***Official April 2013 thread*** SEE POST # 4028

[librarygeek]

I thought I'd join in here! I'm Rebecca, I'm 20, and I'm planning a mother-daughter April 27 - May 4 trip with my mom. We haven't booked yet (holding out for a bit to see if any discounts are released) but I'll probably make my ADRs, at least the ones that don't charge you for cancelling, before we book. Anyway, hello everyone!

Welcome! Also, if you do want to book a reservation that requires a credit card number, you still can - you just need to cancel 24 hours before your reservation. As long as you cancel ahead of time you won't be charged!

 

[rebeccaariel]

Welcome! Also, if you do want to book a reservation that requires a credit card number, you still can - you just need to cancel 24 hours before your reservation. As long as you cancel ahead of time you won't be charged!

Oh that's perfect, I didn't know that! Thanks!

 

[ja23k]

I thought I'd join in here! I'm Rebecca, I'm 20, and I'm planning a mother-daughter April 27 - May 4 trip with my mom. We haven't booked yet (holding out for a bit to see if any discounts are released) but I'll probably make my ADRs, at least the ones that don't charge you for cancelling, before we book. Anyway, hello everyone!

Hi Rebecca!

I'm also new to the boards and planning a mother daughter trip for me and my mom in April (2 weeks after my 30th birthday).

A couple things for you to consider: you can always make fully refundable reservation now and have a travel agent apply any discounts that come up later. We booked for free through small world vacations (no fee travel agency) and as of now don't have any discounts applied to our trip. When any come out our travel agent lets us know, or we let her know that we found one, and then she applies it to our package. We have until Feb (forget exact date) to cancel our April trip and still get a full refund (but that would be sad!). Dates can also be changed. We are sitting and anxiously waiting for discounts, too, but at least we know there is a room set aside for us! We are waiting to get airfare in case we need to change our dates and get a better discount.

Someone correct me if I am wrong - this far out, don't you need a room reservation to make ADRs? How far ahead can ADRs be made without a trip reservation number?

Fingers crossed for discounts!!!

 

[hopefan12]

Hi, sorry I am joining late. My husband(54) and I(42) will be taking our 2yo grandaughter April 17-27th. This is a first trip for all of us. We will be celebrating his 55th birthday and our 15th anniversary also. We talked about going just the two of us and scoping things out first, but decided we would miss her too much and spend the whole time talking about how much she would love this or that. I have ADR's made, but still deciding on where to stay. (I know I need to hurry up and make up my mind). We will be driving (23 hours one way over 3 days with a toddler,yes, I know I have lost my mind.) We are looking at POR pref., AofA LM, or POP. I also like CBR's pool and beach theme. Is it really that bad to have 2TS a day? Will we miss out on too much? Just can't seem to narrow restaurants down to one a day. Here is how it looks now:

4/17-Ohana 6:40pm
4/18 MK-Liberty Tree Tavern 12:50pm, BOG 7:05pm
4/19 AK Rainforest 11:15am, Boma 6:30pm (Anniv.)
4/20 EP-Akershus 8:15am, Garden Grill 4:30pm
4/21 HS-H&V 8:00a.m., 50's Primetime 1:10pm, Cape May 6:30pm
4/22 Discovery Cove all day, Kona 7:00pm
4/23 MK Ohana 7:30am, T-Rex 8:00pm (DH birthday, but only day and time to get TREX for granddaughter who loves dinos)
4/24MK Crystal Palace 9:45am, 1900 Park Fare 6:45pm
4/25 Cape May 7:45am, Les Chef de France 1:00pm, Coral Reef 7:15pm
4/26 Sea World and off site hotel that night

We would do nap in the afternoon
Any advice on place to stay or ADR's please let me know. I keep cutting it and then just keep working my way back up. So excited

 

[hopefan12]

P.S I am a pastor's wife too Debbie

 

[pwdebbie]

since so many of us here are from NE, I'm thinking this thread will be awfully quiet starting tomorrow. We've lucked out and have never lost power for more than a couple hours during any other storms, but I have a feeling we won't be so lucky this time. Esp. considering there's a lot of huge trees in my Town.

Ugh preparing for the worst case scenario.....too many days off followed by too many snow days = no April vacation = no WDW

It just got real!!!!!

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

We're preparing for power outages/school cancellations as we speak...I REALLY don't want school to be cancelled. I've been out for the past two and a half weeks sick with mono, I'm feeling better, and I want to be back!!!

Here's hoping all of my fellow April Disers stay safe and don't experience much damage this week. <3

We are on the coast in MA and we are all gearing up for the outages like last year. We had no power for a week. I'm hoping that it will be a dud and the forecast will be wrong. I don't have time for a big storm to ruin things. Ugh.

We are all stocked up and waiting for Sandy! I'm hoping it dissipates by the time it gets to Southern Maine, but we have a generator so I better not miss Dancing With the Stars!!! Lol

this storm better pass us by! Last year this time we had that freak snowstorm and lost power for 8 days. It was miserable then they took away our april vacation, then gave it back. I NEVER want that many days without power again! Ugh. We do not have a generator, but at least there is no snow involved in this one. Stay safe everyone Off to mess with my disney planning, and possibly rearrange days/ADR's...someone stop me!

Good luck to everyone preparing for Hurricane Sandy! We are in eastern PA and there's a good chance we'll get hit pretty badly and lose power. We're in an apartment; everything is electric so there won't be any cooking here if we lose power! Luckily we stocked up on snacks. I'm in grad school and my school already cancelled classes for Monday and Tuesday (my courses this semester are online anyway but it things are getting pretty serious!)

I jumped on here bright and early this morning so I could get caught up before our power goes out. We live in the mountains of south central PA surrounded by state forest on all sides -- you can get here without driving through state forest. Forest = Many Trees, lol. Once the winds start, we know the trees will come down, it happens several times a year.

They usually try to get our town back up quickly because we have two nursing homes, two juvenile correctional facilities, and a more secure correctional facility for arsonists. (Whose bright idea was it to put imprison arsonists in the middle of a forest????) The longest we've ever been out since we moved here in '89 was five days.

But our road is on a separate line from the rest of the village, so sometimes we lose power when they don't and vice versa. The last big outage, they skipped fixing our road because none of those above mentioned facilities were tied in with our line. THAT did not make me a happy camper. They worked on poles within feet of our line, but wouldn't keep the crew up here to do that last line because nothing "essential" was tied to it.

So here's to hoping and praying that all of us make it through this storm without major damage and with minor inconvenience. I consider it a minor inconvenience that I can't go weigh in at WW tomorrow since they have already declared a state of emergency today and tomorrow which means the mall where our meeting is held will be closed.

If you don't see me for a few days, you know what happened!

 

[pwdebbie]

Well, you can go ahead and take me off the list.

After a lot of discussion, DBF and I have decided to push our anniversary trip back a few months and turn it into either a bday trip for him, if we go in October, or an early Christmas present to ourselves, if we go in November. It just came down to dollars&cents; Still make the trip but feel pinched or push it back a bit and probably be able to go for a couple extra days...sad, but a no-brainer.

Good news is we'll still do a little something special in April, probably a weekend trip to San Diego, which is where we went last year and looks to become a tradition.

I wish everyone the best of luck with all your plans!! You'll all have *amazing* trips!

pwdebbie: I'm sad to say this but we've decided that the flights were just to ridiculous and we're going to change the plan to July. Thanks for starting this thread and all you've done.
Now I need to cancel that BOG ressie.
Have fun all you April DISers!!!!

Good bye to both of you and best wishes on your future plans all working out. Thank you for letting me know to take you off the list, I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

 

[pwdebbie]

I thought I'd join in here! I'm Rebecca, I'm 20, and I'm planning a mother-daughter April 27 - May 4 trip with my mom. We haven't booked yet (holding out for a bit to see if any discounts are released) but I'll probably make my ADRs, at least the ones that don't charge you for cancelling, before we book. Anyway, hello everyone!

Hi, sorry I am joining late. My husband(54) and I(42) will be taking our 2yo grandaughter April 17-27th. This is a first trip for all of us. We will be celebrating his 55th birthday and our 15th anniversary also.

Well, we lose two and we gain two! Welcome to the thread!

 

[TJDisneymama]

Hi, sorry I am joining late. My husband(54) and I(42) will be taking our 2yo grandaughter April 17-27th. This is a first trip for all of us. We will be celebrating his 55th birthday and our 15th anniversary also. We talked about going just the two of us and scoping things out first, but decided we would miss her too much and spend the whole time talking about how much she would love this or that. I have ADR's made, but still deciding on where to stay. (I know I need to hurry up and make up my mind). We will be driving (23 hours one way over 3 days with a toddler,yes, I know I have lost my mind.) We are looking at POR pref., AofA LM, or POP. I also like CBR's pool and beach theme. Is it really that bad to have 2TS a day? Will we miss out on too much? Just can't seem to narrow restaurants down to one a day. Here is how it looks now:

4/17-Ohana 6:40pm
4/18 MK-Liberty Tree Tavern 12:50pm, BOG 7:05pm
4/19 AK Rainforest 11:15am, Boma 6:30pm (Anniv.)
4/20 EP-Akershus 8:15am, Garden Grill 4:30pm
4/21 HS-H&V 8:00a.m., 50's Primetime 1:10pm, Cape May 6:30pm
4/22 Discovery Cove all day, Kona 7:00pm
4/23 MK Ohana 7:30am, T-Rex 8:00pm (DH birthday, but only day and time to get TREX for granddaughter who loves dinos)
4/24MK Crystal Palace 9:45am, 1900 Park Fare 6:45pm
4/25 Cape May 7:45am, Les Chef de France 1:00pm, Coral Reef 7:15pm
4/26 Sea World and off site hotel that night

We would do nap in the afternoon
Any advice on place to stay or ADR's please let me know. I keep cutting it and then just keep working my way back up. So excited

Hmmm, 3 TS in one day is a LOT of time spent sitting in restaurants. I know you want to do as many restaurants as possible - I do too. But I know my kids would go bananas sitting in a restaurant for 4 hrs./day, lol. I'm going to start planning minitrips for myself and DH so we can eat at more of the restaurants. If you can bring yourself to cut anything out, maybe cut out the lunches where you have 3/day so that you're only doing breakfast and dinner. That won't be too bad.

The other thing I noticed is Rainforest at AK. Do you not have those where you live? I think they're all over the country. Tusker House is one of the best character meals in all of WDW so you might want to consider swapping Rainforest out for Tusker House.

 

[Mousemommy1]

Hmmm, 3 TS in one day is a LOT of time spent sitting in restaurants. I know you want to do as many restaurants as possible - I do too. But I know my kids would go bananas sitting in a restaurant for 4 hrs./day, lol. I'm going to start planning minitrips for myself and DH so we can eat at more of the restaurants. If you can bring yourself to cut anything out, maybe cut out the lunches where you have 3/day so that you're only doing breakfast and dinner. That won't be too bad.

The other thing I noticed is Rainforest at AK. Do you not have those where you live? I think they're all over the country. Tusker House is one of the best character meals in all of WDW so you might want to consider swapping Rainforest out for Tusker House.

Or Yak and Yeti. Unique and de-lish!

 

[pwdebbie]

Hi, sorry I am joining late. My husband(54) and I(42) will be taking our 2yo grandaughter April 17-27th. This is a first trip for all of us. We will be celebrating his 55th birthday and our 15th anniversary also. We talked about going just the two of us and scoping things out first, but decided we would miss her too much and spend the whole time talking about how much she would love this or that. I have ADR's made, but still deciding on where to stay. (I know I need to hurry up and make up my mind). We will be driving (23 hours one way over 3 days with a toddler,yes, I know I have lost my mind.) We are looking at POR pref., AofA LM, or POP. I also like CBR's pool and beach theme. Is it really that bad to have 2TS a day? Will we miss out on too much? Just can't seem to narrow restaurants down to one a day. Here is how it looks now:

4/17-Ohana 6:40pm
4/18 MK-Liberty Tree Tavern 12:50pm, BOG 7:05pm
4/19 AK Rainforest 11:15am, Boma 6:30pm (Anniv.)
4/20 EP-Akershus 8:15am, Garden Grill 4:30pm
4/21 HS-H&V 8:00a.m., 50's Primetime 1:10pm, Cape May 6:30pm
4/22 Discovery Cove all day, Kona 7:00pm
4/23 MK Ohana 7:30am, T-Rex 8:00pm (DH birthday, but only day and time to get TREX for granddaughter who loves dinos)
4/24MK Crystal Palace 9:45am, 1900 Park Fare 6:45pm
4/25 Cape May 7:45am, Les Chef de France 1:00pm, Coral Reef 7:15pm
4/26 Sea World and off site hotel that night

We would do nap in the afternoon
Any advice on place to stay or ADR's please let me know. I keep cutting it and then just keep working my way back up. So excited

I've always wanted the opportunity to see my grandchlidren see WDW for the first time. However, we would not even begin to think about taking any of the ten of them without their parents along. You are very brave! Dh and I do spend the whole trip talking about which grandchildren would enjoy which activities, but we know we just could not handle them (or even one) without their parents.

Now, my personal opinion. You said this is your first trip. It looks to me like you are trying to squeeze in every restaurant that you want to try into one trip. I think you will be overwhelmed with food. Especially on those days where I see three ADRs. That's a lot of food in one day! I assume you plan to book a package with the DxDP?

Of course, once you get there and see how the pace is with your dgd, you can always decide then to cancel some ADRs -- you have to give at least 24 hours notice. So if you are really set on all these restaurants, go ahead and book them, but be willing to be flexible and cancel if you need to.

Afternoon breaks are absolutely essential. If she is able to get her nap in each day, that will be big help. With my grandkids, I'd never consider a dinner later than 5:30 or so. Are you sure those later evening ADRs will work for her? In particular I am looking at your Coral Reef ADR for 7:15 p.m. This restaurant is notoriously slow. You might not even get seated until 8:00 p.m. or later and your meal will be very long and drawn out. If there was a single ADR to get rid of, that would be my choice. (Oh wait, that was my choice! As soon as dh told me we didn't really have to go there again, it was off my list in a flash. )

 

[pwdebbie]

The other thing I noticed is Rainforest at AK. Do you not have those where you live? I think they're all over the country. Tusker House is one of the best character meals in all of WDW so you might want to consider swapping Rainforest out for Tusker House.

Oh, yeah, I totally agree with this. Rainforest is loud and dark. And hyper. We did it on the first trip and won't do it again. The food is not remarkable. I agree about Tusker House. We tried it for the first time on our last trip and it was immediately on our must-do-for-lunch list. And then they changed it to characters, so it is now on our don't-do list (because we did one character meal and decided that this was not for us). AK closes too early to make it worth our time to go back there and have a TS meal in the evening.

 

[pwdebbie]

P.S I am a pastor's wife too Debbie

Cool! You know all about having to schedule around not missing too much church. We've been doing "house church" for the last ten or so years. Just a small group meeting together from house to house on Sundays and Wednesdays. But dh doesn't like to be gone long, so we only miss one Sunday every other year or so. Back in the days when he pastored a big church, he only missed one Sunday in 15 years, and that was because he was in a hospital bed.

 

[wdwgirl03]

Hmmm, 3 TS in one day is a LOT of time spent sitting in restaurants. I know you want to do as many restaurants as possible - I do too. But I know my kids would go bananas sitting in a restaurant for 4 hrs./day, lol. I'm going to start planning minitrips for myself and DH so we can eat at more of the restaurants. If you can bring yourself to cut anything out, maybe cut out the lunches where you have 3/day so that you're only doing breakfast and dinner. That won't be too bad.

I agree about 2 and 3 TS meals being a lot. Not only is it a lot of sitting for kids but it's also a ton of food. I am 27 and there is no way I could eat that much.

 

[CT Disney]

Well, we lose two and we gain two! Welcome to the thread!

Make that three! We will be staying at YC from 4/13 - 4/20. Have been following along for a while now but just jumping on to say HI!

We live in CT and are ready to weather the storm! Wish us luck!

 

[momtwoboys]

hi CT Disney welcome!! Hope this storm turns out to be not much

 

[DisMom1981]

Does anyone else have iPhone Disboards app issues??? All of a sudden I get like 10-20 alerts on my phone at once.....several times a day and night......I don't know why it is happening. I even deleted the app and downloaded it again. It doesn't look like anything in settings will help me....

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[buzzrelly]

Does anyone else have iPhone Disboards app issues??? All of a sudden I get like 10-20 alerts on my phone at once.....several times a day and night......I don't know why it is happening. I even deleted the app and downloaded it again. It doesn't look like anything in settings will help me....

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

There's a bunch of people (including me) who have been complaining about this over on the technical thread. Apparently there's nothing they can do about it since they outsource the app. But they've looked into it and the people in charge of the app are working on fixing it. It is REALLY annoying!

 

[Jays2013]

Good luck to everyone who's waiting for the storm to hit! We're in Buffalo and are expected to get some rain/snow/winds, but not as bad as the more coastal areas.

Of course, last time we had a nasty October storm (2006), our street didn't have power for eight days.

 

[DisMom1981]

There's a bunch of people (including me) who have been complaining about this over on the technical thread. Apparently there's nothing they can do about it since they outsource the app. But they've looked into it and the people in charge of the app are working on fixing it. It is REALLY annoying!

Thank you! I thought it was ME!!!

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards