Will work for Disney Trips - Pre-TR Sept/Oct 2012 - Studios Outfit added 30 Jul

[Darragh]

Greetings to my fellow Dis-Addicts!
I’m so glad to meet you! Here’s the trip major details: we arrive on Sept 29th and depart on Oct 6th 2012, will be staying in All Star Music and will be utilizing the deluxe dining plan.

Cast of characters:

Me – (Mrs Potato Head) Disney obsessed planner extraordinaire (age in mental years – oh about 18). I think this is my 8th trip “home”. I retired in 2005 and went back to work in 2009 just ‘cuz I realized that I probably wouldn’t be able to get my Diz-Fix every other year without having more income than outgo. Hence, the title of my report – which I conveniently stole from a recent FB post.

Mrs. Potato Head

DH - (Mr Potato Head) easy going, go with the flow, up for any new adventures, humors me in all things Disney. This will be his 5th trip back.

DD – (Barbie Girl) age 30, inherited Mama’s obsession with Disney and can’t wait to show the Little Princess the “Castle” and return T-Rex for his 4th trip.

Little Princess aka Buzz Girl – has been to WDW once before when she was 18 months old but doesn’t remember any of the trip. Her POV is that we’re going to FL to see the “Castle” and that’s pretty much it. Her current Disney obsession is watching “Buzz Toy Story” over and over again and favorite character is Buzz Lightyear.

T-Rex - will be returning for his 4th trip. I think some of the magic is starting to wear off and I’m hoping that he’ll recapture the joy once we get there. His current obsession seems to be Lego and Harry Potter games on his DS. His first trip was when he was 3 years old.

DS – (Cowboy – because I just can’t call a grown man “Woody” ) age 33 and his wife (Jessie), will be also be accompanying us. They are both looking forward to family time and new adventures and well as rediscovering old favorites. Cowboy has also been actively involved with the planning for this vacation and regularly posts count days on his FB page.

Jessie – (Cowboy’s wife) – 30 something- mistakenly labored under the impression when she went with us the first time in 2006 that she could sleep til noon and swim at any time she wished. But she’s a good sport and will trudge along with the group even if she is secretly wondering when she can schedule that massage.

I hope that you’ll join me as I write my virgin pre-trip report and that I’m not just listening to the crickets chirping as I sit in a rocking chair all by my lonesome on the front porch.

 

[Darragh]

Thanks so much to pkondz to telling me how to be cool and do the chapter linky things!

[post=45081319]Chapter 1. Opening and Introductions[/post]

[post=45092473]Chapter 2. We're just here for the food[/post]

[post=45103576]Chapter 3. Our Resort Choice[/post]

[post=45106271]Chapter 4. Disney Crafts[/post]

[post=45363057]Chapter 5. Here an ADR, There an ADR[/post]

[post=45396710]Chapter 6. Shirts for the Studios[/post]

[post=45424011]Chapter 7. Latest Sewing Project[/post]

[post=45654319]Chapter 8. Hollywood Studios outfit for DGD[/post]

 

[Darragh]

As 180 days approached, we anxiously awaited the time when we could get our ADRS made. But before that point, we had three “Mouse” (as Jessie called it) meetings with the adults and flung various dining options back and forth. In the end, some of it boiled down to a compromise and for some of them, we agreed to split up into parties and go different ways. We also agreed to split responsibility of making the ADRS so that nobody was saddled with doing the whole week.

Here is what we have:

29 Sept – Arrival day – lunch at All Star Music and then supper at Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace on the first day has become a tradition with us. We used to discuss going downtown so we wouldn’t be wasting a full day’s ticket for 4/5 hours in a park. But Barbie girl and I both agreed that we NEEDED to be in Magic Kingdom that first day so we could see the Castle and do our first cry of the trip.

30 Sept – Epcot Day – breakfast at Chef Mickey’s, counter service lunch at dinner in World Showcase. Sunshine Seasons is a must-do for lunch. I LOVE that place. Jessie and Cowboy aren’t as enthusiastic, so we may split up for lunch. I’d like to try the counter service for dinner at Boulangerie Patisserie or La Cantina De San Angel. We’ve had food from La Cantina in the past and loved it or else Boulangerie would be a different experience to try. What to do, what to do? Any suggestions?

1 Oct – Studios – Breakfast at the resort; lunch at Sci Fi; and then for supper, Jessie and Cowboy are going to Narcoossees, Barbie girl and kids are going Planet Hollywood and Mr. Potato Head and I are going to California Grill. I’m really looking forward to California Grill. I’ve heard so many good things about it. Hopefully I can find something on the menu to eat since I’m not real adventurous when it comes to trying new foods. Cowboy and Jessie wanted to have a special dinner to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary so I suggested Narcoossees to them because we had eaten there in 2010 and loved it! I want to find Starring Rolls at the Studios and try one of those yummy looking cupcakes that I’ve read so much about in trip reports.

2 Oct – back to Magic Kingdom – Breakfast at 1900 Park Fare, lunch at Tony’s and the Luau for dinner. I have mixed feelings about Tony’s. There seem to be both good and bad reviews about the place. Of course it’s that way with most any of the restaurants at the Park. Maybe it’s just if there’s a full moon that night that the food/service is “off”. We’ve eaten at Park Fare before and liked it a lot. Mad Hatter and Alice make good character interactions with the kids. T-Rex loved the luau the last time we were there in 2010. At that time, he was seven years old and was entranced by the hula dancers. He was seated at the edge of the balcony by a horizontal pole. When the dancers were working their magic, this kid was actually “biting” the pole. Methinks he’s starting to notice the difference between the boys and the girls.

Mesmerized by the hula dancers and biting the pole in front of him

And this is what he couldn't take his eyes off

3 Oct – Animal Kingdom – Breakfast at Tusker House, lunch at Rain Forest Café and dinner at Boma’s. There isn’t a thing that I don’t like about Tusker House. I love everything! Their food is just enough American that I’m not scared to eat it. The atmosphere makes me feel like I’m in a foreign country and I adore seeing the characters in their safari clothes. Now Rain Forest Café is a different matter. When we ate there in 2010, the service was lackluster. Barbie girl got the wrong food on her order and it took two tries to get it right. By then, the rest of us had finished eating and she was out of the mood to eat. I thought the noise level in the restaurant was ear piercingly loud. In addition, the WDW website said that Rainforest was on the dining plan, but the workers in the restaurant wouldn’t honor it. Anyhoooo, I caved on that one and compromised with the group for this trip. I’m willing to give it a second chance to see if they’ve improved since the first visit. Boma’s is right there on my “love meter” with Tusker House. It’s a must-do for us on every trip.

4 Oct – Magic Kingdom – Breakfast at Crystal Palace, lunch at the resort, dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern and the MNSSHP for evening snacks. Oh yea, babeeeeee, we like Crystal Palace so much that we’re doing it TWICE in one week! This is definitely a first for us. I’m hoping that by sticking around the resort during mid-day that we can get some laundry done, swim a little bit and maybe catch a few z’s for awhile. At least that’s the plan. It would be great especially if the Little Princess might be able to nap before the Halloween party that night. Liberty Tree Tavern is a first for all of us. I hope the good reviews are right and the bad reviews are wrong. Then I plan on loading up on candy at the party for later snacking. Life is good!

5 Oct – Epcot – Breakfast at Trail’s End for Jessie and Cowboy and Akerhaus for the rest of us. Hey, gotta get a princess meal in somewhere for the little princess and besides that I’m a sewer and I LOVE sewing for my little DGD. So those two things just go hand-in-hand. (More about the sewing later.) Lunch is Rose and Crown for the Potato Heads and Barbie and the littles. Jessie and the Cowboy are planning to go to Biergarten. Then all of us are going to meet back up in the evening and go to Cape May for dinner.

6 Oct – Downtown Disney – Breakfast at the Resort and lunch at Raglan Road. Raglan Road is a new for us also. I think it’ll be a good one. All of the reviews that I’ve read on it are positive. Then after lunch, it’s Adios Disney! We be leaving on a jet plane later that afternoon.

*sniff sniff* That'll be another weep-fest!

 

[Darragh]

My first choice for a resort was Pop Century. That's where we stayed in 2010 and I loved it. I also thought it would be nice to be near the new AOA resort so we could be nosey if we so chose. Therefore, when we booked our trip for this year, that's where we made our reservations. However free dining threw us a fly in the ointment. When we added free dining to our reservation, there wasn't any Pop Century availability for the FD package. Okaaaaaaaayyyy. All Star Music is available if we want that! erm…sure….I guess. I like All Star Movies and figured that Music would be comparable, but really had my heart set on Pop this time. Since we’d already paid for Deluxe dining, we got a nice refund added back into the account with the addition of free dining. I didn’t stop and do the math (yea, my bad) but it looked right.

Well then about a month later, I decided that I wanted to try and get back into Pop again. I just like the idea of having a bus all to ourselves and I like their food court a lot also. So Cowboy called and yaaaaaaay, they had openings! Then they told us it would cost $179 more. What?!?! How did this happen? It’s a Value. Music’s a Value. Shouldn’t they all be the same price? I know. I know. I don’t hang around the resort threads and I didn’t know about the tier system. The CM very kindly explained to us that there is a tier system for the value resorts. All Stars are the lowest tier, Pop is the next tier up and AOA is the top tier. So as we move up the tiers, then we pay more. Interesting news! So we decided that we’d just remain at All Stars because, after all, we don’t do much more than sleep and occasionally eat at the hotels. Yea, we can also be a little cheap, but don’t let that get around. We do have a reputation to maintain afterall.

So anyway, the rest of y’all probably knew about the tier system. But I thought I’d throw this info out there just in case there are still some of you like me who didn’t know.

 

[Darragh]

Ok, part of the reason why I LOVE going to Disney so much is that it gives me a good excuse to sew customs for my grandaughter and then scrap some of my pictures after I come home!

 

[Victoriasmom98]

I'm here!! I'm here!! OMG you are a fantastic seamstress......I just wish my baby would wear stuff like that, but she is 14 and you know 14 year olds!!! I love your scrapbook pages, too!!! I'll be waiting to read more!!!

 

[Darragh]

I'm here!! I'm here!! OMG you are a fantastic seamstress......I just wish my baby would wear stuff like that, but she is 14 and you know 14 year olds!!! I love your scrapbook pages, too!!! I'll be waiting to read more!!!

Hey! I'm glad to see somebody here besides me! Welcome, welcome, welcome! Thanks for the compliments. I'll be posting more clothes and scrap pages later. I'd like to see more of your's also!

 

[matthewclabaugh]

I want to meet this cowboy, he sounds like a great guy

 

[Darragh]

I want to meet this cowboy, he sounds like a great guy

Yea, he is a great guy! I'll be sure to introduce you to him sometime.

 

[Darragh]

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but for this trip we divided up making the ADRs between three of the adults. Sounds reasonable, right? We had three meetings and hashed and re-hashed where we wanted to eat and what days and then rearranged the days when park hours were released. Now here’s where it gets a little hinky. I made a spreadsheet with dates/restaurants/times and confirmation numbers. Cowboy tweaked it, made it look pretty and then sent it back out to all of us. Ok, it’s all good. Then we had another meeting and tweaked reservations, cancelling a couple and moving them elsewhere.

This weekend, Barbie and I were talking about Disney (because REALLY what else is there to talk about?) and I mentioned that I thought we had agreed on Tuto Italia for a meal and had made a reservation for it, however it didn’t show on the spreadsheet. Panic ensued! This immediately worried both of us because that would’ve been one of the resvs. that would have a CC guarantee and we both remembering agreeing on it as a place that we wanted to go to. So then we’re second guessing ourselves and worrying that maybe we hadn’t cancelled it and it was still guaranteed. Barbie girl called Dis Dining to get the scoop on the “poop” and THANKFULLY there was no reservation listed at T.I. So then she’s thinking that maybe it got cancelled accidentally and we still wanted to go there. So she REMADE it. She called her brother, Cowboy, to confirm this action since he’s “The Official Keeper of the Spreadsheet”. He reminded her that we decided to go to Cape May instead of Tuto Italia because we were eating at Tony’s earlier in the week. He called and cancelled T.I. AGAIN. So now Tuto has been reserved twice and cancelled twice. Anybody thinking that what we have here is a “Failure to Communicate?”

 

[homeschoolmomof4]

Love your costumes!! Are you making any for the adults to wear to the MNSSHP?

 

[Darragh]

Love your costumes!! Are you making any for the adults to wear to the MNSSHP?

Hiya! Thanks for stopping over. I'm just making matching shirts for the adults for Magic Kingdom, Studios and Animal Kingdom. We decided not to do costumes for the MNSSHP since it'll probably be too hot.

I'll be putting up pictures of the shirts in the next day or two.

 

[PixieMama]

Came over from the FB group! Now off to read...

 

[homeschoolmomof4]

Hiya! Thanks for stopping over. I'm just making matching shirts for the adults for Magic Kingdom, Studios and Animal Kingdom. We decided not to do costumes for the MNSSHP since it'll probably be too hot.

I'll be putting up pictures of the shirts in the next day or two.

Looking forward to seeing them.

Oh and I popped over from the FB page as well!

 

[PixieMama]

Ok, if it's one thing I love to talk about, it's FOOD!

Breakfast at CP is somewhat of a tradition for us. My family (me, DH, 2 DDs) has been to WDW twice, and we did CP both times.

Re: La Cantina OR Boulangerie... how about both? You could get one or two meals at La Cantina, then another one or two at Boulangerie and share! I think the portions are plentiful enough to do so.

I've had a Red Velvet Cupcake from Starring Rolls... going to try a Chocolate Peanut Butter one in October! YUM.

DH and I will be trying the luau in October! Really looking forward to it.

We had lunch at Tony's on our 1st trip... I don't remember what the kids thought of it but DH and I weren't too impressed. Food was just ok and the service was reeaallly sllloooooow. But... this was back in 2007. So things may have very well changed for the better in the last 5 years!

Dinner at Boma is another of our family's favorites!

DH and I are also trying Raglan Road for the first time in October... and yes, we're really looking forward to that one as well!

 

[Victoriasmom98]

He called and cancelled T.I. AGAIN. So now Tuto has been reserved twice and cancelled twice. Anybody thinking that what we have here is a “Failure to Communicate?”

See, that's what you get for not doing everything yourself. I'm such a control freak I don't think I could deal with someone else having the information/data sheet!!!

Missed you for the last month. You must have been busy! And what's the FB group the others mentioned. Am I missing something????

 

[Joyciemc]

Love your dining choices... The drama over Tutto Italia is something I could see happening to us. Even though I make the ADRs, the four of us talk about everything so much I get confused! Thank goodness for spreadsheets!

 

[cogero]

I love Tutto Italia I think it is funny though that you have cancelled it twice. I can't wait to see your customs

 

[Darragh]

Came over from the FB group! Now off to read...

I'm so glad to have company! Nice to meetcha!

 

[Darragh]

Looking forward to seeing them.

Oh and I popped over from the FB page as well!

Hiya, homeschoolmomof4... yup, busily sewing every night (unless family intervenes). I started working on these clothes in MARCH! Thought I'd give myself plenty of time!

Ok, if it's one thing I love to talk about, it's FOOD!

Breakfast at CP is somewhat of a tradition for us. My family (me, DH, 2 DDs) has been to WDW twice, and we did CP both times.

Re: La Cantina OR Boulangerie... how about both? You could get one or two meals at La Cantina, then another one or two at Boulangerie and share! I think the portions are plentiful enough to do so.

I've had a Red Velvet Cupcake from Starring Rolls... going to try a Chocolate Peanut Butter one in October! YUM.

DH and I will be trying the luau in October! Really looking forward to it.

We had lunch at Tony's on our 1st trip... I don't remember what the kids thought of it but DH and I weren't too impressed. Food was just ok and the service was reeaallly sllloooooow. But... this was back in 2007. So things may have very well changed for the better in the last 5 years!

Dinner at Boma is another of our family's favorites!

DH and I are also trying Raglan Road for the first time in October... and yes, we're really looking forward to that one as well!

This will be the first time we've done breakfast at CP. Before this it's always been a tradition to eat dinner there the first afternoon that we arrive. But we like it so much, we thought we'd do it twice this year.

I would love to try LaBoulangerie. Would there be food for the non-adventurous eaters among our group?

I've heard that about Tony's also. It wasn't my first choice. A certain person (who shall remain nameless) wanted it badly so we gave in.

This will be our second go at the Luau. It was either that or HDDR and we thought the little man would enjoy watching the hula dancers again.

Now I could eat my weight in cupcakes!!!! I just found out about Starring Rolls and their deliciousness when we were planning this trip. According to the maps, it looks like its close to Brown Derby. Is that right? Did you see the webpage with pictures of cupcakes available for purchase around WDW? Oh my. Just forget about the meals and bring on the sugar!

We'll have to compare notes on Raglan Road. That and the California Grill are the two restaurants that I'm looking forward to the most. Both of them are new to us this trip.

See, that's what you get for not doing everything yourself. I'm such a control freak I don't think I could deal with someone else having the information/data sheet!!!

Missed you for the last month. You must have been busy! And what's the FB group the others mentioned. Am I missing something????

Sorry, I missed your TR and the last update. I try to keep up, but sometimes I'm not so good at it. I promise I'll try to do better in the future! There are two FB groups - one is Oct2012 Disers and the other one is a Disboutiquer sewing group.

Love your dining choices... The drama over Tutto Italia is something I could see happening to us. Even though I make the ADRs, the four of us talk about everything so much I get confused! Thank goodness for spreadsheets!

Hi Joyciemc! Yea, in the days before spreadsheets, I used to have little post-it pieces with ADR #'s stuck all over my wallet.

I love Tutto Italia I think it is funny though that you have cancelled it twice. I can't wait to see your customs

Good too see ya here! Have you eaten at Cape May? What do you think about that? Hopefully I'll have pictures in the next day or two of the first set of shirts.