Pre-Trip Leaving our new baby girl behind...

Hello everyone! I recently finished my TR for our December trip of 2014 and it was such a blast to write it and interact with everybody who participated that Ive decided to write my first Pre-Trip Report! We are also bursting with anticipation so writing a Pre TR just may help us stay calm, but I doubt it.

(For anyone who would like to read my last report, here is a link, http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/our-bwv-holiday-tr.899325/ )

So whats up with this thread title? Is there a bun in the oven? Will we soon be hearing the pitter patter of little feet? Is the stork circling our neighborhood..... Do we have a baby on the way?????? Ummmmm.....no, haha. So dont worry, this trip will feature even more booze and food than our December trip.

We are however bringing home our new baby girl puppy in 7 weeks! We recently decided to add a new member to our private Animal Kingdom, a beautiful female Dutch Shepherd / Belgian Malinois mix. We are VERY VERY excited as this particular breed is absolutely AMAZING. I have a friend who is a professional trainer for K9 and sporting dogs and we are going for the full monty with her training! So while we are excited, the timing of our trip will mean leaving her with my parents only a few weeks after bringing her home. She will be in excellent hands but we will be sad to leave her. The silver lining is that we wont get sad on the last day of our trip because we know we will be going home to our new pup. For now, we are compiling a long list of possible names and most are based on Game of Thrones and/or Disney. The front runners as of now are, Sansa, Daeneryus and Boma.

We have a 14 year old american bull terrier (aka pitbull, but I dont like that term). His name is Brolly and he is the most gentle and sweet, but extremely protective dog. My work occasionally has me out late for certain events and I dont return home until 4 or 5 am some nights. I have never worried about my wife being home alone because he is there with her. His hearing has recently started to go and he often gets tired early in the day. He has done an amazing job being a protector of the home but its time for him to enjoy his golden years and oversee the training of our new puppy. He is still very active and we know he will be excited to have a new playmate to show the ropes too. Here is a quick rundown of our private Animal Kingdom:

B_snow.jpg
Brolly

As big and tough as Brolly is, the matriarch of the house is our eldest cat, Chloe. My wife allows her to get away with any and everything.
883.jpg

Making a cameo in the background is the baby of the house, Ruxin. Ya, we let them on the counter but we keep the Lysol wipes handy and constantly wipe it down so dont freak out. ALL of our animals eat a raw diet (yes, raw uncooked chicken and meat with bones) which among other benefits really helps with shedding.

The exotic animal section of our home features our two lovely parrots, Caesar and Cappy:

20150510_144900.jpg

Caesar is a Double Yellow Headed Amazon and he is 31 years old and yes he talks, but he has an uncanny laugh that sounds very human. My Mom got him in Mexico when I was very young. She would often yell for my father if he was outside or in the other room and to this day Caesar still mimics her and will yell out, "PAUL!!!!"

20150718_161007.jpg

Cappy is a Bare Eyed Cockatoo. He is appx 20 years old. We rescued him and the rescue shelter wasnt sure of his exact age. He is EXTREMELY talkative and has a vocabulary of about 20 words and can say full sentences and he is still learning new stuff. He is also very intelligent. We dont even keep his cage door shut because he just picks the lock anyway. His latest thing is making zombie noises when we watch The Walking Dead. If a Zombie moans or grunts, he chimes right in and is very good at zombie impersonations. It is a bit creepy though when he does it for no reason at all in the middle of the night. He also does the old Budweiser commercial with the frogs saying "Whats Up" over and over in different tones. He is very funny and we are soooo glad we brought him into our home.

The reason I bring up our animals is because our Disney trips often rely on having our family help out with our animals while we are gone. We are blessed to have such wonderful family members who help care for our furry family while we are gone. Ok, so now that your familiar with our animals, maybe I can get back to actually talking about our Disney trip.

So, for those of who you read my last report, you may remember that I surprised my wife on our last day by upgrading our tickets to AP's and we started planning a trip for the 2015 Food and Wine Festival. Well here we are several (long) months later and so far we have 5 days booked at Yacht Club (our favorite resort) for late October and we are going to add 2-3 additional days but havent decided if we want AKL or perhaps try something new like Port Orleans Riverside to scratch it off our list of resorts we havent stayed at. Either way, we will start with the 3 days at AKL or POR and then hop over to YC for the final 5 days and begin our shameless free fall into more food and booze than the human body should be allowed to consume.

Our trip will coincide with the anniversary of the day I proposed at WDW many moons ago in front of Cinderella Castle. I want to recreate the entire day as much as possible. It was a fairly laid back day with the exception of my nervousness going into the MK for the proposal but the CM's at MK were ABSOLUTELY AMAZING and they helped me pull off a great surprise with the proposal. I totally thought she knew what was going on, but the CM's pulled out all the stops and she never saw it coming. My original plan had to be aborted last minute due to a refurb at the HM and I was in panic mode at the concierge desk at GF trying to figure out what to do, but the wonderful ladies there sat me down and we went over options and came up with a great idea that worked out better than I could have ever imagined. I'll get to that story later with the details of recreating the day. Its a great story with some really crazy twists and turns of events unfolding and of course,...me drinking a little too much which made a particular incident really funny.

The full cast of this trip is still somewhat up in the air. My sister and her boys have AP's as well and they are trying to squeeze in a few days to join us. Her sons (my nephews) are growing up so fast and I am hoping to get a few more Disney trips in with them before they hit that phase where they are too cool for Disney. I always have a blast with these two boys and my sister.

IMG_3611.JPG

Me with my two nephews

IMG_3610.JPG

My sister and her boys

And if they join us, my bothers youngest son, who is 2, may come along as well. Here is a pic of him with my wife, who will obviously be there too.

camchencrop.jpg


My wife and I have not yet been Disney with our youngest nephew so it will be a real treat to enjoy some time with him and see the amazement in his eyes, not only of the parks, but of his stumbling drunken Uncle trying to stay upright at the end of the day.

Hopefully they will all join us and the trip will be even more fun! My wife and I have a much slower park touring pace than they do so whenever we all go we together we split up on certain days for awhile and meet back up later in the day for lunch or diner. Poly was always their favorite resort but They have recently fallen in love with the Boardwalk Resorts so if they join us, they will most likely book YC or BC and be close to us.

As far as anything specific goes, we have only made one ADR so far and that is for Biergarten on the day we check in at YC which will technically be day 4 of the trip. Seems a bit like overkill on food seeing how Food and Wine will be happening but we love our Biergarten and as I mentioned earlier, we will have no shame and we will eat until we cant eat anymore, then we will probly drink and eat some more.

I get the feeling we will book AKL for our first 3 days simply because we love it there and it will allow us to start the trip off nice and easy. We especially love the Victoria Falls Lounge at AKL. Its not themed too heavy in any way, but it is a very relaxing spot to have a drink and appetizers with great ambiance and the smells wafting up fro Boma and Jiko dont hurt either. Its usually pretty easy to get a spot at Boma so if we decide to hit it up it will be a "day of" decision. We love the Mara as well. The food isnt anything to write home about but my wife and I both agree they have the best chicken tenders on property. Im sure they are prepared the exact same as everywhere else, but for some reason we like them there the best... And did I mention Zebra Domes?!!!! Yummmmm!!!

Well, thats it for today. Im gonna dig through my old memory cards and find some photos of our trip when I proposed to her and I will get more into the details of recreating that day and post it tomorrow hopefully. Thanks for reading! Have a great Saturday everybody!
 
Last edited:

catmom46

Well-Known Member
Thanks for taking that chance, wasn't sure if she would share the preheating secret! Our skillet is well seasoned and we are stocked with EVOO. Ironically, we had our first Chicago pie as a couple last night! One of our coworkers actually brought a frozen one back from Chicago for us to try. It was decent but I think I could probably whip up a better one fresh.

ETA: here's what I'm enjoying right now
aviary_1438464616889.jpg

Wow, that looks so delish! :hungry::hungry::hungry: Although it doesn't look like it's available anywhere near me! :arghh:
 

catmom46

Well-Known Member
A fine selection, and in a proper glass as well! Excellent form, sir!

I had to pour a fresh one after seeing that. I went with a lighter ale. That Dragons Milk will creep up on ya!

View attachment 104040

This Pre-Trip Report is anything but, haha. It has just become a free for all of food, animals, alcohol and an occasional mention of Disney World.

And FYI, we have a Cuisinart coffee machine too. We LOVE it. I should have taken the pic in front of it. Now that Ive started drinking tho, Im too lazy to redo it

We also have a Cuisinart, but it's the single serve one. It rocks!! :D

Perhaps the thread title needs to be revised to "Leaving our new baby girl behind…and now for something completely different: Food, animals, and alcohol!" :p
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Ya, my family was great about it. I expected to receive texts of jealousy but they were nothing but supportive. On the ride home they were requesting pics of the pro-life billboards. You know, the ones that talk about "a babies heart beat starts at 8 days". I sent them this to satisfy their desire...View attachment 103925

anyway, I'm sure you hear lots of crazy stories since you live next to a national park. I'm completely hooked on the stories. They are so weird, yet so sad.
Please tell me you saw this guy, too:
12570644875_5a60067868_b.jpg
 

wdisney9000

Truindenashendubapreser
Premium Member
Original Poster
Update time!!!

Hey everybody, time for some updating on this PTR. In a nutshell, our plans have gone from solid to all over the place. We had to switch dates from middle of October to early Oct, we were able to keep Yacht Club, but had to cut it down to 4 days instead of 5, AKL is booked solid so we are now in a holding pattern and are forced to check the website constantly for openings at either YC or AKL. Big shout out to @lostpro9het who has lent a hand in my planning. Even with all his covert vacation planning he found some time to assist me and I thank you, sir!

So even though our plans are a bit off kilter ;), we are still extremely excited and are keeping high hopes that it will all work out on the resort end. We really dont have time to fret over it anyway, because.........we finally brought our baby girl home on Saturday!!!:):):):)

Ladies and Gentleman, Id like to introduce you all to the newest member of our Animal Kingdom....., Akira!

Kira.jpg


Her full name is Akira Aurora Morrison. Morrison is for the great Jim Morrison, my wife loves the Doors. She is doing great and getting along with the cats and dog very well. We havent really slept much for the last few days because we are crating her at night and even though she is only 8 weeks old, she can bark and yelp for hours before she wares herself out. She is getting better each day though. She is sleeping under my chair as Im typing so all is quiet for now.

ducky.jpg


My wife and her mom bought her about ten toys and she LOVES this little duck, (that we called Donald of course) She even sleeps with it. Seriously, we did not put it with her for that picture.

So anyway, Ill keep the gushing over our pup to a minimum. Weve got lots of pics and some hilarious videos of her with the other animals that Ill post soon.

For now, we are reworking our ADR plans but since its Food and Wine Festival for our trip, we will probly be pigging out at Epcot on a daily basis. Biergarten is always a must and we are considering either Kona Cafe or Ohana for breakfast one morning, mostly for the tonga toast and press pot coffee. I will be trying my best to move our travel dates back towards the end of the month which means constantly calling Disney and/or checking the website for openings but with F&W being so popular, our chances are slim. We have decided that if no more days open up at YC or AKL, we will just add a day at whatever resort we can and just plan a short 2 or 3 day trip trip for Nov or Dec. Thats about it for now. Ill be calling Disney this afternoon to see if anythings opened up. Ill try and post a few vids of Akira later for anybody interested. Have a great day everybody!
 

MinnieM123

Premium Member
Another gusher here!! :p Oh, I love Akira!!!! What a sweetie! And she has good taste in picking "Donald" duckie as her toy BFF. (My dog also has his favorite toys that he sleeps with, too. Yes, toys, plural--he's fickle, you know!!) :hilarious:

So happy you've provided an update for all of us! I hope that all your plans work out nicely for your vacation.
 

wdisney9000

Truindenashendubapreser
Premium Member
Original Poster
Not much news on the Disney trip front, but plenty of Akira action going on!

kirakitch.jpg


kiravent.jpg


She discovered the cold a/c vent was a great way to sleep and cool off, lol.

She fell asleep at the vet. She passed out hanging over my wifes leg
kiravet.jpg


She is learning at an extremely fast rate. She learned sitz, (sit in
german) in less than a day! Obviously she needs to perfect it, but she is so eager to work and learn. Heres a short video of her in action. I have no idea what Ruxin (cat) is doing at the end of the video. I guess he thinks the food magically appears on the plate?


Hope you guys enjoy and for anybody checking this thread for Disney info, I apologize for the lack thereof but I will post more trip info later! Have a great afternoon everybody!
 

Minnie1986

Well-Known Member
Hello everyone! I recently finished my TR for our December trip of 2014 and it was such a blast to write it and interact with everybody who participated that Ive decided to write my first Pre-Trip Report! We are also bursting with anticipation so writing a Pre TR just may help us stay calm, but I doubt it.

(For anyone who would like to read my last report, here is a link, http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/our-bwv-holiday-tr.899325/ )

So whats up with this thread title? Is there a bun in the oven? Will we soon be hearing the pitter patter of little feet? Is the stork circling our neighborhood..... Do we have a baby on the way?????? Ummmmm.....no, haha. So dont worry, this trip will feature even more booze and food than our December trip.

We are however bringing home our new baby girl puppy in 7 weeks! We recently decided to add a new member to our private Animal Kingdom, a beautiful female Dutch Shepherd / Belgian Malinois mix. We are VERY VERY excited as this particular breed is absolutely AMAZING. I have a friend who is a professional trainer for K9 and sporting dogs and we are going for the full monty with her training! So while we are excited, the timing of our trip will mean leaving her with my parents only a few weeks after bringing her home. She will be in excellent hands but we will be sad to leave her. The silver lining is that we wont get sad on the last day of our trip because we know we will be going home to our new pup. For now, we are compiling a long list of possible names and most are based on Game of Thrones and/or Disney. The front runners as of now are, Sansa, Daeneryus and Boma.

We have a 14 year old american bull terrier (aka pitbull, but I dont like that term). His name is Brolly and he is the most gentle and sweet, but extremely protective dog. My work occasionally has me out late for certain events and I dont return home until 4 or 5 am some nights. I have never worried about my wife being home alone because he is there with her. His hearing has recently started to go and he often gets tired early in the day. He has done an amazing job being a protector of the home but its time for him to enjoy his golden years and oversee the training of our new puppy. He is still very active and we know he will be excited to have a new playmate to show the ropes too. Here is a quick rundown of our private Animal Kingdom:

View attachment 101833 Brolly

As big and tough as Brolly is, the matriarch of the house is our eldest cat, Chloe. My wife allows her to get away with any and everything.
View attachment 101834
Making a cameo in the background is the baby of the house, Ruxin. Ya, we let them on the counter but we keep the Lysol wipes handy and constantly wipe it down so dont freak out. ALL of our animals eat a raw diet (yes, raw uncooked chicken and meat with bones) which among other benefits really helps with shedding.

The exotic animal section of our home features our two lovely parrots, Caesar and Cappy:

View attachment 101835
Caesar is a Double Yellow Headed Amazon and he is 31 years old and yes he talks, but he has an uncanny laugh that sounds very human. My Mom got him in Mexico when I was very young. She would often yell for my father if he was outside or in the other room and to this day Caesar still mimics her and will yell out, "PAUL!!!!"

View attachment 101836
Cappy is a Bare Eyed Cockatoo. He is appx 20 years old. We rescued him and the rescue shelter wasnt sure of his exact age. He is EXTREMELY talkative and has a vocabulary of about 20 words and can say full sentences and he is still learning new stuff. He is also very intelligent. We dont even keep his cage door shut because he just picks the lock anyway. His latest thing is making zombie noises when we watch The Walking Dead. If a Zombie moans or grunts, he chimes right in and is very good at zombie impersonations. It is a bit creepy though when he does it for no reason at all in the middle of the night. He also does the old Budweiser commercial with the frogs saying "Whats Up" over and over in different tones. He is very funny and we are soooo glad we brought him into our home.

The reason I bring up our animals is because our Disney trips often rely on having our family help out with our animals while we are gone. We are blessed to have such wonderful family members who help care for our furry family while we are gone. Ok, so now that your familiar with our animals, maybe I can get back to actually talking about our Disney trip.

So, for those of who you read my last report, you may remember that I surprised my wife on our last day by upgrading our tickets to AP's and we started planning a trip for the 2015 Food and Wine Festival. Well here we are several (long) months later and so far we have 5 days booked at Yacht Club (our favorite resort) for late October and we are going to add 2-3 additional days but havent decided if we want AKL or perhaps try something new like Port Orleans Riverside to scratch it off our list of resorts we havent stayed at. Either way, we will start with the 3 days at AKL or POR and then hop over to YC for the final 5 days and begin our shameless free fall into more food and booze than the human body should be allowed to consume.

Our trip will coincide with the anniversary of the day I proposed at WDW many moons ago in front of Cinderella Castle. I want to recreate the entire day as much as possible. It was a fairly laid back day with the exception of my nervousness going into the MK for the proposal but the CM's at MK were ABSOLUTELY AMAZING and they helped me pull off a great surprise with the proposal. I totally thought she knew what was going on, but the CM's pulled out all the stops and she never saw it coming. My original plan had to be aborted last minute due to a refurb at the HM and I was in panic mode at the concierge desk at GF trying to figure out what to do, but the wonderful ladies there sat me down and we went over options and came up with a great idea that worked out better than I could have ever imagined. I'll get to that story later with the details of recreating the day. Its a great story with some really crazy twists and turns of events unfolding and of course,...me drinking a little too much which made a particular incident really funny.

The full cast of this trip is still somewhat up in the air. My sister and her boys have AP's as well and they are trying to squeeze in a few days to join us. Her sons (my nephews) are growing up so fast and I am hoping to get a few more Disney trips in with them before they hit that phase where they are too cool for Disney. I always have a blast with these two boys and my sister.

View attachment 101838
Me with my two nephews

View attachment 101839
My sister and her boys

And if they join us, my bothers youngest son, who is 2, may come along as well. Here is a pic of him with my wife, who will obviously be there too.

View attachment 101843

My wife and I have not yet been Disney with our youngest nephew so it will be a real treat to enjoy some time with him and see the amazement in his eyes, not only of the parks, but of his stumbling drunken Uncle trying to stay upright at the end of the day.

Hopefully they will all join us and the trip will be even more fun! My wife and I have a much slower park touring pace than they do so whenever we all go we together we split up on certain days for awhile and meet back up later in the day for lunch or diner. Poly was always their favorite resort but They have recently fallen in love with the Boardwalk Resorts so if they join us, they will most likely book YC or BC and be close to us.

As far as anything specific goes, we have only made one ADR so far and that is for Biergarten on the day we check in at YC which will technically be day 4 of the trip. Seems a bit like overkill on food seeing how Food and Wine will be happening but we love our Biergarten and as I mentioned earlier, we will have no shame and we will eat until we cant eat anymore, then we will probly drink and eat some more.

I get the feeling we will book AKL for our first 3 days simply because we love it there and it will allow us to start the trip off nice and easy. We especially love the Victoria Falls Lounge at AKL. Its not themed too heavy in any way, but it is a very relaxing spot to have a drink and appetizers with great ambiance and the smells wafting up fro Boma and Jiko dont hurt either. Its usually pretty easy to get a spot at Boma so if we decide to hit it up it will be a "day of" decision. We love the Mara as well. The food isnt anything to write home about but my wife and I both agree they have the best chicken tenders on property. Im sure they are prepared the exact same as everywhere else, but for some reason we like them there the best... And did I mention Zebra Domes?!!!! Yummmmm!!!

Well, thats it for today. Im gonna dig through my old memory cards and find some photos of our trip when I proposed to her and I will get more into the details of recreating that day and post it tomorrow hopefully. Thanks for reading! Have a great Saturday everybody!
You weren't kidding when you said you guys have your very own Animal Kingdom!
 

catmom46

Well-Known Member
Not much news on the Disney trip front, but plenty of Akira action going on!

View attachment 107732

View attachment 107742

She discovered the cold a/c vent was a great way to sleep and cool off, lol.

She fell asleep at the vet. She passed out hanging over my wifes leg
View attachment 107743

She is learning at an extremely fast rate. She learned sitz, (sit in
german) in less than a day! Obviously she needs to perfect it, but she is so eager to work and learn. Heres a short video of her in action. I have no idea what Ruxin (cat) is doing at the end of the video. I guess he thinks the food magically appears on the plate?


Hope you guys enjoy and for anybody checking this thread for Disney info, I apologize for the lack thereof but I will post more trip info later! Have a great afternoon everybody!


I think Ruxin was just looking at all the pretty colors. :p
 

wdisney9000

Truindenashendubapreser
Premium Member
Original Poster
Hey Everyone! Sorry for neglecting this PTR for awhile. We have seriously had our hands full the last few weeks. Ive said it before and I'll say it again..., How I love being a turtle!...errr wait, wrong phrase, sorry, Ive been watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with my nephew. What I meant to say was that I seriously do not know how parents do it. How do you get through the day with kids, especially more than one, and especially after a long day at work??? We have a puppy and each day is a new energy draining experience, lol. I cant imagine what having a child is like. I have 1,000,000% respect for all parents out there that do it everyday!:):angelic:

We have finally got Akira (our new pup) on a good schedule for potty training. It does require a short 4 AM walk (which is ALWAYS on me to do) but its well worth it and she is doing great! She weighed 6.5 pounds 2 weeks ago and I took her in yesterday to get weighed and she is now at 11.8 pounds! We cant tell the difference as she is just a tiny little thing to us still, with the exception of her new RAZOR sharp teeth. We affectionately nicknamed her Tower of Terror because she will catch you off guard! She loves posing for the camera and even has her own Instagram account that helps us interact with other shepherd owners and trainers. For anybody that would like to check out all her pics and vids, her IG account is... AKIRA_THE_DUTCH_PK9. Follow along if you have IG and we will follow back. It would be great to have some friends from this site to see and follow on Instagram! Behold our little ToT!!! Doesnt she look so sweet and innocent??? Just wait until your drinking your coffee at 7 am and she sneaks up on you and nips the your heel! lol

kiraporch1.jpg


I ramble about her because the title of this thread has become more relevant than I expected (and also because I love her). As I mentioned previously, we had to move our travel dates from late October to early October thanks to Disneys wonderful way of releasing AP room discounts. I had just wrote a detailed story of what happened but I deleted it and will spare you the boredom of my rant. Lets just say that I called on the very same day the AP room discounts for October were released on the website to convert our existing reservation to the AP discount and I was told that within a few hours all the rooms at YC were gone. After telling them thats ridiculous, I was told that it was really because the AP rates had actually been released 9 days prior to anybody who had called in, which I had called in many times. After looking at my call history and seeing I had indeed called many times, I was told it was due to computer error???? Im sending an email to Disney in hopes of some help but will keep my expectations low.

So here we are, less than 30 days out from our new travel dates. Our issue is that our puppy is still going through the "nipping and gnawing" phase of teething pains and just simply being young and we are hoping it will subside by the time we leave for our trip if we are forced to keep the new travel dates. My parents agreed to babysit her but we dont want to burden them with a puppy nipping their ankles all day. Even though our new days are just 2 weeks earlier, that 2 weeks could make a HUGE difference in her behavior being a little more calm. Time will tell. So as frustrating as the situation is, we are still excited about leaving soon for WDW and being there for F&W Festival! Worst case scenario we will just cut our trip to 4 or 5 days instead of 8 :(, but that may allow for a short Nov or Dec trip!:). We are considering the Best Friends Pet Care (the WDW kennel) as an option also. If anybody has any experience or knowledge we would LOVE to hear it.

As far as the trip goes, we still have the same ADR as before, Biergarten! Even though its Food and Wine and we will be eating a ton at WS, we simply must eat at Biergarten every trip. Heres some pics from us there last Dec.

098.jpg
099.jpg

We have it booked for our first day at appx 2 pm. We will attempt to get an ADR at Ohanna or Kona Kafe just to get Tonga Toast and the pressed pot coffee. My wife also is considering Chef Mickeys. We did Chef Mickeys for years and wore it out to the point where we havent eaten there in awhile. Im always down for it, but we always enjoy trying new places too. When she mentioned it, I was very excited but didnt show it. I played it off with a "that could be cool" response. We joked that the last we thing we need is buffets to eat at with all the F&W we will be cramming into our stomachs.

15144_1246415155016_1068520983_778917_2595263_n.jpg

My Father, my nephew and I, at Chef Mickeys years ago



It seems like forever since the last time we visited in October and we are very excited about everything from the decorations to the weather. Our last October visit was with my sister, her boys, and my parents a few yeas ago and we had a blast with our nephews at MNSSHP.

A.jpg

Us with my nephew, who has gotten so much bigger since then. Thats my Dad in the background, sneezing?

We are still debating doing MNSSHP for this trip. The other option is to use tha money for a nice romantic diner somewhere special (Cali Grill?). Either way, we gotta decide soon!

Well, I gotta wrap it up for now. Tower of Terror just woke up and needs attention apparently. Ill get back to this shortly.
 

catmom46

Well-Known Member
Wow, Akira is growing so fast! And I love how her coloring is developing, too. Yes, having a dog is very similar to a child, except for the razor sharp teeth! :in pain:

I vote for Cali Grill! Even though I haven't done MNSSHP yet, I'd take CG over it any day. :hungry:

@Tony the Tigger mentioned Best Friends in one of his posts yesterday, and that it's a great facility, although they only put their puppy in day care and then she would stay with them at night in their offsite hotel room.
 

Tony the Tigger

Well-Known Member
So, Best Friends Pet Care:

Positives: convenient, not terribly expensive, flexible, nice menu of options.

Negatives: just little errors here and there, nothing big - billing errors, attention to detail, etc.

What I like is that they stay open until an hour after the last park closes. We have been unable as yet to leave our almost 6 year old Kylie (60 lb. Shep/Chow rescue) anywhere overnight. Many hotels are pet friendly, but not for big dogs, or they charge a fortune. So on some of our trips, we drive up from Fort Lauderdale, book the Red Roof Inn on 192 @ 535 (convenient to everything and they take big dogs, generally with no fee - although...it's a Red Roof Inn.)

So we drive up to the Red Roof the night before, let her settle in with us in the room (rather than leave right away and have her stress out) and then the next morning, before we go to the parks, we drop her off at BFPC, which is on Bonnet Creek Parkway, near the entrances for Port Orleans, etc. It's an easy, short drive from the Red Roof and on the way to WDW. They have a nice big fenced-in area out back with fountains, a baby pool, balls, etc. (and a separate walking path.) Usually one of us takes her out back while the other stands in line and checks her in. She can run, play, poop (sometimes with other dogs, but more often than not we are the only ones at the time) and I have the peace of mind that #1 we spent quality time before total abandonment (LOL) and #2 she tired herself out some. We usually get the half indoor/half outdoor run which I want to say is around $24(?) for day care (or $18 if you can manage a half day of only 6 hours or less.) Have to look up those prices to make sure. It's more if you leave them overnight, which we don't.

If we are doing an "all day park day," we will typically go back to the room for a nap in the afternoon, and stop for another playtime visit on our way back to the parks for the evening. Then we pick her up after the parks close, and bring her back to the hotel. If she hasn't eaten because she's nervous, she'll eat with us in the room. She's always thirsty when we pick her up, which we think is also nerves.

They have nice little extras you can add-on, like doggy ice cream for 4 bucks, grooming (overpriced) etc. You can even pay extra for playtime with other dogs. We've never done that.

Of course, all shots must be up to date, with papers to prove it.

You guys, since your dog is still considered "small" at this point, could probably stay at a nicer hotel that takes small dogs, although there's a fee at most of them. There are sites where you can search for pet friendly hotels.

Even if you leave the puppy overnight, you can still stop by to visit as much as you want.
 

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