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05-16-2004, 08:30 PM
| #16 (permalink) |
| Recovering VMK Addict!  Join Date: Feb 2000 Location: Thornton, CO
Posts: 9,445
| Re: Fun, flowers and firsts More, please!    |
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05-16-2004, 09:03 PM
| #17 (permalink) |
| I Love PassPorter  Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Frankton, IN
Posts: 8,736
| Re: Fun, flowers and firsts Cheryl, I've also been looking forward to reading this! I know you've spent a ton of time organizing it!! Hmmm, you know, I think you ought to also work for YMJ!!! More please! |
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05-17-2004, 02:35 AM
| #22 (permalink) |
 Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Maidstone, Kent, UK
Posts: 72,501
| Re: Fun, flowers and firsts The preparations as we counted down towards our Disney trip! Dates: Wednesday 28 April – Friday 14 May 2004 Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (31) and DH, Mark (38) with appearances from a number of other Passporters along the way! Resorts: Animal Kingdom Lodge (Wednesday 28 April – Sunday 2 May) Beach Club Villas (Sunday 2 May – Wednesday 6 May) Disney Cruise (Wednesday 6 May – Sunday 9 May) Beach Club Villas (Sunday 9 May – Friday 14 May) Celebrations: Our first ever Disney Cruise, our first time at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and our first ever visit to WDW in May to see the Flower and Garden Festival. By January 2004, DH had decided he liked the idea of going Premium Economy both ways and as he’d received a Christmas bonus, I duly upgraded to Premium Economy for the return flight – spending the £75 saved on the car hire in the process as well! Our Annual Passes were purchased next – the first time we’d ever been to WDW as AP holders and I have to admit I was looking forward to getting various discount through both the AP’s and our DVC membership. I resolved to keep a note of how much we saved through both – just out of interest. We’ll come back to that at the end of the report for totals, but I will keep a note of the savings we make as we go along too…. Tickets for Cirque de Soleil were booked and then the PS’s made, including a number of our favourite restaurants and some new ones, many of the ones we chose involved both AP and DVC discounts! Amongst the favourites were Akerhaus, Artist Point, Boma, the California Grill, Chef Mickey’s, the Concourse Steakhouse, the Crystal Palace and Le Cellier, while places we’d be trying for the first time this trip included the Coral Reef, Jiko, Mama Melrose’s, the Portobello Yacht Club, Rose and Crown, San Angel Inn and Victoria and Albert’s. Amazingly, the last name on that list was a suggestion by DH, who figured if he had to take his suit for the cruise, then he may as well get some use out of it. I was surprised, but delighted, as I figured we’d never get a chance to eat there!  Next it was time to make our bookings for the behind the scenes tours. Originally we were going to do Keys to the Kingdom and Gardens of the World in Epcot, as I thought that would be cool during the Flower and Garden Festival, but then I found out from All Ears Net that these tours aren’t offered during the Festival. About the same time, I read about AP holders getting a 30% discount on the Backstage Safari tour – well that discount (and the tour for that matter!) sounded good to me, so we went for that as our second behind the scenes tour. That meant we saved a total of $17.40 through the DVC (on the Keys to the Kingdom tour) and $56.40 through our AP’s (on both tours). Not a bad start….  Then in March 2004, the AP codes for mid April onwards finally came out – I know a lot of us on the boards had been waiting for those for some time and boy were they worth the wait! We were only applying the discounts to our four night stay at AKL, but the discount ended up saving us a total of $512.92 and reduced our total bill from just over $1400 to just under $900! DH couldn’t believe it and even I was quite shocked by the amount we saved. I knew the discounts were good – but didn’t realise they could be that good! And talking of hotels, we were flying out on a Wednesday morning and decided to spend the night before in an airport hotel – mainly because you could get two weeks’ parking with it and that actually worked out cheaper than two weeks’ parking on its own! The hotel and the parking cost us £122 and that was the Hilton, which is next door to the terminal, whereas the parking would cost us £139 minimum!  Around this time, the dollar started to suffer and the pound was getting steadily stronger to the point where it almost hit the £1 = $2 mark, something not seen for more than 20 years. Bearing this in mind and the fact that he was planning to take his suit anyway for the cruise, DH asked me one night whether I’d like to go to Victoria and Albert’s. I will admit that his question completely floored me, as he’d always made it clear that we’d never go there – too expensive, no suit were just two of the reasons given for this. Well those reasons were out of the window now, so all that was left for me to do was to phone up to see if we could get a reservation. I decided on one night during our vacation which I thought would work for us and decided if they had space free, then it was meant to be and if they didn’t, then we would live without a visit there. I rang and they had space on the night wanted, so that was it – booked in for Victoria and Albert’s, another first for us! The last part of the jigsaw was booking the cruise excursions – we went for the Discover Atlantis tour in Nassau and the glass bottomed boat tour in Castaway Cay. I was delighted they added this tour at Castaway Cay, as I knew DH wanted to do it in Nassau, but there was no way we could do that and Atlantis in one day. During our stay, we’d also arranged a number of PassPorter meets, so let’s introduce you without further ado to some of the people who’ll be featuring in this trip report: Elaine (Bert & Sully) – we’d be meeting up with Elaine and her husband Keith for breakfast at the Kona Café and dinner at the Crystal Palace, as we’re both mad Eeyore fans – and it was also possible we’d see them again at Chef Mickey’s for breakfast. Sheila (wheatenwalker) – she’d be joining us, Elaine and Keith at the Crystal Palace for dinner. Sarah (DreaminDizney1002) - she and her husband Greg would also be joining us for dinner at the Crystal Palace. Joy (Grumpygal) – we first met Joy on our December 2002 trip when she was travelling solo, but this time she’d be travelling with her family. A lunch at the Concourse Steakhouse was planned, along with the big Le Cellier / Illuminations meet. Marnie (Colexi’s Mom) – we’d be meeting up with Marnie and her family for the Illuminations meet and I'd arranged to go over to Animal Kingdom Lodge and see her earlier in the day. Tina (loobyoxlip) – we’d be meeting up with Tina and her two boys for dinner at Le Cellier and Illuminations. Tara (Tara O’Hara) – we’d be meeting up with her and her dad for dinner at Le Cellier and Illuminations. Janine (FanOfMickey) - the final member of our Le Cellier meet. Denise (wdwlovers) – on our final day, we’d meet Denise and her mom for lunch at Fulton’s Crab House. They’d be arriving, just as we were about to leave! We’d loved meeting up with Joy and were looking forward to our meets, as much as anything else during our stay. But what else were we both looking forward to? First and foremost, the cruise, but there were other attractions that I was determined to do for the first time while we were in Disney this time, including Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Mickey’s PhilharMagic, the American Adventure show, Mission Space and Reflections of China. I wasn’t sure about the Tower of Terror or Triceratops Spin – we’d have to see when we got there! Next: a week to go and it’s all change, but change for the better!    |
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05-17-2004, 06:12 AM
| #24 (permalink) |
 Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Whitefield, NH
Posts: 10,280
| Re: Fun, flowers and firsts Great details of your planning, Cheryl. You really had some pixie dust working for you planning this trip! Can't wait to read about the results, and lucky you, getting to meet all those Passporters - they are a great bunch of people! |
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05-17-2004, 09:57 AM
| #30 (permalink) |
| Community Rank: Adventurer  Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 952
| Re: Fun, flowers and firsts I just found your trip report, it's off to a great start and I can hardly wait to read more! |
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About This Page: This is a discussion on Fun, flowers and firsts THREAD 1 OF 7 within the Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports, part of the PassPorter Community - Message Boards and Forums; More, please!...
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