May 2011 PTR - Who says you have to pay the post office for a passport? 3/26

[merbobear]

My oldest DS is 7 years older than his brother and 9 years older than his sister, so we have to please varying crowds. I did go with a semi tour plan each time = hit up the big coaster (think it's called Kracken) first thing and then after that we just tried to make our way around the park and hit the show times so we didn't have to cross back and forth a thousand times. The coaster and water drop ride (similar to Splash MT) had lines - like crazy lines - everything else we encountered was a normal wait - like maybe wait 2 ride rotations or less. And we never encountered a full theater for any of the shows except Believe. We did grab a seat early for Believe and I think they were turning people away right before the show started (we went to the show right after lunch both trips so maybe timing had something to do with it). But the others we walked in maybe 5 minutes before show time and had decent seats.

Awesome..so it sounds like we can try to figure out our "Must Do" attraction (or a couple), hit them up first thing and then work everything else around show times....for some reason it sounds too easy, but hopefully it will be a relaxing day! Truth be told, DD is a big animal lover, so I am pretty sure she will be ecstatic just to see some fish! She's the type that gets excited and can spend an eternity just looking at the beta fish in Walmart!

 

[merbobear]

Day 3 is AK!

I'm pretty excited about this day, as I mentioned already, DD is a big animal lover, so this will be right up her alley! Happy child = happy parents!

We are hoping to hit rope drop, and it's a morning EMH day.

Loose touring plans (to be tightened and made orderly in the near future):

Kilimanjaro Safari - maybe first thing & grab a FP so we can hit it again in the afternoon. We have gone on a "Safari" at a local zoo, and dd was begging to go back on it again before it was even over!

I know we also will want to take a flight on the Triceratop Spin. Ok..maybe "we" won't, but again, this seems like something that dd will enjoy!

The Boneyard looks fun - almost too fun. I can almost feel the melt down starting when we try to drag her outta that place! I am sure we will make a stop there for a little bit.

Kali River Rapids is on my list along with Dinosaur. Adison is tall enough for Dinosaur - but is it too "old" for her (ie scary??) - she turned 3 in January). I have had her watch the ride on youtube and she says it looks fun, but I am on the fence and would hate to bring her on a ride that would traumatize her!

I'm sure that Mike will want to do Expedition Everest and/or Primeval Whirl. Luckily for me, Adison isn't tall enough so I will not be coerced into joining him (Did I mention I'm not a coaster fan?!).

Am I setting my sights too high for this day? There is so much we will want to do and see..we very well may have to make room for a 2nd day here if we don't get through enough in our first try!

After the park closes :drumroll: it's Boma time! As the resident vegetarian in my family, this is "my" meal...after much careful consideration and countless hours reading reviews, I just cannot wait to try this place out! Our ressie is at 7:10 pm, so I am figuring that we will leave AK around closing time (6pm) and head right over - soak up the resort for a bit and then chow down! I cannot express how very excited I am for this meal...my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it!

After dinner,I think we will likely roll back to POP and get a good night's sleep - rope drop is essential for our plans on Day 4...

 

[lbuzz52]

Day 3 is AK!

I'm pretty excited about this day, as I mentioned already, DD is a big animal lover, so this will be right up her alley! Happy child = happy parents!

We are hoping to hit rope drop, and it's a morning EMH day.

Loose touring plans (to be tightened and made orderly in the near future):

Kilimanjaro Safari - maybe first thing & grab a FP so we can hit it again in the afternoon. We have gone on a "Safari" at a local zoo, and dd was begging to go back on it again before it was even over!

I know we also will want to take a flight on the Triceratop Spin. Ok..maybe "we" won't, but again, this seems like something that dd will enjoy!

The Boneyard looks fun - almost too fun. I can almost feel the melt down starting when we try to drag her outta that place! I am sure we will make a stop there for a little bit.

Kali River Rapids is on my list along with Dinosaur. Adison is tall enough for Dinosaur - but is it too "old" for her (ie scary??) - she turned 3 in January). I have had her watch the ride on youtube and she says it looks fun, but I am on the fence and would hate to bring her on a ride that would traumatize her!

I'm sure that Mike will want to do Expedition Everest and/or Primeval Whirl. Luckily for me, Adison isn't tall enough so I will not be coerced into joining him (Did I mention I'm not a coaster fan?!).

Am I setting my sights too high for this day? There is so much we will want to do and see..we very well may have to make room for a 2nd day here if we don't get through enough in our first try!

After the park closes :drumroll: it's Boma time! As the resident vegetarian in my family, this is "my" meal...after much careful consideration and countless hours reading reviews, I just cannot wait to try this place out! Our ressie is at 7:10 pm, so I am figuring that we will leave AK around closing time (6pm) and head right over - soak up the resort for a bit and then chow down! I cannot express how very excited I am for this meal...my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it!

After dinner,I think we will likely roll back to POP and get a good night's sleep - rope drop is essential for our plans on Day 4...

I think that is very reasonable. Last time we went we did that plus an ADR plus the folk show.

I haven't risen it yet but I'm nervous for dinosaur.

 

[Monknmom]

Hey just joining in, I LOVE reading trip reports too and learning so much- it will be our first real vacation and their first time in WDW! But about the light breakfast I just wanted to add to you that if you have a fridge (even if you don't people said they filled the sinks with ice and left the "freezer" stuff in them), you can freeze applesauce containers and it doesn't change the taste or anything and it's great to just eat on the go for a breakfast because my son's not a big eater and these help us at home too! And I love the deals that you got I am going to try our toys r us! I know that the $1 store has a lot of Disney also and I am going to make my little guy a "birthday bash" of my own in the room when we get there (his dad is going to stall going up to the room somehow)! But also I love the spreadsheets and everything I am making a binder too and DH thinks I'm nuts because it's so far away!

*Oh, sorry another question is how do you know the park hours when you made the reservations? I am not doing park hopper either and want to make sure that we are at the park on the longer day (EMH) that we are going to be eating at. But thank you in advance for all the tips and deals! Have a great trip!

 

[Queila]

Hi there! Signing up.
As far as what I could tell we will be at Disney at the same time... And we will be staying at the POP too.... And I also have a 3 year old little girl!

Cool, eh?

Your plans sound fantastic.

Last year I also brought glow sticks from home and they were a hit. My daughter never noticed the difference between ours from the dollar store and the ones being sold at the parks. Not sure we will be able to pull the same stunt this time though...

I wouldn't worry about your late reservation for CP. One of the best meals we had at Disney was at a late reservation at Sanaa. My daughter had napped in the afternoon and she was fine and the rush hour at the restaurant was finished and we were able to really seat back and relax.


Anyways, cannot wait to read more.

Q

 

[pinkxray]

Your AK plans look great.

Boma sounds fantastic and the zebra domes look so yummy. We are pretty picky eaters so we haven't made it to Boma dinner yet. We are paying OOP and I just refuse to pay for DH and DD to eat off the kids table when we could just go to Mara. I will have to make a stop at Mara to try Zebra domes. They look so good.

 

[TinkerbellinNY6]

Hi there! Signing up.
As far as what I could tell we will be at Disney at the same time... And we will be staying at the POP too.... And I also have a 3 year old little girl!

Cool, eh?

Your plans sound fantastic.

Last year I also brought glow sticks from home and they were a hit. My daughter never noticed the difference between ours from the dollar store and the ones being sold at the parks. Not sure we will be able to pull the same stunt this time though...

I wouldn't worry about your late reservation for CP. One of the best meals we had at Disney was at a late reservation at Sanaa. My daughter had napped in the afternoon and she was fine and the rush hour at the restaurant was finished and we were able to really seat back and relax.


Anyways, cannot wait to read more.

Q

I saw your ticker we are going to be there around the same time!

 

[merbobear]

Just a quickie update to share some pictures - I received dd's autograph book in the mail recently. I ordered it through Picaboo.com. I had a code for a FREE hardcover custom book (plus $7.99 shipping). An excellent deal.

Just a quick review for that purchase for those considering using Picaboo as a printing service: You do have to download and install a program in order to create your book. The program was fairly user friendly, though it is pretty slow when you go into preview mode (to see how the book will print). It takes a good amount of time for each page to load its preview. When you preview, you can see guides along the borders where your image "may not print"...it should be more specific and just say what it WILL print or what it WILL NOT print..instead of that it might not print a certain area. I would think they should be able to pinpoint it better seeing as they do know the dimensions of the pages they are printing.
So anyway, I ordered the book and that was a pretty straightforward process. Their website indicates that it takes 3-4 business days to produce the book and that it will be shipped immediately following those days. My book did not ship for a full TWELVE business days after I ordered. Honestly this is ridiculous in my opinion. In addition to the delay, they did not contact me to tell me that it wasn't shipping on time. I contacted them and they said "due to the popularity of this promotion" blah blah blah...I am really turned off by lack of customer service. At the very least they could have posted a generic statement to their customers on their website or facebook page. Yes, the book was free (well $8 technically), but in my opinion, they made a pretty bad first i mpression. I would not be knocking down their door to order again anytime soon, given that they were extremely past their own turnaround time and didn't even bother to let anyone know.

Anyway, so the book finally gets here, and it's ok..I mean some of the pages are great, but some are just ok. Almost all of them have the borders cut off awkwardly, even though I had resized them to be within the "this may not print" guideline. The back cover printed as if it were a separate photo on a page (complete with shadowing) and not seamless with the front cover and spine, as it was in the preview. Also a lot of the photos disappear into the binding of the book. Overall, for $8 it is great - but had I paid the full price of $40 plus $8 shipping, I would be livid at the quality! Now I see why they are giving the books away!

So that's my review, now here are some pictures. Not all pages were created by me!

I know that I am being maybe overly critical, but I am picky when it comes to photo printing, and like I said...$8 for this book was fine. $48 and I would have been really disappointed in the finished product!

 

[beebeeryan]

Joining in...late. Your trip is coming up so soon, how exciting. I'm in the Albany area too.

It's true, the photo book services that offer free and really low cost books tend to not be great quality. Probably okay for an autograph book, but you'd hate to pay full price for that. I have found Shutterfly to be the best general photo book printer out there. Blurb is decent too, but I've seen their books fall apart after a year.

As far as your AK plan, not sure if you know this, but if only one of you is doing EE, they have a single rider line that usually has a very short wait if any. That should save time. Good plan on grabbing FP for the Safaris and trying to ride it twice, my kids love the "safari" ride at Animal Land too. No camels at Disney though. Thanks Goodness, those things freak me out!

 

[sahm2two]

I love the photobook! Great deal for the price... I definitely wouldn't pay the full price for it, but for the deal you got it looks great! Just over a week to go! have you started packing??