★ª"˜˜ª¤.¸★☆Official Team August 2013 Thread!☆★¸.¤ª˜˜"ª★

[misstdiana]

I am new here but I have been stalking the site for a LONG time. Our first Disney trip was in 2010 with my military son and dil and we stayed off site at champions gate(something like that) Last August we booked a vacation package at pop for little less than a week. DDP, we loved it so much I even added on an extra day at the end.

Anyhoo this year I am planning a vacation for August 4-11, 2013 and planning to stay at AoA, it isn't booked yet but I am working on it as I am deciding between a TA or myself and am really hoping for a pin code or free dining.
Please add me to the list. I am going to ask to join the facebook group, please and thank you my name for facebook is Diane Terrell, thanks.

[chuckinthechat]

Originally Posted by Loreli

Thursday Night's
Question of the Day
How do you snack at Disney?
Are you planning to bring snacks or are you having them shipped to your room?
Do you haul them in a back pack into the parks?
Do you use up all of your snack credits on the dinning plan?
Any snacking tips to share with the group?

I haven't quite decided yet. I am thinking about getting stuff from garden grocer like water and pop tarts Etc to just make it easier.

As far as snack credits I plan on using all of mine while on the dining plan!

[krd315]

Our airfare is now booked and I can reserve our ADR's in 5 days!

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Originally Posted by Loreli

Thursday Night's
Question of the Day
How do you snack at Disney?
Are you planning to bring snacks or are you having them shipped to your room?
Do you haul them in a back pack into the parks?
Do you use up all of your snack credits on the dinning plan?
Any snacking tips to share with the group?

We are offsiters, so no dining plan for us. We did the dining plan on our first Disney trip, but it didn't fit our normal eating style, so I doubt we would do it again even if we ever consider another onsite trip (which won't be until DS is grown and in his own room ).

We have a two bedroom, two bathroom villa at Sheraton Vistana. Since we have a full kitchen, we will do a grocery stop for an assortment of breakfast and snack items. We usually hit a Walmart and doing one big shopping spree, letting everyone pick out some yummy things that they want to have on hand for the week ahead. Being Canadians, we often find some fun stuff on the American Walmart shelves that we can't get at home....the stuff we see advertised on TV stations from "down south".

The snacks, though, will be for when we are at the resort only. We don't take any with us to the attractions we visit (with the exception of some frozen water bottles......its hot in the summer, so we always take a few of those in the rental vehicle with us). If we want snacks at any of the attractions, we will purchase them out of pocket.

Looking forward to trying the sand pail and the mini donuts at the waterparks!

[momto3gr8boys]

Originally Posted by minniemouse803

I will be going on my honeymoon to Disney and we are sooooo excited! We are staying August 5-10 at the Poly. My fiancée and I have been to Disney 3-4 times each growing up but it will be our first time together! I made my ADRs last week--Victoria & Albert's, Be Our Guest, Monsieur Paul's, Flying Fish Cafe, Aloha Dinner Show, Sci Fi Drive In, Tusker House, Liberty Tree Tavern, San Angel Inn, and 1900 Park Fare breakfast. We can't wait!!

Congrats on your upcoming wedding!! You got some great ADR's there!!

Originally Posted by KSL

Yesterday was the day I could finally book my ADRs. Yay!
I had read on the Dis that onlike booking wasn't giving the +10 days, so I didn't even bother trying to do it online (though I loved doing it that way in the past) and just called. I dialed at 7:05am and on hold for about 25 minutes. I just about had the music and "all aboard" message memorized!
We have some good friends who will be at WDW during our trip, so we had 3 reservations we wanted to do all together, making us a party of 9. And where do we want to eat? Yup, Be Our Guest (on a Saturday; are weekends more crowded!?). Plus we wanted to do the Fantasmic dinner package, and also a breakfast at Tusker House. I was mildly concerned how this would go booking for a party of 9, but was hopeful that by calling so far out that we could have good chances of getting something, even if not at our ideal times. We did! We had to take BoG earlier than we wanted (4:55), but it's fine and this way we will certainly be done in plenty of time for evening parade and fireworks, which is important to our friends as its the only night they will be at MK. The reservations for just our family (5) were no problem, though I was surprised Via Napoli seemed to be "harder" at my +9 day (further out; how many people could have booked it yet!?) and we had to move our time by 45 min from what we wanted, which was the biggest adjustment from our preferred time for all the ressies, including as the group of 9! No problem at all, jit ust surprised me. About half our ADRs are exactly the times we wanted. Yay!
Now today I will see if I can get these all linked to my reservation online. I know this has been an adventure for many people, so I'm setting aside an hour or so to try to figure this out! Hopefully it will go smoothly.
Sorry this got so long -- I wanted to give you all my experience as I know many of you will be calling soon.
Pixie dust to all of you with getting the ADRs you want!!

Glad you were able to get your ADRs by calling. I guess I should plan to call next week in case the website is still acting up.

Originally Posted by minniemouse803

Does anyone know when booking opens up for the Tommorrowland Terrace Dessert Party for August?

Someone will probably start a watch thread in the next few months. Keep an eye out for it and subscribe. Then you will get notified when they open up.

[momto3gr8boys]

Originally Posted by Loreli

Thursday Night's
Question of the Day
How do you snack at Disney?
Are you planning to bring snacks or are you having them shipped to your room?
Do you haul them in a back pack into the parks?
Do you use up all of your snack credits on the dinning plan?
Any snacking tips to share with the group?

Before our last trip we always used our snack credits if we had DDP and paid OOP for whatever wanted if we didn't. On our last trip I ordered from GG and it was great!! My primary goal was to save $ on water bottles, but I added some breakfast items and snacks to the list. It worked out very well for us!! Now that the boys are older and no one wants to be up and moving at the crack of dawn, we only do a few character breakfasts. Everything else was grabbing something at the BC MP or a pastry somewhere - yummy, but time consuming and expensive for what we were getting. Eating a quick breakfast in the room allowed us to sleep in a bit and still get out at a decent time.

In my backpack I carried a few water bottles and some small bags of snacks. That worked out great as I don't have a problem stopping for a snack, but inevitably someone (99.9% of the time my youngest) would be "hungry" at inconvenient times, and it was great to pull out a bag of chex mix without having to search out a snack. He has matured a bit in that area so maybe it wouldn't be as necessary this trip, but I will probably still do it.

This year we will not have the DDP unless FD comes out. It's just not cost effective for us and I would much rather pay OOP for what I want instead of eat what is "included". That said, I told the boys they can buy whatever snacks they want, but it comes out of their own $.

At the end of the day I'll wind up buying our tried and true favorites, but in reality we don't really snack that much. When we do use the DDP we are always loading up on Mickey rice krispy treats on our last day to bring home.

[KSL]

Originally Posted by Loreli

Thursday Night's
Question of the Day
How do you snack at Disney?
Are you planning to bring snacks or are you having them shipped to your room?
Do you haul them in a back pack into the parks?
Do you use up all of your snack credits on the dinning plan?
Any snacking tips to share with the group?

We don't get the DDP either, since we stay DVC and have a kitchen. So we will stock up on groceries on Day 1 and then take a few snacks into the parks with us that travel well (apples, granola bars), given the heat and the jostling throughout the day. With going at August, though, we find we are so hot we aren't even hungry for much between-meal snacking. More important is to drink plenty of water, even if you don't think you are thirsty. So that's my tip: stay hydrated! You'll be sweating so much in the heat that you won't even need extra bathroom breaks with all that you are drinking, LOL! Usually I am making us "pull over" to CS places often for the free cups of water which starts to annoy the rest of my family after about the sixth time I say, "gee, let's just run in here quick for some H2O" - they roll their eyes and are anxious to be moving ON already! So this year I'm trying a new plan: today the Disney Store online has a 25% discount so I ordered each of them a water bottle (Mickey, Minnie & Tink; and they were already on sale!) with the removable neoprene cover which has a strap so that it will be easy for them to carry cross-body style. Only $5.25 each after the discount! So I know that's like $20 with tax but we have 2 12-day trips in 12 months, so I figure it's worth it, and of course they have the water bottles to keep & use anytime. Yay! And I'm hoping that will keep everyone happier because then we can just drink as we go.

Also, wanted to circle back on my post regarding my ADRs... I checked on the MDE site and THEY WERE ALL THERE! Exactly perfect! The only thing I noticed is that it says that email confirmations have been sent (they weren't; or at least, they never got to me!), but I have all the info with the confirmation numbers, etc. so that's fine. It was nice not having to enter all those numbers, which is what I was expecting! So that was great. I haven't spent much time on the new site because I've heard about all the glitches, but this much is working great for me so far!

[pigletto]

Originally Posted by KSL

We don't get the DDP either, since we stay DVC and have a kitchen. So we will stock up on groceries on Day 1 and then take a few snacks into the parks with us that travel well (apples, granola bars), given the heat and the jostling throughout the day. With going at August, though, we find we are so hot we aren't even hungry for much between-meal snacking. More important is to drink plenty of water, even if you don't think you are thirsty. So that's my tip: stay hydrated! You'll be sweating so much in the heat that you won't even need extra bathroom breaks with all that you are drinking, LOL! Usually I am making us "pull over" to CS places often for the free cups of water which starts to annoy the rest of my family after about the sixth time I say, "gee, let's just run in here quick for some H2O" - they roll their eyes and are anxious to be moving ON already! So this year I'm trying a new plan: today the Disney Store online has a 25% discount so I ordered each of them a water bottle (Mickey, Minnie & Tink; and they were already on sale!) with the removable neoprene cover which has a strap so that it will be easy for them to carry cross-body style. Only $5.25 each after the discount! So I know that's like $20 with tax but we have 2 12-day trips in 12 months, so I figure it's worth it, and of course they have the water bottles to keep & use anytime. Yay! And I'm hoping that will keep everyone happier because then we can just drink as we go.

Also, wanted to circle back on my post regarding my ADRs... I checked on the MDE site and THEY WERE ALL THERE! Exactly perfect! The only thing I noticed is that it says that email confirmations have been sent (they weren't; or at least, they never got to me!), but I have all the info with the confirmation numbers, etc. so that's fine. It was nice not having to enter all those numbers, which is what I was expecting! So that was great. I haven't spent much time on the new site because I've heard about all the glitches, but this much is working great for me so far!

Print those numbers or copy them somewhere just in case. I'd hate to see you not have any confirmation if they disappear. All my ADR's were on the site for the longest time and then one day in November or so they weren't any more and they haven't been back since. Luckily I had a word document as back up

[amomma23]

Originally Posted by Loreli

Thursday Night's
Question of the Day
How do you snack at Disney?
Are you planning to bring snacks or are you having them shipped to your room?
Do you haul them in a back pack into the parks?
Do you use up all of your snack credits on the dinning plan?
Any snacking tips to share with the group?

We bring our own "snacks" for breakfast...cliff bars, granola, etc. I usually order some juice boxes from soap.com and ship them to our resort. We get refillable mugs with DDP, but there aren't great breakfast beverages available for the kids. We use our snack credits for a few favorites in the parks, but we kind of like blowing them all at once on our last day. The kids take Disney snacks in their lunches for the first few weeks of school and make everyone jealous.

[lovingeire]

Originally Posted by msyjoa

I have a Question for the Day...Why August? Is it the best time for your family, the price, or just tradition?
!

We weren't going to do a trip this year as we're doing Jan 2014, however youngest DS turns 3 in August so we decided to squeeze in a trip before he turns 3. It helps that our oldest wont miss any school as well. It'll give us the opportunity to test our the summer time frame too as our oldest is in 7th grade so were getting close to high school when our oldest may not want or be able to miss school.

[lovingeire]

Originally Posted by Loreli

Thursday Night's
Question of the Day
How do you snack at Disney?
Are you planning to bring snacks or are you having them shipped to your room?
Do you haul them in a back pack into the parks?
Do you use up all of your snack credits on the dinning plan?
Any snacking tips to share with the group?

We normally bring a few snacks with us in the backpack, however the meals are so large we don't do a ton if snacking. Typically we do granola bars and apples and well bring some pop tarts or cereal bars for breakfast. There's normally a day we're full and skip our quick service so we use snacks then. My husbands insisting on DxDP so well see how that goes. I can't imagine all the food, but do long as he agrees to go, I'm happy!

[HeadintheClouds]

I'm in! I am going to Florida August 9-18. 4 of those days will be spent at Disney. We have dining ressies for Chef Mickeys, Tusker House, Crystal Palace, Shula's, Yachtsman, Sci Fi Dine In, Be Our Guest, and Jiko. We have yet to obtain: Victoria & Alberts, TT Dessert Party, and Narcoossee's,

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

Originally Posted by HeadintheClouds

I'm in! I am going to Florida August 9-18. 4 of those days will be spent at Disney.

So....whatcha got planned for the non-Disney days?

Asked out of pure friendly nosy-ness by a fan of offsite stays who also happens to love exploring all the other amazing things Orlando has to offer .

[Loreli]

How did I miss this??
Brown Derby is 2 table service credits!!
This is a BIG disapointment for me. I really wanted to eat some great food @ WDW and already gave up many restaurants in favor of character breakfasts for DD7 who does not partake in lunch -due to med side effect
ADRs on Tues, gotta pick a replacement restaurant, guess I will try to make BOG dinner ressie.
Whats a good CS restaurant @ HS? Never even looked as I was planning 50's Prime & Brown Derby.

[Loreli]

Originally Posted by momto3gr8boys

I remember being young and going to Mass at the Poly, but I don't think they do that anymore. This is the closest church and is supposedly beautiful (not sure if it's the same one): National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe, 8300 Vineland Avenue, Orlando, Fl 32821. You can get a cab from your resort and Disney can arrange a return cab as well.

I visited the Shrine's web site, it looks lovely. They don't list masses, no less vigil masses on Saturday. Thanks for the info. It was super close to the World too. Maybe Mom will want to call and see if there are masses they don't list online. Thanks Again!