Nooshkin and Niffer NEED a vacation! (So does Little Willie!)

[Nooshkin]

September 20th, 2008

Oh my goodness! After months of planning, months of saving and months of anticipation, TIME IS FLYING BY!

We go to WDW in 7 “sleeps”! Deep breaths…calm down…

First, some introductions are in order, yes?

Trip Cast of Characters:

ME, aka Nooshkin, aka, Janet.

Age 42 and 11 months, but thinks she’s much younger. (Little known fact- I’m one of the Lost Girls. We come from the other side of Never-Neverland. The side with indoor plumbing and central air conditioning.)

I’m chief planner, mostly due to the fact that I work in the travel industry. I’ve been to Disney Theme parks over 30 times and the last time was October 2007. (See the link in my signature line, if you’re bored.)

My favorite park is the Magic Kingdom. My current favorite ride is a 3-way tie between PoC, HM and Soarin’. My favorite parade or show is SpectroMagic. My favorite character is Pinocchio- I think we were carved from the same tree then separated. (Although I have been known to wander down the wrong path and make a jacka$$ out of myself too!)


My lovely younger sister, aka Niffer, aka Jennifer

Age 33. She has been to Disney Parks a lot too- maybe 12-15 times? But it’s been almost 3 years since she’s been to WDW and she’s VERY excited!

I’m excited too. There are so many new and updated things for her to see. I can’t wait for her to see the updates at PoC and HM. The new attractions- Toy Story Mania and Expedition Everest. We have ADR’s at a couple restaurants that she’s never been too and we’re doing the Keys to the Kingdom Tour. The rule is that we each have to find one thing each day that we’ve never done before.

She will have to chime in with her favorites since they may have changed over the years. But I know Eeyore and Stitch are on the list!

My Little Willie. He’s William Shakespeare- does he need more of an introduction? Here he is making sure that his ears still fit.

His favorite park is EPCOT and his favorite characters are Figment and Simba. (He doesn’t want you to know that he has a crush on Tinkerbell! Good thing he doesn’t have a computer.)

I told you I needed a vacation…

 

[Nooshkin]

Part two…

Now the intros have been made and we’re all becoming fast friends! (No, you can’t borrow any money or power tools.)

I suppose I should let you know what months of planning has produced! Ok, seriously, I’m doing my best to not over-plan. I know some of you like to have your days planned out down to every detail. You know what park you’ll be in each day, which restaurant you’ll be eating at for every meal and the location of every bathroom and ice cream cart. I do not judge you! If that works for you, great! I've done spontaneous, no planning trips- Ask Niffer about the time I picked her up at work on a Friday and instead of going home, I drove to the airport! I've also done trips that were planned to death. "10:28am- Bathroom break! Be back in 6.3 minutes!"

I'm shooting for a happy medium on this trip. I have only made 3 ADRs for a week at WDW. I have realized that it’s not very relaxing for me to have every day planned out but I accept that if we want to go to certain restaurants, I have to plan! So without further ado, here’s the agenda:

Our first night is at the Pop Century and the rest of the week is at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We are not on the dining plan. I’m fortunate to be eligible for a discounted travel industry rate and usually those do not have the dining plan available with them. But the discount makes up for it so that’s fine. Besides, if we had the DDP, I’d probably have to pre-plan more! I couldn’t get the good rate at the AKL for the first night though. We’ve never been to the POP so that takes care of our “try something new” requirement for the first day!

We get in too late to go to any of the parks so we’ll probably go to Downtown Disney that first night to soak up some Pixie Dust. It’ll be the last night Pleasure Island is open. As much as I’d love to go to the Adventurer’s Club one last time, I fear it will be impossible to get near it! We’ll check it out though.

Day two is going to be a leisurely day. We may or may not try to get one e-tkt ride in early. The plan is to take it easy, maybe resort hop and check out some of the hotels we haven’t been to in awhile. Then check into AKL and hope we’ll get into our room at a decent hour so we can get ready for…MNSSHP!

Day three- the MK bright and early for the Keys to the Kingdom tour, then an afternoon rest if we need it. Back to the MK for Spectro and Wishes!

Day Four- Pigging out at EPCOT. Chefs de France for an early lunch, Food Festival for Dinner and snacking. The evening finds us at Jellyrolls over on the Boardwalk, singing until we’re hoarse.

Day Five- Do whatever we want, as long as we make it to the Liberty Tree Tavern in the MK for lunch.

Day Six – Whatever we want…maybe eve MNSSHP…again! (We like Halloween and have been to MNSSHP before.)

Day Seven- Whatever we want, as long as we have an early dinner at 1900 Park Fare. I just found out out that the HUGE Disney clearance sale is going on in Celebration so I'm hoping for a little side trip...

Day Eight – ½ day to do what we missed, dry our eyes and fly back home!

SO not too ambitious by anyone’s standards!

Coming up…

The things I’ve been doing to get the magic started at home!

 

[bettyann29]

Im in!! Looks great so far.. Cant wait to hear more..

But one thing.. since we are friends now.. can I borrow your car?? Just for a day or two..

 

[MovienutNiffer]

Hello everyone! I am Niffer, and I am a movie nut . I've been a movie nut and big Disney fan since around my senior year in high school 17 years ago. I was kind of a fan before then but I never thought I'd like the parks since a bad trip to Disneyland in '85. Fortunately, my awesome sister, Nooshkin took myself, our younger sister and your Mom to WDW and COMPLETELY changed my mind!!!

My favorite park right now is the Magic Kingdom. It used to be Hollywood Studios, and as I do enjoy certain rides there now, it has long been a half day park for me. Until things change it will be an okay park but I will always have fond memories since it introduced me to my favorite movie of all time, Casablanca. The scene in the Great Movie Ride just intrigued me and I watched it not long after we got back and I fell in love! My favorite rides there are Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and PoC (can' wait to see the updated ride!).

My favorite characters right now are Eeyore and Stitch. I have many things Eeyore - purse, wallet, t-shirts, backpack and LOTS of plushed and beanie Eeyores. And Stitch just rules!!!

My favorite Disney film is Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is just SO beautiful and I cry every time I watch it. I wish they still had the show in HS!!! Contrary to my desk at work, Cars is not my favorite Pixar film. (I have about 3/4 of the Matchbox Cars. They are just too cute and everyone comments on my collection!) That has changed to Wall-E. He is just the cutest thing EVER!

Now the new things I can't wait to do is eat new foods at the Food & Wine Festival at Epcot. I'm a picky eater but at this I just have to try something new. We are going to eat at Chefs de France and I am excited to try out the French Menu (I love the menus on the web page!!). If I don't try that I am going to try the Crepe Basquaise (it's chicken and how can you really mess up chicken?).

I also am excited because I plan on getting a haircut at the Magic Kingdom! I've needed to get one for a while now and I was going to get one before we left but my sister said I could get one in MK so I am really looking forward to that.

Other than that I just wanted to mention that we have a nephew who is almost 3 and we have already gotten him addicted to Disney. It all started with showing him Toy Story just to see if he'd watch it and now he just loves all things Disney! He even loves the tween shows on the Disney channel (you should see him boogie down to Hannah Montana!). He's the one who got the Cars Matchbox cars first and then I wanted my own set. His parents better be ready for the amount of stuff he will be getting from WDW!

So that's it for now. Words cannot express how excited I am to be not only taking my first, leaving home, going elsewhere vacation in 3 years but to be going to WDW for a week!

 

[Nooshkin]

Im in!! Looks great so far.. Cant wait to hear more..

But one thing.. since we are friends now.. can I borrow your car?? Just for a day or two..

Welcome aboard!

Sure, you can borrow my car! You don't mind driving us to the airport at 4:30 am, do you friend? Oh- and we're gonna need help moving. I don't want to trust my big, heavy furniture to movers. Thanks, friend!

I can't believe that at this time next week, we'll be eating breakfast in WDW! I'll try to update more later. First I have tons of stuff to do around the house. Oh joy!

 

[bettyann29]

Welcome aboard!

Sure, you can borrow my car! You don't mind driving us to the airport at 4:30 am, do you friend? Oh- and we're gonna need help moving. I don't want to trust my big, heavy furniture to movers. Thanks, friend!

I can't believe that at this time next week, we'll be eating breakfast in WDW! I'll try to update more later. First I have tons of stuff to do around the house. Oh joy!

Its just like a friend to kid and joke around like that right??

Wow.. In WDW in one week.. Im so jealous all over again..

Cant wait to hear more..

 

[MovienutNiffer]

Oh man! 4 days and it just can't get here fast enough!

Yesterday was a bit of a prep day for me. First, when I got home from work I found my Zazzle.com shirt waiting for me. It's so cool! It's frmo the Incredibles and has Edna Mode, or E as I like to call her, on the front and NO CAPES! underneath it. I love that website. The shirts can be a touch expensive but when you see the finished product it is soooo worth it! So me and Nooshkin sat down and did some planning on what we were bringing and working out a budget for food and souvenir's. I decided to get a jump on packing since I already had done some laundry and thought it would be good to pack it and get it out of the way. Plus I was too excited to sleep then! So now I am about 2/3 packed and ready.

I also wanted to mention how evil Nooshkin is for having me listen to the Dis podcasts. They drive me nuts and make me want to go NOW NOW NOW! I love all the news and reviews. It just makes me feel more informed when we go there.

Oh and stay out of the damn lakes!