Four Ladies, a birthday, Wishes desserts and MNSSHP! Pre-Trip Report! About This Page:

[Luvsun]

Well, I am going to attempt a trip report!
Yes, I have done it once before..... but I never finished it!
But this time I have my sweet dear niece, Carly to help me! She is going to push me to work on and finish this one, as well as chime in alot and give details that I may not put in the report.
So, here it goes!
This pre-trip report begins with the cast of characters:
We will be respectful and start with oldest first!
JoEllen - my sister-in-law, Carly's mom, and best friend to Becky.
She will be celebrating her birthday at WDW! (I won't say the number!) I don't know how many times she has been to WDW, but this is the 4th time with me! Favorite character: I don't know this! I will have to find out!
Becky - friend of the family! We our Becky! That first and only time she has been to WDW was with us for our last Ladies Only trip in October 2007. She had a blast! We did lots of "firsts" on that trip! I think it was because she had on a button that let them know she was a first timer! One of the highlights of that trip was a special "dream" given to us by the Dream Team! We were honored with a special audience with Cinderella - just us! I still get tears when I look at those pictures! Becky is now an official Disney fan! Favorite Character: Tinkerbell.
Ann (Me- Luvsun) - Most of you know me. I am a true Disney fan! I love going to WDW anytime I can! My dh goes once a year, after that he tells me I am on my own to find someone to go with me or as in a recent trip - I went solo!
Two summers ago we bought into DVC! My dh is kicking himself for not buying into it sooner! Favorite character: Minnie Mouse!
Carly - Nemo125 here on the boards. - Carly is my all time favorite person to go to WDW with! We travel so well together and we love the same things and basically we are just very happy in our Disney bubble! Carly is 29, but really just 9 at heart! Her favorite character is Peter Pan! She also loves Nemo! On our last trip together, she had a dream come true! She was given an audience with Peter Pan and Wendy!!!! Then after the meet, she was awarded a certificate that officially made her one of the "Lost Boys (Girls)"!!!

When are we going? Well, this trip was in the planning stages well over a year ago. And at that time, I really thought we would have sold our home here in Indiana and we would have moved to sunny Florida by now. And - dh and I had celebrated 30 years of wedded bliss that year, so we had a Hawaii trip in the planning. Well.....life is never as you plan it, now is it? Our youngest son got engaged, and got married late last year, so we put off the Hawaii trip and decided to celebrate with a Disney cruise this year. November 14 to be exact. So - knowing that I would be spending time with Mickey in November, I suggested that we do a June, August or early September trip with the girls. With all of our schedules and money that needed to be saved, it really didn't work for any of those times. So, we decided on the very first week of October. This gave me over a month before my cruise, and we would be able to go to MNSSHP! Carly and I have been to this fun event, but Jo and Becky have not! So we were very excited! This also allowed Jo to celebrate her birthday at WDW!
Here is a picture of our Ladies Trip in October 2007. My niece Lindsay was with us then, she will not be with us this time due to the birth of her son Holden!!


So, the planning got underway!
On a side note here.....life does throw us curveballs - doesn't it?
Allen and I are still living in Indiana - our house is still for sale and that cruise.....yet another anniversary trip cancelled! So - this WDW trip is quickly becoming the most exciting thing to happen in a long while!
Sorry - I digress.....
Anyway - where do we want to stay??????? So many choices!!!!

To be continued!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Ann! More please!!

[Nemo125]

Great start!!!! I can't wait to chime in! And yes I do love Peter Pan and Nemo! You forgot to tell them that I even have a cat named Mowgli from The Jungle Book! Anyways, a great start and great description of who we all are. I bet people can't wait to hear more details!!!

[chezp]

Great start Ann!

[mcc0313]

Great start Ann - sounds like it is going to be a totally fun trip

[PamelaK]

Great start! I'm sure you will all have a wonderful time. I can't wait to hear the plans.

[Luvsun]

So.....where do we want to stay??

Since we belong to DVC, I told the girls that at least part of the trip we should stay on points. It was Carly's job to talk to the other girls, as they all live in Iowa in the same town. She gave them all kinds of information about the resorts and told them about the DVC resorts.
Our initial decision was to do a split stay with part of the time at a DVC resort and part of the time at a moderate. Carly and I were highly suggesting the Beach Club Villas. We have not stayed in the villas, but have stayed at BC and we loved our time there! You just can't beat the location. My only concern was that this resort is not my home resort and I know that the BCV fills up quickly - especially during the F&WF. The other girls were fine with that and they decided that the moderate they wanted to stay at was CBR. That was fine with me, as I had never stayed there.
While they were still mulling over the resorts, I sat down and did some number crunching. I figured out that if we stayed in a studio, I had enough points to do that for our length of stay. I know that it would be better for 4 women to have two bathrooms and two actual beds.....but it would keep us in one room for the entire stay and if we were able to get BCV - we would have a wonderful location! And besides, if we did do a split stay and stayed in a moderate, we would all be in one room there.
So the day came when I could call DVC member services - the 7 month mark! I attempted to get the entire stay at BCV! The very nice CM tried her hardest to get what I wanted.....but I ended up having to do 3 different reservations
The reason being, the one day in the middle was not available! So, I had a a ressie for Oct. 1 - 3 on points, a cash ressie for Oct. 4, and a ressie for Oct. 5-7 on points! I was also put on a waitlist for the one night. But - I was happy! We were able to get what we wanted - kind of, sort of! We were going to stay at BCV for the entire stay!
I called Carly and told her the great news!
About 6 days later, I got online and looked at my reservations. You see, I was on 2 different waitlists! I was on a waitlist for a studio for a very quickly planned trip for the Decade of Dreams Tour in May! Much to my amazement, both waitlists had come through! I was booked at SSR in a studio for 4 nights in May, and I now had that middle night for October with points! I was so excited!
So, with our resort taken care of, we move on to ADRs!
Carly's job was to give the girls tons of info and share her Passporter so that they could make some yummy food choices!
For our last Ladies Trip, we had decided that everyone would pick one TS and that would be the meal that they paid for - for everyone. This helped with a couple of things. The first being, we all know that we would want to pick up a meal for everyone, this way we got to choose which one ahead of time. This also helped with the whole figuring out how much we all owed when the bill came! It worked well, so we decided that we would do this again. The only change, instead of 1 meal to choose, we would each get 2 meals!
I gave Carly the date I had to have everyone's decisions by along with mentioning that we should tell the other girls about MNSSHP. Since I am a DVC member, as well as an AP holder, I would be able to purchase tickets for this event in advance and a few dollars cheaper. If we were going to go, we needed to make that decision, and which night. There were 2 nights to choose from.....the first night (the day we arrive) or the last night!
Up next: Where did we all decide to eat and should we do MNSSHP the day we arrive or the last night of our stay???? Decisions, decisions!

Soon to be our home for our entire stay!


(this picture was borrowed from Deb's Unofficial Walt Disney World Vacation Information Guide - WDW Planning Guide - Walt Disney World)

[pparm]

Sounds great! Can't wait to hear more.

Paula

[Colexis Mom]

Congrats on getting BCV!

[ArielsMomto2]

Great start. Congrats on BCV. Can't wait to hear about your dining and MNSSHP.

[Princess_Wantabe]

Everything sounds great! Glad your waitlist came thru for the whole trip
Looking forward to hearing more

[bsblady01]

I hope that you have a magical time at the world

[chezp]

Congrats on getting the BCV for your whole stay!

[NanaTink]

Sounds like lots of fun! Congrats on getting BCV for your whole stay! Now you don't have to move!!!
Can't wait to hear more!!!

[Nemo125]

I know the answers to your questions, but I won't tell til you post them!!! They all are yummy (I hope)!