9 trips out of 10 - A quick 3.5 day PTR - Jan 2012

[laur roo]

Hello! And welcome to the quickest pre-trip report in the whole world! (Well, I don't know that for a fact, but three and half days is a pretty quick pre-trip report!!! )

I tried to start a report when we first booked our trip in October, but I got sidetracked. I wanted to start one and have it be two weeks out, but I got sidetracked. But since I plan on writing both a dining report and trip report when I get back, I wanted to have a little background info about what we are planning to do on our trip. So here's the Who, What, Where, When, and Whys...

THE WHO:

And who are we? What an excellent question you ask!! For this trip we are me, Lauren, 27, and my awesome mom!

That's us on our last trip together in December of 2009 for mom's birthday. We ate at Mama Melrose for her birthday dinner and our awesome server took that picture for us.

THE WHAT:

I call this PTR "9 trips out of 10" because this is my 10th trip to the World!!! I could not be more excited! And since we leave on Saturday, I REALLY could not be more excited! I went on 5 trips to the World when I was younger, all family trips with mom, dad, and my older sister. Our last family trip was in 2000. Then, on a whim, I went with some of my cousins in June 2007, and I was instantly hooked again! Over the next three years, I went in December and saw the Christmas decorations for the first time ever on a BFFs trip in 2008, for mom's birthday in 2009, and again on a BFF trip in 2010! Sadly, in 2011 I didn't get to go to the World, but this trip will more than make up for it!! So I've got 9 trips under my belt, and when I get back, it will be for the 10th time.

THE WHERE:

We are doing a split stay for this trip between Port Orleans Riverside and Beach Club! I've never done a split stay before, and Beach Club is a new resort for both of us! We have stayed at POR before twice, back when it was known as Dixie Landings. We're at POR for 6 nights and BC for 5 nights.

THE WHEN:

We will be at the World this time from Saturday, January 21st thru Wednesday, February 1st. For us, that's two travel days sandwiched around 10 full days! It's the longest trip for me since our family trips when I was younger and I could not be more excited! I'll post our day by day itinerary in an upcoming post.

THE WHY:

Why not? Let's face it, we all love Disney on these boards!!! We decided that another mother/daughter trip was in order, and I had gone 3 Christmases in a row and I was ready to see the world again without all it's sparkle and lights and decorations. Since I work about 6 days a week from February-Mid November, I only had a small window to not see the decorations. And since January is a bit lower in the crowd level, we decided to go then! This trip will be a lot of firsts, even though it's my 10th trip! I'll get into more detail about the different firsts in my next post. I'll be updating with all the current details, ADRs, and new stuff we're gonna do (and at three and a half days out, I think most of them will stay the same until we get there, lol!) in several posts over the next few days, and then when I get back, it'll be time to start the TR and Dining Report!!!

Thanks for reading along, and I hope you enjoy the quickest little PTR!

 

[laur roo]

Before I get into all the juicy details about the plan and the ADRs, I thought I would share a few more photos from my last few trips!

Here's me on my June 2007 trip:

with my good friend, Mr. Potato Head!


A few from 2008, a trip I took with my BFFs Melanie and Courtney:

Mel and I making goofy faces.

On that trip, we did the hats across the world, where we modeled hats from every country along the way. It was super fun, except Italy only had a baseball cap, boring!!



And lastly, a few from my mom and me trip in 2009 for her birthday:

I like to make a lot of silly faces and take photos that might not be your standard "nice" photo ops, lol!

 

[laur roo]

THE ADRS:

My favorite part of planning! We were originally going to book the free dining promotion, as that is what we had on our last mother/daughter trip, but when the room only discount was announced, we decided to go with that, as it was a better deal for us for a couple reasons.

First, I am not a big dessert eater. I know, I know, who doesn't like dessert? I've always been a lover of sweet drinks (pop, icees, smoothies) and ice cream, but not an eater of cake, pie, cookies, etc. And to be even weirder, I don't really care for chocolate. One mini size candy bar and I'm good to go! So since I knew I wouldn't be ordering desserts, the free dining wasn't a huge deal.

Second, mom is a vegetarian, leaning towards vegan. My older sister is vegan and so mom will cook vegan if she is over to eat, so mom has been more vegan than vegetarian lately, but will probably eat vegetarian on vacation. And with vegetarian options on the menu being lower priced than say, a steak, we wouldn't get as much bang for our buck with free dining.

Third, we knew we wanted to stay deluxe again (we did Yacht Club last time!!) and the room only discount made this possible!

So I kept some of the ADRs we had made when I thought we were doing free dining, and added/changed more since then. About two weeks ago, I sat down with mom and went over them with her and we finalized where we would be eating!

So without further ado, I proudly present....our dinner(s)! (And lunches, and breakfasts, lol!!)


01/21: Arrival night, we land about 8:15pm and I didn't want to make any ADRs since we might get delayed. Coming from Ohio, I thought snow might be an issue. So we are planning to eat at Riverside Mill Food Court that night.

01/22: Lunch at Sanaa. I have had dinner here before on my BFF trip, mom has never been.

01/23: Lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern. Never been ever! Mom is looking forward to the quinoa burger. I always look for her options when looking into ADRs.

01/24: Dinner at Nine Dragons. Had an ADR here on my BFF trip, but we ended up cancelling it while we were there. Mom has never been, so it's brand new to us!

01/25: Lunch at Le Cellier. Neither of us have been. I NEED cheddar cheese soup. Seriously, my nickname in junior high was "Cheesy" because I loved cheese so much. Still do!

01/26: Lunch at Rose and Crown. A last minute addition because I really want to try it! Neither of us have been.

Dinner at 50's Primetime Cafe. I've been there on my last 2 trips, and I just couldn't do a trip without going there. And I have a great story there from when I was young. Our waiter made me go around to other tables with him and tell them the specials because I didn't eat my veggies, and go tell the cook why I didn't eat them. They were peas still in the pod and I had never had them before so I didn't want to eat them. The second part of the story is that I got a bloody nose during dinner and had to go to the bathroom with mom to get cleaned up. Our waiter asked my dad and sister where I was (he thought I was upset that I had to talk to the cook I think), so he came and knocked and opened the main door to the bathroom and asked for me and if I was okay. He was so awesome and funny!

01/27: Dinner at The Wave. Mom and I tried this place on our last visit and it was soooooooooo good! I love tea, and everywhere at Disney pretty much has Twinings. Not The Wave. They have the most magical, delicious tea varieties. Organic and really good flavors. I may have taken a few extra tea bags home with me...

01/28: Lunch at Tony's Town Square. Went here as a kid and they wrapped my leftovers in foil shaped like a swan. It was magical. I was there on BFF trip, mom hasn't been in awhile.

01/29: Afternoon Tea at the Gardenview Tea Room. As I said, I love tea. So does mom. We are tea drinkers, not coffee drinkers. I thought this would be a fun, special mother/daughter thing to do. I see a lot of reviews of the Princess Tea for little girls, but not for here, so I'm hoping it's good

Dinner at The Plaza. New to both of us, but I'm always down for a good burger and ice cream!

01/30: Dinner at Kouzzina. New for us, but I'm really looking forward to this one!

01/31: Dinner at Via Napoli. I love pasta, I love pizza, and I was sad that Tutto was closed, because I wanted to eat there too! And this is the one place I might get dessert, because those little donuts look yummy!

02/01: Breakfast at Cape May Cafe. We originally had this planned for earlier in the trip, but had to move it around. This is our checkout day at Beach Club and we have a late flight that night, so obviously getting some more magic and stuffing ourselves silly at a character breakfast is the thing to do!

So those are the ADRs! I really am looking forward to trying a lot of new places, and revisiting some new ones I've never had before. There are also a few CS places that I want to eat at including those yummy nachos in Mexico, Columbia Harbour House, Beaches and Cream (at least for ice cream, I mean, we're staying right there!), Tangierine Cafe, and maybe Tortuga Tavern if they're open (but I'm not counting on that.)

All this talk of Disney food is kinda making me hungry! I can't wait to be there and start taking food pics, lol!!! Oh yeah, and actually eating the food will be awesome too!

Coming up next: More details on what parks we'll be visiting, and the list of NEW stuff we're gonna do!

 

[laur roo]

Oh goodness, I woke up to snow this morning! Now I'm really excited to get to Florida on Saturday since it's supposed to be in the 60s-70s on this trip! Yippie!!! Although the snow is pretty and it's not a whole lot, I have errands to run soon, so I'm not looking forward to going out in it.

Anywho, back to the PTR goodies! I'm now leaving in 2.5 days, and I still haven't packed, eek! I have pulled aside all my Disney shirts though, because last time I did laundry, I knew I would need them for my trip! My closet looks pretty empty without them all too, lol!

For this post, I'm going to list our itinerary as it stands now. I know some of this will change when we are down there, but this is our basic touring plan. Since we have so many days, we probably won't go commando in our touring style, but I do want to get some HS mornings in so I can ride TSM more than 1 or 2 times this trip. So here it is:


THE PLAN:

01/21: This is our travel day. Our flight does not leave until almost 6pm, so we have time in the morning/afternoon to finish up any last minute travel/packing stuff. My dad will be driving us to the airport, and we should arrive at MCO around 8:15. We're planning to grab our luggage ourselves and then head to the ME and go to POR, check in, and eat in the food court, and get unpacked and ready to go for Sunday.

01/22: For our first day, we're going to AK in the morning. Mom decided she wanted to do this park first for this trip. We'll be leaving the park in the afternoon for our lunch ressie at Sanaa, and then back to the park until about closing time. That night there are EMH at MK, so we'll be headed over there for the night until we get tired!

01/23: We'll be back at MK in the morning. We decided that since we were staying at BC for the 2nd half of the trip, we would spend more time at EP and HS during that time, so more time at AK and MK to start with. We have lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern this day too. At night we are headed to HS since they have EMH and I'm excited to try out the new Star Tours!

01/24: For this day, we're gonna start a little slower and go play mini golf at Winter Summerland in the morning. Mom wanted to play last trip, but we never got around to it. After that, we're headed back to AK to catch the parade since we'll miss it on our other AK day. Then we'll hop over to EP to have dinner at Nine Dragons and watch Illuminations.

01/25: This day will be a slower paced day too. We will be going to EP in the morning with a lunch at Le Cellier in the afternoon. At some point we'll be headed to Downtown Disney for shopping and exploring. I might also be meeting up with some Ohio work friends that are working in Florida right now, and that will take place at DD as well.

01/26: We'll be doing a mix of EP and HS today, since we have ressies at both. Not sure where we'll start out, but we do have lunch at Rose & Crown and dinner at 50's Primetime Cafe. I'm hoping to make a stop by the Art of Animation building to see some characters this day as well. It won't really be a late night for us, because we'll have to pack up for our resort change the next morning.

01/27: Today is resort change day! We'll be checking out of POR, making another stop by DD, and then checking into BC for the rest of our trip! We're also going to do a tour of the monorail resorts (at mom's request) to see them, and then dinner at The Wave! We'll probably take the monorail to EP as well since they have EMH until midnight, and we can just walk home to our new resort afterwards!!!

01/28: As of right now, we only have MK planned for this day. I'm sure we will end up hopping around though, because that seems to be my touring style! We do have lunch at Tony's Town Square and I want to catch Wishes this night. If the weather is good/warm enough, maybe we can take a break at Stormalong Bay today!

01/29: Morning at HS for some TSM action! We have our afternoon tea planned for this day, so we'll hop over to the GF for that. Then the rest of the night is for MK with dinner at The Plaza. EMH til midnight here as well, so we'll probably enjoy some of that too!

01/30: Another EP/HS mixed day. I'd like to catch the Pixar parade hopefully, and we have dinner at Kouzzina, so we'll probably be walking back and forth between the two parks once or twice.

01/31: Sigh, our last day at the parks. Right now I only have planned to go to EP, but it'll probably be a best of day where we hit our favorite attractions one last time. We have dinner at Via Napoli, and then we'll end the night walking out of the World Showcase back to BC.

02/01: The last day, checkout day. Sad. But first we have breakfast at Cape May Cafe to cheer us up! Depending on when our ME pick up time is, we'll hit DD one more time to do our final shopping/eating, and then off to MCO for our 5:30pm flight. Dad will be picking us up when we land around 7:45, and then we'll be back in snowy, cold Ohio.

Then it will be back to playing with my kitty, catching up with my friends and boyfriend, and getting ready to go back to work the next week. My job is seasonal and I've been off work since mid November, so I am both ready to go back and not ready to go back at the same time! Having this time off was great, but I am bored quite often when I don't have anything pressing to do, so I just hang out with my kitty all day and read the DIS! And also when I get back, it'll be time to start my TR! Woohoo! I love reading other people's TRs when I miss Disney, so I'm hoping my TR will be silly and other people will want to see my pics and hear my stories too!! And there's nothing better than a Dining Report full of food pics so I'll get that started pretty quickly too!

I'll be doing a couple more updates before I go, and maybe a few more pictures as I start to get ready to hit the road on Saturday!!

 

[laur roo]

So exciting to see my ticker say 2 days! Mom called today and got all our Visa rewards put on the gift card, so we're ready to go! And I actually started packing today too. I have pretty much everything laid out, now I just need to put it all in the suitcases!

I can't really believe that we are leaving tomorrow though! It seems like we've been planning this trip for quite awhile and after talking to my mom today, we are both kind of like, "Oh, we're going tomorrow! We better make sure everything is packed!" But once we're at the airport tomorrow, I will probably be super excited and start getting all giddy about it!

But anyway, as promised, I wanted to post some "firsts" for our trip. There are the obvious firsts, like staying at the Beach Club for the first time, and trying a lot of new restaurants for the first time, but there's also some stuff that I've never done before that I would like to do on this tenth trip! So without further ado:

THE FIRSTS:

1. Mini Golf!!! I like mini golf, and I like Disney, so I'm excited to combine the two. I have actually played FG before, but this time we are playing Winter Summerland. And mom has never mini golfed at Disney before, so it's a first for her too.

2. Stormalong Bay. Now mind you, I said last time mom and I stayed at the Yacht Club, but can you believe we never went to Stormalong Bay? What's wrong with us. We never went swimming that whole trip, and that's a darn shame for sure! This time I even have 2 swimsuits packed because I want to enjoy that sucker! It looks like fun!

3. Pick a Pearl. I've never really thought about it before this trip, and I've seen it in quite a few TRs that I've read, and I really want to do it this time. It looks like fun, and depending on what kind of settings they have there, I might just splurge on that!

4. Color-a-Duffy. I know, I'm a bit old for that, but I still really want to do it!

5. Eat and drink around the World Showcase. I tried to drink around the WS on my BFF trip, but it didn't go so well. We shared 4 different drinks, and then we were done. But since we already have 4 TS booked, and I want to eat CS at 2 others, I figured I'd get a snack or drink in every country...but not all in one day, lol!!! So hopefully I'll be able to hold to this, and sample something from all 11 countries.

6. Pin Trading! I started this on my last trip, so it's not really new to me, but there is a pin trading night when we are there that I want to go to, and that's new for me. Also, I bought 25 pins to trade, and promised to give some to mom so she can trade a bit too. All she needs is a lanyard, and we're good to go.

7. Afternoon Tea. I love tea. Mom loves tea. We're gonna go be special, fancy ladies and have afternoon tea at the GF! I think it'll be a nice way to relax on an afternoon and enjoy some finger sandwiches and tea!

8. Babycakes. Mom is vegetarian/vegan sometimes, so she is super duper excited about Babycakes. I have a feeling we'll go quite a few times there to get some tasty treats!

9. Characters Take Flight. We wanted to do this last time, but ran out of time! If the weather cooperates while we are there, we would like to do this for sure!

10. I know there are a bunch more that I am forgetting about but will probably remember when I get down there, so that's the partial list of firsts. I'll fill you in on if we actually accomplish them all when we get back!

 

[laur roo]

Oh yeah, and I totally forgot that I wanted to post a picture of my current pin collection, since I'm sure I'll end up trading a few of these. I bought this case that holds them on my last trip because it's like a shadowbox and has a corkboard like backing so it was perfect to put them in!

There are some I for sure won't trade, like Rex, because I love him! But some of them I'm not too attached to. I'll have to post an after pic when I get back...plus it'll probably be a lot fuller too!

 

[laur roo]

I've got butterflies in my tummy! I'm getting super duper excited right now, because I know that I'm gonna be at Disney in less than 24 hours! I'm hoping the snow lays off a bit so we can fly out tomorrow night as planned. And I hope this vacation is going to be a memorable one!

So here's one more memory from a past trip. This is the view we had from our room at the Yacht Club on the last mother/daughter trip. We could not have been more excited to wake up and go to sleep with this view every night!

Sigh.

 

[laur roo]

I'M LEAVING FOR THE AIRPORT IN TWO HOURS!

Oh man, I'm so excited right now. Packing is done, house is cleaned up, kitty sitter is lined up, tivo is set to record everything, snow has been shoveled and I have my Mickey sweatshirt on!!!

I'm ready to go, and I'm super duper excited! Can't wait to enjoy my vacation and spend some time with my mom! And I can't wait to share it with the DIS when I get back!