Blisters, and Other Injuries

One thing I've been thinking about a lot and researching a bit for this trip, but still haven't mentioned on this blog is health.  In particular what kind of preparations can I do to make sure my body doesn't give out while walking around the parks?  I've read several articles and even spoken to a physiotherapist about some of the common health problems people run into while taking on an epic trip of this nature.  Two issues in particular seem to come up again and again, foot damage (blisters and such) and general unhealthiness.

The foot damage comes from not having good footwear, and not having the proper medical supplies for blisters and sore feet.  Shoe wise I think I'm going to make sure I have a new, but broken in pair of sneakers for the trip.  I'm also going to bring comfortable sandals as well.  For the blisters I've read about several products that seem to work, such as Dr. Scholl's Moleskin Plus Padding and Blister Defence Anti-Friction Stick, but I've also had luck with duct tape too.

As for the physical fit part, I think the key is to prepare in advance.  So starting now, I'm going to start an exercise routine to get into shape.  I don't want to change my diet too much because I know that when I get to the park any kind of healthy eating will be lost.  It's not that Disney doesn't offer healthy food; I just know that I'll be tempted with those awesome Disney treats.  I'm also going to start stretching more, as I've been told for an epic trip with lots of walking that pulled muscles can be the most common type of injury you can get, and simply stretching can make a huge difference.

A Few Restaurants We Want To Try

Cape May Café - The one and only reason we're going to the cape may cafe is to experience a character breakfast.  I've read that this is the least busy character breakfast featuring Goofy.

Spirit of Aloha and Hoop-dee-doo Revue - Every single tour book says that the two shows you can't miss are the Hoop-dee-doo musical review and the Spirit of Aloha shows.  Both are said to have cheesy, yet fun, shows, and both are said to have some fine chow.

Biergarten - Over the last 10 years I've discovered that German food is one of my favourite cuisines.  Most people don't realize how tasty German food is, and I'm hoping that the Biergarten will give me some tasty nibbles.

House of Blues Gospel Brunch - Many of the big restaurants at Downtown Disney get a lot of slack for being disappointing.  The Earl of Sandwich and Raglan Road are two places that do fairly well, but I've been reading that a gospel brunch at the House of Blues is a must see event.

Flame Tree - I can't tell you how many times I've read that the best BBQ in Disney is found at the Flame Tree restaurant.  Since Allison is a BBQ fanatic, we pretty much can't avoid eating here.  I've also heard that Animal Kingdom doesn't have too many other tasty food options, so we may have to eat there more than once.

Boma - I can't say I've ever really experienced that much African food.  I've sampled a few things, but Boma looks like a great opportunity to sample even more.  I also think that they have a buffet, which will give me plenty of opportunity to sample new things that I may not have had the nerve to order.

Disney Blogs I'm Reading

Over the last few months I've started to regularly read a few Disney blogs.  These blogs are informative, detailed, and give some great tips on how to enjoy your Disney trip a little better.  Keep in mind that many of these blogs do offer spoilers, but for the most part they're just very helpful.

Disney Tourist Blog

The Disney tourist blog is your opportunity to follow Tom and Sarah, two Disney fanatics from Indiana. They've visited all of the parks all over the world, with Disney World being their favourite. This is a fairly unbiased blog, particularly in the early entries. The great thing about these two is they truly seem to have fun when they explore the parks. Tom will very often get into his photography on this blog, which can be good or bad depending on your interest on the subject. Frankly I find this blog to be one of the most entertaining blogs on the subject of Disney world, and Tom and Sarah are the two bloggers I'd most like to meet in person.

The World According To Jack

Jack is a details man. He examines every nook and cranny of Disney World with the greatest detail possible. Jack has written pages and pages about the various types of cement used in Disney World. Needless to say if you want to know everything about certain details of the parks, this is the blog for you. While Jack has every detail covered, he is a little dry to read. While he attempts to interject a little humour into his blogs, the amount of detail just makes it fairly dry anyways. Not that it's a bad blog; it's just very detailed and can often give you more information than you might need.

Disney Food Blog

As you might imagine the focus of this site is fairly specific. The thing is, on our trip we will have to eat, often I imagine, so this information can be useful. This blog covers food from all of the parks, and it covers them as if the food is as important as the attractions. The only fault I find in this blog is the inconsistency in the writing. Sometimes you read a post that is clear and full of detail, and then you'll read a post that just doesn't tell you anything. After following this blog for a little while I've started to edit what I read based on the subject and the authors.

Disney Parks Blog

Much like its accompanying YouTube channel, the Disney Parks Blog is a great source of accuracy, but doesn't give that much information. First of all you won't be reading anything speculative here at all, since anything released on this blog becomes official. You also don't tend to get any negative feedback from anything at the parks either. The blogs however are generally well written and any photos are high quality.

Disney Shawn

Shawn is a former Disney employee that worked as an Imagineer writing concepts for attractions. In many cases he has the inside scoop on the concepts proposed for attractions, and explains them in detail. He doesn't really focus on “news" as much as the stories depicted on the attractions. His writing is easy to read, and often doesn't give away secrets as much as enhances the story. The only fault I can really complain about this blog is that there isn't more.

Disney movies we plan to watch

The concepts that make up Disney world aren't pulled out of thin air. In fact almost every detail of the parks are inspired from Disney products, culture, or in some cases history. Disney world attaches a story to every aspect of the theme park, all inspired by various areas. To get the most of these references I thought it would be a good idea to catch up on some of our Disney content. To fully appreciate every single detail you probably have to watch every single thing Disney has ever produced, but that's just not realistic at all. Instead Allison and I decided to go through the list of Disney movies and cartoons and pick out which ones might be most relevant.

We're also going to ad a few episodes of the twilight zone to this list to better understand the tower of terror. Fortunately many of the websites I've been reading explain where many of the details of the park originated, so picking what to watch seems simple enough. We're also going to have to start keeping up with current Disney movies as well, since they often ad attractions based on current media.

Here's our list so far, many of these movies and shows we're fairly familiar with, but it doesn't hurt to update our memories. Some of this stuff is brand new to us and should be interesting to see.

Swiss Family Robinson
Lady and the Tramp
Cinderella
Snow White
Brave
Pinochio
Reluctant Dragon
Dumbo
The Three Caballeros
Song of the South
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
Treasure Island
Alice in Wonderland
Peter Pan
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier
Sleeping Beauty
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
The Absent-Minded Professor
The Sword in the Stone
The Jungle Book
The Aristocats
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Robin Hood
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The Rescuers
Pete's Dragon
The Fox and the Hound
The Black Cauldron
The Great Mouse Detective
Oliver & Company
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
The Little Mermaid
DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp
Beauty and the Beast
The Mighty Ducks
Aladdin
The Adventures of Huck Finn
The Lion King
A Goofy Movie
Pocahontas
Tom and Huck
James and the Giant Peach
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hercules
Mulan
A Bug's Life
Tarzan
Monsters, Inc.
The Country Bears
Finding Nemo
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
The Haunted Mansion
Home on the Range
The Incredibles
Chicken Little
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Meet the Robinsons
Ratatouille
Bolt
The Princess and the Frog
Toy Story 3
Tangled
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Cars 2
Wreck-It Ralph
Monsters University
The Lone Ranger
Planes

The Hilton... A Lot Cheaper Than I Expected

It happened again, Allison was reading about accommodations in and around Disney World, and we came across another hotel that peaked our interest.  This time however is was a hotel that wasn't an official Disney hotel, but it had some perks of the classic Disney hotels, the Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista.  We never really gave much thought to hotels outside of the Disney parks because we wanted to enjoy the benefits that come with staying on property.  The problem is, the Hilton is one of the only non-Disney hotels to enjoy some of the benefits of the Disney hotels, including extra magic hours.

The main advantage to the Hilton, the price.  The Hilton hotel can be almost half the price as many of the on site resorts, and from what I've read it's a pretty nice hotel to boot.  It also offers shuttle services to all of the parks, and is walking distance to Downtown Disney.  So it's pretty close to a Disney resort, for a lot less money.  It doesn't offer a few of the perks like free delivery of purchases back to your hotel room, and access to certain facilities, but it still seems pretty good.  Once again Allison and I had to try and figure out if we should change our hotel plans once again.  This time, Allison made a chart featuring the Hilton, the Yacht Club resort, and Port Orleans resort, comparing the advantages and the disadvantages.

Yacht Club	Port Orleans	Hilton
Likely $550/night (high season)	Likely $250/night (high season)	Likely $130/night; $209 comparable to Yacht Club (based on website)
Plus taxes	Plus taxes	Plus taxes
		Plus $22/night “daily resort charge plus taxes
Free parking	Free parking	Parking $13/night
Free wifi	Free wifi	Wifi – part of “Daily resort charge”
Free extended theme park hours	Free extended theme park hours	Extended theme park hours – part of “Daily resort charge”
Free transportation to all parks every 20 minutes or more	Free transportation to all parks every 20 minutes or more	Transportation to the four theme parks only – part of “Daily resort charge”. Schedule unknown.
Onsite movie screenings (+ movies on TV??)	Onsite movie screenings (+ movies on TV??)	Unlimited movie rentals – part of “Daily resort charge”
$15 for unlimited drinks (resort refillable mug) - optional	$15 for unlimited drinks (resort refillable mug) - optional	2 coffees or 2 bottles of water/day – part of “Daily resort charge”
Free parking at parks/water parks/etc.	Free parking at parks/water parks/etc.	$17 (?) to park at water parks or other theme parks
TOTAL: $565 + tax	TOTAL: $265 + tax	TOTAL: $182 + tax TOTAL: $262 + tax
Concierge service for Disney	Concierge service for Disney	Guest services at parks
Purchases delivered	Purchases delivered
“Best pool in park”	Pool with slide	Pool
Gym		Gym (extra $$??)
Coin laundry ($4)	Coin laundry ($4)	Only laundry valet (likely $100-250) or off-site
Near Epcot (monorail to MK), Hollywood Studios	Near Downtown Disney	Near Downtown Disney
Bracelets/card do everything	Bracelets/card do everything	Bracelets plus credit card plus hotel key to carry
Fridge in room	Fridge in room	NO fridge in room

After making this chart and talking it over, we eventually decided that the Hilton probably won't work for us.  While we do like the price, the location is really important to us.  So we've decided that the Yacht club is still our number one pick.  The thing is, after thinking about it some more, and reading a bit on Port Orleans, I'm starting to rethink which hotel we might stay at on the grounds.

Sweet Treats I Want To Try

There are several specific treats I want to sample on this epic Disney trip.  As you might imagine, if you're familiar with my other website candycritic.org, many of the must have foods I want to try are sweet. There are a few savoury snacks I'd like to sample as well, but I'll talk about those later on.

The first treat I want to try is the legendary Dole Whip.  Having said that I'm not even really sure what a Dole Whip is.  All I know about the Dole Whip is it's some kind of pineapple based ice cream dessert/drink.  If you research the Dole Whip online, you'll quickly realise that many people are obsessed with them.  In fact you may have a hard time finding any negative reviews for them at all.

The next treat worth mentioning is something called Skool Bread.  Similar to the Dole Whip it's very popular amongst Disney fans, and also similarly I have no idea what it really is.  I know that it's a popular Danish dessert, but that's obvious because the only place it's available is at the Danish pavilion at EPCOT.  It seems to be some kind of cream filled pastry, and that can't be bad.

Mickey Mouse ice cream sandwiches are another treat I don't want to miss.  Other than the shape there doesn't seem to be anything special about these, but I give high marks for treat themes.

Other than these specific treats there are a few general treat categories I plan to explore.  I hear that Disney makes some pretty tasty cupcakes all over the parks, so I'm sure I'll sample at least one of those.  I'm also interested in trying a few of the many ice cream snacks available, in particular I'd be interested in the Kitchen Sink sundae.

I think I have little to worry about when it comes to finding sweet treats at Disney World; I do have to worry about how I'm going to manage to sample them all.

Anniversary

The main point of making this trip to Disney World is to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  Normally for our anniversary we like to buy ourselves one shared gift that lines up with the appropriate material for that anniversary.  For example, for our eighth anniversary we bought copper pans, because the eighth anniversary is copper.  The 10th anniversary material is emerald, and frankly we can't think of anything either one of us would want containing an emerald.  So Disney was the perfect second option.

I've been doing some research on celebrating anniversaries at Disney World, and there are plenty of options.  The first and most important thing to do is make sure you tell someone at your hotel, or guest relations, that it's your anniversary.  Apparently they'll give you a pin that will tell the world you're celebrating an event.  While we're not really interested in cashing this in for freebies, we are curious about the kind of attention we might get.

If you're even more committed to celebrating you can order special room decorations for when you arrive.  I've checked them out online and most of the anniversary set ups are kind of tacky, and very over priced.  A few of the other event gifts look interesting, but they're still horribly over priced.

Disney also keeps suggesting that we do something grown up, like dinning with candlelight or visiting a spa.  I think we might consider one of these options since a little romance is always nice.  Our main goal however is to have a character breakfast on our anniversary morning with Goofy.