Tick..Tock..Tick..Tock... Hurry up clock... I'm about ready to POP!!!

Okay, Okay! I really can’t take the wait!! So, I have to do this PTR for 2 very important reasons. For One ... my DD Brittany is pestering me to do it, and for Two ... Well, I think it may just be the one & only place I can “POP” without driving everyone completely crazy that just doesn't understand my Disney World fanaticism lol. Most of my friends and family simply don’t get it. Not like YOU do!!! Sooooo... If you all don’t mind, I’d like to get all of the “boring” details out of the way first. So if you can indulge me for a few paragraphs (or more), I promise it will all be worth it lol.
First off, I have been a “stalker” on the TR’s for a couple of years now. I apologize but I hardly ever comment on TR’s I did however start a PTR/TR a few years back but sadly never finished it. My dad was in end stage cancer when my DH & I took two of our DD’s on a much needed getaway from all the sadness at home and went to our “Happy Place” (we lived with my parents to help with the bills). Don’t get me wrong, our trip was just what dad and the Dr ordered for us, but when we got home and I started writing my TR, dad passed. I just didn’t have it in me to finish the TR.
I apologize for the sad stuff when this is supposed to be all about the 'goods' lol. I just thought you should know why I am ready to POP, more even, than usual. We’ve been to WDW probably a good hundred times but it just never gets old for us. Only I have been back to Disney since the last trip I spoke of, I spent one day in the MK with my sister last October. Sooooo, long story short….. We NEED this vacation!!! LOL. Now onto the“Fun” details!! This trip is really a culmination of two different components; WDW and a wedding. So let’s get to it!!
The cast for this trip will be me - Dawn, my DH - Ron, our DD - Brittany (Brit), our grandson Aiden and his mommy Kori.
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DH & I
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DD (Brittany)
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Grandson (Aiden)
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Daughter in Law (Kori)

DH & I will actually be in Disney about a week before the others in our group fly down to join us. DH and I are leaving Sept 18 (Well maybe late night the 17th if we get too excited and can't wait any longer lol). We're driving from Rhode Island and the plan is to leave at 1 AM after hopefully getting a couple hours of sleep (yeah right!). We planned this time so that (hopefully) we can beat a ton of traffic in NY and then when rush hour rolls in we can just stop at a rest area to stretch our legs and grab some breakfast.
Our plan is to drive until we get into South Carolina (around 14 or so hours) and then stop for an early dinner and an early night at a hotel wherever we end up. The next morning around 7 AM we plan to head back out on the road and drive all the way to Orlando!! We’ve driven straight through before but really don’t want to get there and feel fatigued to start our vacation. Nothing is worse than feeling like a zombie the first few days in Disney!! I want to enjoy EVERY second of it!!
So, again, we plan to drive roughly 14 hrs or so the first day, stop wherever we are for the night and then continue on to Orlando the following day. I booked The Orlando Metropolitan Resort for one night (19th). Has anyone stayed here?? I would LOVE feedback on it since I booked it online and have never been there. I booked it simply due to it being only $35 per night with AAA discount and it looked pretty standard and not like I should be worried (praying). LOL
Hmmmm, Can you guess where we’re staying for the Disney component of our trip? Lol YEP!! POP!!! We check into POP on Sept 20 and check out on Oct 4. We’ve stayed at CS, CB and all the values except AoA but our favorite of the values by far, and the one we keep going back to, is POP. I feel like it’s the most “Disney-ish” (or rather was prior to AOA). I know, I know, not everyone wants to be drowned in a complete sea of Disney when they visit and want to leave the characters in the parks but I want to be so deep in it I need a snorkle and arm floaties!!!

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DawnBerg

Active Member
Original Poster
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DH, DD and I on a previous trip in Epcot
Don’t get me wrong I loved CB and would stay there again in a heartbeat and can’t wait to stay at others but with my budget-mindedness right now I seem to always choose POP. How much time do we really spend at the hotel is what I always ask myself and the answer is always the same, almost none, soooo… Yep, I book the POP! We’re staying 14 nights with the free QS and have 2 day base tickets that we are upgrading to AP’s!!
DH and I will be enjoying the first part of this trip ALONE!!! This will be our first trip just the two of us that is longer than just a weekend. It also falls just before our anniversary so we are super excited.
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DH & I at Tony's Towne Square!!
Most of our trips have been either with all of our 7 kids or just a few at a time. Yes!! I said 7 kids!! We have 5 DD’s and 2 DS’s. We also have 4 grandbabies that are the sunshine in our days!!! Yea, they took the spotlight away from our children. Anyone who is a grandparent hopefully will understand how that works and anyone who isn’t please forgive me, someday you’ll understand too lol. We have 1 grannygirl and 3 grannyboy’s ages 5 and under!! Our oldest 2 children each have 2. Hopefully eventually we will get to bring each one of our grannybabies to Disney!
This trip it will be our Grannyboy Aiden joining us. This will be his 2nd trip to the World. He has been once with his Mommy and her parents but this is the first time with us and our first time bringing a grandchild (OHHHHH The tears to come lol). Also he stayed off property on his first trip so he is going to love Pop. He is the biggest Cars fan ever and I can't wait to walk over the bridge and show him the Cars section of AOA!! He may say "Hey Memmy, why didn't we sleep here?" Uh OH!!! lol Sorry folks, talking about my family always gets me sidetracked lol.
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Grannyboy (Aiden)
DH & I will be by ourselves until Sept 28th, then DD Brit, Aiden & Kori fly in to join us. We will VERY sadly check out of POP on Oct 4th and then ALL of us will drive to Virginia to attend our niece’s wedding. We stay in Virginia until Oct 7th before driving the rest of the way home. I hope you can all forgive me for rambling but I really wanted the boring stuff out of the way and for you to get to know us as much as possible.
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DD Brittany (On right) DH and another DD (Jackie) from a previous trip
This will be my first time on the QS dining plan. Our trip being 3 weeks long makes for cutting corners somewhere I guess. When I originally booked the trip I added the upgrade to the reg. dining plan. The more I thought about it the more I realized, for us, that paying full rack rate, the difference in the upgrade and all the tips for the table service meals was just too monstrous a difference. I probably could have saved even more without falling prey to the “free dining” at all but I really liked the idea of a package and having everything all together and paid for before I even leave home. I know, I know it still could have been done but at the moment it worked lol. That being said I am absolutely 100% determined to make this QS dining thing work for us. I refuse to let it mean me crying when we return home and saying that I never want to see another hamburger or hotdog as long as I live! So I guess you can say that is my mission for this trip, to see what kind of dining we can do that really makes QS worth it for us.
Now I am a HUGE planner. I mean, I REALLY love planning out my vacation but without actually planning every last detail. I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. What I mean is I make detailed calendars of park hours for each park and make menus for each restaurant in each park. Yep, still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense lol. I make a binder that we carry that has all the hours at each park so we can make our VERY informed decisions pretty much the night before as to which park we want to go to the following day, where and what we want to eat, etc. Mind you this proved a bit daunting when we were on the reg. dining plans and were tied to ADR’s in a certain park on a certain day, but you get the idea.
What I used to do (and did again this time) was to create menus from the menus listed on this and other websites that I could print out. I put them in a binder so we could look at them the night before / day of each ADR. This made it much quicker and easier when a party of 9, or even when we were a party of only 4, and we knew what we were ordering before we even got there. It also made for less time in a restaurant and more time in the parks!
Usually for the QS part of the reg dining plan we would just hit whatevercounter service we were closest to when we were hungry. Hence the thought of endless burgers and dogs. Not wanting that to happen this time I decided to determine which places in each park and DTD accept the QS ding plan and make menus for each. Now if we happen to be standing in front of a hamburger counter rather than just order something and settle I will now know that right next door I can order a ½ roast chicken with veggies and mashed potatoes!!! HUGE difference in my book and well worth all the time it has taken me to create them lol. I organized the menus by park and put them in clear sleeves and them in a small plastic folder type thingy (lol). I carry a backpack and just put it in there and have it always with me even if half way thru a day we decide to switch parks I will still have it with me. HOPING that this works for us. I think it sounds good in theory anyway lol. Stay tuned to the TR to find out if it does!!!
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Me & DD's Brittany & Jackie on the Pearl Harbor set in the backlot tour. Was awesome they chose all three of us to be in the show together!!



 

DawnBerg

Active Member
Original Poster
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Me, DD Brittany and DD Jackie all being GOOFY!!
Sorry but YES!! We are THAT family lmao. We just like to have a little fun is all!

**** UPDATE since I wrote this lmao…. Yes!! I found the APPS for that!! Lol. I now have 2 different Apps that have not only line times, guides, maps and every other thing I can think of but also have a complete list of ALL restaurants on property including prices and even which ones carry snack credit items and what they are!!! YAY!!! Didn’t know I could get Chili-cheese fries or Cotton candy or even the infamous Dole Whip with a snack credit!!!!!!! Super excited can you tell???
Ok, Ok so since I spent so much time on those menus I will just bring them anyway and reference them in the hotel room and see if anything catches my eye for the next day lol. Maybe now I can just use a pack instead of a backpack!! SCORE!! Oh and ummm, yes, we are also THAT family with the packs. Ever since DH's wallet slipped out of his pocket on Dinosaur one year with ALL of our AP's, room keys, money, credit cards, everything. We now all carry our own things and all use a pack or small over the shoulder bag (Girls too cool for our packs I guess lol).
On another note I received our itinerary and luggage tags yesterday!!!! Nothing makes you dance around in circles and jump up and down in your jammies in the living room like getting THAT piece of snail mail lmao. Opps ,,, now I’ve gone and said too much …. As if… hmmmmm
I hope you are all not already snoring with boredom at my PTR. I will bore you no more for today lol… 26 days til we leave but 28 til we POP!!!
 

PolynesianPrincess

Well-Known Member
Love this PTR!!!! :)

I will be down there around the same time as you (Sept 24-Oct 1) so I'll look for the crazy family!! haha. j/k we are pretty crazy ourselves sometimes!! Have fun with the grandbaby! That age is always an awesome time to go with kids!! :)
 

DawnBerg

Active Member
Original Poster
Love this PTR!!!! :)

I will be down there around the same time as you (Sept 24-Oct 1) so I'll look for the crazy family!! haha. j/k we are pretty crazy ourselves sometimes!! Have fun with the grandbaby! That age is always an awesome time to go with kids!! :)
More than excited just about the grannyboy coming than even going myself ... seems so strange to say and feel that way lol. Where are you staying when you are there? It will be fun I think to compare TR's after our trips to others going at the same time. Maybe we can show up in each others photos!! :rolleyes:
 

DawnBerg

Active Member
Original Poster
Staying just across the bridge from you at AoA, Sept 28 - Oct 7. Great PTR!
Thank you! And I am sooooo jealous!! I can't wait to see AOA. I keep telling my grannyboy that it is where Radiator Springs is and that when we walk over to see it we are going to see all the cars from Cars 1 movie. He is soooo excited! I sure hope it lives up to all the hype I have filled his 3 year old head with lol.
 

PolynesianPrincess

Well-Known Member
More than excited just about the grannyboy coming than even going myself ... seems so strange to say and feel that way lol. Where are you staying when you are there? It will be fun I think to compare TR's after our trips to others going at the same time. Maybe we can show up in each others photos!! :rolleyes:

We are staying at All Star Sports. And I ALWAYS look for myself in other peoples photos if they're there the same time as me. There are a LOT of people going around that time it seems!!
 

DawnBerg

Active Member
Original Poster
We are staying at All Star Sports. And I ALWAYS look for myself in other peoples photos if they're there the same time as me. There are a LOT of people going around that time it seems!!
I have been noticing that there are quite a few people going the same time. Will be fun to compare TR's after! I will definitely be keeping my eyes open for anyone looking familiar!!
 

bucklepants

Active Member
"Now if we happen to be standing in front of a hamburger counter rather than just order something and settle I will now know that right next door I can order a ½ roast chicken with veggies and mashed potatoes!!! HUGE difference in my book and well worth all the time it has taken me to create them lol."

-YES!!! We will be hitting all QS as well and I have some good notes on my iphone as to where we can get something other then a burger for lunch and dinner.
 

DawnBerg

Active Member
Original Poster
"Now if we happen to be standing in front of a hamburger counter rather than just order something and settle I will now know that right next door I can order a ½ roast chicken with veggies and mashed potatoes!!! HUGE difference in my book and well worth all the time it has taken me to create them lol."

-YES!!! We will be hitting all QS as well and I have some good notes on my iphone as to where we can get something other then a burger for lunch and dinner.
Honestly that was my biggest fear lol. I was sooooo afraid of 15 days of burgers and dogs. I am not a fast food kind of gal lol. I don't mind the fast just not usually the food lol. I found a few places that serve 1/2 roast chicken with 1/2 slab of ribs, baked beans and cole slaw. Not this has split me written all over it!! Hubby loves ribs and beans and me chicken and cole slaw!!
 

bucklepants

Active Member
Honestly that was my biggest fear lol. I was sooooo afraid of 15 days of burgers and dogs. I am not a fast food kind of gal lol. I don't mind the fast just not usually the food lol. I found a few places that serve 1/2 roast chicken with 1/2 slab of ribs, baked beans and cole slaw. Not this has split me written all over it!! Hubby loves ribs and beans and me chicken and cole slaw!!

Our first couple of times were like that. We kept hopping over to Epcot just to have some other choices. Having been there more times now and looking up menus here I know we have more options that aren't burgers and don't require ADRS. I just wish you could order a burger without fries. I'd much rather have a burger and cake! LOL!
 

DawnBerg

Active Member
Original Poster
Our first couple of times were like that. We kept hopping over to Epcot just to have some other choices. Having been there more times now and looking up menus here I know we have more options that aren't burgers and don't require ADRS. I just wish you could order a burger without fries. I'd much rather have a burger and cake! LOL!
Oh do I agree about the fries. I don't eat fries so is such a waste to me :eek:
 

foreverbelle

Well-Known Member
Sounds like you guys are a bunch of goofs and you guys are going to have an amazing time!!

The whole mention of packs cracked me up. Seriously...good times. I will now have visions of this for the remainder of the evening!
 

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