My first TR - Sept 2010 Three Adults "and Your Little Dog too!" - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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All caught up. I am sorry for your bad experience at the luau. I personally didn't like it much either, and won't be a return trip.
Thanks for documenting your take on slowing down. I am going to bring all your hints and notes to my family for them to pick out their must sees/dos for our trip in December.
I'm sorry that you had a bad experience at the luau too. Strange too - it was the most un-Disney like thing of the whole trip.
I'm glad that my hints and tips were helpful and that you get good use out of them for your trip in December. Just writing them up helped me remember that I tend to plan too much and I've already made several changes to my upcoming trip after I wrote this report because traveling with special needs does make things different
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Originally Posted by CinderAbby
I just tuned into this trip report - now that it's over. Better late than never I suppose . You certainly had a lot of highs and lows this trip but I am so glad that despite the lows, you were willing to plan another trip and try it again. All those characters you saw - wow. I don't know that we've seen that many (but it is easy to lose track without the phots IMO). I'm another one who can do commando at Disney but there is definitely something to be said for the slower pace in the parks with the family members. Disney will always be there but family members and friends won't be so even though I might be itching to go go go, the quality time with them is much better than the quantity time of the rides and attractions. It just makes for a more memorable vacation I think - and all the more reason to go back . Now I can't wait to read your PTR and TR for this years trip.
I still can't believe all the character we saw!!! I've been to the World three times as a kid and I think we saw more characters in Sept 2010 than I had in all my trips as a kid combined. Building the photo album was ridiculous because I couldn't squeeze them all in!! I maxed out several pages at 5 photos per page and the book looks a bit too busy - but hey we were busy character greeting!
And thanks for reading along I make it a point to comment on both the good and the bad because I'm big into "lessons learned" so that I don't repeat my mistakes and so that others can learn from my mistakes and help make better choices. It's something we do at work with our projects (let's not repeat the problem of taking three days to load a server because we forgot to add in step 3, yes? sort of thing.)
I'm looking forward to this upcoming trip because I have three days that are kinda open. No hard plans, no ADRs planned. I'm hoping we can take the time to relax. DB's job is fun, but the commute is really making a difference in our lives. He's home much later than we're used to and that just has a cascading effect on everything else in ours lives.
We commuted together for 6 years, so this is a real shock to our relationship. I think that he and I need this next trip more than anything just so we can relax together.
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. You certainly had a lot of highs and lows this trip but I am so glad that despite the lows, you were willing to plan another trip and try it again. All those characters you saw - wow. I don't know that we've seen that many (but it is easy to lose track without the phots IMO). I'm another one who can do commando at Disney but there is definitely something to be said for the slower pace in the parks with the family members. Disney will always be there but family members and friends won't be so even though I might be itching to go go go, the quality time with them is much better than the quantity time of the rides and attractions. It just makes for a more memorable vacation I think - and all the more reason to go back 
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(Miss Molly)
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