usually only book a meal with a few days notice. However, as Diane has said, we have booked most of our dining now (a few gaps to fill, but then I did really enjoy some of the counter service meals we had last time...) which means that a degree of timetabling has been done.

Last year, I found the timetabling pretty tedious. But I had to admit that we had a better holiday because of it- having an idea where we're planning to be each day really helped give us a focus, and, I suspect saved us from a few *heated discussions* in which I wanted to go to my favourite park (AK), and Diane wanted us to experience the other three a little bit more. I can be stubborn, so the planning helped.

So this year, we've timetabled again, and... on the first morning we're doing something unheard of (to Diane) and going to the Animal Kingdom. We are also going to the Magic Kingdom later that day, but Diane's tradition is that MK is the first and last park she's in. So this year will have a different feel to it- breaking tradition. I like it

I'll stop there, and let Diane continue her altogether less waffly report

 

[wdw_nutz]

Hi,

Time to start describing our actual plans, day to day, although I hope this won't be too boring for anyone reading along... not that I think there are very many of you!

OK so here's the plan for our arrival day.

Friday 4th November

Our flight doesn't land until 4.45pm, and we will be getting the Magical Express to Old Key West. So I'm estimating an hour to get around and out of the airport, and another hour ish to get to the hotel... so hopefully we'll be able to check in around 7pm. We have a dinner reservation at 8.30pm so we should have plenty of time to freshen up and head to Olivia's. It's the table service restaurant at OKW (for those that haven't heard of it) so we don't have far to go. I'm hoping to head back to the room around 10ish so we can get a good nights' sleep!

Saturday 5th November

So as Hayley said earlier, traditionally my first full day in the World is spent in the Magic Kingdom. However, this is the park to avoid on the 5th, with high crowds and so she persuaded me to alter tradition and go to the Animal Kingdom first. I'm still having mixed feelings about this, I don't feel like I'm in Disney World until I've set eyes on the castle! Anyway, we're starting off our day with breakfast at Tusker House at 8.20am so you can see why we needed that early night... I'm planning for us to get the bus around 7.30am.

After breakfast we're going to get fastpasses for Everest and then head on Kilimanjaro Safaris, hopefully the early hour will mean we get a good view of some animal activity! I reckon we'll probably stroll through some of the animal trails after that, and then head over to Everest. We don't have everything planned down to the last second (Hayley would KILL me if I tried that!!) so we'll just enjoy ourselves for the rest of the morning and probably a little into the afternoon, picking up a counter service lunch when/if we feel hungry again. We both like Pizzafari and I love the Flame Tree BBQ so probably one of these, but to be honest with a big breakfast earlier and dinner at 6ish I reckon another meal would be too much so we may just have a snack instead.

We're going to leave the Animal Kingdom around 2pm to head back to OKW for a nap.

Later we're going to the Magic Kingdom! We're going to have dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern at 6.10pm, and then it's EMH until 1am. Hopefully we'll have had enough of a rest earlier to take advantage of these. The Main Street Electrical Parade is at 9pm and Wishes is at 10pm, I think it would be nice to watch these on our first evening as we both love them so much. I guess The Magic, The Memories and You will be on around 9.40pm so all 3 together would be a great welcome to Disney! Top of our list of attractions for our first evening is It's a Small World, because last time we visited it was closed. It was Hayley's favourite attraction in Disneyland Paris and so this is what happened in Orlando:

Awww! So I'll take her over there first of all I think. I'd also like to do BTMRR and the TTA as these were things we loved from last time, plus they are awesome in the dark! Actually our favourite time to ride BTMRR is during the fireworks, if you time it right then it's really awesome. But of course we can't be watching them on Main Street AND on Big Thunder.... Hm.

Anyway that's pretty much it for the first day - we'll get the bus home (with all the other thousands of people ) and head to bed. Oooo I can't wait for our first day!

Sunday 6th

We're expecting to have had quite a late night the previous evening so we're going to have a late morning and then over to Epcot for around 11am. We're planning to have lunch at Le Cellier at 12, so the latest we want to be arriving is 11.30am. (Last year we had a few stressful experiences arriving late at Epcot and having to march full speed to the restaurants, many times on the other side of World Showcase! NOT a magical experience.) I've eaten at Le Cellier before, in 2007 but it's Hayley's first time. We both have to remember NOT to have the steak (there's a reason for this!) and I'm looking forward to the Cheddar Cheese Soup! Yum.

Hopefully on our way to lunch we will have picked up fastpasses for Soarin' and over the next few hours we will explore Epcot, maybe hitting Fast Track, Soarin' and Living With the Land (which I really enjoy even though it's not anything too exciting). We also both enjoy spending time viewing the aquarium and watching the dolphins, plus on our last trip we missed our Turtle Talk with Crush so I'd like to take Hayley to see that. Then we're going to walk round World Showcase taking in some sights and smells, and slowly head over to the Beach Club Resort where we're having dinner at the Yachtsman Steakhouse at 7.30pm. See why we shouldn't have steak at lunch time? Neither of us have been to this restaurant so it will be exciting for us both to try it.

We may or may not catch some of Illuminations on the way back through the park - Hayley wasn't too mad about it although I quite enjoy it. I'm sure if I ask her she'll let me stop to see it! Alternatively we might catch a bus to DTD from the restaurant and then a boat back to OKW, that might be a calmer and less stressful end to the day than charging through the crowds at Epcot to then get to crowded bus stops with lots of people. Mmm, I know Hayley would prefer that and I'm all about making my girl happy! And if I'm good she might let me have a little peak at one of the shops in DTD on the way through... Only if I'm really good though! Lol.

 

[wdw_nutz]

So after a break from updates, here we go with the next few days. Although no one is following along anyway so I guess it's just for my own enjoyment - I must be doing something wrong because hardly anyone has read any of this! Story of my life.

So onwards...

Monday 7th November

This is quite a food-fest of a day, starting with Kona Cafe for breakfast at 8.05am. I suspect we'll end up taking a cab to the Polynesian - I doubt either of us will be able to be at the bus stop at 7.15 to make the journey! I'm sooo excited about trying the Tonga Toast, I've been hearing rave reviews for years but havne't been to have some yet. We've been to the Kona Cafe before and although the food was awesome, the service was HORRENDOUS so I'm hoping we'll get on better this time around!

The Magic Kingdom opens at 9am but we're not in a rush to make rope drop - in fact I would happily avoid it. I don't like the stampede and find the whole thing unnecessary and stressful - does it matter if you wait 5 or 10 mins more?? I know it's exciting for some but I'm not one of them so I'll happily sit in Kona and then get the monorail over there around 9.30.

We don't have a specific plan for this day at the Magic Kingdom - we'll just see what comes our way! It's a crowd level 1.7 so I'm hoping it will be pretty quiet. I don't want to start with big rides seeing as we'll just have eaten so I think we might head over the the Riverboat first. I've never been on this so I'm looking forward to it.

For lunch we're booked in to Tony's Town Square. Last year I enjoyed this, but Hayley wasn't a big fan... We were crushed in a small corner and dinner was very very rushed. It was the start of the MNSSHP so they were trying to get people in and out as fast as possible! I'm pretty good at ignoring that but it annoyed her a bit. Hopefully it won't be so bad this time.

At some point in the afternoon we'll probably head back to the hotel for a sleep and/or swim, I want us to be well rested for the evening. Can't say too much about what I have planned here (just in case she's reading!) but Hayley celebrated her 30th earlier in the year so although it's not her actual birthday (and I don't intend to pretend that it is!!) I thought it would be nice to celebrate the milestone for her.

So yeah, we'll shower and change into something pretty and then head back towards the Magic Kingdom. It closes at 8pm so it won't be a late night. Grand Floridian Cafe is up for dinner - wow we're gonna be stuffed that day! Excited though.

More later - piano pupil time! And you know, if you're reading - say hi! It's kinda lonely and echo-y in here!!

 

[wdw_nutz]

Tuesday 8th November

Hollywood Studios day!! This is our least favourite of the 4 parks so we're going to spend the day here and then see whether or not we want to go back another day.

We're going to try and get to the park pretty early, maybe getting the bus about 8.30am. Here's our to-do list for the day:

Voyage of the Little Mermaid
Toy Story x lots
Rock n Roller Coaster x lots
One Man's Dream
Animation Academy
Star Tours (Me only, Hayley hates simulators )
Countdown to Fun Parade (We've heard it's rubbish but we'd like to judge for ourselves!)

I think that's it, although we may pick up some other stuff while we're there.

We're going to have breakfast at Starring Rolls, and then we have lunch booked at 50's Prime Time at 1.30pm. We both loved it last year, the milkshakes are amazing and seeing as neither of us live near to our families, we both felt quite emotional about being looked after by "family!". We had an awesome server and the whole experience was fantastic.

So we'll take things easy and enjoy the park, using FP to get on TSM hopefully twice. Then the evening is pretty free and clear - I might have a little something up my sleeve but we'll see. Hayley doesn't like going to Downtown Disney in the evening because she finds it a bit stressful, but she might come with me for an hour or so. We haven't got a meal booked so when/if we get hungry we'll pick something up at some point.

Any suggestions for the evening? I think we'll probably chill out at the resort, enjoy some pool time if it's warm enough and maybe get an early night. The next day is a very early start so it'll do us good!

 

[wdw_nutz]

We've changed our minds about not booking a meal on the evening of the 8th Nov and now we have Boatwright's Dining Hall booked. I tinker endlessly with ADR's but I'm always careful to cancel the ones we don't need so that someone else can take advantage of them.

So we had a bit of a problem with the WDTC, you see last week I called to do our dining upgrade and was told we couldn't upgrade because it's past the booking time for the free dining. Huh? I knew that, I wasn't expecting it free, but we wanted to pay for the upgrade... They suggested I emailed the WDTC UK and got them to make the ammendment. I did, and there was no answer.

So I emailed again. And there was no answer. Then I emailed the international address and lo and behold, someone called me back the same day! So not only are we now upgrading the dining plan, but it's actually costing less than I expected to do so! It's £410 instead of the £520 I had expected. Whoop whoop!!!

Anyway, on to our next day plans...

9th November

SeaWorld day!!

I haven't been to SW since 2007, and Hayley hasn't been at all, so it's an exciting trip. We think we'll get a cab over there, the bus just seems too complicated with the ECV. So we'll hopefully arrive at 9am, and there's so much I want to see here it will be hard to fit it all in. I heard the new One Ocean show isn't as good as Believe, (although I actually liked the one before that better!) but we'll go see it anyway, and I love CLyde and Seamore take pirate island. The dolphin show is cute too, although a little cheesy (OK a LOT cheesy!) but I think Hayley will like it. I'm so excited to take her there! I need to be aware that she doesn't like sitting in the sun for a long time, and she needs frequent rests and drinks. I tend not to remember about the rests thing - because I can't walk very far and use the ECV everywhere it means I forget how hard it is for her. But I'll try and remember because SW can be a very hot and very tiring park.

In the evening we're going to get a cab back to Wilderness Lodge, for our dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe. I'm not sure what Hayley will think of this one because it's loud and sometimes a little annoying! Hopefully she'll be in a good mood and will be ready to have some fun. The reservation is for 6.45pm, which may cut our day at SeaWorld a little short, but I think that's better than being totally tired out and too sleepy to eat. We're aiming for Rope Drop the next day so it will be back to the resort and to bed ASAP after dinner! (Another cab probably? Man this will get expensive!)

10th November

EMH at the Magic Kingdom! We may or may not make it for this, and to be honest I'm not too bothered one way or the other. It would be cool to try, if we're in the mood for it, but if sleep seems more important then that's cool too. We have a reservation at 'OHanna for breakfast at 10.15, and I'm really excited about this one because I've heard awesome things about it and it looks like a lot of fun! The logic behind this late breakfast is that we won't need lunch, maybe just a snack to tide us over.

The MK has a low crowd rating this day (2.3) so I'm looking forward to a slow wandering day in the park. We both love to people watch, and some of our best memories from the last trip were when we just took some time out to smell the roses. (Metaphorically speaking - we never actually went in the Rose Garden!) I would love to take a trip up Main Street in the horse-drawn carriage as this is something I've never done and I love horses. I'd like to visit some of the telephones on Main Street that have specially recorded messages, and I'd also love to go meet Tink which is something else I've never done!

I think we'll leave around 2pm to head back to our resort for a lovely long nap, and maybe a trip to the pool if we feel like it. It may be a little chilly in November but we both enjoy swimming, and in particular we both love the hot tubs! In the evening we have reservations at Artist's Point for 7.55pm so we have plenty of time to get back over to the Magic Kingdom and then onwards to Wilderness Lodge.

Ooops - do you see the silly mistake in our touring plans?? Wilderness Lodge 2 nights in a row! Doh!! Oh well, these things happen. Hopefully it won't be too much of a drama. Depending on how the finances are going, we have several options for the return to OKW: 1) another taxi as I'm expecting it to be around 9.30 by this time 2) boat back to MK and join the madness to get the bus to OKW 3) bus to Downtown Disney and get a bus from there, or a boat. That will take around an hour I expect, and we have another early start coming up... I suspect it will end up being a taxi! Ouch!

Nevermind, we are saving up for the trip a lot and so I hope we'll have enough in our budget to do the taxis and the tips. So many hidden costs at WDW! maybe renting a car would be cheaper? Mm will look into it!

Thanks for reading!

 

[wdw_nutz]

November 11th

Two meals booked this day:

The Wave 8.30am

Sanaa 1pm

We went to the Wave last year and absolutely fell in love with the sweet potato pancakes. So much in fact, that we have made them many, many times here! So we're excited to go back and have them again. I always make the mistake of ordering with bacon, what is it with all the bacon on property? Bleugh! Hayley has much more sense and orders sausage so I'm going to follow her lead on that.

The Magic Kingdom crowd level is only 1.3 for the 11th, so we thought we'd wander over there after breakfast and do what we love doing! Then we're going to catch a bus to AKL. We looovvvveee this resort and that's why we're visiting it so many times.

The afternoon was marked for a sleep followed by a trip to Epcot but... it's a 9.8!! Ehhhh I think not. So we haven't got anything planned for after lunch and to be honest I'm pretty happy with that. We can take as much time as AKL as we like, and then the rest of the day can be a wait-and-see. Hayley is keen to do Characters in Flight, and I'm happy with that so we may head to DTD and see what it's like over there. But my baby hates those crowded shops so if it's busy we're outta there!

I really fancy trying a sundae from Ghiradelli's (sp??) so that might be an evening snack, and then I think a nice walk/scoot along the path pack to OKW would be lovely.

 

[DisFanJen]

Wow! Great PTR so far. Makes mine look pretty puny.

Can't wait to hear more...

 

[wdw_nutz]

November 12th

Another chilled out morning!

I told Hayley it was OK to have ice-cream for breakfast in Disney World so she wanted me to take her somewhere that was possible! So we're heading to the 1900 Park Fare breakfast in the Grand Floridian. Breakfast is booked for 10.25 so we can have as late a night as we want the day before as we're not in a big rush on this morning. I think I'd like to have a little time to wander around the resort and take some pictures, it's not somewhere I've spent a lot of time and I've heard there are lots of details to be seen here.

This weekend is going to be pretty packed at WDW, and the 12th is estimated as a crowd level 10. I've never seen crowds like that at Disney so I'm a little apprehensive... Although because we have 2 weeks we don't need to stress about doing everything in one day per park. So in our schedule we have put that we're going to head to AK in the afternoon, but if it's mighty packed then we may not. I think we'll use the lines app to tell us more about the wait times over there, in theory we should be able to use the new free wifi in the Grand Flo to get either the iphone or the ipad online to see whether or not the queues are crazy.

In the evening we have a reservation at Boma. Have you spotted the schedule fail again?? 2 days in a row at AKL! Doh! Well this will be an evening trip and I have some romantic notion of having dinner and then sitting in the rocking chairs with a hot chocolate... I don't know how realistic that is but it sounds nice to me! We want to get an early night so we need to head off sharp-ish back to DTD and then to OKW. I hope the journey doesn't take too long!

November 13th

Guess what??? Today is my BIRTHDAY!!! Happy birthday to meeee!!

So I booked to have breakfast in the castle with Cinderella. Yes, I'm a big kid! We have a reservation at 8.35am so I'm hoping to arrive early to get some birthday photos on Main Street without masses of people around. I know we won't be out of the castle at rope drop but that's OK with me - the herd of people are welcome to beat me to the attractions!

Now this day has kinda got a little messed up. The plan was to have breakfast and then Hayley was in charge of planning until the evening, when we would go to MVMCP. The only rule was that I need a sleep in the afternoon. So she dutifully went about planning the day, and had a few surprises up her sleeve... However having done some reading, she's realised that the thing she had planned for us to do isn't exactly what she thought it was. She wanted to do one of the MK tours, I'm not sure the name of it, but it turns out that that tour is actually more of a scavanger hunt for kids. Not quite what we had in mind!

So I'm not really sure what we're going to do on my birthday! Hayley has booked somewhere for dinner at 5.30pm, but now we're not even sure if we want to go to the Christmas party on that day! Will it be too much of a rush?? Will the lines for everything be massive if we arrive around 7? Will it be chaos getting in as everyone else is coming out??

But if we don't go on the 13th, the only other available day is the 15th, what if it's raining that night and everything gets cancelled? Then we have to come home and so won't have seen the party at all!

Agh I don't know what to do. I think in the middle of day we'll head to the Spa at Saratoga Springs and have a couples massage - wow I better book that soon! Then we would head to the hotel for a rest, followed by the dinner (and I genuinely don't know where we're going!!) and then either the party or something else. So exciting!!

November 14th

Back to AKL again! Lol. This time it's for breakfast at 10.15 and so I assume it's another taxi as getting buses from DTD at that time in the morning won't be easy, I imagine. After breakfast we're heading to Typhoon Lagoon providing the weather is warm enough!

Hayley LOVED the wave pool last year and literally could have spent hours in it. Neither of us really cared for the flumes, getting up all those stairs is a big no-no for me and so after 2 or 3 I felt really ill.

But we didn't check out the snorkelling part of the park and that looks kinda fun, plus we both quite liked the lazy river. So I think as long as it's warm enough, we'll happily have a few hours here. And I can snooze in the sun if I'm not enjoying the wave pool!

In the evening we have an entirely new experience planned and one that I'm really excited about! We are going to the Clam Bake at Cape May Cafe for 7pm. I've wanted to eat here for years so I'm looking forward to it! Then we're going to head to the Boardwalk and check out Jellyrolls.

As I've said, I'm a piano teacher and so I love the idea of the duelling pianos. We had planned this exact evening last year but instead we had a massive row and I stormed off to DTD and left her at Saratoga... That definitely won't happen this year though - we've both grown out of stupid rows thankfully! I can't even remember what we fought about.

I don't want to stay at Jellyrolls mega-late - I'm not into late night pubs/clubs/drinking at all. Hayley and I are very boring and hardly ever drink alchohol (we're not against it, jsut don't like the taste much!) so we may have a cocktail or too but I doubt it. We're happier on the non-al variety. Boring or what??

We've already started the packing process because we are both stupidly busy between now and departure day. I'm working every day until we leave, and we're up in Scotland from Thursday this week until Sunday and have to charge back to Cardiff in the car (8 hours) becuase I'm conducting that evening in a concert! Then working Mon - Wed and leave on Thursday. Utter chaos!

Hayley has already chosen everything she's taking to wear and looks pretty in her outfits.

I've picked out some dresses and skirts (really abnormal for me - I'm usually not that way inclined!) but am stuck with the t-shirts and shorts *** I don't know what to take. I have waaaay too many Disney t-shirts and hoodies... What to do! I don't even know what I'm going to wear to travel in yet so I better get thinking about it.

Meanwhile, my wheelchair needs repaired, and I still don't have shoes to wear to the wedding I'm conducting on Saturday in Edinburgh. Agghh!! Stress!

But hey, it's Disney time in 11 sleep! Yipeeee!!!!

 

[elt0307]

Hello!

I saw one of your posts elsewhere that your PTR was feeling lonely so I figured I'd stop in to say hi and read. I'm usually a lurker and not a poster so congrats on that amazing feat.

I read the first few posts and it sounds like you will have an amazing time! But back to read the rest now...safe travels!