**Official December 2010 Thread!!**

[LBollengier]

DH and I will be there at POFQ from Dec 9-14. We've got all of our ADRs except we couldn't get Le Cellier...now I'm just waiting on the CP! Hopefully we can get LC for that!

I CAN'T WAIT!

We are having the exact same situation!! I have all the ADR's I want except LeCellier... It is driving me crazy!! Checking daily, bugging my agent, reading the boards!! I wonder why they are holding it... Do you think they haven't got confirmed speakers for some of the time or what?

This is going to be the longest trip we've ever made and the most wonderful too!! Dec. 2 - 13 @ AKL

 

[TruBlu]

There is something strange with the ADRs for restaurants with Candlelight Processional Packages. A few weeks ago I had a Le Cellier and a Garden Grill ADR that I cancelled and another DISer tried to get. Both of them immediately went away when I cancelled them. I even tried to get the GG one back as soon as I cancelled it just to see if I could. I don't know why that is happening. It seems like they are pulling them all for CLP.

 

[LBollengier]

It happened both years we stayed there. I had to call Dining several mornings because of it, so they could let the restaurant know it wasn't our fault we were late.

Besides we don't like being that far out the back end of the property. We felt almost isolated.


Suzanne

I understand how you feel... It is a bit isolated, which is kind of the reason I want to stay there for my 50th birthday!!

We stayed there in 2002 and I have nothing but wonderful memories, the transportation was never a problem for us - even with a 2 year old. We are not morning people (3 out of 4 - DH is the exception!) and don't do much early!! That is probably the difference, I imagine the mornings are the busiest time.

I thought this is more of an "off time" than we usually go so we won't even notice!! The last time we were at WDW was Yacht club THanksgiving week 2006. I wanted to stay at AKL one more time and do the Safari in the afternoon. We'll probably stay up at the Epcot neck of the woods next time because for us, that is the easiest transportation wise. We have a long list of places we want to try!! Boardwalk probably next? DD wants to stay at CR so that is not out of the running for next time!!

If I could figure out how to trade the 2 timeshares we have for a DVC I'd do it in a flash... cie la vie

 

[bubbazippy]

Just called on some other business, and decided to check on CP ressies.... Now being told the third week of August. Anyone else getting a better time estimate?

 

[mrsksomeday]

Just called on some other business, and decided to check on CP ressies.... Now being told the third week of August. Anyone else getting a better time estimate?

They have been stating that a lot today. I read on another thread where a CM had told a caller that they were being offered overtime shifts the 2nd & 3rd week of August so it might just be true that they are waiting until then.

 

[rebelbuddhist]

Just called on some other business, and decided to check on CP ressies.... Now being told the third week of August. Anyone else getting a better time estimate?

I have called five times in last 2 days and been told 5 different things from call back tomorrow, by the end of July, early August and, yes, the 3rd week of August! Seems like the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. One CM advised I call every day and multiple times each day because someday CP ADRs will open up, but fill up very rapidly since we are trying for 12/24 but will take 12/21 as a backup.

 

[southernnomore]

Please add me to the December crowd! We are going Dec 18 thru 24. It has been a couple of years since we have been and my daughter (now 7) doesn't hardly remember it! Sooo excited!!

 

[mommakacie]

We're going December 15 to 18. It's our anniversary trip! Woohoo! First time we've taken a trip, so after 11 years, we deserve it! It's going to be a "no kids" trip. I'm so excited to be going at Christmas time for the first time!

 

[KateInMontreal]

Hi Everybody,

First time posting! Staying at Disney, in a family room from December 1 to 15. On December 4th 2010 I am getting married in Leu Gardens and will spend the day with my husband and guests in the Magic Kingdom. We are planning to take everybody on the monorail and do the dinner show at the Polynesion. Everybody is staying at Music. I am so darn excited.. getting married... and... sharing the Disney magic with our friends and family.

Has anybody seen the dinner show? I have not.. but figure its Disney so will be good! (I am looking for reviews on the dinner show.. and sure they are here somewhere... but have not found them yet!)

Doing the countdown!!!!

Kate

 

[Daddy_of_Princesses]

Hi Everybody,

First time posting! Staying at Disney, in a family room from December 1 to 15. On December 4th 2010 I am getting married in Leu Gardens and will spend the day with my husband and guests in the Magic Kingdom. We are planning to take everybody on the monorail and do the dinner show at the Polynesion. Everybody is staying at Music. I am so darn excited.. getting married... and... sharing the Disney magic with our friends and family.

Has anybody seen the dinner show? I have not.. but figure its Disney so will be good! (I am looking for reviews on the dinner show.. and sure they are here somewhere... but have not found them yet!)

Doing the countdown!!!!

Kate

I haven't done the Dinner show yet, we will do that when we are down there in December. You will be having yours before I have mine, so I can't really tell you what it is like.

I can however give you a link to reviews. on AllEars.net, and the reviews here on DIS.

Between the two you should get a good idea of the show.

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

We've never been very lucky with busses. Having someone on a strict schedule would be a nightmare with Disney transportation.

One thing my family talks about often is how wonderful the Pop busses are. For some reason they have the best on property. We never had to wait very long at all. On that same trip we did a split stay at Saratoga Springs, well the busses there were VERY slow compared to Pop. Once when we were trying to get to Downtown Disney after park closing we didn't even try the SSR bus, we hopped on the one from Pop to make the transfer.

He wasn't on a strict schedule, except for his meals, that needed to be within a certain time frame and it really wasn't a nightmare, except in the morning.

We have always been very successful with transportation at Pop and I guess that is one of the reasons we go back there. I use an ECV and we try to head out when there won't be too much of a crowd to complain about me being loaded first.

We just love Pop anyway, it just brings back so many great memories from my childhood and it has been the easiest to deal with and accommodates my needs. They have just always made us feel more at home and at ease than anywhere else we have stayed.

Suzanne

 

[Woth2982]

We love POFQ. So far it's our favorite resort, but we're staying at AKL for the first time this trip. I can't wait to compare the two.

Oh fun! I am so happy people love it! It is the only mod I have yet to visit! I wanted to stay at WL (stayed there for Christmas season a few years ago) but my friends can't afford it, so I agreed to go to the Mod. I really have no desire to stay at the values because I hear they get loud and are kinda far away from everything. POFQ looks to be near DHS and Epcot, my two fave parks!

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

Oh fun! I am so happy people love it! It is the only mod I have yet to visit! I wanted to stay at WL (stayed there for Christmas season a few years ago) but my friends can't afford it, so I agreed to go to the Mod. I really have no desire to stay at the values because I hear they get loud and are kinda far away from everything. POFQ looks to be near DHS and Epcot, my two fave parks!

We love it too, especially if you are traveling with adults only. It is a romantic resort to me and DH, something straight out of New Orleans and it is small, so everything is so close by.

The food court at POFQ was the best one, next to pop of course. Make sure to try the Beingets (sp??). They have a wonderful bar, the bartender made me a wonderful drink, he said it was something he had just come up with.

You are actually closer to MK (by bus) and DTD (by boat). But I don't think you are really too far from any of the parks, except AK, of course.

Suzanne

 

[Shir Kahn]

We'll be there from December 2nd to December 7th, staying at All-Star Music. We'd much rather stay at Pop Century but it was already booked up by the time we booked ours.

 

[exwdwcm]

Thanks for the ideas. I will have to take a look at things. There are some things I just don't want the kiddos to miss this time...mostly BBB and PL. They know about those things and are so excited. I also booked the Wonderland Tea Party for DD. She doesn't completely know but has an inkling that something is going to happen with Alice. I know those things can't be cut. We did get free dining and upgraded so we could do a lot of character meals. Not to mention DH would be crazy and grumpy if we lived on quick service all week.

I really am hesitant to shorten the trip. We are driving 20 hours from central PA to get there. 10 days seems like a nice break before the 20 hour trip home.

How do I find out which nights are discounted? I am assume that is the pre-order stuff???

I know if the kids were 6 and 7 I would do it in a heartbeat and just find the money in the budget...somewhere. I worry about spending the money only to have them fall asleep at 9...and then being exhausted the next day.

There are just so many things to weight. Its also hard to decide of the little extras are worth the +$200. Thanks for the advice. Please feel free to keep passing it along. I am so on the fence about this.

This is a fantastic point and an angle I didn't even consider.

Right now I'm leaning towards going. I'm afraid it'll be a couple years before going again in Dec and I don't want to miss the magic.

Does the party draw a lot of local FL residents? I wonder if a Thurs would be less crowded or a Fri.

i do think a lot of locals attend on weekends. We've always done Tuesdays in early Dec and been okay. Plus, keep in mind any night that is discounted can be more crowded, since more people will select a discounted night over a non-discounted night.

wahoooo! Our airline we are flying on now charges for carry on bags unless you can fit them under the seat so we are planning on understuffing book bags and putting them under the seat. I saw Toysrus and a little mickey pull along book bag for 14.99 and you got a free lunch tote which will be good to keep some drinks cold in the parks so I just took a trip over there to get it.I figured I would go get the bag for DS's carry on bag. I just had a 20% coupon emailed to me for being part of their rewards program so I used that too..THEN when I got there I saw they had a sign up for a free pack of Kooky Toy Story pens (heres the link they r cute.. http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4100305&type=effect&promoId=4323460 )

Didn 't think they would let me use all discounts but I thought it was worth the try.. anyway it worked! So I got the bag, lunch box and pens for $12.83 including lovely NJ tax lol! Wahooooooooo!

wow, what airline is that? charging for carry ons? that's a first! however, i did notice that when i flew american to vegas from DFW this week for work, they offered an 'upgrade' to "Group 1" for $10. seriously??? how silly is that. all it does is get you on the plane before the other groups (but after gold/platinum/EP and first). don't they get enough of our money already? i laughed when i saw that.

Quick question re: the Castle Dreamlights - is the castle lit up this way on non-party nights? I'm thinking I probably don't want to do MVMCP, but I really, really want to see the castle lit up with holiday lights.

Thanks!

love the dreamlights, they are every night and start at dusk. the lighting ceremony is well worth watching too!

I'll get the rest of our newbies added to the list shortly. Been out of town for work and just catching up!

 

[exwdwcm]

okay, got all the newbies added to our running list here (you can always find the link in my sig too).

http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=36267138&postcount=254
It is on page 17, post #254 if you want to bookmark.

so, there is a possibility we might have more joining us in our 1bed at BLT. does anyone know the rules regarding occupancy? i think i read you could officially have 5 plus one baby/toddler in a pak/play (under 3). It is possible my DH might want to try and squeeze us 3 (including son under 3), plus his mom, brother and his two kids. Which equals 7. One kid could sleep on floor. But didn't know the rules and don't want to 'break them'. The only thing it would affect i guess is their ability to use EMH (having a room key for everyone). DH and I are getting APs. Anyone know the 'rules'? I've mentioned to the brother about just getting a value room and we could also look into a 2 bed, but at this point, BLT is probably booked solid for that week, even in a 2 bed (and we'd have to borrow points).

also, in anticipation that there could be 7 of us now instead of 5, I started looking at adjusting our ADRs. I couldn't get anything for 7 except for one lunch at Chefs. All our other existing ADRs, well i couldn't get for 7 or heck, even just for 2 or 3 separately at the same time, or even near the same time. It is like everything is booked solid! anyone else experience this? for example, tried to get CP breakfast for 12/5 and it was booked solid for 2,3, 5 or 7- i tried different headcounts and completely booked. crazy!

 

[ashleym337]

First, this is my very first post on the DIS boards

We have been planning this trip for 5 years (when I found out we were having a baby). Now, almost 5 years later, the trip is finally here! Our grand gathering will be traveling December 10th - 16th. There is 15 of us going!

For all but 3 of us it is first times!! We are also celebrating two of our group (my husband and our best friend) homecoming from Afghanistan! So, on top of an awesome Christmas present for the 6 kids going with us, its much more then that!

We have made all our ADR's and are staying at CBR. I can NOT wait for December to get here to show everyone what an amazing place Disney is, and at Christmas... just wow!!!

 

[TeresaG]

So we just extended our trip by one day. Hubby wanted to fly out of our local small airport and the only way to make it work was to add a day. That wasn't exactly twisting my husbands arm and now we're staying Dec 1-8th. lol.


I've found making ADR's has been a total PITA this time around. I'm not sure what is up, but I wasn't able to get a lot of our favorite restaurants which is a bummer. Our last trip we had a party of 8 and were able to get in almost everywhere. Go figure.

 

[scdak]

I think I have finally made and /or changed all my ADR's .............. at least until CP packages come out!
I changed dining plan to Deluxe DP yesterday, sure hope I am hungry. Current ADR's : 12/1 Boma 9am
Yak and Yeti 2:30pm
12/2 Hollywood and Vine 4:40pm
12/3 1900 Park Fare 9:40am
Kona 1:35pm
HDDR 7:15pm
12/4 Kona 8:45am
Garden Grill 4:50pm
12/5 Crystal Palace 8:05am
Tonys Town Square 1:20pm
Kona 8pm
12/6 Chef Mickeys 8:05am
Now to think about counter service for the other meals, back to the menu pages I guess!

 

[Tink Mick Koda Miles]

wow, what airline is that? charging for carry ons? that's a first! however, i did notice that when i flew american to vegas from DFW this week for work, they offered an 'upgrade' to "Group 1" for $10. seriously??? how silly is that. all it does is get you on the plane before the other groups (but after gold/platinum/EP and first). don't they get enough of our money already? i laughed when i saw that.


Its called Spirit Airlines. Its in a small airport right done the street from our house and they always have cheap flights. Even with their dumb bag charges they are still cheaper then the other airlines