Pre-Trip Updated 9/24: Three resorts means three times the fun right?! Sept-27th-Oct 7th

Welcome aboard! If you have never seen Loweschevy around this Dis-pleased to meet you. I am 31 and will adding another year come October 10th. I love cooking, soccer, racing, reading, traveling, pubs and of course all things Disney. I have been to WDW over 30 times and love it more and more every year. I have an exciting trip planned with a triple split stay, so I hope you will join me!

The details: Arriving September 27th-30th -- Beach Club-Club Level-Deluxe Room
September 30th-3rd—Bay Lake Tower-2 bedroom-Lagoon View
October 3rd-7th—Polynesian Garden View-Standard I guess it’s called now

Cast & Crew: Me of course-planner & photographer
Debbie (Mom)…picky eat, habitual napper and avid reader
Steve (dad)….beer connoisseur, cheese board muncher and train hobbyist

Last year we had a 3 more and we are hoping they join us next year.

Our typical touring style is to get to the parks at rope drop, hit the majors and then head back to the resort by mid afternoon. After a rest and a swim, it’s back to the parks for fun and dinner.

 

[LowesChevy]

Work has kept me busy and away from the boards, but with only 21 days to go it has gotten very difficult to resist! We were invited to participate in Fast Pass + testing, so I customized our bands online and hopefully they will arrive soon. Normally we would purchase the tickets with a package, but since we are going to get annual passes this year, we cannot make any further fast pass arrangements without current admission tickets. Still pretty excited to help try out the bands, but I am still a little skeptical on how it will work. I called IPO to ask them whether they could help us with the annual passes and TiW, but I was advised to head to guest relations when we arrived on property.

We are scheduled to land around 11:00 AM at MCO from Cleveland, get the bags and car and head to Downtown Disney for lunch and to visit guest relations. That should have us arriving at the Beach Club around 2:30-3:00 PM I am thinking.

On the fence about that evening-we usually just chill at the resort and have dinner and wake up fresh for the next day. Perhaps we will wander over to Epcot, but then again it is the kickoff afternoon for the Food & Wine Fest, so I am wondering how bad the crowds will be. I would like really to hit DHS and get some evening photos, but we will see what we feel like doing.

Here is the plan for the week:

Sat 28th: Epcot lunch Rose & Crown, dinner Tutto

Sun 29th: DHS lunch Mama Melrose, dinner Shula’s

Mon 30th: Moving day to BLT-MK lunch Plaza, DTD--dinner Wolfgang Puck

Tues 1st: AK—DTD—Artist Point

Wed 2nd: Epcot, lunch around the world, dinner Teppan Edo

Thrs 3rd: Moving day to the Poly, MK lunch CHH, dinner Epcot-Via Napoli

Fri 4th: DHS lunch Sci-Fi, dinner Citricos

Sat 5th: MK lunch Liberty Tree, City Walk at Universal for dinner

Sun 6th: Epcot lunch Les Chef De France, dinner DTD-Portobello

I originally planned to go to Jiko on the 5th, but decided to head to City Walk for some shopping and dining instead. The food was great at Jiko except for one time, but we also had some questionable service a few times unfortunately.

 

[Zipadeelady]

Sounds like a wonderful time!! your ADR's look good. The more I hear about Mama Melrose I would really like to try it!

 

[LowesChevy]

Sounds like a wonderful time!! your ADR's look good. The more I hear about Mama Melrose I would really like to try it!

We always have lunch at Mama Melrose and split salads and flatbreads. Great meals and service for us. I know a lot of people have lackluster experiences and unfortunately it can happen anywhere.

 

[LowesChevy]

Magic bands are here!
\
We will get these babies loaded up with annual passes soon!

Things we are excited about:

**Fantasyland Expansion-it was on the fringe of soft openings last year. My cousins went around Thanksgiving and got to see many areas, so it’s relatively new to us.

**Beach Club-haven’t stayed here in many years, but used to regularly. Last stay in the area was the Yacht Club in 06’. It will be nice being so close to Epcot since we spend the majority of our time there. It has also been a while since we have watched Illuminations in its entirety.

**Somehow I missed Big Thunder Mountain last year. I think it may have been down during one of the days and then we just never seemed to get back over there when the lines were shorter.


This weekend’s plans are to get packing!

See you real soon!

 

[LowesChevy]

Saturday evening I played soccer with my friends and then went to a birthday party afterwards. I got a surprise call from my brother on my way there and found out I am going to be Auntie Erika for the second time come this February! Grandma Debbie and Papa Steve are thrilled, in fact Grandma Debbie is already planning out another trip with (my nephew) Nick’s little brother or sister! She said “Come on the baby will be 6 months.” “We went with my cousin Evan and he was 3 months-we got this!” Pretty exciting news this weekend on top of the upcoming trip.

I began to lay out some clothes for the trip, but it is still warm enough to wear shorts for a couple of weeks yet. A freak heat wave is scheduled to come into our region tomorrow-they are forecasting 90 F and 84 F for Wednesday! Seems crazy, but we may be able to swim in the pool one last time.

This week is dedicated to fall cleaning and continuing to put aside clothes for ironing or button replacement. I am debating on whether or not I need to order contact lenses. I seem to have enough for the trip and after, but it’s just another expense I don’t want to make right now considering all of the things I want to buy at WDW.

Well heading to a soccer game tonight and tomorrow night I play indoor…see you real soon.

 

[LowesChevy]

It’s been a hot couple of days here in Erie, PA. We do not normally see dog days this late in the year-a fun reminder of the weather we will face at the end of the month I suppose. Along with the heat have been roaming blackouts! We were out to dinner the other night and the power went out there-luckily we had our food. Then I went to indoor soccer for the night and after an hour delay for a basketball game finishing up, we started to play and 30 minutes in the gym went pitched black! Everyone got out their cell phone flashlights and we made it out of the gym safe. Apparently soccer wasn’t in our plans for the evening.

Today marks two weeks to go-we will be driving to Cleveland the 26th to stay overnight at the airport Sheraton. I do not really care to stay overnight, but with the 2 hour plus drive, we cannot chance it. In actuality, it kicks off the trip sooner and makes for a fun evening. We normally hit a mall and a chain restaurant that we do not have in Erie before heading to the hotel.

Cooler weather has arrived along with rain, yuck, but cooler means in the 70s. Really nice for this time of year.

We received another invitations to order Magic Bands on my mother’s Polynesian reservation, but I think we will just stick with the one set since I am sure they can add them onto the other bands. I still need to pay off my room res, but other than that we play the waiting game

More updates to come

 

[LowesChevy]

I came home for lunch today and Ma was on the phone with Disney asking about the other MB invitation. As I suspected, there is no need to double up-so if you happen to be doing a split stay, you only need one set.

I also took the opportunity to pay my balance for the Beach Club segment of our trip! Pretty excited that worked out well with timing. We are set to go, all balances paid in full. Now I just need to stock up on some Disney gift cards

Happy Friday the 13th and everyone have a great weekend!

 

[LowesChevy]

Single digit dancing today folks with 9 to go!! Hard to believe, but then again it’s like come on 9 days-that’s over a week!

Just busy housekeeping stuff in the house—yawn-clean the bathrooms and dusting. I have been getting some fall cleaning knowing that we will be trapped in the house a lot more. I also decorated the house for Halloween now! It is a timing issue, if we wait till we get back it’s the 7th already and that weekend I will have my friends over for my birthday party. I think it is the best option, plus I love Halloween so I don’t mind seeing the decorations up this early. However, if I see one Santa or Christmas tree, with the exception of holiday stores, uggh lol. I am definitely not ready for that season yet!

Experiencing roller coaster weather these days…was 39 F this morning. Brrrrrrrrrr, but it is suppose to warm up today and at the end of the week into the mid 70s…maybe!

To do list includes checking my battery life on my camera and deciding which lenses to take. Probably take both large and small tripods to catch some good night shots. Also keeping an eye on the tropical depressions moving through Mexico.

See you real soon!

 

[LowesChevy]

One week…7 whole days..that’s all?!

This time next Thursday we will be on our way to Cleveland. The plan is to eat at the Cheesecake Factory and then hop over to Beachwood Place to walk around and take a peek at Nordstrom. We like to get there at a decent time to miss the dinner crush, but not so early that we have to kill a ton of time before heading to the hotel.

I am making a date to check out those new bathrooms at the American Adventure. The old bathroom was way off the beaten path and always a quiet place, but these are looking really cool. Speaking of Epcot, we will be there on opening weekend of the Food & Wine Fest, so lots of photographs and noshes to be seen and explained! I will also be getting a good look at the Polynesian construction while we stay October 3-7th.

This weekend will be like major decision making on packing. I am going to get all of my camera items charged up and packed in my small carryon and get my bathroom items narrowed down and packed into small leak less bottles.

Tomorrow we celebrate my twin cousins birthday, so that will be fun.

Check in with you all soon! Cheers

Erika

 

[ILDisneyFan]

Sounds awesome! We also arrive on September 27th but we leave October 3rd. We were just there in April but I'm so excited and ready to go back! The Trip Countdown is on my phone and we're in the single digits now, it'll be here before we know it!

 

[LowesChevy]

Sounds awesome! We also arrive on September 27th but we leave October 3rd. We were just there in April but I'm so excited and ready to go back! The Trip Countdown is on my phone and we're in the single digits now, it'll be here before we know it!

I hope you have a magical time as well! Anticipation is half the fun right. We go once a year, so in it for the long haul lol.

 

[LowesChevy]

Thank goodness Monday is over. Been having issues with our TWC for what seems like ever. After an hour and a half on the phone with tech support Sunday, a tech came out and fixed the problem yesterday. Apparently the cables are not totally compatible with the boxes and televisions, yikes!!

So today, my mom turned on the furnace, or well she thought she did. Today that needs to be replaced…aye, not starting the week out well folks. The dollars are flying out of our hands quickly and we are not even at WDW yet lol!

On a positive not, we have almost all of our clothing laid out and ready to be packed. We use a mixed method, where everyone gets a bit of their wardrobe in each suitcase. Even flying only one leg, we still use this method because after several vacations of having no bathrooms bags, shoes or shorts we have learned after a while to not throw all of your clothing eggs in one basket. At least if you lose 1-2 bags, you still have a chance with the 3rd. It could be all underwear and socks, but at least they are clean. Actually we mix the entire wardrobe up, but if all bags are lost it’s a bust anyhow. Never happened to us and I hope it never does.

Working on lots of paperwork today and getting things done at work. I hope the customers take it easy on my work mates next week, but they have been warned.

Check in with you soon,


Erika

 

[Zipadeelady]

How many days? 2!! WHOO HOO!!

 

[LowesChevy]

1 full day of work to go!!

Last night I had my bff , her husband and mother over for dinner for fun. I won’t see them for 10 days or so! Fortunately come November they will be my new neighbors.I marinated and grilled London broil and made a chimichuri sauce to go with the steak, baked potatoes, asparagus, bok choy, zucchini and salad. As a chef, I always try to get my friends to try new things. They really enjoyed the chimichuri on the steak and the pumpkin roll they brought for dessert. A lovely evening indeed. Sorry no pictures, we started eating immediately-ravenous folks.

Soccer was fun and I managed not to injure my ankle any further or break any bones!

Work has slowed down again and I am just waiting for a couple of loose ends with purchase orders to come together. I am going to work a half day tomorrow and be done with it. I have one of those jobs where if you don’t leave or take your break you just keep findings things to keep you from getting up from the desk. I think we want to get on the road by 2:30-3:00 PM to Cleveland to beat major rush hour and get to the Beachwood/Legacy area.

We usually take my 4Runner up, but since I just bought a new one in June my dad is really apprehensive about taking it. Even he worries about it getting dented, scratched or worse! That’s my dad, always looking out for me. My mom’s Rav4 will have to do. It is much smaller, but there is plenty of room and it’s comfortable.

I have just about everything laid out for the suitcases. Still need to pack that bathroom bag and grab my Liverpool jersey and some athletic shorts. All the batteries are charged for my Canon camera, but I am still debating on whether or not to take my Kindle. I am bringing my iPad and I usually read on that, but usually my mom plays Candy Crush on it all of the time ha ha.

I think we are going to go out for dinner rather than cook. Usually when we get home, I can’t wait to cook, but it is nice to hang up the apron for a while and have someone else do the cooking and dishes.

I will keep you all posted on the happenings. Make sure you check me out on Twitter @wdwerika and Instagram @GrimmyLFC if you want to follow along with me.

See you real soon
Erika

 

[PartOfYourWorld]

Just noticed this was here! Sounds like you are going to have a great trip with that split stay! I'll be interested to see how it is moving from resort to resort. I feel like that would be alot of time out of the day to do that, but at least BLT and Poly are so close to each other! Will be keeping up with you on twitter and instagram!!! Safe travels!!!!

 

[LowesChevy]

Just noticed this was here! Sounds like you are going to have a great trip with that split stay! I'll be interested to see how it is moving from resort to resort. I feel like that would be alot of time out of the day to do that, but at least BLT and Poly are so close to each other! Will be keeping up with you on twitter and instagram!!! Safe travels!!!!

Thanks for noticing

Yes just at work here for a couple of hours and then we will be off to CLE. I will Tweeting and Instagramming all the way. The only downside to us is the transition time, but we rent a car, so its slightly easier with baggage. I hope you enjoy-thanks for following!!

 

[LowesChevy]

Having a great time and looking forward to writing my reviews