Tried to make me go to (Disney)Rehab & I said No No No! PTR 10/16/09 On our way!

[TiggerAllie]

Hi there! I came over from the October thread. I will be going a bit before you....Oct4-9th at Kidani. First time for MNSSHP and F&W....I am taking my 13 yr old niece (she has been my travel buddy on quite a few trips.)
We are flying from a small airport here in town and I am a bit prissy too about airlines/airports so I always fly NW and we have a stop in Detroit!
Your ADR's look great and the Segway tour sounds like a lot of fun...I have a trip planned for May and am taking my neighbor so maybe we could do that then.
I might try out Sanaa for lunch seeing that I am right there. I already have ADR's set up but there is always room for more!

Tracy

Hi Tracy!

October is such a great time to go! I'm sure you'll love it! I'll be looking forward to hearing your reviews of F&W and MNSSHP before we head out. I'm also very excited to hear what people have to say about Sanaa--the menu sounds really good. And I can't wait to see the new Kidani village house! Maybe some day we'll be lucky enough to find some DVC pts availability there!

The Segways are really fun and surprisingly easy to drive (especially the new "i2/x2" versions)--I highly recommend them! When we get back I'll let you know how the new backstage Epcot one was.

You can say "hi" to the Detroit airport for me on your way through.

You must be almost at your 30 day mark! Lucky you!!

 

[TiggerAllie]

Oh my! I can't believe it's already September, and school starts on Tuesday! Preparing for teaching is definitely getting in the way of my Disney planning and pre-trip-reporting...

Ok... here's my list so far:
1) hotel: SSR/WL
2) ADRs
3) plane tix
4) tour booked!

Next up:
5) tix: AP renewals, MNSSHP (what day??)
6) food and wine festival events
7) MNSSHP costumes
8) park planning
9) re-evaluate ADRs
10) rental car
11)...

Wow, there is so much to do, and we are going to be at 40 days this weekend!

I'll post more info soon... F&W and MNSSHP costumes are probably next up!

 

[Calway]

Hey it is me again. Do you teach at U of M? I'm a retired sp. ed teacher so this will be my first chance to travel in the fall...so excited and loving it.
Still don't know about MNSSHP since we can barely stay up late anymore.
I guess we'll see once we get there.

 

[TiggerAllie]

Hey it is me again. Do you teach at U of M? I'm a retired sp. ed teacher so this will be my first chance to travel in the fall...so excited and loving it.
Still don't know about MNSSHP since we can barely stay up late anymore.
I guess we'll see once we get there.

I do! I'm currently like an adjunct instructor--just teaching 1 class, in the Chemistry Dept.

If you buy the MNSSHP tickets even a day before the party, you can get the "advance purchase" discount. So, you can wait and see if Disney excitement helps you transition to staying up late!

 

[Calway]

I forgot to mention...you suggested we watch Hallowishes from the beach...well we can! We can see them from the campground and the music is piped in. We will probably will have a site close to the beach anyway and probably will hear it from our site.

 

[TiggerAllie]

I forgot to mention...you suggested we watch Hallowishes from the beach...well we can! We can see them from the campground and the music is piped in. We will probably will have a site close to the beach anyway and probably will hear it from our site.

That's so cool! I didn't know they did that at FW! But I bet it's really nice to watch the fireworks with CR in the background. When we were over there for the Segway tour, I thought the view was great!

 

[TiggerAllie]

News!

I just happened to check the DVC website, and our waitlist came through! Now we are staying the 1st 3 nights at VWL instead of SSR!

This will be so nice because we won't really have to change hotels--we can just bring our stuff down to the WL front desk and check out and re-check in at the same time! No driving resort to resort--and they can store our luggage and just call us when the room is ready!

Plus this means we can swim at the WL pool the whole week.

Also, even since we were at WDW during Hurricane Wilma (Oct '05), I'm always a little nervous about staying in rooms with exterior hallways. SSR at least has "covered" hallways, but they are still open to the outside at the ends (think wind and driving rain).

We were at CSR during the storm, and we were confined to our room for over 12 hrs while the hurricane passed. They came by and duct-taped over the room key slot and had updates over the TV and phone messages. By about noon, you could leave your room to walk over to the main building of the resort where they had CMs and characters for entertainment (and food and drinks!).

That always made me think twice about both exterior hallways and the resorts where the main building is seperate from the rooms (e.g. Poly) during hurricane season... The following Octobers we stayed at AKL, then VWL, then SSR.

It was crazy... we were at Fantasmic, waiting for the show to start, and we could see clouds gathering on the horizon. Then, my mom called on the phone, asking what we were doing, because a hurricane was coming! Just then, the sky opened up and poured down rain! They made an announcement that Fantasmic was canceled (but nothing about the hurricane). We ended up driving over to Whispering Canyon at WL for dinner from DHS, and I was so jealous that the resort guests could hang out and play in the big lobby there--they had already started having extra activities. We headed back to CSR to lock ourselves in for the night (fortunately, we had some food and drink in the room).

The all-clear came through late the next morning, and they opened the parks just to resort guests at 1pm, but they didn't even have all the debris cleaned up yet. (Sorry, I somehow took no pictures of this.) We walked in for Akershus princess dinner because there wasn't anyone in the parks. (No lines at F&W as well!) The opened the parks to everyone the next day.

 

[cnktruitt]

News!

I just happened to check the DVC website, and our waitlist came through! Now we are staying the 1st 3 nights at VWL instead of SSR!

That is GREAT news from all I have heard! You'll need to let us all know what you think about it. Watching & waiting

 

[Raecheal]

I love all your plans so far... i'm in!! I can never really pick my favourite time of the year because... each season, each month that we go... i love even more!!

 

[My2Qtz0205]

Hi, popping in from the October 09 thread.

We will be there the exact same time as you--Oct. 16-23. We are also celebrating our anniversary at Cali Grill. Our actual anniversary is 10/16, our travel day, so we are eating at Cali Grill on 10/20. We have a 7pm reservation, and I'm thinking we might go to DTD afterwards and take the hot air balloon ride! We are attending MNSSHP on 10/18.

 

[TiggerAllie]

Hi, popping in from the October 09 thread.

We will be there the exact same time as you--Oct. 16-23. We are also celebrating our anniversary at Cali Grill. Our actual anniversary is 10/16, our travel day, so we are eating at Cali Grill on 10/20. We have a 7pm reservation, and I'm thinking we might go to DTD afterwards and take the hot air balloon ride! We are attending MNSSHP on 10/18.

That's so funny--I think we are reversing the Cali Grill and MNSSHP nights, because our CG ADR is on 10/18 and we are probably going to MNSSHP on 10/20!

We are celebrating our anniversary all week, because technically it's not until the end of the month. I still haven't decided if I am going to add it to the resort and ADR "add a celebration" lists... We are pretty low key people, and I don't know what kinds of things the CMs would do with it. Anybody know what they do for "anniversary"? I also sometimes worry about comments from other guests, so we probably wouldn't wear buttons or anything.

 

[TiggerAllie]

Ok-- Update time!

It's Food & Wine season--hooray!

So in addition to the fun of all the food booths, there are also the wine seminars! In past years they were free, but you had to go at least 45 minutes ahead and wait in line at the Wonders of Life Pavilion (festival center), which meant a good part of vacation time was spent queued up in a corner of the defunct WoL.

However, this year they are charging $8 for these seminars, which sucks. But, as a Tables in Wonderland member, DVC member, and AP holder, we had the option to get advance tickets for only $5. Now, I was willing to pay $5 to not have to stand in line for hours of my vacation!

So, we have to be a bit more planning-focused if we are going to pay upfront for the seminars, as we are commiting to being at Epcot at these times. We decided that after looking at the available seminars, we would pick 2 afternoons to schedule for Epcot, and we would play the rest by ear. We could always buy more tickets later if they are still available and we want to go another day/time.

Here is what we chose:
Saturday 10/17
Tchoup-choup food/beverage demonstration (Emeril's Orlando restaurant)
Bunratty Meads (Ireland)
Moet & Chandon Champagne (we've been to the winery in Napa before)

Wednesday 10/21
La Crema winery (from Canada <3)
Remy & Martin Ports
Grand Floridian pastry chef

We tried to mix it up, adding a couple of food seminars (new for us) and 2 non-wine beverage seminars. We are going to skip the other more expensive events.

Last year, we got a book signed by the head chef from The Commander's Palace as a gift for my cousin, because he lives in New Orleans and got engaged at WL a year earlier. He had done one of the kitchen conversation demos. I thought about trying to do one of this year, but I didn't see anything our week that I wanted to do.

So, our schedule so far looks like this:
Fri 10/16 Arrive late, DTD?
Sat 10/17 Epcot day! Segway tour at 8:15am, 3 afternoon F&W seminars,
Jiko dinner
Sun 10/18 Cali Grill dinner
Mon 10/19 VWL-->WL, Sanaa dinner
Tues 10/20 Le Cellier lunch, MNSSHP?
Wed 10/21 back to Epcot: 3 afternoon F&W seminars, Narcoossee's dinner
Thurs 10/22 Kouzzina dinner
Fri 10/23 leave afternoon

This vacation is coming together nicely! Let me know what you think.

 

[My2Qtz0205]

We'll be at Epcot on 10/21 as well! I'll have my LGMH on.

 

[TiggerAllie]

Boo! I just got an email about fare discounts, and when I checked the flights (that I've already booked), they were like $50 cheaper! ARgh!

I'm just sharing my frustration that I lost out on an extra $100 that I could have had for Disney.



Thanks for listening.

 

[TiggerAllie]

Well, renewal APs are purchased! And, I'm so excited they will be good until thru New Years 2010!

(Did I mention that we are planning to spend NYE at WDW? Crazy, I know!)

Next up... taking suggestions for MNSSHP costume ideas!

 

[TiggerAllie]

So I have to confess, trying to plan 2 Disney trips at once is getting to me!

We decided to plan a trip over New Years (I know, we're crazy), which due to crowd levels needs to be planned much farther ahead of time than this one did... our 90-day mark is on Wednesday, so now we need to make ADRs for that trip!

Meanwhile, we are still working on the October extravaganza...

We leave 2 weeks from Friday! Hooray! 18 days to go!

So.... MNSSHP costumes.... I did just find out that they have added more AP/DVC discount tickets to the MNSSHP list, and now our day is included (10/20), so that is really exciting-- $20 saved! I'm off to buy tickets, then I need your help!

We need suggestions of MNSSHP costumes! I'll post pictures of what we've done in the past, but I'm definitely taking suggestions now!

 

[TiggerAllie]

Ok, I promised pictures of previous costumes, and here they are!

Peter Pan & Tinkerbell '05

Winnie the Pooh & a honey bee '06

Queen of Hearts & Alice in Wonderland '07

We pooped out in '08 and didn't have costumes. Boo! So this year I really want to get organized and get some!

I would prefer that they are Disney-themed, and a "pair" that are related to each other.... Suggetions welcome please!

 

[jenbear123]

Not that I have suggestions for your costumes (although I'll put my thinking cap on ) I have just caught up reading all 3 pages.

My trip may not be until mid-November but I have found many things in common with my trip vs yours. You seem to be a few steps ahead of me though.. with being veteran AP holders and DVC members. I'm a newborn AP holder - it's on it's way in the mail as I type - and look forward to learning the in's and out's of it's usage. I did not get the Tables of Wonderland card at the time I bought the AP as my sister got it using her CM discount. How do I go about getting this wonderful piece of food discounting magic? I will need to exchange my AP voucher for the actual AP - I'm assuming at Guest services at one of the parks? - will I be able to purchase the TIW card then? Please help!

I see you have the same love for segways as moi Not to mention the love for those little "extras" on any WDW trip. Last July, my sister and I did the Around the World on a Segway tour. Love, love, LOVED it! For the November trip, we're trying out the "offroad" segways on the Backtrail Adventure Segway tour. Glad to hear these are easier to control... for my sister's sake I hadn't heard about the "Nature-inspired Design" tour!!! It sounds amazing! Guess this one will have to wait for my trip in April....

We'll be staying at VWL for the first time for 2 nights at the beginning of our stay in November. We've stayed at the WL before (sigh, my resort) but never the villas. Can you suggest a certain location to request for a 1-bedroom villa? Can you even request a location at VWL?

I was worried, too, when I started my PTR that nobody would read it. In fact, I'm still talking to myself. You're welcome to come join in via the link in my signature to get more info on my upcoming trip!

That's it! I'm subscribing.

 

[TiggerAllie]

Not that I have suggestions for your costumes (although I'll put my thinking cap on ) I have just caught up reading all 3 pages.

My trip may not be until mid-November but I have found many things in common with my trip vs yours. You seem to be a few steps ahead of me though.. with being veteran AP holders and DVC members. I'm a newborn AP holder - it's on it's way in the mail as I type - and look forward to learning the in's and out's of it's usage. I did not get the Tables of Wonderland card at the time I bought the AP as my sister got it using her CM discount. How do I go about getting this wonderful piece of food discounting magic? I will need to exchange my AP voucher for the actual AP - I'm assuming at Guest services at one of the parks? - will I be able to purchase the TIW card then? Please help!

Call and order your TIW now! 407-566-5858 They may send it to you in the mail if you give your AP voucher #; but if you have to pick it up after you activate your APs (which may be true) you can pick it up at Epcot guest relations. We had to get a temp card the first time we got it, but I think it was because we ordered it so close to our trip date, not because we hadn't activated our APs yet... Epcot (outside) GR has been my favorite place to activate our APs.

I see you have the same love for segways as moi Not to mention the love for those little "extras" on any WDW trip. Last July, my sister and I did the Around the World on a Segway tour. Love, love, LOVED it! For the November trip, we're trying out the "offroad" segways on the Backtrail Adventure Segway tour. Glad to hear these are easier to control... for my sister's sake I hadn't heard about the "Nature-inspired Design" tour!!! It sounds amazing! Guess this one will have to wait for my trip in April....

You will LOVE the new segways! The offroad ones are so cool! I thought the backwoods tour was great, and it was fun to see FW for the first time!

We'll be staying at VWL for the first time for 2 nights at the beginning of our stay in November. We've stayed at the WL before (sigh, my resort) but never the villas. Can you suggest a certain location to request for a 1-bedroom villa? Can you even request a location at VWL?

Hmm... we had a studio at the far end of the top floor the one other time we stayed at VWL. I would maybe request a room nearer the lobby, because it was a long walk. You can request to be on the "lake side" vs the "woods side". The link to the map of all the room numbers that I had bookmarked seems to have died.

I was worried, too, when I started my PTR that nobody would read it. In fact, I'm still talking to myself. You're welcome to come join in via the link in my signature to get more info on my upcoming trip!

That's it! I'm subscribing.

I'm off to read your PTR! Please leave any costume suggestions! Hopefully I'll be on top of my TR when the time comes, and you'll find some of that info helpful for your trip.

 

[jenbear123]

Call and order your TIW now! 407-566-5858 They may send it to you in the mail if you give your AP voucher #; but if you have to pick it up after you activate your APs (which may be true) you can pick it up at Epcot guest relations. We had to get a temp card the first time we got it, but I think it was because we ordered it so close to our trip date, not because we hadn't activated our APs yet... Epcot (outside) GR has been my favorite place to activate our APs.

Where do I find the AP voucher #? Is it found on the actual voucher or on the receipt? Thankfully my sister mailed me both! Thanks for the phone number, too. I will give them a call when I'm at work tomorrow