"We're All Mad Here," A Mad BLTea-Party for Thirteen!

[NessieBird]

tl;dr...actually, on the other hand, NOT LONG ENOUGH!!!QUOTE]

tl;dr? Is this fancy-schmancy forum speak? No comprendo.

 

[Professor Bicycle]

I thought you were up on all the internet lingo???

"too long; didn't read"

But of course I DID read...

 

[cultureart]

I'm just popping in. How do I start my post...... a .... I 'm a student and major in american literature.....

 

[cultureart]

good everybody I will come back soon.

 

[Scott MC]

I'd just like to say that my TR from last August has FINALLY been updated.
Rejoice!

 

[kittyprincess]

Excellent post about your Give/Get! I can't believe how strict the other volunteers were and how CAYOOT the animals at the shelter are!!! i love the kitty with the eyebrows!!

can't wait for our big trip!

 

[Scott MC]

This thread feels dead!


What's everyone's Disney history?
I'll go first....

1983-1st Visit....stayed off-property....still remember the pool at the hotel....remember the Astro Orbiter and the Crystal Palace, but that's about it.


1985-...Stayed at a Raddison that I'm pretty sure is still there.....it rained EVERY day and we lived in our ponchos......I remember Figment, Snow White's Scary Adventures, The Haunted Mansion, the hotel pool (again).....Mom and Dad both getting pretty wicked food poisoning at Cosmic Ray's......Dad puking in the bushes near 20,000 Leauges while I rode Mr. Toad's Ride and Peter Pan's Flight over and over again......and I remember Dad and I almost getting run over by the Cinderella float in the MSEP. ...he told me we'd be ok....the CMs were not amused.


1996-...Stayed Dixie Landings in the Magnolia secion (natch)....nice food court, my first time riding the Disney coasters, our first time at MGM, our first experience with Spectromagic...great return after too many years away.


1998- ...Stayed at Wilderness Lodge and my love afair with MK resorts began. ....Artist Point bfast with Pocahontas and 1900 Park Faire with Alice....my love for the GF started there......I remember mom trying to convince my sister that Mickey actually HAD signed her autograph book.....Whispering Canyon Cafe was a hoot!


2002-...Dolphin...gorgeous....50's cafe there....more Spectro.....first time not in the summer (April- weather was divine).


2007-...off property with 5 friends, 4 of whom are going on this trip...Cory's Mom, KittyPrincess, Miker, Professor Bicycle, and Noelle....great house.....'WHODAT?".......Noelle feels up Baloo......Cory's Mom sucks up all the AC and earns her famous nickname......armadillo technologies....my first "Hoop" experience....that little girl at the GF who got into everyone's picture and had to be "told" by Mary Poppins.


2008-...off property with Tom, Cory's Mom, Prof. Bicycle, Kitty Princess, Noelle, Steve, Seth, & Erin......Hurricaine Faye.....more Hoop-ness....the last ride on Space Mountain......GENTLEMANS!......the first trip around the world, followed by Professor Bicycle's quick trip home......Kitty Princess having a drink made just for her at California Grill.....the endless itemized bill at California Grill....more breakfasts at the Grand...."Y'all have a GRAND day now!"

2009-...Grand Floridian RPC, Coronado Springs (somewhere about a mile away from check-in)....you can read all about it in my other trip report, which I promise I'll get to updating one of these days.


Anyone else?

 

[Scott MC]

Y'all are NO fun.

We're barely 2 months out! Let's get this TR rolling.
Should we post our ADR's?

Many of us are arriving before the 15th...should we discuss our pre GG plans?

T and I are arriving on the 13th and are spending 2 nights at AKL before arriving at BLT. We have one night with a Savanna view and one night in CL. We'd LOVE to be bumped up to CL for that first night and VBsHustla thinks that AKL will do that for us.

Thoughts?

 

[UncleOrville]

I do indeed think AKL will put you in CL for the night you weren't able to book - provided they have any rooms available.

 

[NessieBird]

Ok...I back! I back!
I can do a quick background (trust me, it's def quick compared to prob everyone else's) of our Disney experience. And I'll throw in our ADR info, which will overlap on some others as well. I hope that works ok; I don't want to leave you stranded, Scott.

I'm a bit of a Disney late-bloomer. My parents had started discussing a Disney trip when I was approximately ten. I remember looking through the old-school Birnbaum book; so great. In the mid-80s, there were only so many choices of on-site hotels and my parents had decided on the Contemporary. So, choosing a hotel, checking out tickets, that was all easy enough. But when it came to transportation from Boston, that's when everything went down the tubes.
You see, when my dad was in his early 20s, he and some friends wanted to go to the Cape. So, they took a tiny plane from Boston. The flight takes just a few minutes, but being on the tiny plane in bad weather...
He was terrified and took a crowded, standing-room only bus back, all the while stuck in normal Cape traffic. He didn't step foot on a plane for 40 years until he went to Alaska a couple of years ago. He's also since flown to San Fran, but it is a struggle for him.
Anyway, my parents also didn't want to drive or take a train, so there was no way to get there. We instead went forward with the usual vacations to NH and Maine and renting an island in Mass. Our big trip was a drive down to Pennsylvania Dutch country where we went to Hersheypark. Not the same as Disney, but we three still had a great time, so no complaints.
PS--My parents have still never been to Disney.

As I said, my Disney experiences didn't start til I was 14 (1995). My sister took me during April vacation (she's 11 years older, as a reference). We stayed at what was then Dixie Landings. Oh, how I wish I had those pics at my house right now to scan. You'll see that we went in '95? Our outfits were HORRIBLE! I'm laughing just thinking of them. My sister had no idea what to expect and was very big into always dressing to the nines. The first day, hahahaha, she had on a "shorts suit," meaning dressy long shorts, with a blouse, and I think a matching vest, with both the shorts and vest in that mid-90s suit material. All light peach in color, naturally. With a ton of perfect make-up. And her hair in a very particular bun with a fancy barrette. So great.
I was no better off in hideously unflattering denim shorts (seriously, why was it necessary to have the waist of pants right up to the ribcage?!) and a shirt that was equally unflattering in its boxy, cropped shape. For shame.
BUT: we did have a great time and I loved every minute of it. (Except for the one time she got into a mood and yelled at me while in line for the Backstage Studio Tour. I don't remember the circumstances, but to this day I get an uncomfortable feeling when walking into the line.)
One funny (at least I think so) story: we got our profiles drawn by an artist in Liberty Square, I believe. He took an instant liking to my sister (seriously, that shorts suit was smoking hot) and drew her perfectly. He was so busy talking to her that my profile was less than exact. He drew me with a huge forehead and in reality, I have quite a small forehead. So being right in the thick of my awkward years, this hit me pretty hard. I'd almost forgotten about it until we were getting in line to board the bus to Dixie Landings and I tried to crouch under the chain roping off the boarding queue (don't worry, wasn't cutting, no one else in line) and it caught my forehead and I fell over backwards. My sister was ROLLING. Looking back, I feign sadness over it, but it was pretty hilarious.

I went back to Disney with friends as our "spring break" for senior year of high school in 1998. I never was a wild kid, quite the opposite, in face, and had no urge to go on some crazy vacation to Mexico or something. A couple of other girls and I split from the crowd who went down and had a ton of fun on our own. (I was a very self-righteous little thing and did not approve of some of the behavior in which the others were engaging.) We stayed at All-Star Sports.

(representing looong hiatus...)

Mikey and I went in April 2005. Mikey had never been so I pulled together all of the info and presented him with the differences between staying on-property (what I was pushing) vs. off-property. He can be either very frugal or not so much (see: him buying a Vespa last month ) and, in this case, felt that we could save money by staying off-property. I hadn't been in so long and I started to think he was right. Yeah, we were wrong, so... Seralago Hotel and Suites was our hotel choice and, well, we were not impressed. I just have vague memories of it; I think I've blocked it out, in fact. I don't know, maybe it was ok, but I just remember feeling uncomfortable every time we were at the hotel. There was a large gap under the door itself and the whole thing just felt a bit raggedy. But what really killed us was the "convenient" complimentary transportation to the parks. Now they have 3 (AM-only) departure times and 4 (PM-only) return times, but I think it was even more abbreviated when we were there. Needless to say, we relied on cabs to get us back and forth, and mother of God, they are swindlers. Overall, I believe we spent far more than had we stayed on-property. Oh well, live and learn. What was important was that Mikey and I went together to Disney for the first time and it was fab! I used the Unofficial Guide books to create our touring plans and born of this was my crazy Danny Tanner-like planning routine. But, I wanted to be sure Mikey could see as much as possible. And he did! Plus, we at a Ponderosa and a new love between those two was formed.

For our anniversary in 2006, I booked us a September trip, staying at Pop Century with free dining. So it was his first on-site and the first free-dining experience for both, obviously. We LOVE to eat , so this worked out quite well for us. We'd pay OOP for breakfast at Everything Pop (which was good because we'd order all sorts of wonky things, like two breakfasts each, or a kids breakfast, etc, and it would've been too confusing to try to apply credits to this) and then use the credits for lunch and dinner. I don't know where my list of where we ate is, but suffice to say we got a good sampling across all the parks and a few resorts. It was also our first time to Animal Kingdom and Mike discovered another love: Kali River Rapids! As I've said before, Mikey is a big guy and by virtue of that fact, he gets super hot. And September in Orlando is pretty hot. So, he went round and round on this, so happy to be cooling off. It helps when the parks are completely dead so you don't even need to get off of your raft. Also solidifying a place in his heart? Lights, Motors, Action. The man cannot get enough of this. I suppose it is fairly manly. I welcome the time to sit and re-evaluate our touring progress thus far.
I discovered a love of my own at AK: Affection Section! Mikey could not drag me away from those goats. (Does that sound sort of bad?) I don't care; I love animals! God, that's such a great place.

We took off a year in 2007 because we went on a 3 week sojourn to visit Mike's family in Italy. That sort of kills your budget and vacation time in one fell swoop. But I'd say that a trip like that to Italy is a far trade-off
To be continued...

 

[NessieBird]

September 2008 was our next trip, again at Pop, again with free dining. On this trip we both fell in love with Chefs de France. It still goes down as one of our best meals EVER. I'm sad to see that they took my tuna dish off of the menu. I can only hope it'll be back by this August. If not, maybe they can still make it? Who knows. But the dessert I fell for is still there: Croustillant feuillantine, douceur au chocolat, glace noix de coco, tartare de banane - Crispy cake with chocolate milk mousse, coconut ice cream and bananas marinated in rum and lemon juice. The profiteroles and apple crepes get a lot of love on the Dis, but I cannot recommend this enough. Note that the crispy cake isn't really cake at all. (And thank goodness because, no kidding, I LOATHE cake. Blech.) It's just sooo good. I want some. Now, please. My mind is really slipping...what else did we do? Oh, I thought I got bed bugs on my legs at Pop, but they ransacked the room and found no sign. In retrospect, I think it was just a prickly heat rash or something. Whatev. I lived. We nailed down our fav napping spots in the World: Ellen's Universe of Energy (it's a shame because I quite like this, but it's just so cool and relaxing an.....zzzzz), Hall of Presidents, and (for Mikey ONLY) Voyage of the Little Mermaid. I do not sleep in that because I think it's so lovely and sweet and the one year I took tap as a child, the teachers danced to "Yellow Submarine" whilst swooping around props in blacklight, so it's a fond memory. (Even though I evidently hated tap and cried every time my mother dropped me off.)

We again took off 2009 for another month's vacation to Italy. Who's complaining?

So, when trying to plan 2010, Mike suggested we drive. This was a very sweet suggestion because I (like my dad) am PETRIFIED to fly. Obviously, I do fly (see: two recent trips to Italy), but the last flights to and from Italy were particularly tough on me and I was freaking, even though our other flights to Disney, Miami, Jamaica, our first trip to Italy, were all fine. But we realized we might actually save some cash (we'll see if that works out in the end ), so we are driving! Not sure which emoticon I like better, so both it is!
We'll stop on the way down to stay with his sister in NJ, then again in South Carolina, probably, before finally arriving on 13-Aug for two nights at the Omni Orlando at ChampionsGate. I hope this is not another Seralago, but I'm willing to bet it's not. I'm so excited!
So, that's everything in a super-sized nutshell. I'll add our ADRs separately bc this is such a long post (which, without pics, who's really going to read it anyway?).
Ciaociao.

 

[NessieBird]

As such, I'll make this short and sweet.
But first! I have two goals this trip:
1. Dispense with my D. Tanner planning and just relax.
2. Get a photo of Mike with Eeyore because, well, Mike=Eeyore.

Ok, quickly to the ADRs. As discussed, Mike and I love to eat (to the point where sometimes we'll be out to dinner and just look at each and other and discuss how no other couple we know can come close to eating as much as we do). Slurp.

Sat, 14-Aug: Lunch at Grand Floridian Cafe
Sun, 15-Aug: Dinner at Tutto Italia
Mon, 16-Aug: Dinner at the Hoop
Tue, 17-Aug: Brunch at Chef Mickey's and Dinner at 'Ohana
Wed, 18-Aug: Princess Breakfast at Akershus
Thu, 19-Aug: Dinner at Chefs de France
Fri, 20-Aug: Dinner at Le Cellier

I'm also hoping to hit:
Wolfgang Puck Express for breakfast, possibly lunch or dinner too
Earl of Sandwich, obvi
Starring Rolls
La Cava del Tequila (the guac looks unbelievable) or Taqueria del Lago
Tangierine Cafe
Yakitori House
Main Street Bakery, I must try a German chocolate chip cookie. Have you guys seen/had this? Unreal. (http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2010/05/07/disney-german-chocolate-cookie/)

Ok, I'm done!

Ciaociao.

 

[Scott MC]

I do indeed think AKL will put you in CL for the night you weren't able to book - provided they have any rooms available.

From your lips to the room planner's ears!

Oh, how I wish I had those pics at my house right now to scan. You'll see that we went in '95? Our outfits were HORRIBLE! I'm laughing just thinking of them. My sister had no idea what to expect and was very big into always dressing to the nines. The first day, hahahaha, she had on a "shorts suit," meaning dressy long shorts, with a blouse, and I think a matching vest, with both the shorts and vest in that mid-90s suit material. All light peach in color, naturally. With a ton of perfect make-up. And her hair in a very particular bun with a fancy barrette. So great.
I was no better off in hideously unflattering denim shorts (seriously, why was it necessary to have the waist of pants right up to the ribcage?!) and a shirt that was equally unflattering in its boxy, cropped shape. For shame.

I think we'd all pay a ton of money to see these pics.

We'll stop on the way down to stay with his sister in NJ, then again in South Carolina, probably, before finally arriving on 13-Aug for two nights at the Omni Orlando at ChampionsGate. I hope this is not another Seralago, but I'm willing to bet it's not. I'm so excited!
So, that's everything in a super-sized nutshell. I'll add our ADRs separately bc this is such a long post (which, without pics, who's really going to read it anyway?).
Ciaociao.

3 cheers for bonus nights!

Sat, 14-Aug: Lunch at Grand Floridian Cafe
Sun, 15-Aug: Dinner at Tutto Italia
Mon, 16-Aug: Dinner at the Hoop
Tue, 17-Aug: Brunch at Chef Mickey's and Dinner at 'Ohana
Wed, 18-Aug: Princess Breakfast at Akershus
Thu, 19-Aug: Dinner at Chefs de France
Fri, 20-Aug: Dinner at Le Cellier

I'm also hoping to hit:
Wolfgang Puck Express fot breakfast, possibly lunch or dinner too
Earl of Sandwich, obvi
Starring Rolls
La Cava del Tequila (the guac looks unbelievable) or Taqueria del Lago
Tangierine Cafe
Yakitori House
Main Street Bakery, I must try a German chocolate chip cookie. Have you guys seen/had this? Unreal. (http://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2010/05/07/disney-german-chocolate-cookie/)

Ok, I'm done!

Ciaociao.

GF Cafe....you're going to love it.
The Hoop....prepare yourself
'Ohana means family
Akershus? YAY! PRINCESSES!
Chefs De France....just be sure you're crystal clear with your beverage orders, or like Tom, your "Kettle One martini, extra dry with olives," may turn into a glass of vermouth.
Le Cellier....those pretzel breadsticks with that canadian cheese and bacon soup? Oh my Lord!
Earl of Sandwich and Wolfies take-out are faves of mine. Can we come with you to those?

 

[kittyprincess]

On this trip we both fell in love with Chefs de France. It still goes down as one of our best meals EVER.

Yippee! I'm glad we're dining with you there! I didn't realize it was one of your best ever! We are in for a treat

Wed, 18-Aug: Princess Breakfast at Akershus

PRINCESSES!!!!

We are pre-Disneying by flying down on the 13th and spending Sat swimming with some dolphins!

 

[NessieBird]

I think we'd all pay a ton of money to see these pics.

I'll try to dig them up. Hilarious.

Chefs De France....just be sure you're crystal clear with your beverage orders, or like Tom, your "Kettle One martini, extra dry with olives," may turn into a glass of vermouth.
Le Cellier....those pretzel breadsticks with that canadian cheese and bacon soup? Oh my Lord!
Earl of Sandwich and Wolfies take-out are faves of mine. Can we come with you to those?

CdF is fab and I will not accept fresh comments on their confusion with drinks..."olive" and "oleeeve" are hard to differentiate! Right?
I regret that I cannot have the soup at LeCellier, bc I'm all about cheese, but not all about pork.
And lastly, of course you may join! I'm aiming for a WPE brekkie on Sat AM. Have you seen the pics of their breakfast food? If there were a drooling emoticon, I'd add one now.

Yippee! I'm glad we're dining with you there! I didn't realize it was one of your best ever! We are in for a treat



PRINCESSES!!!!

We are pre-Disneying by flying down on the 13th and spending Sat swimming with some dolphins!

I hope you guys like CdF as much as we do...for that matter I hope it lives up to our lofty opinion of it!
PS--Tell the dolphins I say, "hey." I'm not jealous or anything. Just playing it cool.

 

[NessieBird]

It's hilarious. Look at the pics in post #262. SO GREAT. But the whole TR is pretty rad; a must read.

 

[NessieBird]

Lame! I didn't post the link! http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2460343&page=18

 

[Scott MC]

A few things...

1. Thanks Vanessa and occasionally Lisa for keeping this thread going........(what I really mean is to say ..."Um...Tracy, Spence, Tom, Jimmy, Mike, Mike, Jen, and Jason........FAIL).

2. I'M A DIS VETERAN! I'M A DIS VETERAN! I'M A DIS VETERAN!

3. Part of my goals since I have SO much time off this summer (elementary school teacher)...is to update my TR, keep this PTR going, and subscribe to and comment frequently on TRs that I like and read, so I thought I'd list here some of the threads that I follow...

(in no particular order)

Shirts Squirts and Flirts --This guy and his family have so much fun at the World!

Party Every Day -- Oh those crazy dames of VBsHustla/UncleOrville...what more can I say? I'm still hoping that Liz can find it in her heart to meet up with us in August.


Personally, I think I would make a great stripper -- Dizneydawn's threads crack...me...up!

I Kicked it I played it and now...Wheeling and Dealing at the Wilderness Lodge --again...this woman cracks me up!

 

[Scott MC]

Oh my gosh!
So many responses!
I can't keep up!


*tapping foot*


So, Tom and I booked our plane tickets this week.

We're flying out of Manchester early Friday morning, and are planning to spend the day at Downtown Disney. We have a late reservation at Kona Cafe which should put us right on the Polynesian beach for what might be the last performance of the Nightastic fireworks. Yay!

 

[monymony3471]

You guys are so flipping funny. I HaVE to be around for this.

We arrive the day after your departure, too bad for us.