Wine and Scary Spirits for All - Oct -2012

[vikkii19]

We're unsure about the party. Right now DD is 11 months and goes to bed by 7pm. She is not a happy toddler past that time so I wouldn't attempt it. When we go she will be 19 months, so it might be better then, I think we'll play it by ear and we might only buy tickets once there if there are any left. We'll see, but for right now I'm not planning on it.

I'm also hoping that BOG restaurant will be open, lets keep our fingers crossed.

 

[tifaas]

I'm hoping the BOG restaurant will be open as well. Belle is my favorite princess too and I'm dying to go there! I don't want to have to wait until 2014!

I'm not dressing up but I did purchase a shirt from the Disney store to wear to the even. It's a Mickey head filled with spiderwebs and a spider dangling from the bottom so it's pretty Halloween friendly I need to find a shirt for Kris to wear too.

That's right. I remember you posting a picture of your shirt in your PTR. See that is something that I'm thinking along the lines of but Ian actually expressed interest in dressing up so I'm not sure what I want to do yet.

vikkii19 We're unsure about the party. Right now DD is 11 months and goes to bed by 7pm. She is not a happy toddler past that time so I wouldn't attempt it. When we go she will be 19 months, so it might be better then, I think we'll play it by ear and we might only buy tickets once there if there are any left. We'll see, but for right now I'm not planning on it.

I'm also hoping that BOG restaurant will be open, lets keep our fingers crossed.

I can definitely see why it might not be a good idea to shell out the money if the DD won't even enjoy it because of her age. It just gives you more reasons to go back another Halloween party season, right.

Today is my Monday and I'm dreading it. I always do after long weekends off. It's the only thing bad about working 4x10 hour shifts and having three day weekends. I have been in one of those funks lately where it's post vacation blues and then I got sick so I don't even want to work. However I normally do enjoy my job. I just need to get past this funk and all will be better again in the world. Not too much to update in the ways of the trip today. Just counting down the days until dining reservations open up.

 

[tifaas]

I'm on my lunch break for another couple of minutes so I thought I would drop in really quick. We found out that airfare for jetblue should open up for tomorrow so will get our airfare booked tomorrow. I might compare it with Continental because we have like 30k in points and could probably get our airfare covered by those points. I would think it would at least cover one of us. Hmm....I guess I know what I will be doing over the weekend. I might way to book airfare until Tuesday when I can research this a bit more. If I save money on airfare that means more money to spend. I like that idea!

 

[tifaas]

So happy to be on my weekend now. This week went by fast but at the same time seemed slow too. Probably because I have so much going on in my head right now.

I went to see about the airfare for jetblue and we could book the flight to Orlando but they don't have it far enough for our return trip yet. /sigh. Not much on the agenda for my weekend. I'm going to work on my Jan trip report some because I have been neglecting it. We need to do yard work as well. Guess that is all for now. Be back later with updates when they come in.

 

[tifaas]

So we might have to move our trip up to June which makes me sad. I will post more once we know for sure along with the details. Heading to work now.

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

So we might have to move our trip up to June which makes me sad. I will post more once we know for sure along with the details. Heading to work now.

Well....that would make me happy! You get to go sooner!! Sorry you may have to change your plans....good luck and keep us posted.

 

[jenny105]

Well....that would make me happy! You get to go sooner!! Sorry you may have to change your plans....good luck and keep us posted.

Ditto unless you were really looking forward to going in October. Unless you mean June 2013?!

 

[tifaas]

Well....that would make me happy! You get to go sooner!! Sorry you may have to change your plans....good luck and keep us posted.

Yeah, I'm a little excited to go possibly sooner. But I was also looking forward to the MNSSHP and the food & wine festival. I will be back to post an update once we know for certain what is happening.

jenny105 Quote:
Originally Posted by ash-n-brensmom
Well....that would make me happy! You get to go sooner!! Sorry you may have to change your plans....good luck and keep us posted.

Ditto unless you were really looking forward to going in October. Unless you mean June 2013?!

Nope it would be this June from like June 7th - 14th.

A plus side is the possibility of Star Wars Weekends. The hubby and I are both huge fans.

We will know for sure tomorrow.

 

[tifaas]

So when I got home from work last night we made the decision to officially change to June for Star Wars Weekends. We will be going from June 7th - 14th now. We are also going to stay at Coronado Springs instead of Caribbean Beach because we know the layout and we plan to have pool time and love the pool there. There are some work reasons as well that have to do with a release and shift changes around October. This generally creates blackouts of vacation for a few weeks. So rather than chance it we decided it would be easier to just move it up. If good deals come out and no blackouts happen we might be able to go for a quick long weekend in October so I can see a MNSSHP and go for a day at Epcot for the Food & Wine fest, but that is all up in the air.

So I guess we need to get my title changed officially. Hoping to come up with something at work and will make a request to get it changed. Speaking of work, I need to finish getting ready and start heading that way.

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

So when I got home from work last night we made the decision to officially change to June for Star Wars Weekends. We will be going from June 7th - 14th now. We are also going to stay at Coronado Springs instead of Caribbean Beach because we know the layout and we plan to have pool time and love the pool there. There are some work reasons as well that have to do with a release and shift changes around October. This generally creates blackouts of vacation for a few weeks. So rather than chance it we decided it would be easier to just move it up. If good deals come out and no blackouts happen we might be able to go for a quick long weekend in October so I can see a MNSSHP and go for a day at Epcot for the Food & Wine fest, but that is all up in the air.

So I guess we need to get my title changed officially. Hoping to come up with something at work and will make a request to get it changed. Speaking of work, I need to finish getting ready and start heading that way.

Well, as disappointing as missing MNSSHP seems, getting to see SWW is pretty awesome. And now you need to do some serious planning, ADR's need to be made and new touring plans for SWW!! Exciting stuff.

 

[tifaas]

Well, as disappointing as missing MNSSHP seems, getting to see SWW is pretty awesome. And now you need to do some serious planning, ADR's need to be made and new touring plans for SWW!! Exciting stuff.

I'm on a quick break and figured I would reply to your post as my mind is drifting to all the crazy planning that needs to happen now. It's definitely exciting to be going sooner but I don't have as much time for the planning as I did for the Oct trip. Oh well..Rumor has it new promo coming on March 1st so maybe we will get to come for that long weekend in Oct. If Ian could get moved to my 4x10 shift we could take the Monday and Friday off and go from Mon - Fri in Oct. We will have to wait and see.

We started to talk about ADR's last night after making our decision and we have the list, I will post more once I get off tonight and make them. I can post which ones we got for what dates. So excited! Ian's face was lit up like a little kid because he is the bigger Star Wars nerd between the two of us. Back to work. Take care!

 

[tifaas]

So on a quick break at work and my mind is on the Dis. You know you are hooked when you look for breaks to post. LOL...So I know I said I would post when I got home last night of our ADR's, but I was late getting out of work last night and the last thing I wanted to do was get back in front of a computer if you know what I mean.

So hopefully things go ok when I get off tonight and will be back to post with our ADR's that we are able to snag and our touring plans of sorts. I already told the hubby we are going to buy some of those mister fans at home before we leave because last July was horrible and I know it will be similar to that. It might be slightly better in June but only time will tell. We were joking at dinner tonight that we should have bought ADRS when we went in July because this will be our third trip in less than a year. Two stays being 7 days each. It's a shame we didn't know how the year would pan out or we probably would have.

He's talking about checking out the DVC when we go but I told him I would rather wait a few years because it's money that we would be having to invest. We will see what happens though because he's usually the type when an idea gets in his mind, he wants to at least check it out. Where I only want to seriously check it out if we are serious about buying in. I don't want to waste their time nor ours.

Ok I will get off my soapbox now. Break time is just about over.

 

[tifaas]

Well I had every intention of booking ADR's last night but the darn website foiled my plans since it was down for maint. So I get up early for work today and think I will get it done now and nope foiled again. I was even going to call to switch the dates but can't even do that. Hopefully I can call during my lunch break today and get us swapped because I want to take advantage of that 30% off rooms offer going on since it goes through the 28th.

Does anyone know if that means I can book the offer tomorrow still, or does the offer end at midnight tonight since it's the 27th in case I can't call and book tonight. Going to eat some breakfast before I have to head to work. Take care for now!

 

[tifaas]

So I was a productive little bee when I got home tonight from work. I got the flight booked for the trip and as you can tell by the title to the thread ADR's are booked. The flight times for Jetblue still aren't the greatest...but not horrible either since we are flying in during summer time. We will leave Austin at 3:35 and get into Orlando at 7:09 pm....then for the return flights we leave Orlando at 2:39 and get into Austin at 4:21. We decided to make the dates from June 7th - 13th so that way I have Thursday to relax before going back to work on Friday instead of flying home Thursday and back to the grind. It shortens our trip by a day but no biggie especially since it's looking more and more like we can still go for a Mon -Fri trip in October. =) More on that later.

So I'm using the easywdw site again for our touring plans because we really had good luck with them on the Jan trip. So our park days and ADR's look like this.

Thursday: Arrive in Orlando late so going to just hang at hotel, maybe hit up the dig site pool, grab a bite to eat and a drink at the bar. Get settled in and ready for our first park day in the morning.

Friday - Animal Kingdom park in the morning. We have an ADR at Rainforest Cafe here because we wanted to try something different this trip. So instead of going back to Tusker house we thought we would give this one a shot. I have an ADR for 8:30 AM. Although this might get changed to Boma at AKL because we loved it so much in July. Going to try and get several rides in on our favorites, hit up the shows we love. Probably head back to the resort by 1 for an afternoon break/nap/etc. Then we will head for the Magic Kingdom to jump on a monorail and go to the Poly for dinner at Kona. I have an ADR for 6:55pm. That should get us out of there and to the Magic Kingdom in time for the MSEP at 9pm. Then we will try and do some of the main attractions like Big thunder/Splash/Space/ as the park is open until 1AM. I would love to get several rides in on the main ones.

Saturday - We will get up and head to Epcot when we wake up. No morning ADR. We figured we could grab a bite at Sunshine Seasons as I hear nothing but good things. Then take a ride on Soarin or maybe we will do it in reverse. Who knows. We have officially dubbed this the do as we please type trip. We have some ADR's but some mornings I left us open so we could sleep in if we want to. Anyway, back to the plan....we plan to hang at Epcot all day. Take our time around the WS, snack, drink, relax on a bench and soak in the atmosphere. I have a dinner ADR at Le Cellier for 5:35 pm. We plan to watch Illuminations if we aren't too tired. If we are tired after eating we might head back to the resort and go to the pool and call it an early night as the next day we will be up early for the Star Wars Weekend stuff.

Sunday - We plan on being at Hollywood Studios early...from what I have been reading probably by 7 am. Ian definitely wants to get at least one fastpass for an autograph of one of the celebs. He doesn't really care who but he knows he wants at least one. We will probably grab a bagel at Starring Rolls like we did in Jan as they were pretty good. We will meander around and take in the fun of the event. Probably get in line for some of the characters in costume like Jedi Mickey. I would love to watch the motercade with the stars. I have a lunch adr booked for us at 1:40pm at Mama Melrose's. Another new place for us. We really wanted to do the Fantasmic Dinner package and this was their only availabilty so I grabbed it. We have never seen the show so we figured this would be our best bet. Since we have such an early lunch adr we will probably just share something later from one of the QS places. We did this a lot in Jan, buy one thing and split it because we weren't that hungry but we knew we should eat something or we would get cranky. We plan to stay to park closing and take it all in pluse the reserved seats for Fantasmic is pretty handy.

Monday - We plan to sleep in and head to Typhoon Lagoon when we wake up. We will probably stay until 3ish and head back to the resort for showers and a nap. We plan to hit Downtown Disney for the evening. We have an ADR for Raglan Road at 7pm. Another new place for us. We also want to go to Disney Quest since we will have the water park fun n more option on the tickets. Then head back when we get tired.

Tuesday - We have a breakfast ADR for Kona. We have to get some more coffee as mine is almost gone from Jan and Ian specifically requested this for Tonga Toast. He never requests stuff so I figured I should oblige him. LOL...Then we plan on spending our last day at Magic Kingdom. We will hit up one of the QS for dinner as I don't want to leave the park. I'm thinking of booking the Plaza for dinner but did not know if it was worth it. I hear all sorts of good things about some of the quick service places at the Magic Kingdom so wont be upset if we just do that. I know i have a few snacks on my to do list here that will be good in the heat. Like a Dole Whip pineapple float, and I would love one of those cream cheese stuffed pretzels. Ian wants to get one of the ice cream cookie sandwichs from the Main Street Bakery I think it was.

So now all that is left to do is call in the morning to get it swapped to June and the Coronado Springs Resort and we will be all set. Eek!

 

[ash-n-brensmom]

Sounds like a great plan...you will get to do all the biggies on your list and still be able to enjoy the atmosphere! As far as The Plaza...we have eaten there three times and each time we have been very happy with both the service and the quality of the food. It's not heavy food and it's a cute little place to sit, relax and let someone else take care of dinner. The view of the castle is quite nice as well...
We were lucky enough to get a table right by the window, but you can see it from almost everywhere!

Good luck with your reservation switch today!

 

[jenny105]

ADRs look great! Lots of new places for you guys. Is it possible to try every restaurant at WDW? I'd like to meet the person who has done it!

 

[tifaas]

Sounds like a great plan...you will get to do all the biggies on your list and still be able to enjoy the atmosphere! As far as The Plaza...we have eaten there three times and each time we have been very happy with both the service and the quality of the food. It's not heavy food and it's a cute little place to sit, relax and let someone else take care of dinner. The view of the castle is quite nice as well...
We were lucky enough to get a table right by the window, but you can see it from almost everywhere!

Good luck with your reservation switch today!

That just made up our minds right there. I was telling Ian about the menu and he thought we should make an ADR for dinner there. Awesome picture!

jenny105 ADRs look great! Lots of new places for you guys. Is it possible to try every restaurant at WDW? I'd like to meet the person who has done it!

Thanks! I would love to meet them myself!

We got the reservation officially switched over today. We are going to be officially there from June 7th - 13th. We were able to switch to Coronado Springs and have a King Bed booked for it. Now I'm hoping we get either Casitas or Ranchos. I wanted Casita in Jan but we ended up in the Ranchos bldg with the quiet pool. It was very convenient for the dig site pool and the bus stop. Does anyone know if there are any King beds in that building by chance. I could go ask in the Resort thread I guess as well. LOL.

Now for the Oct trip we are possibly going to get to go from Monday the 22nd through Friday the 26th still. We are waiting to hear on some release date stuff for some upcoming games to see if we will fall in a blackout period for vacation time requests. If we don't then we will rebook it after we get the profit sharing check next month. We might go cheap with hotel since it would be such a quick trip. I will price out some of the values and mods when we get the ok for sure to go.

It's crazy to see that we have only 100 days to go now for June after the change over. We put in our time off requests and hope to get it approved next week. Our boss's were gone this last week and they generally approve time off about 3 months ahead of when you want to go. If they know you have to book airfare, etc they will get it approved sooner to help out. I guess that is all for now.

 

[tifaas]

So the scary moment to start the post with so we can end with the double digit dance since that is the good part of the post.

We were told on Monday that we had to go up to work today, which is a day off for me because there was a big announcement coming and it was mandatory to show up. They scheduled my team for 1:30 pm and of course everyone started to speculate what this big announcement was. I was thinking company merging with another one or a higher up was stepping down, or a combo of things. No where did I expect what it was. So this morning I got up and checked work email to verify what room we needed to go to. That's when I realized an important email had come through regarding what the big announcement was. Company layoffs which of course had me instantly freaked out. I went and woke Ian up because I was upset regarding it and not knowing how or what criteria they were using to let the people go had me extremely nervous. So we talk it over and I calm down enough to drive in to work. We met up in the main break room with a few other teams that work very similar shifts to us. Our team manager pulled us to the side of the room to take attendance and kind of explain how it was going to work. He could tell I was nervous and asked me if I was ok because I was on the verge of having a meltdown. I already saw friends walking out with a box of their belongings so I knew they were one of the ones let go. Plus we had received texts from other friends saying they were let go as well. I asked him what the criteria was and it seemed to be largely performance based along with some other factors. Finally they started to tell us individually what area we were to go to. Once we were allowed into the meeting room we found out we were in the safe room and out jobs were ok. I think I breathed a huge sigh of relief but immediately realized what team members were missing and realized they lost their jobs. We were told that no more layoffs were coming down either to put our minds at ease which does help ease the mind but I don't think any of us will feel safe for a while. I was very sad for my friends that were in the group that weren't safe. We were told they were offered a very generous severance package to help them out but it's still sad to lose a job in this job market. I called Ian on my way home to let him know I was safe and then the waiting began to find out about him. His meeting would be held at 7pm when he started his shift. I told him not to call me until his lunch break unless he was let go. I received a call at 7:40 so I was concerned right away. However he assured me he was safe but they were told to leave and not come back until 9 pm so the team members that lost their jobs wouldn't have to clear out their desks with the team watching them. So I am glad they addressed it like that. Overall on my team I think we lost 6 people and Ian said his team they lost several as well. He thinks it was probably 4-5. We had discussed if we lost our jobs or one of us we were obviously going to cancel Disney as we would need to allocate the funds elsewhere.

However I think after this trip we have decided not to go in October just so we can build a nice savings nest egg. We are going to take a break from trips next year as well except for maybe going to the cabin in Colorado because that's free except for airfare or driving expenses. This way we could put any Christmas bonus/profit sharing/tax refunds in savings as well. This will help us be at least a year worth of bills in case anything were to happen again regarding layoffs. Then we could see about travel again in 2014.

Now on to the happy news...we hit the double digits today for the trip in June so we can do some double digit dancing.

I'm looking forward to my day off with my hubby tomorrow. I think we are going to just take it easy after the super stressful day that was today and be grateful we have jobs still.

 

[tifaas]

I am still at a total loss for words when it comes to the layoffs that happened at our company yesterday. I found out many more of my friends from previous teams were laid off yesterday. I am extremely sad and upset today. I was talking to my mom about it and she said it sounds like I have survivor's guilt. I started to think about it and I honestly do feel I am suffering from that. When I heard of some of the people laid off it just doesn't make any sense if it was from a performance based decision. Then again I don't have access to anyone's data so I can't say for sure. I hope I can get over this funk because I need to be able to focus on the task at hand to help our customers since it's not their fault and they deserve my attention to get the job done right. Has anyone else ever gone through a major layoff before that reads my PTR that has any words of advice on how to get through it? I could really use some tips.

Now on to trip planning stuff although it's honestly hard to get into it now because of yesterday. We did make an ADR for The Plaza for our Magic Kingdom Tuesday. I set it up for 6 PM so I'm excited to try it. It will be another new place for us. I'm proud of us for trying new places this time since we don't think we will get back until 2014 after this trip. Maybe after being away for a little bit it will give all of Fantasyland time to open up. I am hoping on the next trip we could splurge a little too and stay at a monorail resort. I have always dreamed of doing that. We will just have to wait and see as that is a long time off. My other big bucket list travel plan is to one day do a back to back cruise as well. One to go to the west Caribbean and the 2nd leg to go to the east Caribbean. One day! I'm off to get some quick errands done and then time to spend with the hubby on our only day off together.

 

[jenny105]

I'm sorry to hear about the layoffs That happened here a few years ago and it was terrible to see people packing up their things. Really glad to hear that your job is safe though.