Other Fun Stuff

Recently, I shared the beginning of our trip planning process for our Spring 2013 Walt Disney World Trip. You can read that post here: Plan with us: Walt Disney World Trip Spring 2013 - Introduction.

Next up on our list? Pick and book a hotel!

I actually thought this was going to be simpler than it was. Ever since we knew of the plans to build the Art of Animation resort, we knew we were going to stay there during our first trip after it was completed. After all, we’ve been admiring it from across the bridge at our usual Value Resort, Pop Century. We were so glad that they finally decided to do something about those empty buildings and couldn’t wait to stay somewhere nice and shiny and new.

Art of Animation has two types of rooms, Standard Rooms and Family Suites. The Family Suites are in the Finding Nemo, Lion King and Cars buildings. They offer room for up to 6 people, which is a great option for larger families that may not be able to afford a room at a Deluxe hotel (although the price can be quite close depending on discounts and times of year…so it’s definitely not a super value in that sense). The Standard rooms are in the Little Mermaid building and are your typical Value rooms, 1 King bed or 2 Double beds. They are a few dollars extra than your typical Value standard room and have yet to allow a discount.

There’s just 3 of us, so we really only need the Standard Little Mermaid room. But when looking at our dates and the available discounts, we were enticed to do something we hadn’t done before…split up our stay between 2 rooms. We are going to stay for 3 nights in a Little Mermaid Standard room and 2 nights in a Finding Nemo Family Suite.

Who the heck wants to pack up their stuff and transfer it somewhere else in the middle of their vacation? We sure as heck don’t, but with the discount on the Family Suites, we wanted to take the opportunity to experience both types of rooms and give a thorough review of what Art of Animation has to offer! I hope Brett is prepared…that camera is going to definitely be utilized!

We were worried we’d become super spoiled if we stayed at the Family Suite first and wouldn’t want to transfer to a smaller room, so we will stay in the Standard room first and then end our vacation in the Family Suite. We were also told that Disney will transfer our luggage for us, so we can go about our day as usual other than heading to Check-In at some point to pick up new room cards.

We don’t usually go in the hotel pools, since we have a pool at home and would rather spend our time in the parks, but I may just have to go in just to experience the music that plays underwater. You know, for review purposes. Every time I called to book (from scheduling and rescheduling 3 times last year) the underwater music was a major selling point from the cast member’s point of view. I may have to practice my breath-holding skills so I can stay underwater longer to hear more.

I’m also looking forward to the Landscape of Flavors Food Court. One of the reasons we like Pop Century is because of the convenient food court, so we are hoping we like this one as well. Some days, we like just grabbing a quick meal before going about our day and the food court always has plenty of options. When you start getting into the Moderate and Deluxe resorts, they have more sit-down options (which are fantastic - don’t get me wrong) but sometimes we just want something quick. The Art of Animation food court is supposed to have more options, with a focus on unique and healthy offerings. Not that I am necessarily healthy at Disney World…oh heck, who am I kidding? Healthy isn’t even in my vocabulary as soon as we drive under those magical gates. Although, now that Trent is eating solid food too, and hopefully more so by the time we go, I will probably be more likely to think about what’s on my plate, since we will be sharing most of the time.

Along with booking the hotel, I also requested off of work. Not that that makes it official or anything, because I can change it at any time, but I told my boss to not let me change it so I won’t reschedule haha.

We’ve started booking our ADRs, but we’re not sure if we want more or want to keep this trip light on sit-down meals with a unpredictable baby in tow…

We’re making our way down the to-do list!

-Pick dates Done!
-Pick a hotel Done!
-Book hotel Done!
-Request off from work Done!
-Create an Excel sheet with all the information we’ll need
-Decide where to eat and when and make ADRs
-Make special event reservations
-Decide which park to go to each day
-Pick specific things to do in each park
-Schedule house/pet-sitter
-Make a packing list
-Write a pre-trip report to share on the blog and various Disney forums
-Make a list of must-do photos and videos
-See ya real soon!
-Brett: edit thousands of photos; Me: write up our trip report and reviews and everything else we have planned to share (so excited for this part! We’ve got some surprises in store…including videos and giveaways!)
-Get ready to plan the next trip!

 

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I was looking around the Disney Store online because they are having a sale on baby items (and because it’s a hobby of mine lol) and couldn’t help but think of Valentine’s Day coming up. There are so many red and pink items on there already (from Mickey and Minnie), so there’s no shortage of items that could pass as Valentine’s Day items, but I did find some super cute items specifically for Valentine’s Day and items with hearts, including some boy stuff too!

I was inspired and wanted to share, so here are some of the items I found and loved. You can click on the image to make it a little larger and the links to the items are below the image (some Disney Store and some Amazon).

 

One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten

Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen

I am in love with the baby boy items: the “I’m Kind of a Heart Breaker” onesie (#4) and the “HRTBRKR” jammie set (#5). For me? I’m digging the water bottle (#6) and the Jim Shore Collectibles (#2 and #14). I think I’m in trouble if/when I have a girl…

Of course, as I was writing this, Disney Parks Blog posted this photo of items available in the parks. They must have known what I was doing! Aren’t the wristlet and tote adorable?!

We plan on doing a little Valentine’s Day photoshoot for Trent and have some ideas for poses and props, now I just need some outfit ideas. His Papa bought him a little newsboy cap at Cracker Barrel the other day (they have some unique, cute items in the little shop), so I expect that to be included because it is just beyond cute. I will share those once we take them!

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Recently, I posted about how we plan our Disney World trips and I eluded to the fact that we were considering a trip in the Spring. Well, I thought it would be fun to actually share the details of our planning as we go along, as opposed to just giving you a trip report after we go. I need someone to talk to about Disney stuff anyway…my family and friends have heard enough!

 

These posts will be very informal. They will be a “Hey, this is what’s on our minds lately regarding our trip and this is what we did or didn’t do about it!” with the more likely of the two being what we didn’t do about it. But eventually, it will all get done and we will be there having fun…so until then, let’s plan this thing!

 

First up…dates.

We have picked dates! I won’t be giving exact dates on here just yet, but I will say we are going in April.

How did we arrive at picking April? First thought process of the trip planning experience went like this:

When do our passes expire? (Even though we’ll renew at some point)
Answer: Beginning of May.

That leaves January, February, March and April.

January = too soon, no time to plan or prepare, kinda cold (although it’s been in the 70′s this week), got stuff going on at work
February = still too soon to accomplish all of our planning, still kinda cold, super-duper busy at work
March = this was an option, but spring break season is pretty much the entire month of March which equals crowd level 10 most days = no thanks
April = ding ding ding we have a winner! The weather will be nice, work will be slow-ish and Trent will be 10 months old

Included in thinking process but not typed out above to prevent confusion was: Well maybe we can go this weekend? No Trent’s first trip needs to be planned out and special. Well maybe we can just go to Downtown Disney and shop? Do you really think you can go all the way down there and not go in the parks with your annual pass? Ok, maybe Hollywood Studios, that doesn’t count right? They all count and Trent won’t have much to do there. But I don’t want to wait until April…it’s so far away and we haven’t been since May of last year! Whaaahhh! {pouty face}

Yes, folks, that conversation was in my head with myself. I told you I ran out of people to talk to about Disney. I’ve resorted to crazy talk with the other Disney-obsessed people in my head.

The weather in April should be pretty nice. It shouldn’t be too hot and rainy just yet.

 

Right after we picked our dates, Disney released information regarding the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival that will be occurring when we are there about the food that will be offered. Top of my list of things to try? Pineapple Dole Whip with Spiced Rum! Dole Whips are already good enough, I’m interested to see how the spiced rum tastes with it.

 

As you will come to find out, I am a list-lover - it soothes the OCD in me. So here isour Disney World Spring 2013 trip planning list.

-Pick dates Done!
-Pick a hotel
-Book hotel
-Request off from work
-Create an Excel sheet with all the information we’ll need
-Decide where to eat and when and make ADRs
-Make special event reservations
-Decide which park to go to each day
-Pick specific things to do in each park
-Schedule house/pet-sitter
-Make a packing list
-Write a pre-trip report to share on the blog and various Disney forums
-Make a list of must-do photos and videos
-See ya real soon!
-Brett: edit thousands of photos; Me: write up our trip report and reviews and everything else we have planned to share (so excited for this part! We’ve got some surprises in store…including videos and giveaways!)
-Get ready to plan the next trip!

 

Are there any other Disney fans reading this? I’d love to hear your trip planning techniques in the comments! Do you make a list like this or just wing it?

 

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Being as somewhat close to Disney World as we are (about 3.5 hours), most people think that we just pick up and go whenever we want and don’t think twice about it. While we have definitely done that a few times in the past, most of our trips are planned in advance and take considerable thought and organization so that we can maximize our enjoyment…although it’s pretty difficult to have a bad time in Disney World in our opinion.

When we are thinking about taking a longer trip to WDW, there are certain things we do to plan. Brett is usually just there for opinions or to help me make decisions when necessary (“Yes, dear”, “Whatever you think we should do, dear”), as I am the one that looks up all the details, makes most of the decisions based on the information I know and find, and keeps all of our details organized. Maybe you can use these points to help you plan too!

First and foremost, let me start with a big fat disclaimer that I am an accountant, which means Excel is near and dear to my heart. Brett picks on me, but I put in all of the details from our trip into an Excel sheet to keep us organized. I love having all of the park times, parade times, fireworks and dining reservations for the entire trip all on one handy dandy sheet. This helps if we ever want to change our minds with our plans, we can just look and see to make sure nothing conflicts with our new plans and away we go! I do hope to make one standardized worksheet to use every time and to possibly share it with others, but for now I just make it up as I go each time.

Ok, on with the fun!

 

Things we consider when planning our WDW trips

We think about our timing restrictions
We ask: When would be a good time for us to go according to other things going on in our lives? Here are several examples:
1. When we had just had a baby, we knew we wouldn’t want to go until he was at least several months old.
2. I am a CPA, so I can’t take extended vacations during my company’s fiscal year-end or during the first 10 business days of certain months.
3. We consider any weddings and photo shoots Brett may have. Some months are busier for weddings and such, so we look at his schedule first. Gotta make the money before we can spend the money (you didn’t know this was a personal finance blog too, did you?).

We consider Disney timing and crowds
From us being WDW fanatics for several years, we already know the most crowded times of the year and we try to avoid those times as much as possible (the week between Christmas and New Year’s, Spring Break, Mid-Summer). This is why we get the Seasonal Annual Pass, since we wouldn’t go during the pass blackout times anyway. When we have dates in mind, one of the first things we do is look at the crowd calendar on TouringPlans.com to see the crowd level rating (1=slowest, 10=busiest) and recommendations on which park(s) are the best to visit or avoid for each day. This, to us, is well worth the $11.95 fee to gain access to the entire calendar. This helps us plan which specific days are best to go. We try to avoid days at 8 or above if we can. Sometimes we ignore the calendar if we get the itch to take a random spontaneous trip, but for the planned out trips, the calendar is the way to go, bro.

Are there special events we want to attend?
If there is a particular event we’d like to go to, we will plan accordingly. I LOVE the Epcot Food & Wine Festival and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party in the Fall. We’ve never been to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, so that might be something we’ll consider in the future. It’s also a goal of mine to run a Disney race, so I will definitely plan a trip around that at least once. We also love taking photos at the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival. You can view special events at Walt Disney World by going to this link: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/

Are there any deals for particular days available?
There are several places we check for available discounts. First, we check our emails. In the past, we have been emailed the standard discounts, as well as exclusive pin code dicsounts. You can be added to Disney’s mailing list by registering for their website here: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/login/

Then, we’ll check the Disney website for any Florida Residents and Annual Passholder discounts (read the details on how to do that HERE).

Then, I look at other unofficial sites to see if there are any other discounts or if they expect discounts to be available soon (mousesavers.com is one).

Where do we want to stay?
Once we have a rough estimate of our days figured out, we will decide where we want to stay. If there is a discount, sometimes that will determine where we stay either due to good prices or if the dicsount only applies to certain resorts. We usually stay at Pop Century because we don’t feel like we need to spend alot of money on a room when we are hardly in there. Sometimes we will stay at a moderate resort, but we are saving our stays at Deluxe resorts for when we have older kids that can appreciate them too (we can’t wait to stay in a Savannah Room at Animal Kingdom Lodge). We’ll look to see if our desired resort is available when we want to go and plan accordingly. We want to stay at the Art of Animation resort the next time we go, so that will be the main driver in deciding our dates.

Do we have any other goals in mind? = “Which parks will we go to during the trip?”
For our May 2012 trip, our main goal was to take maternity photos at Magic Kingdom and Epcot….so that’s where we went. For our next trip, we want to do what will be best for Trent, so we’ll probably be spending most of our time at Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. For our short trips in the past, sometimes we will even consider which parks we didn’t visit during our last trip and go to those parks this time. I know this is a very general tip, but still is something we think about.

What parks are we going to on each day?
Now that we know which parks we’re going to during the entire trip, we determine which park will be visited on each day and if we’ll go to more than one on a given day for a particular reason, which happens frequently. I will look at the official Disney calendars to see the operating hours for each park, the Extra Magic Hours and the event schedules for parades and fireworks. We also use the calendar from TouringPlans.com to consider which park we should go to and which ones to avoid. If there are Extra Magic Hours at a particular park, we might choose to utilize that as well (which actually goes AGAINST the crowd calendar recommendations, but that is a debate for another day).

Where do we want to eat?
Restaurant Advanced Dining Reservations (ADRs) go fast, some as far as 180 days in advance! We think about some of the restaurants we typically like going to on every trip, as well as any new places we’d like to try after looking at menus (on Allears.net). If there is somewhere we really want to eat at and there is only one spot available, we will book it if the time is feasible and then plan our park choice around that. If an ADR isn’t available and we REALLY want to go, we check the Disney reservation site every day for one to become available, which they almost always do! Sometimes, it’s the other way around, we will choose a park first and then look up the available restaurants at that park and choose one. Looking up menus is extremely important for us, since we have a picky eater on our hands (cough, Brett, cough).

Do we need to go anywhere else outside of Disney?
We hardley EVER leave the World, but sometimes we like going to IKEA, the outlet malls or Universal Studios. I’m sure one day we’ll eventually go to Sea World too. One time, we left to go on a cruise. That was the only time I was happy to leave WDW.

 

Things we don’t really consider when planning our WDW trips

What’s the temperature like?
Since we already live in Florida, we just wear what we usually wear during that time of year. Honestly, shorts can be worn 10 months out the year anyway, so there really is never a need to change our Disney wardrobes. We’ve typically stayed away from January knowing in the back of our minds that it can be pretty cold, but it’s not off-limits in the future (I would even like to take a birthday trip one year).

What kind of tickets to get
If we’re going to the parks, then we always buy the Florida Resident Seasonal Pass. There’s never a question to get a different one, except when we were asked to go with some relatives a few years ago in June and had to upgrade to the regular Annual Pass since the trip was during the blackout dates on the Seasonal Pass. We always get some sort of annual pass. The discounts and savings over the year make it well worth the cost, especially since we do the monthly payment plan. You can learn more about the different pass options here: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passes/

Whether we stay on or off property
If available, we always stay on Disney property. We’ve stayed at a Downtown Disney hotel during a spontaneous next-day trip and once at a condo near Universal because family booked the room, but other than that, all of our trips are on Disney property. The atmosphere just makes the trip so much better and the customer service can’t be beat. I’ll pay a few extra dollars a night for that, for sure.

So there you have it. It sounds more complicated than it really is, but it comes so naturally to us now that we can go through all of those points in less than 2 minutes. Perhaps the biggest thing that holds us back is that we are terrible at making decisions, especially about dates…we always want to book a trip for longer than we should! Don’t we all?

We are currently considering a trip in the Spring before our passes expire (even though we will renew them, just not immediately) and another trip in the Fall. Stay tuned!

 

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As you may recall from Part 1, we picked out our Christmas tree last weekend. Now we get to share with you all of our decorations! AND we made a fun video for Trent’s first Christmas tree that’s at the end of this post, so be sure to check that out and tell us what you think!

We are Disney super fans, no doubt about it. Walt Disney World is our home away from home, so of course we HAVE to have Disney Christmas decorations. We moved into our house December 18th, 2009, so it was too close to Christmas to decorate or get a tree, but in 2010, we decided it was time to do things right. So we took a long weekend trip to Disney World for the sole purpose of buying Christmas ornaments and decorations. Now THAT is an obsession dedication. So here is our decorated tree in all it’s Disney glory.

Isn’t she purty?

One of my favorite ornaments we bought during that first ornament shopping spree was one that fit us perfectly…no really, it’s like they made it just for us. #kindacreepy

Yes, that is Mickey (Brett) with a camera strapped around his neck and Minnie (me) looking all cute and stuff with a souvenir balloon. Was I right or what? Ok, well Minnie may be cuter, but that is definitely Brett with the camera. We saw it and just HAD to get it.

Starting with 2011, we decided that our tradition would be to get a new Disney ornament for our tree…whether it be by going to Disney World or buying it from the Disney Store online (I can get sucked into that website for hours looking at all the park merchandise and items for your home…anyone need Mickey salt & pepper shakers? They have everything!). Last year’s ornament was from the Nightmare Before Christmas (an all-time favorite movie of ours…I even dressed up as Sally one year for Halloween).

This year’s ornament was super special. We bought it while we were in Disney World at the beginning of the year while I was still pregnant.

We took a risk by getting a boy’s baby’s first Christmas ornament with his name written on it because hey, you never know until the baby arrives just how accurate those ultrasounds actually are. Thank goodness ours was accurate! I love this ornament so much and can’t wait to take a photo of him on Christmas morning to put in it and then look back after all the years to see what my sweet boy looked like on his first Christmas.

We have several unique Disney ornaments, larger ones or ones with characters…and then “filler” ornaments, little Mickey heads or balls with glitter Mickey heads on them. Mickey overload = never a bad thing.

Oh, and if the ornaments weren’t enough, we also have Disney stockings and a tree skirt, all embroidered with our names…because we’re cheesy like that (no Mickey Mouse pun intended). Trent’s embroidered stocking is on it’s way from the Disney Store!

We also have the cutest Disney milk & cookies for Santa platter and cup.

I promise this post isn’t sponsored by Disney lol. We are just love all things Disney THAT much!

We want to start creating more videos for you guys (and us), and we also want to capture Trent’s “firsts” if we can, so we made a time lapse video of us setting up Trent’s first Christmas tree this year!

While you watch:

-How funny is the cat making his appearance towards the end? He’s so dang nosy. Most visitors don’t think we even have a cat because he hides, so here’s our proof!

-That is THE fastest I’ve ever seen Brett vacuum/clean.

-Our technical difficulty was that the tree was too tall and we knew the tree topper wouldn’t fit, so we had to bring it back outside to saw more off the bottom.

 

 

Stay tuned for more video shenanigans! Do your decorations or tree ornaments stick to a theme? Or is it more anything-goes?