Going Wild Disney Style PTR - April 6-16, 2013 - Page 3 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Thank you for the Pixies. It has been a crazy week. The change from school routine to summer and Daddy leaving for awhile, plus all the crazy running around really messed with the kids schedules. The chaos triggered both of them and we have been having meltdowns and a lot of problems. The last two days I have put together more structured routines for both of the kids. This is definitely helping, both them and me. Today was finally pretty normal and we had a really good day with no meltdowns.
So now that life is settling down a little I can think about Disney again. Which always makes me happy. So lets move on with our newest installment.
Will we have a new character intro?? OR Beginning Dining Plans
This post will be Beginning Dining Plans. I don’t have a new character intro just yet but I have spoken with the mom of Shana’s friend in Colorado. She would love for her daughter to come, but wants to wait to see how she is doing when the school year starts. When we planned this trip we planned our dates based around my birthday and since we have often taken the kids out of school, I wasn’t shooting for a school break. We inadvertently picked dates that do correspond to my kids’ spring break; however, they do not match up to my daughter’s friend. I do think there is a good chance that she will be going, but her introduction will have to wait till we know for sure.
These are going to be very basic beginning dining plans. I am sure these will change as we get closer to the trip, but dining is one of my favorite things to think about on a Disney trip. We love trying new restaurants and also love some of our old favorites. Surprisingly with my kid’s challenges, we have been lucky that they enjoy sitting down in table service restaurants and behave very well. I think quick service is harder for them than table service because they tend to be louder and less structured. So we eat at table service a lot on a trip.
In the last post I mentioned that we are foregoing the Dining Plan this trip and trying Tables in Wonderland. It’s funny because I thought I would feel more restricted and worried about spending too much if we didn’t do the dining plan, but now after running the numbers and seeing that we could eat at more table service restaurants I feel so free.
First let me tell you all the wonderful table service restaurants that we have already visited on past trips.
Boma, Yak & Yeti, Sanaa, Chef Mickey’s, Cap’n Jacks, Akershus, Coral Reef, Garden Grill, Le Cellier, Les Chefs de France, Restaurant Marrakesh, Rose & Crown, San Angel Inn, Teppan Edo, Tutto Italia, 1900 Park Fare, 50’s Prime Time, Cinderella’s Royal Table, Crystal Palace, Liberty Tree Tavern, Ohana, and Whispering Canyon.
We like to try new places on each trip but there are three that we have to visit on every trip; Boma, Teppan Edo and Ohana. I actually asked each person in the family what their top 3 restaurants were and every one of us listed these 3 in some order. So that is why they are must do’s. A funny story about Boma - In 2008, I broke my toe at the resort about 3 hours before our Boma ADR, I refused to go to the hospital until after dinner, because I wasn’t missing Boma for a broken toe. I spent the rest of that trip being pushed by Pat in a wheel chair.
This trip we want to try some new places and visit a few favorites. Here is the list of places we are hoping to get on the schedule for this trip. Although these might change I really like this selection and may stick with these choices. We are not planning any signature meals (except Le Cellier), we are planning to save those for when the kids are a bit older. They have been to many fancy places, but on trips they are a little hit and miss and we don’t want to plan a super nice meal and have to cancel it.
These are absolutes and will not change unless for some reason we cannot get an ADR: Boma – Dinner the day we arrive. We always eat at the resort we are staying at the day we arrive. I’m so excited it will be Boma this trip! We love the buffet offerings at Boma and love the Zebra Balls – okay, I know they are called Zebra Domes, but we come from Colorado where everyone talks about Rocky Mountain Oysters (if you don’t know what these really are you may not get the joke, let me know and I’ll fill you in) and on our first trip when Hunter brought a Zebra Dome to the table we all called them Zebra Balls and it has stuck ever since. I know a little crude family humor. LeCellier – Dinner, hopefully the night of my birthday, if I can get ADR’s, crossing my fingers. Teppan Edo – Lunch or Dinner not sure yet on where we will fit this in. Ohana – Breakfast and Dinner – We have never been here for breakfast and if Shana’s friend ends up coming with us, this will be fun as she can talk exactly like Stitch, and I mean exactly! It’s very cute. Be Our Guest – no clue. Have to wait to see what looks best for us, probably dinner, but will have to see once it opens and menus are out.
These are ones I really want to fit in: Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue – Never been and looking forward to it. A little worried it will be too much for the kids, but hopefully they will enjoy it. Mama Melrose Fantasmic Meal – Late Lunch – we have never done a Fantasmic! meal and hope that this will help us. Fantasmic! Is such a difficult show for us to see. The kids do not do well with the crowds in and out and it often ends badly. I’m more concerned since my mom won’t be with us (she is always in a scooter), they have always sent us up the handicap lane, and I don’t know if the kids’ GAC’s will allow that. So I’m hoping doing the meal will prevent some of the disaster. The kids love this show and we often listen to the music in the car and try to identify all the snippets of songs. Whispering Canyon – Dinner – We loved the antics at Whispering Canyon. The first time we went, Shana was having anxiety issues and was heading down hill. She got mad when the waiter threw the straws at us and I was worried we weren’t going to make it. Thank goodness she asked for some ketchup! At first she didn’t want to do it, but she did and laughed so hard when she had plenty of ketchup. I’ve heard they toned down the antics at lunch, so dinner it is!
These are ones I really want to try to get in, but are the most likely to be changed and rearranged before the trip: Tusker House – Dinner – We have never been here and I hear it is similar to Boma, but we like to eat a meal in each park and Animal Kingdom doesn’t have very many options. We have done Yak & Yeti and Rainforest Café can wait till another trip as we have them in places we visit often so are more likely to visit one at some point. Cape May Café – Dinner – The kids love seafood, although they have never had clams. I will try to schedule this on a Tuesday/Thursday for the Fried Calamari (Hunter’s Favorite) or a Monday/Wednesday/Saturday when they have the Fried Shrimp (Both kids love shrimp). Biergarten – Lunch – Shana absolutely loves brats, sausage or just meat in general. Nine Dragons – Lunch or Dinner as long as we can get Honey Sesame Chicken – we have never had it in Disney but I make it at home from my Cooking with Mickey Cookbook and we love it! It’s not my favorite to make as it is a long process, curious to see if Disney makes it better or if I make it better. 1900 Park Fare – Breakfast – we have been for dinner, but again looking for new character experiences. Liberty Tree Tavern – Lunch or Dinner where it fits in. Pat loves the dinner, with the family style Thanksgiving meal, but we may have to do this for lunch. But he can still get the turkey dinner.
1900 Park Fare and Ohana Breakfast are very likely to change as the kids often change on which meals they would like. I think these look fun as we haven’t done them before. The only issue we have is Hunter has to see Pluto. It doesn’t have to be at a character meal, but it makes it a lot easier to have him at the meal so we don’t have to find him in the parks.
That is my very tentative dining plan. In a future installment I will start putting these into dates based on the park we are most likely to be in that day. I’m thinking I may have a few too many table service, but we really enjoy sitting down to eat, so I hope we can fit them all in. I do have them all on dates at the moment, but more for just seeing what would work. I didn’t relate it to the park we might be in.
BTW, these are the restaurants I used when deciding between the dining plan and tables in wonderland.
Up Next: What Park, Which Day??
**This installment may be a month or so from now. I will be heading to Denver soon and then redecorating Shana's room while she is at camp. When she comes home her friend from Colorado (yes, the one we invited to come to disney with us) will be coming here for a week. It also takes me awhile to work out the plan for which day we will be in which park.
Great dining plans! I hope you're able to get what you want!
I'm sure we will get most and I'll have back-up plans for some.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lazanya
Great dining choices!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
I really like all your dining choices!
I have exciting news but I think I will wait to share on my next entry. Just to keep you guessing . I am so very happy about this trip and think it will be really refreshing and new for all of us. It's funny we hit DL in 2011 and 2012 and I feel like I've been gone from WDW forever!
This is my first one, and I was more than a bit nervous about doing it. But I have already found that I enjoy it very much! It helps me with my planning and it's fun to write it all up instead of just having it in spreadsheets.
I’m going to keep you in suspense till the end of this segment to hear the exciting news (no scrolling to the bottom, I’m watching you, always watching you ).
This segment is my beginning plans for laying out our trip. I have a system and many spreadsheets that I use to help plan our trip. I have to have a very good idea of what our plans will be as my kids need schedules to be able to get through a normal day let alone one at a park. It is pretty difficult to do this, and I wish we could be more laid back, but every time we have tried a relaxed laid back trip, it has been a disaster! So this is why I need a year of planning time because I really have to lay out every minute of our trip and then have “back-up” plans readily available. Since I am still 3 months out from my ADR window, the dining is all tentative at this point, but the restaurants listed are my preferred days/meals at this moment.
Friday April 5th – Get Near the Airport Day
This day is really not counted as part of our vacation, but it is the day we will start heading in the right direction, so I thought I would include it. We will leave for Albuquerque as soon as Pat gets home from work. He usually gets off anytime between 5-8 so this is really not an exact time. He then has an hour drive home before we can leave. I will have the van packed and ready to go, animals taken care of and as soon as his feet hit the door, we will be out of there. It is a 2 ½ hour drive for us to get to Albuquerque. We will catch dinner on the road and will check into a hotel near the airport for the night.
Saturday April 6th – Travel Day
I am starting to watch flights and if schedules stay similar to what they are now I hope to get tickets that leave between 6-8am, we will have a connection as there are no non-stop flights from Albuquerque to Orlando . I am hoping we can find a flight that gets us in around 1-3 (typically we have arrived around 4:30-5 out of Denver and it makes for a hectic evening). We are planning to rent a car and in the past I have always taken the kids on DME while my mom and Pat picked up the rental car and stopped at the grocery store. But since my mom is not going this trip, and we may split up some, we will probably both go get the car so we can both be listed as drivers. This of course means we will have to pick up our own luggage. We will then head to AKV, we may stop at a grocery store along the way, although since we are staying Club Level we may not do this as the things we usually buy are available in the lounge, then we will check-in and hope we have a savanna view! I will plan to book Boma in the evening for dinner. This is a favorite and being that it’s in our resort makes it an easy choice. We will try to wear the kids out and may visit the pool for a bit, if it’s not too late.
Sunday April 7th – Epcot
Typically we like hitting MK first but for this trip this just makes more sense. I don’t really like being at MK on Sunday as it is typically very busy, so Epcot it is. We will eat breakfast in the club lounge and then head out early. Lunch – Nine Dragons (early). We will probably go back to the resort for a swim for a bit in the afternoon and then return for Dinner at Teppan Edo. We will not do Illuminations this night and will probably end the day on the earlier side.
Monday April 8th – Wizarding World of Harry Potter (and Islands of Adventure)
We will grab a quick breakfast in the lounge and plan to leave early and arrive at the park when it opens. This is new for all of us, and I’m not sure how we are going to tackle it. Hunter may not like most of the rides in WWOHP, so we may have to split up, which means we will have to wait in line twice for some attractions. I’m going to investigate if we can use ride swap for anything, even though Hunter is tall enough, but that is later down the road. We plan to eat at the Three Broomsticks and drink some Butterbeer and cast some spells. Dinner will be back at Disney at Whispering Canyon.
Tuesday April 9th – to Me! Magic Kingdom ending at Epcot
Breakfast will be in the lounge and we will hit MK in the morning and early afternoon. Lunch will be a quick service somewhere along the way. We will hop over to Epcot in time for our dinner, which will hopefully be at Le Cellier, followed by the Illuminations Cruise. These of course are contingent on getting reservations, but I’m crossing my fingers that this will work as this would be my ideal day at Disney!
Wednesday April 10th – Blizzard Beach or Typhoon Lagoon
This may be a day completely out of the park, depending on the park tickets we get. If we do the Y.E.S. Program we may only get 8-day tickets, but I am really trying to decide if we want to try to squish this in on this trip (I’ll explain about this in the next segment). We will start this day with breakfast at 1900 Park Fare, then head to the water park. We will spend most of the day at the park, catching lunch at a quick service in the park. We have never been to Blizzard Beach and that is the one I am leaning toward. But I liked Typhoon Lagoon when we went in 2003 but the kids were too young to really experience the park. We will end the day with Dinner at Ohana.
Thursday April 11th - Sunrise Safari and Animal Kingdom then Hollywood Studios
This is our first choice for the Sunrise Safari and after we will spend the morning at AK. We will have a light lunch at a quick service, or even just snacks and hope for early dinner reservations. We will hop over to HS either after a break at the resort or just when we are ready. We will plan to do the Mama Melrose Fantasmic! Package and watch the early show that evening.
Friday April 12th – Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom
We will have breakfast in the lounge and then basically do Thursday in reverse on this day and visit HS in the morning followed by AK in the afternoon/evening. You may ask why we don’t just do AK on Thursday and HS on Friday. I don’t want to be trying to do Fantasmic! on a weekend night and the Sunrise Safari is only on Thursday and Sunday. We often hop between these two anyway. We will have lunch at a quick service in one of the two parks. We will have dinner at Tuskar House.
Saturday April 13th – Epcot and/or Magic Kingdom
Again, breakfast in the lounge. This is the point in the trip where I am typically making plans in the resort the night before. We begin revisiting parks that we have missed things and changing what we do. We will probably spend some time at the pool this day as well. Lunch will be Biergarten and Dinner at Café May Café.
Sunday April 14th – Resort and Magic Kingdom
Can you guess where we are going to have breakfast??? That’s right, the lounge! This will be our backup day for Sunrise Safari if we were not able to get Thursday. If we don’t have the safari we will spend some time in the morning at the resort and then head over to MK for lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern. We will probably stay at MK and catch rides/shows we have missed and then try to get Dinner ADR’s at Be Our Guest. This will be the night we try to catch Wishes.
Monday April 15th – Open
Guess where we are eating breakfast? Nope, not the lounge! Today will be at Ohana. This day will be completely planned the night before, with the exception of breakfast and we hope to do Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue or Spirit of Aloha (I can't decide which). It could be a water park day, pool day, hang in the room day or visit three parks day. All determined by what we have or have not done.
Tuesday April 16th – Open
Today we will eat in the lounge as it will be our last opportunity. This day is also planned the day before. We will pack up and leave our bags with the bellhop. We may visit parks we have missed rides or visit DTD. It may also depend on if we do the Y.E.S. Program as we may not have a park ticket available for this day. But we will have to see. A lot of this will depend on what time our flight will be leaving.
So that is our trip in a nutshell. Funny thing is I don’t even know what I am planning to do tomorrow, but I know what I might be doing 272 days from now. How crazy is that.
I want to share one other thing before I share the exciting news, although this is exciting news too. I have been struggling with my weight since the birth of Shana. I have gone up and down and am not happy with my weight and health in general. I started training before our January 2010 trip to run the ½ marathon, but developed plantar faciitis and was unable to run. I have since stopped working out and have regained the weight I’d lost. I have made a commitment to lose weight before this trip. I would like to be healthier, more energetic and quite frankly just thinner. Since we are celebrating my 40th birthday in the park, I know I will have lots of pictures of me and I want to love them. So I’m putting this in writing to hopefully make me more accountable and actually get this done. I restarted Weight Watchers when I returned from Denver – I was at my highest weight ever of 232.5 lbs. I am happy to say yesterday I weighed in at 225.5! That is 7 lbs. in two weeks. I know it will not continue progressing at that rate, but I am so excited. My goal weight is 135, I may not reach this before the trip, if I only lose 1-2 lbs. a week, but I could be really close. I plan on enjoying anything I want during the trip, but returning immediately to my healthy eating at home. I know on a trip if I deprive myself, I will blow it and then feel bad, I would rather plan for gaining a little but more than likely I won’t gain much, as I don’t typically on a trip. So now there it is, I will share updates on this throughout my trip report and hopefully that we motivate me even more.
Now for the exciting news. Next update will be… drum roll please…
New Character Introduction!
I have spoken with the mom of Shana’s friend and her husband told her to stop worrying about the schoolwork that she will have no trouble catching up and this is a rare opportunity. So I will be introducing her for my next segment. It will be toward the end of July as we are thinking of telling the girls when she is visiting us for a week at that time. I guess I need to add her to our resort reservation.
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at the resort about 3 hours before our Boma ADR, I refused to go to the hospital until after dinner, because I wasn’t missing Boma for a broken toe. I spent the rest of that trip being pushed by Pat in a wheel chair. 
I hope you're able to get what you want! 
I'm sure we will get most and I'll have back-up plans for some. 
aboard! Thanks for joining in! 
. I am hoping we can find a flight that gets us in around 1-3 (typically we have arrived around 4:30-5 out of Denver and it makes for a hectic evening). We are planning to rent a car and in the past I have always taken the kids on DME while my mom and Pat picked up the rental car and stopped at the grocery store. But since my mom is not going this trip, and we may split up some, we will probably both go get the car so we can both be listed as drivers. This of course means we will have to pick up our own luggage. 
to Me! Magic Kingdom ending at Epcot
Today will be at Ohana. This day will be completely planned the night before, with the exception of breakfast and we hope to do Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue or Spirit of Aloha (I can't decide which). It could be a water park day, pool day, hang in the room day or visit three parks day. All determined by what we have or have not done. 
I have made a commitment to lose weight before this trip. I would like to be healthier, more energetic and quite frankly just thinner. Since we are celebrating my 40th birthday in the park, I know I will have lots of pictures of me and I want to love them. So I’m putting this in writing to hopefully make me more accountable and actually get this done. I restarted Weight Watchers when I returned from Denver – I was at my highest weight ever of 232.5 lbs. I am happy to say yesterday I weighed in at 225.5! That is 7 lbs. in two weeks. I know it will not continue progressing at that rate, but I am so excited. My goal weight is 135, I may not reach this before the trip, if I only lose 1-2 lbs. a week, but I could be really close. I plan on enjoying anything I want during the trip, but returning immediately to my healthy eating at home. I know on a trip if I deprive myself, I will blow it and then feel bad, I would rather plan for gaining a little but more than likely I won’t gain much, as I don’t typically on a trip. So now there it is, I will share updates on this throughout my trip report and hopefully that we motivate me even more. 
Good luck with the weightloss! 
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