The Adventures of Miss Potts - PTR Fall 2013 UPDATE 9/25!!

[AGPrincess]

Subbing! Love that e-card, so true - lol. Sounds like it's going to be a fabulous trip, especially with Poly club level!!

 

[TruLovesKiss]

Fellow Pennsylvanian joining in!! I saw your post on the Poly board and decided to check out your PTR. We'll be staying at the Poly Sept 25- Oct 3 and we are celebrating our anniversary while we are there too! (9 years for us on Oct 2nd, wow does time fly!)

Looking forward to reading about the rest of your plans!

 

[Miss Potts]

Great pics!

Thanks so much!

Joining in! I'm such a big planner when it comes to anything & everything, so I understand!

Welcome aboard! Hahaha, I'm glad to see someone appreciates the reference!!!

Subbing! Love that e-card, so true - lol. Sounds like it's going to be a fabulous trip, especially with Poly club level!!

Thanks for joining along... I followed your last TR so I'll be looking forward to all the Poly CL yumminess!

I'm ALSO following your new TR... I'm a huge cupcake fan but I somehow never eat them in Disney World?!?! WHY - who knows?!?!?! I even served cupcakes at my wedding - I know it's a trend now, but I was the first of anyone I knew to do it!! Hehehe!!

Fellow Pennsylvanian joining in!! I saw your post on the Poly board and decided to check out your PTR. We'll be staying at the Poly Sept 25- Oct 3 and we are celebrating our anniversary while we are there too! (9 years for us on Oct 2nd, wow does time fly!)

Looking forward to reading about the rest of your plans!

Welcome! Glad to have a fellow PA person follow along! I'm a bit jealous of you now - your trip is longer than mine! Make sure to say hello if you see me or DH at the resort! Disney is the best place to celebrate a special occasion - have you made your plans yet?!

 

[tinkgurl]

That e-card is hilarious!

Via Napoli is good. We ate there for the first time this trip!

You can't cut Ohana!! Okay, you can..it's your trip!

Be sure to get in line for lunch at BOG early! Some people already get in line around 10 am! But, it's worth it! It was very good.

 

[Miss Potts]

That e-card is hilarious!

Via Napoli is good. We ate there for the first time this trip!

You can't cut Ohana!! Okay, you can..it's your trip!

Be sure to get in line for lunch at BOG early! Some people already get in line around 10 am! But, it's worth it! It was very good.

Via Napoli... I'm looking forward to seeing what your gang had in your TR.
Ohana... I know I know, it would be a crime!! I don't think it will.
BOG... I'll probably be one of those people in line at 10am!!

 

[Miss Potts]

I thought it might be nice to add some "real life" to this PTR. I know it's hard to believe any of us have a life outside of Disney!!!

This weekend was a busy one! My DH's brother got married!!! He and his wife have been together since high school... far longer than DH and I... and it was nice to finally have them "make it official!" They are off to Hawaii on their honeymoon... but not to Aulani. I could never be remotely close to Hawaii without visiting Aulani or Disneyland on my way there. That's a trip we hope to take one day... fly to CA, visit Disneyland, then continue our trip to Aulani. DH also wants to take a Disney Cruise to Alaska!

Here is the one and only photo I took at the wedding.... please pardon the sunglasses on DH's head!



Then today, I treated myself to a trip to a local spa! I haven't been feeling well the past few weeks (had a cold that just wouldn't go away) so a massage was just what the doctor ordered!

This is me on my favorite balcony at the spa:



Here I am after my massage in the "whisper lounge" - no talking allowed!



I spent over two hours in there reading and drinking tea...



Notice the bookmark? I don't even remember when I got it... probably in middle school, but I always loved the quote. I have always been interested in leadership styles - I enjoy reading books on management and seeing how they can apply to my life and leadership qualities.

DH wasn't going to be home for dinner tonight so after a healthy detoxifying trip to the Spa, I had only one thing in mind for dinner:



McDonald's! Hahahaha! Ok - it is completely opposite of how I spent my day but I was craving some chicken nuggets and a coke. I wish I didn’t like McDonalds... but I do!


So once I got home, I watched some shows I recently recorded...

Who doesn't love Boy Meets (Disney) World?!?!



And by the way, I totally forgot about this part...



And the other show I watched was also an old one from the Travel Channel. I think Samantha Brown needs to get on recording some more Disney Specials!!



All in all, I had a great couple of days. Hope you all did too!

My next update, I'll return to my normal Disney Planning!!

 

[TruLovesKiss]

Welcome! Glad to have a fellow PA person follow along! I'm a bit jealous of you now - your trip is longer than mine! Make sure to say hello if you see me or DH at the resort! Disney is the best place to celebrate a special occasion - have you made your plans yet?!

I am SO excited to be going for 9 days! I haven't been to WDW since I was 5!- and it will be my kids' first trip - so I feel like there is SO much that we have to do!! (I know that we can't fit it all in and am already mentally planning a trip in 2014, haha!) I will definitely say "Hi" if I see you or your hubby!

For our Anniversary dinner, we have an ADR for Narcoossee's! We had wanted to make one for California Grill but because of their refurb they aren't taking reservations yet for our dates. Not sure yet if we'll try to switch once they open them up or not. And since our youngest is still too young for the Neverland Club, we'll be taking the kids along ~ so not quite the "romantic" dinner that we would have like but that's okay! (You wouldn't want to babysit that night, would you? My kids are really well behaved, I swear, you wouldn't even notice that they are there! haha, totally kidding! lol)

Sounds like you had a great time at the wedding and spa! And boy, I can never say no to Mickey D's fries! YUM, they are so bad they're good!

 

[Miss Potts]

Ok remember in the beginning of this report when I said we were booked for Sept 29 - Oct 4?! Well... there have been some changes!

Since the minute I booked this trip, I knew I wanted more days. I mean, I always want more days in Disney... I sounded like the little girl in the AT&T commercial... "we want more, we want more".

OK watch the commercial now...


It's not complicated, more is better.

So obviously, I wanted more Disney because more is better.
I was feeling like 5 nights was just too crammed. I wanted more time to relax and just *be* in Disney.

But we are not independently wealthy... ugh!!

I decided that if Southwest had an airfare sale, then I'd made some changes. Well, yesterday in my inbox was the email I had been waiting for!



I had used all my SW points on the flights I already booked for Sept 29 - Oct 4 on a previous flash sale - so I knew I'd need an equivalent sale to switch the flights without incurring costs. Lucky for me, it worked out perfect and I saved points! Wahoo!

So now that the airfare could work out - it was time to figure out room costs.

I thought about a split stay. We are already splurging for Poly CL so maybe to add a few nights, I should give the moderates a try... I priced it out and the price was VERY attractive, we could stay the first few nights in a mod then switch over to the Poly. When I mentioned this idea to DH, I figured he wouldn't even listen and just "yes dear" me... but instead he insisted that he was only staying at the Poly! Well isn't he fancy.

Here is the rest of the conversation:
"OK, we'll stay at the WL"
"No, I'm staying at the Polynesian"
"What about an Epcot resort - BC, YC, BWI? We can walk to F&W"
"no, no, no... I want to take the monorail to F&W"
"AKL... I'll look into a Savannah view"
"NO!"

For someone who doesn't care about planning he sure was full of opinions! Apparently, in my quest to stay at the Poly I really did a great job selling him on the place... almost too great!!

I decided that sometimes the stress of moving to save money isn't worth the money saved and truthfully I didn't want to do a split stay either... I like to unpack and get settled. I have done split stays in the past and feel like I can never fully relax until we reach our final destination. I think the anxiety of moving stems back to a time when I lived in a hotel for a few months... I continually had to move rooms based on guest needs... it was AWFUL!

So split stay was out of the question... but I really wanted to stay longer.

What to do... what to do!

Well I changed the flights...
switched my hotel dates to accommodate those dates...
and we are now going...

Sept 26 through Oct 3... 7 nights!!! I added 2 nights!! And we'll stay at the Polynesian the whole time - no moving for us!




Although we are spending a bit more... we get a whole week in Disney! Yay!!

Besides all the obvious reasons why this is great, there are two specifics:

1. We plan on this being the last trip before we add kiddos to our family. So it is potentially the last alone trip for a while... we want to live it up!
2. It works better for my work schedule... instead of using 40 hours of PTO for a week off as originally planned, the trip will now span 2 weeks and I can work during each week before and after the trip. Meaning that I can use less PTO and save some for the holiday season (I really like having time around Christmas off and wouldn't have had any PTO left if we kept our original plans to do that.)

So the new countdown is: 106 days!



So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. - good ol Willy Wonka

But for real... time to get to my new plan. I'll share the revision soon!

 

[Miss Potts]

I am SO excited to be going for 9 days! I haven't been to WDW since I was 5!- and it will be my kids' first trip - so I feel like there is SO much that we have to do!! (I know that we can't fit it all in and am already mentally planning a trip in 2014, haha!) I will definitely say "Hi" if I see you or your hubby!

For our Anniversary dinner, we have an ADR for Narcoossee's! We had wanted to make one for California Grill but because of their refurb they aren't taking reservations yet for our dates. Not sure yet if we'll try to switch once they open them up or not. And since our youngest is still too young for the Neverland Club, we'll be taking the kids along ~ so not quite the "romantic" dinner that we would have like but that's okay! (You wouldn't want to babysit that night, would you? My kids are really well behaved, I swear, you wouldn't even notice that they are there! haha, totally kidding! lol)

Sounds like you had a great time at the wedding and spa! And boy, I can never say no to Mickey D's fries! YUM, they are so bad they're good!

You'll see in my most recent update, I've changed my dates. I added 2 nights on so I'm catching up on your total!

You are going to have such a blast seeing everything again and for the first time! You are so smart for already knowing that you can't do it all - I think that is where a lot of people go wrong with Disney. They think they can do it all and get so stressed in the process that they forget to just have fun.

Funny you mention Narcoossee's - - I was recently told by a friend that they love it more there than any restaurant on property. DH and I were discussing adding it to our plans. We'll see if it works out.

Very funny about babysitting! I actually wonder if Disney could arrange regular sitters for you not part of the Neverland Club?

 

[TruLovesKiss]

YAY for more days!! That's so exciting!!!

 

[tinkgurl]

I just watched that Best Places I've Ever Been: Disney World yesterday! I agree, Samantha Brown needs to make a new WDW special!

Yay for the Poly! We stayed there on our honeymoon, and I stayed there numerous times when I was younger. It's such a beautiful and relaxing resort. And don't forget, Capt. Cook's has Tonga Toast!

 

[Marsheliz]

YAY for a week in Disney!!
I need to check out that Southwest sale too, We normally drive bc we are only 8 hours away but dang, that is a good sale!

 

[abbybeth]

Hi there! Our dates overlap quite a bit - we're traveling Sept 28- Oct 6! I am practically obsessed with Beauty and the Beast (and have dressed as peasant Belle for the last two MNSSHP parties....) You and your DH are so cute!

 

[Miss Potts]

YAY for more days!! That's so exciting!!!

I know! I still can't believe I added them!

I just watched that Best Places I've Ever Been: Disney World yesterday! I agree, Samantha Brown needs to make a new WDW special!

Yay for the Poly! We stayed there on our honeymoon, and I stayed there numerous times when I was younger. It's such a beautiful and relaxing resort. And don't forget, Capt. Cook's has Tonga Toast!

You won't believe this but... I've never had Tonga Toast! I hate bananas so I know I won't like it... but I must tell DH so he can try it! I'm sure he'll love it!

YAY for a week in Disney!!
I need to check out that Southwest sale too, We normally drive bc we are only 8 hours away but dang, that is a good sale!

A WHOLE WEEK! It seemed like so much time until I started rearranging our itinerary! Haha!

Hi there! Our dates overlap quite a bit - we're traveling Sept 28- Oct 6! I am practically obsessed with Beauty and the Beast (and have dressed as peasant Belle for the last two MNSSHP parties....) You and your DH are so cute!

What a great time for a trip to Disney!
Peasant Belle is my favorite costume of hers!! Are you headed to MNSSHP this year?
Maybe we'll bump into each other at Enchanted Tales with Belle!!!

 

[Miss Potts]

Just a small, real life update:


Look what we got for Father's Day!




On our family trip in February, my dad and DH became obsessed with finding Hidden Mickey's... it wasn't until the end of the trip that they realized there was a Hidden Mickey book! They went to purchase it at the WL gift shop... but they were out. Then we were on Main Street, and they were out too! Weird - but oh well.

Anyways, I knew it would make a great Father's Day gift... so I ordered one for my dad and my mom ordered one for DH (even though he's not a father or even close to being one!) So they could enjoy the gift together! Haha, we are nerds.

DH hasn't had time to start reading his yet.

BUT my dad has.

He called me yesterday to ask if I knew there were other hidden characters (like Goofy, Donald, Minnie, etc)... he was APPALLED that I never told him that before!

In my defense... he never asked!


Up next, our Magic Kingdom Must Do's!!!

 

[wiigirl]

Can't wait to read more.

 

[abbybeth]

What a great time for a trip to Disney!
Peasant Belle is my favorite costume of hers!! Are you headed to MNSSHP this year?
Maybe we'll bump into each other at Enchanted Tales with Belle!!!

We will be doing MNSSHP and this will be the first year I won't be going as Belle! DBF is going on the trip with me and I wanted to do coordinating costumes .... and so I had to hatch a plan outside of the BaTB universe. I feel like I'm cheating on my girl! I am however, very excited about ETWB and fully intend to volunteer/try to get picked so I can get a picture with her in her gold dress and get the special bookmark & photopass card. I swear I'm still 5 years old sometimes...

 

[Miss Potts]

Can't wait to read more.

I'm hoping to add an update tonight when I'm done at work!

We will be doing MNSSHP and this will be the first year I won't be going as Belle! DBF is going on the trip with me and I wanted to do coordinating costumes .... and so I had to hatch a plan outside of the BaTB universe. I feel like I'm cheating on my girl! I am however, very excited about ETWB and fully intend to volunteer/try to get picked so I can get a picture with her in her gold dress and get the special bookmark & photopass card. I swear I'm still 5 years old sometimes...

I plan on doing the same thing at ETWB!!!! I'm not telling my husband though, he'll try to talk me out of it! Nothing wrong with acting like a kid... I think that's what Disney is all about!

Can't wait to see what you decide to dress as! The past two years, DH and I have wanted to dress as Peter Pan and Wendy... but freak storms keep ruining our Halloween plans. I should just buy tickets to MNSSHP!!

 

[abbybeth]

I plan on doing the same thing at ETWB!!!! I'm not telling my husband though, he'll try to talk me out of it! Nothing wrong with acting like a kid... I think that's what Disney is all about!

Can't wait to see what you decide to dress as! The past two years, DH and I have wanted to dress as Peter Pan and Wendy... but freak storms keep ruining our Halloween plans. I should just buy tickets to MNSSHP!!

I'm pretty sure Ryan will just laugh at me, which is fine. And he can take pictures I've already been warning him of how silly I'll probably be, so it shouldn't be a shock by the time we get down there.

MNSSHP is hands down one of the BEST things WDW has to offer. So, so, SO fun - and even more so when you dress up (though you will get kind of odd looks from the resort to the park ... but once you're in MK, you're golden)

 

[Miss Potts]

On each trip, we keep our touring plans simple - - we know what new things we want to see, what favorites we can't miss, and then a list of attractions we haven't seen in a while and want to see again! Of course, we never actually want to miss anything but we don't stress ourselves out trying to get to everything!

I'll start with my favorite park... Magic Kingdom!!




MAGIC KINGDOM MUST DO'S

I can't get enough of this park... I just love every little thing about it!
I am naturally drawn towards the classic parts of Disney... and obviously MK is where it's at.

New Things To See/Eat
Enchanted Tales with Belle
Tangled Themed Bathrooms
Rope Drop
Be Our Guest for Lunch
Dole Whip Float - new for DH


(Thanks Disney Food Blog for the photo!!)


Can't Miss Favorites!
Carousel of Progress
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Haunted Mansion
Mickey's Philharmagic
Splash Mountain - - I might wear a poncho for this (I know I know), but I hate getting wet and having to walk around with a wet butt!
M&G with Mickey Mouse
LeFou's Brew
Wishes
Hallowishes - we are not going to a party, but we'll watch this from the Polynesian beach or Concierge Lounge


DH and I on BTMR


Old Favorites We Haven’t Seen In Awhile
Main Street Electrical Parade
Jungle Cruise
Enchanted Tiki Birds - DH will kick and scream about this, but we're going!
Dumbo


My sister and I... I think this was the last time I rode Dumbo!

Characters
I don't have any specifics in mind for character meet and greets... besides Mickey of course, I'd like to get a photo with Eeyore. We have a great friend who has Eeyore syndrome... like a little cloud always is following him... we have taken to calling him Eeyore and so we want to send him a photo of us with him! He'll get a great laugh out of it... last year, he bought a new house and I got him an Eeyore magnet... when we helped him move, I snuck it onto his fridge! He got a kick out of it!!




Next up, Epcot's Must Do's!