Whoo hoo! I just redeemed Air Miles for our third ticket because they now have the Canadian Resident offer online, saving me 594 Air Miles in the process. AND then I bought our last ticket through Disney directly, and it saved the exchange for me, even through the credit card. I was amazed that they linked it to my Disney app within 5 minutes!
We're 35 days out and we're all so excited now!
All our important meals are booked:
22nd - Dinner with friends at the Rainforest Café
23rd - WOC Dessert Party
24th - Breakfast at Storytellers
25th - Dinner with Mickey at PCH Grill
26th - Dinner at HRC at USH
27th - Most likely Johnny Rocket's
28th - Breakfast with Minnie
29th - Christmas Tea at SH55
I've made notes of the menus for the Festival of Food and Navidad! so we'll see how that works out.
The family doesn't like to be overscheduled, so I've made only one reservation for stuff per day. Plus, I've told them that if they want to do something specific, they need to let me know. ie: DD13 wants to see at least one parade, so I had to let them know we need to stake out a spot at a certain time at least once. DH actually said that we should get photos at landmark places and use it as a collage Christmas Card sent out AFTER the holidays. Challenge accepted! So far, I've thought of:
1 - the tree at DLR
2 - Santa at CC and RFT
3 - Carsland Entryway
4 - in front of the castle daytime
5 - in front of the castle nighttime if possible
6 - under the hat outside the DLH
Can you suggest anywhere else?
My planning list has nearly been completed and I'm pretty excited about it:
- * Passports safe - check!
- * Meals planned - check!
- * Tickets purchased - check!
- * Gift Cards - check!
- * Basic itinerary - check!
- * Shuttle booked to and from the airport at home and in USA - check!
- * spending money - exchanged mid-December!
- * money on the credit card - done by mid-December!
- * USH tix - purchase mid-December!
- * Max Pass bought & linked - after MM on our first day as I'm going to upgrade to AP Sig+ afterward!
So I have a few things left to do, but that's next month and so I'm not worried.
We have decided to bring our Elf, Elfred (he's more of a stuffie than a typical Elf on the Shelf) along for a day in the Parks, and we're bringing our stockings to have in the hotel room. I'll have a few things to stuff them with I'll bring with us, but I'll keep my eyes open for things while we're in the Parks too.
The girls want me to make Snickerdoodles and bring some for our housekeepers for their Christmas present. I make a party mix, affectionately known as "Christmas Crack", so I'll probably bring some of that too and give little bags of those to the staff. One batch makes 4 large foil roasting pans worth, so we'll have plenty to give away, even after giving some out as presents before we go! That shouldn't be disallowed in our checked baggage at the airport...? I'll have to double check on that.
I don't even want to decorate our home! DH said he'd take care of it. That worries me.
What I find funny is when I mention to people (like my doctor or a casual acquaintance) that we're going away to Disney for Christmas, they say, "Oh we went there 3 years ago for a day or two. It was great! Did you know they have a big light show thingy? (F! btw) It's really neat...." and they tell me about stuff they did. So I nod and smile and say, "WOW" and "I'll keep that in mind", all the while giggling inside at their innocence.
, and we're going to have ice cream at Ghiradelli's to ease the disappointment. Then dinner at Smokejumpers Grill to round off our week before heading home the next morning.
The house sitter arrives at 8pm tomorrow at the airport, and it's quite a lot of gas for the truck (I won't take the car until all the roads are plowed), so we need to figure out how much gas we can afford as our booked driver won't be able to get us to the airport. Ugh, these last minute hiccups drive me crazy. But hubby took one look at my face yesterday and said, "There's no way we're missing the flight to Disney." I'm so glad he understands me. 
