Great friends, sneaky great friends, old great friends trip report About This Page:

[oldmom]

Better late than never, as they say. So off I go with our latest trip report.

As for the title, I’ll explain. I have marvelous, special friends who went out of their way to surprise me by showing up in Disney. Blessed, is what I am. Sneaky and wonderful is what they are. And we were celebrating a long friendship.

My bff, Merril, and I have been friends for 40 years. Shocking I know since we are both still in our 30s. It all started at the University of Missouri on our first night in the dorm. She was wandering the halls of the dorm with fresh popcorn looking for someone with a salt shaker. Luckily, I was home and had the needed salt. We survived the college years with style! Our friendship has survived the trials of distance, marriage, divorce, deaths and all the other usual life stuff. She is the godmother of my children.

The last ten years have been most stressful for her as she quit her job to move home and be a care giver for her parents. Some of you know how wearing that can be. Despite having siblings, the care of both parents rested on her shoulders. Her father passed a year ago, however her stress level increased. Now she is passing the baton to her older sister and preparing to jump back into another world again. She is facing finding a job after ten years out of the workforce, and what a great time to be looking for a job! She is also planning to leave the big city and move back to my town (a small town that thinks its big).

So, unbeknownst to Merril, I planned a celebration! Forty years is a long time to stay friends and its time for some serious happy! What better place than Disney to find that? I needed to find a theme for the celebrations and some special things to go with it.
Let the planning begin! Searching my memory for two character from Disney who have been friends for years provided a couple of choices, but the Mad Hatter and March Hare seemed the best suited for ‘partying’ or ‘still crazy after all these years.’ We are both fans of the animated movie, so this seemed the way to go.

While dbf and I were there for a magical December trip, we used the bounce back to book two rooms for October. We’ve never been to Disney for the Halloween or Food and Wine, so it seemed like a good time visit. I did call to check that she would want to go at that time and got a resounding “YES”! So here are the people going on this trip:

Me—58 y/o, (wow, when did that happen?) This will be my 9th trip.
Dbf—48y/o, the love of my life, jewelry maker, total sweetie and while I may be prejudiced, there are others who will verify these facts!
dd—26—wonderful, caring, looking for a guy who also loves Disney and understands the magic. Please send resumes.....*ducking and running*
bff—4 months older than me and I never let her forget that! She gave me four tickets for my family of three way back in 1983, when it was only MK and EPCOT. In fact, they were the special commemorative tickets for the opening year of EPCOT. Only a couple of hotels on property back then, so we chose the Poly. Its was great and an addiction was born!

On to more of the details of this trip. We were Disney Oct 13-22 at our favorite, POFQ. While we still find the Poly special, there is just something about the people at the French Quarter and its laid back style that feels like ‘home.’ We gathered to decided what restaurants would make the list for this trip and what special activities should be added. Our list of special events included:

• Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party–It seems like a great thing to do. I can’t wait to see the parade and the decorations.
• Pirates and Pals Firework Cruise–I’ve always wanted to do a fireworks cruise, but didn’t want the hefty cost, so this sounds like a great compromise. BFF won’t go as she gets seasick, but she loves to watch the fireworks from the beach at the Poly. Some alone time during group trips is a good thing.
• Food and Wine Festival–following others advice, we shall enjoy the fest and avoid it during evenings.
• Afternoon Tea at the Grand Floridian–This was so awesome in December when dbf and I were there, I just have to go back and take the others.
• Dining with an Imagineer–This has been on the list “to do” for many trips, but we just haven’t been able to work it in. This time, it will happen!
• Private photo session–My favorite souvenir, and I can’t wait to have the whole family together for this one.

Restaurants for this trip:

• Raglan Road–an old favorite, not to be missed
• Moracco–an old favorite, not to be missed
• Teppan Edo–an old favorite since 1983 when it was the Teppanyaki Room
• Liberty Tree Tavern–a favorite and it will put us in the park before the MSSHP
• O’Hana–a stand-in for the Luau as we would run out of points otherwise
• 1900 Park Fare–new to us, and part of my plan for a marvelous celebration
• LeCellier–dbf and I tried it for the first time in Dec. and want the family to try it too.
• Rose and Crown–a favorite and hopefully we’ll get a patio table and watch Illuminations. In 2008, we had the perfect table for viewing but it was so cold and windy, we just couldn’t stay for the show.

I created a shirt design for front and back of the shirt. However, Shadowryter does much better designs, so I asked for her to create some for us and she came up with these.




I went with the lighter color one for the shirt front and the White Rabbit (my attempt at designing) for the back of the shirt. My original design went on the bag for the other goodies she is getting.

[oldmom]

Next stop was Ebay for some extras. I found these lovely silver Mad Hatter charms and put them on a silver chain as a lasting memento of the trip.


Dbf ordered two wooden jewelry gift boxes for me to put them in. It seemed like breakfast at 1900 Park Fare with the Mad Hatter would be a logical next step. We have never eaten there. Bff isn’t a fan of character meals but I think this should go well.

I called the Specialty cake line and got Pat--again. She did our little anniversary cake last December and it was awesome! I told her how wonderful it was and how folks at the tables around us kept asking how they could get one. It turned out that the “Mad Hatter” cake was $500 and just a tad out of the price range I had in mind. So we chatted about alternate ideas. All I really wanted was something to fit the theme of the Mad Hatter and March Hare and celebrating 40 years of friendship. It needed to be chocolate with raspberries. Past those requirements, I was open to suggestions. Pat went right to work looking for graphics, making suggestions and telling me things she could do. She had graphics for the March Hare and Mad Hatter for the top. Around the side, she planned the White Rabbit and Cheshire Cat. Other than wanting the 2 main characters, plus chocolate and raspberry, I’ve told her to run wild and have a good time with this cake. I know it will be awesome and special. Pat seemed surprised that I wasn’t going to dictate more particulars about the cake, but really, she does this for a living and I know she does great things. This way it will be a surprise for me as well!

The other items that make up the goodie bag bff will receive are a silver bookmark with “tea” theme charms, a Cheshire cat key cover, a “Friends are the flowers in the garden of life” book and a set of Alice in Wonderland playing cards. I think the special t-shirt will be in the bag, so we can keep the surprise as long as possible.

Dbf loves to make buttons to give away, so we needed to create some of those. T-shirts needed to be created and made. Some of those will be iron-on tranfers and some will be fabric quilt designs..

Here is what we have so far:

The decision to drive again was made for us by the airlines. There are few non-stop flights from Missouri anymore. Southwest had some wonderful ticket prices the first days they opened flights for the fall, however by the time bff decided that flying was an option, tickets had jumped in price and driving was far less expensive.

More good news for the trip–Betty Sue is going to be there at the same time! We met for the first time during our Dec 2009 trip and I’m delighted we’ll be able to see each other again! Such a great lady and fun person! My dd wants to meet my PP friends and see who I hang out with when I’m not supervised and running amok. I know we shall connect with Skatecat at some point as well as DrDolphin, who may be a distant cousin if we ever have time to do the genealogical research and Cindy, who lives just down the road from me.

[bitterchickey]

Love the intro & can't wait to hear all the details along the way!

[oldmom]

i sorted through lots and lots of photos and its hard to decide what to post and to get photobucket to upload.

[chezp]

Great start!

[chyanne0]

Great start!! I'm hooked already!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start!

[KMB733]

Great Start!!!

[lazanya]

Great start!

[tdhc]

You are such a thoughtful person and you put a lot in to the planning stages. I look forward to hearing more about how it was planned and the trip itself.

[Principessa_di_Fata]

This sounds wonderful! I can't wait to read more!

[oldmom]

We started the drive on Oct 11 at the crack of dawn. Since coffee is only consumed during long drives, our first stop was IHOP for caffeine. What a great start to the trip, our favorite person was working that morning!



We had a great breakfast and got the thermos and travel mug filled for the trip. The drive was uneventful. Lunch was at Lamberts where we enjoyed "throwed" rolls and all their great food. For those who have never eaten at a Lamberts, the rolls are delicious and served piping hot. Usually, the man just comes into the room and yells "who wants a roll?" Then he throws the rolls, sometimes ALL the way across the room! You entree usually comes with a veggie or two and then there are the "pass arounds." Servers walk around the room with big pots of a variety of side dishes like fried potatoes, fried okra, stewed tomatoes/macaroni, black eyed peas and stuff like that. They are served "all you care to eat."

Hampton Inn in Birmingham was our home for the night. While I enjoy looking for bargains, Hampton Inns have been so consistently great to stay at and the breakfast is so wonderful, I’ve stopped looking for other places. Finding lodging on the road is a coin toss for me–do I plan ahead and book rooms blindly based on price and their location on the map. Or do we drive til we feel like stopping and find a place that looks safe and reasonable? We did both this trip. Hampton Inn sent me an email with a great offer for the location very close to DTD, so I booked it for Oct 12th. It was also an awesome place with a wonderful breakfast complete with Mickey waffles. But I get a little ahead of myself.

Back to the road and some shots of scenery....
Memphis scultpure



hill somewhere along the road

[KMB733]

Great update!

[Principessa_di_Fata]

Memphis!!!! I know exactly where those pix were taken! Next time you pass through, let me know and I'll stand in front of that statue and wave, lol!

[oldmom]

Originally Posted by Principessa_di_Fata

Memphis!!!! I know exactly where those pix were taken! Next time you pass through, let me know and I'll stand in front of that statue and wave, lol!

will do. it was a pleasant surprise to come across art.