TxDisMom
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2011
- Messages
- 20
Hello All! I so enjoy reading trip reports--they really get me excited for our vacations. I've never done one for our previous 2 trips to WDW, but I thought I'd give it a shot this go 'round. So, here are our plans...
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Me: Carla (age 48)
Hubby: Vince (age 48)
Son: Jamie (age 7, almost 8--this is his birthday trip as he will turn 8 on May 23rd)
RESORT: We will be staying at Coronado Springs for 8 nights--May 11-19th. We have never stayed at CSR before. Last trip 2 years ago we stayed at Carribean Beach Resort which was lovely, but those double beds are small! I much prefer a queen bed. Plus, my son loves his pool time and the pool at CSR looks awesome. I am requesting a first level room in the in the Cabanas section--hopefully either 8A or 8B which looks close to the bus stop, dig site pool, and hopefully not too far from check-in and the food court. If anyone has a better suggestion for location, please feel free to comment as I haven't been there in person.
TRANSPORTATION: We live an hour south of Dallas, TX, so we will be flying out of DFW Airport to Orlando via American Airlines. We should arrive mid-afternoon and will take ME to our resort. We don't plan to go to a park that day (Saturday). We plan to take it easy and let our son swim and go to Downtown Disney where we have an ADR for dinner at Fulton's. Anyone been there before? We haven't--this is a new one for us this trip. We love seafood so I'm looking forward to it.
MEALS: Not doing the dining plan this time, but I have made a few ADR's for us while we're there. As I said above, we'll be going to Fulton's Crab House our first night there. Other ADR's on our schedule are O'hana (everyones favorite and a must-do), The Brown Derby at MGM (another first for us), Boma at the AKL, Yachtsman Steak House (hubby's fave--awesome steak!), and Plaza Restaurant at MK. I still can't believe I didn't make any ADR's at Epcot--I couldn't decide where I wanted to eat there and by the time I got around to it, every place I wanated was booked up. Oh well... I'm sure we'll do some good counter service meals in the World Showcase. In addition, we always do breakfast in the room--pop tarts, cereal, etc.
MY PLAN: I'm a commando planner and researcher. I tend to plan everything down to the minute (well, almost). Here is what I do as soon as we secure our travel dates. I go to Touring Plans and check the crowd calendar for the days we're going to be there. I then pick the "best" park for each day depending on crowd levels. After picking the park we will visit for each day I then pick my restaurants based on where we'll be. This is especially important for us because we didn't buy the park hopper option. For instance, I booked The Brown Derby for a day I knew we'd be at MGM. So, at this point I know where we're going to be each day and where we're going to eat. I don't like "flying by the seat of my pants". This trip we'll be able to visit each park twice. This is just the way I do it. I feel better having a plan. I have allowed a little flexibility to stick in a resort day or half day if we decide to.
We've received our ME luggage tags in the mail and everything is planned and ready. All that's left now is to wait out the next two weeks, pack, and GO!
I'll post our trip report when we get home. Thanks for reading... comments and suggestions are most welcome.
Carla
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Me: Carla (age 48)
Hubby: Vince (age 48)
Son: Jamie (age 7, almost 8--this is his birthday trip as he will turn 8 on May 23rd)
RESORT: We will be staying at Coronado Springs for 8 nights--May 11-19th. We have never stayed at CSR before. Last trip 2 years ago we stayed at Carribean Beach Resort which was lovely, but those double beds are small! I much prefer a queen bed. Plus, my son loves his pool time and the pool at CSR looks awesome. I am requesting a first level room in the in the Cabanas section--hopefully either 8A or 8B which looks close to the bus stop, dig site pool, and hopefully not too far from check-in and the food court. If anyone has a better suggestion for location, please feel free to comment as I haven't been there in person.
TRANSPORTATION: We live an hour south of Dallas, TX, so we will be flying out of DFW Airport to Orlando via American Airlines. We should arrive mid-afternoon and will take ME to our resort. We don't plan to go to a park that day (Saturday). We plan to take it easy and let our son swim and go to Downtown Disney where we have an ADR for dinner at Fulton's. Anyone been there before? We haven't--this is a new one for us this trip. We love seafood so I'm looking forward to it.
MEALS: Not doing the dining plan this time, but I have made a few ADR's for us while we're there. As I said above, we'll be going to Fulton's Crab House our first night there. Other ADR's on our schedule are O'hana (everyones favorite and a must-do), The Brown Derby at MGM (another first for us), Boma at the AKL, Yachtsman Steak House (hubby's fave--awesome steak!), and Plaza Restaurant at MK. I still can't believe I didn't make any ADR's at Epcot--I couldn't decide where I wanted to eat there and by the time I got around to it, every place I wanated was booked up. Oh well... I'm sure we'll do some good counter service meals in the World Showcase. In addition, we always do breakfast in the room--pop tarts, cereal, etc.
MY PLAN: I'm a commando planner and researcher. I tend to plan everything down to the minute (well, almost). Here is what I do as soon as we secure our travel dates. I go to Touring Plans and check the crowd calendar for the days we're going to be there. I then pick the "best" park for each day depending on crowd levels. After picking the park we will visit for each day I then pick my restaurants based on where we'll be. This is especially important for us because we didn't buy the park hopper option. For instance, I booked The Brown Derby for a day I knew we'd be at MGM. So, at this point I know where we're going to be each day and where we're going to eat. I don't like "flying by the seat of my pants". This trip we'll be able to visit each park twice. This is just the way I do it. I feel better having a plan. I have allowed a little flexibility to stick in a resort day or half day if we decide to.
We've received our ME luggage tags in the mail and everything is planned and ready. All that's left now is to wait out the next two weeks, pack, and GO!
I'll post our trip report when we get home. Thanks for reading... comments and suggestions are most welcome.
Carla
