So I’ve become a bit obsessed with going to Disney World these past two years. I used to be a former CM, worked in NYC, & only got to go twice while working for them (man I miss the discounts!!!)…and yet in this past year and half I’ve gone twice & will be back at the world in 29 day! ::INSERT HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY DANCE::
Here is the background story on this trip. First I should introduce myself and my lovely family
My name is Rose...i am 26. I have been a Disney lover since i was about 6 and my mom took me to see Little Mermaid! =D This became my favorite movie. I always loved all the Disney movies, characters. This led me to even work for Disney for about 4 years. I worked at the Disney Stores! My wonderful hubby, Mike is amazing & puts up with my Disney Obsessed moods! He is more into Japanese culture and Anime however....I got him to LOVE Disney on our first trip! =D We have been together for 4 1/2 years, Married for 3 and have a beautiful son Mikey Jr who is almost 2 1/2. He is the most amazing boy! He is funny and goofy and hard headed and strong! & he LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and he calls Mickey, Pooka! I don’t know how he came up with that name…he started calling him that when he was a bit over one & it has stuck! (Very fun time explaining who that was everything he said Pooka while we were at Disney last time!)
That’s my son placing coasters on his head as Mickey ears
Here’s my hubby, son and myself in front of the Castle!
Now I have been to Disney 5 times. The first time when I was 15 back in 98. I don't remember too much about that trip, it was a short weekend in the middle of summer. All i know is that it was Hot! lol. I then went in 2005 with my younger sister who was 15 at the time her best friend and our cousin. We went for about 5 days...again smack in the middle of summer. Lines were long, it was too hot but over all we had a pretty good time. The 3rd time happened to be my hubby's FIRST time to Disney World! We went for a quick weekend. Spent about 3 days there, and had a blast! He fell in love with everything Disney! & Those were the only two trips I had as a Disney CM!
Fast forward to late 2008, I was already married to my hubby and our son had just turned one! I got an email announcing Disney pay 4 get 3 free deal & a $200 gift card! Our son would be 1 1/2 for when I wanted to go. I started crunching numbers and figuring out how much it would cost us and our first Family trip to Disney was booked! We stayed at Pop from March 1 - March 7, did every park twice with the exception of AK. My son LOVED it. We loved that he loved it. I cried when he saw Mickey for the first time...actually I cried with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, goofy and Pluto!!
lol. It was so great to see him hug and kiss his favorite characters! Then again I cried when three Princesses kissed him and called him their Prince! I am a sap! but can you blame me! We had a blast & he behaved better then expected! Overall this trip was a complete Success! Minus being puked :headache::confused3on by my son the plane. Thank goodness it wasn't that bad...and he got a lot of it in a bag!! Well puke aside…when we got home we started planning for a 2nd trip.A few months passed THEN i heard about FREE DINING!!! OMG! Free Food! I"d actually get to try some of the other restaurants Disney has!! Up until now I had only done Crystal Palace and Tusker House! So this was very exciting. So i started once again crunching numbers, trying to see where we'd stay, how long, & when we would go. My son's birthday is in October and I thought what better thing to celebrate at Disney then your birthday! Especially when turning 2! However I didn't want to spend his actual birthday there so we went a week before his birthday. & my younger sister came with us, now we were going end of sept beginning of october...and she had just gone to Disney with our aunt and uncle in May for memorial day weekend! Huge mistake!! Well for me at least. They live in Miami and have gone to Disney a gazillion times. Well she said she had a horrible time! It was hot, and crowded...& my aunt, uncle and cousin would head to the parks at noon and wanted to leave by 5, she said the lines were ridiculous. Needless to say I needed to show her Disney....& that I did! She enjoyed our trip to the full!! So that made me proud! Well with free dining we got to try out many different places. We ate at Le Cellier =D, 50's Prime Time, Sci Fi Drive In, Chef Mickeys, Tutto Italia & Crystal Palace. Over all our experience with Free dining was great! We only had one major issue with our first reservation…we had Dinner at Crystal Palace at 9pm…well they must have either overbooked or were really backed up but we sat down for our 9pm reservation at 10:30!!!! I will say this that even with the wait the CM were really great in trying to keep everyone happy. They were handing out Itzakadozie (not sure about spelling!) & water to everyone. Then I was a little upset that we were so rushed inside due to the fact that it was almost their closing time by the time we sat down to eat. Aside from that the only other downside to this was the weather!! WOW was it hot! I honestly was not anticipating it to be as hot as it was. However on the plus side we enjoyed the pool a lot! And again this trip was another huge success! Now my only other issue was how the trip started! Oh and I forgot to mention on the way to Disney my beautiful son PUKED on me again:hurl: And this time it was A LOT worse! I had to go to the bathroom and basically wash my pants and put them on WET! I smelled like puke until we finally got off the plane and I bought a pair of sweats! & That is where my name comes into play! This time he will have his OWN seat…and I hope he doesn’t puke!! Lol & if he does i hope it doesn't all land on me!
Now before we booked this trip I was really going back and forth as to whether we should go or not and if we did when would we go! We were either going to take advantage of the % off the resorts & stay at the Moderate (we’ve only every stayed in Values…all of them!) or we could wait for the fall to see if they were doing Free Dining again. Finally somewhere in the middle of March I decided that we would go in May! I checked airfare, hotel price and came up with May 8 – 16, which meant I would be spending Mother’s Day at Disney World! =D & We would experience the Flower & Garden Festival. See I had come up with a plan that every trip to the world we did I wanted to see something new. Our first trip didn’t really have any special events, however during our 2nd trip we got to experience the Food and Wine Festival & do MNSSHP & see MK decorated for Halloween. So going during the F&GF is great!! I was trying to stay at a Moderate Resort to give ourselves an upgrade! & with the percentage off it was adding up to a very decent total…but then I read about how some people were getting PINS for Free QSDP! So what I did was I booked us at Pop (We loved Pop the last time we were there! I’m an 80;s kid & was glad to be in the 80’s building) with an 8 day MYW basic ticket. We really don’t do park hopping…with a 2.5 year old & a stroller I’d rather stick the day in one park…and we don’t do the water parks since he’s still little and we’ll spend most of the time in the lazy river or pool & we can do that in the resort. If we got the pin I’d see what saved us more the % off or the Free DP….and then make the changes. If we didn’t get the PIN by the 45 day mark…we would then add the QSDP to our ressie and pay for it…which was our original plan before hearing about the PIN. I had done some math using the prices at ALLEARS.net on their menus….and with the DP we’d be saving at least $300! Well 3 days before our 45 day mark I received and email with the PIN! First thing I did when I got home was get on the phone with Disney! A very helpful CM did the math more me & told me that if I kept the current reservation at POP and added the Free dining that it would save a total of $392! So we were set! Free QSD!!! I went during Free Dining in October last year…and it was GREAT! We got to experience so many restaurants that we wouldn’t have done OOP…at least not with our son! With a toddler…having to constantly wait for your ADR time was a bit of a pain…sometimes our son wouldn’t be hungry, or he’d be napping etc. So I think the QSDP will be better in that we can eat when we want. I still made three reservations all for breakfast! We have Cape May Café 5/9 for Mother’s Day breakfast! We did Rainforest Café on 5/12 for our only day at AK and Crystal Palace on our last day which will be spent at MK! (We must start and end at MK!!) All reservations are for Breakfast...reason being my son is a bit more well behaves early in the morning after having slept! lol. Setting up a set time for Dinner may not work out if he's cranky or sleeping.
Here is our Itinerary:
5/8 – Our flight leaves at 7:20! We are set to land at MCO at 10:05am. This means a very early morning for us…we have to be up at like 4am and be out by 5:30! I plan on having my son sleep in his travel clothes….that way we can just pick him up put him in stroller and leave! Hopefully we’ll get to the ME and load pretty quickly! II’m hoping to be at the hotel and checked in by noon. If our room is ready we’ll head over to it and relax a bit…unpack…& maybe get Mikey to take a nap (depending on whether he sleeps on the flight or not & hopefully no puke!) Then head out to MK & have lunch somewhere in the park. We’ll stay for a few hours and then jump on the Monorail to whichever resort & take a bus to DTD! We’ll be having dinner at Bongos. Now I know Bongos has gotten some bad reviews…& I ate there about 5 years ago & enjoyed it very much. I’m Cuban so I’m used to eating their type of food a lot & although it didn’t meet my mom’s cooking it was bad. Now since then I’m not sure if it’s changed a lot but we’ll find out. DH is dying to eat there! Now if the room isn’t ready when we check in, we’ll head to the Food Court and have lunch there & hope that the room is available by the time we’re done eating. If not we’ll leave our stuff with bell services and head to MK
5/9 – MOTHER’S DAY! We have an 8:45am reservation at Cape May Café! I’ve never been to the Disney Boardwalk so we plan on doing a bit of exploring after breakfast. I know to get there from POP I was told to take the Bus to DHS and then the boat or walk. Someone else mentioned that since I have a reservation there’s busses that pick up guests to take them to their meals…not sure if this is accurate. Well after breakfast it’s off to MK for the day. We’ll be taking a break at one point to head back to the room & take a swin or a nap and then head back to MK later on…they are open till 1am!
5/10 – DHS – Hit TSM as soon as we get there…do the shows. Not sure where we should eat. Does anyone recommend any QS places here? If not I was thinking of heading to the Boardwalk and do Beaches and Cream or Pizza Planet ( a must this trip! My son LOVES it!)
5/11 – EPCOT – Ok..so the other part of my title is ride Soaring! I’ve only been on this ride once….and that was 5 years ago! Ugh! I want to ride it so badly again! The last two times we kept missing it. First trip we were just tired and cranky so I gave away our FP to a family I saw walking into the park. 2nd time the same thing happened! One day and then the 2nd day the wait time was too long and they had no FP! So I’m really hoping to ride Soaring again!!
5/12 – AK – Breakfast at Rainforest Café…then going to try to do the FotLK haven’t had the chance to see it…and then Nemo which we loved last time! EE a must for me, hubby doesn’t do coasters & Kali river Rapids, Safari…the usual! For lunch we’re not sure yet…& for dinner we’ll head to DTD and try Wulfgang Puck…I heard you can use CS points here!
5/13 – DHS – Nothing planned
5/14 – EPCOT – Nothing planned
5/15 – MK – Last day! =( Try to do as much as possible! Call it an early night to head back and pack!
5/16 – Home! We have a VERY early flight! 7am…so we’ll be boarding the ME at like 4am!
My next dilenma came when figuring out how to send some snacks and stuff to our room. I first considered using GardenGrocer...but some of their stuff is pricey...and for the amount of stuff I was ordering I was spend double of what I can get some of these items for. Then I though well, we can take a cab to publix...but that would defeat the whole trying to save money since we'd have to pay for a cab! Finally after using the UPS at work which we get a discount on...i checked how much it would cost to ship for example 10lbs...and it came up to 8 bucks! So at the end of the day....my plan is to ship stuff out a week before we leave. I'll be shipping cereal, cereal bars, applesauce, some fruit bars my son loves, cookies, some instant Mac & Cheese...my son is a picky eater and wont always eat the Mac & Cheese he gets in restaurants...so this will be used as emergencys when he hasn't eaten!, some candy snacks...and then once we get there we'll go to the Hess Station for water.
***I'm open to ideas of where to eat CS at each park!! I've looked online and have seen menus, but I want opinions of the food of people that have eaten there!*** I'm thinking of Cosmic Rays, Sunshine Seasons, Flame Tree BBQ....can't seem to come up with any at DHS....i was thinking of the days we are there to head to the Boardwalk and go to Beaches & Cream?
So there you have it! I’ll try to add pics of the autograph book I’m working on!
