Jan 08 WDW Trip Re-Visited/Day2--Part2

I know thatyou are wondering how we possibly ate anywhere in Walt Disney Worldfor $7 and came out full.

First letme give you a list of the items we ordered to show that we got morethan enough food.

Sonny and Iordered:

A Caesarsalad to share -- $5.49

An AwesomeAppetizer platter to share – 16.99

Water forus both -- $0

Brianne andLJ ordered:

House Saladto share -- $5.49

CoconutShrimp -- $9.99

BaconCheeseburger -- $13.97

Ice teaand a coke -- $5.98

OurSubtotal was $57.91

Severaltrips ago I signed up for RFC’s Safari Club for $15 and I can saythat it was money well spent. The club card allows you to receive afree appetizer or a percentage off your bill. Plus, theyperiodically send you email coupons.

Ioriginally was going to use my AP discount, but the manager came outand told us that we could use the coupon with the SC discount andsave more money.

OurSubtotal was $57.91

MinusSafari Club discount $4.10

Minus anemail coupon $5.00

Plus tax$3.18

Plus tip$12.00

For a grandtotal of $63.99

Brianne andI are also members of Mypoints dot com, which is a reward programthat gives you points for reading emails. We both had enough pointsto redeem for a $25 Rainforest Café gift card.

For a grandtotal of $63.99

Minusgift cards of $50.00

Total due$13.99

Therefore,after deducting the $50 rewards, our coupon, and our Safari Clubdiscount, our out of pocket expense totaled $14. Split between thetwo couples -- we each paid $7. Voila!

CouponClipping Momma, say what!

After ourawesome lunch, our next stop was the Island Mercantile so LJ andBrianne could browse for hats.   LJ did buya hat and he wore it every chance he got our entire week.

At some point we lost Brianne. I don’t really know how you lose a person, but we did! After a few phone calls we found out she was in the restroom. 

Our fastpasses weren’t ready yet, so we decided to head to Festival of theLion King.

A fewpictures along the way.

 

  

Ilove Animal Kingdom's Festival of the Lion King and that love has notdiminished with seeing this show every trip.

There isnot much I can add to the reviews you have already read, so I willjust show the great pictures I was able to take sitting about thethird row from the top.

Jan 08 WDW Trip Re-visited/Day 2

The morning of day 2 illustrates why Ineed to learn to listen to my bodies cues. Plain and simple I pushedtoo hard and as a result I woke up in a foul mood.

The alarm clock sounded and I jumpedout of bed to take my shower. While I was getting dressed I wokeSonny up for his turn in the bathroom. I also suggested that he callLJ and see if they had started getting ready yet. We had plans toget to Animal Kingdom this morning and I didn’t want to meet a lineat Expedition Everest.

My intentions were to walk down to thefood court and possibly bring my hubby some breakfast to the room. But I realized that Brianne and LJ would still need breakfast, so wewould still have to stop later. I nixed that idea and walked intothe gift shop. I just did some general browsing and picked up a pairof cute iridescent Mickey earrings.

On the way back to the room I took somemore pictures of the grounds and stopped for about 15 minutes down bythe pool and read a few chapters from a book I had been reading. Allof the things that I did was to give everyone else a chance to getready without me hovering and rushing them. I was seriously tryingto take the vacation as it came and chill out.

That all went out the window when I gotto the room and everybody was still asleep! When I, not so gently,nudged Sonny he immediately got out of the bed apologizing forfalling back asleep. You know that inner struggle you sometimes gothrough where you want to scream, but you feel like decorum calls foryou to act like a non lunatic? Well that is the place I was at.

It was after rope drop at this pointand I saw the chances of us getting to ride Expedition Everest morethan once go sailing out of the window.

Pulling out my laptop and going throughthe pictures we had taken thus far put me in a better frame of mind. When Brianne came through the connecting doors apologizing forturning their alarm clock off, I told her no problem and I reallymeant it. I simply explained to her that my main concern was that ifwe got into AK too late they would see some horrible wait times andfast pass return times into the evening.

We arrived in Animal Kingdom at about10:30 and walked straight back to Expedition Everest. 

The wait time was at 60 minutes and thefast pass return time was showing between 2:40 and 3:40. With onlyone glitch with LJ’s ticket we got our fastpasses and contemplatedour next move. There definitely was a consensus that we didn’twant to stand in line for an hour, but with only a short time beforeour reservation at the Rainforest Café we were limited in ourchoices.

The four of us are standing theretalking and I said something to Brianne that came across to Sonny thewrong way. So 15 minutes got sucked into a vortex as Sonny and I hada heated discussion about our “collective attitudes”. Trust mewhen I say that it was not pretty! Brianne and LJ walked off to giveus some time and space. I didn’t realize until later that LJ wasupset because he thought we were arguing about them. NOPE! Mr. &Mrs. SarCastro just had to take a minute to clear the air.

Once we expressed ourselves, clearedthe air and made up, everything was fine.

By this point it is time for ourreservation at RFC so we headed that way. Plus, with the late startwe didn’t have any breakfast.

We browsed the gift shop until theycalled us for lunch and waited no more than 10 minutes.

I love the over the top theme in theRainforest Café and we usually go at least once a trip. Brianne andLJ had not been prepped before hand about what to expect. We wantedthem to be surprised. They loved the entire experience and the foodwas good.  

The best part of the entire lunch wasthat we only spent $7 each couple for our meal and tip. How was thatpossible you ask? Stay tuned.

Up next: A $7 meal and Festival ofthe Lion King.

Day 1 of Our Disney trip continued

One of the nice things about this anniversary vacation was that I got to spend most of my time behind the camera. Normally when the kids are with us, I don't have a free hand for the camera or the time and attention to taking pictures. Since it was just the four of us, I had a blast snapping to my hearts content.





Once we left visiting our CM friend at the Boardwalk we headed for Epcot for the rest of the day. LJ and Sonny were so excited to be in Disney World that they decided to do a dance. This would have been a perfect time to film them for blackmailing later.

More to come...

Day 1 continued of Jan 08 WDW trip

It took a sec to get LJ to register what Sonny told him and I don’t think he every got to a point where he understood my need to take pictures of everything that we eat. At this point Sonny just takes it in stride. It is the least of my addictions and quirks.

My corn chowder

Sonny's philly cheesesteak & fries
My side salad

LJ and Brianne’s Food

We enjoyed our lunches and moved back to the room.

After checking our keys again to see if they actually worked we decided to exchange anniversary gifts with LJ and Brianne. Our personal couple gifts were going to be exchanged later in the week.

Our gift from LJ and Brianne:

I love the way that they wrapped our gift. She kept apologizing and we kept laughing. Inside was Yankee Candles, Godiva hot chocolate, peppermints, Dove chocolates, two coffee mugs, and a big fat Visa gift card!

The card they got us was too cute.

LJ and Brianne’s gift from us:

I posted most of the stuff that was in their gift bag, but I will do a quick recap. There were pajamas for LJ, a robe for Brianne, wine, chocolates, a calendar, aromatherapy candles, a set of personalized Minnie mouse gloves and hat for Brianne, and anniversary pins that we picked up on our last trip.

After the gifts were opened and thank you's were exchanged we plotted out our next course of action. We originally had planned to go to Downtown Disney, but the plans were further changed when Brianne suggested that we go to Epcot and start our tour of the World Showcase. Epcot is my favorite park, so it didn’t take long to convince me. The guys wanted to do whatever was necessary to make us happy, so they went along with no complaints.

So this is an example of things changing minute by minute. We were in the truck headed toward Epcot when Sonny suggests that we head to the Boardwalk to visit with a CM friend. Then we could go into Epcot through the International Gateway.

Up next: The Boardwalk & Epcot through another’s eyes.

Jan 08 WDW Trip Re-visited/ Day 1 continued

This trip report of our Jan 08 Walt Disney World trip has been written since we came home, but I have just been too lazy to update my blog. Since we have a new trip coming up in December, I thought it would be fun to look back at our last anniversary trip.

First some more pictures from the All-Star Movies Resort.

If you revisit the itinerary I posted months ago you will note that we were planning to check in and then head to Downtown Disney to have lunch at Earl of Sandwich. We didn’t follow today’s plan at all. I should know by now that the itinerary is just a loose plan -- subject to change at any moment. This trip the plans sometimes seem to change minute by minute, but we still had a great time.

Everyone agreed that the best thing to do was to just head to the food court and eat quickly.



I don’t know about you but I actually like the hustle and bustle of the All-Star Movies food court. I don’t always like their prices, but I know what to expect. Brianne and LJ on the other hand got sticker shock. Even after months of reading, planning, and chatting the reality of the prices were completely different. They were also surprised by the generous portions. No surprises on either front for me and yet I still ordered too much food.

The crowds in the food court were sparse, so we had no problem finding a table. As we approached the table I saw Brianne open her camera case. LJ reached for his food. Brianne had already been briefed about my addiction to food porn, so she knew the drill. LJ was totally in the dark and was a bit befuddled when his hand got slapped for starting to eat.

“I said my prayer!” he exclaimed as he nursed the effected hand.

Sonny laughed at the newbie mistake and calmly told him the offense he had committed. “You can’t eat anything without taking a picture first.”

Picture taking freak say what?

Be back with another update tomorrow!

On The Road Again...

For the first time ever, the night before our Disney vacation I slept like a baby. That normally never happens. I usually lie awake making mental lists of all the things I forgot to pack or of the bills I need to remember to pay. The only thing that I can figure is that the “Skittles” worked. Whatever the reason I woke up feeling pretty rested and EXCITED!

The kid’s winter break ended the same day as we were scheduled to leave, so the first order of business was to get them up and on the bus. That task completed I worked on getting the princess fed and ready for her play date with Auntie.

Sonny had loaded up most of the luggage on Wed night and opted to go to work for part of the day. That left me to run the last minute errands—bank, electric bill, water bill, etc. No big! I am leaving for WDW today!

Stopped to grab a quick bite to eat at McDonald’s and happily informed all who would listen that I was on my way to WDW today. I am sure that I was annoying the H&*$ out of everyone I met, but I was having fun. That’s all that matters right?!

It wasn’t long before I got a call from LJ and Brianne that they had completed their errands and were headed to my house.

Small aside—My IL’s went to WDW with us last May and fell more in love than ever. So for the last few months my MIL has been teasing that if something should happen to Brianne before the trip, she would happily take her place.

This almost came in the play when they were putting their stuff in the SUV. Brianne slipped but managed to catch herself just before falling backwards out of the back of the Excursion. That would have been a horrible end to all these months of planning.

When we went to pick Sonny up at work we had a bit of fun with his bosses and the Excursion.

Once we got on the road about 1 pm I popped in the WDW planning DVD. Looking back I wish that we had stepped it up a bit and left sooner, but what can you do? I confess that in all of the planning I did for this trip, it never crossed my mind to order the planning DVD for LJ and Brianne. Don’t worry I flogged myself.

The ride was uneventful. We talked, read, watched a movie, listened to XM, ate plenty of snacks and slept.

We did make it to the Florida welcome center in time to get our OJ. LJ and Brianne, the poor dears, had never gotten their free sample of juice!

After our juice the guys decided they needed massages in the chairs. The FL welcome center has hit a gold mine with this idea.

Our plan had been to drive at least to Ocala the first night, but Sonny started getting tired around Lake City. We started looking for a room for the night and the first place we spotted that looked really nice was a Country Inn & Suites. The rate quoted for the night was a reasonable $89, so I gave the clerk my information. When she asked for a credit card, I requested to pay for the room in cash. The hotel clerk informed me that the room had to be secured with a credit card because of the duvets.

Hotel clerk lady say what?

She went on to explain that the rooms had recently gone through a renovation. Several guests in the past had damaged the new duvets, so they were required to get a credit card deposit of $100. After checkout the housekeeper would survey the duvet and if it was acceptable the front desk would authorize a refund that would take 3-5 days to hit my card.

I’d like to think that I was classy and gracious as I told her no thanks and walked out. Brianne agreed that it seemed an unfair policy and she didn’t want to stay either.

It took us several hotels before we found a vacancy, but finally scored an AAA rate at the Jameson Inn. The room was nice and clean, so we settled in for the night.

Anniversary Surprise

I am a few pages from being finished with Sonny's surprise album. Once it is finished I will be posting it to my scrapbooking blog: Scrapbook Bargains. Go on over and check it out in the meantime.

A new album I am working on as a surprise for my DH.