[Caldercup]

<u>The Final Planning Stages</u>
I had done an exhaustive comparison of the ticket options for DH and the other families (CJ and I have AP’s, remember.) After making complex charts and entering in all the info from AllEarsNet.com and checking out the discounted rates for Mousesavers newsletter subscribers, I finally settled on the prices for TicketMania at Mousesavers rates. Bob only needed a 7-day Hopper with 5 pluses. The Esterles needed 9-day Hoppers with 5 pluses. My dad and Joan needed 3-day Hoppers (no pluses). The funny thing is that the price difference between the 9-day and the 3-days was only $80 per ticket. Wow! You really save by getting more days! I decided to also get some DisneyQuest tickets for Calder and me. We’ll need some tickets for water parks, but we couldn’t buy them through TicketMania, so we’ll wait until we’re on property.

The rest of the group was up for more PSs to be made – I had given them print-outs of some of the restaurants that I thought would work out well for all of us. Donna’s only concern was that she didn’t think the kids would put up with too many meals that would take them out of the “action.” That meshed perfectly with our preferred method of touring since we mostly do counter service and sprinkle a couple of sit-down meals throughout our trip.

I booked Whispering Canyon Café for lunch on the 30th – our first full day together with Frank’s family. I think the kids will have a blast and will love taking the boat from the Magic Kingdom. This bunch can get very rowdy, so I’m hoping our server is outgoing and funny to really ramp ‘em up!

We’re doing a Chef Mickey’s breakfast mid-week and I know that their youngest will get a kick out of this meal.

I booked Le Cellier for our dinner on the first night that Dad and Joan would arrive. Despite several attempts, I have never been able to get to eat here and I’m so excited about it! At our kick-off dinner, I had jokingly referred to Le Cellier as the “second-best” steak house on property and my dad, a notorious skin-flint but total jokester, said, “don’t we rate the top steak house?” I replied that we could go to the Yachtsman Steakhouse but that he’d have to mortgage the house to pay for it. He yelled, “Le Cellier it is then, folks!”

I decided to book a PS for Boma on the morning of our big day at AK. I wanted to show everyone the AKL because it’s just so awesome (and I mean that in the true sense of the word!) I’m considering booking a taxi to get us there easily since it’s an early PS and the AK has evening EMH that night – not sure about transporting all 10 of us using the buses and still making an early PS.

A wonderful idea occurred to me… with all these adults and kids going, no one would notice if I slipped away to take a tour! KEYS TO THE KINGDOM, HERE I COME. I’m scheduled for May 2nd and I can barely contain my excitement. Calder’s a little miffed that he can’t join me since he’s only 9 years old. (I’ve promised him a 16th birthday trip and we’ll take the tour then!)

A few weeks ago, we watched a DVD of a Cirque de Soleil show and Calder was finally interested in seeing it. Since I knew DH was jonesing to see La Nouba, I talked to Frank and Donna about it. The price was a little much for all 5 of them to come, but Frank was interested in maybe going solo and joining us. The only night that would work was May 3rd and we figured we could “wing it” and pick up tickets that day – just in case they wanted to splurge and join us. Well, here’s where my husband is convinced that WDW has the word “sucker” in bold letters at the top of my file. I called the GG coordinators to clarify something about our reservations and the lovely woman noted all the cool things we were signed up for. She asked if we were interested in La Nouba and I explained our situation. “Well,” she says. “Let me just check on the seats I have for just the three of you.” I hear some clickety clicking and then she, honest to God, squeals in my ear. “Oh, honey! I can get you front row seats! ” I don’t know what came over me. I know that the theatre is small and that there’s no bad seat in the house, but….. Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, I see the look of wonder and joy on my husband’s face as he watches the German wheels doing their thing. I say, “I’ll take ‘em.” The tickets arrived last week. &lt;sigh… “sucker” is right!&gt;

Okay, now for the final, nitty gritty items.

Disney’s Magical Express service doesn’t start until May 5th and they can’t do a “soft opening” for insurance reasons (or something the CM explained that I can’t remember right now.) So, we had to arrange for transportation to the resort from the airport with Tiffany Towncar, who we’ve used in the past and really liked. We’re all signed up for DME on the return day. Well, I started thinking that we’d be spending enough money on Tiffany for our leg plus my dad’s mid-week leg that it might make sense to rent a car. I checked out all the rental companies and spent an hour plugging in coupons and ID codes and finally settled on Alamo for $119 for the 9 days – pretty smokin’ good rate. (Taxes, of course, really nailed us and our total will be for $161.89.) Well, it meant that I could try for a trip to the outlets on my way to pick the grandparents up on Wednesday. Plus, I feel better knowing that we have a car to get to a grocery store – four growing boys need lots of snacks and in-room eats!!

I had given Donna my version of the Ultimate Packing List and she was amazing at finding great prices on everything for their family. She’s a girl after my own heart!! I stopped at their house several times on my way home from work to answer questions and give advice – and marvel at her money-saving tricks! I think they’re pretty well set to go now. We even ran into each other at Costco last night as she was buying a digital camera – and I was there picking up a 1 gig memory card for our new camera. (DH finally splurged two nights ago on an upgrade to our Canon ELPH and *really* splurged and bought a Canon digital camcorder too! Ahh, if only he’d done this two weeks ago, we would’ve had $16 more Disney Reward Dollars from our Disney Visa! Oh, well, he just got a nice bonus for the launch of his latest ride.)

This past Sunday, I held a kick-off dinner (all the juicy details are here ) and that got all the boys really psyched – not to mention my father, who seemed genuinely excited to go. I asked the kids if they had any questions about WDW that I could answer, they all started bombarding me with questions about rides and attractions they’d been reading about. The very last question came from the Esterle’s eldest – “Can we leave tomorrow?” Sorry, Brian… you’ll have to wait until Friday.

Ahh… Friday…. How will I last that long?

&lt;more to come&gt;