Quick July Trip with My Grown-up Princess

[KarenC]

Hello all!

I'm pretty excited. I've just put the finishing touches on plans for my next WDW trip. I can't believe I'll have gone 3 times in the same year! Last July my whole family (me, hubby, grown daughter and her husband and my son) were there to celebrate my 50th birthday. Hubby and I went again in February. Then one day my DD called me at work to say she had a great idea--she and I should go to Disney World--just the two of us.

DD just finished her first year of a PhD program and will take her qualifying exam in June. She's going to take a few weeks to decompress and spend some quality time with her husband and then we'll go to Orlando from July 9 through the 12th. I'm flying from Chicago, she's flying from Atlanta. If all goes well we'll meet up at MCO and spend our first night at the airport Marriott.

We're staying at the Wilderness Lodge, doing the regular Dining Plan and getting two non-hopper park tickets. This trip is not about seeing everything there is to see but just being together at our favorite vacation spot.

 

[KarenC]

Day One Plans

I'm not counting Friday night at the airport as a day...we'll get up Saturday morning, grab breakfast and head back to the airport to catch ME by 9:30 a.m. We'll check in to WL and get rid of our luggage (I assume our room won't be ready). No park plans for this day.

We'll play it by ear until 12:30, when we have appointments for pedicures at the spa at the GF. Getting pedicures whenever we're together has become a tradition. Once we're relaxed and our toes are happy, we're going to afternoon tea at the GF. We've never done this before and figure this is the time to check it out.

Again, no real plans until dinner. We have 7:30 reservations at the California Grill. We haven't been there since DD's first trip in May 1986 when we had breakfast at The Top of the World restaurant. Here's a photo from that day:

 

[KarenC]

Finally, on Sunday we're going to go to a park! We'll go to Epcot. The only must do on my list is Soarin. Plans are to have a light lunch at Boulangerie Patissiere, using snack credits. Dinner is at Teppan Edo--someplace we always enjoy. Here's a photo from my birthday trip last year.

 

[KarenC]

DD has finished her qualifying exams, gone to Savannah and Hilton Head with her hubby : and on Friday, we leave for our trip. We've firmed up our plans. I did most of my packing this weekend. Share my excitement! If anyone has recent recommendations about what to eat, I'm interested!

Saturday we've added the Afternoon Tea at the Grand Floridian to enjoy after our pedicures. After tea we'll take the monorail and visit the polynesian and contemporary before heading back to the Wilderness Lodge to lounge by the pool. While we're at the Poly we'll check out Captain Cooks to see what we think about having lunch there on our Magic Kingdom day (not much MK CS appeals to us). We're still on for California Grill for dinner

On Sunday we'll have breakfast at the Wave at CR (OOP). We'll have lunch at the CS restaurant in Morocco, Cafe Tangeriene. Dinner's still at Teppan Edo. We've decided to create our own combo meal--DD will order the shrimp and I'll order the filet--and we will share. We've done this before! We're paying for this meal OOP since we're using 2 table service credits at CG.

Monday is our Magic Kingdom day. Breakfast is going to be something light at Roaring Forks. If we like what we see at Captain Cooks, we'll take a boat over to Poly for lunch (sushi sounds good to me). We're heading to the Captains Grill at the Yacht Club for dinner and back to MK for the fireworks and the dessert party!

Breakfast Monday is at the Grand Floridian Cafe, DD's request. We're going to go to Typhoon Lagoon from there--CS lunch TBD--then back to WL to catch the Magical Express. If it's raining, we'll spend the day at Downtown Disney.

I know our plans have us zig-zagging all over the place, but we aren't planning to go on too many rides. We're really just wanting to do the things that "the boys" never want to do when we go with them. It should be fun. I'm bringing my camera and if my daughter doesn't find it too embarassing, I'll come back with food porn!