This here is the wildest ride in the wilderness!A Nov PTR without baby; update 31/10

[vikkii19]

So maybe not the wildest ride, but it sure will be an interesting one. We’ve had and still are having a busy year between having a baby and building a house who would think I would have time for a PTR and TR but I assure you I do.

My husband is the one building and I am currently on maternity leave for the year. I had our daughter Lia on March 22nd and she is the greatest little gift.

So on to the trip, we were supposed to go in November of last year for break from building the house and our last adult only trip before the baby. But alas, complications in my pregnancy arose and about 2 weeks before we were supposed to go, I was put on bedrest. I was a little disappointed, but didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize my baby.

So now I had a year to use my flight credits and we decided on November of this year. I was planning on bringing Lia and had asked my MIL if she wanted to come with us, but she didn’t want to come and said she wanted to take the week in vacation and keep Lia with her for quality Grandma/baby time. I still wanted to take her, but my husband thought we should leave her at home. So I finally agreed only because I wanted to bring her to Disney before she would be 1 and this way I can plan another trip with her.

So there you go, there will only be the 2 of us. So I guess it’s time for the introductions now:

I am Vicki, I just turned 29. I am currently off on maternity leave for a year (we get a year in Canada), and when I return to work I am an insurance agent for the Canadian Government. My love for Disney only started about 3 years ago when I first started looking for a place to honeymoon. When we decided to go to Disney, I found the DIS and like most of you, my obsession began. Besides DISing, I like to shop, read, scrapbook and just recently added playing with my daughter.

DH is Denis and he is 28. He works very hard as a mechanic. Just recently, he has also worked as a carpenter, cement worker, electrician, plumber, bricklayer and every other job that comes with building a house yourself. He is a wonderful husband and father. He loves drag racing, restoring antique cars and hunting. He didn’t think he would love Disney and simply agreed to go on our Honeymoon to please me, but he ended up loving it. He was mesmerized by all the details Disney puts into everything.

Here are a few pictures

Our wedding

Our Honeymoon trip

And finally our daugher Lia

 

[vikkii19]

Honeymoon flashback and the Where

To DDP or not

Getting there

ADR plans

Clothes for the trip

Missed attractions

Itinerary and other stuff

We leave in 2 weeks

 

[vikkii19]

We Honeymooned back in October 2009 we stayed at CSR (got a free upgrade to a suite) from the 6th to the 9th and then we rented DVC points and stayed at SSR from the 9th to the 16th. We had the Dxdp for the first part and the DDP for the second part. Here are some pictures of that trip

Our room at CSR

Our room at SSR

Our day trip to SeaWorld

Those are just a few of the many pictures we took.

Now onto the Where??

So after cancelling our trip last November, we had some cash saved up and what better to do than buy DVC points. I wanted to start with a really small contract so I found a small 25 pt contract at SSR. Since we had stayed at SSR last year, I wanted to try out a new resort. At the 7 month mark, I was able to get a standard studio at AKL from November 12th to the 18th and then 2 nights (18th to the 20th) at OKW.

Next up is to DDP or not??

 

[vikkii19]

To DDP? Or not

On our Honeymoon trip we found the DxDP part to be too much food, of course I had planned 3 meals a day, completely ignoring the advice given on the restaurant board. I kept thinking, oh we just won’t eat everything on our plates and we’ll be fine. Yeah right, way too much food.

This time I started out thinking of just doing the DDP. Then worried we might not have enough. So then I started thinking about the DxDP again, but this time only 2 meals a day and we would do some signatures. So this is where I was going, but it’s very hard to try and plan. So then I scrapped that and thought we would do the QSDP and have no plan and go with the flow. But then I started thinking I would do a couple of TS out of pocket, because we wouldn’t want to eat CS the whole week. Then it was going to cost about $100 in OOP TS meals, so we should just upgrade to the DDP and we would get more TS meals for the same price. Then I wanted to do a signature and we would order appetizers also, so the DxDP was back in contention. Plus I wouldn’t want to do the DXDP with toddlers, so basically it might be our last chance for a while to do the DXDP. Do you see my dilemma? My husband was just about to go nuts with 2 weeks of my going back and forth.

So in the end, being as though we are staying on DVC points, we can segment the dining plan and do 2 different plans. When I read about this, the scenario changed even more. I could do all 3 dining plans, or 2 or just 1 for how many days I wanted. It was a planners dream, but my husband’s worst nightmare. Anyways, I won’t bore you with more thought process so here is the final dining plan.

Day 1 Nov 12 – QSDP
Day 2 Nov 13 – QSDP
Day 3 Nov 14 – DXDP
Day 4 Nov 15 – DXDP
Day 5 Nov 16 – DXDP
Day 6 Nov 17 – DXDP

Then we switch over to OKW and we won’t have a DP, but plan on using our day 6 credits since they are good until midnight on day 7. We will be going to Universal on day 8 (Saturday) so we don’t need the dining plan that day.

So far this is what I have and I haven’t changed it in over a week, so it should stay the same. Now ADR’s are a different story. I’m sure most of the technical issues on the Disney reservation site are caused by me. I’ve changed my ADR’s at least 30+ times.

Having a newborn that sleeps a lot leaves time to do this. I can’t wait until she sleeps less and keeps me away from changing ADR’s.

This is what she does, wide awake

About a minute later, my eyes are getting heavy

And a minute later she’s passed out

I’ll also add a picture of our house, which is still under construction. We’re hoping to move in by September.

I’ll leave with that for now. Next up will be our ADR’s and itinerary plans.

 

[Lady Lallie]

Hi there! I'm joining in.

First off, Lia is precious, absolutely adorable.

I'm like with the dining plan, I have been going back and forth on it for about two weeks and I'm still not 100% sure I am making the right decisions.

I love the purple top you are wearing in your honeymoon pictures, very pretty.

I also love your house, how beautiful!!

I can't wait to hear more about your plans.

 

[*tinker*bell*]

Hey, your daughter is sooo cute! plans look good so far can't wait to hear more!

 

[vikkii19]

Hi there! I'm joining in.

First off, Lia is precious, absolutely adorable.

I'm like with the dining plan, I have been going back and forth on it for about two weeks and I'm still not 100% sure I am making the right decisions.

I love the purple top you are wearing in your honeymoon pictures, very pretty.

I also love your house, how beautiful!!

I can't wait to hear more about your plans.

The dining plan is killer, not only do you have to decide on the plan, but then deciding on all the ADR's. Oh well, it's part of the fun.

Hey, your daughter is sooo cute! plans look good so far can't wait to hear more!

Thanks, glad to know I'm not the only one who finds her cute. Just saw your link to your PTR, I'm going to check it out.

 

[vikkii19]

Getting there was probably our biggest struggle. Flights from Canada are ridiculously expensive the lowest they came was $1700 for DH and I. That's almost the same as the rest of our trip. On our honeymoon we had gotten flights for just under $1000, so that wasn't too bad considering we're about 15 minutes from the airport. But this year, they didn't come close to that, so I started looking for flights out of Bangor and Portland.
Wow, they were much more reasonable. Then I started looking for a direct flight, since I'm petrified of flying (I seriously need medication).

The flights out of Maine, only had direct flights on weekends and the times weren't ideal, so I then checked out Southwest out of Manchester, it was great, they had like 3 direct flights per day. That's what I finally booked. It's costing $454.80 for both of us taxes included. Even with gas and a hotel, its' still considerably cheaper than flying from home. And on the plus side, I'll be able to do some shopping.

Our plans are looking like this:

Friday Nov 11th, leave around 8am and arrive in Manchester around 4pm and do a little shopping. Check in the hotel, which includes shuttle service to the airport and park n' fly. Hopefully get a good nights sleep for our very early flight.

Saturday Nov 12th our flight leaves at 6:25am and arrives in Orlando at 9:50am.

Then we return on Sunday Nov 20th, our flight leaves at 10:35am and gets in at 1:25pm. Then I'll be doing most of the driving and DH will sleep since he works the next morning. It's about an 8 hour drive, so hopefully we'll be home before midnight.

Next up, yup I changed the dining plan again, and our ADR's.

 

[Lady Lallie]

Getting there was probably our biggest struggle. Flights from Canada are ridiculously expensive the lowest they came was $1700 for DH and I. That's almost the same as the rest of our trip. On our honeymoon we had gotten flights for just under $1000, so that wasn't too bad considering we're about 15 minutes from the airport. But this year, they didn't come close to that, so I started looking for flights out of Bangor and Portland.
Wow, they were much more reasonable. Then I started looking for a direct flight, since I'm petrified of flying (I seriously need medication).

The flights out of Maine, only had direct flights on weekends and the times weren't ideal, so I then checked out Southwest out of Manchester, it was great, they had like 3 direct flights per day. That's what I finally booked. It's costing $454.80 for both of us taxes included. Even with gas and a hotel, its' still considerably cheaper than flying from home. And on the plus side, I'll be able to do some shopping.

Our plans are looking like this:

Friday Nov 11th, leave around 8am and arrive in Manchester around 4pm and do a little shopping. Check in the hotel, which includes shuttle service to the airport and park n' fly. Hopefully get a good nights sleep for our very early flight.

Saturday Nov 12th our flight leaves at 6:25am and arrives in Orlando at 9:50am.

Then we return on Sunday Nov 20th, our flight leaves at 10:35am and gets in at 1:25pm. Then I'll be doing most of the driving and DH will sleep since he works the next morning. It's about an 8 hour drive, so hopefully we'll be home before midnight.

Next up, yup I changed the dining plan again, and our ADR's.

I fly out of Manchester!!! It is my favorite airport, small and so easy to navigate.

We should try to have a meet that day if you are interested. Manchester is not far from me at all. Are you staying at the hotel that is super close to the airport? I have looked into staying there before, they usually have really good deals.

 

[vikkii19]

I fly out of Manchester!!! It is my favorite airport, small and so easy to navigate.

We should try to have a meet that day if you are interested. Manchester is not far from me at all. Are you staying at the hotel that is super close to the airport? I have looked into staying there before, they usually have really good deals.

Yeah, we should totally meet. We're staying at Homewood Suites, I'm not really sure if it's the one that's super close to the airport, but it looked close enough on google maps.

 

[vikkii19]

So I left off with 2 days on the QSDP and then 4 days of DXDP, well after reading treads about segmenting the dining plan, I decided against it and we will be doing the DXDP all days now.

I’ll start by saying this wasn’t easy. There were so many great places we went on our Honeymoon that we wanted to return to, that it was hard to fit in new places. On top of that, my husband is a meat and potatoes kind of guy and there are a lot of restaurants I wouldn’t even think of bringing him to.

Our plans look something like this:

Day 1 Saturday Nov 12

Lunch – I don’t have a reservation for lunch because there might be flight delays or things like that. But we might try and walk up to

Dinner will be at 5:45pm at

Day 2 Sunday Nov 13

Lunch will be at 11:30am at

Dinner will be at 8:10pm at

Day 3 Monday Nov 14

Lunch will be at 12:15pm at

Dinner will be at 8:40pm at

Day 4 Tuesday Nov 15

Lunch will be at 11:00am at

Dinner will be at 8:20pm at

Day 5 Wednesday Nov 16

Lunch will be at 11:20am at

Dinner will be at 8:40pm at

Day 6 Thursday Nov 17

Lunch will be at 12:25pm at

Dinner will be at 8:15pm at

Day 7 Friday Nov 18

Breakfast

Dinner

This is what we have so far. I also have an OOP dinner at 9pm on Saturday night at

We also plan on eating some F&W snacks on Sunday afternoon.

Next up will be our planned itinerary, but based on our ADR’s you’ve probably already guessed which parks we’ll be in on which days.

Another thing which isn’t really Disney related is I brought Lia to get her ears pierced. Here she is with her birthstone earrings

 

[Lady Lallie]

Oh my goodness, Lia is so precious. I love her little earrings.

Great ADRs, we love Coral Reef, Crystal Palace and Artist Point. All very yummy. We are going to try Narcoossee's and Yachtsman on our upcoming trip so I'm excited to hear what you think about them. I went to California Grill last January and the flatbread I had was just so amazing! You will love that meal. Oh and the calamari at Mama Melrose's was so good when I went there in January 2010.

The hotel I was thinking of is the Highlander Inn, when I was researching it was the cheapest I could find. If I'm thinking of the right hotel, Homewood Suites is pretty close too.

 

[vikkii19]

Oh my goodness, Lia is so precious. I love her little earrings.

Great ADRs, we love Coral Reef, Crystal Palace and Artist Point. All very yummy. We are going to try Narcoossee's and Yachtsman on our upcoming trip so I'm excited to hear what you think about them. I went to California Grill last January and the flatbread I had was just so amazing! You will love that meal. Oh and the calamari at Mama Melrose's was so good when I went there in January 2010.

The hotel I was thinking of is the Highlander Inn, when I was researching it was the cheapest I could find. If I'm thinking of the right hotel, Homewood Suites is pretty close too.

Glad to hear you liked them. I'm obsessed with looking over the menus on allears and I'm thinking of trying the lobster at Narcoosee's, but I'm a bit reluctant. Where I live is the lobster capital of the world (it really is, google it) and I'm scared it won't be up to par with the lobster here so we'll see. I'm really excited to try Cali Grill, and will definitely try the flatbread. I looked into Highlander Inn, but it didn't include parking. You could get it for $5/night, but at Homewood Suites it's included with our stay and I got a rate of $119 for the night so I don't think it's too too bad.

 

[vikkii19]

I wanted to start shopping to add some Disney clothes to my wardrobe. I only have 1 tshirt that I bought on our Honeymoon trip. I know it's bad, see that was our first trip and I didn't realize then that people wore Disney clothes, so I'm planning on expanding my wardrobe for Disney.

I've been looking on the Disney store site and I don't really care for any of their tshirts right now, but I did see this and love it

The only thing is, it's under sleepwear. I think it could pass at the parks as a tank top, but what are your opinions. If it looks too much like sleepwear, then I won't get it. I'm going to keep an eye out, as it seems their stock changes fairly frequently.

I then decided to go to Walmart as I had seen Disney clothes there. But didn't find any in my size, but found some really cute ones for Lia. Here it is

Disney baby pyjama

And Minnie Mouse pyjamas for this winter

If any of you know any other places that would have plus size Disney clothes let me know.

 

[Lady Lallie]

Glad to hear you liked them. I'm obsessed with looking over the menus on allears and I'm thinking of trying the lobster at Narcoosee's, but I'm a bit reluctant. Where I live is the lobster capital of the world (it really is, google it) and I'm scared it won't be up to par with the lobster here so we'll see. I'm really excited to try Cali Grill, and will definitely try the flatbread. I looked into Highlander Inn, but it didn't include parking. You could get it for $5/night, but at Homewood Suites it's included with our stay and I got a rate of $119 for the night so I don't think it's too too bad.

I thought when I looked it did include parking, maybe they changed their policies.

I generally don't order lobster at Disney. I will order lobster bisque or other appetizers with lobster in it but not my full entree. I have heard good things about the Narcoossee's lobster though but I am a lobster snob.

I'm coming to visit you if you live in the lobster capital of the world!

 

[Lady Lallie]

Not sure what size you are but the Disney Store (if there are any around you) do have sizes up to 2XL in the store. I have a really hard time finding plus size Disney clothes, it's so unfair. I usually do have good luck at Walmart though and the stock changes pretty frequently. I have made a few of my own tshirts using iron on transfers. You might want to check etsy.com, it's kind of like a crafter's ebay. People make tie dye shirts, custom Disney clothes and I have seen plus size things there as well.

 

[*tinker*bell*]

plans are looking really good! I've been trying to find some good clothes to wear for my trip, however I'm more focused on the staying cool aspect than the disney one and unfortunately I cannot think of anywhere else that sells Disney clothes that hasnt been mentioned n Can't wait to hear your reviews of those restaurants! We are going to TRex too at my bf's request

OH! and those minnie pj's are ADORABLE!!

 

[vikkii19]

Not sure what size you are but the Disney Store (if there are any around you) do have sizes up to 2XL in the store. I have a really hard time finding plus size Disney clothes, it's so unfair. I usually do have good luck at Walmart though and the stock changes pretty frequently. I have made a few of my own tshirts using iron on transfers. You might want to check etsy.com, it's kind of like a crafter's ebay. People make tie dye shirts, custom Disney clothes and I have seen plus size things there as well.

Well I went looking at Wal Mart again and the largest size I found was an XL, I'm a 2XL. I'll keep looking online and hopefully find at least 1 top for our trip. I did go on Etsy and ended up buying a Mickey Pacifier Clip for Lia, but no shirt for me. I'm sure I'll find something before November.

plans are looking really good! I've been trying to find some good clothes to wear for my trip, however I'm more focused on the staying cool aspect than the disney one and unfortunately I cannot think of anywhere else that sells Disney clothes that hasnt been mentioned n Can't wait to hear your reviews of those restaurants! We are going to TRex too at my bf's request

OH! and those minnie pj's are ADORABLE!!

Staying cool is important, our Honeymoon trip had record high temps of 95+ with extreme humidity. That is part of the reason we are going in November this time. I love the Minnie PJ's and they are cuter in person, too bad they didn't have any my size.

 

[vikkii19]

On our Honeymoon we spent 10 days at the World and we didn’t even come close to doing everything we wanted. So this time I’ve compiled a list of the attractions we didn’t do and would like your opinions on which ones we must do this time.

Now as for the coasters, Denis is very motion sick and probably won’t be coming with me, but I found out this week that one of my close co-workers will be there with her family the same week as us. We have about 4 days where we will be at the same parks and she said she would ride with me since her husband doesn’t go on them either.

Here is the list of the attractions we missed:

Magic Kingdom:

Magic Carpets of Aladdin
Echanted Tiki Room
Tom Sawyer Island
Country Bear Jamboree
The Hall of Presidents
Liberty Square Riverboat
Big Thunder
Space Mountain
Dumbo
Peter Pan’s flight
Winnie the Pooh
Snow White
Carousel of Progress
Peoplemover
Indy Speedway
Astro Orbiter

Epcot:
Turtle Talk with Crush
Captain EO
Mission Space
Reflections of China
Kim Possible
Impressions de France
O Canada
**Also what performers are worth trying to see around the World Showcase?? We didn’t see any during our Honeymoon.

DHS:

Rockin Roller
Tower of Terror
Beauty and the Beast
Star Tours
Sounds Dangerous (if it’s open)


AK:
Expedition Everest
Flights of Wonder
Dinosaur
Nemo
Primeval Whirl
Tricerotop Spin


Wow, that’s more than I thought there would be. We also would like to go explore the Boardwalk and go to Jellyrolls. We wanted to go on our Honeymoon, but never made it there. We also want to spend at least one night in Downtown Disney, it’ll probably be at the end of our trip since our last 2 nights are at OKW and can take the boat.

On another note, we are getting close to finally moving in, there is still about a months work to be done, but I feel the end is near. The kitchen is finally installed and Denis did the floors this past week. Here are a couple pictures.

 

[*tinker*bell*]

My two cents

Magic Kingdom:

Enchanted Tiki Room (it'll be back to the original which I LOVE! )
Country Bear Jamboree
Liberty Square Riverboat
Big Thunder
Space Mountain
Peter Pan’s flight
Winnie the Pooh
Snow White
Carousel of Progress
Peoplemover
(I haven't been on all of the above at wdw but they are classics (I have done them between wdw and dl) I love them and they should be experienced at LEAST once imo)

Epcot:
Captain EO (LOVED this when I was little... can't wait to see it again... I was 5 though and I insisted MJ was a girl... )
Mission Space (I would do the Green side, I can ride almost anything and the orange side made me )
Kim Possible (haven't done it yet but REALLY want to!)
O Canada (cause I'm Canadian )
(can't say much about the performer's haven't seen much of that yet)

DHS:

Rockin Roller (haven't ridden it but it's on my must do list!)
Tower of Terror
Beauty and the Beast (a good show worth seeing at least once)
Star Tours (it's redesigned should be worth seeing )

AK:
Expedition Everest
Flights of Wonder
Dinosaur
Nemo
Primeval Whirl
(haven't done Flights of wonder or Nemo but they are on my must do list and the rest are just plain awesome!)


We also would like to go explore the Boardwalk and go to Jellyrolls (I also wana check this out!)
We also want to spend at least one night in Downtown Disney (DTD is a lot of fun to explore and has really good shopping )

Your new house looks really really nice! so excited for you!