The Birthday Trip

And no, it is not my birthday. :)

Our trip to WDW will start this coming Thursday. It will be a short one this time, but still, very much welcomed. It all started last Thanksgiving.

One of our closest friend turns 60 on March 2nd. We have been trying to figure out what to do for the special day, and then it strikes us that that should take her and her husband on an all-expense 4-day trip to WDW. They both haven't been there since June 2003 and have been dying to go back. But because they are on a tight budget, they haven't been able to do so.

Now we did thought about taking them along during one of our many trips before, but the expense of all 4 of us going there for 8 or 9 days (our typical length of WDW visit) was just way too much. Then one day, something changed that.

During the opening of the Disney's Doorway to Dreams store here at the Woodfield Mall outside of Chicago, we attended the special presentation to DVC members. One of the special offers they had was that if we add 110 points to our current existing DVC membership, we'll get a one-time bonus of 110 points to be used within a year. So we bought another 110 points, plus that extra 110 points that we must use by August. That's when I hatched the idea that maybe now we can use those bonus points to bring them with us for 4-days, 3 nights. Not only that, we were planning on staying at the DVC villas at Animal Kingdom Lodge in Savannah View rooms!

We hatched the plan around Thanksgiving last year but kept it secret to both of them. It was early in December when we were over at their place that she mentioned that one of her friends was thinking of hosting a birthday party for her on her birthday. That's when I had to tell her the surprise of us taking them to WDW during her birthday weekend so that she didn't commit to any plans. You can just imagine the surprise look on her face and needless to say, she wept. Even her husband, who is normally a cool, calm person, got very excited.

Over the next few days, she called us several times thanking us and already planning on things to do and see while we're there. She even starting thinking of what to bring and wear, and this was still in December last year!

We made all the reservations and arrangements. But she still doesn't know all the details. We told her that we'll have dinner at Boma on Thursday evening, and then dinner at Marrakesh on Friday night. But she has no clue on where we will be having her birthday dinner on March 1st (we are flying home on March 2nd, her birthday, so that's why her birthday dinner is a day earlier). We are keeping that as a secret. But since she doesn't read WDWMagic, I can reveal the full secret to you since I feel like I can trust you not to spill the beans. :) Her birthday dinner will be at the Liberty Tree Tavern, complete with a specially-ordered chocolate cake, which I believe is the same type of cake that *I* had for my birthday a couple of years ago there. I know that both of them have never had dinner at Liberty Tree, so this should be fun.

But that's not the end of the surprise. They also do not know that that evening, we will be attending the Pirates and Princess party at MK! I'm going to buy pirate hats for all of us to wear and will give them their hats after dinner! This ought to be fun. I just hope she doesn't start wailing in tears in front of everybody! :)

I will report from WDW as we go along. I'm looking forward to this because of the couple of surprise elements that they are not expecting or don't know.

Now remember, don't breath a word of this! :)

Zz.
 

mousebymarriage

Active Member
My lips are sealed!:zipit:
You are a really great friend to do this for them, I hope they appreciate what a special person you really are!:sohappy:
 

LuisT

New Member
Ah I knew I should of went to that woodfield mall meeting. Haha woodfield is very close by me. Wow, that is just plain amazing and if had something like that, I would be in tears! What a great friend you are.

-Luis
 

minnie2000

Well-Known Member
Hope you all have a great time!

Funnily enough, it is my Mum's birthday on March 2nd, and my best friend's Mum's birthday and she will be 60 too! (that reminds me, I must go card shopping!) Also, in the UK it is Mother's Day this year on the 2nd, so there will be a lot of celebrating in our family!
 

smk

Well-Known Member
We should have all friends as good as you!! Have a blast and tell your friend "happy birthday"!
 

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thanks, everyone!

We are all packed and just about ready to head out to the airport. So my next transmission will be from the Most Magical Place On Earth!

Cheers!

Zz.
 

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Greetings from the Most Magical Place on Earth!

We made it safely to WDW. We headed straight to AKL, but our rooms weren't ready yet (we have 2 DVC studios next to each other). So after we "checked in", we headed straight to DAK to spend the afternoon there. The Birthday Girl already got her birthday button and enjoying the cast members wishing her a Happy Birthday. Needless to say we had a wonderful time.

So the first of the surprises happened when we got our rooms. I should backtrack a bit here by mentioning that all 4 of us are also good friends with a cast member who happens to work at AKL. So we asked her to make suitable arrangements to give the Birthday Girl some surprises. She got the first one when she walked into her room. There's a very, VERY gorgeous floral arrangements waiting for her with a very nice birthday card from Minnie. Minnie wished her a very lovely 60th Birthday, while the floral arrangement (which we all wow'ed over) had a note to look around carefully for a wonderful surprise inside the arrangement itself. It turns out that there is a small box hidden among the flowers, nicely wrapped in bows. When she opened it, it contained a sterling silver bracelet with dangling charms with one of the charms having the word 'WISH' engraved in it. She loved it, and so did we!

In between all this, we were also highly impressed by our rooms. They are gorgeous rooms, and we were told that the DVC villas being built next to the main lodge will be even more spectacular than the current rooms. We all spend as much time on the balcony as we can watching the wild animals (I lost count how many dozen pictures I've taken already of the animals).

We had to leave our rooms for our dinner reservation at Boma. Of course, when we got to our table, there was another birthday button for the Birthday Girl, and a birthday card. Now, even if this was an ordinary birthday card, it would have been a very nice gesture. But the card was signed by several current cast members who came from Africa, more specifically South Africa and Botswana. Each one of them wrote a very nice message and signed their names and where they came from. Even *I* became jealous because I thought this was such a terrific thing to do! :)

Needless to say, the first day and evening here at WDW was a spectacular one. The Birthday Girl was on Cloud 9 the whole time. We even had to talk her out of planning on trying to bring the flowers back with her! :) She will, of course, take home the lovely crystal vase (or *I* will!) :). She already is planning on making a scrap book of all the cards and notes and buttons that she already received.

As I've said, I took tons of pictures. If I get the chance, I'll upload them. But today will be a busy day. We're planning on starting out at DHS in the morning, and them go over to Epcot in the afternoon. Our dinner this evening is at Marrakesh.

Zz.
 

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
OK, here are a few pictures from yesterday.

There are a couple of pictures of our DVC room at AKL. I love all the wood carvings and furniture. Notice the "hidden Mickey" towel arrangement on the bed. :)

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These are the views we get from our balcony. Certainly, if you get to stay at AKL, get the savanna view room. The drawback, of course, is that you may not want to leave your room!

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This is the gift that the Birthday Girl got, stashed among the flowers.

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Zz.
 

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We had a great time yesterday. Started off at DHS in the morning. It was packed with people due to the ESPN Weekend. We did only a few attractions. The one we all enjoyed the most was the animation studios. All of us learned how to draw Tigger! That was great because I certainly haven't drawn Tigger before. Plenty of times with Mickey and once we drew Donald, but never Tigger. So that was fun.

We then came back to AKL just to rest and again, watch the animals. It's bad (or good depending on how you look at it), that we actually look forward to going back to our resort.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent at Epcot. Here, the next surprise occurred. The Birthday Girl is a big, BIG Mickey fan. She wanted to get a picture with Mickey while we were at DHS, but the lines were long. So she didn't get a chance to get a picture with any of the characters. Without telling her what we were in line for, I got us into the Disney Visa Card character Meet and Greet. I told her it was just a small attraction. It helped that while we were in line inside Innoventions, there appeared to be some sound coming through the walls. She is not much into thrilled rides, so she was getting apprehensive as we got closer and closer to the front of the line, asking more and more about the "attraction". When the cast member let us in and parted the curtain, I got in first while she and the rest of the party followed in tentatively. You should see the expression on her face and the squeal she made when she saw Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy in the room! She literally dropped her handbag and went directly to Mickey and gave him a hug! She then started telling Mickey how long she had dreamed of coming to see him and having a picture with him, while both Minnie and Goofy greeted the rest of us. The characters were having fun playing off the Birthday Girl as she was just hugging and "chatting" with them. While all of this was happening, the rest of us were busy snapping pictures. I gave the photopass photographer our Photopass and told her to just snap away as many as she could. Needless to say, we got tons of pictures. We even got a group photo of the 4 of us with all three characters together. I tell ya, she didn't want to leave because she kept chatting and hugging and dancing around with the characters. One of the cast members who were minding them told me that that was one of the funniest and "happiest" Meet and Greet she had ever seen.

So that was the biggest hit of the day. She was still talking about it 2 hours later. I think that alone was with having the Disney Visa card! We then had dinner at Marrakesh (it was delicious as usual) and stayed for Illuminations. Since Epcot at Extra Magic Hours, we stayed on to do as many attractions as possible, including Nemo, Spaceship Earth, Soarin' and Turtle Talk. I don't know yet what to make of the new Spaceship Earth. I like the updated look, but the ending is a bit anticlimatic.

BTW, Disney was testing a new way to do the Extra Magic Hours last night. There were no wristband distribution. Instead there were cast members at the usual distribution location tell guests who asked that instead of wearing wristbands, all they need to do is show their resort keycard to get into the building that houses the attraction. So if you want to do Soarin', you show your resort card to get into The Land pavilion. It isn't bad, but it was a bit of a hassle to keeping having to pull out your resort card each time. Having a wrist band was a lot more convenient because all you do is show your wristband.

Today, it will be Magic Kingdom the whole day. As I've mentioned before, she doesn't know where her birthday dinner will be at, and she also doesn't know that we will be attending the Pirates and Princess Party tonight. We also brought a birthday gift for her which we will give to her this morning before we leave for MK. I don't want to bring a wrapped gift with us into the park and have to unwrap it at the bag check.

Depending on how tired we are when we get back tonight. I'll report on what happened. If not, I probably won't log back in before we get home. We fly back late tomorrow, but will check out of AKL in the morning to do Epcot again.

Zz.
 

ZapperZ

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Our day at The Magic Kingdom was wonderful. The birthday cake was gorgeous and very chocolaty! All the characters there stopped by spent quite a bit of time with us. And then the Pirates and Princess party was a lot of fun. We got a lot of cheap beads that we will probably throw out before we leave tomorrow. Love the fireworks! Got to ride several attractions in the evening with hardly any wait.

The fun part during the day was when we want to "rest" at Carousel of Progress and it got stuck during one of the transition. So half of the audience were in one part of the show while the other was still stuck with the one that we saw already. Never had that happen before to us.

I'm tried and need to do a lot of packing before we leave tomorrow. So this is probably my last report until after I get back home and recover a bit from the trip. It was an amazing and fun trip, and we managed to accomplish all the plan that we had for the Birthday Girl. She had already called several of her family members and friends during the trip telling then all about the trip. So I know that she's having one heck of a time.

Zz.
 

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