scrapsoflife
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2004
- Messages
- 28
Travelers:
Me: Scraps (aka Jenn), 28, long-time Disney-er but it's been a while since my last trip (Nov. 95)
DH: Van, 41, last trip Aug. of 95
Dates: Friday, August 20-Sunday, August 22 (just a quick weekend getaway)
t-minus 14 days til take-off (well, pulling out of the driveway but anyway)
Backstory: I'm a yahoogroups nut: I'm on dozens of lists for one hobby or
another. Two and a half years ago I was in a scrapbooking Secret Sister Swap that spanned several lists and I was assigned probably the best Secret
Sister in all the world. (What does this have to do with Disney? Well, I'm
getting there.) She went by the name pooh[at]hotmail[dot]com. For 2 months
we corresponded before the secrecy was lifted and I found out her real name
was Windy, and she lived in Washington state.
Turns out we had a lot in common: we were the same age, married but no kids, of course had similar hobbies since we met through a scrapbook swap, and both loved Disney, Pooh Bear especially. What we didn't ever figure on was meeting. Then she mentioned in a chat that she would be down at The World for her 5 year wedding anniversary and wanted to know how far Disney was from Tallahassee. I told her it was a 4-5 hour drive but that maybe, if she was there over a weekend, I could drive down and we could have lunch together or something.
Well, that lunch turned into spending a day at Epcot maybe (dh & my favorite
park) but scheduling conflicts meant that we'd be getting there the day
before they left so then we settled on dinner the Friday night we get in,
but details were loose.
Planning: Windy and her hubby would be in Orlando 8/16-21/04, we decided
that we would take that Friday off, drive down and spend the weekend, coming back that Sunday. From a trip Van had taken with his previous family he had 2 Park Hopper passes with a day each left on them, so tickets were mostly taken care of. While I was figuring on staying off-site to save money Van was insistent we stay on-property: "It's part of the experience," he told
me. So I started checking out rates for the Values (I knew about Mousesavers.com from friends who had mentioned it online). We had just about settled on Pop Century when the Florida residents rates came out for our travel time and when I realized we could get a King room in a moderate for what we were planning on spending at Pop Century, we decided to upgrade rather than save money.
Now to pick which one! Shortly after Van and I married we went to New
Orleans to visit some of my family over Thanksgiving holidays. We really
enjoyed playing tourist in the French Quarter (something I always love,
since I moved away when I was 6) so when I saw there were 2 Louisiana themed resorts in the Moderates I was absolutely giddy! As I perused pictures of the different resorts I instantly fell in love with the townhouse-look of French Quarter, and convinced Van that it was what I wanted.
Hotel settled on, and Saturday intended for touring EPCOT, the main thing left to do was decide where Windy and I would finally get to meet. This proved somewhat sticky. Dh is rather laid back when he travels, and I'm a Type-A control freak (it's good to know ones strengths and weaknesses, no?). Dh is also a rather picky eater, not adventurous, and meanwhile I have a Culinary degree and am the former Pastry Chef of a 4-diamond resort Plantation in Georgia. What a pair we make lol. I didn't know much about Windy's dh, but I knew she really liked to dine out high on the hog as we say down in the South, so I had to find someplace with both fancy and normal offerings that would satisfy all parties. Did I mention that Van doesn't eat much seafood? Yeah. I know.
The issues were not only the food choices, but that dh & wouldn't be doing a
park on Friday so it needed to be in DTD, a resort, or somewhere in Orlando (nothing like narrowing the options!). Meanwhile, Windy & Co. would have spend almost a week at the World, and I didn't want to hinder their dinner choices that week or risk repeating someplace they had already been.
Thanks to the Passporter Guide Book, the various message board and websites, I figured either Portabella's (dh likes Italian) or Fulton's would be best, but there was the whole seafood thing, so I went through every DTD & resort table service menu and found about 7 to put on the short list. Medieval Times was even (briefly) considered when dh mentioned he'd never gone there. I sent email after email to Windy with options and menu links (thanks AllEars!!!) and time schedules and-and-and all the while hoping she didn't start hating me for being so obsessed with this one minute detail. I just knew if we got there and had to wait 45 minutes to an hour for a table or got tangled in the whole "where do you want to eat? I don't know, where do you want to? I don't know, what are you in the mood for?" kind of debate it could very well ruin this magical moment!
**a failure to plan is a plan for failure**
Finally, after talking it over with dh and getting some word back from Windy, we nixed Medieval times, because even though she was willing, I saw little to no possibility for conversation and the food's pretty blah--great for dh, bad for the rest of us. I explained to dh that I was worried about him not being happy with the menu choices, even though each place did have a steak or two and a chicken breast entree, most everywhere seemed to center on seafood! Then he said the words that would remind me why I married him: "The whole point of going down there is so you can meet your friend. You two pick where you want to go and if I have to swing by McDonald's on the way home it's not a problem." You know, his laid back-ness can really get to me sometimes, but its times like this that really make it a nice trait. Fulton's it was. And even though it was only 3 1/2 weeks til our arrival date, I still managed to get a Priority Seating for 7:30 on a Friday night. Wohoo!
To be continued...
Me: Scraps (aka Jenn), 28, long-time Disney-er but it's been a while since my last trip (Nov. 95)
DH: Van, 41, last trip Aug. of 95
Dates: Friday, August 20-Sunday, August 22 (just a quick weekend getaway)
t-minus 14 days til take-off (well, pulling out of the driveway but anyway)
Backstory: I'm a yahoogroups nut: I'm on dozens of lists for one hobby or
another. Two and a half years ago I was in a scrapbooking Secret Sister Swap that spanned several lists and I was assigned probably the best Secret
Sister in all the world. (What does this have to do with Disney? Well, I'm
getting there.) She went by the name pooh[at]hotmail[dot]com. For 2 months
we corresponded before the secrecy was lifted and I found out her real name
was Windy, and she lived in Washington state.
Turns out we had a lot in common: we were the same age, married but no kids, of course had similar hobbies since we met through a scrapbook swap, and both loved Disney, Pooh Bear especially. What we didn't ever figure on was meeting. Then she mentioned in a chat that she would be down at The World for her 5 year wedding anniversary and wanted to know how far Disney was from Tallahassee. I told her it was a 4-5 hour drive but that maybe, if she was there over a weekend, I could drive down and we could have lunch together or something.
Well, that lunch turned into spending a day at Epcot maybe (dh & my favorite
park) but scheduling conflicts meant that we'd be getting there the day
before they left so then we settled on dinner the Friday night we get in,
but details were loose.
Planning: Windy and her hubby would be in Orlando 8/16-21/04, we decided
that we would take that Friday off, drive down and spend the weekend, coming back that Sunday. From a trip Van had taken with his previous family he had 2 Park Hopper passes with a day each left on them, so tickets were mostly taken care of. While I was figuring on staying off-site to save money Van was insistent we stay on-property: "It's part of the experience," he told
me. So I started checking out rates for the Values (I knew about Mousesavers.com from friends who had mentioned it online). We had just about settled on Pop Century when the Florida residents rates came out for our travel time and when I realized we could get a King room in a moderate for what we were planning on spending at Pop Century, we decided to upgrade rather than save money.
Now to pick which one! Shortly after Van and I married we went to New
Orleans to visit some of my family over Thanksgiving holidays. We really
enjoyed playing tourist in the French Quarter (something I always love,
since I moved away when I was 6) so when I saw there were 2 Louisiana themed resorts in the Moderates I was absolutely giddy! As I perused pictures of the different resorts I instantly fell in love with the townhouse-look of French Quarter, and convinced Van that it was what I wanted.
Hotel settled on, and Saturday intended for touring EPCOT, the main thing left to do was decide where Windy and I would finally get to meet. This proved somewhat sticky. Dh is rather laid back when he travels, and I'm a Type-A control freak (it's good to know ones strengths and weaknesses, no?). Dh is also a rather picky eater, not adventurous, and meanwhile I have a Culinary degree and am the former Pastry Chef of a 4-diamond resort Plantation in Georgia. What a pair we make lol. I didn't know much about Windy's dh, but I knew she really liked to dine out high on the hog as we say down in the South, so I had to find someplace with both fancy and normal offerings that would satisfy all parties. Did I mention that Van doesn't eat much seafood? Yeah. I know.
The issues were not only the food choices, but that dh & wouldn't be doing a
park on Friday so it needed to be in DTD, a resort, or somewhere in Orlando (nothing like narrowing the options!). Meanwhile, Windy & Co. would have spend almost a week at the World, and I didn't want to hinder their dinner choices that week or risk repeating someplace they had already been.
Thanks to the Passporter Guide Book, the various message board and websites, I figured either Portabella's (dh likes Italian) or Fulton's would be best, but there was the whole seafood thing, so I went through every DTD & resort table service menu and found about 7 to put on the short list. Medieval Times was even (briefly) considered when dh mentioned he'd never gone there. I sent email after email to Windy with options and menu links (thanks AllEars!!!) and time schedules and-and-and all the while hoping she didn't start hating me for being so obsessed with this one minute detail. I just knew if we got there and had to wait 45 minutes to an hour for a table or got tangled in the whole "where do you want to eat? I don't know, where do you want to? I don't know, what are you in the mood for?" kind of debate it could very well ruin this magical moment!
**a failure to plan is a plan for failure**
Finally, after talking it over with dh and getting some word back from Windy, we nixed Medieval times, because even though she was willing, I saw little to no possibility for conversation and the food's pretty blah--great for dh, bad for the rest of us. I explained to dh that I was worried about him not being happy with the menu choices, even though each place did have a steak or two and a chicken breast entree, most everywhere seemed to center on seafood! Then he said the words that would remind me why I married him: "The whole point of going down there is so you can meet your friend. You two pick where you want to go and if I have to swing by McDonald's on the way home it's not a problem." You know, his laid back-ness can really get to me sometimes, but its times like this that really make it a nice trait. Fulton's it was. And even though it was only 3 1/2 weeks til our arrival date, I still managed to get a Priority Seating for 7:30 on a Friday night. Wohoo!
To be continued...
