Details, Details, Oh how I LOVE the Details! UPDATE 5/30

[ksl5f123]

I have been wanting to start a pre-trip report for months and have finally decided to just give it a go. By profession, I am a scientist which means I am VERY detail oriented. Be prepared to hear about absolutely every detail of my trip planning. So, here is the cast.

Me, age 35 - I am THRILLED to be planning this trip. It will be my 11th trip to WDW. Our last trip was December 2008. This is when I realized that I wanted to plan my dream trip - more days, time to relax and enjoy the resort, plans, plans and more plans! I am also very frugal, so I spend lots of time trying to have both an over-the-top Disney experience and a reduced price tag. I love the atmosphere of Disney and watching my kid’s reactions to things. In general, if a ride goes faster than I can walk, I skip it. No thrill rides for me!

DH, age 37 - DH grew up in South Florida and his family went to Disney at least once every year. He can tour the parks without ever looking at a map! (I am really jealous of that skill!) He thinks our kids should get to go to Disney often like he did. DH will ride anything (except the Tea Cups). He particularly enjoys Space Mountain.

DD, age 6 - DD6 is a complicated girl. She loves Sleeping Beauty and all things pink, but she hasn’t ever played with a doll. She would much prefer to run, jump, and climb. She is a never-ending ball of energy. This will be her 5th trip to WDW. She is now 49 inches tall and is looking forward to trying Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Soarin’, and Mission: Space. This may be the last trip where she is interested in BBB or dressing up like a princess.

DD, age 4 - DD4 is the consummate princess. She loves all things Snow White or purple. She loves dresses and has a large collection of “babies”. She is 41” tall, but completely uninterested in thrill rides. She is focused on getting her “princess hair” at BBB and riding IASW. This will be her 4th trip to WDW.

DS, age 1 - DS1 is a fun little guy. He will be 23 months by the time of our trip. He loves all balls and finds them everywhere. He gets excited when he sees pictures of Mickey. This will be his 2nd trip to WDW.

MIL,age 63 - MIL enjoys watching the grandkids at Disney. She has planned our last 6 trips so it may be a little different for her to let me plan this one. Her style is very laid back and includes lots of nice restaurants. My style is very planned and includes lots of character dining! It ought to be interesting!

FIL, age 64 - FIL is lots of fun! He is great at entertaining the kids. However, he had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery in August so I am a little nervous about his ability to tour in the parks in the June heat.

DN1, age 12 - DN1 is the oldest son of my DH’s brother. SIL finds the Disney magic annoying and doesn’t care for the parks. However, her sons feel left out by our many trips. So, MIL asked if the nephews could come along. DN1 is a good kid. He likes to read and play board games. He hasn’t been to WDW in at least 6 years, so a lot will be new to him.

DN2, age 10 - DN2 is the younger son of DH’s brother. He is very energetic and loves to be silly. He is really good at entertaining his younger cousins.

Up next, when will we go?

 

[ksl5f123]

When I started planning this trip back in October, the first two things I needed were travel dates and a resort reservation. DH and I are both college professors so we can’t travel during the semester. Our spring break is one week before DD6’s spring break so that didn’t work. We decided to go right after she got out of school. Her last day is June 1.

But then we learned that DD4 would have her very first dance recital on either June 4 or June 5. We decided we would leave the next day June 6, 2010! With 3 kids, flying is getting pretty expensive (here comes my frugal nature). The drive is 975 miles from our door to WDW. We go on big driving vacations every summer and know that we can plan to go about 500 miles before our kids start to melt down. A 500 mile drive will take us about 10 hours given meals, potty stops, gas stations, etc. So, we will need 2 days of driving to get to Orlando and we will arrive late on June 7, 2010!

Now that we know when we are arriving, we need to know how long to stay. All of our trips with our kids have been 4 days or less. I always leave feeling like I rushed everywhere and saw very little. I really wanted a longer vacation to get to see more, but still have time to take breaks and relax at the resort.

We started by looking at a 8 day trip. Given that we would be arriving really late on day 1, that really gave us 7 days of touring. We knew we wanted 2 days at MK and 2 days at Epcot and probably 1 day at AK and DHS. We also thought we would really like to try a waterpark. This fills up all 7 days quickly and I was beginning to see my relaxing vacation slip away. We quickly moved on to the 9 day plan. This way we could arrange our days as arrive, park, park, rest, park, park, rest, park, park. That felt great! The only problem was it didn’t include the waterpark. We looked at a 10 day plan but that went over our budget. The waterpark will just have to go on one of the “rest” days.

OK, we have our dates - June 7-15, 2010!!! Next, where will we stay?

 

[magicallyDisney001]

Just coming in to the PTR! How exciting! And don't worry about giving us too many details; you're on the DISboards for a DISNEY vacation! Looking forward to hearing more!

 

[ksl5f123]

Wow! I have a reader. Oh, so very exciting!!

 

[ksl5f123]

We decided that our total budget for this trip was $4000. I really dream about deluxe resorts. We got to stay at AKL in 2006 and I LOVED it. In a similar vein, I would also love to stay at WL. We started there, but quickly realized we just couldn’t afford it. My frugal nature was more than willing to stay at Pop, but DH really prefers the moderate resorts. Which one to choose?

The only moderate we have stayed at before is POR on our last trip in Dec 2008. I liked it. The food court was really nice. We didn’t use the pool on our last trip there it was dreary, rainy, and cool every day. The look of the pool didn’t really impress me, but that may have been because of the dreary rain.

I thought the pictures of CSR looked wonderful. The restaurants seem interesting and the pool looks gorgeous! So, we decided that was it - CSR for June 7-15, 2010. I spent a little time despairing about whether we should book immediately or try to wait for a discount. During this time, I found the Disboards and learned that I could apply a discount later even if I had already booked. So, I told DH to call his folks and get their approval to book CSR.

However, while I was dithering and DH was distracted, all of the standard rooms at CSR sold out! I was shocked - and a little devastated! Oh well, time to regroup. I don’t really care for the theme at CBR and we wanted to stay moderate, so… We are going back to POR! Although it wasn’t my first choice I feel really good about this decision.

Up next, what to do about dining?

 

[ksl5f123]

We usually pay OOP for dining. We love table service meals. As I mentioned in our intro, MIL usually plans our trips and she likes fine dining and dislikes counter service. W are used to having 2 TS meals per day when we go to WDW, sometimes with one of them signature dining. We started out wanting the deluxe dining plan. However, even though we usually go to 2 TS restaurants, we don’t usually get all of that food at every meal. I had visions of tables collapsing under the weight of all of the food ordered by 8 people on the DxDDP!

How about the regular dining plan? It looked pretty good to us, but as always, my frugal side had to “prove it”. Out came the spread sheet.

We have tried lots of the nice restaurants at WDW and while they are wonderful, I find them a little stressful because I am constantly worried that my kids will make a loud noise, spill something, break something, etc. Since this is supposed to be my relaxing vacation I decided that we would focus our dining on characters.

We have done CRT (breakfast and lunch), Akershus (3 times!!!), Crystal Palace, and 1900 Park Fare before. We decided that we wanted to return to all of these. We also want to try Chef Mickey (breakfast) and Tusker House. That is already 7 TS credits just for character meals! We also wanted to return to Coral Reef. DH’s only request was that we go to Tutto Italia. We also wanted to try the Fantasmic dining package and thought Mama Melrose would work for us. That puts us at 10 TS credits.

Into the spread sheet go the prices for all of the buffets and for what I think each person will eat at Tutto and Coral Reef. Now I scour the allears.net menus looking for the “best” counter service places.

Two trips ago, we were eating in the Polynesian (maybe at Kona??) on our last night when suddenly DD6 (then 4) burst into tears. After eating them at every meal, she just couldn’t face another chicken finger. Finding other dining choices for her became my particular obsession. She would only eat chicken fingers if she wanted them, not because they were the only thing on the kid’s menu!!!

After much research, the CS places we will visit include Flame Tree BBQ, Sunshine Seasons, WPE, Riverside Mill (a few times), CHH, Tangerine Café, and Starring Rolls. Now, I chose meals for everyone at all of these places and added them to my spreadsheet. Since we are a party of 9, I add in the 18% gratuity and 6.5% tax. After all of this, it looks like the dining plan will save us about $170 even considering our OOP meals, but without adding snacks!

We are finally ready to book!! We call our AAA agent and get POR for June 7-15 with MYW tickets with hoppers and WP&M and our very first time on the DDP! Our price = $3885 for our family of 5!!! Which is within our budget! We request to stay in the mansions at POR with connected rooms.

Up next, waiting on the park hours and planning our itinerary.

 

[magicallyDisney001]

Two trips ago, we were eating in the Polynesian (maybe at Kona??) on our last night when suddenly DD6 (then 4) burst into tears. After eating them at every meal, she just couldn’t face another chicken finger.

It seems like the only places you can get something other than chicken fingers and the like for kids are at fancier, more expensive restaurants.

Anyway, glad to see that the dining and hotel is all planned out!

 

[ksl5f123]

It seems like the only places you can get something other than chicken fingers and the like for kids are at fancier, more expensive restaurants.

So true, so true!! That is one of the reasons we go to buffets. Then the kids can have lots of choices! I am also not above eating a chicken finger, so if we have to trade entrees at a counter service place, so be it.

 

[ksl5f123]

Our 180 day dining window opened on December 9, 2009. I wanted to plan out which parks we would go to each day before then so we could put our ADRs in the parks we would be touring. Luckily, the June park hours were released by Dec. 2 so I had a full week to figure it out.. Here is the plan I came up with including the ADRs and times that I really wanted:

Day 1: arrival, ADR at Tutto Italia at 7:00
Day 2: MK, BBB at 8 AM, CRT at 10:30
Day 3: Epcot, Coral Reef at 6 PM
Day 4: Chef Mickey at 7:30 AM - BB/DTD
Day 5: DHS, Mama Melrose F! Dining Package
Day 6: AK, Tusker House at 9:30, 1900 Park Fare at 7 PM
Day 7: day off
Day 8: Epcot, Akershus at 6 PM
Day 9: MK, Crystal Palace at 11:30 AM

We liked this plan because we got to start and end at MK. It also allowed us to take advantage of AM EMH at DHS, AK, and on our 2nd day at MK.

As the window approached, I got really nervous. I spent some time practicing the online reservation system. That was good because I couldn’t figure out what our reservation number was and I had to spend some time on the phone with my TA getting it all straightened out. I would have been pretty upset if that had happened on our booking morning! When our day arrived, I was up at 6 AM ready to go!

Up next, will we get the places we want?

 

[ksl5f123]

I started by booking CRT first right at 6 AM. Then did the rest of my dining ADRs using the online system Finally, I called and booked the F! dining package and the BBB. To my amazement, I was done in less than an hour. Here is how I did (the original plan is regular type and the booked times are bold):

Day 1: arrival, ADR at Tutto Italia at 7:00 - ADR at 7:40 PM
Day 2: MK, BBB at 8 AM, CRT at 10:30 - BBB at 8 AM, ADR for CRT at 10:15
Day 3: Epcot, Coral Reef at 6 PM - ADR for 5:50 PM
Day 4: Chef Mickey at 7:30 AM - BB/DTD - ADR for 7:35 AM
Day 5: DHS, Mama Melrose F! Dining Package - ADR at 4 PM
Day 6: AK, Tusker House at 9:30, 1900 Park Fare at 7 PM - ADRs for 10 AM and 7:25 PM
Day 7: day off
Day 8: Epcot, Akershus at 6 PM - ADR for 6:30 PM
Day 9: MK, Crystal Palace at 11:30 AM - ADR for 11:45 AM

I was surprised that Tutto was the “hardest” to get. We took a time 40 minutes later than we were hoping for. Everything else was within 15 minutes of the time we hoped for. I was thrilled with how easy it was to book dining online!

All of the reservations are done. What happens next? Shopping, of course!

 

[Arielssister]

I'm enjoying your PTR. I love details, too.

 

[ksl5f123]

I'm enjoying your PTR. I love details, too.

Arielssister!!! So happy to have you reading along!!

 

[ksl5f123]

I interrupt the regularly scheduled PTR update to discuss our WDW "practice".

Yesterday, DD6 had a chess tourney to attend (she placed 2nd!!! ), so while she and DH were there, I decided to take DD4 and DS1 to the zoo. It was $1 admission/free parking day - it usually costs $10/adult and $8/child age 1 & up with $2 for parking. For our family of 5, that is $46 just for admission to the zoo!!!

Anyway, we arrived at 8:50 for the 9 AM opening. Because it was $1 admission day, there was a line down the street to get in. DS1 rode in the stroller, while DD4 walked the whole time. Our zoo is VERY 3-dimensional and I was thrilled that DD4 never complained once about the walking (I am still bringing a stroller for her to WDW, just in case).

At about 10:30, DD4 needed a potty stop. This was our only problem of the day as she didn't like the pottys. We need to work on this. Although it was early, after our stop, we were ready for lunch!! DD4 and DS1 did great sharing food.

We walked all over the zoo, probably about 1.5 miles total. We stayed from 9 AM to 1 PM. We got back to the car then headed over to see DD6 get her medal at the tourney, and both kids fell asleep during the 10 mile drive - and they slept for 2 hours!!! Lesson - if we plan to do RD at WDW, we WILL need to leave by 1 PM for nap time or we WILL have very cranky kids!

OK, next time will be about the shopping!

 

[My_Pal_Pluto]

It'll be great connecting on your thread ... I'm smiling to know others hold the same obsessive Disney nature I do!! I'm enjoying reading about your planning and will look forward to staying caught up!!

 

[ksl5f123]

It'll be great connecting on your thread ... I'm smiling to know others hold the same obsessive Disney nature I do!! I'm enjoying reading about your planning and will look forward to staying caught up!!

Thanks for hopping over! It will be fun to watch each other plan!

 

[ksl5f123]

It was now early December which means that it is time to finish up the Christmas shopping. I didn’t really get anything for the trip for Christmas, but we did get lots of Disney stuff.

The “big” gift for my girls this year was the Cinderella Castle play set. I felt really lucky to get this. We had originally wanted a castle play set from Target, but it was sold out when I arrived. I got a rain check, but was then reading some online reviews of it and they were terrible. Then I was shopping the Disney website looking for something to replace it. I searched play sets pretty much every day and one day the castle set came up - it had been “temporarily out of stock” for weeks. I quickly bought one and found the next day they were “temporarily out of stock” again! I was thrilled that I got one on one day they had them.

The girls also got princess lamps from Kohls and a princess storytelling alarm clock from Toys R Us.

When Christmas was over, the big shopping began! Now came the Disneystore.com twice a year sale!!! I really enjoyed this. My girls got matching T-shirts for each day, DS got a t-shirt or outfit for each day, the nephews got matching t-shirts (only one each), DH and FIL got matching t-shirts (one each), and MIL and I got matching t-shirts (2 each - plus I got 3 more) - Yep, you got it! I bought 32 t-shirts!! Total spent = $165!

I have also been working on welcome baskets for my kids. We got the 18” plush Minnie (for DD6), Daisy (for DD4), and Mickey (for DS1) for their baskets. I also got the 12” plush Mickey, 2 Minnies, and Tigger to hold invitations for the kids to our ADRs. For 7 plush characters, total spent = $35!

Up next, saving more money!

 

[ksl5f123]

By mid-December, I was pretty much addicted to the Dis boards. I read every new post pretty much every day. I can’t tell you how excited I was to learn about pin codes. I followed all of the instructions religiously - ordered park maps, ordered the DVD, saved vacations, planned itineraries, answered surveys, etc. It took about 3 weeks, but suddenly, there it was!!! I got my very own pin code!!! It was the 30/35/40 pin good through June 12. I immediately called my travel agent. She had never heard of a pin code before (she also didn’t know that you should book ADRs before you get there!!!), but she called Disney anyway and immediately applied the pin to our reservation.

The new cost for our trip - $3445!!! We saved about $400 over our standard AAA discount!

Up next, joining TGM and replanning everything!

 

[ksl5f123]

It was now mid January and I was spending a couple hours a day reading on the Disboards. Each day there was this picture of TGM staring at me. I decided to click over and surf around. It took me about a week of thinking about it to decide to join. The TGM philosophy is to PLAN a very RELAXED resort vacation (this sounded right up my alley!!)

However, I was shocked to learn that TGM thought I should change all of my park days! I debated following his advice for a while, but DH thought his reasoning sounded really good and encouraged me to make the changes. I was convinced pretty easily to change all of my days except our first full day where I had planned to take the girls to BBB and CRT. I had visions of my DD4 just jumping for joy getting her “princess hair” on our very first day. But then I realized we would be in BBB during EMH, while the park was filling up and lines were getting long. So, I re-did EVERYTHING!!

Here are the new park days and all the new ADRs:

Day 1: arrival, ADR at Tutto Italia - ADR moved to 5:20 for earlier bedtime
Day 2: AK, Tusker House at 10:15
Day 3: MK 8:05 BBB - 10:15 CRT - hop to Epcot to meet more princesses - Akershus at 5:10
Day 4: BB/DTD - 1900 Park Fare at 7:25 PM
Day 5: Epcot morning - hop to DHS, Mama Melrose F! Dining Package - ADR at 4 PM
Day 6: MK - CP at 4:25
Day 7: day off - added 7:40 ADR at bluezoo just for DH and me
Day 8: MK - hop to Epcot, Coral Reef at 6 PM
Day 9: Chef Mickey at 7:00 AM - DHS

I am still playing around with these a little. I don’t really like the time on Park Fare or Chef Mickey and am not sure about the hopping on days 3 and 8. DH really likes the idea of an all princess day, but I am concerned about walking WS in the afternoon in the June heat. I am considering replacing the Akershus with a 4:35 ADR at Park Fare and just staying at MK on day 3. Then adding the Akershus ADR to our Epcot morning on Day 5. Then we would have 2 full days at MK and probably wouldn’t need the hop on day 8.

I also don’t like the 7 AM at Chef Mickey because we will have to check out that day. This means we have to be up, packed, and checked out by 6:20 AM to make our ADR and rope drop at DHS. Sounds nasty! Right now we are just thinking about dropping CM altogether - there will be other trips.

Anybody have any great advice?

Up next, our GAD project!

 

[ksl5f123]

When the GAD promotion opened in January, I immediately started looking for opportunities for our family. There are no big cities for about 150 miles from us, so the opportunities were pretty sparse when I put in our zip code. The only project I found was an organization that wanted someone to develop, plan, and carry out a fundraiser for them. No offense to the organization, but that was WAY more work than I was looking for!

I then started putting in other zip codes I knew - my parents = nothing, DH’s parents = nothing, our grad school = winner!!! There was a Project Linus chapter in the town where DH and I went to grad school that required only one blanket per person, would accept DD6 as a volunteer, and would accept the blankets by mail.

I took the girls and went to the fabric store when fleece was on a half price sale. We got one that was navy blue with all different colored dots, solid hot pink that matched some of the dots, a Tiana fabric, and a solid purple that matched the Tiana fabric. Our organizers preferred that we not tie the fringe, so I just sewed the layers together and cut fringe to the sewing line. I will try to post pics if I can figure out how!

We were verified quickly and received our vouchers. They are printed and with my Disney boxes.

Up next, craft time!

 

[ksl5f123]

Thanks to the wonderful people on the DISigns boards, I am now addicted to making things for our trip. So far, I have been working on invitations, autograph books, and hair bows (got that one off of the family board).

For autograph books, I have printed some from the DISigns board onto card stock. I resized them to fit four to a page which makes each one about 4 by 5 inches. I found some great photo albums at Big Lots for two dollars each. DD6 will have a pink one with Aurora and DD4 will have a purple one with Snow White. I couldn’t find one quite so perfect for DS1, so he will just have a black one onto which I will glue a Mickey Mouse.

The invitations I am using came straight of the DISigns board with me just adding our names and ADR times.

For hairbows, I am making them to match each of my girl’s outfits.

For our Animal Kingdom day, they have grey Mickey Mouse shirts. I found ribbon on ebay that is Mickey heads with animal prints. I am combining that with a plain zebra print.

For the day we are having lunch at Crystal Palace, they have pink Winnie the Pooh shirts. I found ribbon with a magenta background with Pooh and Eeyore at Walmart. I will combine that with a solid pink ribbon.

For our day we are having breakfast at Chef Mickey, they have pink and white Minnie Mouse shirts. Again, I found some Minnie Mouse ribbon on eBay with all different pastel colored flowers. I will combine that with a solid pink ribbon also.

We also have some teal colored Tinkerbell shirts (green and teal Tinkerbell ribbon from Michaels), pink Aurora shirts (princess ribbon from Hobby Lobby), hot pink shirts with Aurora, Belle, and Cinderella (princess ribbon from Walmart), and purple Ariel shirts (I haven’t found any character ribbon, so probably just solids for this one).

Up next, Disney memories!