The Eighteen Years in the Planning Pre-Trip Report About This Page:

[Colexis Mom]

Glad you got your tickets all sorted out!!

[tinker_me_happy]

The next installment is a little long. I will be working 52 hours this coming week and probably won't see my computer, so more updates will be a bit.

[tinker_me_happy]

Probably the MOST difficult decision I have had to make for this entire trip. Yes, I did debate the rent a car thing for a few days, but for the most part, it was an easy decision to go with the Disney Magic Express. Not so with the dining plan. Now that I would be an Annual Pass holder, I would be eligible for the Disney Dining Experience card. There have been many great posts about how much money you would have to spend on meals for it to break even, and I almost fell off my chair laughing! I think we will break even on the DDE with just one dinner! But I am getting ahead of myself…

Corey, who many of you know I lovingly call Grumpy was not happy about ‘being forced’ to go on this trip. He plain out said “I’m not going. You can’t make me!” Well he’s right. I CAN’T make him. Then one morning I took the kids to a little diner they like for breakfast. I was talking to Alicia and Evan about where we might like to eat. I explained to them that in order to eat at any of the sit down table service restaurants I would have to make ADRs. I had already printed a bunch of menus off the Allears website, and told them they could look at the menus when we got home to help them decide where to eat. “WAIT!” exclaims Corey, “They have food there!?”I am NOT kidding. Those were his exact words! Yes Corey, people eat when they go on vacation! All of a sudden he has new interest in coming with us. The only reason he is interested in the vacation now is the food. This is especially funny because he is the tiniest of my children. At 19 he weighs in between 108 and 112 lbs (49 –50.9 kg for my friends across the sea) depending on how well he is feeling and how much I can get him to eat. YAY! Something has peaked Corey’s curiosity and he is showing some interest in going to Disney. I just know he will have fun when he gets there. He just hates any kind of change and is usually not interested in trying anything new. His excitement about trying new restaurants from Epcot in the World Showcase surprises me, and gives me hope!

If nothing else, I think I can get Corey/Grumpy to look at menus. But he shows little interest. I pick out a few I think he might really like and he looks at them for about 2 minutes. Picks out a couple and then gets irritable. I guess I can only discuss vacation with him in VERY small doses! But on the bright side, I have somewhere to start. Planning for park days will definitely revolve around where we will eat, not the other way around. Alicia wants to eat at Chef de France. Jeff doesn’t care – he likes everything. Corey picks Sci-Fi Café, Tutto Italia and San Angel Inn. Evan likes 50’s Prime Time Café, Sci-Fi and Tutto. I want to do the Aloha Spirit Polynesian Luau. I set out all of the places we will eat, putting in everyone’s picks and adding some more. Besides our day in DTD, there are no counter service places chosen. I guess that removes the basic dining plan from consideration. It is deluxe dining plan or Disney dining experience. Time to decide.

The restaurants have been chosen and the menus printed. I leave them for the kids and DH to pick out meals they MAY choose in the parks. (No you do not have to eat that, just pick something you might get! Yes you can pick a dessert or appetizer, but please think about what you might really eat!) I add up the numbers for each restaurant (guessing at what Grumpy might pick because he is back to being uncooperative). Figure in tax and gratuity and deduct the 20% factoring in DDE. I calculate the cost for deluxe DDP. Add in the cost of occasional alcoholic beverages add in appetizers or dessert, tax and gratuity. Guess what. It STILL looks like DDE will be a better deal. We just can’t eat the amount of food we would have to eat to make deluxe dining plan worth it. So I figure the price of the basic dining plan and paying partly oop. That turned out to be the most expensive. Finally decided. DDE it will be! But don’t be fooled. Those menus were examined several times and the numbers were crunched again and again, and again!. The decision is made and yet I keep second guessing myself. Not to worry though, I am sticking to the DDE plan, final answer!

So where are we eating you ask? Here is the list (though this too may change!) Garden Grill, Chef de France, something in DTD, Spoodles, Tusker House Breakfast Buffet, Chef Mickey’s, 50’s Prime Time, Tutto Italia, Liberty Tree Tavern OR Beaches and Cream, Le Cellier, San Angel Inn, Boma, Sci-Fi Café, Hollywood & Vine, Cape May Breakfast Buffet, Counter Service (last lunch before departure).

What happened to Mom's choice Spirit of Aloha… Another story to be continued...

[tinker_me_happy]

Originally Posted by emtpej

Is it possible that they have had problems with people re-selling these somehow so they are 'on the lookout' for re-sellers or something?

There is no way to resell the voucher as you have to show your DVC member card to pick it up. Well I guess if you went to member services and picked it up then sold it before you went into the park... But I think your name is on it at that point so that would make it a little difficult.

[emtpej]

Originally Posted by tinker_me_happy

There is no way to resell the voucher as you have to show your DVC member card to pick it up. Well I guess if you went to member services and picked it up then sold it before you went into the park... But I think your name is on it at that point so that would make it a little difficult.

Sounds to me that he just liked talking to you!

[Colexis Mom]

Great ADRs I think you'll love the DDE!!

[greentie]

Wow, you've got even more ADRs than we have! We've decided to opt for the DDE too. We're definitely appetiser and alcoholic beverages kind of people so the basic dining plan didn't fit for us and, as you said, the deluxe proved to be just too much food. I'm glad you managed to get your park tickets sorted nice and early.

[chezp]

Great restaurants choices. And I love the bit about "they have food there?"

[mcc0313]

Choices look great...we went through the similar process of DDP vs. DDE. We are using the DDP in June when it is just me and the girls but are going with the DDE in December when my parents, sister and nephew are joining...when cruching the numbers it just worked better...

Hope Corey will get into the planning a little more but I am sure he will have a great time once he is there and can sample the "food that they have their"...

[disneydani]

Glad you figured out what would work best with your family....I am a big fan of the DDE, too.
Nice to hear Corey is getting involved. Your ADRs look great.

danielle

[Princess_Wantabe]

Just caught up on your TR...great find on your airfare! and love the ADRs

[DyanKJ130]

Great updates!! Glad you've been able to secure your resort, airfare and tickets! Your restaurant choices look yummy! Can't wait to hear more

[B.M.]

Your dining choices sound great! (waiting to hear what happened to the Spirit of Aloha....)

[j4crew]

Great ADR's.....can't wait to hear more!!

[tinker_me_happy]

As posted earlier, Spirit of Aloha was the dinner show I really wanted to see, and one that I thought everyone would enjoy. Somehow, while putting off sweeping the floor and ignoring the mountain of laundry that needed folding, I came across some reviews of Disney restaurants and shows online. I do believe it was the allears website, but I am not 100% sure. There were several reviews that gave SoA a poor grade. From food to show it did not get the rave reviews I was hoping for. Now, I know that everyone is different, so I thought, we should still try it. In the meantime, my credit card bill comes. And I am charged the full amount for the dinner show for the five of us – in FEBRUARY! I thought this a bit odd, but my friends here at passporter assured me it was not. Still I felt a gnawing in the pit of my stomach that something wasn’t right about paying in full for a meal 6 months before we even got to the restaurant. What if something happened? What if they closed? Would they still credit me after six months even if I gave the required amount of time for cancellation?

During this time period Grumpy (aka Corey) starts dating a new girl. GOOD for HIM! He is very mature and responsible, but a bit slow with social relationships. His last girlfriend dumped him the night before Thanksgiving and he had a hard time getting over it, so I was happy to see him moving on. Along with the new girlfriend came a new diet. It started out with a dare “I bet you can’t go one week without eating meat”. Grumpy ate at McDonald’s a lot. Personally I think it’s gross, but hey when your kid needs to eat more because his weight is too low, any protein in a storm! My feeling: Let him eat burgers! I am not a big meat fan. I could take it or leave it. I would be perfectly happy eating all vegetarian meals - if I could get my family to eat a well balanced vegetarian diet, I would. But some people in my family Like meat. My DD did the teenager “I’m a vegetarian” thing for a while, but she was REALLY good at eating a well balanced diet. So now Grumpy has gone from “I’m going to be a vegetarian this week” to “Mom You KNOW I don’t eat meat!” Not a big deal…. Wrong!! Corey not eating meat means Corey not eating much of anything. His diet consists of cheese pizza, pasta and pop tarts. UGH!!!! With a little coxing (can’t push too hard or the opposite effect will occur), Corey starts eating veggie burgers, and Morningstar farms vegetarian chix patties. Well… it’s a start in the right direction! But Mom still has to review all the menus for where we will be eating in Disney to make sure there will be something there Grumpy will eat. Since the food is the only thing he seems to care about for our trip.

Spirit of Aloha didn’t make the cut. I wasn’t about to spend almost $60.00 for my kid to eat rice and MAYBE pineapple. I called to change my ADR, and they told me I had missed my reservation, so they were not going to refund my credit card. WHAT!!!??????? My reservation is for August, NOT February! A bit of discussion and I find out that when the CM was making my ADRs, she put all the dining reservations in for August but accidentally put 2/19 for SoA instead of 8/19. The girl at dining couldn’t help me. “You’ll have to call the restaurant directly” she said, “and see if they will refund your money. It looks obvious to me that the rest of your reservations are for August, but it is up to them if they want to refund you.” I thanked her, hung up and screamed!!! I was NOT paying almost $300.00 because a CM in dining reservations screwed up! I called SoA, a little on edge but trying my best to control myself. “It's not the person on the other end of the phone that messed up my ressie.”, I kept telling myself. At first it didn’t sound like they would do the refund. I had it in my head that now I am going to have to fight the charge with my cc company. But the restaurant came through! They could see all my other dining reservations before and after the 19th and I was able to get a refund. I rescheduled dining for 8/19 to go to BOMA at Animal Kingdom. Looks like they have lots of choices there that Grumpy might try. And if he is eating meat again by then, it will still be a good choice. One just never knows with that child!

Up next… Grumpy gets Grumpier and the big vacation fight