Becca1005's Pre-Trip Report

Ok, as a newbie here....I get to extend the fun by writing a "PRE" trip report?

It's official, I'm in Disney heaven!

Bear with me here, I've never written one of these things so forgive me if I ramble. But I am super proud of the planning I've done and I'm hoping it will translate into an amazing trip!

For some background, I consider myself a Disney veteran. My first WDW trip was when I was 6 months old. The first trip I really remember was when I was 4 and that was when I fell in love with Epcot. In between trips I would pour over the latest WDW travel books. To this day I can still quote most of the descriptions in a particular publication. Yes, I was a weird kid (what 4 year-old loves Epcot and Living with the Land, in particular?) and am now an even weirder adult (we don't have enough time to delve into this one! ). My DH, Sean, had been to Disneyland and WDW once each as a teen. I will spare you the details of his WDW trip, the sheer chaos of the trip makes me shudder. And I refuse to speak of Disneyland because I'm jealous that he has a "one up" on me when it comes to Disney as, sadly, I have yet to make it to the original park.

We honeymooned in WDW in October of 2005. We stayed at the Wilderness Lodge for 12 days and had an incredible time! All things considered, it was essentially my DH's first WDW vacation that counted. The only drawback being...the poor guy had a hernia! Despite being in constant pain, he absolutely loved the experience and couldn't wait to go back. Now that is what I call Disney magic!

We didn't do a meal plan on our honeymoon so when we booked our next trip in late September/early October of 2010, we went all out. We stayed for 8 days at the WL again. I hadn't gone too crazy with the ADRs so we weren't too booked for meals. We did a lot of "eh, why not? let's try it" meals and ate at a few places more than once (most notably Biergarten and La Hacienda which was in it's 'soft opening' at the time). Immediately after returning home, we were already talking about going back....mostly, to eat! lol! The original idea was to go in December of 2011 so Sean could celebrate his 40th birthday in WDW.....during WDW's 40th birthday celebration! (I think it's kismet that my DH was born the same year as WDW!) But, alas! It wasn't meant to be.

Which brings us to the upcoming trip!

All of the stars aligned so we decided this was the time to go. It looks like future WDW trips will be more spaced out so I wanted to go BIG this time!

We booked the WL for 8 days in December along with the Deluxe Dining Plan. To really get our money's worth out of the dining plan, we challenged ourselves to not eat ANY counter-service meals, but eat only at sit-down restaurants. There were a lot of restaurants we wanted to go back to and many more we wanted to try and using all of our meal credits for sit-down meals was the only way we were going to achieve that. We know it's going to be a ridiculous amount of food, but we figure, if we leave a little on the plate, well, we're on vacation! Vacation isn't the most frugal of times now, is it?

Here's the breakdown....

12/2
Early flight out of Syracuse, NY ( pleasepleaseplease do not snow in the snow capital of the country pleasepleaseplease )

Barring any weather delays, we're hoping to check in at WL, hop on a boat and be in the MK by noon. Once there, we will not pass go, we will not collect $200 (although that would be nice!), we will go straight to Aloha Isle and get a Dole Whip Float! A lovely woman (no idea who she was, I think she may have been an angel!) introduced us to these delights in 2010 and I'm a total fanatic now. I still can't believe that, despite all of my previous trips, I had never heard of them! I plan on making up for that and pledge to get a Dole Whip Float every time I am in the MK! Because of the questionable weather, I didn't book a lunch for the first day. Because Be Our Guest will be open, and it's counter-service for lunch, we're tossing around the idea of paying out of pocket and having a light lunch there. We'll see. Stay tuned for the actual trip report (I think I'm going to title it FOOD! FOOD! And more FOOD!) to find out. Dinner will be at The Wave....of American Flavors at the Contemporary. Then DHWS has EMHs that night so we'll hop on over there where this pair of Star Wars junkies will proceed to ride Star Tours until we have experienced every. single. one. of the over 50 scenarios! It was closed for the re-furb on our last trip so we're really going through withdrawals.

12/3
Epcot
As much as I love Epcot, to me, the MK *IS* WDW so I must go there first. But, the first full day is always in Epcot.
We'll start out with breakfast at Whispering Canyon Cafe. We had dinner there on our honeymoon (flashback to Sean riding one of the stick-ponies around singing "You are My Sunshine" after losing a horribly rigged coloring contest...BAAHAHAHAHAHA!) and breakfast there a couple of times in 2010 so we know what to expect. Lunch will be at the Biergarten. One of the repeats from last time. Despite my red hair and burst-into-flames-in-direct-sunlight-pale skin, I'm of German descent and grew up on tons of German food. Sean is not an adventurous eater so I wasn't sure what he'd think. Well, he loved it! So much that we went back for a second time in 2010 and it's one of the few restaurants he requested that I book this time. We know we'll have a great time there. Ticky-tocky ticky-tocky! Oy! Oy! Oy! Dinner will be at Les Chefs de France. Neither of us have eaten here, but we (well, I) have high hopes. After 4 years of French class in high school, you'd think I'd have retained more of the language. Really the only words I can remember are food. I can read a French menu like nobody's business so I'm hoping to fit right in! Also hoping that Remy might make an appearance (does anyone know if this can be requested or if he has a schedule?). MK has EMHs so we may stop on by for another Dole Whip Float? We'll see.

12/4
Animal Kingdom - Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party
No breakfast scheduled. We may use some snack credits for a muffin/danish/breakfasty-thing from Roaring Forks. Lunch AND Dinner will be at Yak & Yeti. We've heard so many great things about Y&Y (Cream Cheese Wontons? Oh. Em. Gee!) that we figured, what the heck!....DH had an inspired idea. While I do most of the planning for our trips (dear hubby does the overtime to pay for them and then he gets to just kick back and enjoy the ride) I give full credit to him for this particular element. We had booked MVMCP, figuring it might be slightly less crowded on a Tuesday night I was thinking out loud about where we could go during the day and Sean said "Hey, doesn't AK close early?" I tell you, the man is a genius! This will be the first "Party", but how can you go wrong with Disney, cookies and hot chocolate? Ya just can't.

12/5
Disney's Hollywood Studios
No breakfast scheduled again. After 3 late nights in the parks, we just might be in the mood to sleep in a bit, don't you think? Lunch will be at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater. This is another repeat. We loved it last time. But, we are much wiser this time. Do not, I repeat, DO. NOT. order both a milkshake and a sundae in addition to your app and entree. Owww. Just Owww. Dinner will be at the Hollywood Brown Derby. Another repeat and where the true hurtin set in after the double-dairy-whammy at the SFDIT so we're looking forward to a less painful experience this time. I had the Duck Three Ways last time. I see that's off the menu so I may go for the Duck Two Ways (darn economy! everything is down-sized!). We have early rezzies for HBD so we'll catch Fantasmic! that evening. We missed it last trip and Sean really loved it on our HM so we've got to see it this time if we can.

12/6
Epcot
Again. Breakfast will be at The Wave. I've heard good things about the Sweet Potato Pancakes. We're fans of a good breakfast buffet. Sean was wild for the breakfast buffet at the Crystal Palace and we were thinking of booking Chef Mickey's but as two adults....we may act like children, but we don't actually have any...we sometimes feel guilty at the character breakfasts for taking the characters' time away from the kids. I stumbled upon The Wave and figured. Buffet, breakfast, no characters? Sold! And since it's in the Contemporary, we can hop on the Monorail and avoid the buses! Whoowhoo! Lunch will be at Restaurant Marrakesh. This is another new one, reviews used to be less than stellar, but recently I've seen a lot of glowing reviews. I'm really looking forward to this one! Dinner at the Yachtsman Steakhouse. Yet another new one. Booked when I could not seem to find *any* opening for Le Cellier despite logging onto the online reservations promptly at 6am 180 days out. <- If my boss asks, I was late to work that day because I had an "appointment" No worries about this one at all. Come on, it's STEAK. As long as it doesn't moo at me, I'm pretty much good with any slab o' beef you throw in front of me.

12/7
Epcot
I told you it's my favorite park! It also happens to have the biggest abundance of restaurants we wanted to try. No scheduled breakfast. Lunch will be at Le Cellier. Remember how I said I couldn't get a reservation 180 days out? Well, persistence does indeed pay off. I checked back every day for two months and voila! a lunch opening. We've never eaten here and considering the hot and cold reviews, I'm happy it's going to be lunch. If it doesn't live up to the hype, at least we only used one credit. But, I'm optimistic. It's another steakhouse. And don't worry, pretzel bread and cheddar cheese soup will be tasted! Dinner at La Hacienda. This was THE standout from our 2010 trip! It was still in its soft opening and not taking ADRs so we just walked up and had an a-ma-zing meal. Because it was soooo good, we went back the next day. And whoa! We felt like old friends! All of the managers and most of the servers stopped by our table to welcome us back! Of course, we're not expecting anything even remotely close to that on this trip, but the food was out of this world too and we're hoping to repeat that part. The only thing that stopped us from going back a third time in 2010 was ADRs at Artist Point on our final day. Sadly, that was our only disappointing meal (strange, most people love AP). C'est la vie. Oh hey! I remembered some more French!

12/8
Downtown Disney and Resort Tours
Breakfast at Trails End in Fort Wilderness. Not expecting a whole lot here. Another buffet and after, we can take a spin around Fort Wilderness. I've heard some of the campers decorate for Christmas. We may check out the Tri-Circle D ranch and maybe take a carriage ride. Lunch at Raglan Road. We ate here last time and I still have dreams about the Bread Pudding...We plan on checking out the Christmas decorations at the AKL and GF and maybe stop by some of the other resorts to take a closer look at the decorations we may have overlooked. Then, to put a 'topper' on our last full day, we're having dinner at California Grill. This will be a new one, but wow! what reviews! We know this is going to be a doozy. And we have it timed so we'll be dining during (say that 5 times fast) Holiday Wishes! I think one of the things that kind of ruined Artist Point last time was the lack of enforcement of the dress code. While we can definitely see why it's difficult to enforce in the parks (who walks around the parks in heels or a suit?), it seems like the resort restaurants could be a bit more selective. But, I am forewarned, so I will ignore the people in ratty jeans and focus on my DH, who cleans up quite nicely if I do say so myself.

12/9
Magic Kingdom
Last day. WHAAAAAAA!
We always end up in MK. It's where the magic seems the strongest. Breakfast will be at The Wave again, just because. And we have to eat at Liberty Tree Tavern for lunch, Sean's only other request. The last time, our server at LTT told us the Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake recipe was one of Paula Deen's. I don't know if that is true, but if it is....Thank. You. Paula!

And this is where I break down in tears because we have to leave our happy place :( :(

So that's it! Tune in for the actual trip report to see if everything went according to plan or not! That is, if I didn't scare you away with this novel of a Pre-Trip Report.