How a movie made a trip to Europe become a trip to WDW, a pre-trip report. 6/8-6/19 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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How a movie made a trip to Europe become a trip to WDW, a pre-trip report. 6/8-6/19
Travelers:
Donnie, (my amazing brother) Donnie just turned 18 and is a major force on his basketball team so his birthday often gets skipped because we are so busy that time of year and he can’t miss any basketball days so we will be celebrating his half 18th birthday while in Disney World. We will also be celebrating his HS graduation. Actually, the whole trip is my graduation gift to him.
Amy, (me), not as amazing as my little brother but still pretty awesome. In addition to my brother’s celebrations, I will also have my 23rd birthday in WDW. But I’m not a big birthday person so no real plans for that except a button. Plus, we’ve had my birthday in Disneyland before so it’s Donnie’s turn.
Where: Polynesian, Donnie’s pick, which is funny because when we first watched the vacation DVD, he saw the Polynesian and said lame, gay and yea right (which is the teenage version of the worst review ever). Ultimately, he decided that the Poly rocks so out with the Beach Club and in with the Poly, at least for now.
When: June 8th-19th. Yes, I know that’s a long time but we figured if we are going, we might as well stay as long as possible.
How our trip came to be: Donnie and I have always been big Disney fans since we were very young. In recent years, Donnie and I have had Disneyland annual passes and enjoyed trips to Southern California whenever time or a good deal allowed. As he started his junior year of HS in ’08, I started to stash money away with the idea that when we both graduated, him HS and me college, that we could take a trip to Europe. Well, a few things changed since then. I will not be graduating till next year because California decided to ruin its college system but that’s another story completely. Back to how Europe became WDW.
It all started with a movie, Taken, which upon seeing Donnie declared that he would never again leave the United States. Yes, I know this sounds crazy but it actually has already killed a weekend trip to Mexico so I wasn’t going to risk it ruining our Europe trip. So with Europe out we were left pondering a new location as we took off for my birthday trip to Disneyland. DL was great as always but DCA is undergoing major rehabs and even DL seemed to have more attractions closed then normal and the idea of not renewing our annual passes that year had already crossed our minds with school, work and basketball eliminating many possible trip dates and upon seeing the state of our beloved DL the decision was made, no annual passes this year. But about mid-summer I started to second-guess our decision, how would we get our Disney fix? Donnie must’ve been having similar concerns because one day a WDW commercial came on and well…that’s when we decided that our now defunct Europe trip would become our first WDW trip ever.
Okay, well that’s it for now. I’ll post our actual plans later because they are too exhausting to deal with now. Oh, and I’d like to thank the lovely people who are reading this who helped me with inquires I’ve made on other forums, you have helped me more than you’ll ever know.
Thanks for reading thus far.
Amy
Next time: Donnie refuses to decide what he will be eating next week let alone 6 months from now.
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Donnie and my dad have the same view of travelling. My dad called me after watching Taken to make sure I had seen it
I know, isn't it just the most ridiculous thing?! For awhile I kept thinking, Taken ruined my life and although it was a good movie, like come on, really?! REALLY?!
But now I get to go to WDW, so I'm again.
But it makes me happy to hear that someone else took that movie to seriously like my brother. They should start a club.
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When we first started to plan our trip, ADR’s could be made 90 days and that seemed like a long time to need to know where we wanted to eat. When I mentioned this to DB, he made a not so nice remark about how stupid people are who plan that far away, we will be fine and be laughing at the idiots who plan that far in advance. But some of this attitude was created because Disneyland has not adequately prepared us for this trip. Ya, sure in some ways it has conditioned us and taught us hard lessons about Fastpass and people who use strollers as weapons and parade mayhem but in others, like dining, DL has been like an overprotective parent shielding us from the horrible world of atomic clocks and 7 am (4 am CA time) call times to get an ADR that still might leave us waiting for 45 minutes to be seated. If you are currently lost and have never been to my little Disney corner of paradise, DL, let me begin with a word about Disneyland and food for those who don’t know. Food in Disneyland doesn’t exist like it does in WDW, it’s not even in the same realm. Books upon books and website after website have been dedicated to the amazing and not so amazing food in WDW; while the food in DL is lucky to get a few pages in a guidebook. It’s not like there isn’t good food to be eaten at DL, but most food is counter service and the few options that are table service can be booked 60 or 30 days out not this craziness of 180 days. But in my experience, calling a week or two ahead of time always gets me my coveted Priority Seating (think ADR with a different name) at The Blue Bayou inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride which to me is heaven on earth so, well, that’s all I need in terms of dining plans at DL.
I began to realize that we would need to make ADR’s ahead of time or else stomach many Turkey legs and hot dogs so I excitedly bought a book on dining in WDW and began to read it in the evenings, DB used his free time to make fun of me but I’m okay with that, I’m a planner and he’s not, that’s life, I’ve learned to adjust. But then Disney switched to 180 days and chaos ensued. But luckily, right around that time my beloved Passporter entered my life! Using the dining reviews, I went through and marked everywhere I wanted to eat at. Unfortunately, my list would cost me a small fortune when you factor in all the plastic surgery I would need after eating that much. Plus, eating 4+ meals a day sounded like too much food and time.
This is when I caught a lucky break because it was now Christmas break and I was helping DB with his college essays. So I struck a deal with DB that forced him to go through the Dining Reviews and think about where he wanted to eat. Yes, it involved some shadiness but think of what I’m dealing with, DB acts like preplanning meals preplanning meals for the week on Sunday so I can go shopping is torture so this was the only way.
Amy’s Original List
Crystal Palace
Liberty Tree Tavern
Tony’s Town Square
Biergarten
CRT
Akershus
Coral Reef
Garden Grill
Le Cellier
Marrakesh
San Angel Inn
50’s Prime Time Café
Hoolywood & Vine
Brown Derby
Sci Fi Dine In
Raglan Road
Boma
Chef Mickey’s
Trails End
1900 Park Fare
Kona Café
Ohana
Whispering Canyon
Beaches and Cream
Donnie’s Original List
Liberty Tree
Plaza Inn
Garden Grill
Le Cellier
Marrakesh
San Angel
Hollywood and Vine
Rainforest Café
TREX
Boma
ESPN
Chef Mickey’s
Trails End
1900 Park Fare
Kona
Ohana
Shulu’s
Donnie’s List of NOOOOOOOO!
CRT
Crystal Palace
Tony’s
Akershaus
Biergarten
Coral Reef
Sci Fi
*There were a ton more but since they weren’t musts on my list, I decided not to list them all. But let me tell you, my poor passporter has been covered in NO’s.
As you can see, our lists didn’t exactly match up, at all. So we started to talk about them. Here’s a sample of our conversations
DB: I DON’T CARE. JUST CHOOSE.
Me: Good, we will eat at CRT.
DB: No, we are not we are not eating there.
ME: well, then where?
DB: I don’t care….just not CRT.
Me: TURKEY LEGS!!!
DB: I hate you sometimes.
DB: I wanna eat at Rainforest Café.
Me: I hate Rainforest Café
DB: No, you hate the RC at DL. What makes you think you’ll hate this one?
Me: Really? I need to explain the similarities to you?
Me: I really want to eat inside the castle! Where else can we go inside the castle and eat with Cinderella. OIAL!!!
DB: No.
Me: Please
DB: NEVER.
Me: Why are you so anti-CRT?
DB: Because I’m not a 5 yr old girl.
Me: But I really want to…please.
DB:NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
DB: Shulu’s?
Me: Can you eat 64 oz. of steak?
DB: No…
Me: Then we aren’t eating there.
DB: ESPN?
Me: Well, duh. (see sometimes we agree☺)
We eventually settled on these choices. Yes, it’s still a lot of ADR’s but we can always not go. You’ll notice a lot of buffet/all you can eat meals and that’s because they fit us the best. I love to try everything but never finish anything and DB is 6’5’’ and eats more than people without teen boys in their lives will ever understand. We also will have 2 table service on two very long days (breakfast ADR before park opening then a late dinner) but plan to just snack for lunch in-between. When I went to get our ADR’s, I got them all without much fuss. Not sure if it’s because our choices suck, we have off-times or I did something to make the Disney God’s happy.
Final List
Whispering Canyon for Lunch
Hollywood and Vine for Fantasmic Dinner
Le Cellier for dinner
ESPN for lunch
Garden Grill for dinner
Boma for Dinner
Crystal Palace for breakfast
Ohana for dinner
1900 Park Fare for dinner
Brown Derby for Lunch with an Imagineer
TREX for dinner
Raglan Road for a very late, mainly apps and drink dinner
Tusker House for Donald Duck’s Breakfast
Chef Mickey for a late breakfast at 11 on last day☹
So that’s all for now. I just realized how long this got, I’ll try to keep the others shorter if you hang in there. Just so excited!!!
Next time, planning/budgeting for the extras and trying to set up a schedule. Guess how much DB loved this. Hint, the phrase can’t we just see how we feel was way overused.
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BTW -- We'll be at WDW from June 6th - 17th, staying at BC. Maybe we'll see you all!
My dad called me after watching Taken to make sure I had seen it 
Susan
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