Ready, Set, Let the Games Begin! - Link to new PTR/TR!

[Dis_Yoda]

We had that nightmare too. Despite multiple phone calls on Monday & Tuesday, we did miss out on one thing we wanted (no Brown Derby dinner for me ) but I did the Flying Fish instead.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

Great that you eventually scored the ressies you wanted. I am delighted for you. It's silly you have to wake up at such times. As a card holder Disney should have the IT systems where you preselect the events you want and when the window opens it automatically books it for you. Ebay can do it with it's automatic bidding system...

Great to hear from Fran a typically English way of describing the events of being cut off would have been as such ..' After remaining on the telephone receiver for some duration of time I became aware that there was a silence with regard the communication from the other party. I concluded from this there was now an absence of the cast member with whom I was speaking. Furthermore the network on which we had shared had been terminated. After expressing my frustration in profanity I placed the telephone receiver back on its connecting unit and redialled the original number...

Please note no animals were hurt during this outburst of human lexicon use.

 

[Pinkocto]

That sounds too stressful for me! Glad Fran helped out and glad you got the events you wanted.

 

[rentayenta]

I'm glad you got those 3 events but I felt my BP increase after reading about the multiple disconnections.

 

[ACDSNY]

a typically English way of describing the events of being cut off would have been as such ..' After remaining on the telephone receiver for some duration of time I became aware that there was a silence with regard the communication from the other party. I concluded from this there was now an absence of the cast member with whom I was speaking. Furthermore the network on which we had shared had been terminated. After expressing my frustration in profanity I placed the telephone receiver back on its connecting unit and redialled the original number...

Please note no animals were hurt during this outburst of human lexicon use.

 

[dgbg100106]

Great that you eventually scored the ressies you wanted. I am delighted for you. It's silly you have to wake up at such times. As a card holder Disney should have the IT systems where you preselect the events you want and when the window opens it automatically books it for you. Ebay can do it with it's automatic bidding system...

Great to hear from Fran a typically English way of describing the events of being cut off would have been as such ..' After remaining on the telephone receiver for some duration of time I became aware that there was a silence with regard the communication from the other party. I concluded from this there was now an absence of the cast member with whom I was speaking. Furthermore the network on which we had shared had been terminated. After expressing my frustration in profanity I placed the telephone receiver back on its connecting unit and redialled the original number...

Please note no animals were hurt during this outburst of human lexicon use.

HaHa... lol


I must confess I drink cream in tea...

 

[Leshaface]

Oh my gosh I hate when you get disconnected like that! That's happened to me more than once and it's so frustrating. But i'm so glad you were able to get what you wanted!

 

[eandesmom]

I was just able to sell my house in Kansas City after renting it out for almost 5 years...I couldn't give it away when I moved to Denver so had to rent it out. My tenant gave me notice this spring and I was able to get a full price offer in about 6 days....I was so happy to finally be rid of that house! Inventory is really tight in both KC and here in Denver...Denver's house prices are hitting all time highs again.

Jill in CO

same here, almost overnight. Our new pastor got outbid on 6 houses, lost one during inspection when the seller wouldn't fix things so the lender wouldn't lend

I think at this point, I need to take all of your good wishes and pixie dust and put it really tight in a container to hope it come through, but as it stands the lender wants 51% down. and if they counter for any more money, we are done. This EVERYTHING we have to put down and we have NOTHING left. so. we are now looking for other properties. If this one comes through. Awesome! But we are no longer holding our breath, we are looking otherwise.

Its crazy. Especially that so many are trying to get out with their money!

On the good news side our mortgage payment will be substantially lower than we expected!

They're the lender. They are loaning us the money. Evidently they don't trust us with more than that. Evidently though our interest rate will be better at this amount.

Honestly, I don't even know what our interest rates are!
You're too cute, you will have to wait until you get back.

You see, evidently they were willing to give us more money, the loan guy was just trying to keep our interest rates down. That's why they were asking for so much up front. I had sent the realtor an email saying that we would have to walk away if they countered with more money. He went back to the loan guy and said, "Can they get more money?"

The loan guy said, "sure, the interest rate, just won't be as good."

Well why didn't they give us that option before?

Well now there is another offer!!!! We have now taken the more money at the higher interest rate to up our offer on the place, and they are presenting both offers this afternoon. I think I might start a whole new thread on this buying a house thing so as not to continue to hijack my PTR!!!!!!!

Ok UGH on all of this. The banks have gotten REALLY tight to make up for being so really NOT that it's become very hard to get loans, especially jumbo. We refinanced recently and it was so ridiculously complicated I swear...never again until we will!

I know you've got a new thread...just hoping you know what your interest rate is now

Are you on the F&W thread? All reports say to avoid the kiosks on the weekends. The lines are very long and by mid day to evening, especially Saturday, many people are drunk and it's just no fun. Definitely plan on hitting them for weekdays.

It was a mistake to have all those ADRs because we were never hungry for the whole week. This time we only have ADRs for the days we plan on doing other things, or because we want to share the time with the friends we are meeting. Soon I plan to post my hopes and plans for the second full day.

Weekends are FAR worse. That's the time for the ADR's for sure. Go in if there is a Flower Power/Eat to the Beat concert you want to see or go early early right when WS opens but otherswise hit a different park!

So back to the topic of the trip to Orlando and F&W!

Yesterday was the official call in day for F&W Special Events. Phone lines open at 4AM (which translates to 7AM Eastern time). Let me back up a little bit.

As Fran and I tried to come to consciousness Monday morning after the D23 Expo, I checked the DISboards on the phone. I noticed on the AKL official unofficial thread that some folks were calling in for the events. I found out that Disney Visa holders could book events a day early. The problem was the phone lines opened at 4AM and now it was 10:15AM

I immediately got on the phone and started to try and book the events. I got right through and they even got me reserved for the Grand Mariner event. Taste, Shake and Roll like the French. The agent started to look up the other things I wanted. He kept putting me on hold, and next thing you know, disconnected.

I called right back and that event was sold out. As well as all the other events that I wanted to book. I called back twice and finally an agent told me that only a limited number of seats were available that day and the rest of them would be released the next day.

So we were resolved to call in the next morning. Ill let Fran take over from here as she posted on my D23 Expo thread.

UGH, so frustrating

Just to put my two cents in, and to add in the stuff Alison probably won't remember, I stayed up the night before we were going to make those 4:00 AM calls so I could wake Alison up. This is our usual routine when we need to be up at an inhuman hour of the morning, as I don't want to take any chances on me not waking up. Alison does not wake up very easily, usually I have to pull the covers off her and pull her up and out of bed (normally to a chorus of very cranky words). This time when she finally heard me say "It's 4 AM and you have to call Disneyworld" she came to and bounded up.

With both of us calling on the cel phones, doing about 20 calls each a minute, it was probably about 1000 calls before one of us got an answer. Then, the recording said that the wait was over 30 minutes long....

10 minutes later I got answered, so we both waited, and waited, and ... well, you get the idea. Suddenly, Alison burst out with words I would not want to put on a Disney related site, ending with "....I got cut off!"

I gave her my phone, got hers and started dialing again.

An hour and a half after we started dialing Alison finally got a human being on the line and was able to make all 3 of the reservations she wanted!


I was finally able to roll over and go to sleep for the night.
Take care
Fran

LOVE the commentary here!

So those three reservations that we got were these:

Mexican Tequila Lunch
When: Friday, October 4, 2013 12-1:30PM
Where: La Hacienda de San Angel, Mexico pavilion

Mixology Series: Taste, Shake and Indulge Like the French
When: Saturday, October 5. 2:30-4PM
Where: Monsieur Paul, France pavilion

French Regional Lunch
Where: Monsieur Paul, France pavilion
When: Sunday October 6, 2013 Champagne, Wayne Ballard, Nicolas Feuillate

Yay for us!

Ill post our whole updated schedule when I get a chance.

the last one in particular sounds wonderful!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to go back to F&W though I have a very strong feeling it won't be till 2015 which is forever away.

 

[franandaj]

Congrats on eventually getting your reservations and I love Fran's description of you when you were disconnected.

Thanks! Everything is starting to fall into place for this trip!

I am not doing a pre trip report and probably will not even do a trip report on it either. I never finished my last report and want to finish it before I do another.

I sounds like you went through a lot to get your F&W reservations. It was so nice of Fran to help you. Crap always leaves it to me (I am not working right now, so it is easier for me to stay up all night anyway). I just wish WDW reservations were as easy to get as Disneyland.

I can never stay up all night, she is very sweet to do that for me!

YAY for getting your F&W events booked. They all sound great!

And yes, I'm laughing at how you and Fran were both on the cell phones trying to get through to Disney. Glad it all worked out in the end.

Believe me, that is something that we are very familiar with doing when it comes to Disney!

I'm excited for you and Fran to get the reservations for the F&W that you wanted. I don't I can get up that early in the morning to make those reservations and had to wait awhile until a CM helped me.

It's really hard for me to get up that early. I do utter non Disney like phrases when she wakes me up, or so she tells me!

I am glad that you got all the F&W events that you wanted in the end. What a nightmare you had getting them.

Corinna

That's pretty much how all these Disney things are, a knock down drag out fight!

We had that nightmare too. Despite multiple phone calls on Monday & Tuesday, we did miss out on one thing we wanted (no Brown Derby dinner for me ) but I did the Flying Fish instead.

Sorry you missed out on the Brown Derby Dinner. I kept wondering why our F! package was at 3:50PM, then when they released the schedule I figured it out. They are having a Special dinner there that night so they have to get us out before it starts. No hope of a later dinner for us. I guess it will be a late lunch.

Great that you eventually scored the ressies you wanted. I am delighted for you. It's silly you have to wake up at such times. As a card holder Disney should have the IT systems where you preselect the events you want and when the window opens it automatically books it for you. Ebay can do it with it's automatic bidding system...

Great to hear from Fran a typically English way of describing the events of being cut off would have been as such ..' After remaining on the telephone receiver for some duration of time I became aware that there was a silence with regard the communication from the other party. I concluded from this there was now an absence of the cast member with whom I was speaking. Furthermore the network on which we had shared had been terminated. After expressing my frustration in profanity I placed the telephone receiver back on its connecting unit and redialled the original number...

Please note no animals were hurt during this outburst of human lexicon use.

Very funny! I love it!

That sounds too stressful for me! Glad Fran helped out and glad you got the events you wanted.

Me too!

I'm glad you got those 3 events but I felt my BP increase after reading about the multiple disconnections.

It is REALLY annoying huh?

HaHa... lol


I must confess I drink cream in tea...

Me too!

Oh my gosh I hate when you get disconnected like that! That's happened to me more than once and it's so frustrating. But i'm so glad you were able to get what you wanted!

It is totally frustrating, but glad it all worked out!

same here, almost overnight. Our new pastor got outbid on 6 houses, lost one during inspection when the seller wouldn't fix things so the lender wouldn't lend

Ok UGH on all of this. The banks have gotten REALLY tight to make up for being so really NOT that it's become very hard to get loans, especially jumbo. We refinanced recently and it was so ridiculously complicated I swear...never again until we will!

I know you've got a new thread...just hoping you know what your interest rate is now

Weekends are FAR worse. That's the time for the ADR's for sure. Go in if there is a Flower Power/Eat to the Beat concert you want to see or go early early right when WS opens but otherswise hit a different park!

UGH, so frustrating

LOVE the commentary here!

the last one in particular sounds wonderful!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to go back to F&W though I have a very strong feeling it won't be till 2015 which is forever away.

The gal at the bank who provided me with copies of all the checks in our deposits told me the banks are getting tight because they want to make sure you are not funding terrorism. Crazy huh?

Yeah, we are planning for other parks, special events or resort days on the weekends. No F&W kiosks.

 

[glaserjm]

So great that you got all of the event reservations that you wanted! This will be our second F&W and we've yet to do any of those special events, but this time our goal is to really explore the festival pavilion as we completely skipped over it last time. We're hoping F&W will be an annual trip for us, so hopefully we can do some of the special events in the future!

 

[eandesmom]

The gal at the bank who provided me with copies of all the checks in our deposits told me the banks are getting tight because they want to make sure you are not funding terrorism. Crazy huh?

Yeah. Not buying that. Well it kind of is but not really. There are 2 things going on in the market.

One is a TON of foreign buyers all over, snapping up real estate, it is a fact that this is part of what is driving up prices in general in many markets and the sudden restart of contstruction. How a bank could determine a terrorist versus a legitimate foreign investor though, I've no idea.

And then of course the great mortgage debacle and resulting impact to our economy. Banks do not want to get themselves into that boat again. So of course have gone way overboard to make it quite difficult to get a loan.

 

[franandaj]

So great that you got all of the event reservations that you wanted! This will be our second F&W and we've yet to do any of those special events, but this time our goal is to really explore the festival pavilion as we completely skipped over it last time. We're hoping F&W will be an annual trip for us, so hopefully we can do some of the special events in the future!

We got hooked on the Special Events when they had a F&W Festival in California. I think you get a lot more value from those since you get a full meal and they don't tend to skimp on the pours.

Yeah. Not buying that. Well it kind of is but not really. There are 2 things going on in the market.

One is a TON of foreign buyers all over, snapping up real estate, it is a fact that this is part of what is driving up prices in general in many markets and the sudden restart of contstruction. How a bank could determine a terrorist versus a legitimate foreign investor though, I've no idea.

And then of course the great mortgage debacle and resulting impact to our economy. Banks do not want to get themselves into that boat again. So of course have gone way overboard to make it quite difficult to get a loan.

From what I know the foreign people snapping up the Real Estate, don't need the loans, they are coming over with cash. But it's here nor there. I'm not funding terrorism, nor planning on building a meth lab, so it's all good!

 

[TifffanyD]

That would be the swankiest meth lab ever

 

[jedijill]

That would be the swankiest meth lab ever

Jill in CO

 

[franandaj]

Day 3 – No Real Plans at All

I imagine by the time we get to this day, Fran will have voiced an opinion as to what she wants to do, or perhaps not. Already she has said that she would like to visit a seller on eBay and someone she met in 3D at the D23 convention, Theme Park Connection. To imply that it is one person would be misleading. This is a store that gets a lot of the old Disney display items and other merchandise and sells it on the resale market. It sounds like fun to me, I just want to get an early start on our day there. I have an ulterior motive. I would like to come back and visit Epcot and the F&W kiosks for the second part of the day.

I would like to check out this place as they had lots of neat stuff at D23, but I don’t want to be leaving for there at noon, I’d like to get there when they open, check the stuff out and be back by afternoon time to nosh at F&W. To do this we would need a rental car, so we need to work out this whole situation. As Fran does not enjoy planning out every moment the way I do, I have to just sit back and try to not get agitated about this situation.

She is feeling much better than she did two years ago, and last trip, she really had some clear plans of what she wanted to do. I’ve purposely left this day open so that we can enjoy ourselves on our own. But that little planner in me is having a hard time not scheduling this day!

Starting the next day we are meeting up at the BWV with the other DISers from the Gamers DISmeet. Once that starts we have daily activities with other folks, so I wanted to be sure we had some time just for us.

I’ve thrown out the plan to make Sloppy Joes and some Tater Tots along with cole slaw. However, we do need to leave us time in the room to get our bags packed up and ready for the change to the BCV the next day.

 

[franandaj]

That would be the swankiest meth lab ever

Jill in CO

 

[jedijill]

Sounds like a great day! I've always wanted to go check out Theme Park Connections but just never made time.

BTW, did you see that California Grill is re-opening on 9/9. ADR's are available for booking on 8/26.

http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2013/...-9th-reservations-available-monday-august-26/

Jill in CO

 

[Pinkocto]

Be careful, you might have to ship some goodies back home if you go to a seller like that!

I love tator tots

 

[kmedina]

Sounds like a cool day. I always want to leave a day open to possibilities and end up booking it to the brink anyway. My commando style always breaks through even though Crap resists me.

 

[dolphingirl47]

I can absolutely understand where you are coming from. It is driving me crazy that so much about our December trip is still up in the air and will probably remain like this for another 6 weeks. I am lucky though. Graham does not really get my obsession with planning, but then he is quite glad that so much is all planned ahead. His mantra is "Just tell me where I need to be and at what time."

I hope that you get a early start and can enjoy the shopping and the offerings at the Food and Wine Festival.

Corinna