** Magic Mirror's ** Pre-Trip Report for MVMCP !!

One more Alaskan Photo before moving on to new trip plans

Well, I have to admit, no sooner than my feet touched the ground, my mind was racing for a Disney Trip!

This past January, Amy started having severe abdominal pains. After several months and rounds of testing,
they determined the gall bladder was down to 17% functionality. So she had it removed but is still suffering some
pain to this day, although it is getting better. Due to the surgery, we almost cancelled Alaska, but she was a real
trooper and with the help of pain meds in the evening..she made it through.

So when I got home I started crunching the numbers for the Disney Trip...then the hospital bills started coming in. *BLAH* I had still played around with the idea but there just didn't seem to be a way to make it work.

One day I'm home, minding my own business, when I started flipping through the mail.

** D I S N E Y M A I L **

I started jumping up and down! Free Dining Plans! And the week I had thought about going to Disney,
The first week of December, is covered! WHOO HOOOO! I couldn't wait till Amy got home so I could show her.
She was very excited but we still didn't know if we could afford to swing it.

Then...things just started to fall into place! In between my full time police job, I teach at our Police Academy and get paid a nice wage to do so. However, they have been cutting down on the academy's due to the lack of jobs in Michigan. I got an email that said the next academy was a go and they gave me my instructor dates. * A co-worker finally sold her father's house and had several items she needed to get out of there ASAP, so she called Amy and I because she knows we dabble with antiques. We purchased several items for a very reasonable price. I sell and buy on Ebay, so I flipped them on Ebay and they took off with bids! The first item we got 10x more than we paid for it! And I have more items to list. * Then I got the mail only to find we overpaid on a medical bill somehow so they refunded us the money. Money seems to be falling from the sky. WHEN DOES THAT HAPPEN??? While one part of my brain is saying that money could be used towards financial matters aka bills *BLAH* , the stronger side of my brain says DISNEY MONEY!

The real test was going to be the dog/cat/house sitter. Our dogs have never been kenneled and we've always been lucky enough to have a dear friend stay at the house with them. This not only saves huge amounts of money but gives us the peace of mind that they are loved and cared for. She told me a few years ago she would never be able to stay in December because there is just too much going on during the holidays. So I talked to her about it and she said it was no problem! Go for it!

I checked the schedule at work and no one is off , Amy the same.. so the schedules are cleared.....

THIS HAS TO BE A SIGN ! Don't you think?????

I sat down and started dabbling on the Disney website for plans and hotels..I even compared them to renting DVC points even though we would lose the free meal plans. I finally settled on Pop Century, 5 day tickets (no park hopper) and MVMCP hard tickets. This would qualify us for the Free Dining (Counter Service). We only used the park hopper once last year, due to ADR'S..so I think we won't have any problem skipping that option this time. And while I most certainly will miss, so very much, my beloved POFQ, I can't justify the $500 difference it would cost to stay there. After running the totals I came up to about $1600 + airfare. I feel comfortable with that and I think its very doable financially between now and December.

HERE WE COME DISNEY!

This is the schedule I am tentatively looking at, I'm mostly scheduling around
the EMH to take advantage of long resort days as we won't have the hopper option:

Fly to Orlando Nov. 30th (Sat) (First day of Dining Plan)
Settle in & Downtown Disney
Dec 1st (Sun) Hollywood Studios 9am-10pm
Dec 2nd (Mon) Magic Kingdom 9am-11pm
Dec 3rd (Tue) Tour Resorts to see Christmas Decorations, Maybe DVC Tour?
Dec 4th (Wed) Animal Kingdom 8am-5pm -see Animal Kingdom Lodge for Christmas Decorations in evening
Dec 5th (Thu) Relax during day, MVMCP 4pm-Midnight
Dec 6th (Fri) Epcot 9am-11pm
Dec 7th (Sat) Choice of Park (avoid MK due to parade taping?)
Dec 8th (Sun) Fly Home

YES! I would highly recommend Norwegian Cruise Line! We traveled with Royal Caribbean before and while we enjoyed it, we really prefer Norwegian's more laid back approach to casual dining at the time you want , no reservations needed.

Thank you everyone for the photo compliments! It was a very beautiful place to take pictures of......

Allie, no ADR's such we will be on counter service only this time.... I'm not really too bummed about that as it will be nice not to have to be somewhere at a certain time, allowing us to move more freelance style thru the park. Also, I really felt like I didn't research the counter service options good enough last time as I was too involved in planning the ADR's. This time I've started making notes about food that we may want and I still need to go back and update all those delicious cupcakes as last time I didn't have one cupcake or dole whip!!

I plan on calling Disney Friday to make the reservations!

Thank you everyone! I called and attempted to get a standard room at Pop Century but the ones available thru the Free Dining Pin were full... I ended up with All Star Music which actually ended up being about $100 cheaper. While their food court is closed for refurbishment and we will be in the farthest building...I'm just excited to be going to Disney!~ ~

Thanks Belinda & Hardy it will be our first time in the World at Christmas!

I also posted more Alaska pictures under the General Discussion Forum "Alaska 2013" if anyone
would like to see more.

OMG!~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just saw the Candlelight Processional started accepting booking on July 9th so I jumped
on Disney Food Blog and they have a partial list of narrators -

OMG!~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally we were going on Friday Dec 6th- well that's been changed now to
Thursday Dec 5th ..

the narrator is ............. drum roll please.............................

ASHLEY JUDD

While I have nothing against Ashley, I am not that excited except for ..........
She is Amy's absolute favorite actress, for years, she loves her more than any other actress, super cool, all she talks about....... and that makes me the most awesome Disney Trip Planner in the World (according to Amy) (even though
it's all a freaking coincidence..but hey, I'm gonna roll with it and take the credit)

So right now, I called Amy at work and told her the list was out and there would be 2 people that week
for narrators and one was Whoopi Goldberg and umm..hmmmmm.....who was that other person?
Oh yeah, I found it right here, some girl actress, uhhh her name is Ashley Judd?? and who would you like
to see between the two??

TOTAL SILENCE then a quiet, What? Are you serious ?
( good question as I have been known to gently pull her leg now and then)

YES I'm serious

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY JJJJJJJJUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***
yes well I think you get the point of her excitement.
***

and as if getting hugged by Sugar Ray last fall didn't cement Amy into being a Disney Fan Fanatic forever..
this most certainly did!

I feel DVC closer to my future

So I jumped on the phone to Disney, and after quickly refreshing my memory on the great advice here, knew we
wanted to do the 8:15pm show to experience the magic of darkness and candlelight, and started looking for available
dinner packages....the Italy and France options were sold out for that time, however we did get Rose and Crown !
Reservations made now back to trip planning as we have to move around MVMCP and some parks...

So dear Disney family, here is my dilemma-
knowing that we are for sure going to be dining at Rose & Crown to get preferred entry to the Candlelight Processional, we will have to pay out of pocket $120 dollars for dinner.

We currently have the free Disney dining quick service.

If you have the standard or above, you can use 2 dining credits each for the Candlelight Dinner at R&C.

I could upgrade my quick dining to the standard and pay the difference between them.
The upgrade would cost $252.14 for both of us..
subtract the required dinner we are paying anyway at $120- that leaves me with $132.14 more
that would basically ensure we have sit down dinners almost every night.

OR

I could attempt to upgrade my whole reservation to a Moderate Resort...thus getting the
Standard Dining Plan "free" with the moderate...and that would cost me about $535 more.

ahhhhhh the wonders of crunching numbers...

To be on the safe side.. I went thru and snagged some reservations just in case.....
I can always cancel a little later on - but at least we have some places we have never been to before.

The pro's are better meals, forces us to sit down for at least an hour to relax, eat places we normally wouldn't
the con's are it ties us down to a set dining time and it costs a little more money.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
what would you do?