Hakuna Matata - the AKL Disneymoon PTR *SDD day!!!*

[VailaTigger]

Jambo!

Since I'm getting close to my 180 day mark, and getting very excited (and struggling to keep a lid on it LOL), I thought I'd share some of that excitement and write a PTR.

Cast:
Me (Vaila) - almost 41 - complete WDW nut. If I'm honest, there's nowhere else I'd rather go on holiday than WDW! This will be my 5th trip, I'm a lucky girl.
DF (Andrew) - will be 45 when we go - will also be my DH when we go - complete and utter Star Wars nut. This will be his 2nd trip, I introduced him and his two DS to WDW in April 2010.
Just the two of us for this trip, no kiddies. We've promised the two DS that we'll save up again once this trip is over and take them the next time.

Stage:
8th of September for 14 nights, in Animal Kingdom Lodge, with free DDP. This will be our Honeymoon (Disneymoon!). The wedding is on the 12th of April, but we decided to wait until September for our honeymoon. I've been before in September and loved it, it's a quiet time to go, the weather is reasonable, and it gives us another 5 months after the wedding to save up a bit more!

Plans may change once I double-check the park hours, and start to make ADR's but at the moment it's looking like this:

Sat 8th - travel day
Sun 9th - DHS - Dinner at Mama Melrose's
Mon 10th - MK - Lunch at Crystal Palace
Tue 11th - rest day (chill at hotel, or mini golf, or visit other resorts, or water park) - Dinner at Artist Point
Wed 12th - EPCOT - Dinner at Biergarten - watch Illuminations
Thu 13th - AK - Dinner at Boma
Fri 14th - late start, DTD for some shopping, hopefully Cirque du Soleil in the evening - Dinner at Raglan Road
Sat 15th - EPCOT - Dinner at Nine Dragons
Sun 16th - DHS - Dinner at Hollywood Brown Derby
Mon 17th - rest day (chill at hotel, or mini golf, or visit other resorts, or water park) - hopefully afternoon tea at the GF - and a later dinner at Sanaa
Tues 18th - AK - Lunch at Tusker House
Weds 19th - MK - Dinner at Tony's Town Square Restaurant - watch Wishes
Thu 20th - DTD, and walk around the Boardwalk - Dinner at Kouzzina
Fri 21st - pack bags in the morning, DTD and EPCOT in the afternoon. - Lunch at House of Blues - perhaps QS meal later at Katsura Grill & watch Illuminations
Sat 22nd - travel day, but probably time for a favourite park before DME picks us up.

I'm SO looking forward to a whole two weeks with my DH, just us, and in my favourite place. Lots of food, probably a cocktail or two, and hopefully hot sunshine!
Finances have been more stretched than we thought with the wedding, so we are sticking to just Disney for this trip, rather than taking in Universal, IOA, Kennedy Space Center etc too. That will just need to wait for a future trip.

We got a decent price with Virgin Holidays (we booked it April 2011). Happy to be flying direct from Glasgow, and we'll get DME to and from the airport, and use all the WDW transport when we're there. No need to hire a car. (If we want to, we just go to the Alamo desk at the Dolphin, or the Car Care Center and pick one up for a couple of days.)

My list of 'to do's' looks a bit like this:
- change my name on my passport
- ADR's
- book DME (and taxis for the UK bits)
- ESTA and API
- book tickets for Cirque du Soleil (La Nouba)
- buy a squishy bag
- make the extra baggage payment for the return leg for said squishy bag
- book the cat into the cattery
- get a few decent summer tops and t-shirts (and something a little smart for Artist Point)

So... that's it all down on 'paper'... and I'm still stupidly excited!!!
Thank you for sharing that with me!
Vaila

 

[princess_ariel_85]

Yay! Your started your pre-trip report!

Ooh your wedding is getting closer!

Your plans looks good, you have included two of my fave places to eat - Tusker House and Nine Dragons. I could live in Tusker House and I've heard great things about Artist Point.

The wait for the 180 day mark seems to be dragging lol

Looking forward to hearing more xx

 

[Ciorsdah]

Woohoooo for starting the pretrip!!

Sounds like you are all set to go now! Those ADR plans look really good, we booked through Virgin Holidays as well and I was wondering how to book the ADRs because we still havent received our Disney number thingy

We head out on the 22nd, so we'll miss you!

Cant wait to read more of your plans.

Kirsty

 

[wilma-bride]

Great PTR How exciting - a wedding and a Disneymoon to look forward to. We went to Orlando for our honeymoon too (also in September but was back in 2004). Despite everybody we knew saying it was a really unromantic place to go for a honeymoon, we had an amazing time and it was the beginning of many wonderful trips to WDW to follow.

Hope you have a fabulous wedding. Will you be updating your PTR with some wedding pics before you go?

 

[beautifullily]

Ooh how exciting, planning a wedding and Disney trip! Look forward to hearing your plans come together. Think there's something to be said for having your honeymoon separate from the wedding - double the excitement!

 

[VailaTigger]

we booked through Virgin Holidays as well and I was wondering how to book the ADRs because we still havent received our Disney number thingy

I follow Virgin Holidays on Facebook, and if you ask on their page for your 12 digit booking number, they will message you back with it

Although, I may be asking them again for the new style of number... some of the threads on the UK planning board seem to suggest that the Disney ADR website will only book 180+10 if you have a mixture of 8 letters and numbers...

Although I do have a freephone UK number to call to make the bookings, and people have had plenty success with that.

Happy planning!!

 

[VailaTigger]

Great PTR How exciting - a wedding and a Disneymoon to look forward to. We went to Orlando for our honeymoon too (also in September but was back in 2004). Despite everybody we knew saying it was a really unromantic place to go for a honeymoon, we had an amazing time and it was the beginning of many wonderful trips to WDW to follow.

Hope you have a fabulous wedding. Will you be updating your PTR with some wedding pics before you go?

Thank you for reading! We have had a few comments too about going to WDW for our honeymoon, but only from people who don't understand

Good idea to pop some wedding photos on the PTR - I think I'll do that!

 

[Chilly]

Where better to go than WDW for a honeymoon, the land of happy ever afters!

 

[westgrove]

Congratulations! Not long til your wedding at all
Just DH and I will be going in May so I'm sure I'll be reporting back on all the grown up things we found to do - hough we'll mostly be like big kids anyway!
I've seen some good ideas on the forums for one, we're not big drinkers but I think we'll still be buying a few monsterously priced drinks around the world!

 

[VailaTigger]

We're not big drinkers either, but I do like a cocktail occasionally! And being just adults, there's nothing to stop us partaking of one or two if we feel like it

Checked my park hours yesterday, and swapped two days, as it turned out I'd planned an Epcot day when it had EMH... So Wed 12th and Thurs 13th have been swapped, I'm just hoping I've not swapped the AK day to a busy day now... although it's September, so it won't actually be THAT busy.

It's very confusing when all the 'busy day guides' on the web contradict each other...

 

[Linda67]

Firstly congratulations on your up-coming wedding

Your plans sound wonderful

Looking forward to hearing more about your plans

By the way, as you are staying at AKL have you considered dinner at Jiko? we just loved it there

 

[VailaTigger]

Thank you!!

Considered Jiko, but from what I remember (we chose our ADRs a while ago) the menu didn't have much (if anything) veggie on it, so we chose somewhere else. Yes, I'm a tree-hugging vegetarian hippy.

 

[VailaTigger]

ADRs virtually all booked!!

Booked one online, but couldn't get my 12 digit number to work to link up my 180+10... so DF phoned and booked those.

I went online and found the one reservation I'd managed to book, and spent a while last night adding in our accommodation booking, and adding in all the ADRs DF booked on the phone - so it's all linked up now!

Just two further ADRs to make in a couple of weeks time once they get to 180 days out.

So far we have:
Mama Melrose's
Crystal Palace
Artist Point
Boma
Biergarten
Raglan Road
Nine Dragons
Hollywood Brown Derby
Afternoon Tea at the Grand Floridian
Sanaa
Tusker House
Tony's Town Square Restaurant

Just these to book:
Kouzzina
House of Blues

I'm getting excited now! And hungry...

 

[VailaTigger]

Last two ADRs now booked!

I can tick that off on my list of things to do

There will probably be a bit of a break now before I do any more Honeymoon organising... our wedding is just over 2 weeks away, and I'll need to spend some time after that doing all the name-change things I need to do! There are SO MANY....

 

[beautifullily]

Hope you have a fabulous day and that the sun shines for you

 

[Scoobymoons]

Wow! Your plans sound fantastic. You're eating at so many of my favourite places (slight jealousy ) I have to say, I love taking my DD to WDW but the idea of 2 weeks doing what you please, when you please sounds absolutely chuffing marvellous. Hope it is all wonderful and full of Pixie dust

 

[BlondeViki]

I didn't even know this section of the forum was here but I'm so glad I found it!

You are so much more organised than me I have my cirque tickets already though - we're going to see it on the 13th, the day before you if you stick to your planned date! This was the first thing we booked as I was so excited about going to see it. We're going to the late show on that day.

I hope all the wedding plans are nicely sorted to give you a relaxing last few days. It must have been chaotic doing your ADRs as well as the final wedding prep but I guess it could have been a nice distraction.

I want to do a pre-trip report as well now!

 

[princess_ariel_85]

Ooh! The weddings getting closer, how exciting!

Your ADRs look good. Tusker House is my fav place to eat in WDW

x

 

[PJB71]

Hope you have a fantastic wedding and look forward to reading more

 

[JintyB]

Sounds fabulous. We did WDW for our honeymoon back in 1995 but didn't get around to taking our daughter until last year (although she does have an encyclopedic knowledge of DLP!).

I would recommend afternoon tea at the GF. We did it and it was one of our highlights - a welcome change of pace on a hectic holiday. My DH & DD had a lot of fun with the sugar tongs and teapots. I was obsessed with my tea set as a child, eventually cracking it because I insisted on making real tea in it and this brought back happy memories (not of the cracking...).

Good luck with the wedding plans,

Jeanette