VWL Groupies & Lovers Thread (Special Collectors Edition 2.0) updated 21 June 2023

Does anyone else hear the hallelujah chorus playing? Just checked out with my principal, and the 2018-2019 school year has come to an end!!!:rockband: This means I will able to read the DIS far more often and keep up with the groupies more often.

I apologize about my lack of understanding of the game of hockey. I was raised in Florida where hockey does not really exist. Years ago, we had a farm team called the Mobile Mysticks. We went to a couple of games, but apparently others in the South were also not into hockey because they didn't last around here long. If you'd like to discuss football, we Alabamians know ALL about that! :)

In Disney related things, I have one week to decide if I want to do the Princess 1/2 marathon again in February. I already reserved my DVC room just in case. If I'm going that weekend, I was having thoughts of attempting both the 10K and the 1/2. Need to decide soon, and I'm just not sure what to do.

I've gotten our rooms for the Darkside again next year. Everyone is in for the 5th Anniversary!
 
Granny I hope you are safe, not sure if you were affected by the scary storms!

Thanks, Corinne. We were lucky in the St. Louis area this time, but our capital city of Jefferson City had quite a bit of damage from tornadoes. Here we just had tons of rain and the 70 mph winds that just brought down the usual trees and such. But no serious injuries in my area that I'm aware of, thank God.

Does anyone else hear the hallelujah chorus playing? Just checked out with my principal, and the 2018-2019 school year has come to an end!!!:rockband:

Erin...congratulations on the close of another school year! And doing both the 10K and 1/2 marathon sounds as foreign to me as hockey sounds to you! If I attempted to run in a race of any length they would have to start me dead last so I wouldn't get run over! :snail:
 
Erin: do the race. You don't know how long you'll be able race or want to race (saying from experience).
Granny: I lived in Sedalia for three years in my youth.
Me: Also out of school, though we still go for another 2.5 weeks. Minor surgery but can't drive for two weeks following. Tennis season still moving along. Team regional semifinal next Monday, though I don't think we'll win--much better team top to bottom. Doubles tourney saw my duo bow out in the regional semis, too, today. My #1 seed, however, is heading to state in a couple of weeks. She won the region championship.

We're excited about heading to HHI in July, and really looking forward to our few days in Dec before our Christmas cruise. Hope all are well!
 


sleepydog25 said:
Granny: I lived in Sedalia for three years in my youth.

The tornadoes went right past Sedalia on their way to Jefferson City. Looks like your old town got passed by this time, thank goodness!



We're excited about heading to HHI in July

Sleepy...I will be interested in hearing your thoughts about HHI. We've only been there in the off-season (November) so it will be interesting to hear about a trip in the middle of the busy summer season. We really liked HHI...we rented bikes for the length of stay and I recall that they were pretty reasonable and great for easy access down to the beach house. Best of luck with your surgery and recovery!
 
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Good to hear of school ending for all the teachers and staff out there. You all work so hard and put up with so much. Kick back, put those feet up and order up a tall iced tea (or whatever your fav summer beverage is.)

Erin: do the race. You don't know how long you'll be able race or want to race (saying from experience).
Granny: I lived in Sedalia for three years in my youth.
Me: Also out of school, though we still go for another 2.5 weeks. Minor surgery but can't drive for two weeks following. Tennis season still moving along. Team regional semifinal next Monday, though I don't think we'll win--much better team top to bottom. Doubles tourney saw my duo bow out in the regional semis, too, today. My #1 seed, however, is heading to state in a couple of weeks. She won the region championship.

We're excited about heading to HHI in July, and really looking forward to our few days in Dec before our Christmas cruise. Hope all are well!

She won and made it to the state! Congratulations to her, and of course to her family and to you!

Wishing you the best on your procedure. May it turn out the best it can.
 
Thanks, Corinne. We were lucky in the St. Louis area this time, but our capital city of Jefferson City had quite a bit of damage from tornadoes. Here we just had tons of rain and the 70 mph winds that just brought down the usual trees and such. But no serious injuries in my area that I'm aware of, thank God.


Glad to hear you are safe. We lost a tree last week. It fell onto the neighbors fence thank God. Falling the other direction would have meant falling on two new-ish cars in our driveway. Neighbors fence is OK - just once slat damaged that we will replace.

Our oldest daughter is a teacher and she still has this coming week. She only took 1 of her 5 personal/sick days so she is taking Friday off. Thursday is the last student day with Friday being a teacher day to break classrooms down and clean up. We will be heading to WDW on Friday (driving).

Ian mentors engineering students as a faulty advisor at UTD. He finished up about 2 weeks ago. Yesterday was his last day at work. He is taking 3 weeks off and really looking forward to the down time. He really is such a lucky lucky man to have 3 whole weeks to spend with me 24/7. :rotfl2::littleangel:
 


Thanks for all the well wishers! Surgery done Friday; spent night at hospital for observation, then went home yesterday. Can't do much for the next two weeks but sit/lie around, do a little walking, and not bending over or picking up anything >10 lbs. I am not one to be still for long, so this is gonna annoy me to no end. Patience for physical things is NOT my strength as Luv can attest. . .

Granny: We've actually been to HHI 3-4 times during the summer, the latest last summer. I stayed at the Disney resort years ago, but Luv and I haven't stayed there yet. When we've gone during July (we were married 5 July so that's why we go then), it's either been at the Marriott on the beach or last time was in Palmetto Dunes. I can tell you that HHI has the best CMs anywhere. And the resort is lovely, of course. Access to the beach is easy, either by taking the shuttle, biking, or even driving over. We've toured a 2BR (I've stayed in a 1BR), so although the walls and flooring are a bit thin as I recall, the refurb was well done. Whenever we've stayed offsite, we still managed to stop by the resort, and they are more than willing to let you come in, park, and enjoy some of the amenities such as Tide Me Over, the gift shop, corn hole, putt putt green, and the like. Most of all, we love the dining possibilities on HHI--being foodies, the ability to eat freshly caught and prepared seafood is a real draw. In fact, last year we bought fresh seafood at a small shack down the main parkway and cooked our own boil. We plan to do that our last night in the 2BR, too. We'll let you know how it all goes.
 
Sleepy, great to hear all went well. Here is too a speedy recovery

Hope all have a great Memorial Day! Remembering all who gave all and their families
 
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Groupie moms out there! Also warm wishes to all who educate and nurture the youth of our world in any capacity!

We are winding down our trip with a departure tomorrow. It has been another great trip and we have enjoyed our stay at CCV.

We did the Festival of the Lion King Tier 1 package yesterday which included a three course meal at Tiffins, front row VIP seating at FotLK and a small group tour of the Safari ride with a guide. It was really fun and well worth the $99 per person...our meal at Tiffins would have cost more than that by itself! I highly recommend the package, but if the package doesn’t appeal to you, I highly recommend Tiffins. My wife and I think it may have been the best meal we’ve ever had at WDW! The setting is wonderful as was the service and the meal.

Overall, it has been a very laid back trip. Not a lot of park time and tons of relaxing and enjoying visiting with DDad & Di, and Corinne and Dana. We feel blessed to have such vacations and cherish them dearly.

Hi Granny, we're thinking about booking the Festival of the Lion King Tier 1 package. Sounds very much worth the $99/pp. I also agree about Tiffins. The food and service are fantastic! There will be 6 of us in total (grandparents, parents, and kids). Were you by yourselves on the safari tour, or were you put together with another group? How long was the safari tour? Also, does the safari tour basically follow the regular safari ride? Last question- do they assign you specific times for the meal, FotLK show, and the safari? Thank you!
 
Hi Granny, we're thinking about booking the Festival of the Lion King Tier 1 package. Sounds very much worth the $99/pp. I also agree about Tiffins. The food and service are fantastic! There will be 6 of us in total (grandparents, parents, and kids). Were you by yourselves on the safari tour, or were you put together with another group?

We were put with other couples/families. For us it was about 9 people total but I think they may take more. With you having 6 guests I would think that you would have no more than 6 other guests with you on the tour...but I have no definitive knowledge of their cut offs on number of people. I do know that they "sell out" particular time slots so they clearly have a limit on what they will do for each show.

As for the tour itself, what they did was they had a driver, and then they had a guide who sat in the front row (where guests normally sit) and turned around and talked to us the entire tour, and answered questions. While we had other guests with us, it is definitely a more personal tour, though nothing like the more expensive wildlife safari tours that Disney offers. Our tour guide was a biologist and animal nutritionist so she had plenty of scoop on the care and upkeep of the animals.

How long was the safari tour? Also, does the safari tour basically follow the regular safari ride?

It was the same path, and therefore the same length, as a regular tour. We loaded in a slightly different area but we ended up going through the same path as the regular safari.

Last question- do they assign you specific times for the meal, FotLK show, and the safari? Thank you!

Yes, when I booked they only had lunch times available, and we ate at 2:30. Fortunately, the lunch menu is the same as the dinner menu, so we didn't miss out on any options such as the delicious Surf & Turf. Once we booked, we basically just showed up a couple of minutes before our lunch reservation and told them we had the package. They confirmed that, and gave us lanyards to identify ourselves as package guests. We had lunch, and they had assigned us a 5:00 FOTLK show. So we strolled around for a bit and showed up at the handicap entrance to FOTLK (they were outside looking for people with lanyards). They gathered us up and escorted us to our front row seats. In our case, we were the only two in the VIP front row for the "giraffe section". One of the package guests who sat in the "warthog section" was the guy who had to demonstrate the warthog look and sound to the audience. I think if there are kids there is a decent chance that they will be asked to participate in either the animal sound demo, or in the final parade. They seem to try to make the package guests feel like VIPS. Once the show was over, they gathered us up and took us straight to the Safari where we boarded at that location near the regular boarding. There was no wait.

Overall, it is a really good package, and with Tiffins thrown in without restricting the menu choices, it was well worth it! Enjoy your trip! :)
 
We were put with other couples/families. For us it was about 9 people total but I think they may take more. With you having 6 guests I would think that you would have no more than 6 other guests with you on the tour...but I have no definitive knowledge of their cut offs on number of people. I do know that they "sell out" particular time slots so they clearly have a limit on what they will do for each show.

As for the tour itself, what they did was they had a driver, and then they had a guide who sat in the front row (where guests normally sit) and turned around and talked to us the entire tour, and answered questions. While we had other guests with us, it is definitely a more personal tour, though nothing like the more expensive wildlife safari tours that Disney offers. Our tour guide was a biologist and animal nutritionist so she had plenty of scoop on the care and upkeep of the animals.



It was the same path, and therefore the same length, as a regular tour. We loaded in a slightly different area but we ended up going through the same path as the regular safari.



Yes, when I booked they only had lunch times available, and we ate at 2:30. Fortunately, the lunch menu is the same as the dinner menu, so we didn't miss out on any options such as the delicious Surf & Turf. Once we booked, we basically just showed up a couple of minutes before our lunch reservation and told them we had the package. They confirmed that, and gave us lanyards to identify ourselves as package guests. We had lunch, and they had assigned us a 5:00 FOTLK show. So we strolled around for a bit and showed up at the handicap entrance to FOTLK (they were outside looking for people with lanyards). They gathered us up and escorted us to our front row seats. In our case, we were the only two in the VIP front row for the "giraffe section". One of the package guests who sat in the "warthog section" was the guy who had to demonstrate the warthog look and sound to the audience. I think if there are kids there is a decent chance that they will be asked to participate in either the animal sound demo, or in the final parade. They seem to try to make the package guests feel like VIPS. Once the show was over, they gathered us up and took us straight to the Safari where we boarded at that location near the regular boarding. There was no wait.

Overall, it is a really good package, and with Tiffins thrown in without restricting the menu choices, it was well worth it! Enjoy your trip! :)

Thank you for all of this detail, it was very helpful, I appreciate it!
 
What is the best/most successful way to make room requests at VWL?

I just use the email option on the member site. Or you can call member services, but either way they just put the request into the system.

There's no "calling the room assigner" or "faxing requests" type of a thing. VWL is very easy as far as requests...pretty much which side of the resort and whether you want to be near the elevator.


I unfortunately don't have a clue. :eeyore:

Ah Kathy...your VWL room Karma is bound to change at some point!


Eeyore room request.jpg
 
Agree with Granny--just submit your request the method you prefer most--we usually just do online. If you want lake view, make that request; if you don't, say so. . .though with KAT is truly doesn't seem to matter! :duck: We usually request "lake side, close to pool (or elevator)." Good luck!

On a secondary note, now that the DIS has been updated, how do you get the quotes to automatically show up? Before the update, all I had to do was click on the "quote" link and the note immediately showed up in the reply. I do that now, I get nothin'. Help!!
 
On a secondary note, now that the DIS has been updated, how do you get the quotes to automatically show up? Before the update, all I had to do was click on the "quote" link and the note immediately showed up in the reply. I do that now, I get nothin'. Help!!

To do this quote, I just hit the "reply" button. Hitting the "+Quote" link is for multi-quoting. If you do that, you have to go down in your reply and click "insert quotes". It will be next to the "Attach Files" button.

Keep in mind you have to be signed in to reply. I noticed when I came back on the updated site my automatic log-on was not there and I had to sign on.
 
To do this quote, I just hit the "reply" button. Hitting the "+Quote" link is for multi-quoting. If you do that, you have to go down in your reply and click "insert quotes". It will be next to the "Attach Files" button.

Keep in mind you have to be signed in to reply. I noticed when I came back on the updated site my automatic log-on was not there and I had to sign on.
Duh. It was always REPLY wasn't it? It's okay; you can say it--I'm an idiot. :jester: I'm going to blame it on my soreness. . .yeah, that's the ticket!
 

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