I Finally Convinced My Husband That an AP Was The Only Option *Updated 10/13*

rmw1313

Earning My Ears
Joined
Sep 17, 2016
It's a little early for me to be starting this PTR, but once my DH gave me dates that he could get off from work for a vacation my mouse gears started firing at full speed.

Who?

Hi! I'm Rachele (pronounced Rachel..my parents hate me). I'm the 27 year old gal in the middle, and that adorable creature posing with me is my husband Andrew. We're from Pittsburgh, Pa and we're coming up on our second wedding anniversary in September.

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I'm the planner for our trips and Andrew is my diligent note taker for while we're actually there.

I love Animal Kingdom, my adorable dog Oliver, eating and consuming alcoholic beverages, Pittsburgh Sports, Binge watching Netflix and high-fiveing strangers.

Favorite Ride: 7DMT
Favorite Park: Animal Kingdom
Favorite Princess: Ariel
Favorite Character: Pooh
Favorite Disney Restaurant: Paddlefish
Favorite Bar: Trader Sam's

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Andrew and I have been together for 6 years and married for almost 2. He and I typically share photography duties . He loves thrill rides, is equally as obsessed with Disney, and always ready to tag along on whatever crazy adventure I'm planning next.

Favorite Ride: RnR
Favorite Park: DHS
Favorite Princess: "My Wife" (JK he didn't say that:confused3) - Jasmin
Favorite Character: Goofy
Favorite Disney Restaurant: Victoria and Albert's..
I made him pick another: Be Our Guest (he loves the theming)
Favorite Bar: Tune-In Lounge or Boathouse Dock Bar

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Why?

This will be our 3rd time going to Disney together. The first was our amazing 10 day Disneymoon where we stayed Club Level at the Beach Club. The second was last January (I did a PTR but was a major slacker on a TR) anyway- cliff notes version- my in-laws invited themselves on what was supposed to be a first anniversary trip and while it was nice it wasn't exactly what we were wanting in an anniversary trip. Time for a do-over.

annnnd now we have number 3 which we are not telling anyone about until right before we leave

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That may seem mean, but trust me it's necessary.

Where?

Our last two trips have been spent enjoying this beauty:
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But this time we are planning on staying at the Polynesian :love:

..This may change based on room availability/discounts/Andrew's need to be within walking distance to 2 parks.

When?

We can't book anything yet (flights or Disney package) so these dates are subject to change but we are planning 2/4-2/11. We went in January this year and while some days were a bit colder and more crowded than we anticipated we really enjoyed the Festival of the Arts and are excited to do that again!



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This is Oliver. If you stick around you'll see a lot more of him :rotfl2:

Up Next: Hot Mess ADR Express​
 
Love the photos, seems like a great start! Love that you added favorite bar to your bios ;) Trader Sam's is my favorite,too!
 
Sounds like fun! I am dying to check out Trader Sam's this summer! I am right with your DH in V&A's being my fave restaurant and my three teenagers and I are in love with the Epcot resort area although we have have a slight bias towards the Yacht Club. It is never too early to plan for Disney, it's half the fun after all! :)
 


Sounds like fun! I am dying to check out Trader Sam's this summer! I am right with your DH in V&A's being my fave restaurant and my three teenagers and I are in love with the Epcot resort area although we have have a slight bias towards the Yacht Club. It is never too early to plan for Disney, it's half the fun after all! :)

The first time we went to Trader Sam's was in January and I am hooked..it is so much fun! IDK how we will survive not being at an EPCOT resort lol we LOVED the Poly when we visited it but the EPCOT area just feels like home.
 
Following along! :wave2: I hope we get to try the Festival of the Arts next year too it sounds so cool.
 
Following along! :wave2: I hope we get to try the Festival of the Arts next year too it sounds so cool.

yay!! Welcome!! Festival of the Arts was so much fun- definitely had the feel of food and wine/flower and garden but with milder weather and much lower crowds. We loved it!
 


Your dog is so cute. I love him and will stick around just to see that face some more. Oh, and your trip sounds great. :P
 
ANNNND WE ARE OFFICIALLY BOOKED FOR THE POLY!!!
228 Days.
I'm still waiting to hear back from a TA to see if they can get us a better rate but I also booked through Disney this morning when the window opened just to be sure. We had such an amazing stay at the Beach Club on our last trip that it literally is killing me to not book a second reservation there just in case I change my mind in a few months :rolleyes1
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ADRs are a mess.. Like, an absolute mess. Mostly because everywhere that we want to eat is at Disney Springs. Andrew and I try to keep a running list of our Disney restaurant must-dos for each trip. This is what we have so far:
-Paddlefish
-Boathouse (We were just at both of these in May for an impromptu weekend trip on our way back from another vacation...and they were amazing. For sure two of our favorite places at Disney..so I know we'll want to go back)
-Homecomin' (Our favorite from our January trip)
-'Ohana (We've never been)
-Jiko (Our favorite from our honeymoon trip)
-Splitsville (Probably just for drinks- we were so surprised how much fun we had here on our honeymoon)

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I've been too busy recently to plan like the crazy person that I enjoy being. So hopefully this week we can talk through breakfast/lunch ideas as well as come up with some kind of a tentative park schedule.

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Quick Life Update:

This past weekend I went to the Sam Hunt/Maren Morris concert and this upcoming weekend I'm going to see Dierks Bentley with some friends. Country concerts are usually a big deal where I'm from- so they are a ton of fun to go to.

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And in the spirit of Father's Day being this past weekend and since we don't have any kids..here is a picture that just absolutely melts my heart

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World's best dog dad, right here.

Stay tuned if you want to find out if we ever decide on ADRs/Park Plans

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Hello :) I'm looking at a ladies trip for my friend and I the same week you guys are going! We are probably going the more budget-friendly route of Pop Century, but hi!!!
 
Hello :) I'm looking at a ladies trip for my friend and I the same week you guys are going! We are probably going the more budget-friendly route of Pop Century, but hi!!!

:wave:Welcome!!! You'll have to share some of your plans for your week..because as you can tell I'm struggling this time around lol!
 
Andrew's Birthday- Part 1

Summer activities have been in full force in our house for the past week and a half. Mine and Andrew's birthdays are 8 days apart so between lots of birthday celebrations (his are over..mine are just beginning :thumbsup2), trips to the zoo, concerts, weddings, baby showers, and trying to work on projects at our new house..we can barely catch our breathe with Disney planning. Every time I bring it up, Andrew's response is "Rachele it's like 7 months away..chill." Chill?!?! He obviously doesn't get the pressure of 180 ADRs. Anyway...

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218 days to go!!!

Something that I recently noticed was our mutual obsession with Landry's owned restaurants (helloooo BOAThouse and Paddlefish).. which wasn't apparent at all until Andrew was deciding where he wanted to go for his birthday dinners. Yes, dinners. One was just us, the other with my parents. The one with just us he chose Mitchell's Fish Market.

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Birthday Boy rocking his news Pens Stanley Cup Champs shirt

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For wine, we stuck to old favorites. He had a Louis Martini cab- he had anticipated ordering beef, and I had their house Chardonnay- I can't remember the brand but it was good- nothing special but it did the trick.

For appetizers Andrew got a wedge salad, which I snuck a few bites of, and I had the Lobster Bisque.

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(Excuse my terrible photography skills)

Again, nothing exceptional.

For dinner, I really wasn't hungry for fish and was actually in a pasta mood. Unfortuanelty they didn't really have a pasta dish on their menu. So I ordered another appetizer as my entree, lobster Mac and cheese. Andrew ordered the Halibut with marbled potatoes and spring vegetables.

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Andrew really liked the Halibut and said it was cooked perfectly- I only ate about half of the Mac and cheese. It was pretty dry and the lobster had zero flavor. I stuck to wine for the rest of the night. :rotfl2:

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Overall, Andrew really loved Mitchell's and had even mentioned going back for his actual birthday dinner. Looking back I think that I just really wasn't in the mood for seafood and ordered the wrong things. But it left me with the opinion that it's just an overpriced/slightly more upscale Red Lobster, and I'm in no huge hurry to go back.

Stay tuned to see what other Landry's owned establishment we visited last week and how we think they stack up against our Disney Springs favorites!



 
Andrew's Birthday- Part 2

Andrew's actual birthday was on Monday, so we had planned a dinner outing to Pittsburgh's South Side with my parents after work. Unfortunately, we both got out of work a little later than planned and my parents had to reschedule. Andrew had mentioned that for his birthday he wanted his favorite things, Oliver (our dog), steak, beer and cheesecake. Quite a combination, right? Again, I let him chose the restaurant which he wasn't able to actually do until the very last second.

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Have you all seen the memes/videos about how women can never chose a place to eat? Let me tell you, my husband is worse. We will drive in a circle for hours until he finally gets so frustrated and hangry that he has to chose a place. Luckily, it didn't quite get to that point this time- but it was close.

We ended up at...

McCormick & Schmick's
(again..he wanted steak but chose a seafood restaurant?..)

After being seated in a completely empty restaurant, which was incredibly awkward, we were handed our menus. The menu, down to the paper type and font, was exactly the same as Mitchell's. After a quick google search- we figured out that they were both owned by Landry's.

We ordered the same wines as at Mitchell's- And for an appetizer we ordered Oysters Rockefeller.

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This was Andrew's first time eating oysters, apparently. I had sworn that we had gotten them before- but he didn't remember.
These were made with spinach, bacon, Pernod, and hollandaise.
and they were AMAZING. At 4/$16 they were not a particularly good value and had it not been Andrew's birthday we probably wouldn't have splurged for them, but they were truly phenomenal and I'm so glad that we did.
Our waitress had told us that they had a happy hour with them every Thursday, where each one was only $2 (essentially 50% off). We are 100% going back for that.

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For entrees Andrew chose the filet and stuffed shrimp with blue cheese and onion mashed potatoes and I had Swordfish Casino (Lump Crab, Roasted Red Pepper and Bacon) and I substituted the mushroom spinach sauté for white cheddar mashed potatoes.

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Andrew ordered his steak medium rare, and it was served more closely to medium well. He also said that his shrimp were a tad overcooked as well. As for his mashed potatoes, he said that you couldn't taste the blue cheese in them and they didn't really stand out from any other mashed potato that he'd had. My dish, however, was phenomenal. The swordfish was cooked perfectly and the casino mixture was packed with flavor. Andrew and I both agreed that my white cheddar mashed potatoes were the better choice. I could only finish about half of my meal and Andrew happily cleared my plate for me.

If Andrew won the meal battle at Mitchell's, I definitely won it here.

We took a peek at the dessert menu, but nothing caught our interest. So we took a short walk to the Hofbrauhaus next door, to check off another one of Andrew's birthday wishes- Beer!

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Ladies and Gentleman, The Dunkel. Andrew's favorite Hofbrauhaus Brew. This picture doesn't really do the size of this mug justice- it was huge!

After our after-dinner-drinks. We headed next door to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert. We were both so stuffed, so we took our choices to go. I forgot to take a picture, so enjoy some stock photos!

Andrew got the Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake- with layers of flowerless Godiva chocolate cake, Godiva chocolate cheesecake, and chocolate mousse. This was wayyyyy too rich for me, but Andrew enjoyed it.
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and I got the White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle (my go-to favorite).

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After completing Andrew's birthday dinner checklist (Steak, Beer and Cheesecake) we headed back to the car and caught this beautiful sunset on our way back:

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After we got home Andrew opened a few of his gifts:

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A Bobba Fett shirt from the NEFF Disney collection, Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar shirt, and a long-sleeved henley that Andrew has wanted since our last two trips but we could never find in his size. Not-pictured: Jungle Cruise socks.

This finally concludes Andrew's birthday celebrations...now it's my turn :cheer2:Stay tuned to see what fun adventures we have in store for this weekend. And to see if we will ever decide on ADRs :rotfl2:

 
Ugh..I've been THE WORST about updating lately, but I promise I'm ready to get back on track! So many fun Disney and Non-Disney things have happened lately..so let's get caught up!

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First..BIG NEWS. We were able to book a very late, very last-minute October trip last week...ANNNND we are getting APs! Our one trip year has quickly grown in to four and we are SO Excited! Andrew never, and I mean NEVER gets multiple days off in a row during the Fall. But somehow this year it worked out to where he was able to string together a Sunday-Wednesday mini-vacation and I was ready to take full advantage. We talked about maybe going to Vegas, The Bahamas, Niagra Falls, or the Florida Keys..but we both decided with such a limited amount of time we wanted to go somewhere that we were familiar with because that is what is relaxing to us.

...We TRIED to go somewhere else...we just can't

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Side Note: When I was telling my co-workers this, they all look at me like I'm crazy. "Did you just say, 'Disney' and 'Relaxing' in the same sentence?" Yep. I did. Judge away.

Which led us to APs, Food and Wine and a jam-packed 4 day getaway.
Not surprising, pretty much every Deluxe resort is sold-out for anything reasonably priced, unless a $1,000/night CL room at the Contemporary is your kind of reasonable. Which ultimately led to us making the decision..stay off-property and hate our lives or settle for a value/moderate and make the most of it.

I am please to announce that we will be staying at.....

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We got a descent deal and since the rooms have been remodeled, it actually looks pretty nice. We also figured that this would make our time at the Poly in February even more amazing. And, to be perfectly honest, we don't spend very much time at our resort anyway. Nevertheless, WE ARE PUMPED!

I also ended up being incredibly lucky with ADRs..who says you need to wake up at 6am for 180 days out with luck like this?
Sunday 10/15: California Grill 7:05 (This is also a Halloween Party night!)
Monday 10/16: Yachtsman 6:00pm (I also have this booked for Feb so I'll have to update that)
Tuesday 10/17: Tiffins 6:05
Wednesday 10/18: GF Cafe Lunch 12:45

We are keeping Breakfast/Lunches easy and light since this is a last minute trip and we want to keep our budget small since we will be returning in February for a longer stay. I also may change Sunday to The Boathouse so that we can spend some time in Disney Springs. PLUS..HELLO...FOOD AND WINE BUDGET!!

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We did MNSSHP on our actual honeymoon 2 years ago, so we probably won't do it again this time around. We found ourselves not participating much in the seasonal offerings anyway, and really just trying to ride as much as we could with limited wait times.

Stay tuned for updated February ADRs and October FPs (once I get my APs linked)...oh..and here's Oliver!
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I changed the title of this PTR because I'm planning on using it to help plan all of our trips this year. So far, we're planning for October, Feb, May and possibly late June/early July for our birthdays.

I'M.SO.EXCITED.

33 Days until our last-minute Fall trip
146 Days until our Super Bowl trip

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I went to our local Disney store to buy our AP vouchers yesterday so that I could start looking for future discounts/book our FPs for October. The CM working at the register said that they were the first APs that he's ever sold :cool1: I also caught Southwest on a good day yesterday because the flights that I had been tracking for October took a serious price-cut. Now everything is booked and I'm just anxiously waiting for our long weekend away.

Our second wedding anniversary is coming up at the end of this month, and with it being the "Cotton" anniversary I needed some inspiration. Leave it to Pinterest to save the day.

I'm planning on doing something similar to this:
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Where each letter starts the sentence. The entire thing is going to be Disney themed and I'm super excited. I'll post some pictures once it's done, but I need to procrastinate finishing it for a little because the second it's done I'll want to give it to him :rotfl2:

Within the next couple of days I'll start posting day-by-day plans for October and the post our February dining plans!

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We are officially 29 days out from our last minute fall trip!

annnnnd I've spent all morning making massive changes. whoops.

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So the more I thought about it the more I knew that POP probably wasn't the right resort for us for the particular trip. The purpose of us taking this trip is to relax and catch our breath from our jobs/life and I wanted to feel at ease and comfortable..no matter how short the stay was. This past weekend I lost my grandfather unexpectedly and Andrew and I have both been absolutely losing our minds over our jobs- like each working 60+ hours a week losing our minds. I don't think that the layout at POP is necessarily conducive to the "relaxation getaway" that we are looking for and ever since I booked the room I've been obsessively checking Disney for room cancelations at other resorts. Last night I was asking Andrew what some of his bucket-list Disney resorts were (other than GF..I know that's his dream resort and Poly because we are staying there in Feb) and he said AKL and either Saratoga Springs or OKW because of their proximity to Disney Springs.

And wouldn't coincidence have it that availability for our dates showed up at all 3 of those resorts first thing this morning

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After weighing pros/cons like an overly obsessed Disney fanatic does I ultimately decided on...

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So the decision basically came down to a few things: 1.) I've been desperate to stay here since I was kid when it first opened, and Andrew never really seemed as interested in it as I was. So when he told me he wanted to stay here I felt like I needed to take advantage of that. 2.) There are so many amazing restaurants at this resort that I've wanted to try for a long time, but they just never seem to fit in to our plans. I even tried for awhile to fit a few of them in to our February plans and I just couldn't really make it work. 3.) This is technically our 2 year wedding anniversary celebration and I wanted it to be memorable. 4.) THE BEDS AT DELUXE RESORTS ARE THE ABSOLUTE BEST AND I SLEEP LIKE A BABY.

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With this update came some dining updates!

I was able to add Boma breakfast and Sanaa lunch, as well as keep our Tiffins reservation. I'm also really exited to try The Mara and Victoria Falls Lounge. Jiko is one of my absolute favorite restaurants at Disney, but we already went there on our Honeymoon and I have it booked again for February, so I'm excited to try some new places that I've heard really great things about.

Couple those ADRs with Food and Wine/Yachtsman and either Cali Grill or BOAThouse and we are well on our way to gaining 10lbs on this trip.

Give. Me. All. The. Food.



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While I'm pretty convinced that Andrew has caught on to the fact that we are going to Disney in October, I know that he thinks we will be staying at a Value Resort. I'm going to go ahead and let him think that until we get on the ME :rotfl:

Up next..Day by Day plans and outfits!
 
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.ANNNND we are getting APs

:cheer2:

There are so many amazing restaurants at this resort that I've wanted to try for a long time, but they just never seem to fit in to our plans. I even tried for awhile to fit a few of them in to our February plans and I just couldn't really make it work

Yes the restaurants are sooo good and I love it there! You'll love it so much.
 
26 Days Until Food and Wine FunFest
..I just decided to start calling it that apparently?

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Moving on...here are some day one plans!

We should arrive at MCO around 9:15 and then "operation surprise Andrew with our resort" will ensue as we get on board the ME for AKL :love:

I don't anticipate our rooms being ready so I figured that we would confirm our check-in and then hop on a bus to MK.
*This is pretty out of the ordinary for us because we almost always start at DHS, but with this being such a short trip and DHS being such a mess, I'd rather not waste a ton of time there...especially since we will be back for longer in February.*

At Magic Kingdom I'm hoping to get lunch first at Pecos Bills since we've never tried it before and I've read some great reviews about their nachos...and I am a sucker for nachos.

I got last minute FPs for Peter Pan, Haunted Mansion, and Space Mountain which I feel pretty good about. I'm also hoping to ride a few more before the park closes for MNSSHP.

I currently have a 7p reservation for California Grill, but I think I'm going to change it for somewhere in Disney Springs- Probably BOAThouse. I'm going to wait to change anything officially until I give Andrew his anniversary basket to see which he prefers, but I'm almost positive he won't pick Cali Grill. We went in January and he just wasn't blown away by it and I think the dock bar at BOAThouse is more his scene.

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*Us watching the Penguins playoff game @ the dock bar in May..one of our favorite nights at Disney*

So if we end up going to Disney Springs we will probably leave MK around 5-6 and go back to AKL to settle in and change for dinner. If we don't go to DS I plan on closing down MK and then walking to the Contemporary for dinner.

Either way I planned on us spending some time in Disney Springs this night, whether we eat there or not. I'd like to hit up some of the shops/bars and then head back to AKL around midnight or so.

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Someone LOVES the Hangar Bar

Even though day 1 is always a super early morning for us (like we have to wake up at 4am to leave for the airport early) once we get in the parks adrenaline kicks in and we suddenly no longer feel the need to sleep :confused3 guess it's just the magic of Disney!

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I wish I had that same kind of energy at home/work :laughing:

Up next..how does one "budget" for Food and Wine?


 

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