SteveandAli511
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2012
Hi all, I'm Steve and all be hosting this PDR with you for the next couple of weeks!
I've been debating for a couple of weeks whether or not to write a PDR and finally decided to do it, mainly because it lets me flex my writing muscles that have been woefully underused for the last couple of years. Let's see if I can shake the rust off!
As you can tell by our screen name we're Steve and Ali, newly married this past May but have been together over 8 years. She's definitely the better half in the relationship (but don't tell her I said that!
) and when you have no problem staying in on Friday and Saturday nights because you'd rather hang in and watch Gordon Ramsay yell at people then you know you've got somebody special. I booked this trip as a special birthday present to her as she's going back to school to obtain her degree in Nursing (we both have Bachelor's in Psychology but we've found it extremely hard to find any kind of job openings that don't want at least a Master's or years of experience behind it.) She's been hitting the books harder than I've ever seen her do and wanted her to have a week away in our home away from home before she gets into her science classes next semester and we cut back on going out and vacationing. I couldn't be more proud of her and I know she'll find a ton of success in the nursing field.
She encouraged me to start writing this as a way to get the creative juices flowing and I'm looking forward to sharing our experiences with you and hopefully add some humor and witty banter along the way. I've written and helped my friends on screenplays in the past (some in college, some as part of their independent film company) and it's something I always enjoy doing. While I've done little of that in the last couple years I'm hoping to change that going forward.
Well, that's enough about my daydreaming of relaxing on the deck of a Hollywood villa, onto the Disney details!
We'll be spending 4 nights at CBR in a Standard View Room but have taken the advice from those on the CBR thread and requested one of the better locations on property, so we're hoping for some good luck there! We had originally planned on being there 5 nights and spending 1 at AoA in a Little Mermaid room but after crunching some numbers and thinking about what could be our last Disney vacation for a couple of years we decided to knock a night off of CBR and do 2 nights at Wilderness Lodge! (Thanks in part to the 25% room discount!) This was the hotel we always said we'd love to spend two weeks at and when we saw we could spend two nights there we weren't passing it up!
Now here's a bit of information you'll come to find out about me when we report back after our trip: I love to eat. For 9 years working anywhere form 45-65 hours a week and working from as early as 6 A.M. to as late as 2 A.M. you tend to develop a habit of being hungry at any given point in time, especially when you're on your feet for 8-10 hours a day and regardless of when and what you just ate. Ali has no idea how I can eat a roast chicken dinner and then half an hour later be in the cupboard eating Wheatables straight from the box (The honey wheat ones are crazy addictive!) Just had ice cream? I think I could go for a roast beef sandwich. Just had a bowl of cereal? Man, I wonder if there's some salad mix in the fridge. She finds it entertaining, I'm just looking for my next meal!
With having free dining it was a no-brainer for us to upgrade to Deluxe, especially given the change to try a few of the signatures that we normally wouldn't. I've been a peruser of the DDP Board and always enjoy reading posts between OOP vs. DDP. One of the things I plan on doing in my DR is a cost analysis breakdown at the end of the trip to factor in how much we actually saved. When Disney released the room discounts that corresponded to our dates I found out how much we would have saved if we had gone with the room discount as opposed to paying rack rate. I also added in the cost of what it was to upgrade to the DxDDP for each of us and it came to $413.20 total. That's $413.20 spread over five days plus eight snacks for each of us. With the ADRs we have we think we'll end up going way above that number.
Two disclaimers:
1. I know that because we're doing a split stay we're treating it like it's five days of DxDDP when it's actually four, but this is one of the reasons we decided to spend the extra $ for two nights at WL. That won't work for a lot of people but for those doing S/S it can be an added benefit.
2. This goes out to some of the biggest opponents of the DP. At no point did we plan our ADRs around where we can get the most value of the DDP and only wondering entrees that would help increase the $ difference. We will be ordering what we want when we want it, even if it means ordering the cheapest entree at each signature restaurant (although I can assure you with my appetite that won't be happening much.)
We always enjoy trying to get the most out of our money and doing a cost analysis report will determine for us if we'd want to return without FD or buying it OOP for the future. Should be interesting!
Let me get to our ADRs for the trip! After way too much canceling, shimmying and finagling we're 99% sure we've made up our minds, but an earlier Ohana or primetime California Grill opening may change that. Here's what's on the schedule:
Wed. Oct. 24th- Arrival Day
Lunch- Sci-Fi Diner
Dinner- Flying Fish
Thur. Oct. 25th- Ali's Birthday!
Breakfast- Cinderella's Royal Table
Lunch- Via Napoli
Dinner- ??? We'll be at MNSSHP that night so we'll probably end up snacking around the MK, hopefully with a stop at Sleepy Hollow!
Fri. Oct. 26th-
Breakfast- TBD
Lunch- Le Cellier Steakhouse
Dinner- California Grill
Sat. Oct. 27th-
Breakfast- Tusker House
Dinner- Narcoossee's
Sun. Oct. 28th-
Breakfast- Cape May Cafe
Dinner- Artist Point
Mon. Oct. 29th-
Breakfast- Kona Cafe (If only for the Kona Press Pot!)
Dinner- 'Ohana
Tue. Oct. 30th- TBD
We do plan on using some of our snack credits at the F&W Festival (another reason why we chose October!) but we think we'll end up doing more on Monday and Tuesday due to being off the DP and those being (hopefully) slower days. We have our eyes on a bunch of new snacks to try (Jalapeno cheese pretzels, cupcakes, anything from Main St. Bakery) but we'll still be having a few Dole Whips!
We feel like me made some really good choices based on times, park hours and menus and always have fun at character meals. We had some great interaction with Piglet and Tigger at Crystal Palace back in 2010 and it definitely turned us on to trying more of them. While we may make some last minute changes we're hoping to try everything on our list this trip!
I know I've been a bit long-winded but I hope you've enjoyed my PDR and join on for our dining reviews when we get back. We're looking forward to spending a week in one of our favorite places and can't wait to see what kind of experiences (both foodie and otherwise!) we have when we get there!
I've been debating for a couple of weeks whether or not to write a PDR and finally decided to do it, mainly because it lets me flex my writing muscles that have been woefully underused for the last couple of years. Let's see if I can shake the rust off!
As you can tell by our screen name we're Steve and Ali, newly married this past May but have been together over 8 years. She's definitely the better half in the relationship (but don't tell her I said that!
) and when you have no problem staying in on Friday and Saturday nights because you'd rather hang in and watch Gordon Ramsay yell at people then you know you've got somebody special. I booked this trip as a special birthday present to her as she's going back to school to obtain her degree in Nursing (we both have Bachelor's in Psychology but we've found it extremely hard to find any kind of job openings that don't want at least a Master's or years of experience behind it.) She's been hitting the books harder than I've ever seen her do and wanted her to have a week away in our home away from home before she gets into her science classes next semester and we cut back on going out and vacationing. I couldn't be more proud of her and I know she'll find a ton of success in the nursing field. She encouraged me to start writing this as a way to get the creative juices flowing and I'm looking forward to sharing our experiences with you and hopefully add some humor and witty banter along the way. I've written and helped my friends on screenplays in the past (some in college, some as part of their independent film company) and it's something I always enjoy doing. While I've done little of that in the last couple years I'm hoping to change that going forward.
Well, that's enough about my daydreaming of relaxing on the deck of a Hollywood villa, onto the Disney details!
We'll be spending 4 nights at CBR in a Standard View Room but have taken the advice from those on the CBR thread and requested one of the better locations on property, so we're hoping for some good luck there! We had originally planned on being there 5 nights and spending 1 at AoA in a Little Mermaid room but after crunching some numbers and thinking about what could be our last Disney vacation for a couple of years we decided to knock a night off of CBR and do 2 nights at Wilderness Lodge! (Thanks in part to the 25% room discount!) This was the hotel we always said we'd love to spend two weeks at and when we saw we could spend two nights there we weren't passing it up!
Now here's a bit of information you'll come to find out about me when we report back after our trip: I love to eat. For 9 years working anywhere form 45-65 hours a week and working from as early as 6 A.M. to as late as 2 A.M. you tend to develop a habit of being hungry at any given point in time, especially when you're on your feet for 8-10 hours a day and regardless of when and what you just ate. Ali has no idea how I can eat a roast chicken dinner and then half an hour later be in the cupboard eating Wheatables straight from the box (The honey wheat ones are crazy addictive!) Just had ice cream? I think I could go for a roast beef sandwich. Just had a bowl of cereal? Man, I wonder if there's some salad mix in the fridge. She finds it entertaining, I'm just looking for my next meal!
With having free dining it was a no-brainer for us to upgrade to Deluxe, especially given the change to try a few of the signatures that we normally wouldn't. I've been a peruser of the DDP Board and always enjoy reading posts between OOP vs. DDP. One of the things I plan on doing in my DR is a cost analysis breakdown at the end of the trip to factor in how much we actually saved. When Disney released the room discounts that corresponded to our dates I found out how much we would have saved if we had gone with the room discount as opposed to paying rack rate. I also added in the cost of what it was to upgrade to the DxDDP for each of us and it came to $413.20 total. That's $413.20 spread over five days plus eight snacks for each of us. With the ADRs we have we think we'll end up going way above that number.
Two disclaimers:
1. I know that because we're doing a split stay we're treating it like it's five days of DxDDP when it's actually four, but this is one of the reasons we decided to spend the extra $ for two nights at WL. That won't work for a lot of people but for those doing S/S it can be an added benefit.
2. This goes out to some of the biggest opponents of the DP. At no point did we plan our ADRs around where we can get the most value of the DDP and only wondering entrees that would help increase the $ difference. We will be ordering what we want when we want it, even if it means ordering the cheapest entree at each signature restaurant (although I can assure you with my appetite that won't be happening much.)
We always enjoy trying to get the most out of our money and doing a cost analysis report will determine for us if we'd want to return without FD or buying it OOP for the future. Should be interesting!
Let me get to our ADRs for the trip! After way too much canceling, shimmying and finagling we're 99% sure we've made up our minds, but an earlier Ohana or primetime California Grill opening may change that. Here's what's on the schedule:
Wed. Oct. 24th- Arrival Day
Lunch- Sci-Fi Diner
Dinner- Flying Fish
Thur. Oct. 25th- Ali's Birthday!
Breakfast- Cinderella's Royal Table
Lunch- Via Napoli
Dinner- ??? We'll be at MNSSHP that night so we'll probably end up snacking around the MK, hopefully with a stop at Sleepy Hollow!
Fri. Oct. 26th-
Breakfast- TBD
Lunch- Le Cellier Steakhouse
Dinner- California Grill
Sat. Oct. 27th-
Breakfast- Tusker House
Dinner- Narcoossee's
Sun. Oct. 28th-
Breakfast- Cape May Cafe
Dinner- Artist Point
Mon. Oct. 29th-
Breakfast- Kona Cafe (If only for the Kona Press Pot!)
Dinner- 'Ohana
Tue. Oct. 30th- TBD
We do plan on using some of our snack credits at the F&W Festival (another reason why we chose October!) but we think we'll end up doing more on Monday and Tuesday due to being off the DP and those being (hopefully) slower days. We have our eyes on a bunch of new snacks to try (Jalapeno cheese pretzels, cupcakes, anything from Main St. Bakery) but we'll still be having a few Dole Whips!
We feel like me made some really good choices based on times, park hours and menus and always have fun at character meals. We had some great interaction with Piglet and Tigger at Crystal Palace back in 2010 and it definitely turned us on to trying more of them. While we may make some last minute changes we're hoping to try everything on our list this trip!
I know I've been a bit long-winded but I hope you've enjoyed my PDR and join on for our dining reviews when we get back. We're looking forward to spending a week in one of our favorite places and can't wait to see what kind of experiences (both foodie and otherwise!) we have when we get there!
