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:
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.
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:
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!!!!"
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.
Me with my two nephews
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.
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!
(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:
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.
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:
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!!!!"
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.
Me with my two nephews
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.
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!
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Funny, just the other day I was wondering how Akira was coming along. Love the latest photo of her--so cute!! Hopefully, she'll grow out of her nipping/grawing hobby soon. Having gone through the puppy stage with mine some years ago, everything is fair game with them-- he felt it was open season on table legs, chairs, paper, door frames, rugs, people . . .
(I also think your wife was a really good sport!)
