There's No Place Like Your Second Home for the Holidays--A Very Merry Christmas-y PTR

[fnrsgrl]

There's No Place Like Your Second Home for the Holidays--A Very Merry Christmas-y PTR​

Hi! Welcome to my second PTR. I'm Brandy, and my husband, Josh and I have just booked our fourth Disney trip together. I'm super-excited because this will be my first time visiting Disney at Christmastime! This will also be only the second time(the other was our honeymoon in 2007) that we visit as just the two of us. I can't wait to visit my favorite place in the world at my favorite time of year with my favorite person ever!

Here we are!

So, about our trip. We will be driving to Orlando, so there will be a travel buffer on either side, as we live quite a ways away(was that even close to grammatically correct? I don't think so.) Anywho, we will be leaving our home around midnight on November 30/December 1, 2013 and driving through the night. This should get us to Kissimmee in time to enjoy the Al Capone dinner show and get a good night's sleep in an off-property hotel. We will get up bright and early the next morning, eat breakfast someplace that opens early and is cheap and head over to Port Orleans Riverside to check in. We hope to then make rope drop at whichever park we have chosen for that day. We will be staying at POR with the Deluxe Dining Plan from December second through the ninth. On the morning of the ninth we will check out, leave our junk in the car and be free to spend the entire day in the parks. We will spend the night off-property again before heading home first thing in the morning. Whew! That's sounding a little complicated, but the idea is not to pay full price for partial Disney days. We will have eight full days in the World! In the next few days I will do a post about our plans so far(which are still very loose), and I hope you'll join in my PTR fun and excitement!

 

[Shea&Van]

Hey Brandy,

Our family will be visiting WDW at the same time. I'm excited to read all about your plans. We will be staying off-site for 8 nights and we are planning to do 1-2 nights on-site. I'm super excited to see WDW in all its Christmas glory!

Keep the details a-coming!

Happy planning!!!!

 

[Torres]

Sounds good, Brandy

Keep us all informed and have a nice trip!

 

[fnrsgrl]

Hey Brandy,

Our family will be visiting WDW at the same time. I'm excited to read all about your plans. We will be staying off-site for 8 nights and we are planning to do 1-2 nights on-site. I'm super excited to see WDW in all its Christmas glory!

Keep the details a-coming!

Happy planning!!!!

Hi! Your trip sounds fun. I'm very excited about the Christmas decorations, too!

Sounds good, Brandy

Keep us all informed and have a nice trip!

I will and hopefully, I will

And thank you both for reading!

 

[fnrsgrl]

Okay, so this is what we have thus far. We don't know yet about hours or EMH's or anything like that, so our plans are pretty limited. We definitely want to do all of the Christmas-y stuff. We plan on seeing the Candlelight Processional and the Osbourne lights, plus going around to see all of the deluxe resort decorations(that shouldn't be too rough since we'll be eating at most of them). We are planning to do Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party and the Yuletide tour, although the dates haven't been released yet, so we don't know when.

If finances allow, we would also love to do Cirque du Soleil and/or the Wild Africa Trek, but we won't know if we can afford them until we get closer.

As to dining, here is what we have in mind(although we're open to suggestions)

Breakfasts

1) 'Ohana--this one is a must-do for me because I love Stitch
2) 1900 Park Fare--I have had dinner here three times and loved it, so I'm interested to give breakfast a try
3) Cinderella's Royal Table--I have never been inside the castle before and the new menu is intriguing. We're hoping to get one of those super-early ADR's that get you in before park opening.

Dinners

1) California Grill--this is our favorite at WDW, but I'm a little worried about the new menu. I hope it's good and still has the goat cheese ravioli.
2) San Angel Inn--we ate here on our honeymoon and loved it
3) Artist Point--a new one for us
4) Biergarten--Josh's family is German and he loves German food. Hopefully, I will, too!
5) Yak & Yeti--I think it will be cool to eat at AK, since it's my favorite park.
6) Citricos--another new one
7) Jiko--I hate Boma, so hopefully, this food does not taste like Boma food. Otherwise, I'm very excited for this one.
8) Chef Mickey's--I have been here once before, but I was too nauseous to eat. I was so disappointed, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to try it again!

That's really all we have so far. Our date to get ADR's is June 5, so we should get a bit more figured out by then!

 

[fnrsgrl]

Our Budget Countdown​

This:

is our budget countdown for this trip. We divided the total cost of the trip by the number of week s between when we started saving and our departure date. My husband then made this graphic. Each box represents a specific amount of money that we need to average every week. Every time we put away that much money, we fill in a square. When it is full, our trip will be paid for! I personally find the visualization very encouraging!

Also, the dates for MVMCP have been released. For our trip, the available days are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. It seems to me like the Friday and Sunday parties might be really busy, so we are thinking Tuesday. What do you all think? Has anyone done the party on a Tuesday before? Was it crowded?

 

[fnrsgrl]

We are all booked for the Thursday Christmas Party! I'm so excited that our trip is starting to come together. Also, our travel agent(the amazing Karen Nunn at Small World Vacations), used our PIN code and got us over $400 off. That gives us more than enough to definitely be able to do Cirque du Soleil. I am so thrilled!