An Island Frame of Mind (A Cam and Luke PTR) Updated 5/22 - Page 6 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
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It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Yay!!! A Cam and Luke PTR!!! So excited for you and your upcoming trip! May is always a good time to go and very excited for you to stay at the Poly. Ann was just looking the other day and found that our time there in May we could have stayed at the Poly but I didn't really want my 1st time to stay there to include all that construction going on there so we are sticking w/our original of OKW. I'm bummed that we just miss each other by a couple of days on our trips but at least we all get to get in some Disney magic! Can't wait for more!
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Wow, way to go Luke! I need to start paying better attention to the DVC website. Excited to hear all about it and see the pics! Before becoming DVC members that was our favorite place to stay. It is so relaxing there, fun, and convenient with the monorail. I know you guys will love it there!
Yay!!! A Cam and Luke PTR!!! So excited for you and your upcoming trip! May is always a good time to go and very excited for you to stay at the Poly. Ann was just looking the other day and found that our time there in May we could have stayed at the Poly but I didn't really want my 1st time to stay there to include all that construction going on there so we are sticking w/our original of OKW. I'm bummed that we just miss each other by a couple of days on our trips but at least we all get to get in some Disney magic! Can't wait for more!
Most of the major construction will be over by May as the lobby is already opened, the pools will be, and Trader Sam's should be done. There is so much construction going on through out WDW right now, that Luke and I just kind of go with the flow on it. I'm sorry we're just missing each other again, too.
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Originally Posted by Amy L
Wow, way to go Luke! I need to start paying better attention to the DVC website. Excited to hear all about it and see the pics! Before becoming DVC members that was our favorite place to stay. It is so relaxing there, fun, and convenient with the monorail. I know you guys will love it there!
We've wanted to stay here for quite a while, but once we bought into DVC it wasn't economical as the DVC resorts. So we were quite happy that it is now a part of DVC.
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First I was excited to see another Cam and Luke trip in the works. Now I'm positively giddy over you staying at the Poly.
Looking forward to reading all about it.
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Just getting caught up! So exciting that you get to experience both the Flower & Garden Festival and Star Wars Weekends. Congrats on booking the Poly Villas for your trip. I can't wait to see all the photos!
Still sad that we miss you by only a few days, some day we will end up at WDW at the same time. We can't wait for SWW ourselves. This is the first year that we can actually experience the entire weekend there and really enjoy the whole SWW madness. I am looking for any pointers as to what we should not miss while we are there.
First I was excited to see another Cam and Luke trip in the works. Now I'm positively giddy over you staying at the Poly.
Looking forward to reading all about it.
I'm pretty giddy about staying at the Poly!
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Originally Posted by taylan1
Just getting caught up! So exciting that you get to experience both the Flower & Garden Festival and Star Wars Weekends. Congrats on booking the Poly Villas for your trip. I can't wait to see all the photos!
Still sad that we miss you by only a few days, some day we will end up at WDW at the same time. We can't wait for SWW ourselves. This is the first year that we can actually experience the entire weekend there and really enjoy the whole SWW madness. I am looking for any pointers as to what we should not miss while we are there.
The SWW parade is really good if you don't mind getting there early to get a good spot. We've not seen the fireworks yet, but we plan to this trip. Of course, we love visiting Darth's Mall.
For almost all of our trips, the planning of each day begins with deciding where we’d like to eat. Weeks before our 180-day ADR date, I check both touringplans.com and easywdw.com to determine the best days to tour each park. I don’t follow either of these resources to the letter. For example, we will be visiting Disney’s Hollywood Studios on Friday, May 15 even though both sites have labeled DHS as the worst park for that day. We want to be there for Day #1 of Star Wars Weekends, so we know it will be crowded. Once I have the park days lined up, we discuss what restaurants we’d like to visit and I plug those in to the park days.
On our October 2014 trip, we may a few decisions about dining. First, Sanaa will be a part of every trip. This is our absolute favorite WDW restaurant, so we don’t want to ever miss out. Second, we wanted to try some new places. As we meander the parks and DTD, we noted places that we’d never been but would like to try. Third, we wanted to add a few restaurants back into the rotation.
The morning came for me to book our ADRs and I logged into the Disney website, not my most favorite website in the world because it doesn’t always work properly. I was able to book our first day without problem. But when I tried any of the others days, it was a no-go even though the days were highlighted showing I should be able to make them. This happened for both our May and October trips last year. Both of those times, I ended up calling rather than using the website. I decided this time that I’d just log in each morning, doing one day’s dining at a time. It wasn’t too bad as it gave me a little Disney perk each morning for the next 10 days. Honestly, Disney needs to do something about their website. This problem seems to happen regularly to those of us who book DVC, so it may have something to do with a slightly different resort reservation.
In the end, I got everything I wanted, though not necessarily the first time I checked. The final results are:
Monday, 5/11 – Le Cellier (dinner) has been out the rotation for a few years. Not because of any problems or dislikes, but it was not a favorite for Stefanie. I was usually okay missing it as I usually have the Cheddar Cheese Soup and Filet Mignon in tapas size at the Food & Wine Festival in October. But with our Disneyland trip this October, we’ll be missing the F&WF, so this was one of my requests.
Tuesday, 5/12 – Be Our Guest (dinner) has been a fairly regular choice for us since it first opened. We have always enjoyed our meals here and in spite of the noise love the atmosphere here.
Wednesday, 5/13 – Sanaa (dinner), our favorite, will conclude our Animal Kingdom day.
Thursday, 5/14 – La Hacienda (dinner) is another that hasn’t been on the rotation the last few trips. We tried San Angel Inn last October and were disappointed by the long wait for a table when we could see so many empty and the wait was followed by haphazard service once we were seated. We both love Mexican, and have always enjoyed La Hacienda so this was one of Luke’s requests.
Friday, 5/15 – Originally since this is opening day for SWW, I thought I’d get a head start by booking Hollywood and Vine in case Disney chose to do the SW dining again. But nothing at all was available. Bummer! I assumed that all the reservations had gone to other folks trying to be ahead of the game like me. When that didn’t pan out, we chose 50’s Prime Time, which we had planned to do on Monday, 5/18. We weren’t too bummed though as we had made a discovery that would allow us to make a replacement on Monday that we now knew we had to try. But I’ll get to that in a minute. Sometime later (sorry, I didn’t write down dates) Luke and I both read that the Star Wars dining events were going to be held and when we needed to make those ADRs. I’m not sure if that is why we originally couldn’t make an ADR here or not, but it could be possible. When that day came, we were able to book the Jedi Star Wars Dine In at Hollywood & Vine for dinner. So we were back to our original plans for this day. Luke was a little disappointed that we couldn’t fit 50s Prime Time in anywhere now as it is one that hasn’t been on the rotation for a while. So look for it to return next year.
Saturday, 5/16 – Portobello’s (dinner) is one of those restaurants that we have said for a long time we wanted to try, but kept forgetting when we got to the planning. Finally, we both remembered and now we can finally try it.
Sunday, 5/17 – Until a few days ago, we didn’t have an ADR as our plan was to eat at Big River Grille, which does not take reservations. When Luke was able to switch our resort to the Poly, I knew we had to get a breakfast ADR at Kona Café. I’ve wanted to do this for quite a while because of reading about the delicious breakfasts here in everyone’s ADRs. I got online just a few minutes afterwards and booked it. I recently made a spreadsheet of dining and parks for each day, and as Luke and I were looking over it, he said maybe we’d just stay at MK and do counter service for dinner this day rather than heading over to the Boardwalk. That sounds like a better plan to me, too.
Monday, 5/18 – Trattoria al Forno (dinner). We were not fans of Spoodles, and though we did like Kouzzina’s, we were excited about an Italian restaurant moving to this spot. For me it’s a toss-up as to whether my favorite food is Mexican or Italian. I kept watching the Disney Parks Blog and a few other sites, hoping that a chance to grab an ADR here would come. By the time I could book for this day, Trattoria al Forno was listed.
Tuesday, 5/19 – Paradiso 37 (dinner) is another DTD restaurant that we pass and say, “We need to try this one.” A few trips back I even got a coupon. Unfortunately, it didn’t come until after we’d made our ADRs and didn’t want to change anything. We’ve looked at a menu for this one, which has a both excited.
Wednesday, 5/20 – The Wave (lunch) is one that has featured in several TRs here. At the time I made this one, we thought we’d still be flying. Now we know we’re driving, it will mean a late start travelling back home. But in the end, we both decided we’d rather have a little more Disney time and drive late or stop for night on the way home. The original time was 12:15, but when we made our FP+ selections for this morning, Luke asked me to see if I could push it to 1:15 to give us time to do a little more at MK before we leave. That was not a problem so the new time is set.
Sounds like some great dining plans you've got going on ! This past February, DH and I enjoyed a late lunch at P37 and I remember being very happy with it. Hope you enjoy it, too!
The first half we've done, but none of the second half. I look forward to your reviews, especially the Star Wars dinner as I'm sure we'll have to try that next year.
And I agree about the disconnect between DVC and ADRs, it's very annoying.
Dinner plans look good, and have 2 of the places I just noted on Tara's thread about where you'd like to eat one day - Portabello's and Pier 37! Look forward to your review!
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Excited to hear all about it and see the pics! Before becoming DVC members that was our favorite place to stay. It is so relaxing there, fun, and convenient with the monorail. I know you guys will love it there! 
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