Plans?! What Plans?!?! An Oct 2012 TR. 11/17 - Final Update!

[emmysmommy]

That looks like a fun tour. Hunter looks pretty happy in the steam engine. How long is the tour? Looks like a small group. And with that you would think they would notice they printed two "Hunter" name tags. At least he didn't have to wear one saying "Paula"!

That's funny that they say no photos because the park is not show ready. Are there cleaning crews and power washers out? I wanna know their secrets!

 

[smile4stamps]

That looks like a fun tour. Hunter looks pretty happy in the steam engine. How long is the tour? Looks like a small group. And with that you would think they would notice they printed two "Hunter" name tags. At least he didn't have to wear one saying "Paula"!

That's funny that they say no photos because the park is not show ready. Are there cleaning crews and power washers out? I wanna know their secrets!

It was a pretty small group! I think 12 people maybe? Hunter LOVES trains so he was really happy! And I did eventually get my name changed to Paula lol. The tour was I think 3.5hrs?

There were a bunch of people out but I couldn't tell exactly what they were doing! I so wanted to take pics though!

 

[smile4stamps]

I was really hoping to get an update done today but didn't have a chance. Unfortunately that means I won't get one posted for about a week as I am going to see my hubby for 4 days!! I'll still be checking in on the DIS but no updates here till next week.. Hopefully I can get a few done then as 2 weeks from tomorrow I am heading to Disneyland!!

See you all soon!

 

[smile4stamps]

Okay.. It's been 2 weeks since I updated and I had planned to do it right after I came back from Colorado. The problem is.. I really don't have much to update on this day as it was all food related!

From Magic Kingdom you would probably think we would take the Monorail to Epcot.. Well we don't like to do things that way! We took the Bus to The Boardwalk and then took the boat to the International Gateway! This meant we were really close to France where we started our tour of the Food Booths! You can read all about that HERE.

After we had eaten our fill (And our OVERFILL!) we headed out also through the International Gateway this time taking a boat to Hollywood Studios and then a bus to our resort to get ready for dinner.

However at DHS we say a small peak of the Pixar Pals parade and got to hear the fun music!

At the Lodge we happenend to see the geyser go off!

The rest of the day was spent having Dinner at Citrico's which you can read about HERE

It ended up being a GREAT day but not much to really talk about I am sorry!

 

[smile4stamps]

On October 23rd we started the day out rather lazily. I’m pretty sure we started it out by heading to the pool/hot tub for awhile! After that we went and showered and went to check out renting a boat! We were hoping they had sandwiches or something that we could take on the boat with us but unfortunately they didn’t have anything like that so instead we headed into Roaring Forks to grab some lunch.

After we were done eating we headed back to the boat docks and decided to rent a pontoon boat.

I let Hunter be our captain! Here are a bunch of pictures of our time on Bay Lake!

The made us put on life jackets!

But we were allowed to take them off once on the boat if we wanted?!?

Off we go…

A Happy Hunter!

A map of where we were allowed to take the boat.

Love this picture!

Selfie!

 

[smile4stamps]

The start of the now complete GF DVC!

Where I had dreamed of getting married!

Dang Crane!

Gotta watch out for the Ferry!

Ahhh!

We finally took the boat back and then went to relax some more!

This time we had some drinks at the Trout Pass Pool Bar.

And some snacks

(From Roaring Forks)


Then it was time to head out for our evening’s activities

Waiting for a bus

Waiting for a boat..

Just got worrisome news about our house and my MIL

On the boat to dinner we got a phone call that our house and in turn my MIL and our pets were being evacuated due to a wildfire! This made the evening really stressful and made it so we didn’t remember much about our dinner!

Thankfully everything turned out fine but it made the evening pretty tense as we had no idea what was going on!

After dinner we headed to Downtown Disney via taxi as we weren’t sure the bus would be fast enough to check in at Will Call for La Nouba! We ended up being plenty early and grabbed a drink from the outdoor bar at House of Blues.

We enjoyed La Nouba but I would like to see it again sometime as that stress from the whole day made it hard to fully enjoy.

After the show Hunter wanted some Pizza so we got tome to go from Wolfgang Puck Express! We munched on it in the room and then crashed wondering what the morning would bring for news of our house!

 

[wiigirl]

Great update, love your pics!

 

[smile4stamps]

October 24th was largely food dominated. The not going to a park was continued and we lazed around the resort in the morning finally heading to lunch at Kona.

Always have to take some pictures there as the waterfalls are so pretty!

From the Poly we headed to AKL but I am not sure exactly how we got there!

I do know that we got off at the wrong stop!

But I took advantage and got some pictures…

After enjoying the time watching the animals we headed back to the front to figure out how to get to the other building! (I still have no idea where we were or where we needed to go but knew it wasn’t there!)

Thankfully we found that they have an internal shuttle bus to get you to the other building!

Once there we still had a little time to wait so we just kind of hung out waiting.

What were we doing at AKL?!? I had signed up for a Wine and Cheese Tasting. I thought since we love wine and we love Cheese we would love this however the pairings weren’t that great and the cheeses weren’t even really to our taste and that is hard to do!

I had also hoped that this would convince my DH that we needed to have dinner at Jiko again. That didn’t go as planned though so we ended up heading out of AKL on a bus to MK to head to a place where we knew we would enjoy our dinner!

Citrico’s!

We didn’t have an ADR though and so we had a seat at the bar and we were just going to eat there when we were invited to join a Wine Dinner… You can read all about that HERE.

The wine dinner was awesome and took several hours so after that we just headed back to our room and crashed!

 

[emmysmommy]

I love that you have so many countdowns in your signature Paula. (Correction, I'm jealous that you have so many. - at least we share one.)

Just curious but can you bring food onto the rental pontoon boat or do they not allow food on the boat? Trolling around the late sounds like a great idea. Especially for my hubby that needs a little extra encouragement to get him to come to WDW.

That was completely funny that you had to don life vests on land. Get on water and they don't care. Crazy!

Sounds like your wine and cheese tasting was at Sanaa at Kidani Village. Does that sound familiar?

I know you have eaten at Citricos many times in fact, you must be on a first name basis with the chef. I'm looking forward to dining there next month.

 

[smile4stamps]

I love that you have so many countdowns in your signature Paula. (Correction, I'm jealous that you have so many. - at least we share one.)

Just curious but can you bring food onto the rental pontoon boat or do they not allow food on the boat? Trolling around the late sounds like a great idea. Especially for my hubby that needs a little extra encouragement to get him to come to WDW.

That was completely funny that you had to don life vests on land. Get on water and they don't care. Crazy!

Sounds like your wine and cheese tasting was at Sanaa at Kidani Village. Does that sound familiar?

I know you have eaten at Citricos many times in fact, you must be on a first name basis with the chef. I'm looking forward to dining there next month.

I love that you post you are jealous of my countdowns and I'm jealous of your trips! Should we count up our total Disney days (including WDW and DL) for 2013 and see who has more?!?! I can't wait for the adventures of actually being in the same place together for more than a few hours! It should be so much fun!

And I think you should totally book a WDW trips that overlaps mine so you don't need to be Jealous! Celebrate your Birthday (oops! I almost posted which one!) in CA and then celebrate it again a bit later at WDW! And then of course you should look at attending F&W before your "Golden Ticket" expires!

They DO Allow food on the boat! It's Hunters suggestion that the rental place sells picnic lunches but I guess they weren't keen on that idea! The boat rentals are what have me considering the Platinum Plan.. no worries about how long you are out on the lake that way! And what fun to rent from all the areas, MK, Epcot, and DtD!

The Wine & Cheese Tasting is at Jiko. I think we got off the bus at Kidani on accident though!

We are on a first name basis with the Chef at Citrico's and the Sous Chef at Ca Grill. Ironically we have never met the exec Chef at CA Grill lol.

 

[smile4stamps]

October 25th began again as a lazy day! This time I had a goal though! Make it to Kona for Breakfast! We had been for lunch twice (Once in 2009 and once the day before) but never breakfast! I had it planned in 2009 and we used that day to sleep in and we ended up there for lunch. This trip it had been planned for earlier but then I didn’t think we would make it that early so it was canceled. This was our last chance!

Thankfully we made it! No waterfall pictures this day though as we didn’t have to really wait for a table. I was extremely torn though… Tonga Toast which I had been planning to order for YEARS or Macadamia Nut Pancakes?!?!

Read about what I chose HERE!

After stuffing myself full at Kona we hoped on the monorail for a trip to… The Contemporary! Marissa (marDgreen88) had posted about a cupcake that was the best ever! Having a love of all things Peanut Butter I was dying to try it!

There is is…

Saving it for later though as I felt I would burst at that moment!

Traditional pics outside the Contemporary.

We then took the short boat ride from the Contemporary to Wilderness Lodge

Where we hung out at the Trout Pass Pool Bar again for awhile. Then it was finally time to get ready for the Primo Event of the trip! I was still amazed I had been able to book the CHEF’s TABLE at Victoria & Alberts! I didn’t even call at 4am my time on my 180+10 day! I called when I got off of work at 7:30am and when they asked me if I wanted regular dining room, Queen Victoria, or Chef’s Table I think my jaw hit the seat of my car! I truly couldn’t believe it!

You can see all the pictures from this meal HERE. (plus the following 4 posts)

It was a fabulous experience! It also marked our final night of the trip.

We did stop for a drink at the Citrico's bar hoping to say goodbye to Chef Phillip but he had already left for the night. From there is was back to the Wilderness Lodge via monorail and boat to crash for the night.

 

[smile4stamps]

October 26th was sadly departure day. Our flight was a little later so we had plenty of time to pack and check-out. Unfortunately I made the mistake of simply having Bell Services come get our bags and put them in storage instead of taking them to check with the airlines (The airline desk closes at around noon I think and we were out there at around 12:30. This meant schlepping our own bags through the airport! But we weren’t quite there yet so lets go backwards!

After we finished packing and Bell Services had our bags we went back to Roaring Forks to get some food.

We took the food out to the Pool Bar so we could visit with our pal Stewart one more time!

I had some wine leftover from one of our first dinners

And then a Poolside Plunge!

And Hunter had a Long Island

Complete with tape to hold the straw on this windy day!!

We also dug into the cupcake I had stopped for yesterday!

VERY Rich!! But Delicious!!

Then sadly it was time to head back to reality…

Unfortunately I was heading directly back to CA and Hunter to CO so we were on different flights for the return. It was REALLY hard to say goodbye at the airport. We managed though and soon we were both in the air traveling.. At that time we had no idea when we would be back! Since then we both returned this past October and I had also returned in May/June for a conference!

At the time of my finishing writing this we are heading back to WDW in under 3 weeks and will also be going in May for our 10 year Anniversary!!

I know I don’t have many readers left but for those of you that hung out reading I THANK YOU! I enjoy writing the TR’s but sometimes life gets in the way and they take a LONG time to complete!

See Y’all Real Soon!!