Weber's at the World this Christmas!

[exwdwcm]

hope the birthday surprise goes well!!!

love day 1! it is nice to have a relaxing evening to explore the resort, do DTD and just get your bearings instead of rushing off to a park right away. Earle is great. they used to have a mcDonald's at DTD too, but i think maybe it is being changed to the Pollo place now or soon (if not already). There are some little shacks with nachos and pretzels stuff close to the water.

 

[PoppyGirl]

That is SO sweet! And what a fun weekend you have planned! I'm so shocked that you, as a Texas girl, don't make BBQ. Did you grow up there? (and they let you stay anyway?) or did you move there (in which case the state probably forgives you). I lived in Katy for a summer (youth mission trip) in 1983....it's where I learned ALL about BBQ and all spicy foods!
I have lived in MD for 17 years and JUST learned how to steam shrimp! I grew up in IL...the only kind of shrimp I ever saw were breaded and fried. Fortunately for me, DH is too lazy to pick crabs so I haven't had to learn THAT yet!

I hope you have a great weekend! And I hope your DH enjoys it.

By the way...you purchase gift cards to cover your meals at WDW? Any particular reason to do that and not just put it on my Disney Visa card?

 

[taramoz]

hope the birthday surprise goes well!!!

love day 1! it is nice to have a relaxing evening to explore the resort, do DTD and just get your bearings instead of rushing off to a park right away. Earle is great. they used to have a mcDonald's at DTD too, but i think maybe it is being changed to the Pollo place now or soon (if not already). There are some little shacks with nachos and pretzels stuff close to the water.

Thanks, so far so good, he was happy to see his mom. I think once we got to the airport he kinda figured it out!

Cool about DTD, I cannot wait to spend the evening there getting settled! And Ainsley will love it if we find her some nachos to munch on!

 

[taramoz]

That is SO sweet! And what a fun weekend you have planned! I'm so shocked that you, as a Texas girl, don't make BBQ. Did you grow up there? (and they let you stay anyway?) or did you move there (in which case the state probably forgives you). I lived in Katy for a summer (youth mission trip) in 1983....it's where I learned ALL about BBQ and all spicy foods!
I have lived in MD for 17 years and JUST learned how to steam shrimp! I grew up in IL...the only kind of shrimp I ever saw were breaded and fried. Fortunately for me, DH is too lazy to pick crabs so I haven't had to learn THAT yet!

I hope you have a great weekend! And I hope your DH enjoys it.

By the way...you purchase gift cards to cover your meals at WDW? Any particular reason to do that and not just put it on my Disney Visa card?

I know, the no BBQ is shameful, yes, I grew up here in Texas, in Spring! I do love my Tex Mex though. And to the breaded and fried shrimp, everything s good when it is breaded and fried!!!

Weekend is going great so far, his mom made it here safe, we had a nice dinner, and now we are relaxing!

And to the gift card question, I don't currently purchase gift cards, not sure if I should (is there a deal if we do)?!?? We are not doing any kind of dining plan this time since we cannot get it free (since we "rented" DVC points for our stay), so we will be paying out of pocket. This is shamful to admit as a big Disney nut, but I don't have the Disney Visa. I'd love to get one actually, but we are trying to refi the house and need to get the credit score up about 10 more points so no new credit cards fo me or the hubby for the time being!

 

[Tinker_Tam]

Sounds like an awesome birthday celebration weekend! Good luck putting up with a high maintenance MIL. I am sure Kris will be so surprised and wonder how you pulled it all off...and wonder about what you are pulling off for the next holiday!

 

[taramoz]

So today is my 100 days to go! I know my ticker is off by a day, I am too lazy to change it. To me it’s kind of like Daylight savings, why change the clock in my car, I can do the math!!!

So anyway, I have decided to steal the Disney themed dinner idea (thanks to fellow Diser Stephielela) to celebrate the occasion! I started this morning by slipping a little note in Ainsley’s lunch box that told her I loved her and then said “P.S. 100 Days until Disney!” and I drew a little Mickey mouse head. Now, I anticipate she will laugh at my pathetic try at drawing a Mickey head, I won’t blame her, it is pretty pathetic! But it’s the thought that counts, right??!?

I plan to head to Costco at lunch and pick up Mickey shaped food! I will get what they have, and I am hoping that even though my kid is not a pizza and nuggets girl (I assume that is what I will find) that she will eat them since they are Mickey shaped. She actually loves the nuggets at Rainforest café, they are dinosaur shaped, being dinosaur shaped actually does make them taste better according to her. I have to admit I do get her logic on this just slightly, she does have a mom that likes chicken so long as it is not on the bone, and who honestly believes a room temperature coke poured into a glass of ice is just not as refreshing as one that was cold to begin with! So I let her slide on the freaky food issues and am hopeful I will have a freaky kid tonight!

I will post pictures tonight or tomorrow of the event!

 

[taramoz]

Sounds like an awesome birthday celebration weekend! Good luck putting up with a high maintenance MIL. I am sure Kris will be so surprised and wonder how you pulled it all off...and wonder about what you are pulling off for the next holiday!

It all went well and now the poor hubby doesn't know how he will be able to live up to it on my birthady! LOL

 

[taramoz]

It was a success! I went to costco at lunch and found the Mickey nuggets! Then when I picked up sweet sweet Ainsley from school she asked why I drew a teddy bear on her disney note, I told her it was supposed to be Mickey, she chuckled and said "At least you tried!!!"

So, as promised pics of my first Disney theamed dinner...

The set up Pre-nuggets

You can see her gift in the background! She is playing with it now!

And now with the food:

And she loved it! I got the crazy girl tonight who ate it all, and she loved the fries!!!?!?

And you may not have noticed in the pic, but she also got a new princess blanket:

And lastly, we were playing music from DTuneslive to get us in the Disney mood! Was perfect! YAY, 100 days will go fast, cannot wait!!

 

[Daddy_of_Princesses]

And lastly, we were playing music from DTuneslive to get us in the Disney mood! Was perfect! YAY, 100 days will go fast, cannot wait!!

Woe, slow down there. I hope your next 93 Days go fast, but those last 7 take there time.

 

[taramoz]

Wow, so it has been a few days since my 100 day celebration, countdown is up on the wall and Ainsley is ticking off the days and excited each morning to announce how many are left! So now for me its back into planning phase!!!

So I am on day 2, which is super exciting because this day has changed in so many ways! It used to be our day 1, and originally we had planned to get to DW in a leisurely fashion, tour some hotel Christmas decorations, and then do dinner. We had picked either Chef Mickey’s or Spirit of Aloha , and if you read my earlier blog you know it was Ainsley who made the final choice, SOA! She wanted a show, not characters. So SOA is all booked, the late show. After the sticker shock of flight prices we had the genius idea to just go a day early! And luckily we were able to rent another night from my wonderful DVC angel, so now day 2 is a park day! But I do still want to see some hotel decorations, so here is my thinking on day 2 planning:
We will be up early and on the first bus over to MK for rope drop! We are rope drop people, I don’t think you would ever find us not doing rope drop. All 3 of us LOVE the rides, so we get as much out of our mornings as possible! I have both the Unofficial guide and tourguide mike, so between these 2 sources I am sure I can muster up a good touring plan which hits all of our favs! Plus, I am a fast pass master. I am a bit crazy with all of this, but we always see and do everything we want and then some! Now, I have told myself not to go too crazy. We actually visit MK 3 times this trip, this day 2, then day 3 we have the MVMCP and we have one more full day planned at MK. So I will try to slow down a bit, but I do admit this will be hard for me!!!

After our whirlwind morning of rides rides rides we will slow down for lunch! I am so excited to be trying Liberty Tavern, this was a last minute add when we got the extra day, and one I had really wanted to try. I can tell you with certainty that I will be doing the fried cheese appetizer, and the turkey meal! I have been drooling over both in the food reports section. I assume the hubby will get a salad and the burger, I know him pretty well! And unless my kid decides to totally change in the next 96 days I am sure she won’t order a thing and will just eat bread. I will try to grab her an eggroll or something before/after and not worry too much that she is a freaky eater! This is the beauty of no dining plan, we can just wing it and I don’t have to force her to order stuff she doesn’t want!

After lunch I think we will try to hit any major rides/shows we have yet to do, or any we just have to do again (I am sure we will do the Haunted House a record number of times this trip as it tops Ainsley’s list, and nearly tops Kris and I’s!). But I do also still want to see some hotel decorations on this day, so we will not be going too crazy at MK today. I want to leave early evening and hit a couple hotels. Right now I am thinking of doing the ones on the monorail and we can end off at the Poly for our dinner show!

Last comments are on the dinner show. We have never done a dinner show at Disney so this will be super exciting! Cheesy or not, I just know we will love it. The food looks good enough to satisfy all of us, and I plan to tell my waiter to keep the beer flowing (Texas girl, remember?)!!! I read somewhere on the disboards that they might be changing the dessert at the SOA show, but in truth I wanna try those controversial little volcano things so I hope they don’t.

Now I have to get back to work, planning out my Disney days is so much more fun!

 

[taramoz]

Woe, slow down there. I hope your next 93 Days go fast, but those last 7 take there time.

I will try, but I can see from how excited we are at 96 days to do that this is going to be tough!

 

[taramoz]

Ok, so this will be a little of my craziness, and a little math all combined. What promoted it all??? Well, Kris and I both agree that we’d like to try the Halloween party one year. So I think, why not next year? So then I think, maybe we could even make use of season passes? And thus begins my crazy math, bear with me and chime in if I am doing my math wrong…

We have 6-day tickets for our upcoming Dec trip (non-hopper), bought before price increase with UT discount, total cost for the three of us was $658.86. Current cost of the same tickets at gate = $748.70 (including tax). I assumed for calculation purposes that we would go during Oct for 4 days (school limits the length of trip) and thus would buy 4 day non park hopper (going cheapest for conservative estimate). SO I looked at 3 scenarios, 1st was just to go to UT and buy the 4-day tickets. 2nd was to just upgrade 1 adult to a season pass, purchase the TIW card and calculate where I would break even using the TIW discount (again, conservative since I am not considering any other discounts for buying an AP), and 3rd scenario was to upgrade us all to AP and buy TIW card. I came up with the chart below, math is simple just added up my costs, then the additional cost for the AP options I looked at I divided by 0.2 (since that is TIW discount) to calculate how much I would need to spend at applicable TIW locations to hit break even. After this break even point the 20% saving off food is pure savings, so here are the results…

No Passes 1 AP All
Current Value 257.73 748.7
Season Pass 531.44 1542.13
Cost to Upgrade 0 273.71 793.43
TIW Card 0 75 75
Buy Park Tickets 691.85 453.9 0
Total Cost 691.85 802.61 868.43
TIW Break Even 553.8 882.9

So now, this is where I got really crazy. I know from my dis-research in order to upgrade and realize the current gate price I will have to have used my tickets at least 1 day, so I could not upgrade until our MK day on day 2 of our trip. I also have a CP package and a fantasmic package booked this trip which don’t qualify for the TIW discount (although we would use it for the alcohol we bought at these, I think that is ok). SO, I next went through our current ADRs to predict what we would spend this trip at TIW discount eligible restaurants beginning after we do the upgrade (day 2). And my results… this trip we will spend about $510, thus if one of us upgrades on our second trip so long as we spend a measly $43 on dining we break even on the upgraded AP. To get to break even on APs for all 3 of us we would need to spend more than $373 on our second trip on TIW eligible dining. But I found it interesting that if we ever wanted to park hop on either trip ($57.51 each with tax) we break even immedietly…

So, I of course mention this to Kris. He likes it, and his fist comment was “if we have APs we could go more often, long weekends and stuff”, to which I kinda laughed cuz it was not exactly my point, more vacations = more $$$ overall (airfare, room, dining out all the time!), but it was an enthusiastic point that did get me thinking.

So is my math flawed? This really has me thinking…

 

[taramoz]

It pasted ugly in last post, try this:

No Passes
Current Value
Season Pass
Cost to Upgrade 0
TIW Card 0
Buy Park Tickets 691.85
Total Cost 691.85

1 AP
Current Value 257.73
Season Pass 531.44
Cost to Upgrade 273.71
TIW Card 75
Buy Park Tickets 453.9
Total Cost 802.61
TIW Break Even 553.8

All APs
Current Value 748.7
Season Pass 1542.13
Cost to Upgrade 793.43
TIW Card 75
Buy Park Tickets 0
Total Cost 868.43
TIW Break Even 882.9

 

[taramoz]

So I was looking through the Epcot table service menus while thinking about my plans. I had hoped we would try the new Mexican counter service restaurant for lunch, but after looking at the menu I am convinced that Ainsley would not like anything on it. And I would love to try the new sit down, sadly we don’t have a dinner time slot open. So on a whim I decided to book the old sit down Mexican restaurant!!! The menu looks good, Ainsley will definitely be able to find something to eat. But I am keeping it a secret from Kris, simply because he doesn’t love Mexican food quite as much as me and my snuggle bug Ainsley…

Now, since I am on the subject of my snuggle bug, she is so excited about the trip. The countdown is really why, this morning she said “mommy, mommy, just 88 more days!!” and had the biggest smile on her face. I just love that big smilie face, wish I had a picture of it to post….

 

[exwdwcm]

Loved the 100 day party- so darn cute- looks like she had a good time.

as for purchasing gift cards, i know a lot of people do it just as a means of 'saving up'........you don't get any extra benefit of it, just a good way to 'budget', so you save up and don't have access to cash to spend instead before the trip. this way you arrive and have gift cards to use instead. using a disney visa will have benefit with some discounts at some stores (i know sometimes world of disney, spend over $50, save 10%?). however, we like the gift cards for budgeting purposes sometimes too- and you can put them towards your room balance at the front desk, or simply leave them at the front desk and then charge back to the room, instead of carrying around multiple cards.

i like the idea of everyone getting APs, that is what we are doing, since we are going back in October next year. We are also doing the TIW card and i did the math and it will save us money there for sure. We have about 7 sit down meals and TIW works at all of them I think. so have you decided what to do?

 

[taramoz]

i like the idea of everyone getting APs, that is what we are doing, since we are going back in October next year. We are also doing the TIW card and i did the math and it will save us money there for sure. We have about 7 sit down meals and TIW works at all of them I think. so have you decided what to do?

Hey, too funny we have the same plans to go back in October! We did decide on getting the APs and buying the TIW card also. It seems to be the best fit for us. And now we may try to fit in one more trip, who knows, sure opens up the possibiliteis

 

[disneydreamer1970]

I'm joining in!! Your plans look great and woo-hoo for the extra day with lower plane ticket prices!!

I loved your 100 day dinner! This trip is a suprise from the kids, so I held a breakfast, Mickey Waffles, of course, and we had a disney movie marathon that day....they had no idea why!! I just had to do something!!

I am looking forward to hearing more of your plans!

Trish

 

[taramoz]

I loved your 100 day dinner! This trip is a suprise from the kids, so I held a breakfast, Mickey Waffles, of course, and we had a disney movie marathon that day....they had no idea why!! I just had to do something!!
Trish

That is too funny!! I wonder if any of them will figure it out. I am not sure I could keep quiet, you are brave to try!

 

[taramoz]

So I am clearly not the keeping secrets type, but rather the excitement in the anticipation type!!! So yesterday I informed my sweet angel child that I had read on the message boards that during December just before Christmas Santa likes to vacation at Disney before having to go to work on Christmas Eve. I also told her that some past guests reported that Santa and Mickey like to get together and leave little gifts for the guests at Disney (to set up for my nightly gifts I plan to do). She totally bought it! YAY! She started asking lots of questions, like if there will be presents every day. I told her I wasn’t sure, would need to do more research…

Now, in case you wondered I am the queen of the “little white lies” with my kiddo. A couple funny ones to share, I always call Ainsley a princess. She started at one point to say “mommy, I am not a REAL princess”, to which I of course re-assured her she in fact was a real princess. She pressed further “if I am a princess, you are a queen...”, and again I re-assured her that this was also true, I am the queen of the Weber household. So she actually goes to school and tells her friends that I am a real Queen and thus she is a real princess! The friends did not buy it, hee hee.

And my favorite little white lie… I sometimes call her my little pumpkin (do you think I have lots of nick names for my kid??!?!) and of course she replies back “I am NOT a pumpkin” – sassy child. So I always go on to tell her sure she is, I did in fact find her in a pumpkin patch. I love this one because it makes her really mad, so it makes me keep going, I tell her about the picture I have of it (I do have a picture of her when she was a baby in the pumpkin patch, I will post later). She will say “tell the truth!!!”. LOL, and lately she has been trying to get me to pinkie swear to it, which I will of course never do because pinkie swearing is sacred to a 6 year old, so that is where I typically change the subject…

 

[taramoz]

So onto thinking about my days again! We are placing an order with Garden Grocer to have food in the room for breakfast. So we will be up early and will eat a bit in the room before heading over to AK for rope drop. We are not big breakfast people, and Aisnley is so set in her ways with what she likes for breakfast, so this just works best for us.

Now what to do first, I am unsure here. We will definitely fast pass Expedition Everest cuz we all love it! Then maybe we will head over to do the Safari. I want to hit it when we are most likely to see some animals, I will have to look into that more. But really we want to spend our morning getting as much in as possible. Ainsley just loves Kali River Rapids. I mean loves it. She will probably want to ride it even if it is 20 degrees outside (let’s hope not). When we did Disneyland back in March she made us ride it over and over again despite the “cool” temps (we are from Houston so it doesn’t take much to seem cool to us, a nice cool front blew in last night, when I walked outside this morning it was 65 degrees, NICE!!! That is some cool temps!).

Now we do get to do a new ride this time. When we were at DW last time, in 2008, Ainsley was about 44 inches. So she could ride a lot, but not everything. She is now the fabulous height of 48 inches, so we get to ride Primeval Whirl!!! Now, that being said, I am not sure if we could figure out why this one is rated a 48 incher, maybe it will be more clear after we ride. None the less, we are glad to get to ride it. I did warn Ainsley though that since she is right at 48” (maybe she will grow a bit more before Dec) that it was possible they may measure her and say she cannot ride. She is very petite so she does look a lot smaller. It’s funny cuz at Disneyland in March she was 47”, and Indiana Jones is a 46” ride, so we got in line, no worries. But I have to say, we counted, she was measured by 6 cast members! She passed them all, but the funny part was there was a little girl with her daddy in front of us that Ainsley was taller then (could see the diffs when they were next to each other), but no one ever measured that little girl, just mine. All we could figure was that Ainsley just looks tiny, small boned!

So, back on track, we have lunch ressies at Tusker House. Totally looking forward to trying this. I cannot wait to try all the different foods. I think I mentioned before, I loved Yak and Yeti last time, and it was hard not to book that, but I really want to try everything and I don’t think I will be disappointed. After lunch we will head out to fit in anything else at AK. Cannot wait to see the Lion King show again, that was great the last time! Then, when we have had our fill ok AK, it will be time to head to MK for MVMCP!!! More on the party later, I really have to think through what we will do there, it’s our first one…