Author: Brenda

Tuesday Disney Tips: What – No Bounce Back?

Brenda Disney Vacation Planning, Tuesday Disney Tips , , , 1 Comment

A strange thing happened during my visit to Walt Disney World this past November. Unlike previous years, there was no bounce back offer in my resort room. There was a flyer for the free dining program running through September 2011 but it expires before we are due to return. There were no specials to thank us for staying by offering us a good deal to come back at the same time next year. This leaves me in a much different position during this time of year than in the past.

Usually at this time, I have already booked our package for next year’s trip. So that means I am usually investigating all the information about the new resort where we will stay and gathering information for my travel folder. We like to choose different resorts each year so we can experience each of them, although we do have our favorites. Having no idea where we will be staying is certainly a change.

I am going about everything backwards now; researching the resorts before we will book our choice. I am “on hold” for several more months, waiting for next Fall’s specials to be announced. In other words, I am not only suffering from Post-Disney-Trip Depression, or as I like to call it PDTD, but I DO NOT HAVE A WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT RESERVATION FOR NEXT YEAR.

This gives me two options: either curl up under my princess blanket with my Mickey pillow and wallow in self-pity OR make the next several months a full-out adventure — really looking at every resort from every angle and preparing to know exactly what we will book when the time comes. I have to choose the latter option, being the eternal optimist that I am.

There are many other exciting and new things to look forward to this year that will be different from previous years:

1.      A December Visit: We have visited during Thanksgiving for many years but this year’s visit will be in early- to mid-December. This will give us the opportunity to experience some new events, such as the Candlelight Processional at Epcot which we have only seen once because the first night it is offered is usually our last night at WDW.

2.      Newbie Travelers: We will be taking at least one additional person, possibly two, with us this year – newbies. So I will research 2 rooms at a moderate vs. the Fort Wilderness Cabins with golf cart rental. This is one reason I will have to wait for special offers to come out. I’ve noted that the Fort Wilderness area has many Christmastime visitors who live at the campgrounds during the holiday season and decorate their spaces as well as the golf carts, which sounds like a great thing to experience.

3.      Voluntourism: This year will be our first year to stay an extra day or two in order to be able to serve as voluntourists at Give the Kids the World Village. GKTW is a resort for children ages 3-18 who have life-threatening illnesses and their families. GKTW partners with wish-granting organizations, like the Make-a-Wish Foundation, to provide a full week’s vacation for the entire family in Central Florida. The vacation includes accommodations at the Village, all theme park tickets, and all of their meals at no cost to the family. There are almost 1,300 volunteers needed at the Village every week, year round and we are all very excited about being able to add this wonderful opportunity to our trip this year. Each member of my family, as well as our additional travelers, will need to complete a visiting-volunteer application and be approved by the GKTW Volunteer Services Office before we can add this to our itinerary and travel plans.

So this is where I am in my planning. Basically, I am at square one. I have lots of thoughts and ideas and absolutely NOTHING in concrete yet, while I am usually booked on a bounce back offer already. Hakuna Matata, I will make the most of this unfamiliar territory, and will keep you posted on how things progress. Let me know your thoughts, especially if you have a particular favorite!

Brenda is a native Texan born and raised on the Gulf Coast. She visited Disney World twice as a teenager and always dreamed of growing her family Disney. She took her first-timer husband and their three children to Disney World in 2000 and they now spend every Thanksgiving there. Brenda writes with a comedic twist on various Disney topics. She will be sharing tips she has learned during her travels and also hopes to enlighten people on little-known freebies that Disney has to offer. She wishes she could have met Walt Disney and considers herself to be a student of Walt. In parallel to his dream it is her wish that everyone would take at least one trip to Disney World in order to share in its magic with their families.

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Thrifty Thursday: Inside Cinderella’s Castle

Brenda Thrifty Thursday, What to Do at Disney World , , , , , 0 Comment

I hope the title of this article didn’t get you excited about the thought that I actually got a tour of Cinderella’s Suite in the castle. I did, in fact, speak to Disney Guest Relations about the possibility of taking a tour of the castle suite and they told me they absolutely do not give tours and that the only way to stay in the suite is to win a night in a contest or sweepstakes. So, start filling out those entry forms.

What I am actually excited to share with you is the inside of Cinderella’s Castle that connects Main Street to Fantasyland. Each time I walk through it and look at the ornate artwork on the walls, I feel like I am in a beautiful museum. As you can see from the pictures, the artistry is just beautiful and I happen to know that there is real gold in the tiles on those walls.

This marvelously detailed mosaic mural contains a million pieces of glass in approximately 500 vivid colors. Some of the tiles are even made from 14-karat gold. There are many scenes represented from Cinderella . My clearest pictures show these 3 scenes:

The first shows Lady Tremaine reading the invitation to the ball, while her pesky daughters, Drizella and Anastasia, stand in the wings. Cinderella is slaving away, as usual, on the right side.

The second shows Cinderella trying on the glass slipper. I read that special care was given to the stepsisters’ faces in this scene, making the colors more vivid. Anastasia is colored red to signify anger and Drizella is green with envy.

The third picture here shows Prince Charming taking Cinderella away from her miserable existence to live happily ever after with him.

Each one tells the story beautifully and it is just delightful to behold. I did a little research on the mosaics and discovered a few interesting facts for you:

  • The five mosaics were designed by Imagineer Dorothea Redmond and crafted and set in place by a team of six artists led by mosaicist Hanns-Joachim Scharff.
  • The murals took 22 months to complete.
  • Each mural is a gothic arch measuring 15 feet high and 10 feet wide.
  • Many of the hand-cut tiles are fused with sterling silver and 14-karat (58 percent) gold, and some are as small as the head of a tack.

The next time you are in the Magic Kingdom, I hope you will take a few quiet moments to enjoy these lovely works of art. You will be glad you did!

Brenda is a native Texan born and raised on the Gulf Coast. She visited Disney World twice as a teenager and always dreamed of growing her family Disney. She took her first-timer husband and their three children to Disney World in 2000 and they now spend every Thanksgiving there. Brenda writes with a comedic twist on various Disney topics. She will be sharing tips she has learned during her travels and also hopes to enlighten people on little-known freebies that Disney has to offer. She wishes she could have met Walt Disney and considers herself to be a student of Walt. In parallel to his dream it is her wish that everyone would take at least one trip to Disney World in order to share in its magic with their families.

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Tuesday Disney Tips: The Cost of Free Disney Dining

Brenda Affordable Disney Vacations, Disney Dining Plans, Disney Vacation Planning, Saving Money on Food, Tuesday Disney Tips , , , , , , 8 Comments

My family has been blessed to enjoy the Free Disney Dining program for the past two years. If you have decided that the free dining plan is the best deal for you, take note of these budgeting tips. Although it is hard to believe, the free dining plan is just that. The first time we took advantage of this program, I was very skeptical about what the meals would entail. Would we have to choose between two items, neither of which we liked? Would we get the entrée free, but have to pay for the sides? The answer is no. On the free dining plan, you will receive wonderful menu items with sides, desserts, drinks – and all for free.

If you have chosen the Quick Service Dining Plan and you intend to eat only at the quick service restaurants and only get the snacks allowed on the plan as well, then you will not need to budget a cent for any meal expenses whatsoever.  If you have decided that you prefer the Regular Disney Dining Plan or higher, however, you will need to budget gratuities into your spending allowance.

Although you will receive all the food and drinks at your table service meals for free, you are expected to pay gratuities at these restaurants.  Whether the restaurant is an all-you-can-eat buffet, such as the Tusker House breakfast at the Animal Kingdom, or a menu table service restaurant such as Le Cellier in Canada at Epcot, your wait staff should be tipped. You will need to allow for this expense in your budget so I am going to give two quick examples of the amounts you would need to budget for table service dining. These are actual figures charged for my family of five this past November.

The first example is for an all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast at Tusker House in the Animal Kingdom. At Donald’s Safari Breakfast at Tusker House (yes, this is also a character breakfast), we enjoyed an all-you-can-eat buffet loaded with delicious breakfast food choices, pots of coffee and a delicious house fruit juice. The charge for our family of 5 adults, if we had not been on the free dining plan, would have been $143.73. Our server, JW, did a fantastic job taking care of us and so we tipped him $25.87 (18%).

Let’s take a closer look at what this all-you-can-eat buffet meal consisted of: a waffle station, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, breakfast potatoes, French toast, yam casserole, cereal, biscuits & gravy, veggie frittata, ham & cheese frittata, cheese blintzes, beef Bobotie quiche, Dino hash, carved rotisserie honey ham, oatmeal, cinnamon rolls, croissants, muffins, bagels, assorted breads, turnovers, assorted cream cheeses, jams, jellies and fruit chutneys, yogurt station, fresh fruit, assorted freshly-made donuts and sweet breads, pancakes with assorted toppings, and danish. Plus all the coffee, tea, juice, milk, chocolate milk and soda we wanted.

All the food is delicious at Tusker House and we ate until we were quite full. Remember, we paid only $25.87 for all of this.

The second example is a menu-item dinner at Le Cellier in Canada at Epcot. At Le Cellier, we each ordered steak entrees with accompanying side, dessert and non-alcoholic beverage. The meal would have cost us $236.00. Matt was a great guy and was extremely attentive to our every need so we left him a tip of 20%, or $47.20.

Let’s take a closer look at what we ordered:

Entrees: two New York Strip steaks topped with Bercy butter and served with gryuere yukon gold potato gratin; two Coffee-rubbed Kansas City Strip steaks with hazelnut butter, served with cream cheese mashed potatoes; and one Le Cellier Mushroom Filet Mignon, served with wild mushroom risotto and white truffle-herb butter sauce.  For dessert: three Maple Creme Brulees and two Chocolate on Chocolate Whiskey Cakes finished with honey-thyme anglaise and a chocolate vanilla walnut sauce. Our drinks consisted of two iced teas and three sodas.

Please keep in mind that this is some of the most delicious food Disney has to offer by extraordinary chefs. To reiterate, we paid $47.20.

As you can see, then, the amount you must budget for your meal expense on the Regular Dining Plan during Free Dining is almost laughable considering all that you receive. Still, you do need to budget for the gratuities so you don’t end up short. Over our 10 days and 9 nights at Disney World, for a family of 5 adults, we paid a TOTAL of $248.87 for all of our delicious meals combined. Considering that we began with 45 table service credits, 45 quick service credits, and 45 snack credits and, thus, ate 90 full meals and 45 snack meals during our trip, $248.87 is quite a great deal.

Even as I am typing this, reality is hitting me and I am thinking ‘my goodness, we ate a ridiculous amount of food for $248.87.’ I have only covered two table service meals out of the 9 we consumed; or 10 meal credits out of the 90 we enjoyed during our trip.  The best thing is that these meals are not paper bag meals these are some of the best choices prepared by the best chefs at Disney World and it is an awesome deal.

If you have any questions at all about how to use the dining plan or about specific restaurants, please feel free to contact me at bootskenworthy@aol.com. I will be happy to help you plan for your wonderful Disney trip!

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Thrifty Thursday and Delectable Disney Snacks: Take My Advice, Share!

Brenda Saving Money on Food, Thrifty Thursday , , , , , , 1 Comment

Sorry to all the guys out there but I have to confess here and now that I love watching what I call “foo foo” movies, like Legally Blonde, Confessions of a Shopaholic and the like. They are familiar and fun so I can pop them in the DVD player, turn it on and go about doing other things because I know what favorite parts to watch.

There is a line in one of them that always makes me chuckle. In The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly, the world’s worst and snootiest boss (played by Meryl Streep), sends her assistant on an impossible errand – to get a copy of an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript for her twins to read on the train to Grandma’s. Her assistant, Andy, pulls some strings to get it, then comes into Miranda’s office, puts the copy down on her desk and when Miranda sees it, she says “One copy. What are my twins gonna do with that? Share?” That line always makes me laugh.

Sadly, that is exactly how my family feels about dessert. My mother baked beautiful desserts when I was growing up and she passed that love of baking onto me. I live in a family of sweet tooths and I am embarrassed to admit that I am head molar!

When we were at the Animal Kingdom recently, we decided to use our snack credits for the day at the Kusafari bakery. Aside from the fact that Kusafari is one of the very few places that serves real coffee (not Nescafe), we had been looking forward to savoring their wonderful treats for months in anticipation of our trip. When we got to the counter, four of us ordered the Zebra cupcakes and one ordered the White Chocolate Elephant cupcake (pictured below). We were reeling with anticipation for a bite of one of these delectable delights and we were really hungry by that time, having had a large breakfast but no lunch.

A quick description will give you a general idea about the sweet goodness of these tantalizing treasures. The Zebra Cupcake is moist yellow cake topped with mounds of super rich and creamy buttercream icing. It has homemade white and dark chocolate shavings all over the top and is delightful. The White Chocolate Elephant Cupcake is rich chocolate cake filled with chocolate cream and then topped with a light buttercream frosting and toasted coconut.

After I took these pictures, we all took bites of our treasures and commented on how yummy, moist and rich they all tasted. We were almost singing with enjoyment. After our third bite, we were giving each other that “how-am-I-ever-going-to-finish-this look.” We ate all we could, as we did not want to waste any of it and, once we threw away the rest, we all agreed that we indeed should have shared.

Trust me, if you get one of these scrumptious creations, plan to cut it into fourths. Taking my advice will do three good things for you: it will save you from sugar shock, give you some snack credits to use on other great treats, and save you from the guilt of throwing away a portion of such a wonderful treat.

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Tuesday Disney Tips: Creating More Space in Your Disney Resort Room

Brenda Tuesday Disney Tips , , 5 Comments

I absolutely love the Disney resorts. I always choose to stay on property, even if we have to pinch pennies with everything else. But as much as I enjoy the theming, the ambience, having free transportation to and from the parks, and being close to everything, there is one thing I have an issue with at the Disney resorts – the bathrooms.

I have stayed at value, moderate and deluxe resorts. The size of the bathrooms is usually adequate and this year, at the Contemporary Resort, we even had a private toilet area with a door that closed to the rest of the bathroom. What’s my problem then? Well, as you might deduct from this picture, there is not enough counter space.

Plus, I have a family of five including: my husband, myself, a 25-year-old son, a 20-year-old daughter and a 17-year old son. We all have necessities when it comes time to being fresh and clean, not to mention our primping needs. We have MANY products for brushing, flossing, gelling and deodorizing. We need a place to put it all!

Luckily, I have a way to overcome this deficiency while creating more space and greater efficiency for our time and needs. It is the shoe organizer.

My organizer was especially easy to hang this year because the Contemporary has a metal ladder-type rack for hanging towels, which served me perfectly when hanging my shoe organizer.

We each have our own row (that is 4 large slots each). We traditionally assign rows according to height so my youngest son gets the top row because he is tallest, and my daughter gets the bottom row because she is nearest to the ground (haha). Everyone organizes their things the way they want and it makes getting ready to head to the parks easier and much quicker.

I have used this trick for several years and it has worked out really well. The only issue I have run across is that the bathroom doors at a couple of the moderate resorts were quite thick, so I bought extra large hangers to use when faced with that problem.

If you have a large family, including teens with lots of special products, this should really help you. I hope it will make your trip easier and more enjoyable.

Brenda is a native Texan born and raised on the Gulf Coast. She visited Disney World twice as a teenager and always dreamed of growing her family Disney. She took her first-timer husband and their three children to Disney World in 2000 and they now spend every Thanksgiving there. Brenda writes with a comedic twist on various Disney topics. She will be sharing tips she has learned during her travels and also hopes to enlighten people on little-known freebies that Disney has to offer. She wishes she could have met Walt Disney and considers herself to be a student of Walt. In parallel to his dream it is her wish that everyone would take at least one trip to Disney World in order to share in its magic with their families.

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