Making plans, changing plans!!**New 6/18 Link to the TR page 14**

[mrsksomeday]

We got these in the mail yesterday:

AP VOUCHERS

​

We are so excited, this just makes the trip(s) seem more real. Only 16 more days

.

 

[Hedy]

And they're lime green!

 

[MRYPPNS]

Wow I can't believe you're leaving in 16 days!

Did you see the press release about The Wave?....food seems too "healthy" for my tastes!

 

[mrsksomeday]

And they're lime green!

I know!! That made me smile even more when I pulled them out of the envelope!

Wow I can't believe you're leaving in 16 days!

I know I am so excited I can't stand it!!

Did you see the press release about The Wave?....food seems too "healthy" for my tastes!

OMG Heidi, I am so glad I am not the only one that thought that when I saw that press release. Now I am worried, Bill can eat any thing he wants to and "healthy" stuff is not something he goes for especially on vacation. I don't know if I should try to switch it to something else or not? It doesn't open until dinner on June 7th and I am worried about waiting that late to change reservations if nothing looks appealing to us.

Part of me wants to be bad and make an "extra" ADR right now so if the menu comes out and I see there isn't anything Bill wants, I am covered .

 

[MRYPPNS]

OMG Heidi, I am so glad I am not the only one that thought that when I saw that press release. Now I am worried, Bill can eat any thing he wants to and "healthy" stuff is not something he goes for especially on vacation. I don't know if I should try to switch it to something else or not? It doesn't open until dinner on June 7th and I am worried about waiting that late to change reservations if nothing looks appealing to us.

Part of me wants to be bad and make an "extra" ADR right now so if the menu comes out and I see there isn't anything Bill wants, I am covered .

I laughed when I read "organic vodka"....

Go ahead and make that "extra" ADR....let's just say that I called WDW Dining myself this morning so I won't be flamin' ya! And no way is THE WAVE going to be totally booked.

 

[mrsksomeday]

SINGLE DIGIT DANCE!!!

9 days until WDW!!

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[DisMomAmy]

I'm always up for a good dance!!

 

[ddstratton]

Woo hoo!! Woo Hoo!!!! WOO HOO!!!!

 

[jordanyosh]

 

[Hedy]

 

[mkluvsmickey]

Yay Tracy! So exciting! I hope you'll be doing a trip report when you return!

 

[luvfigment]

Hi Tracy!!!! It has been so long since I have been on the boards....really since just after the Disneymoon and then my life got really crazy and I never did write my actual trip report. Opps Well I have been going through Dis and WDW withdrawal and am back! I am so glad I found your trippie for the upcoming trips! I am going back to WDW in Sept with one of my friends for free dining.

On side note DH and I ate at Kona Cafe on the Disneymoon for breakfast b/c some how we had all of thee extra credits and it was yummy! I thought we got a lot of food for the TS credit. Not sure if you were still thinking about it for breakfast in Oct or not.

I hope all is well and congrats to Bill on the job!

 

[jkCT]

Tracy and Bill, have a fabulous trip!! Take lots of pictures so we can all live vicariously through you!!

 

[team weasel]

Hi Tracy...I know I'm a little late for the booty dance party, but I want to join in anyway....





PS...I'm super jealous about you getting to go to the Ip-Dip meet. I wish I could talk DH in to going in September and October.

 

[GeminiAngel]

Have a great time on your trip!!!

 

[Hedy]

 

[mrsksomeday]

Thanks everyone for dancing with me and the well wishes!!

 

[mrsksomeday]

Rewind our life back to February. We had gone through the whole range of Bill saying “Let’s go to Disney in June, my ankle is killing me, cancel June, surgery in July, what can we do before my surgery” thing?

His birthday is Tuesday, June 10th and we had been discussing our November Disney World trip AGAIN. In particular we were discussing Super Soap Weekend and the great time we had, in part to Kassie DePaiva. I wrote about it in our trip report, in another place. Here is an excerpt:


We watched how sweet she was with everyone. It was our turn, someone took our camera and we went up to talk to her. Bill had on an Indiana University fleece shirt. She said she had gone there, but she knew she was older than him. She said she went in 1981-82. She talked to him not at him which made me so happy. She asked our names to personalize the CD and asked us “how long have y’all been together”. See she knows I am not his Mom .

Kassie talks so southern when she isn’t on OLTL. She took a picture with us and then told Bill goodbye, she then put her hand on my shoulder to stop me. She grabbed me and hugged me then she whispered in my ear “you are good woman, such a good woman for being with him”. This really touched me because I know she has a son with a disability. I had tears in my eyes as we were leaving the store. I told Bill what she said. He thought she was wonderful. He said she was one of the highlights of the trip.

We heard later that she signed all the people with the wristbands, had to go do an interview, and came back and signed for every person that was in the standby line as well.


I had read that Kassie goes to Nashville every year for the CMA fest, she is a singer as well as an actress. She had a fan club breakfast planned in June. I made the mistake of telling Bill about it . Well since we couldn’t go to Disney in June due to his severe ankle pain, why not a quick trip to Nashville? We had been to fan breakfasts 2 years in a row for Susan Lucci and we decided to go for it.

I reserved a room through Hotwire for the night before the breakfast at a La Quintas. We had never stayed there before, and you never know how things will go. We also decided to do a really strict budget for this trip, because as some of you know from my Pre-Trip report, Making Plans, Changing Plans, (you can read it on our pre-trip report board here) we decided to add the June Disney Trip back in the mix at the last minute.


Friday morning, I took Bill to work and came back to make sure everything was packed and all electronics were charged. Then it was time to take Ace to the boarders, we went for a quick potty walk, got in the van and I then remembered I had everything but his food. We went back upstairs and as soon as he saw me get his food he got all excited, tail going crazy, and dragging me to the door. He knew he was going to be staying the night with a bunch of PUPPIES!! It made me happy that he was not sulking like he sometimes does. That might have been due to the fact that I hadn’t gotten the suitcase out anywhere around him.

I decided to surprise Bill with a dinner at the Rainforest Café. I had made a reservation and went to Bill’s computer to print out all my directions for the trip. What I forgot to do was delete the history on his computer when I was printing out directions . The sneak found out about 10 minutes after getting on the computer. I wanted to smack him, LOL. He didn’t get surprised, but he was very happy about eating there

.


The drive to Nashville was a pleasant one. We pulled up to the La Quinta’s and were checked in very quickly, my requests were honored and we were literally down the hall from the entrance to the hotel. Anyone that has read my other trip report knows I love the Marriot beds, I love, love, love them. I lay down on them and pass out, it is HEAVEN. Here is Bill in the room and I always take a picture of the bed.

I wasn’t sure how this bed would measure up, but we had a dinner reservation to get to. We both freshened up and off we went to find the Rainforest Café. It is located at Opry Mills, a big mall in Nashville
.

A couple things I did find out about Nashville concerning disabilities were most of the handicap parking spaces

have the fine at $100 – WRONG, it is $250

. Maybe if the fines were right and clearly posted more people would do the right thing and not park there unless they supposed to. Also, the handicap spaces are small, Bill has a van with a ramp. The door opens, the van lowers and a ramp comes out. It was hard for him to get in and out of the van at the hotel and then again at the mall. Here is how much room he had to get out of the van at the mall.

Here we are:

Animals before we got into the restaurant:

We arrived about 30 minutes before our reservation and were immediately seated. Here is something you will never see at a Rainforest Café in Disney:

EMPTY SEATS!!


Jessica was our server and she was so sweet. We ordered some adult beverages.

Bill had a Chocolate Banana Blast:

I had a Panama Punch:

I had gotten frustrated with Rainforest Café earlier in the day. I like to find the nutritional information before I head into a restaurant. It lets me see the healthy alternatives. After 30 minutes of looking, there was nothing online concerning the Rainforest Café’s nutrition, except for articles about them not having nutritional information.


I discussed things with Jessica and ordered the Cobb Salad, without bleu cheese and black olives (not my favorites) and the dressing on the side:

Bill ordered Steak with shrimp scampi and coconut shrimp:

Some other pictures while we were there:

While we were finishing up a man walked past us with MICKEY

BAGS!!! OMG!! I never talk to strangers, but I said “Excuse me, is there a Disney store around here?” He said YES!! I wanted to leave right then, but also wanted Bill to finish his dinner. We were both full, so no dessert. The mall was getting ready to close to we didn’t get to go to the Disney store. We are going next week the day before we fly to Orlando!!


We left and I took a left when I should have took a right, but got us back on track to the hotel. I was going to call Nicole, a woman I had met online through the DISboards to tell her we would be there tomorrow. Guess what? I had packed the cell phone before we left, but Bill had wanted me to call someone so I had, and the phone was left at home. At the time I had forgotten about the last minute phone call and thought I had lost the phone somewhere along the way. It was very upsetting at the time

.


Bill watched ESPN for a bit and we went to bed. AHHH, another heavenly bed

. At 3:30am I was awakened by loud, happy, drunk men in the next room. I stumbled to the phone and called the front desk, she said I am on my way. I heard her knock on their door, I heard them say I am sorry, and surprise, they actually shut up.


Continued in next post......

 

[mrsksomeday]

We got dressed, checked out, and out the door by 7:15am. What I didn’t anticipate was roads being blocked off and detoured for the CMA fest. I need to invest in a GPS. I asked cops two different times and were told different directions. I took a deep breath and just told myself we are close just stay calm. Then I was about in tears because we weren’t finding it and it started at 8am. We finally found it and actually got a good parking space, we met the fan club president and were getting in the elevator when I remembered I didn’t have the picture Bill wanted autographed so I went back to the van to get it. (I got my walking in early that day!!)

I came upstairs and Nicole had already introduced herself to Bill. She was so sweet and her mom was really great too. Kassie saw Bill and said “Did you follow me all the way from Orlando?” She turned and hugged me. They had a “southern style buffet” bacon, French toast sticks, biscuits, gravy, and scrambled eggs. Bill loved this so much more than Susan Lucci’s breakfast stuff, lol. He got everything, but the bacon, I got 2 french toast sticks and a little scrambled eggs. I got Bill’s drink, but didn’t get one for me, so I got everything set up for him and went back up for a diet Coke and to ask Kassie if she would tell Bill happy birthday before we left that day. She said she would do better than that, she would sing happy birthday to him in front of everyone!! He had no clue I asked her, I finally was going to get to surprise him.

She came up to the microphone as we were getting done eating. This is how close we were to her, I probably temporarily blinded Bill with this shot:

She thanked everyone for coming said a couple of things, she was presented with a gift from the fan club, she gave her fan club president a diamond pendant, and then the fan of the year was announced. She then said “I have one more announcement, I hear someone from Illinois is having a birthday this week, isn’t that right Bill?” His face lit up and he nodded. She asked if anyone else was having a birthday that week, no one was. She said “well I guess it is all for you Bill”. She had everyone sing happy birthday to him, then immediately came over and I took this pic.

She did a question and answer session. She talked about her family, her music, and her acting. She said if she gets with one man on the show, she knows the love of his life is coming back and she will “have to put on her red dress and go looking for a man”. Then she looked at Bill and said “Bill will you be that man? Will you drive your chair to New York?” Bill smiled and nodded

. People were laughing with me. I was giggling. It was a fantastic time. She is a very funny person. Then she sang for us, it was just as great as the CD, she can really sing!!

It was over way too quickly, and then we were all in line to get to talk to her one last time and get the autograph. She signed it for us and we got these pictures:

After this picture, she put her hands on his face and kissed his left cheek, he blushed.

Many people were going to other CMA Fest events, they were having an ABC block party down the street later in the day, but we had to get back to pick up Ace. Bill said “next year we will do more”.

We had a good drive back, discussed the feasibility of a weekend back at Disney for Super Soap Weekend, picked up Ace, and went home. It was a good trial run for Nashville since we will be back there on Thursday to spend the night before going to WDW on Friday !!

We can’t wait!!

 

[MRYPPNS]

Miss Tracy! You look fantastic in this picture!