Makin' Magic Vacation Pre-trip Report Oct 2009

SnowWhite33

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May 15, 2003
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Hi All :hippie:

I've never written a pretrip report or trip report, so please be patient, I'll try to make it as painless as possible. ;)

I've always wanted to do a report of some sort and finally decided to do one this time in hopes that it helps me to stop waking up at 4AM every morning because I'm so darn excited about our trip.

A little back story: We have had one of "those" years this year. You know the one I mean, the year where you think OMG if just one more thing goes wrong I'm gonna need a straight jacket! Life has really thrown us some curve balls this year, some we took some good swings at, some we didn't see coming. DH works in new home construction and while he's not been completely out of work, it had gotten pretty slow, thankfully that picked up and we found that with some penny pinching here and there and if we we got a deal-thank you free dining - we could get a vacation, so Disney here we come :yay: So with our package paid for, plane tickets bought, we were happy with the planning. Well, remember the year we are having...I found out a little over a week ago that the place I work would be closing the doors at years end :guilty: After some tears and prayers, we decided that we were still going to go, it's all paid for already and well, heck we just NEED this trip worse than any we've ever taken!

I've titled this the "Makin' Magic Vacation" because we have decided that sometimes you have to make a little magic for yourself and others :wizard: We are going to try and sprinkle as much pixie dust as we can to our fellow vacationers, whether it's passing out glow bracelets to the kiddies at MNSSHP parade, compliments to wonderful CM's, or simple stuff like offering up our seat on the bus to the exhausted Mom holding that sleeping 3 yo on the way back from the parks.

We are also going to try and have as many new experiences as possible and revisit some things we haven't done in years.

Cast and plans coming next post...if you are still awake :rotfl:
 
Hey Tammy !

Wow sorry to hear about your job, how sad ...

that being said, you guys definitely deserve to still make the trip, good for you on your decision ! :thumbsup2
 
Hey Anita!

Thank you :goodvibes and don't feel too bad, I do get a severance package and will be able to take some time to gather myself. This is also affording me an opportunity to complete some college courses, things happen for a reason I believe, one door closed many others to open ;).

Will be seeing you soon I hope :cheer2:
 
you have a great attitude...I am sorry about your year and job...I am so glad you get to go to Disney ..I think it's great that you will be there spreading good karma around..Good for you....When do you leave?
 

I am so in for this report!! popcorn::

I'm sorry about the hardships you've faced :hug: , but I'm glad to hear you are still going on your trip. You work harder than just about anyone I know and you deserve it. And how cool that you are going to "make magic" all along the way. :goodvibes Sure beats some of the grumps we've all encountered at Disney. lol

Can't wait for more. :yay:
 
TAMMY!!! How's it going? So glad you are getting a chance to do Disney and are letting us live vicariously through you! In case you don't remember me, I met you on the first Ladies only trip to WDW that Beth planned back in 2006! I'm the one that sat with Shirely on Splash Mtn! I am in for your report! Can't wait to hear about the magic!

Sarah
 
Hi Sarah and Beth and sersee :grouphug: Thank you for your kind words, they really help :goodvibes

sersee we are leaving a week from today :cool1: Oct 2-Oct 10!

Sarah of course I remember you! I think then you only had that precious little boy and I see now you've added to the family, that's wonderful!

On with the show...

The cast:

100_2045-1.jpg


First-me-Tammy :hippie:

This will be my 12th trip to WDW :banana: 8 others with the entire family, 1 Mom/Son trip, and 2 Dis Ladies trips :dance3: *BTW, girls Johnny is still MY cabanna boy :rotfl:

Most looking forward to: Getting away from life for a while!
Favorite Ride: Splash Mountain and POTC
Food I can't wait to eat: Biergarten Buffet :woohoo:

Next up, DH-Art...

100_1558.jpg


This will be his 9th trip.
Most looking forward to: THE FOOD-ALL OF IT!!
Favorite Ride:Space Mountain :guilty: RNRC would be his other choice.
Food he can't wait to eat: Let's just say the other vacationers will be lucky if there is anything left :sad2::rotfl:

And last but not least, just ask him,-Adam...

100_2028.jpg


This will be his 10th trip to WDW.

Most looking forward to: All of it! At 14 I was worried he would lose interest, but he is a child of Disney and truly loves it.
Favorite Ride:Any of the Mountains
Food he can't wait to eat: Coral Reef and Main St Bakery ice cream sandwhich. He runs a close 2nd to his Dad with the eating though!

Next up-the Plan and oh those ADRs :love:
 
Hey Tammy it's Shirley from the first Ladies only trip of 2006. I shared a room with January and wanted to live with the gorilla's. :laughing:

Sorry that it's been a rough year but am so glad that you are going to Disney again. The one place you can go and leave your worries at the door and have a great time.

I can't wait to read the rest of your report.
 
Shirley-:hug: I hope you are doing well! Of course I remember you! Ok so now where's that January? She's all we need to have all 4 of us in 1 place again ;)
 
Ok we have the who and why, let's get the what, when, where, and how.

When and where-
Our trip is from Oct 2-Oct 10 and we are staying at POFQ. We have never stayed there before and normally we stay at the Poly. This year it was moderate or no trip, so um, duh we are taking the moderate. My first choice was CSR, but there was nothing there-it's so big it suprised me that it was full :confused3. We stayed at POR back many years ago and the bus service was really bad. POFQ is small and from what I understand the bus service is not so bad. I'm looking forward to staying somewhere new and it fits in with my "try new things" idea this year. And the boat to DTD is an added bonus for us!

Getting there-
I'm so proud of this one :rotfl: We decided that this would be the year we try driving because airline tickets can be so costly. I started checking flights anyway just to compare. I found really cheap fares on Airtran out of Indianapolis, which is about 2.5 hours away. Then I found out about a 25.00 coupon per ticket purchased (saved me $150.00) and free seat assignment (another $36.00) by going through Kayak.com-all courtesy of the transportation board here on the Dis :worship: After all was said and done we got 3 roundtrip nonstop flights for (drum roll).... $343.00 :cheer2: That's cheaper than what we can drive for and I'm not being held captive in a car for 14 hours :thumbsup2 I just feel like it's a personal triumph to save that much money. I remember years when we have paid almost that much for just 1 plane ticket :scared1:

So flight times are: 10/2-3:08PM arrive 5:20PM and 10/10 6:57PM depart and back to Indy at 9:30PM.

One other small money saving thing we are doing is to use a Sleep, Park, Fly hotel. For $72.00 we are able to park our car at a hotel for the entire time we are gone, they supply shuttle service to and from the airport. Then when we return we will have a room for the night and not have to drive home exhausted. It saves us the money that we would pay for parking at the airport, which was like $11.00/day . I think we got an excellent deal :cheer2:
 
Plans: I'm going to list each day with parks,dining, and what New Eperience(NE) and/or Magic Revisited (MR) I hope to have. Some things we've never tried in all of our trips (NE) or we tried them once or twice and just skip over them for whatever reason (MR). I think that our trips recently have all started to feel the same-same attractions, restaurants, even the same parks on the same days. I want this trip to be different.

Friday: Plane arrives at 5:20PM and we are using ME, so I hope to be at POFQ by 6:30, I have used online check in, so hopefully that part goes quickly. We are going to grab something from the food court and then head over to POR to see YeeHaw Bob-I've read so much about his show and wanted to see a little of it. We'll be having a couple of drinks to celebrate the start of our vacation :banana:

NE:All of this :rotfl:

Saturday: This day is kinda up in the air. It will be either Water Park/DTD/or AK. I kinda think we will end up at DTD since Adam is wanting to see the Toy Story double feature-yes folks we are flying to Orlando to watch movies :rolleyes: Not saying that it won't be fun, but really? He was so excited about it and I don't want him to be disappointed. Blizzard Beach was the original plan. We also talked about AK because we never seem to get enough time there. So who knows, I just know it won't matter because I'll be at WDW so I'm leaving this one up to the guys :rotfl:
Dinner: Chef Mickey's and then we are going to MK to watch Spectro and Wishes.

NE or MR-Don't know yet since the plan is not in stone :confused3

Sunday: Breakfast at Tusker House with Donald and the entire day at AK. We'll head back to the room around 3:30 for a rest and a swim and then it's dinner at LeCellier :woohoo:

AK NE: There are at least 2-Kali River Rapids and I'm determined to see DiVine! Oh and I read that Thumper would be making appearances, so guess that's 3.
AK MR: Rafiki's conservation station.

More to come....
 
Monday: Epcot with lunch at Biergarten :love:-I love, love, love Biergarten and think it's so overlooked. After lunch we will head back to the resort for a rest/swim and then back to Epcot for dinner at Tutto Italiano.

Epcot NE: F&W Festival we usually visit when it's going on but have never took the time to experience any of it. Also I want to see the Beatles cover group and Off Kilter. Dinner in Italy will be new for us also.

Epcot MR: We *might* try Mission Space again and would like to ride the boats in Mexico and Norway again.

Tuesday: MK day :woohoo: Breakfast at CP , we'll take a midday break because we'll be back later for MNSSHP :yay: We were going to skip it this time, but the more we talked about it the more we talked ourselves into it. Dinner will be at the Grand Floridian Cafe, another overlooked dining treasure. Then onto the party!

MK NE: Liberty Riverboat-not sure why but we've never set foot on this, it's on the must do list this time. And I really want to LOOK at the train station to see all of the little details.

MK MR: Aladdin's Carpets and Dumbo-it's been a few years since riding either, move aside little ones there are some big kids wanting to ride ;) . We might also get a turkey leg to share, yum!

Wednesday: DHS-We will be here for rope drop because TSM is an awesome fun ride. Lunch will be a counter service, probably Pizza Planet, but I'm going to look at some other menus to see what else there is. We'll stay here until around 4, then back to the room. Dinner is at Yachtsman Steakhouse.

DHS NE:Ummm, hmmmm. I think the only things we haven't done here are ToT and Disney's Playhouse. Yeah, sooo no NE's here.:rolleyes1..movin' on...(I always say this will be the year I get on ToT and I get there, look up and say NO WAY :scared1:) And I don't think Adam will sit through the playhouse :confused3

DHS MR: Beauty and the Beast-haven't watched this in years and would like to see it.

Also wanted to add Yachtsman to the MR category-we went there on our very first trip and as we remember it, it was just ok. We are hoping for a wonderful dinner this time.

Rest of the plan coming soon...
 
Can't wait to hear all about your stay at POFQ. We're staying there for the first time as well!
 
Ok, finally a little time to finish this up :rotfl:

Thursday: This will be another whatever we feel like day, could be Waterparks, DisneyQuest, or just hanging at the resort. Art *thinks* I'll be doing laundry this day :rolleyes1

NE:Dinner will be at Chefs de France, I made this an early dinner because I really really hope to see a rat there-Remy! He just looks so cute and I love that movie! After dinner we'll spend a little more time at Epcot and will be taking the boat to DHS to see the late Fantasmic!

Friday: Our last park day will be MK, so we can get our last Splash ride in and I can cry and say good bye to the Castle,:sad1: I'm guessing because of Columbus day the crowds will be picking up, so we'll be patient and spend the day here. Dinner will be at Coral Reef-we love it there!

Saturday: We'll check out and hit DTD for last minute shopping and a counter service somewhere. ME will pick us up around 4 for our 7PM flight. We will stay all night in Indy and head home Sunday morning. Going home is not always a sad thing for us since we have our pets waiting and we miss them terribly. And after 8 nights in the same room, we'll be glad to have our own space, beds, and t.v.'s back :rotfl:

We are all so excited about this trip-we were singing Disney songs in the car last night-very animatedly I might add-we probably looked like lunatics to anyone passing by :rotfl2:

Oh I also wanted to mention that I'm very happy that I might get to meet up with a couple of my Dis friends from the ladies' trips I've been on-I looking forward to that :goodvibes


I have so much to get done and the clock is ticking! Tonight is laundry and packing-I just couldn't get it done this past weekend! Tomorrow afternoon will be frantic with trying to get haircuts-again couldn't get to those this past weekend. And we'll have to load the car up. It's all of this last minute stuff that sends me into a panic-:headache:

Wish me good travels, nice weather, and LOW crowds-is that being greedy to ask for all of it :confused3? :rotfl:
 
Wish me good travels, nice weather, and LOW crowds-is that being greedy to ask for all of it :confused3? :rotfl:
I wish you all of the above and many magical moments that make this much needed trip extra special for you and your family. :wizard: :hug:

Take lots, and lots, and lots of pics. And just when you think you've taken enough, take more!! :thumbsup2
 
Can't wait to hear all about your stay at POFQ. We're staying there for the first time as well!


HI! Welcome!

I will be sure to follow up and let you know how it was, I love to read the reviews from people who are just back!

I'm nervous about it, we are so spoiled to that darn Monorail and we are eating more at Epcot this time than ever before. I have faith that the bus system will be right on target, but I have 2 impatient guys who don't have as much faith. I feel like a POFQ door to door salesman :rotfl: I spend so much time convincing them that it will be as nice or nicer than the Poly and how much fun it will be to try something different.

Hopefully I'm right :thumbsup2
 
I'm a little worried about the bus transportation. I've been hearing some bad reviews where people are waiting 45-60 minutes for a bus from POFQ!
 
I'm a little worried about the bus transportation. I've been hearing some bad reviews where people are waiting 45-60 minutes for a bus from POFQ!

:scared1:

DH was just saying last night that if the buses were a pain he would just stay in the room.

So here's wishing for good bus service :wizard:
 
I am sending you positive on time disney bus vibes!:goodvibes:goodvibes:goodvibes . Your trip is soooo close..I am very excited for you!!
 











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