PTR: The "Home Sweet Home 10th Birthday Celebration" Trip! - UPDATED 9/8 - Page 2 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Your vacation home is beautiful. Your plans sound great and I love the title of your TR. I think the Garden Grill is a great choice for Savannah's birthday dinner, we always have a great time there and the interaction is wonderful.
Thanks for the good review. I've read nothing but great things about the Garden Grill on the PP boards so I'm excited to be trying it out! Savannah is very excited to be seeing Mickey on her b-day
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Hi everyone. Sorry for the time in between posts but there hasn't been too much to report - until today that is
So as you saw in my original post, there were originally 3 of us traveling - me, DH and DD who is turning 10 years old on this trip. Yesterday my DD was over at her best friend Molly's house (who lives 3 houses down from us). I get a phone call and the conversation goes something like this:
DD: Hi Mommy, I have a question for you.
Me: Yes?
DD: Can Molly come to Disney with us? PLEASE??? We already asked her Mom and she said it's up to you.
Me: Well I have no problem with that but it's really more up to her Mom than me.
So Molly's mom Renee (who is one of my very good friends) got on the phone and we were both laughing. I told her I have no problem with Molly coming with us - it would just be up to her and her husband because they would have to pay for Molly to go and they have to be okay with Molly missing 4 days of school. They had no problem with it so we now have one more traveler in our group!
Molly is 10 years old and in 5th grade and my DD's best friend. Molly has traveled to WDW with us before, back when the girls were 4 years old. Also, in December of 2006, our family and their family traveled to WDW together and stayed in our timeshare for the week. So Molly is not new to traveling with us
Thank goodness I had not ordered the park hopper tickets yet through my work as we are only allowed to order tickets once a year. So now that I know Molly is coming with us, I updated my order form to add a 5-day park hoppper ticket and a 1-day MYW ticket for Molly. I mailed in the form today along with the check. Yesterday (before I knew Molly was coming with us) I called and ordered our MNSSHP tickets so I will need to call back and order 1 more ticket for Molly. We are going to the party the night of October 12th.
I will also need to call Disney Dining and add 1 more person to our ADR's. I don't think it will be a problem to go from 3 people to 4 people on our ressies.
I did add a few things to our itinerary: we are now having lunch at Chefs de France on Thursday October 14th. We are looking forward to that since we have never eaten there before. Does anyone know if Remy makes appearances at lunch?
I also added a pop-up table centerpiece and a deluxe goodie bag for Savannah for her birthday dinner at Garden Grill. I'll have to add 1 more goodie bag for Molly as well. I'm also going to order the Princess cake for her birthday.
We are also going to cancel DD's reservation at the Neverland Club for the night DH & I go to dinner at Blue Zoo. The girls are going to stay at the timeshare and watch movies while we go eat. They're used to being home alone after school for a few hours every day so this shouldn't be any problem for them.
As I'm sure you can imagine, the girls are VERY excited to be going back to WDW together. You should have heard them last night already starting to make all their plans! Future PP'ers in the making It will be fun to take them at this age since they are showing more independence now and will have a great time together and I know DD will have a blast having her best friend with her celebrating her birthday at WDW!
Here are a few pics of the girls from our last few trips together: Molly & Savannah, December 2006 (Savannah is on the right)
Molly & Savannah on Triceratop Spin, December 2006
Savannah & Molly at Epcot, October 2005
Girls with Kenai & Koda at Animal Kingdom, October 2005
Girls with Dinosaur, Animal Kingdom, October 2005
__________________
Sharon
Magic Kingdom, March 2015
Last edited by SharonK0527; 08-30-2010 at 01:07 PM..
Reason: upload photos
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Just jumping in on the PTR and your vacation home looks gorgeous, Sharon. You lucky, girl, you. I think your plans sound great and how exciting for Savannah to have her BFF, Molly along for all the fun.
Sharon
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We received our tickets to MNSSHP in the mail! It's so much fun to open the mail and see an envelope from Disney. Getting the tickets brought a little more excitement to our weekend and reminded us that the trip is only 4 weeks away!
I also noticed on my bank account yesterday that my work cashed the check for our Park Hopper tickets so I should be getting those soon too. Yay! I ordered Molly's MNSSHP ticket and once that arrives, all of our tickets will be paid for and in hand.
On the planning front, I called Disney Dining yesterday and changed our ADR's from 3 people to 4. The only one they had a problem with was Sci-Fi. He said the only reason was because they are only allowed to have so many people booked into the restaurant at any given time because of fire codes but he said it shouldn't be a problem to add Molly to our ADR later. He advised that I keep checking back and, if I have to, just show up for the ADR and they should be able to accommodate one more person. All of our other ADR's were no problem to change.
One thing I did learn was that as of September 2, they are no longer offering some of the birthday celebration items I had added to my ADR at Garden Grill. For example, they are no longer offering the pop-up table centerpieces or the goodie bags. I can still order the Princess cake, which I did. It's a cute little cake in the shape of a small loaf of bread and comes in a Princess jewelry box which DD can keep after we've eaten the cake. I asked the Disney rep if they were adding new birthday items in place of the old ones but he didn't know
Normally when we go on vacation, we use a pet sitter who we have used for years. Molly's mom Renee called me the other day and offered to watch our pets for us which would save us almost $400! I told her if she was willing to do that, I would use the saved money to take the girls to do something fun that we hadn't planned on doing on the trip. The first thing I did was call and book a reservation for the girls at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, which they were dying to do. I really wanted to get them in to the one at MK but the only thing available was at the Downtown Disney location at WOD, but that's okay. I reserved the Crown Package for each of them (hair, nails, makeup). They are SO excited! I also booked a reservation for them at the Pirate's League at MK for the day of MNSSHP. Both of the girls are going as lady pirates to MNSSHP so they wanted to do the Pirate's League and get all "pirate-y" for the party. But the more I think about it, I really don't want to waste a day on our PH passes to get into the MK the day of the party (we were going to use our MNSSHP tickets as our admission and just spend the early part of the day relaxing and swimming at the house). I also don't want to be at MK from 11:00am until Midnight with no break. I think we might end up canceling the Pirate's League - we'll see. I was thinking of maybe asking them if they would like to do the Wonderland Tea Party over at the GF instead.
I've already started doing laundry for the trip, putting aside clothes that I know we won't wear so they will be clean and ready to pack.
On a bad note, it looks like our video camera isn't working I thought it was just because the battery had died so I bought a new charger over the weekend but when I put the charged battery in the camera, the touch-screen (which controls all the functions) would not work So we might have to go buy a new video camera. Also this past week Savannah's cell phone ended up getting broken by this boy who lives on our street. His mom had agreed to pay for the new phone but when I went to the Verizon store, they ended up replacing it for free
The girls are very excited about the trip and it's all they can talk about. I feel like there's still so much to do to get ready to go Savannah is competing in a karate tournament this weekend in Morgantown, WV so I feel like this weekend I won't get anything done which only leaves me 3 weeks until the trip! Luckily there isn't that much left to buy. Most of what I need to do involves cleaning the house and packing. I want to pack early this year because every year I wait until the night before and then I'm up half the night packing
We are all starting to get very excited now that it's only about a month away!
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It will be fun to take them at this age since they are showing more independence now and will have a great time together and I know DD will have a blast having her best friend with her celebrating her birthday at WDW! 
PassPorter Guide Author
You lucky, girl, you.
I thought it was just because the battery had died so I bought a new charger over the weekend but when I put the charged battery in the camera, the touch-screen (which controls all the functions) would not work 
So we might have to go buy a new video camera. Also this past week Savannah's cell phone ended up getting broken by this boy who lives on our street. His mom had agreed to pay for the new phone but when I went to the Verizon store, they ended up replacing it for free 
Savannah is competing in a karate tournament this weekend in Morgantown, WV so I feel like this weekend I won't get anything done which only leaves me 3 weeks until the trip! 
Luckily there isn't that much left to buy. Most of what I need to do involves cleaning the house and packing. I want to pack early this year because every year I wait until the night before and then I'm up half the night packing 
Liz 
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