The PTR-that-must-not-be-named! 1/28 - 2/6

The PTR-that-must-not-be-named! (final chapter added 1/26)

{WARNING} The PTR you are about to read may have been started on another forum website, so if you hang out at the aforenotmentioned forum - you may have seen this all before. I can not be held responsible for the waste of your time this may create. {/WARNING}

Howdy!

I decided I have been a lurker on these PTRs and TRs too long - it is now time for me to throw my hat in the ring, so to speak.

The cast of characters:

Me
My wife
My son
My daughter

What?! You need more details, you say? And something about how this could be the most boring and/or idiotic PTR ever conceived? Yes, I know. But gosh darn it, I'm going to do it anyway!

The revised cast of characters:

Me - a 39 year-old Disney freak. By day I am an IT Server Administrator, by night - an awesome dad, cook, assistant housekeeper, Rock Band (the PS3 game, not real life) bassist, not-so-handyman, dishwasher, dog sitter, and smart @$$.

My wife – henceforth known as DW. A ## year-old Disney freak in training, very organized, humble, sarcastically humorous, highly intelligent, beautiful gift from God. (OK, she might be reading this one day… I need to get my brownie points in.) (Wait, by me writing that it voids the brownie points I tried to gain by telling everyone I was trying to get brownie points.) (oh, well.)

My son – will be referred to as DS from here on out. He is a ten year old boy. Enough said, right? Well, he likes video games, Harry Potter (we will be going to US IoA one day on the trip for WWoHP), video games, TV, video games, eating, video games, science, video games, movies, and video games. Oh yeah, did I mention he likes video games?

My daughter – DD to you. She will be turning 4 years old days before our trip. She is the most girlie-girl I have ever seen. She loves Disney Princesses, Barbies, dolls, dresses, shoes, playing dress up, and enjoys watching Disney movies. Her idea of ‘slumming it’ is wearing her nice Princess dress from last year. Wow, we created a monster!

I hope anyone reading can manage to hold your lunch down while I take you on a roller coaster of fun, queasiness, uneasiness, white-wine-dry humor, and mind-numbing syntax and way too many commas and those ';'-thingies.

 

[BigTex71]

Chapter 10: Warning - I Am All Over The Place In This One, So Good Luck

OK, you caught me slacking off. I still haven’t got the shirts completed yet. All of the Photo Shop work is done on the designs and I am just waiting to print to the transfers. Maybe I will find the time to do that tonight while baking my daughter’s birthday cake. Wait, I didn’t tell you that I like to make cakes, too?! Well, it’s a long story (and coming from me, you know it has to be a very long story, huh?), so I will forgo that tale and just say that – when time allows – I love to be creative and make cakes for our family birthdays (or any other occasion I can find an excuse to decorate a cake.)

{Blatant interruption for a little side story} OK, so I will be making a princess castle birthday cake for DD’s birthday party this Saturday. Nothing too fancy, just using a Wilton castle cake pan and will decorate like this. We let her look at some cake designs and that is the one she wanted. Yes, princess – your wishes always seem to be my command. (Did I mention she is spoiled?) I figured I would bake the cake tonight, cool, and then freeze until Friday night when I will start the butter cream icing for decoration. (We have a very good butter cream recipe!)

We now return from that unannounced interruption, with our PTR already in progress: …and that is the answer to the biggest question of all humankind. But I digress. Hopefully the ironing process will happen tonight or tomorrow to finally finish up the shirts. Or at least by the end of the weekend.

Now some information about the park tickets for mom. DM is the (ex-)spouse of a retired military veteran. This means she has access to military discounts for WDW park tickets. Normally, these are nothing to get too excited about – but they are running a special right now that is a pretty darn good deal. Well, not as good as winning a Corellian light freighter in a game of Sabacc, but good nonetheless. The deal basically results in a four day park hopper for $138. Not too shabby. Unfortunately, you cannot add any days to that ticket – unless you upgrade to an AP, and then you only get a credit of $138 for the original ticket anyway. So DM will have four days of park tickets with that deal. Even though she will be there six total days, she can just use the PH for the four full (non travel) days. Until…

I remembered that our first trip to The World – back in 2004 – we had at least one unused day on our old park hopper tickets. This happened because as we were trying to enter Epcot one day, none of the ticket scanners were working. No one was able to scan their tickets. I believe it had something to do with the new biometric scanners they were installing that would be starting to be used the following month (January 2005.) So they were letting people in without scanning the entry tickets. They just verified we had a physical ticket and let us in. This also happened to at least one (possibly two) of the park hoppers on the day we went to Animal Kingdom. So I looked around and finally found our old Park Hoppers.

These tickets were bought from the Disney Store in 2004. They have no name on them and no way to determine how many days are left. After researching, I found that the only way to know how many days are left on the ticket, you have to take them to guest relations at the park or a resort. But DW found a phone number to call to possibly get that information over the phone, but the information said it may vary by CM whether to give you that information or not. (I realize why they do that – with all the resold tickets going on everywhere.) She called this morning and got some information about our tickets. We learned they are ‘valid’ – which apparently means we have at least 1 day left on them (I knew that), but they would not say how many days were on each – something about multiple uses on certain days or some such. I think they didn’t want to do the math to determine what each had on them.

So I figure my mom could use two of the days from those old Park Hoppers to cover the other two days of her stay. Is that so wrong?

(Up next, changes to our park days – with only 8 days before we leave!)

 

[BigTex71]

Well, now I am all caught up with the copy/paste from my Word document. The rest of the chapters will be 'live' so to speak.
:animwink:

 

[Ms Tink]

Caught up on your PTR.

I just wish you could show a little enthusiasm, you're far too blasé about the whole trip.:lol:

So far I've found at least two hidden "geek references" Boggart and The Force. Is there a prize with that?

Really though your family is adorable. We have redheads in ours too!

You son is a cutie, your daughter is precious (more so than your list)

Keep em coming Tex, you're a riot.

 

[BigTex71]

Caught up on your PTR.

I just wish you could show a little enthusiasm, you're far too blasé about the whole trip.:lol:

I know. Maybe I will take a online interpretive writing class taught by dyslexic illiterates to help my writing style. :ROFLOL:

So far I've found at least two hidden "geek references" Boggart and The Force. Is there a prize with that?

Well, there are actually 17.5 so far... so keep trying!

Really though your family is adorable. We have redheads in ours too!

You son is a cutie, your daughter is precious (more so than your list)

Thank you kindly, ma'am. (Although I noticed you didn't mention me at all.) :lol:

Keep em coming Tex, you're a riot.

Thank you. I'll try - but we are getting really busy these last few days. I will definitely work on a full Trip Report afterward, though. That way I have plenty of time to relive The Magic. :sohappy:

 

[TakeMeThere81]

Wow, long Pre-TR! I love how you call your spreadsheet "My Precious". That's awesome!! LOL

 

[4everDory]

Loving your Pre-TR! What fun! I know you guys are going to have a blast on your trip!!! Can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[BigTex71]

Wow, long Pre-TR! I love how you call your spreadsheet "My Precious". That's awesome!! LOL

Thanks for reading! (And My Precious thanks you, too.)

 

[BigTex71]

Loving your Pre-TR! What fun! I know you guys are going to have a blast on your trip!!! Can't wait to hear all about it!

Thank you and glad you were able to make it through my novel.

 

[s.ollie]

I found your PTR very amusing ...... (star wars and potter ref. included)

Ever think of adding writer to your list of skills
(Disney Planning- Most definitely a skill)
(Cake Making, very hard skill to master, all i can accomplish with some sort of success in the cake eating part :slurp: )

Im looking forward to the TR, Cant wait to put faces to the people

 

[Rapunzel]

Wow, I love your pre-trip report so far. I'm looking forward to reading more!

 

[BigTex71]

I found your PTR very amusing ...... (star wars and potter ref. included)

Ever think of adding writer to your list of skills

You are too kind.

Im looking forward to the TR, Cant wait to put faces to the people

I have a few pictures on the initial post.

I had pics of the cake... will post later today.

 

[BigTex71]

DD's birthday party was a big success. She had some friends over and we had lots of family attend also. The cake turned out pretty good, but I was rushed trying to finish it and wasn't able to get all the flowers on it that I would have liked. But here is the picture anyway:

It is a white cake with a layer of strawberry in the middle. It tasted better than it looked.

 

[s.ollie]

Wow ..... Really wow, you made that?? It's fantastic.

i love it, and i could tackle the whole cake by myself :slurp: :slurp:

i especially got really excited to see you put her name on it, as thats my name.

so im now going to pretend you made it just for me :ROFLOL: just need to adjust the number slightly..... ok ok a lot.

 

[BigTex71]

Wow ..... Really wow, you made that?? It's fantastic.

i love it, and i could tackle the whole cake by myself :slurp: :slurp:

i especially got really excited to see you put her name on it, as thats my name.

so im now going to pretend you made it just for me :ROFLOL: just need to adjust the number slightly..... ok ok a lot.

Thank you, and sure- it's for you! The "4" on it is just the address of the castle. :ROFLOL:

 

[TakeMeThere81]

The cake looked really great!! Way to go! I hardly even try cakes like that myself! I've done a sort of cupcake cake before, but I usually just order those for parties.

 

[BigTex71]

The cake looked really great!! Way to go! I hardly even try cakes like that myself! I've done a sort of cupcake cake before, but I usually just order those for parties.

Thank you.

We ended up being rushed getting ready for the party. Looking back, it would have been so much easier to just buy a cake... but there is always something special about a homemade cake.

 

[foreverbelle]

Yeah for you DM to be able to come. How exciting! I love the whole idea of surprising your kids, I think thats going to be a lot of fun.

You are almost five days away now! You will dif. have to let us know how it all went when you return!

Can't wait:sohappy:

 

[BigTex71]

You are almost five days away now! You will dif. have to let us know how it all went when you return!

Can't wait:sohappy:

Me either! I have a feeling I won't be very productive at work this week! :lol:

 

[BigTex71]

Woo Hoo!

Just booked our minivan rental through Alamo. Granted, we are flying in and out of Tampa (flight was cheaper) and it appears the rental is cheaper, too. The minivan rental (Jan 28 - Feb 6) was only $220.79 - using Costco ID and coupon. That was the cheapest I could could find.

 

[BigTex71]

Chapter 11: (Another title that is too long, see below)

Chapter 11: Never Say Goodbye, Because Goodbye Means Going Away, And Going Away Means Forgetting

You know your trip is getting close when you log in to the Disney online ADR system and you don’t have to skip forward several months on the date selection thingy to check ADRs. I have been trying every day to land the coveted Le Cellier ADR again, but to no avail. It is like trying to show up a few minutes before a showing of the latest Harry Potter movie on opening night, expecting to get a ticket. It ain’t happening. I am holding out hope that someone cancels or somehow a time slot opens for the 30th sometime – anytime during the day/evening. But all hope is not lost. I will still be at the Happiest Place on Earth. I have heard great things about Teppan Edo (that is what I have currently scheduled for dinner that night.) It will be nice to try some new places. (If I keep telling myself these things, maybe I will start believing it one day.) But my heart (or belly) still aches for the Cheddar Cheese Soup, Mushroom Fillet, and Maple Crème Bruleè that can only be found at Le Cellier. Sigh. On the other hand, you have different fingers.

There were changes made to our park days and ADRs, but – as you may have already guessed – it did not involve My Beloved (Le Cellier), just My Precious. Now that I know my DM will be joining us on Feb 1st and I will be picking her up at the airport, I decided to change our originally scheduled Universal IoA day so I would not miss any time at that park (since I have never been there before.) It actually worked out for the best because by flipping our Hollywood Studios day with IoA, we went from a Yellow Day (TGM-speak) at HS to a Green Day. Woo Hoo! So that works out well – like Leia just happening to be the sister of Luke, which allowed Han to move in on that.

In addition, DW had mentioned that she wasn’t looking forward to the The Plaza ADR on the 5th for dinner. (I know, there are two ‘the’s together in that sentence, but it is correct.)She has a bunch of food allergies and there are not a lot of choices for her at The Plaza – so I don’t blame her. So yesterday I decided to look for another dinner ADR at MK or in the surrounding resort area to replace the The Plaza ADR. I remembered we had a great time at Whispering Canyon Café back in June for my DS’s birthday dinner. I checked online and found a suitable time for WCC dinner that evening! Yeehaw! (I know, it’s not Hoop Dee Doo Revue or anything, but ‘Yeehaw’ is just fun to read, right?) When I got home from work I mentioned it to DW and she had said that she was thinking about possible doing WCC this trip. Great minds...

Now we have the current final version of My Precious:

And the promised pictures of the new shirts:

If you are a very observant person, you will have noticed on the excerpt from My Precious that we have a new t-shirt added – the tie-dye. We loved these shirts from prior visits (as I mentioned in a previous chapter), so we have included them for this trip. Groovy, man!

DM just emailed me to say she could fly in late on the 31st of January. This works out even better than the morning of February 1st. She is very excited and it will be great to have 6 full days together with her in the parks.

So it looks like this will wrap up the PTR. We have all our park days, shirt days, ADRs (minus Le Cellier), and packing list updated. We have our rental car, flight tickets, and park tickets purchased. Now we need to put the plan in action, video the kids getting surprised, take tons of pictures, and report back with the full-blown trip report afterward. I hope you enjoyed reading my first PTR, and I hope you will follow along with the as-yet untitled Trip Report which should start somewhere in mid February, and will probably take until June or so to finish (just being honest here.) With the way I go on and on, it could be a very long report. Heck, the ‘quick’ PTR took eleven chapters!

Until next time… live long and perspire. Or something like that.