DisneyFirefly
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2009
Hi there! I'm mostly a lurker of the Dis, but I do sometimes post. I post a lot on the games board, but my main area for lurking is the DFTW board. If I ever get married, I want it to be at WDW
Table of Contents
Planned Restaurants
Possibly nixing the Universal day
Definitely nixing the Universal day
The One Armed Man appears
MK Must-Do's
Changing from Contemporary to POR
DHS Must-Do's
And we go from 3 geeks on a plane to 4!
Shopping and airport transportation details.
Wishes cruise instead of Cirque
Picture post 1
Picture post 2
Epcot Must-Do's
DAK Must-Do's
More changes
Mother's Day pics
Six Flags mini-TR
More shopping ideas
Random updates
DBF and I broke up
Possible postponement
Postponed until November 2011, but I'm going in October 2010!
New PTR for Halloween trip!
Starring Roles
Me
I'm Dana. I'm 25, born and bred in Chicago, but I feel like I belong in Orlando. I'm a former CM. I did the College Program twice and absolutely loved it. My first CP was in 2004, when I worked in housekeeping at the Boardwalk. My second was technically an alumni program, followed by seasonal employment, in MK custodial. I'm currently working in health care, and planning on applying to nursing school in the fall of 2011 for admission in fall of 2012 (stupid waiting period
). Hopefully I'll be able to move back down to Orlando and get a job as an RN down there, possibly even in the parks. If all goes according to plan, I should be done with nursing school in 2014, right around the time I turn 30 
Jacquie and Ian
Jacquie and Ian live out in Dekalb, IL, which is about an hour or so away from me. Jacquie and I were roommates freshman year of college. We hit it off the first time we spoke, actually. Our school sent contact information for roommates prior to semester start and we talked for probably about two hours on the phone the first time. Our third roommate hated us and moved out not long after Halloween that year. Ian's her husband. She's 25, he's 24. I've known Jacquie for almost eight years now, and Ian for just a few months less. They've been married for three years this May, after being together since Jacquie was a senior in high school. I actually remember when he proposed to her, because I was across the room! He did it on the phone (we were in school in Wisconsin) and she just started crying and I asked her if she was okay, and she just says, "Yes, he proposed!" Anyway, she's one class shy of a Bachelor's in chemistry, and he's half done with a degree in history. She works in customer service, and he works for campus security.
On Location
We're currently planning on staying at the Contemporary in a Tower room, but if we don't have the money, it'll be Caribbean Beach. I've only ever stayed at Pop, and they've never been at all. I worked at Boardwalk and have resort hopped to see almost all of them, and I particularly love the Yacht & Beach Club and Wilderness Lodge. We'd probably stay at Yacht Club, but we're leaning toward Contemporary because we want to be on the monorail. Plus, the view just really can't be beat
Shooting Dates
We're planning on January 5-12, 2011. We'll be flying on Southwest out of Midway in Chicago. Jacquie and Ian are spending the holidays in Texas with his family, and are coming back (I think) January 2, so we decided on Jan 5-12 so that they'd have a couple days to take care of things at home, do laundry, re-pack, and have a couple days to themselves. I'm hoping that Ian's spring term that year won't start until after the 13th, for obvious reasons, but he may be done by then anyway. My school usually starts around MLK Day, so mine's not a problem.
Build-Up
This is likely going to be the only time we ever get to do this, unless I ever do get married at Disney or they have a vow renewal down there. It's something we've been planning for about six months because they have financial issues (Ian's job sucks, and Jacquie was unemployed for half of last year due to the economy), just as I do (also unemployed for half of last year, partly due to the economy, partly because I lost my job at Disney
).Originally, we were planning on it being a celebratory trip for their respective graduations and my admission into nursing school, but that's changed. There's no way I'll be ready to apply for nursing school by the time the next cycle rolls around (the next round of applications start October 1, 2010), so that's out. I'm not sure if Jacquie will be able to graduate by then, but Ian will almost definitely not. We're hoping Jacquie will be done by then, since she's only got the one class left.
The reason for the title is that we're a bunch of geeks. We're all Browncoats, Jacquie and I are Gleeks and Hufflepuffs, and Ian's a gamer (both board and video). If you understand any of that first bit, you rock. We tend to talk in movie and TV quotes. We love to cook and eat. Whenever we get together, at least part of the day (because it's rarely less than a day) is spent either cooking something or talking about recipes we want to try. Part of what we're looking forward to most about this trip is the food
Script
Jacquie and I have decided that our ethos for this trip is "Go big or stay at home". So, we're going big
I have an in-depth spreadsheet with each of our days planned out with what restaurants we're going to try and get ADR's at.
The only one I'm really concerned about is Le Cellier. We're booking as early as we can so we can take advantage of the 180+10 for ADR's. We're doing the DDxP because, this way, we can afford to eat at places like Coral Reef and CRT. If we weren't doing the dining plan, we'd be eating QS and in our room all week. We think it'll work out for us because we're going in low season and, honestly, with a former CM, we'll have a pretty good idea of what to hit first and what can wait. Also, we're planning on going to four different Signature restaurants and a dinner show, so that's half of our credits right there (30 out of 63). On our park days, we only have two restaurants each, so we will have the time to properly wander the parks. The other days are resort/DD hopping days, along with a Universal day.We're going to spend one day at Universal IOA because of the new Harry Potter park. As I said above, we're a bunch of geeks, so it's honestly the only reason we're going to Universal. When I was living in Orlando, I never once made it into either of the Universal parks, despite living right near them. I made it to City Walk a few times, but that was it.
If we have to cut something, it'll likely be the Universal day, because it'll be a minimum of $240 just to get into the parks (3 adult tickets plus taxes). We're not sure yet, though. We want to go, but it's not that important. If we really want to spend another day at a park, we'll probably just pay the extra couple bucks to get another day at Epcot or MK and pay OOP for QS or something.
They don't know it, but I'm going to be surprising them with tickets to Cirque Du Soleil
I sort of never got them a wedding present, due to financial difficulties (Jacquie knew what was going on and insisted that I not), so I'm getting them tickets for that. I'm planning on going to the AMC theater or something while they see the show.Jacquie and I are planning on getting a custom cake at the Grand Floridian. On my spreadsheet, I have us there for breakfast on our first full day, so I'm assuming we'll be able to get it then. We're leaning toward that awesome Haunted Mansion cake I've seen in the cake threads, but I'm not sure if we can get it there or if we'd have to get it at the Contemporary. If that's the case, I might look into having it delivered from private dining or something. If we can't get it at either place, then we'll figure something out, as long as it's awesome. Ian, of course, has no idea.
Actually, Ian has no idea about most of this. He's actually told Jacquie that he'll just let us plan it, and he'll show up and pay his share.
We're going to be renting a car, since we're going to be there for eight days and only four of those days will be in-park
We don't want to spend several hours a day sitting on Disney buses and the monorail trying to get from resort to resort, and then the Universal day and everything... It's just easier. It'll be a little expensive, but it'll be worth it.The One-Armed Man
There's a very slight possibility that there will be four of us instead of just three. It depends on if I happen to meet someone (i.e., a guy, so I'm not a third wheel all week
) who happens to want to come with. Because it's not likely to happen, we're planning for three adults, but we have discussed a contingency plan. We've decided that if there are going to be four of us, we'll likely just get connecting rooms at CBR, because there we can get a two room package for the price of our package at CR.Again, this isn't a very likely outcome, because it's less than a year away and even though I'm a romantic, I'm also a realist and I know that there's very little possibility that anyone I meet would want to come with on the trip after dating for less than a year. Still, because there is that slight possibility, we've got the contingency plan in place. At any rate, if I don't meet someone by the time we book in the summer, we're just going to go ahead with CR.
And Now For Something Completely Different...
Less than 11 months until we step foot on Disney property! Yay!
I'll probably be posting our list of restaurants later. I literally just got home from work (yay third shift), so am about to crash.
That's kinda funny 
What do you do, if you don't mind my asking?
I've eaten here before, and I really liked it. I think Jacquie and Ian will get a kick out of it. They have FearNet as part of their cable package, and Jacquie and I have this habit of putting on awful horror movies and then making fun of them. We're planning on doing a lunch there.
We wound up stopping at McDonald's on the way back to my apartment. I told Jacquie about it, how it's this little building right out on the water and you can see Wishes from it, and she was intrigued, so we're going there.
_
My whole family's on a T-Mobile family plan (all five of us), and I'm not about to get a jailbroken iPhone when Apple's allegedly able to install things that will shut down your phone if it's jailbroken. I got it last week, directly from Apple, so it's engraved on the back with a quote from Walt Disney.
Also, I may have possibly met someone on eHarmony. Well, I did technically meet him, I just don't know if it's going to go anywhere. He's nice, though. I'll just see where it goes 
