Nov 2011 PTR: A Very Merry Wilderness Surprise! **UPDATED 5/12/11**

[Mommy2LittleVols]

Hi and welcome to my pre-trip report! This started out as a 2-for-1 double PTR, but recently we changed our trip dates, so now this report will focus solely on our November 2011 trip.

If we haven't "met" before, you may want to check out the links in my signature for my previous TR's and PTR. Or you could just read these handy dandy intros that I've included here for you.
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First up are me (Julia) and DH (Darren):

I'm a domestic engineer (aka stay-at-home mom ) and I work part time as a travel agent. I'm the Disney nut of the family. I grew up during what I consider the "golden years" of Disney animation (late 80's-early 90's) so how could I not be?

Darren is an actual engineer - an electrical engineer, to be exact. He's also a football coach, an awesome husband, and an even more awesome Daddy. These will be our fourth and fifth trips to WDW.
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Then there's DS, Dakoda (3.5) and DD, Sarah Kate (2):

Dakoda is my busy bee. Always moving, always making noise, and 99% of the time you see him, he'll have a ball of some sort in his hands. He's smart, funny, and can be a handful, but ultimately one of the most loving children I've ever met.

Sarah Kate's nickname is Sassy, and that pretty much sums her up. She's a little diva, very girly, and VERY into princesses. She loves to sing, dance and do gymnastics. The April 2012 trip will be their third.

Links are in the second post.
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[Mommy2LittleVols]

Table of Contents

Trip #1 Details
Trip #1 Official Dates and Resort Choice
MAJOR Changes for Trip #1!
Travel Plans
7x5 Autograph Book Deal!
Last Autograph Book Ordered!
"New" Attractions
TWO MONTHS!!
ADR's
Another HUGE Change (and hopefully the last!)
Yet Another HUGE Change (and this is definitely the last!)

 

[Mommy2LittleVols]

Trip #1 Details

This will be an adults-only trip to celebrate our 5th anniversary! We didn't have a honeymoon because we were still in school, so this will also kind of be like one. We are both really looking forward to having lots of uninterrupted conversations, taking as long as we want to enjoy our meals, and rediscovering each other while experiencing the magic that only Disney can provide.

Dates:
November 15 - 19
OR
November 28 - December 2

We are trying to decide whether it is more important for us to be there for our actual anniversary (Nov 18), or if we should wait and go after Thanksgiving so that we can experience all of the Christmas festivities. Just looking from last year's schedule of events, it looks like everything starts during the first couple of weeks of November except for the things at Epcot - Holiday Storytellers and the Candlelight Processional. While I would really love to see those, I'm not sure if they're important enough to push the trip back 2 weeks, or whether I'm okay with waiting to experience them later on, possibly with the kids.

What would YOU do??

 

[Mommy2LittleVols]

Hello readers! I know you're there, even if you aren't posting. I wanted to share with you that we have made a decision regarding the dates for trip #1! We chose.............................................

November 15 - 19

Ultimately, this trip is not about experiencing the holiday season at WDW. It is about reconnecting with each other and remembering why we fell in love in the first place. So we decided to go for the week of our actual anniversary.

We have decided to stay at Port Orleans - Riverside.

We were going to stay at the Wilderness Lodge until DH saw pictures like these of POR - Magnolia Bend and fell in LOVE!

I was so shocked that he was even offering an opinion that I immediately agreed. From everything that I've read and heard about this resort, I think we will both love it!

Have any of you stayed at POR? Did you love it? hate it? Even if you haven't, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

 

[TanzUnited99]

Firstly on your upcoming two trips!! It sounds like such a good idea to have a trip with just DH and yourself and then another one with the kids

Was going to say I think that the first set of dates sound good as it will be nice to be at Disney World for your actual honeymoon but then I realised those were the dates chosen

Although I have never been to either of the resorts they both sound good. POR looks very romantic - and on getting an opinion from DH. Whenever I ask I just get go with whatever - I know when we get there it'll be a totally different story

 

[mrssmith06]

Looks great! I'd love to have a trip with just me and DH! We will be celebrating our 5 year anniversary at Disney too but it's a family trip (None of us have ever been to WDW before!)

 

[Mommy2LittleVols]

Firstly on your upcoming two trips!! It sounds like such a good idea to have a trip with just DH and yourself and then another one with the kids

Was going to say I think that the first set of dates sound good as it will be nice to be at Disney World for your actual honeymoon but then I realised those were the dates chosen

Although I have never been to either of the resorts they both sound good. POR looks very romantic - and on getting an opinion from DH. Whenever I ask I just get go with whatever - I know when we get there it'll be a totally different story

to my PTR! My DH usually refuses to discuss Disney with me, but lately he has been more open to it for some reason. Not sure why, but I'm sure not complaining!!

Looks great! I'd love to have a trip with just me and DH! We will be celebrating our 5 year anniversary at Disney too but it's a family trip (None of us have ever been to WDW before!)

Congrats on your first trip and your upcoming anniversary!! You guys will have a wonderful celebration, even with the kids.

 

[Queila]

Joining in! The hotel looks stunning. What a great pick for a romantic trip!

Q

 

[Mommy2LittleVols]

Joining in! The hotel looks stunning. What a great pick for a romantic trip!

Q

Hi Q! to my PTR! Nice to "see" you again! I need to go catch up on your TR. I see you have another trip coming up in a couple of months! YAY!!

 

[Mommy2LittleVols]

MAJOR Changes!!

A lot has happened around here in the past few days! It all started a few weeks ago when my two nephews (who you can read more about here) won parts in a local production of Les Miserables, including the male lead part of Jean Valjean! Well, of course, that is a HUGE deal for them and we are so excited and happy for them, so we began making plans to drive down to where they live near Tampa and watch one of their shows.

Then DH went out of town for a coaching conference last weekend, leaving me and the kids here at home. To say that it was a rough weekend would be putting it lightly. I began questioning how fair it would be of us to ask DH's parents to keep the kids for us in November while we were at WDW. (I guess now would be the time to mention that Dakoda is on the Autism Spectrum and his behavior recently has been extremely challenging.)

Add to that the fact that I have been having some serious WDW withdrawals lately, and you'll understand why I began to consider changing our trip plans.

Since we were already planning a trip to FL in late May to see the nephews in their play, I started running the numbers to see what it would cost us to change our trip dates to overlap with that trip. I ran them with my room discount PIN code, the current room-only gen public WDW discount, and then with the Kids Stay & Play Free offer. I discovered that if we changed our resort to a Value, we could go in May WITH the kids and actually end up saving a little over $50!

So now our plans for Trip #1 are:

May 23 - 27 at Pop Century Resort

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We are getting 6 day MYW base tickets with the Dining Plan. We stayed at Pop for our first family trip back in Sept/Oct '09 and LOVED it! So we're not too bummed about giving up POR. After all, I don't think it's going anywhere. We are a little sad about losing our adults-only trip, but we feel that now is just not a good time to leave the kids for so long, especially being 8+ hours away. We are planning a mini-vacay in Gatlinburg to celebrate our anniversary instead.

So that's what's new with our trip plans. Now I only have 73 days to plan an entire trip!!

 

[mrssmith06]

Yay for a trip that is sooner rather than later!!!
I love Gatlinburg, that's were we got married

 

[TanzUnited99]

on going to Disney World in May instead!!

Am glad you still get to celebrate your anniversary by planning a mini-trip to Gatlinburg!

 

[Mommy2LittleVols]

Yay for a trip that is sooner rather than later!!!
I love Gatlinburg, that's were we got married

We LOVE Gatlinburg, too! We are lucky that it's only a couple of hours from where we live, so we get to visit pretty often.

 

[Mommy2LittleVols]

on going to Disney World in May instead!!

Am glad you still get to celebrate your anniversary by planning a mini-trip to Gatlinburg!

We are SO excited to be going sooner!!

And also excited for our mini-trip to Gatlinburg! We love spending time there.

 

[Lidian]

Hi neighbor! Don't mind me, just jumping on board.

We actually honeymooned in Gatlinburg. We had an absolute blast! We'll be taking our 2nd Honeymoon next year to WDW (I hope!).

Grats on getting the trip bumped up and saving $$$! I'm sure you'll have a great mini-vacay and once things settle down some, you can always take an adults only trip to WDW in the future!

Perhaps we'll cross paths at WDW in May.

 

[mrssmith06]

Awesome. We took a family vacay to Gatlinburg for spring break last year, the kids loved it! It's about 5 hours from us! I want to take another alone trip there with DH sometime soon!

 

[Mommy2LittleVols]

Hi neighbor! Don't mind me, just jumping on board.

We actually honeymooned in Gatlinburg. We had an absolute blast! We'll be taking our 2nd Honeymoon next year to WDW (I hope!).

Grats on getting the trip bumped up and saving $$$! I'm sure you'll have a great mini-vacay and once things settle down some, you can always take an adults only trip to WDW in the future!

Perhaps we'll cross paths at WDW in May.

Hi and Gatlinburg is great. We had an adults-only mini-trip there last summer. Yay for your 2nd honeymoon next year at WDW! We're definitely hoping to schedule an adults-only WDW trip in the future...it just may have to wait 20 years or so.

Awesome. We took a family vacay to Gatlinburg for spring break last year, the kids loved it! It's about 5 hours from us! I want to take another alone trip there with DH sometime soon!

You're not far from me then! We're only a couple of hours from there. It's so nice to get away from being "mommy" and just be wives for a while, isn't it?

 

[Mommy2LittleVols]

Travel Plans

Sunday, May 22
8:00 am - Leave our home in TN and head to the land of Sunshine. We will be traveling US-27 S to Chattanooga, then taking I-75 the rest of the way down to Orlando. This will be an 8-10 hour drive for us, depending on traffic and how many stops we have to make.

4-6:00 pm - Arrive in Orlando and check into hotel (most likely POP on a one-night room-only ressie). Option A: Head over to DTD for dinner and to let the kids run around and burn off some energy. Option B: Eat dinner at the food court and hit the pool.

9:00 pm - Sleepy time!

Monday, May 23 - Friday, May 27
DISNEY DAYS (More details to come)

Friday, May 27
After leaving the park, drive to Lithia, FL to SIL's house.

Saturday, May 28 and Sunday, May 29
Spend time with family and attend Les Mis.

Monday, May 30
Memorial Day - and more importantly, DAKODA'S 4th BIRTHDAY!!
On this day, we will all (meaning DH, the kids, and I, and SIL, my nephews and niece) be heading back to Orlando to spend a day at one of the parks!

Tuesday, May 31
Head home.

 

[Queila]

Wow! These are great news!! You are going on the same week I went last year. We will miss each other this time for only a couple of days.

Congratulations to your nephews and to yourselves for booking your family Disney trip!!

Q

 

[TanzUnited99]

Loving the travel plans! You will have to let us know what you thought of Les Mis. and on Dakoda having her 4th birthday at Disney World!!