"There be squalls ahead" my 50th Birthday W/ Mickey PTR

[eeyoresnr]

Wow this is like reading my life story.....Im rivited to my seat! And the changes are just getting started.....

this IS your life! I was wondering if and when you would pop in here!
hey everyone, as I'm sure you have figured out, this is Danny...the love of my life
and now for the details of the changes he is referring to

 

[KatMark]

Hi, Danny. Nice to meet you.

 

[Nemo32]

Not quite set?! Don't leave us hanging...I'm glad on your poll CSR won - makes me feel good about choosing CSR.

 

[Da Mick]

Hi, Danny. Nice to meet you.

Thanks, nice to meet you as well.

 

[athenna]

Nice to see you here, Danny

 

[eeyoresnr]

ok, so we're booked for CSR with DP going Dec 19-23....now all I have to do is plan the rest of our meals right? right? yeah right! nothing is ever that simple when we are going to Disney
being a firefighter Danny works 24 on 48 off...so he had taken the 21st off, he would work the 18th and when he got off at 8am we would be on the road by 10 and be at Disney between 5 & 6 pm but then a few days later I get another idea so I talk Danny in to taking half of the 18th off so he would be off at 8pm, we could leave by 4 am and be there by noonmuch better... so that was the new plan
in the meantime, Shaun calls Danny and says they have decided to go the 19-26 instead of the 22-29 because they know the week after Christmas will be crazy...and he emails us his itinerary to see if we want to eat with them one day and he will try to get the adr for 6 instead of their 4...
that gets Danny to thinking (let me add that while Danny loves Disney he hates to be a part of the planning) to the point that when I try to ask an opinion his answer is almost always whatever you want, just tell me where we have to be and when and I'll get us there no help at all... now this is NOT to say that when we finally do get to Disney that he won't ask, "are we eating at Tusker house? No not this trip. why not? because when I asked for your input you had no opinion ...so we aren't eating there? no Danny, we aren't eating there this time... well that sucks, you know I like that place...and we will have conversations like this 2 or 3 times per trip

but this time he had an idea, instead of taking off at 8pm on the 18th, why not just take the whole shift off? I'm like...well.... see where this is going? in that case we can go a day earlier and stay a night offsite and then we'll have the whole day Sunday at the parks!
so I start looking up rooms and start with Holiday Inn DTD (we stayed there for a night last trip for $58, but the cheapest they had for our night was almost $90 and with the $10 they charge for parking that was more than I was willing to pay so I start searching other hotels...
to be continued...it's almost 4:30am and I'm suppose to get up and go shopping with Stephanie in the morning

 

[Nemo32]

Don't you hate "Whatever you want" ???

DBF always says "I trust your plans."

 

[eeyoresnr]

Don't you hate "Whatever you want" ???

DBF always says "I trust your plans."

yeah, it's absolutely no help at all.... his biggest input is "I hate to be on a time schedule when we are at Disney" and my response is "well we will just do counter service meals then" uhm, yeah, that's not happening

 

[eeyoresnr]

our Mickey mail came today!!!

 

[Nemo32]

 

[KatMark]

our Mickey mail came today!!!

for Mickey mail!!!

And what a typical man response!!!

 

[eeyoresnr]

I know...isn't it funny how excited we get over the little things

 

[eeyoresnr]

the funny thing is, as many times as we have been to Disney, this is the first time we have received Mickey mail...we have always done 'room only' or rented DVC points. In May when we went we had the DP but since we had booked at under 3 weeks we didn't get any mail. But when we checked in at CBR the CM said 'I'll be right back, it says I have something for you in the back" she came back with an envelope with our name on it and it had the vouchers and luggage tags. I was all excited because we had never gotten them before. I had bought some on ebay just so we had some

 

[eeyoresnr]

so I was looking for a room offsite for 1 nite...and after a bunch of research and mapping to make sure it wasn't too far from Disney I found The Hampton Inn Orlando/ Lake Buena Vista on Palm Parkway. It is rated 2nd out of 341 on tripadvisor and it has free buffet breakfast. we are not big breakfast eaters but if we eat a lite meal before we go to the parks while we aren't on the dining plan it will cut down on what we spend for food for those days...
yes I said days I figured sice Danny is now off the 18th, that means he is off the 17th anyways, so we will just load everything up the 16th and leave at 4am the 17th, and I was able to book the room for $59 a nite

so now, our 4 nights have turned into 6, which is good because 4 just wouldn't be enough this way we won't feel rushed to get anything done. All this took place from the time we returned Sept 30th til I made the Hampton Inn reservation on Oct 11th... so I worked with these dates making and canceling and making more adr's

once again Shaun calls Danny and says they are gonna go the 17th too so he wants to know where we are staying as they are still looking... so at this point I'm not sure where they picked but I won't be surprised to see them at Hampton Inn


then on Nov 7th I get one more idea

I promise this is the last one... (I hope)
Why not leave the 16th after Danny gets home from work...ok so I look at Hampton and since it's a month closer to Christmas it's $20 a nite more...well heck, for less than that I can stay at a value on Disney. So I booked All Star Sports for 1 night with the QSDP. So now we will get the free refill mugs, plus we can use EPCOT's EMH Friday night til 12:30 am if we want

so that's it...7 nights and even though we will be arriving late afternoon / early evening (which I realize is what I was trying to avoid by adding the first 2 extra nights) it will be ok because even if we don't go to any park the 16th (which we may not) we will still have 6 full days in the parks, and Thursday we can go to the Disney Warehouse stores and the Disney Store in the Mall and see if they have anything good. (we usually do this the day we leave)

up next....our adr's

 

[Nemo32]

YAY FOR 1 MORE NIGHT!!

 

[KatMark]

Love having one more night in Florida...even if you don't go to a park.

 

[eeyoresnr]

so every day Danny has asked me "have you added any more to your PTR?" and every day, I answer "nope"
so here I am with some more details
oh yeah, and Danny took off part of a shift on the 15th so we are leaving at 4am on the 16th which should put us at AS Sports around noon
since we are on the QSDP for that day we are still debating as to where we want to eat... we were thinking maybe Mara or CSR, or Wolfgang Puck Express in DTD (although I'm hesitating on this one)

 

[eeyoresnr]

Friday we check out of AS Sports and into Hampton Inn for 2 nights... we will use our second QSDP credit for lunch at MK... then since MK closes at 7pm for MVMCP we are eating at 8pm at Rainforest Cafe DTD. I have a $20 gift card and a $25 credit through the Landry's Select Club so our OOP shouldn't be too bad...
I'm not sure which park we are doing Saturday, but we are eating dinner at House of Blues DTD at 8:30pm. I bought a $25 gift cert for $5 online so again we will be $20 ahead here

 

[Nemo32]

Nothing like some gift cards to help out with delicious meals!

 

[eeyoresnr]

so, because of the extended hours for our dates I have been trying to tweak our itinerary at the parks

I forgot to mention, because we booked one night at AS Sports we received a second Mickey Mail! which is great 'cause now I have 8 luggage tags! I guess it makes up for all the times we have gone and never gotten any

Dec 19th we check into CSR and will be on the regular DP
not sure if we will eat lunch at the resort (Pepper Market) or at EPCOT, maybe at La Cantina de San Angel... we were able to try them during our Sept trip (they had just reopened) and we really liked the chicken and beef tacos...yum!

funny little story from our last trip.
we had already eaten there for lunch one day and liked it, so one night we decided to get it to go and take back to our room at OKW and eat. I asked the girl at the entrance if they had sides of beans and rice, and she said yes.
so when we ordered Danny ordered our meals on the DP and then seperately I ordered a side of beans and a side of rice. Danny got his order first but they didn't have bags. no problem, we had just purchased a couple shirts and had a large bag, so we put the shirts in the back-pack. They brought me my beans and then a tall drink cup I asked what it was
Iced tea then it dawned on me... I said no, not iced tea, I ordered rice. now they were confused we don't have rice.. I had taken spanish in school and while I can't carry on a conversation, I still know some, so I said "arroz" and they said ooooohhhh arroz... and went to get it... now the manager steps in... you can't have rice, it's not on your ticket ok, I explained we had ordered rice and they thought I said iced tea. yes, here is your tea no I don't want iced tea, I want rice "arroz". ok, one minute. we have no container for rice. put it in the same kind as you used for the beans. we have no lids for those. I know, use foil wait this might fit (a drink lid)... we finally got the rice with a lid and left.

back to this trip...
we have an ADR at 6pm at Le Cellier we ate there once before and when we booked this trip there was no availability at Le Cellier but thanks to the cancellation thread I was able to snag this ADR in early October
I had already planned that after dinner we would do EMH at DHS from (8-11) so we could see the Osborne Lights but now EMH are from 10-1am so we won't have to rush