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

[dzalice]

Hi,

I hadn't heard about One Man's Dream being down. DANG! But on the plus side did you hear about the new carmel shop in Germany? YUMMM!

I did not know about the new caramel shop, what will they be having, just candy? I see you are going down about a week ahead of us. We will be looking forward to your reports of the F&W festival.

 

[2_Eagle_Mom]

Check out this page for info about the Carmel shop

We'll be taking a computer so hopefully I'll have time to post some info while we are there.

Sorry - didn't mean to hijack the thread...

 

[pixiepirate]

Thanks for the info, 2 Eagle Mom. I just checked in out. Sounds yummy. I hope they have the soft caramel. Though I probably shouldn't eat any of it if I want to keep my fillings.

 

[dzalice]

So Harry Potter is now officially open, and WOW! I am glad we are waiting til October to go there. It looks like it will be very cool, but since we arent going to ride any of the rides, I hope it wont take hours just to get into the land. We do plan on doing the Forbidden Journey queue, but not ride, so I guess we'd better plan on a couple of hours for that. I know I want a wand from Olivander's and I think Zig does too, so we will be over there. We will be lunching at Three Broomsticks and trying the pumpkin juice and butterbeer. But, all in all, I think we will spend most of our time soaking up the atmosphere.

 

[pixiepirate]

I am so disappointed! Free dining finally gets extended to the end of the year and our dates are blacked out. I guess it's just not our luck to eat free at Disney as we missed out in 2008 as well. I do still have to call about our room request, maybe I will get a huge surprise and there will be a pin code attached to our account. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[pixiepirate]

Double digits at last! 89 days!!!. I guess it’s time to get busy on the list of things I still need to purchase before we leave or, as usual, I will be running around at the last minute. I called Disney Travel this morning to put in a request for an upper floor room. I checked but no pin codes for us. I keep reminding myself that we got a great deal last trip, with an upgrade to the Beach Club resort which made it even better. Oh well, speculating about free dining or an upgrade to the Poly or AKL was fun while it lasted.

 

[pixiepirate]

Besides the To Buy list, I also have a To Do list. And at the top of that list is making envelopes for Mousekeeping. I’m something of a theme person so I want to coordinate the envelopes with the pirate adventure/Caribbean theme of the trip. I’ve spent some time over the last month hitting the local stamp store, the Archiver’s Store, and Michaels. This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to a stamp show. I’m afraid I didn’t have much luck finding any pirate themed paper. It seems that trend is passé now. But I did have some stashed away that I had purchased previously and I found a few more patterns that would work. I did find a couple of Jack Sparrow stamps at the show. Wonder if I could find a use for those? I want to do a couple of magical themed envelopes for our Harry Potter/Universal days plus some sort of Halloween theme for our MNSSHP day. I have some ideas percolating, I just need to find the time to get started on them. I will try to post some photos when I get something whipped together

 

[pixiepirate]

Di!

 

[pixiepirate]

We saw the Sorcerer's Apprentice a few days ago. What a fun movie! I was afraid to get my hopes up after being a little disappointed in The Last Airbender. No disappointment here. Good story, great effects, well thought out magic and a ton of action. Go see it.

 

[pixiepirate]

I started our itineraries at the Disney site last week. I still haven't figured out why I have to do the first day half a dozen times before I get it right. I've got the hang of it now but I still have about 6 days to go. I'm trying to be a little more detailed this trip, though all the times are very rough estimates. We don't actually use the itineraries in the parks but I find them very useful for making notes for my journal. I never seem to have time to actually write anything while I am on vacation so i always have to play catch up when I get back.

 

[dzalice]

Yes, Zig's in charge of all the paperwork for our trips. I'm in charge of clothing. I like to sew, and usually find time to make new shirts for our Disney trips. I try to coordinate with the parks, while Zig likes to have a clothing theme. This year her theme is PIRATES! (of course), so i made her a pair of pirate pj pants to take with. I like to mix things up more. So far i have shirts for MK, AK, and Epcot, but I am still stuck on Harry Potterland and DHS. Well, back to Joann's for more fabric i guess.

 

[pixiepirate]

I ordered our US tickets last week and they arrived yesterday. I think all that's left of the main planning is to order our photopass before we leave. There's still packing lists to check and provisions to buy. And I still have not started on the mousekeeping envleopes. Well no one can say I am not a master of procrastination.

 

[pixiepirate]

We got it! Just got off the phone with Disney and we got the $300 gift card applied to our reservation. Great! That takes care of the table service meals. In fact, we are adding another, Yak And Yeti and AK. Will try to make that ADR this weekend.

 

[dzalice]

Oh joy Oh joy. I always like getting some sort of perk from Disney, it just makes the trip more magical. We were planning on eating at the Yak and Yeti counter service anyway, so this will be our first time venturing into the restaurant itself. We have less than 60 days to go, it's so exciting.

 

[pixiepirate]

We tried on Thursday for an ADR at Yak & Yet. No luck. The only available time was 2PM, just a little to late for us. But we will check back later to see if anything opens up.

 

[dzalice]

Well we've tried several times for Yak & Yeti, but no luck. We are going to see about a reservation at Ragland Road on that Sunday night. We have always wanted to eat there, mmmmm fish and chips. Zig's looking forward to the Shepherd's Pie. Let's hope we can get in there.

 

[pixiepirate]

Change in plans. Yak and Yeti is out. Raglan Road is in. Just made an ADR for dinner on Sunday night. I have been wanting to try this place for awhile.

 

[pixiepirate]

Here's what the Farmer's Almanac has to say about the weather for our stay:

Oct 8 -11 Heavy rains Clearing Quite cool

Oct 12 - 15 Pleasant

Oct 16 - 19 Cold rain then fair

At least our main touring week is supposed to be pleasant. It will be interesting to see what kind of weather we actually have.

 

[pixiepirate]

Our Disney packet arrive on Saturday. We are ready to go! Well, no we're not. I still need to order the photopass. Di needs to finish the Halloween costumes. I have started on the mousekeeping envelopes but have only finished 2. Only 7 more to go. But having that confirmation in hand makes things seem so much closer than they are. Here's hoping this last month flies by.

 

[2_Eagle_Mom]

Oh my, thank you so much for mentioning PhotoPass! I completely forgot to order ours. That would have been REALLY bad. Going to do it right now!