I’m so sad to report that one of my favorite character meals at Walt Disney World is being reported to be removing the characters in January 2009. According to All Ears.Net, Liberty Tree Tavern will no longer offer the character meal after January 4, 2009. We tried this meal out last December, and it was instantly moved onto our eat here again list. We all enjoyed the food and the themed characters so I couldn’t wait to do this one again. I have to admit to being disappointed in Disney’s decision. We did really enjoy the food so we may give it a try again still in the future, but I’ll be sad to not see Colonial Minnie. 
Category Archives: Disney World
The Best Mail is Disney Mail
Yes. This is the slogan at our house, and the past week has been the most awesome in Disney mail in a awhile. Last week right before leaving for Austin, we received our Magical Express tags from Disney. These are the tags that you place on your luggage so that when you get of the plane at Orlando you don’t have to worry about your luggage – you just board the Disney Magical Express bus, and your luggage will magically appear in your hotel room in a couple hours. (I LOVE THIS SERVICE) I was so excited as it was our first offical Disney mailing so I know this means our vacation is fast approaching! (note: they are the bright yellow tags you see at the top of the picture). Today was the first day that I had checked the mail since returning from Austin, and it included an even better piece of Disney mail – our actual travel documents. This includes our final verification documents of the trip along with the free goodies you receive from Disney including luggage tags and coupons for things such as Photopass, mini-golf, and Planet Hollywood.
But that’s not all! I also received my Disney gift cards I had cashed out for at Sunshine Rewards. Yes. If you need proof that reward programs work and that you do receive your earnings, check out my proof. You will see a total of $300 for our Disney vacation next month. This is what we’ll use to pay for souveniors and tip our waiters now that the dining plan does not include the tip. In the bottom right corner, you’ll notice one other gift card. This is a $10 American Express card that I earned through my participation with the Ipsos Survey Panel. This I think we’ll use in an airport when we need a snack or drink.
Disney Vacation Planning Making a Big Change?
If you have actively planned a Disney vacation, you are very aware of the importance of “180 days.” This is when you can begin making hotel reservations and reservations for special places like Bibbiti Bobbiti Boutique. We anxiously mark that 180 day mark on our calendars, we get up early, and maybe we even call in to the Disney Reservation system on multiple lines to be sure we get through. This may all be soon changing.
The current rumors on various Disney related sites is that this will soon be changing to 90 days (as it was in the past). According to rumors, this will apply for all but 3 restaurants that will keep their 180 day schedule – Chef Mickey’s, Cinderella’s Royal Table (the Magic Kingdom castle), and Victoria and Alberts.
What I’ve read is starting July 16, no ADR (advanced dining reservations) will be able to be made for any dates past January 16, 2009, and all ADR’s needed for January 17 on can not be made until October 15th (as mentioned previously with the exception of Chef Mickey’s, Cinderella’s Royal Table, and Victoria and Alberts.
Personally I am kind of excited about this. See I always want to analyze the Disney park hours and even subscribe to a service that analyzes them even more and makes recommendations for which parks will be the least crowded each day. It is slightly stressful to me to get those hours and get the analyzation done before the 180 day mark to be ready for reservations. As long as Disney continues to announce their park hours well in advance (and doesn’t wait until the 90 day mark too), I think this will make for much easier planning for myself.
According to Touring Plans, this is a temporary change while Disney makes a transition to a different computer system, but Mouse Planet makes not mention of the word temporary.
Source: Mouse Planet, Touring Plans.
One Step Closer to Disney
We are a pin trading family while at Disney. We love to pin trade. I had not actually participated until December, and I quickly became a fan too. I’ve been buying pins on ebay at great prices (I don’t pay more than $2.00 a pin). Well Thursday I bought us all shadow boxes, and we took our pins off of our lanyards and put them in our shadow boxes to display at our house. Now our lanyards are cleaned off and ready to head to Disney in just one month!!! Oh yea, baby! You read right….One month from today I’ll be frantically throwing last minute things in my ONE suitcase that I’m allowed to take and trying to figure out what I’ve forgotten.
But back to our pins. I’ve got 2 big pin missions for our next trip – to finish my cauldron collection and my fairy collection. Currently I have these two fairies (Fauna and Flora):
So I’m really wanting to find the other two in this series which are the Fairy Godmother and Merryweather.
In the Cauldron series I have Chernabog, Maleficent, Captain Hook, and Old Hag
According to Pin Pics, that leaves me needing only Ursula in the cast lanyard series, but there is also a Cruella DeVille that matches the series (but is/was available to purchase):
I’ve printed out the ones I’m looking for on an index card that I’ll keep with me while at the parks so I can remember which ones I still need. Of course, I’ll want to trade more than just 3 or 4 pins so I’ll be finding a new collection to focus on while there too, but I shall always have in mind these 4 pins that have eluded me so far.
Traveling – Fly or Drive?
I’m a member of a Disney message group that has has many current convesations about the price of flights and boy have I been glad that I booked our cheap flights several months ago through Southwest and Airtran. Many members of this group are deliberating whether or not to fly or drive on their upcoming vacations. I’ve even heard someone commenting that the price of flights are so high that they chose not to buy into Disney Vacation Club because they feared they would not be able to afford to go to Orlando and take advantage of their points to vacation. Yes, airline ticket prices are rapidly increasing. What really perturbs me though is the luggage limit. I admit wholeheartedly to being an overpacker, but limiting us to one checked bag each is killing me. I’m having to buy Cameron a new luggage set as she had “princess size” luggage that was ok when she could take two suitcases, but if everything has to fit into one, that’s obviously not going to work. I did have a great idea today though. I had planned to ship a box of our items that we do not bring back home – snacks, toiletries, etc, but thanks to a suggestion on a message board I frequent, we are going to pack them in duffle bags and check them (we can have two bags going but only one coming back) then we can just toss the duffle bags in our big suitcases coming home. Yea!! This vacation is coming on soon! We made new scrapbooks pages today for Cameron’s autograph book…I’ll take pics asap and write up a post soon to show you our progress.