SURPRISE! (I Hope He Didn't Want to go to Chattanooga)-Dec. 2012 PTR-MEGA UPDATEx3

[marDgreen88]

A day that includes Crystal Palace, Splash Mountain, and the Osborne lights will be automatically awesome. I always start with Adventureland too! I think my brain is naturally 'left-centric' and I ALWAYS go to the left, no matter what I'm doing. (Except if I'm going to DHS because duh, TSM is on the right. )

 

[CDolacki2003]

Osborne Lights was an unexpected highlight to out trip in 2010. We loved it and DH still talks about it. We are going to try MNSSHP next year. I cannot wait to see your TR to relive the experience. Having a great time with this one, thanks.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[sunnysideup3]

A day that includes Crystal Palace, Splash Mountain, and the Osborne lights will be automatically awesome. I always start with Adventureland too! I think my brain is naturally 'left-centric' and I ALWAYS go to the left, no matter what I'm doing. (Except if I'm going to DHS because duh, TSM is on the right. )

I don't know what it is about always going left. I remember going for EMH last year with Nate and my brother Craig and we went straight to Space Mountain, and what a weird feeling that was!! I guess I'm left-centric as well!

Splash is up there on my favorites list. I just listed to the ride soundtrack on D-Cot... MADE. MY. DAY.

Osborne Lights was an unexpected highlight to out trip in 2010. We loved it and DH still talks about it. We are going to try MNSSHP next year. I cannot wait to see your TR to relive the experience. Having a great time with this one, thanks.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

Thanks for joining in!!

I loved the Osbourne lights last year. In retrospect, I wish we'd spent more time looking around, or gone for the lighting, because I feel like I didn't take it in enough! My mom even says if there was one thing she wishes we would have done more of, the lights were it!

 

[sunnysideup3]

Day 5: The Magic of Hollywood! ​

On Day 6, we will wake up at POR and hit up the food court pretty early. A Mickey Waffle in the belly can make any day a good one!

From there, we will head to Disney's Hollywood Studios (or MGM, for the purists ).

Our first order of business??



Toy Story Mania, of course.... (What kind of Toy Story fans do you think we are??) We will grab fast passes and hit the ride at least 1 time.

From there, we will probably back track to Eli's and my favorite ride......


.....thoughts........







Tower of Terror!!!!!

There is a redneck picture of the three of us on this ride from last year. All you see between Nate and I is this little kid in a Woody costume with his hands in the air... he LOVES this ride. We went 8 times last year. We're going for a new record in 2012. It WILL be done!!


We might ride switch for RnRC, I don't know. I don't feel like I will miss out on anything if I don't go on this ride again....

We will definitely do Star Wars!



He loves the cruiser.

(ASIDE: I am SO excited about the Disney acquisition of LucasFilm!!!)

Around then it should be time for lunch at one of our favorites!!!



Image borrowed from wdwlive.com


Sci-Fi Dine In!!!

I thought the food was decent and the atmosphere stellar. I loved that we could get milkshakes and sitting in the cars was just great! Eli loved the movies, so I'm sure we'll have a great time again.


In the afternoon we want to try and catch a Beauty and the Beast show and probably head out to rest up. I've never done the show and I think it will prepare us well for what our evening plans are ....





Image borrowed from mousechat.net


BE OUR GUEST.

OMG. I'm so excited for this. The J's will be joining us for this reservation and I am beside myself excited for this..... Can't wait to dining review it! (Catch me over on the Live Dining Report thread throughout my vacation. I'll link up later!)

After our wonderful meal, we'll spend the night's EMH in MK! I will catch Wishes (for the first time--SAD! ) and let the kids guide us.

This is one of the days I'm most looking forward to on our vacation. I'm so glad I get to share it with you all!!!
​

 

[marDgreen88]

TOY STORY MANIA AHHHHHHHHHH. Just one of the loves of my life.

Sci Fi is so fun! Those movies just crack me up.

AHHH Be Our Guest! That will be amazing.

 

[mnmrmustard]

Y'all really embrace the park hopping concept! The DHS (I still call it MGM too) morning soungs good with the TSM start and a Sci-Fi lunch. Quite a few people seem to find reasons to not like this place but my wife and I really enjoyed it last year and have it booked for lunch on our DHS day too

Have a great time at Be Our Guest and I hope you get to see all of the Fantasyland Expansion stuff you want to after what I'm sure will be a good filling meal. And make sure and get a good spot to view Wishes, it is such a great show

Looks like a wonderful day!!!

 

[Lcaemom]

Just popped over from the Dec 2012 board...love your PTR, your son is adorable! Can't wait to hear about his reaction to this surprize trip! Also, those cookies are great!

 

[sunnysideup3]

Day 6: The World Awaits!

On day 6 of our journey, we will be going back to.... EPCOT!!!



After a lovely breakfast at POR Food Court, we'll hop on the bus and be on our way. I'm sure we'll do more of the same (Soarin', Spaceship Earth, Nemo).. and I'm hoping for a Test Track soft open by this date.

From there, we're going to do something on Nate's request....we're going to take a leisure stroll through the World Showcase and eat eat eat. It's no Food and Wine Festival, but we want to get little things here and there from a couple countries and just chillax. I really loved sharing the Lamb Shwarma platter last time and I think a pastry from Norway and France are in order. Fish and chips from England? I want to know if anyone has favorites or hidden gems of WS food. Thoughts?

A picture from our 2011 tour:




With full bellies, I'm sure we'll head back to POR for awhile, rest up for a return there that night.

As of right now, I have a reservation at Garden Grill at 7:00pm. IF I can move that to Wednesday night, I really want to get MVMCP tickets for Tuesday night. If not, I am sure will we enjoy the Garden Grill. I was really excited to get this reservation. The character interaction really looks great and the meal is something we'll all enjoy!



Picture borrowed from Disney.com

If we stay in EPCOT, we'll stay for IllumiNations that night. Hopefully Eli likes it better than when he was 2. He's iffy sometimes on the loud noises....

That will be it for Day 6!​

 

[sunnysideup3]

TOY STORY MANIA AHHHHHHHHHH. Just one of the loves of my life.

Sci Fi is so fun! Those movies just crack me up.

AHHH Be Our Guest! That will be amazing.

I can't wait! I'll be trying to take it all in and also do my dining report! It's going to be so overwhelming

Y'all really embrace the park hopping concept! The DHS (I still call it MGM too) morning soungs good with the TSM start and a Sci-Fi lunch. Quite a few people seem to find reasons to not like this place but my wife and I really enjoyed it last year and have it booked for lunch on our DHS day too

Have a great time at Be Our Guest and I hope you get to see all of the Fantasyland Expansion stuff you want to after what I'm sure will be a good filling meal. And make sure and get a good spot to view Wishes, it is such a great show

Looks like a wonderful day!!!

I love to park hop, it just keeps things fresh. I don't think I've ever gone or would go on a longer trip without them...

And Sci-Fi is so nerdy fun, and I'm just a nerdy fun kinda girl.

Just popped over from the Dec 2012 board...love your PTR, your son is adorable! Can't wait to hear about his reaction to this surprize trip! Also, those cookies are great!

Thanks! He's a keeper. He's at that age where they both drive you nuts and then charm the pants off you in the span of 10 minutes. The surprise will be great. I think I'm going to work on the special letter from Mickey tonight. I'll be sure to take pictures of it!

 

[mnmrmustard]

I love to park hop, it just keeps things fresh. I don't think I've ever gone or would go on a longer trip without them...

And Sci-Fi is so nerdy fun, and I'm just a nerdy fun kinda girl.

I'm still contemplating upgrading us for park hopping, but so far we have such full days set at each park I'm just not sure.

Yay for nerdy fun - I'm all about that

 

[sunnysideup3]

10 DAYS OUT: OMG!!!!​

Whew! I'm such a slacker that I'm seriously running out of time. I shouldn't have spaced out on the this PTR as much as I have this fall... SO, with the holiday and the craziness of the next week, I will do some general information sharing and then a big "rest of the trip" update.

So, we're 10 days out!! Which means I just did online check-in this morning and faxed my Port Orleans Riverside request over. Fingers crossed that we get the area we're hoping for!!

I am mostly packed. Eli is 98% packed, I just need some jeans for him. Nate is like 40%. He has a pile on the couch of stuff he's bringing, but he'll organize it the night before we leave. God, that would stress me out, but it's his loss if he doesn't have what he needs.... RIGHT??

We have the surprise all arranged. That morning, we are meeting my BFF at my work and telling Eli we have to take her to the airport because she is going to see her sister. We'll have the car all packed the night before, and went we get to the airport to drop her off, it will be SURPRISE, it's US that's going somewhere, and we're going to DISNEY .... NOW!!! I think it will honestly blow his mind. He has no idea, and I know how badly he wants to go. Yesterday, he was trying to measure himself with a tape measure to show he's tall enough now to have us consider going. He also earned $3.00 helping my mom do jobs around their house and with that contribution we had enough money to go....

We decided to make this trip EXTRA special, for reasons I'll explain later..so I added on a couple surprises. We'll get to those when I do the rest of the day by day breakdowns.

I think that's it for now....stay tuned for the DOUBLE update today! ​

 

[sunnysideup3]

Days 7-8: Surprises Abound!!

So like I said above, I've been a super slacker and now have to combine 4 days into one post. But I'm okay with that.


Moving right along (<---This is one of my favorite Muppet songs of ALL. TIME.)


Wednesday, December 5th

I decided, after hemming and hawing, and I broke down and added.... a Cinderella's Royal Table breakfast!!



Image borrowed from Mouse Planet.

I'm getting really excited about this. Something about eating in the castle, and the menu looks better than it has in the past. Eli will be thrilled. He's opened up to the Princesses a lot lately. He watched (and loved) Sofia the First last night and got really excited when Cinderella was on there.

So after dining in the castle, we'll explore around MK a little, catching things we haven't done yet or re-doing favorites.

After heading back for some pool/nap fun, we'll head to EPCOT for a late dinner at:


Image borrowed from WDW for Grown Ups.

We're both excited for some yummy pizza (How good does that Quattro Formaggi look??? ) and a leisure stroll out of the park, since I know we'll miss Illuminations and we'll want to avoid the onslaught of people....With full bellies, we will return to POR for the night.

Thursday, December 6th

Another DHS day! We hope to get there early for some TSM fun (Fastpass and a ride)



Love this guy!!


Then we will head over to get some breakfast at Starring Rolls. Cupcakes are breakfast foods, right???


We will do some more DHS fun (at this point, I don't know what we'll do.) I figure if we get sick of it, we'll head somewhere we haven't been yet, right?

I know we have to have lunch at Eli's favorite, Pizza Planet.... we watched the original Toy Story last week and when they went to Pizza Planet he talked about how cool he thought it was that they had it at Disney World.

After heading back to POR, we'll head to our SECOND new surprise of the trip:




MICKEY'S VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS PARTY!!!

I just couldn't stand not going again. Listening to the music on D-Cot (check it out, it's great for all the parks and ride music!!) and looking at the pictures from our last 2 times just made me giddy and happy all over again. Since we will be spending a lot of time in MK this trip, I think we're going to do SOME rides, but focus more on the things like character meets and dance parties, as well as the parade and fireworks. I know that Eli would love the Woody one at the Diamond Horseshoe and I'd like to meet some of the characters in their holiday finest. I know I'm not going to feel like waiting in line for the Dwarfs, so I'm okay...

After filling our bellies with Hot Chocolate and Cookies and Christmas Fun... I'm sure I'll feel like this....



Thanks Simple Disney Things for always touching that raw Disney nerve in my heart....

Up next, the last 2 days in Disney... ​

 

[sunnysideup3]

Days 9-10: Wrapping Up, Saying Goodbye! ​

Friday, December 7th

Our last full day in the world will be spent at Animal Kingdom. Weird that it just worked out that it fell on the last day, but I figure if we feel like the other parks are getting to redundant, we'll hop over here a different day.

We like to get there and head to the Kilimanjaro Safaris first. We'll take the obligatory 1,000 animal pictures and be on our way. Can I tell you how excited I am that they got rid of the elephant poaching storyline??

We want to have lunch at both Flame Tree BBQ and Yak and Yeti Counter Service, so we'll get some from one, some from the other and meet in the middle

We will make the most of our time in the park this day....maybe Expedition Everest, if Eli is tall enough. We won't ride it if he's not. It's the ONE ride he's been dying to go on and get bigger for, so it's not fair to him to rub it in his face and there will always be a "next time".

I've wanted to see the FOTLK show, too. It looks so awesome and I've seen so many DISers rave about it.

Nate also wants to do the Rafiki Planet Watch with the train ride (he's obsessed with trains), so I'm down with doing something new.

After maxing out Animal Kingdom, we'll head back to POR and for our final dinner in the World, we're heading back to.....




'Ohana..... Aren't we predictable??

But we love it, and it was Nate's request we go here for dinner twice this trip, so who am I to argue. We'll be joined by our friends the J's and hopefully celebrating a wonderful vacation together, the start of a new tradition!

Afterwards I like to walk around the Poly to wear off some dinner and dream about staying in that resort someday!

If we're ambitious, we'll head over to the TTC and head to EPCOT for EMH and one more go round on Spaceship Earth and a walk around the Showcase. I'm sure our bellies will appreciate the movement!


Saturday, December 8th


The day I've been dreading since I started this PTR. Our departure day from Disney. It's sad that we're 10 days out from being there and thinking about leaving is making me sad already.... LAME!

After sleeping in and packing up, we'll check our bag and schedule our departure, and take a cab back to.... The Polynesian!!!


Image borrowed from WDW Food Blog.

We've made Kona Cafe our departure day tradition. We have a leisure brunch and reflect on the trip and then walk around the Poly, maybe explore the monorail resorts, just soak it all in a bit. It was on the Poly beach last year that I tried (and failed) to convince DH to book a bounceback.... and look where we are now...

We'll catch the DME to the airport around 4pm and leave Orlando around 7:45pm, heading back to a cold (but hopefully not too snowy )Milwaukee...

That will wrap up our trip. I'm sure I'll post a couple more freak out posts between now and next Thursday!!
​

 

[marDgreen88]

You are OFFICIALLY in single digits!!!!!!!!!!

That surprise sounds fabulous! I'm so excited for yall!

I heard Scrooge McDuck was doing meets this year! I'm like, OF COURSE, since I'm not going this year after going two years in a row! But yeah!!!

IT IS ABSOLUTELY VITAL THAT YOU SEE FOTLK.

 

[Caretames1]

I'm finally starting to catch up, and everyone else is leaving!

I didn't look back to see, but what airline are you flying out of? We flew southwest for the first and had such a different experience that with AirTran. Much better! Milwaukee airport security for the southwest flights was empty! Not that bottle neck that you see on the AirTran side.

Your last full day plans sound nice. I so wish I would have booked an Ohanas for dinner. I'm forcing the family to eat there next year!

I also like that you have a later in the day departure. We did ME, never again, but did leave a little later than in the past and it worked out well.

 

[sunnysideup3]

We're all alive!!!! I'll fill everyone in on the deets soon

 

[Caretames1]

I hope it was the best time!