We've Got The Disney Reservation Blues

Allison and I have noticed that Disney is a bit hypocritical.  Over the last few years Disney has done everything to make Disney World more technologically advanced.  They've made it so you can book restaurants, tours, special events, and even fast passes (basically rides) long before you even step foot in the park.  Don't get me wrong, I don't really have a problem with setting up things in advance.  After all you can still eat at the parks, and you can still go on rides, even if you don't have reservations in advance.  We on the other hand decided to embrace this system and have as much fun as possible with it.  Next week you'll learn about the fun we had making dinner reservations.

The problem we're having right now is fatigue.  On paper Disney gives you two dates that you have to worry about, 180 and 60 days till the start of your trip.  180 days before you're eligible to make dinning reservation (and popular ones disappear quickly) and tour reservations (sort of), and 60 days you can book your fast passes.  I like this idea because it gives you milestones before your trip to get you excited.  The problem is that these two dates aren't are only days we have to worry about. In fact a number of dates that we have to worry about have yet to be announced, and so we're checking daily because they could be at any moment.

The two big announcements that Disney seems to be dragging their heels is the times that Animal Kingdom will be open, and the day tickets go on sale for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween. There are times that Animal Kingdom is scheduled to be open available on the website, however they've been teasing later hours for some special night time events.  The Not So Scary Halloween party is an important part of our plan, and although the dates are out, tickets are still not on sale.

We're also interested in taking a fireworks cruise one night, and the dates that it's available are only slowly creeping up.  There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to when the dates open up either.  Sometimes I week opens up, then a whole month will open up.  We're stuck checking regularly.

I've also noticed that Disney has been in the habit of announcing the opening of attractions well within 60 days of the ride opening date.  This means if you book fast passes, and a ride you're interested in opens all of a sudden, you have to re-arrange everything to fit it in.

My problem here is simple, Disney has asked us to stick to a schedule that they're not willing to keep.  Book some things 180 days before the trip, and others 60, but other things will just be random. I understand there's logistics to these things, but Disney, you're starting to wear us out.  We're getting sick of visiting the site every day checking for tickets and open reservations for certain things.  We booked 2 tours and a boat rental already, why can't you get your act together and let us buy tickets for events at your park at the same time.  Why aren't the Halloween party and the cruise also available 180 days before, like all your other tours and dinner reservations?

It's Been A Little While, And A Lot Has Happened

As you may have remembered (or you can just look back on this blog) a few years ago our trip was postponed due to a moving situation.  Well, it's official, we're going to Disney World, and we're going in less than 180 days.  To the average person that doesn't mean very much, but to the Disney Parks nerd that means a lot.

We've been pretty busy the last few weeks and over the next few weeks I'm going to recap what we've been up to.  The thing about Disney is there's a lot to plan way in advance, particularly if you want to eat at certain restaurants, and take certain tours.  There's also been a few announcements and closures over the last few weeks that is going to affect us.  Most interestingly, we've discovered that we're going to be in the parks during two special events, and it looks like we'll be trying them on for size.

So here's what we have to cover:

Our hotel is booked.

Dinning reservations, how we managed to get two Be Our Guest Dinner reservations.

Special tours we've booked, some are simple, one is pretty epic.

What's closed down since we last posted a blog, and what might be open.

Epcot Food and Wine, yup, we're going.

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween, we're likely going.

So the blog is back, and I'll be recapping you on some of the fun we've been up to.

Tiered Pricing At Theme Parks

I've recently heard that Universal Studios theme park in California is going to start up tiered pricing for tickets into the park.  For those unfamiliar with this concept, it's basically how hotels and airlines work right now all over the world.  Rather than have a fixed price for admission into the park, Universal will change the price depending on the number of people expected to visit that day.  Notionally you'll pay more for a park when it's busy, and less when it's not.

This idea makes a lot of people nervous, and it makes me nervous too, however I think it makes me nervous for different reasons than most.  Most reactions online seem to be nervous about this because they worry that the parks will be too expensive during the times when they can visit.  Many people don't have the luxury of choosing when they can travel.  Either because of school or work schedules, many people must travel during certain periods of the year.  This is often the times when these theme parks will likely be at their highest prices.  So people assume that they won't be able to afford to go because the prices will push them out.

This is an logical reaction to this, however if you investigate this program at Universal you'll see that they'll have a ticket price cap.  This cap will likely be close to the current ticket price, with discount prices for slower days.  The parks are not going to price themselves out of existence, the goal is to get more people to come, not less.  This is not why I'm nervous about the idea of tiered ticket prices.

The reason I'm nervous come from theme park bonuses.  In recent years Disney has made it their goal to keep their parks busy all year long.  Their solution has been to offer extras during the slow seasons.  In some cases it's discounts such as the "free dining", but more often they offer things like the Food and Wine Festival, Star Wars Weekend, and Flower and Garden Festival.  Rather than discounting prices, they offer incentives, and some pretty great ones at that.

My fear is that with the addition of tiered pricing, Disney will stop offering incentives, such as food festivals, to bring people into the parks.  Likely the cheaper tickets will do this for them.  Already Star Wars Weekends have been cut, and free dinning has been modified.  Running these incentives can be expensive and require a lot of planning, lowering ticket prices is simple and cheaper in some cases.

Theme parks around the world are working to one up each other in order to get people into their parks.  This competition is good for the theme park goer, because it forces theme parks to up their game.  Tiered pricing is simple for the management yet adds nothing to the park experience.  It's a slippery slope to focus on lower prices instead of quality, if this keeps up high end theme parks will quickly go the way of the carnival.

Planning With Friends

While writing this blog I've realized that my information has really only been coming from one source, the Internet.  Any scholar would tell you that sourcing only one source is a bad idea; if that source is the Internet it's an even worse idea.  While there are a few "peer reviewed" historical and technical accounts of Disney World, frankly many of those are a little dry for my liking.  So our only option for a secondary source is to find an expert(s), and talk to them ourselves.

There are a couple of problems when it comes to finding experts.  First of all we're on the other side of the world right now, I could safely say that most of the people around us have never even been to the parks once, let alone have any hands on knowledge.  Secondly, we don't want to find someone at random because they don't know us, and frankly this blog is about our adventures in Disney World.  Then one day, during an improv meet up (I'm full of surprises), we discovered that two of our improv buddies used to live in Florida.  Better still they go back regularly, and they love Disney World.

So a plan was made, brunch with Allison's famous pancakes, and discussions about Disney World.  In this afternoon we went over lots of information.  Allison, who's been making a matrix of our timing in the parks based on reservations and extra magic hours, gave out copies of this matrix to our guests.  They were very impressed.  We went through some of our expectations and ideas for the trip.  For the most part we seem to have a pretty solid plan, however our friends had some tweaks that seem to improve our plans a fair bit.  Here are a few things that they've suggested that we're going to work into our plan:

Allison and I love miniature golf (we hate regular sized golf), and we want to try out the options at Disney World.  We had decided to do the Winter Summer Land course when we visit Blizzard Beach, and that was considered to be a good plan.  We also wanted to try our Fantasia Gardens at some point as well, but for this we were warned to avoid it on hot days, as there's no shade at all.

Throughout this planning, we've been trying to figure out if we wanted to do the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue or the Spirit of Aloha show at the Polynesian.  Our friends suggested that the Hoop-Dee-Doo show is not to be missed.  While they admitted that they haven't been to the Spirit of Aloha show in a while, so they don't really remember if it was good or not.  They were very enthusiastic about the Hoop-Dee-Doo show.

Our plan at this point has us possibly ending up at Disney World during part of the Food and Wine show at Epcot.  I've heard great things about this event, but I've also heard that it can be insanely busy.  We've been wondering whether or not we should avoid Food and Wine, to keep away from the crowds, or indulge in Food and Wine because it's that awesome.  Apparently it's that awesome.

Finally, the one piece of advice that really inspired me was that we shouldn't avoid leaving the Disney bubble.  We were encouraged to explore a few things outside of Disney World while we're in the area.  We're still not sure about that yet, however we'll have a car, so we may just venture out a little.

Getting Healthy For Disney

On just about every single Disney for beginners blog, book, or article, one thing comes up over and over again, get healthy.  One of the biggest problems people come across while visiting any Disney park is exhaustion.  Disney World is one of the worst for this because the parks are just so big in area.  But no matter where you visit, Disney parks require a lot of walking and standing.  Exhaustion can turn a fun trip out into a nightmare of being tired, cranky and sore.  So Allison and I have decided that for this epic trip we're going to try and get into better shape.

I feel that we're far from dangerously out of shape, however this is going to be like running a marathon, and the better we can do that the more we don't have to worry about any problems that go with it.  So from this point forward, Allison and I are going into Disney training.  We're not going super crazy, spending hours in the gym everyday, but we are going to make sure we can handle this trip.

We're starting simple, walking.  We've started to go on a few kilometer walk every night.  This along with an occasional hike in the great outdoors where we live seems like a good start.  The plan is that within a few weeks we'll ad regular visits to the gym as well.  At the gym we'll probably start with cardio workouts, to get our endurance up and work on the muscles that keep us walking.  There might be some kind of yoga or stretching added to this workout in the future as well.

This all could lead to some sports as well, although I'm not sure what sport or how often.  The one area I'm not sure about is weights.  I don't think that this is really necessary for this trip, however if I feel the interest I'll give it a try.  I just can't imagine that I'll have to lift Goofy over my head, or bench press Donald Duck.

I think once I get to a certain point, I'm going to start posting my Fit Bit result online.  This will allow me to get a really clear idea on how/if I'm improving.  I still have to think about that, but maybe?

3 Days in Disney Paris - Day 2

Day two in the Disney Paris parks and we once again decided to take advantage of extra magic hours.  This time we didn't have a particular plan on which attraction we wanted to ride, unlike day one where we knew we wanted to ride Peter Pan's flight.  We had a few ideas about the rides that were extremely popular, but we figured we could just wing it.  Our lack of plan turned out to be a bad idea.

Our second day of extra magic hours started out great, in fact one of the highlights of the trip happened on in the first few minutes of our second day.  We started our day venturing up Main Street USA in Disneyland.  Our plan was to head towards Fantasy Land and figure out where we wanted to go from there.  On our way up Main Street we noticed something going on in a tucked away corner, there were a few people that appeared to be hanging out.  We stopped for a second to see what they were up to, and as it turns out they were there to see Goofy.  There was almost no line at all, and within minutes we were hanging out with our favorite character.

After hanging out with Goofy our morning slowed down considerably.  We had a reservation to have breakfast in Fantasy Land.  We were pretty excited about this since our hotel breakfasts were OK but nothing spectacular. We figured a breakfast in the park must be awesome, but we couldn't have been more wrong.  There was nothing additional to our breakfast in Fantasy Land, No characters to greet us, no fun new foods to try, nothing new at all.  In fact the breakfast selection was actually less than what the hotel provided.  The only thing this breakfast provided was incentive to get out of bed early, but after eating there that morning, the incentive was gone.

We had grand plans of checking out all of the lands and all of the hard to get on rides during our Extra Magic Hours, but unfortunately the only land that was open was Fantasy Land, and many of the rides in Fantasy Land were closed.  So other than a few dark rides everything stayed closed during the Extra Magic hours, a complete waste of time. We decided to take this time to just wander around around and explore what we could.  As soon as the gates to the closed areas opened we were off to enjoy our day of adventure.

We did all of the classic rides including Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World, and Alice's Curious Labyrinth.  We also spent a great deal of time exploring Adventure Island where we found all kinds of fun bridges and caves to explore.  Allison rode on the Indiana Jones roller coaster, and was fairly disappointed.

Our lunch was both extremely disappointing and wonderful all at the same time.  We went to Casey's Corner where they sell giant hot dogs with insane toppings.  The quality of these hot dogs was kind of questionable, but the craziness and quantity of toppings was superb.  We went with a foot long hot dog covered in cheese and crunchy onions.  It was wonderfully insane.

We enjoyed a few more attractions during the afternoon, and then we headed to the Disney village for a meal at what would turn out to be the culinary highlight of our trip.  This time it was an all you can eat Tex-Mex buffet at La Grange at Billy Bob's.  I'm sure many people wouldn't be impressed by simple Tex-Mex, but since Allison and I haven't been living in a western country for a while, it was just what we needed.  The food was nice and fresh, the variety was insane, and best of all they have a section for adults.  It was a little crazy in the rest of the restaurant, but in the adult section it was a little nicer.  After filling our stomachs, we headed back to Disneyland to enjoy a bit of the nightlife.

The evening in the park was probably our favorite time.  We spent most of the evening exploring Frontierland.  When we first arrived it looked as though many of the attractions were closed due to lack of people around, but we couldn't be more wrong.  We started out with a ride on Thunder Mountain, which we had to wait for a little while, but it was great themeing all throughout the lineup.  After Thunder Mountain we wandered towards the Haunted Manor.

This was the part of Frontierland we thought was completely closed because no one was in sight at all.  There was no one in line for the Haunted Manor, so we were convinced it was closed.  We decided that we would check out the area around the Haunted Manor to check out the graveyards and creepy grounds surrounding the mansion. The grounds around the Haunted Manor were completely empty, and this added such a creepy feel.  It was dark and scary, and I had many a shiver down my spine.  As we walked back up towards the exit of the graveyard we noticed a few cast members hanging out around the entrance to the Haunted Manor.  We asked them if it was in fact open, and they said yes.  We made our way up the path to the attraction completely on our own.  Eventually a few other people showed up, but there was no more than 10 people on the ride the same time as us.  It was magical.

After our creepy adventure we decided that this would be the end of our day, and while watching the fireworks over the castle we headed back to the hotel.

3 Days In Disney Paris - Day 1

Phase one of our Disney adventure is over, and it was a fantastic.  As you may or may not know, the aim of this blog was to write about our adventures planning, and executing a trip to Disney World in Florida.  Life got in the way, and we had to delay our trip by a couple of years.  Then, life presented us an opportunity to get a taste of the Disney adventure before we headed to Florida. As it turns out, we were going to be near Paris France, and we had a couple of days to do something fun.  We decided that we would test out the European Disney waters.  This was not going to be replacing our Disney World adventure, instead it would serve as an appetizer.

We arrived extremely late to our hotel, the Sequoia Lodge.  It was a bit of a walk in the cool French air to get to our hotel, but once we arrived we found our lodgings to be spectacular.  First of all they set up our bed with all kinds of chocolate coins, and letters wishing us a happy anniversary (it was our 10th). We also discovered that we had a balcony, and it was huge.  It was big enough for 3 rooms worth of balconies, but it was all ours.  We put away everything we could, and instantly fell asleep knowing we had a busy day the next morning.

The weather on the first day of this Paris adventure was not going be in our favour.  On this first day rain was in the forecast, and rain is what we got.  It wasn't so rainy that it stopped us from visiting the parks, but it was a little bit grey.  We had a plan for this first day however, since every day of this trip extra magic hours were taking place in the morning at Disneyland, we decided that even if we were going to the Disney Studios Park we'd spend the first few hours at Disneyland going on the hard to get on attractions.

After a bit of research, I learned that one of the longest, and slowest, line ups in the entire park was for Peter Pans Flight.  Apparently it has something to do with ride capacity problems.  So on our first day we figured it would be best to get this ride out of the way.  Even coming near the beginning of extra magic hours, the line for this ride was pretty long, about 30 minutes, but it was well worth it, a great way to start this trip.

After our quick stop in Disneyland we headed straight over to Disney Studios and went for our first fast pass, Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy.  This was the newest ride in all of Paris Disney, and is known to have legendary long lines (2 or 3 hours).  We managed to pick up a fast pass for a later that afternoon, and it was well worth it.  The rest of the studios was fairly quite, with only a few short lines here and there.  Allison even manged to get on the Rockin' Rollercoaster with only a 10 or 20 minute wait.  We managed to get into almost every attraction we wanted, and those that we didn't manage were shows that just didn't fit into our schedule later on.

The highlight of the day however was Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy, the newest gem in this park, and one of the only rides we took on twice (the second ride being on our last day). It was technically fantastic, and so detailed any Disney fan could only love it.  One thing that really surprised me after this first day was how much people on the internet really dislike this park.  Most people call it a half day park, and say that other than a few shows, and this new Ratatouille ride, it's not really worth it.  Allison and I enjoyed ourselves a whole lot at the Studios Parks, and as you'll see in the 3rd installment of this blog series, it was the park we visited most.

Our first day was also when we came across a problem that many people have at both of these parks, bad food options.  While our lunch was fine, our dinner was a huge disappointment.  I'd read on the internet that Paris Disney had pretty lousy options for food, I was blown away at how lousy they were.  It's not that there are no restaurants, it's just that so many of them have really bad food.  Our first dinner was at the Steak House in the Disney Village, and it was pretty bad.  We came when it was very slow, yet our food took forever, our sever left and didn't come back the whole night (we had to ask another server if we could pay him instead) and the steaks were pretty horrible.

Fortunately this didn't damper our day at all, particularly since we were expecting bad food.  After riding the Tower of Terror one last time, we decided to call it a night.  We were completely drained, from the lack of sleep the night before and the huge amount of walking all day, but happy.  We went to bed ready for our day at Disneyland.

Stay tuned next week for part two of our Disney adventure.

Final Prep For Disney Paris

The days are counting down, and we're getting really close to our Paris Disney experience.  I'm starting to get hit with waves of excitement, but I'm also getting hit with waves of "what did I forget". Here's how we stand right now.

Plan first Fast Pass of each day - At this point we know which rides are going to be open, what events are happening, and what the Extra Magic Hours schedule is.  I've also read a lot about the popular, and less popular rides.  We have a general idea about which attractions we want to ride, but that's still very loose.  We're starting to think, which very popular rides do we really want to ride.  What's going to be our run immediately to it Fast Pass?  I have a few ideas, but I still think that once we walk into the parks, I'll lose myself in the magic and forget everything.

No more calls to the park - We are booked, we have a room, and we are not calling the park anymore.  We didn't really have a problem with this, but every once in a while I'm tempted to call and ask them a question.  I've officially decided that I'm not going to call the park for sure... %100... not going to happen...

No food reservations - This was something we had been thinking about for a while.  Did we want to pay extra for a fancy meal, or do we just want counter service places, and only try to book a restaurant if we feel in the mood at the time, and let fate decide.  Since Disney only the first part of a bigger trip, we figured that we might want to go fancy somewhere else on the trip, and not some place where fancy was twice the price of regular fancy.  We're also craving some of the simpler foods that are on offer at the counter service restaurants.  Where we live now doesn't really offer us this kind of thing, and I think that would make us much happier.

What to pack - What to pack on a trip is a huge problem for me.  In my head I lean towards too much, but when I actually pack I tend to slim down a lot.  At this point I'm building a pile of stuff for this trip, but I'm pretty sure that some of it will get left behind.

What Can I Do That I Wanted To Do In Disney World

Originally our plan was to take a road trip from Canada (where we sometimes live) down to Florida, for a fun filled week at Disney World for our 10th anniversary.  Our plans had to change when it was discovered that due to employment issues we were not going to be back in North America at this time.  As you have been reading, our plans have now adjusted and we're going to be going to Florida later, but we're going to Paris Disney for our anniversary instead.  The thing is, we had some ideas about things we wanted to do in Disney World, but not all of these things are available in Paris Disney.  This week I'm going to present you with a list of all the things we wanted to do in Disney World, and we'll see if we're still going to pull them off in Paris.

The Harmony Barber Shop - Yes - Disney World and Disney Paris are the only two Disney parks that offer you the opportunity to get your hair cut on site.  This seemed like it would be a really fun thing to try, and fortunately we just might have the chance.

Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich - Not Sure - I've been investigating the treats at Disney Paris and they seem to really focus on baked goods.  I have yet to see any place that offers the Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich that's so popular in both US parks.  I'm not that disappointed; however if I find one I'll probably get it.

Turkey Leg - No - It appears that the famous giant Disney Turkey Leg is also something we wont find at Paris Disney.  While Allison may be a little upset about this, I'm sure I can distract her with some BBQ from one of the many BBQ places on site.

Dole Whip - The Dole Whip is also something that we'll have to wait for Florida to try.  I'm sure, much like the Turkey Leg, we'll find other fun snacks to distract us.

Earl of Sandwich - Yes - This may not seem like a big deal to many Americans, but to Canadians, and those of us living abroad, it's something totally new.  I'm super excited about having at least one lunch at this place, since I love sandwiches.

Rockin' Roller Coaster - Yes - While the idea of ridding this makes me ill, Allison is super pumped.  She not only loves roller coasters, she's also into Aerosmith as well.  She promises me that I don't have to ride with her, and that's a good thing, I want to keep my Earl of Sandwich lunch down.

Haunted Mansion - Yes... Sort Of - There is a Haunted ride at Paris Disney, but it's called the Haunted Manor, and it's supposed to be excellent.

There are many other rides and shows that we were looking forward to at Disney World, some cross over to Disney Paris, and others don't. Others still are in both parks, but are a little bit unique from each other.  For all the attractions we don't find at Paris Disney, that's just something to look forward to when we finally make our trip to Florida.  If there's any cross over, that's OK too, we'll get to see how they're different (if they are), or at the very least we'll get to see them twice.

Why Americans Hate Paris Disney

While researching our Disney Paris trip I've noticed one thing that keeps coming up, Americans really don't seem to like this theme park.  I've read many blogs, watched many videos, and gone through many tourist sites, and I've found that Americans really don't like this park at all.  The most obvious thing I've noticed is that there are very few Disney fan websites that have any mention of this place.  A few might put it on their list of places to go, but mostly only if they want to visit every single Disney park.  Most sites list Tokyo as the park they'd rather visit first.  Disney Paris seems to really have a cloud hanging over it, and it really seems to be scaring off the foreign tourists.

If we look at the people who have traveled to Disney Paris, many of them said that they consider Disneyland Paris (the Magic Kingdom part of the park) to be one of the most beautiful of the Disney park.  However, many of them seem to point out a few flaws that really turn them off.  The biggest complaint I hear is that the food is really bad.  I've often read comparisons to the food they could have eaten in Paris, and how disappointed they are about the fact that Disney Paris has nothing to offer for French foods. I also hear a lot of complaining about smoking, and general crowd politeness.  I've been told that people smoke everywhere, even though there are designated smoking areas.  I've also heard a lot about line cutting for attractions.

While I haven't been to the park yet, I did live in Europe for 4 years and I've traveled around a lot, and I have a theory.  Disney Paris is not for you (Americans).  Do you really think that Disney built a park halfway around the world so you can travel there?  If you think that this park is having financial troubles now, if they actually designed the park for American tourists only, they would have been out of business years ago.  France is one of the biggest tourist destinations for Europeans; this is why this park was built.  This is a park for Europeans to get a taste of the American park without having to fly overseas. And much like the France pavilion at Epcot, this American style theme park is designed to give Europeans a taste of the USA, changed to suit their pallet.

Why would a French person take the train from Paris for up to an hour, only to eat French food?  They want to come out to the park to experience American food.  Why are the guests "different" than the guests at Disney World?  Because they're European people, with different cultures and different lifestyles.  I guarantee that Europeans that travel to Disney World or Disneyland are equally shocked by some of the strange things you do.  Smoking in Europe is looked at very differently than it is in the USA (and Canada), crowd control is also very different.

I'm not saying that Americans should not visit Paris Disney, in fact I think it's a great addition to any European vacation. Just don't expect it to be an extended version of the France pavilion at Epcot mixed with all the American values and rules you have and Disneyland and Disney World.  Disney has built this park to bring in European travelers, to give them a taste of Disney suited to their pallet. This is a park that represents the American dream, but in a way that Europeans see it.

Disney Vacation Club Point Buying, is It a Sham?

As you would expect, there's been a change of plans with our hotel yet again. Since the price of the hotel is the biggest expense of a Disney trip, you can imagine that a lot of thought has to go into it.  This change however is less about which resort we want to stay at and more to do with how we want to stay at it.  I read an interesting article about buying points to use in Disney Vacation Club (DVC) properties.  In other words, for a lot less money, we can stay at a DVC room in the same resort.

I should mention that this isn't as simple as it sounds.  There are a few differences between a regular room at Disney and a DVC room.  The difficult part of this deal is setting up the room.  To do this we have to arrange the purchase of DVC points from a DVC member.  Fortunately there are travel agents who specialize in this and can arrange it for us, but it involves going through third parties.  The other disadvantage I can see is that you will get fewer visits from housekeeping (or as they call it “mousekeeping”).  Frankly we're not dirty people, and I think we'll be fine with just one or two visits throughout our stay.

The advantages of using the Disney villas are pretty good.  The rooms are a little bigger, and include a small kitchenette in the studio suits as well.  The rooms are located within the Disney resorts and seem to include all of the perks that come with staying in a regular room.  Finally, the price is much lower than the standard rooms, we stand to save about 100 bucks a night.

I imagine that most people don't go with this plan because of the inconvenience that comes with setting things up through a third party.  I'm just hoping that there isn't some detail that we've missed that's going to mess up our plans.  It's a bit of a risk, but if it works out we'll save a few bucks.

Travel Agents

I've been reading several websites that claim booking directly through the Disney website is the most expensive way to go.  It's a strange world we live in when buying something straight from the source is in fact the most expensive way to go.  The reasoning behind this, from what I can tell, is that Disney is setting the basic price and if they sold it at the cheapest price, no one else would want to sell their tickets.  So that means that Allison and I are going to have to search for a travel agent.

One of the options that seems to come up now and then is that of discount tickets for sale through third parties.  I've been warned by many websites that they are many of these third parities that sell tickets that are not legitimate.  In other words they either sell fake, or used tickets, instead of real discount tickets.  I'm having a really hard time figuring out which dealers are legitimate and which are not.  It would really help if Disney produced an official list somewhere that I could reference.

The other option is to find us a travel agent.  We actually already have a travel agent that we know and really like, the problem is that she's not really a Disney expert.  It's not to say that she doesn't know anything about Disney, it just seems like there are other agents that specialize almost exclusively on Disney.  I've decided that I'm going to send out a few e-mails this week and ask what kind of deals we can get.  Hopefully I'll soon be able to announce that we have a travel agent that can get us a great price, book all the restaurants we want, and make sure our tickets are all in order.

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.

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.

Restaurant Reservations

The one aspect of this trip that worries me most is the Advanced Dinning Reservation (ADR) program at Disney World.  The program is designed to make it easier for people to make dinning reservations at popular restaurants, and up to 180 days before your trip.  While I don't mind planning out a few things before our trip, I really feel like the ADR program doesn't work with our style of traveling.

First of all we're not really sure which parks we're going to visit on which days.  There are lots of factors that go into choosing your parks, weather, extended hours, and tiredness.  Many of these factors you won't know until much closer to the date.  I don’t want to be running from one park to another just to eat, and that means if I make a reservation I have to choose that day to be at a particular park.  How am I supposed to know where I want to eat 180 days before I leave, let alone the day before?

My second problem with this plan is the fact that it's really geared towards those that travel to Disney World regularly and are familiar with the menus at the park.  I'm not really sure which restaurant is great and which aren't.  Sure there are lots of reviews to read, but so many of them are very personal, and I want to know if a restaurant is up my alley.  Most reviews I read compare these restaurants to other restaurants in Disney World, and since I'm unfamiliar with any of these restaurants these reviews are not really that useful.  This system of reservation really caters to those who travel to Disney World often, because they know more about these restaurants than I do.

I keep hearing stories of many of the restaurants filling up with reservations well in advance, and I don't want to be stuck eating just fast food.  I want a few nice dinning experiences, but I'm worried that when we get there, anything that's nice will be full.

Youtube Channels of Note - Part 3 - WDW Radio

WDW Radio - WDW Radio is a YouTube channel where you follow Lou Mongello, an exceptional Disney World fan, on his fact finding missions about the Disney World.  Lou has two themes to his posts on YouTube.  One of themes we see Lou wandering around the parks checking out new attractions or pointing out some tips.  In the other theme he's sitting behind a microphone talking about the latest Disney World news.

WDW Radio is a pretty positive look at the Disney parks, Lou Mongello doesn't often have anything bad to say about the parks, and when he does, he often glides over it with little detail.  The segments where he walks around the parks are by far my favourites, however the news segments are very informative.  The only real fault to this YouTube channel is the constant reminding that he has other websites, books and merchandise available for sale.  Thought I can't fault him considering the amount of free information he provides.

Our First Day

Allison asked me on one of our "talk about Disney walks", what the first thing I want to do when we get into Disney World. She's not asking me to plan our first day out, she wants to know what I plan to do in the first hour right after we check in. This is a difficult question to answer for two reasons, first of all we're showing up before check-in, and secondly because there's so many options when it comes to things to do.

Our plan is to spend the night before our first day about an hour or two away from the park. This way we get an extra day at the parks and we don't have to pay for the more expensive Disney hotel. So our plan is to drive into the parks around 10 am and get the ball rolling, the problem is check in time for the hotel isn't until mid afternoon. This means that we might have to give our bags to the front desk and head out on our adventure before unpacking and settling in our room.

The second problem, of there being too much to do, doesn't seem like such a big deal now, but I imagine the minute we get through the Disney gates we're going to be like really excited puppies. We'll have no attention span, and we're going to have a hard time focusing on anything. So everything is going to look shiny and fun, and picking that first thing might be overwhelming. This might be a reason that thinking about our first thing before we get there is a good idea.

So here's my answer, Allison feel free to comment: If we get our room right off the bat, then I think we should take our bags to our room, get into our bathing suits, and jump into the hotel pool. Our hotel of choice (currently the Yacht and Beach Club) has an awesome pool, with an awesome slide. This will allow us to literally dip our toes in the waters of Disney fun a little slower. If the hotel room is not ready yet, and we have to lock our bags up until the room is ready, I think some kind of sweet treat is in order. Maybe a walk to the Boardwalk and a funnel cake would be tasty, or maybe just an ice cream cone. This will again get us going before visiting our first park.

We've decided that most likely our first park will be Disney Studios, but that'll happen more than an hour after we get there.