October 2010: Wizards, Pirates and Pixie Dust: *10/7/10: ready to go

[pixiepirate]

When you start dreaming about WDW it must mean it’s time to get serious about booking the trip. Especially when it was not a very reassuring dream. We arrived at our WDW resort in this dream to find that they had lost our reservation. In the end they were able to find us space at the Wilderness Lodge (I must really want to go back here because we are supposed to be booking CBR for this trip). Luckily all our ADRs were still in order since we had booked them at a different time. Hopefully this won't turn out to be a prophetic dream. With a little luck, we may be booking this week, though I am still waiting for approval of my PTO. Keep your fingers crossed.

 

[pixiepirate]

We are booked!!! Went online first thing this morning and got it all taken are of: 9 nights in a pirate room with a water view at CBR, quick service dining and a 7 day park hopper.

What’s next? Waiting on MNSSHP dates and tickets, planning a day for a KTTK tour, ADRs, US tickets, and park hours so we can plan, plan, plan.

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Joining in!

I'll be there in Oct too - I can't wait!

 

[dzalice]

Yippee! Yo Ho Yo Ho A Pirate's Life for Me!!!! And Welcome, Dis Yoda!

 

[hkclem8328]

Hey there, I am jumping into your report a bit late, but just came across it. I too have lurked around these boards for a little while. My family and I are headed to Disney the end of October! I look forward to folling your pre-trippie along!!

 

[pixiepirate]

Ahoy there, mateys! Welcome aboard! Hope you enjoy the trip. Wow, looks like October is a really popular month. Anyone else planning to attend MNSSHP while they are there?

 

[pixiepirate]

Our Disney Planning DVD arrived yesterday. Too bad we will have to wait until after the Olympics to watch it. Not that we need it for the planning tips, I just like to watch it to get overly excited about the upcoming trip.

 

[pixiepirate]

Had a bit of a chuckle last night. I was surfing the WDW Dining app on my sister's iTouch last night when I accidentally hit the Near Me button. Kind of nice to know that Pinocchio's Village Haus is the closest Disney dining establishment to my house, only 966 miles away.

 

[pixiepirate]

The big discussion this weekend was about driving. How far do we think we might get? Should we chose a destination, make a reservation and just keep driving till we get there? Or should we just wing it, going as far as we possibly can and then find a place to stay? Chattanooga is our halfway point so we definitely want to be past that. We could stop between Chattanooga and Atlanta or push on past Atlanta. Now, I have done the Atlanta in a day thing, have even done the Macon in a day thing. Let me tell you that by the time I hit the GA line I am ready to be out of the car!! Of course, I don’t usually have getting to WDW as an incentive. The drawback to making a reservation is getting there earlier than anticipated and regretting that we could have gotten farther. We hopped online and did a little research on possible stopping points and available hotels. Still haven’t come to a definite decision on what we will do but there’s plenty of time to work that out.

 

[2_Eagle_Mom]

Had a bit of a chuckle last night. I was surfing the WDW Dining app on my sister's iTouch last night when I accidentally hit the Near Me button. Kind of nice to know that Pinocchio's Village Haus is the closest Disney dining establishment to my house, only 966 miles away.

Hi - I've been lurking for a while and love reading about your plans. I have to ask about the app that you mentioned above. I just got the iTouch and haven't had much time to look around for apps. Can you tell me about the one that you are talking about?

Also, regarding your hotel issue. When you are looking at hotels, ask about their cancellation policy. A lot of hotels will let you cancel on the day of arrival by 4pm or 6pm. You can make a couple of reservations and then depending on how far you get you can decide where you want to stop.

I wish we were able to drive, but that would take up 1/2 of our vacation.

 

[dzalice]

Thanks for the info on the hotels. I never thought about checking the cancellation policy. Actually we have been toying with the idea of making a reservation on the fly. Di also has a couple of apps that locate hotels near you. By early afternoon we might have a good idea where we will end up and could call ahead to reserve a room. You never know what you will run into on the road. I once got stopped in TN for 30-45 minutes because they were blasting next to the highway further up the road. That’s not exactly something you can plan for.

Hi! and thanks for joining us. I've had my Touch for a couple of months now and find myself constantly adding apps for which I probably will have no further use. Right now I have a 2010 Olympic app, gave me the schedule for all the events, is it showing anything now, well no. I have 4 Disney apps, I think they were all free. WDW Dining, Mouse Memo, Park Hours, and Disney List. I love the Dining and Park hours. I am at work right now, and Scuttle's Landing is the closest Dining to me, 965 miles. Much closer than Pinocchio. The Park Hours update themselves every month to add the new hours posted, so we are up to the end of September now. (come on October) The Disney List and Mouse Memo I'm not using so much now, but expect to add more to them once we make ADRs and such.The other apps I have (Hampton, HotelPal, HotelsbyMe, andHotel Sites, all need WiFi connections, which we dont have at home yet, but hope to have soon. They will list Hotels near by, or by city or by chain, I expect them to be very helpful.

 

[pixiepirate]

My PTO request has finally been approved and my dates are marked on the calendar! Darn good thing too, since we already booked the trip.

 

[dzalice]

Well thank goodness! I wasnt looking forward to driving down there by myself. Hey! Alice opens today! Yippee!

 

[pixiepirate]

We are trying to decide on a day for the KTTK tour. This will be our first tour at WDW and I have to say I am really looking forward to it. Our options are Wednesday, 10/13 or Monday, 10/18. Di had some serious knee problems last year. She is much better now but still has days of stiffness and aches. She’s a little concerned about the length of the tour and the number of rest periods. We have been debating the feasibility of both days. Should we choose Wednesday, when we will be reasonably fresh (like we won't just have spent two days tramping around Universal), or Monday, when we will be more tired but know we can spend the next two days off our feet on the drive home? I’m fine with either day so I am letting Di make the final decision on this. I think right now she is leaning toward Wednesday with Monday as an alternate.

Only a little more than a week and we should have the October hours. Let the serious planning start! April 13th is our 180 days for ADRs. Then we will be waiting on the MNSSHP dates and tickets.

 

[dzalice]

"Serious Planning"? Is that anything like a Wild Rumpus?

 

[pixiepirate]

Got the Oct hours! I am hard at work compiling all the pertinent data into a calendar, trying a little different format this time. There will be some intense discussion on what, when and where this weekend. Only 14 days until we can make ADRs.

 

[pixiepirate]

OK, the calendar is done and I have actually had the chance to peruse the data. It looks like there’s a possibility for MNSSHP on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday while we are there. Monday and Tuesday are out. We will be at Universal those days and I’m not sure how long we will want to stay. We had been thinking about Thursday, but Sunday would work as well. In fact, it might be the best day. We are planning to do Chef Mickey’s on Monday morning and could book a later time and sleep in a little after the party. My concern here is crowds. Last time we went on a Friday in late September and it was not crowded at all. Closer to Halloween I wonder if the crowds on a weekend evening would be much larger than on a Thursday. The final decision may be determined by our KTTK tour. We plan to book that for Wednesday, but Monday is our alternate if Wednesday is not available. I would definitely choose Thursday for MNSSHP if we end up booking the tour for Monday.

 

[dzalice]

My knee is improving weekly, so I am with Zig on this, hoping for the KTTK tour on Wednesday. According to the calendar right now, Epcot will be open late that night, so we could probably go there in the evening. We are trying to avoid Epcot on weekend nights due to the Food and Wine Festival going on. I am ok with either Friday or Sunday for our MNSSHP, we will have to check further once tickets are available.

 

[pixiepirate]

So much for our plans to plan this weekend. That kind of flew by and we never had a chance to sit down and talk. We did finally find a few minutes Monday night to make a start. We have got to get moving. Our ADR date is coming up fast.

We will be arriving at CBR sometime on Sunday. Since this is our first time doing a 2 day drive, I’m not exactly sure what time that will be. I hope we can be there between 3 or 4PM, before 6PM at the latest. A lot will depend on traffic, construction and weather. We will take some down time once we reach the resort to settle in our room, relax a bit, and maybe catch a meal or a snack. We have come up with several options for the evening.

#1. Head out to MK. We have an extra park day we will use either Sunday, Monday or Tuesday evening. The park will be having late EMH and will be open until 2AM. OK, I know I won't be out that late but we could head over late and still get in several hours of fun. It is a holiday weekend so we will have to consider whether we are up to dealing with the crowds after driving all day.

#2. Watch the Illuminations fireworks from the CBR beach. This would give us plenty of time for a leisurely dinner and to explore the resort. Maybe even hit the whirlpool. A nice relaxing evening before our first full day of action.

#3. Head for Downtown Disney. This is hit or miss with me. I like shopping at the World of Disney Store but the area as a whole is on my “Fit it in if we can list.” I’d rather be spending time in the parks.

It’s hard to say what we might feel like doing after the long drive. We probably won't make the final decision until that day but it’s nice to have options in advance instead of sitting around the room trying to decide what to do.

 

[pixiepirate]

The calendar is starting to come together. We have moved on to Monday and are already making changes. Monday is Universal Studios Day 1. I have a few concerns about this day because it is a holiday. I am not sure how this will impact the crowds. We had been considering doing one long day at US and one shorter day, figuring that the shorter day would be Tuesday as we would just come in, visit Potterland again and then hit the parts of the parks we had missed the day before. After checking WDW for Monday, we have decided to make Monday our shorter day, leaving US about 3-4PM. A short break at the resort, maybe dinner and then we can head out to HS.

We had a bit of a discussion about this and decided it might be a better use of our extra park hopper to go to HS Monday night for late EMH. This means we would not be going to MK on Sunday night. It’s a break with tradition as MK has always been our first park and PotC our first ride. With HS’ early evening hours most of the week we are there, it’s beginning to look like there might not be many opportunities to visit the park. For some reason I have not been able to identify, I really like this park, even though we avoid most of the big attractions. None of the parks have late EMH on Tuesday so Sunday and Monday nights are our best options.

As for our US plans for this day, we will be heading directly to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as soon as the gates open. I intend to spend much time there soaking up all the atmosphere and magic I can. Then it will be on to the Marvel Superhero Island. Mostly for shopping since we don’t do the thrill rides. I hope I can find some cool Wolverine stuff. We are planning on Mythos for lunch.

I tried to book our KTTK tour this morning. Turns out I was a tad early. I will have to call again next week.