Newbie from NH have a couple ??

[aidenndelaney]

Hello Everyone,
I'm new to this board, we have decided to take our 2 young children to Disney May 22, 2009 throught May 29, 2009. Our children will be 4 1/2 years old and 1 1/2 years old. We will be staying offsite at HGVC on International Drive(we own a timeshare). This will be our 3 trip to Disney since May 2004. This is my first time finding this board and I'm so excited to learn more from everyone. We took DS for his 1st Disney trip when he was 1 1/2 years old and he doesn't remember and I can't wait for this time
Couple questions. We will be there during Memorial Day Weekend how bad are the crowds. I didn't realize it until after I confirmed our reservations. Also can I get Dinner reservations even though we are not staying on site? Thanks for your help and look forward to reading more.

 

[Metro West]

 

[Pikester]

Yes you can make dinner reservations even if you are not staying onsite.

 

[aidenndelaney]

Thank you for your help I love ready all the information and learning the tricks. I changed our vacation date to May 15th - May 22 so we won't be there during Memorial Day weekend, that made me a little nervous. I was so excited to see the resort had an 2 bedroom villa become available so I switched

 

[fairymagick08]

Welcome!

 

[Pikester]

Hello again!

Just wanted to add to my other post. The rules of making dinner ressies are that you can call 180 days in advance from the day of your stay (180th day from May 15th is Nov 17th) to make a reservation. If you stay onsite you can make your ressies starting on that 180th day of your stay and make ressies for your entire trip upto 10 days. If you stay offsite, you can make your ressies starting at 180 days but you can only make then one day at a time. Make ressies for May 15th, call back the next day for the May 16th and so on.

Right now Disney is updating their ressie system so people are only allowed to call 90 days in advance until October when they are going back to allowing 180 days in advance.

I believe the above information to be true. I apologize in advace if I've made a mistake. Lots of information over on the Restaurant Board. Here is a link to the menus for all Disney World Restaurants. This will give you a chance to know what is there in advance and help you decide where you want to eat. http://www.allearsnet.com/menu/menus.htm

 

[aidenndelaney]

Thank you Pikester for the dinner reservation info. I have yet to tell my DH that I want to do a character meal Where in NH are you located if you don't mind me asking? I noticed on the other NH thread you said you had a cousin that lived in Salisbury.
How does it work if we make Dinner Reservations at Chef Mickey's do we park at the resort and just say we have reservations? This is so new to me I'm getting confused, LOL. I got tons of time to figure it out. I guess I should purchase DS his Disney tkts before the price goes up. We have ours from a couple of years ago so that is nice. I really like going to Seaworld but think we will stay with Disney Parks this year to save money for that Character Dinner.
Thanks for the help!

 

[Pikester]

I'm from Newport which is about 15 minutes away from Mt. Sunapee.

I believe, as we have only stayed at a Disney resort and have used their transportation, that you would drive to the resort that your restaurant is at. There will be a guard house and you will tell them that you have ressies for "Chef Mickey". Not sure if they ask you for your ADR# or not but make sure you have it.

The character meals are fun! We've done the Garden Grill, Crystal Palace and 1900 Park Fare. Those meals are served family style or are a buffet. That way if your kids are not big on what they have for the kids buffet they can eat stuff from the adult buffet. Family style they bring you a big platter of food that you can ask for refills of.

I noticed from your post that you have been twice before. Please let me know if I am giving you info that you already know. I wouldn't want to bug you too much!

 

[Disneydonnam]

WELCOME

 

[aidenndelaney]

I'm from Newport which is about 15 minutes away from Mt. Sunapee.

I believe, as we have only stayed at a Disney resort and have used their transportation, that you would drive to the resort that your restaurant is at. There will be a guard house and you will tell them that you have ressies for "Chef Mickey". Not sure if they ask you for your ADR# or not but make sure you have it.

The character meals are fun! We've done the Garden Grill, Crystal Palace and 1900 Park Fare. Those meals are served family style or are a buffet. That way if your kids are not big on what they have for the kids buffet they can eat stuff from the adult buffet. Family style they bring you a big platter of food that you can ask for refills of.

I noticed from your post that you have been twice before. Please let me know if I am giving you info that you already know. I wouldn't want to bug you too much!

I'm pretty excited to do a character meal. DS I think will be at a great age and DD who knows she will only be 1 1/2 yrs old. Good to know about the types of dinners. You are not giving info I already know and I really appreciate your help. Our last trip was just go with the flow as DS was very young and the one before I also didn't know about this wonderful board with all this great info and tips. It is neat chatting with someone in the same state

 

[aidenndelaney]

Quick question what are the sites where I can buy disney tkts? I can't remember, thanks for the help.

 

[Pikester]

Did you find your ticket sites yet? I'm sorry but I have no idea what they are.

I wanted to pass on some info about a travel book you may like to purchase. It's called Passporter's Walt Disney World. It has descriptions of hotels, restaurants and rides. It has colored fold out maps for the parks and pockets in the back to put stuff in. ADR#s, tickets, etc. Here is a link so you can read about it http://www.amazon.com/PassPorters-W...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217549851&sr=1-1 (This link is the 2009 version.) They usually have upto date information and they also have a website where they add any new information that comes out after the book has hit the shelves. http://www.passporter.com/

I love the passporter and used it when we went in 2006. I also bought the 2008 version for our Dec 2008 trip.

I've made ADRs for 2 character meals for our trip. Liberty Tree Tavern (This will no longer be a character meal as of 2009) and Ohana Breakfast with Lilo and Stitch.

Hope your planning is going well.

 

[DB&KS]

You can subscribe to Mousesavers newsletter and once you get the first newsletter which is on the 15th of the month you will find a link to Undercovertourist which will give you a little discount from their original prices for park tickets.

 

[DB&KS]

and by the way........


and

 

[lissiesmum]

Welcome to the Dis! I've been on these boards for almost two years now planning my trip and I finally booked for October two weeks ago! You will gain so much insight from so many wonderful people here on this site. Have fun planning and... warning...you will get addicted. From one New Hampshirite to another...welcome, and have a great trip