So as I'm typing this up, I feel like I just finished up my last TR... Oh wait, I did! Nevermind. But we're getting ready to head back down to the world in 65 days. Feels like just yesterday I changed my trip countdown date on my app to reflect 169 days. Hence the name of the title... That's the response when I wrote my time off on the calendar and my co-worker asked where I was going.... "Disney? Again? Didn't you just get back?" Yep.... Sure did!!
We're doing LOTS of dining on this trip. Some new places and some old favorites. Even a couple places we wouldn't normally try but we're branching out.
So here's the deal....
Who: Me (Darolyn) my sister Ashley and my mama (Terryn). Same cast of characters as usual. What can I say, we travel well together.
Here we are on our November 2011 trip.
When: April 26-May 7th (We're driving so we won't get to our timeshare until the evening of the 27th and we're leaving on the morning of the 6th to come home.) We will be celebrating Mama's birthday on April 30th
Where: 7 nights at Orange Lake Resort in Kissimmee and 2 nights in a studio room at the Villas at the Wilderness Lodge.
Itinerary:
Thursday April 26th / Friday April 27th - After loading up the car, we will hopefully be on the road by 6pm at the latest. We're planning on driving straight through. I feel it's best to hit NYC and Washington during NON rush hour, for obvious reasons. 3 drivers... 24 hours (approx) should get us into Kissimmee around 8pm (Allowing a couple hours for stops) The only request I have for the ride down (and back) is to stop at either Smithfields or Cook Out in NC. YUM! After checking into our Orange Lake Resort 2 bedroom unit, we will hit the grocery store for breakfast items and so I can stock up on Cheerwine to bring home and grab some dinner at Bahama Breeze. Early to bed I'm sure so we can begin the adventures on Saturday!
Saturday April 28th - Up early for our ADR at Crystal Palace at 8:20am (still trying to get something for closer to 8am) Spending the morning and early afternoon at MK and then heading over to MGM for the evening and for Fantasmic! Only must do thing for me today will be trying the waffle with strawberries at Sleepy Hollow and my traditional cookies and cream ice cream after Fantasmic at Hollywood Scoops.
Sunday April 29th - Splitting the day between MGM and Epcot. Mom will volunteer to do the TSM run for FPs and Ashley and I will hit up RNRC and ToT. Love having a Mom willing to do the dirty work for us! lol ADR today is lunch at Sci Fi Dine In at 1:45pm. I'm not too sure if this is a a good pick or not but Ashley wants to try it out so we're going to give it a go. Starring Rolls cupcakes are on the list for today as well as a Grey Goose slush!
Monday April 30th - Mama's birthday! Today we're spending the day at Busch Gardens. Hey, we need our fill of thrill rides somehow and we've done Universal the last 3 trips. Time to switch it up! Plus we got a good deal on a park ticket including lunch. I'm excited to ride Sheikra again and also to try out their new coaster Cheetah Hunt. BG is open 10am-6pm so we have an ADR for Mama's birthday dinner at California Grill at 9:10pm. Wishes is at 10pm and we plan on ordering her a birthday cake to come out after dinner. Probably an 8-10 inch cake with green frosting and flowers, no fondant, just buttercream. Hopefully there will be lots of leftover cake! YUM!
Tuesday May 1st - Epcot and MK. We have lunch scheduled at Le Cellier for 12:45pm but could possibly be changing it to Via Napoli (we have another Le Cellier lunch booked later in the week) We will head over to MK mid afternoon and hang out there until our ADR at 'Ohana at 8:30pm. Wishes is at 10 and we will probably just hang out on the beach at the Poly and watch them. One of two days we have 2 ADR's scheduled.
Wednesday May 2nd - Today is our free day... Our touring style is go go go so we need a day to sleep in a bit and just slow down. We will head over to Beach Club and try out some Beaches N Cream and then head over to Downtown Disney. There aren't many souvenirs I'm looking to bring home but I do want some sort of art and to get a couple plates and bowls for the kitchen. We will probably head back to the resort and check out the pool and the lazy river they have. Orange Lake Resort is seriously the size of a small town. It's huge. A nap will probably be in order because we have ADR's for the Hoop Dee Doo Revue at 9:30pm. Not crazy about the late showtime but to get the Tables In Wonderland discount, that's the show we had to book. It's worth it to save $12 a person.
Thursday May 3rd - Beginning our day with an ADR for Tusker House at 8:25 before our one day at Animal Kingdom. This trip we're going to try and see Flights of Wonder and Finding Nemo the Musical, two things we have yet to see. Also, we're hoping to check out Mickey's Jammin Jungle parade for the first time as well. ADR for dinner at Sanaa at 5:15. This is new for us and I think this might be the new restaurant I'm most excited to try. We booked this due to the rave reviews from Chris (fractal) and Shannon (Ariel484) so thank you! As excited as I am to try it out, I'm a little nervous. I'm not a huge fan of spicy food but I'm going to give it a whirl.
Friday May 4th - Check out day at Orange Lake. We're getting up and out the door for a 9:30 ADR at Kona Cafe. Pumped to finally try the Tonga Toast. It was one thing I had read about years ago on the menu and wanted to try even before I saw all the rave reviews. Plus, it gives me another chance to see the Poly (which is my dream resort) After breakfast, we're heading over to check in at our studio room at The Villas at the Wilderness Lodge. We originally had a regular room book with a discount rate but it actually came out about $140 cheaper to rent a studio in the villas. The rooms are practically the same with the exception of a pull out sofa in the studio. Oh, and a fridge! Bonus! So we went with renting the points. It's been a VERY easy process so far so hopefully all goes well. If the room is ready, we will bring our stuff up and go to the pool or just explore the resort. We didn't have a lot of opportunity to look around the grounds of the WL back in November and I definitely want to this time. We have an ADR for Whispering Canyon at 5:25pm then it's off to Epcot for EMH.
Saturday May 5th - Our last day at the parks
Booooooo. Splitting the day between Epcot and MK. ADR for Le Cellier at 1:30pm. We like to make our last evening at MK so we will watch one final Wishes show and to hit up all our favorites one last time.
Sunday May 6th - Departure day. As if leaving the wonderful world isn't bad enough to begin with, we have a long joyous car ride to look forward too. Breakfast ADR at Whispering Canyon at 8:45am then it's time to hit the road and begin the trek back to Maine. We're planning on stopping in either NC or VA for the night I believe.
So that's it. This is our longest Disney trip to date. Longest by 1 day (We drove when I was in 6th grade - leaving on a Thursday night and returning home the next Saturday morning) We're excited to try out the Villas section of the WL since we love that resort. We're hitting out favorite restaurants and also trying some new ones. We're going to try and do one new thing in each park, which will be difficult to do since we've done pretty much everything in every park over the span of the 23 trips I've taken.
So excited!!!!! :sohappy:
We're doing LOTS of dining on this trip. Some new places and some old favorites. Even a couple places we wouldn't normally try but we're branching out.
So here's the deal....
Who: Me (Darolyn) my sister Ashley and my mama (Terryn). Same cast of characters as usual. What can I say, we travel well together.
Here we are on our November 2011 trip.
When: April 26-May 7th (We're driving so we won't get to our timeshare until the evening of the 27th and we're leaving on the morning of the 6th to come home.) We will be celebrating Mama's birthday on April 30th
Where: 7 nights at Orange Lake Resort in Kissimmee and 2 nights in a studio room at the Villas at the Wilderness Lodge.
Itinerary:
Thursday April 26th / Friday April 27th - After loading up the car, we will hopefully be on the road by 6pm at the latest. We're planning on driving straight through. I feel it's best to hit NYC and Washington during NON rush hour, for obvious reasons. 3 drivers... 24 hours (approx) should get us into Kissimmee around 8pm (Allowing a couple hours for stops) The only request I have for the ride down (and back) is to stop at either Smithfields or Cook Out in NC. YUM! After checking into our Orange Lake Resort 2 bedroom unit, we will hit the grocery store for breakfast items and so I can stock up on Cheerwine to bring home and grab some dinner at Bahama Breeze. Early to bed I'm sure so we can begin the adventures on Saturday!
Saturday April 28th - Up early for our ADR at Crystal Palace at 8:20am (still trying to get something for closer to 8am) Spending the morning and early afternoon at MK and then heading over to MGM for the evening and for Fantasmic! Only must do thing for me today will be trying the waffle with strawberries at Sleepy Hollow and my traditional cookies and cream ice cream after Fantasmic at Hollywood Scoops.
Sunday April 29th - Splitting the day between MGM and Epcot. Mom will volunteer to do the TSM run for FPs and Ashley and I will hit up RNRC and ToT. Love having a Mom willing to do the dirty work for us! lol ADR today is lunch at Sci Fi Dine In at 1:45pm. I'm not too sure if this is a a good pick or not but Ashley wants to try it out so we're going to give it a go. Starring Rolls cupcakes are on the list for today as well as a Grey Goose slush!
Monday April 30th - Mama's birthday! Today we're spending the day at Busch Gardens. Hey, we need our fill of thrill rides somehow and we've done Universal the last 3 trips. Time to switch it up! Plus we got a good deal on a park ticket including lunch. I'm excited to ride Sheikra again and also to try out their new coaster Cheetah Hunt. BG is open 10am-6pm so we have an ADR for Mama's birthday dinner at California Grill at 9:10pm. Wishes is at 10pm and we plan on ordering her a birthday cake to come out after dinner. Probably an 8-10 inch cake with green frosting and flowers, no fondant, just buttercream. Hopefully there will be lots of leftover cake! YUM!
Tuesday May 1st - Epcot and MK. We have lunch scheduled at Le Cellier for 12:45pm but could possibly be changing it to Via Napoli (we have another Le Cellier lunch booked later in the week) We will head over to MK mid afternoon and hang out there until our ADR at 'Ohana at 8:30pm. Wishes is at 10 and we will probably just hang out on the beach at the Poly and watch them. One of two days we have 2 ADR's scheduled.
Wednesday May 2nd - Today is our free day... Our touring style is go go go so we need a day to sleep in a bit and just slow down. We will head over to Beach Club and try out some Beaches N Cream and then head over to Downtown Disney. There aren't many souvenirs I'm looking to bring home but I do want some sort of art and to get a couple plates and bowls for the kitchen. We will probably head back to the resort and check out the pool and the lazy river they have. Orange Lake Resort is seriously the size of a small town. It's huge. A nap will probably be in order because we have ADR's for the Hoop Dee Doo Revue at 9:30pm. Not crazy about the late showtime but to get the Tables In Wonderland discount, that's the show we had to book. It's worth it to save $12 a person.
Thursday May 3rd - Beginning our day with an ADR for Tusker House at 8:25 before our one day at Animal Kingdom. This trip we're going to try and see Flights of Wonder and Finding Nemo the Musical, two things we have yet to see. Also, we're hoping to check out Mickey's Jammin Jungle parade for the first time as well. ADR for dinner at Sanaa at 5:15. This is new for us and I think this might be the new restaurant I'm most excited to try. We booked this due to the rave reviews from Chris (fractal) and Shannon (Ariel484) so thank you! As excited as I am to try it out, I'm a little nervous. I'm not a huge fan of spicy food but I'm going to give it a whirl.
Friday May 4th - Check out day at Orange Lake. We're getting up and out the door for a 9:30 ADR at Kona Cafe. Pumped to finally try the Tonga Toast. It was one thing I had read about years ago on the menu and wanted to try even before I saw all the rave reviews. Plus, it gives me another chance to see the Poly (which is my dream resort) After breakfast, we're heading over to check in at our studio room at The Villas at the Wilderness Lodge. We originally had a regular room book with a discount rate but it actually came out about $140 cheaper to rent a studio in the villas. The rooms are practically the same with the exception of a pull out sofa in the studio. Oh, and a fridge! Bonus! So we went with renting the points. It's been a VERY easy process so far so hopefully all goes well. If the room is ready, we will bring our stuff up and go to the pool or just explore the resort. We didn't have a lot of opportunity to look around the grounds of the WL back in November and I definitely want to this time. We have an ADR for Whispering Canyon at 5:25pm then it's off to Epcot for EMH.
Saturday May 5th - Our last day at the parks
Booooooo. Splitting the day between Epcot and MK. ADR for Le Cellier at 1:30pm. We like to make our last evening at MK so we will watch one final Wishes show and to hit up all our favorites one last time.Sunday May 6th - Departure day. As if leaving the wonderful world isn't bad enough to begin with, we have a long joyous car ride to look forward too. Breakfast ADR at Whispering Canyon at 8:45am then it's time to hit the road and begin the trek back to Maine. We're planning on stopping in either NC or VA for the night I believe.
So that's it. This is our longest Disney trip to date. Longest by 1 day (We drove when I was in 6th grade - leaving on a Thursday night and returning home the next Saturday morning) We're excited to try out the Villas section of the WL since we love that resort. We're hitting out favorite restaurants and also trying some new ones. We're going to try and do one new thing in each park, which will be difficult to do since we've done pretty much everything in every park over the span of the 23 trips I've taken.
So excited!!!!! :sohappy:
This was actually our longest trip to date (we had 8 days down there) yet it felt like the shortest one of all!