We're Bringing Who To WDW!? OR Trying To Break the Curse! !

[SunnieRN]

Wow, when we were leaving for our last trip, I started to create a small (8x8) scrapbook album. It turned out ok. Nothing spectacular by any means. On our trip I picked up the Celebrate every day, scrapbook that you can fill with pages. The only thing inside was some blank card stock.

I also picked up the One World, 4 Parks scrapbook supplies. (I liked the other album better). I want to make an album for the boys that shows them with the character and an autograph. I have a lot of pages done, but am thinking it will be nearly impossible to bring this around in the parks. So after mulling this over, I think I've got an idea!!

Here is a picture of the album

http://www.magicalmemoriesstore.com/servlet/the-1491/walt-disney-store,-disneystore,/Detail

For some reason I can't find the inserts online, but it worked out pretty well for a lot of the characters.

Now for the idea!! I think I will get some cardstock and co-ordinate the colors. I will put the names of which character I want on the back of each color. I can put the "cards" in a coupon holder that is plastic, to protect them. When I get home I can add the cardstock, along with the boys pictures.

If anyone is interested I'll be happy to post pictures of the pages.

 

[MEK]

I love the scrapbook. It is very pretty. I would love to see the pages!

I just did my first digital scrapbook on shutterfly. It was so fun and easy. I think I am hooked. I am definately going to do one for the Sept trip!

 

[SunnieRN]

I love the scrapbook. It is very pretty. I would love to see the pages!

I just did my first digital scrapbook on shutterfly. It was so fun and easy. I think I am hooked. I am definately going to do one for the Sept trip!

I read on another trip report (wigdoutmom?) that you had done one and I bookmarked the site!! You have such fantastic pictures that it will be fantastic!! I think that would actually be a much better way for the boys to have their memory book, so maybe we will end up with two!! I'll post pictures of my pages for you!! Thanks for asking!

In return I would love it if you would post pictures of your book when you get it!!

 

[jordanyosh]

Okay..I'm in...you are VERY accommodating, but it sounds like you love your daughter and grandkids more than you dislike your ex and new wife....I to you.

 

[SunnieRN]

Okay..I'm in...you are VERY accommodating, but it sounds like you love your daughter and grandkids more than you dislike your ex and new wife....I to you.

Woo hoo, I am in the middle of your pre-trip report and working on your trip reports and all I have to say is that I am honored to have you here!!!

I love your writing style and sense of humor!!! Hopefully this will all turn into a fun story somehow! Love your contest and the disney gift card was an awesome idea for a prize!!

You hit the nail on the head with your astute understanding of the situation! Wonder if we ever passed eachother at Disneyland? Were you there on the 50th birthday?

 

[SunnieRN]

Mary Ellen, sorry, I'm not sure if it is me, my acer notebook or photobucket, but for some reason I can't upload the photos of the scrap book tonight. I will have my computer whiz daughter help me tomorrow!!

I still hope we will at least get to say "hi" while we are there!!

 

[SunnieRN]

Hi Mary Ellen, hope this works!!

These are some of the pages!!

 

[SunnieRN]

Oh my gosh, I didn't realize how dirty my camera lens was! I may retake these now that I see them, but at least they give you an idea, as well as a clue to my grandsons "use" of my camera.

 

[SunnieRN]

Here is a more recent picture of the boys, with a dirty camera lens:

We let Connors hair grow so we can get it cut at the barber shop!

Sorry for the fuzziness, I'll take some more pictures soon, but I'm off to work in a few.

 

[MEK]

OMG.......

Love, love, love the scrapbook pages. They are awesome. I think shutterfly needs to liscense some disney pages as a choice for their products. That would be so cool. I'll see if I can figure out how to post the link to my shutterfly book. Give me time, cause you know I'm bad with computer things.

I have to go back and read and see where you are on the 23rd and 24th. We will be at HS on the 23rd and MK on the 24th before we leave. I think you are going to MK on the 23rd.

You grandsons are so cute in their latest picture. They sure have grown since last years pictures. It brings back memories because I remember when my kids where that age. Never a dull moment. Now that they are teens - never a dull moment, but in a much different way.

 

[SunnieRN]

OMG.......

Love, love, love the scrapbook pages. They are awesome. I think shutterfly needs to liscense some disney pages as a choice for their products. That would be so cool. I'll see if I can figure out how to post the link to my shutterfly book. Give me time, cause you know I'm bad with computer things.

I have to go back and read and see where you are on the 23rd and 24th. We will be at HS on the 23rd and MK on the 24th before we leave. I think you are going to MK on the 23rd.

You grandsons are so cute in their latest picture. They sure have grown since last years pictures. It brings back memories because I remember when my kids where that age. Never a dull moment. Now that they are teens - never a dull moment, but in a much different way.

Thanks Mary Ellen!! I love it, but there are still the rarer characters that I can't find scrap booking materials for. I figure if we get pictures with any of them, that I will try to find some pictures on the computer. My daughter (the computer whiz), tells me she should be able to find whoever I need.

I can't wait to see your shutterfly book!! In the future that would be much, MUCH easier!! Of course then I would have to learn to really crop and resize pictures. (Rachel fixes all of our photopass pictures prior to ordering them.) You know i is really the luck of the draw as we have gotten some pretty poor photopass picture and some really great ones. The pictures you took on your trip were really a lot better than our photopass pictures! I do like having all of us in some of the pictures though!

I so understand the "never a dull moment" at the teen era also!!! I raised 2 girls, 4 months apart in age! When you were talking about trying to get the boys up in the mornings I could totally relate!! We always had at least one friend each with us also, so it was me against at least 4 teenagers!!


Thank you for the compliments on the boys!!! They are both in the stage where they are groing fast! Jacob has hit the terrible twos early! He refuses to even begin to believe that there is a word "no" or that it could possibly ever pertain to him. Spoiled....... er, rotten.

You're right. The 23rd we will be at MK. Probably on the 21st for a few hours also. On the 22nd we are planning on Epcot. I'll be posting the rest of my itinerary later today. Right now Connor is asleep across my legs, which are asleep!

Thanks so much for posting!!

 

[Raecheal]

Great updates... I love the scrapbooking pages (scrapbooking is one of my favourite past times).. such good news that you are leaving a day earlier!!!

I love the recent photo of the photos... they look really happy!!!

 

[SunnieRN]

Since I can't get up to get my itinerary right now, I thought I would blabber on for a second....or two....or several. (I know, nothing new.)

We are in a real quandry as to what we should do. We can't afford to purchase the deluxe dining plan for everyone. I would love to do this for them, but just can't right now. That leaves us with the choices of basic or QS with a couple of TS meals thrown in for good measure.

I know I've brought this up prior to this, but I am really torn and we want to make our decision today!

Pros for basic dining:

We can try one of the restaurants we have reservations for each day. Probably a mix of lunches and dinners.

We can contact Disney today and make sure that the restaurants we have decided upon will have choices for Connor. (Celiac/Gluten Free).

It will be nice to be "waited on" once a day and not have to wait in line.

This will be our 3rd trip and we've only eaten at 3 TS locations so far. (not including SOG our first trip). There are a LOT I'd like to try.

Value. IMHO the dining plan would be plenty of food! I know we would save money, so I have no issues with the value of the plan.

Cons for basic dining:

No refillable mug (although we will already have 3 from our one night stay at WLV). The CM assured us they are for use for the length of stay for the trip, (so includes our AKV time).

The kids are not good at eating because "it's time". They eat when they are hungry. (Within reason of course). So with one TS a day and Connors dietary issues this may make things more difficult.

F&W festival, which we will be attending two days of our trip. We were not big snackers on out trips. We had too much food to be really hungry for snacks. On our Easter trip we got a HUGE amount of snacks for Travis to bring back to Iraq. (which he loved). F&W changes the dynamics this time. We really plan on snacking around the world on this trip and the snack credits will be used to offset the cost of all those snacks. Basic dining, one snack daily, QS 2 snacks daily. This also affects Connor as there are several snacks he can have and he may not enjoy many of his meals.

Pros to the QS Plan:

It is a cost effective plan in our situation. $12 less each per day for each adult.

2 snacks daily each.

Re-fillable mug for at the resort. We also make coffee every morning in our villa and would bring a cup with us on the bus. This allows for drinks as needed at the pool also.
Since their funds are limited (and the ex is a wanderer) this will come i.n handy for them.

No reservation times. Could be good or bad depending upon crowds, heat and melt downs.

Almost all the QS locations have GF choices for Connor without any prior arrangements. This makes life much more simple!! He wants a hot dog, there are a few places. Pizza, several places. Chicken nuggets, no problem. They even bake french fries to prevent cross contamination. Mac and cheese will be harder, but we can always try to find it. (They have it at the TS restaurants though).

No tips. I have no problem with an 18% tip, if the service is decent (another thread, I know). When you are considering that for 4 adults, a child and whatever we would get Jacob, that can be pricey. (Probably $40+ for each basic meal) Actually the tips are what decided us to divert from DxDDP in the first place. We could pay for the plan, but between the plan for 5 and the tips, it got out of reach.

If we do QS we are planning on 1 or two TS meals out of pocket. This will also give us extra CS meals in case Connor doesn't like one of his, or if we decide to have vreakfast at WPEC one morning.

Cons:

There are a lot of restaurants we want to try.

I hate cutting our day up to eat "early to avoid the crowds". It makes a tremendous difference though! If we were in a QS restaurant by 11, there were some people there, but NO throngs of people. We found a table easily, our food was fresh, the kids were usually ready to eat (too excited for breakfast much) and we could find a place with A/C!!!!

Since we are at AKV there is not a QS option. I could see this being a pain dependent upon where in the resort we are. If we are in the "horn" furthest away from AKL it could be a pain to walk back and forth from AKV to Mara. However we could always venture to a park for dinner or another resort. We would have had to do this with DxDDP many times.


So in summary, I don't know what our decision will be today. (Even though I know how I feel). This will need to be a "majority rules" decision, so everyone will be as happy as possible!!

If anyone is reading, I would love your opinions!!!

 

[SunnieRN]

Great updates... I love the scrapbooking pages (scrapbooking is one of my favourite past times).. such good news that you are leaving a day earlier!!!

I love the recent photo of the photos... they look really happy!!!

Hi Raecheal!! Good morning and thank you for the compliment!! I would love to see some of your scrap book pages if you feel like posting them!! I have a friend who does very elaborate pages! They are magnificent. Mine...... ah, not so much.

 

[dismagiclover]

This is just my opinion and it is probably worth about as much as you have to pay for it, but you asked so I'll give it.
Go for the basic Dining Plan. There are lots of fun TS places to try and it's nice for kids to be able to get out of the heat and relax a little for a meal at least once a day. Disney is really good about pacing meals quickly for the kids (in fact some adults think they pace them too quickly!) And if you want extra snacks for F&W you can pay for them OOP. That is much cheaper than paying for 2-3 TS meals OOP. I really don't think you'll want a couple hundred dollars of extra snacks Whatever you decide you'll have a great time

 

[Zeebs]

Everyone is different, but I couldn't think of anything worse than eating 3 QS meals a day.

To me the QS meals are pretty much all the same, it is fast food and while I am a lover of fast food. I certainly can't do it three times a day or even two for that matter.

I would pick the basic, it is nice to get out of the heat of the day, sit down and try something new. Plus you can get a few character meals in which means you don't have to do as many waiting in lines to see them.

Kirsten

 

[Raecheal]

my scrapbook pages are pretty basic as well... but it doesn't stop me from doing it.... although i do fine i have to be in the 'mood' to scrapbook.

Hmm... we debated between the QS and the regular one as well...but Dbf really enjoys the table services.. how's your itinerary coming along?

 

[MEK]

You're right. The 23rd we will be at MK. Probably on the 21st for a few hours also. On the 22nd we are planning on Epcot. I'll be posting the rest of my itinerary later today. Right now Connor is asleep across my legs, which are asleep!

Thanks so much for posting!!

So let's see now...

9/21 You: arrive MK ME: Epcot (all day)
9/22 You: Epcot ME: AK then MNSSHP
9/23 You: MK ME: HS.....I don't think MK is open late enough for us to get over there after dinner, but I think we may go do the animal viewing (night time) at AK after dinner. Maybe we could meet up then.

9/24: You: ? ME: MK then leave.

As far as my shutterfly book....I think I have to do my own home page and then post a link to that. I really should start working on it. I just finished a book for my MIL with pics from the Niagara Falls /buffalo wedding.

 

[SunnieRN]

This is just my opinion and it is probably worth about as much as you have to pay for it, but you asked so I'll give it.
Go for the basic Dining Plan. There are lots of fun TS places to try and it's nice for kids to be able to get out of the heat and relax a little for a meal at least once a day. Disney is really good about pacing meals quickly for the kids (in fact some adults think they pace them too quickly!) And if you want extra snacks for F&W you can pay for them OOP. That is much cheaper than paying for 2-3 TS meals OOP. I really don't think you'll want a couple hundred dollars of extra snacks Whatever you decide you'll have a great time

What an excellent point and I really hadn't thought of that point at all!! Thank you so much!!! I am sorry it took so long to respond, but work got in the way of my dis'ing! Rude, isn't it.

Thanks again!

 

[SunnieRN]

Everyone is different, but I couldn't think of anything worse than eating 3 QS meals a day.

To me the QS meals are pretty much all the same, it is fast food and while I am a lover of fast food. I certainly can't do it three times a day or even two for that matter.

I would pick the basic, it is nice to get out of the heat of the day, sit down and try something new. Plus you can get a few character meals in which means you don't have to do as many waiting in lines to see them.

Kirsten

You know we found a lot of choices that tasted good, but I hated waiting in line all the time for our meals. You make a great point about trying something new though!! In fact we made a reservation for Kat Koras new restaurant one night!! Thanks so much for your wise input!!