What The Hell Is A Pre-RD ADR @ BOG?!

After we had our dates set, I started reading about Disney World and I quickly realized that it was very different from Disneyland. We were able to fly by the seat of our pants when we went to Disneyland - zero planning was involved (we decided to go to Anaheim on a Monday afternoon and landed there Thursday afternoon). This time was going to be different - good thing we had 8 months to plan!

We didn't book our tickets for our flights until mid-August, but I spent many hours in May, June and July reading articles and blogs about Disney World. One thing I kept noticing were the abbreviations that kept being used. Disney people are pretty intense about their abbreviations, let me tell you! At first, I had no idea what people were talking about, until I found this handy little website: http://allears.net/tp/abrev.htm 

So, what exactly is a Pre-RD ADR @ BOG? In simple English, that is a pre-rope-drop (before the park opens) advance dining reservation at Be Our Guest (a restaurant located in Magic Kingdom). These blog posts are essentially a PTR - a pre-trip report. Once we get back from our stay at ASMu (All-Star Music Resort), I'll be writing a TR (a trip report) about our experience with PH (park-hopper's) and FP+ (fast-pass plus).

Did all of those abbreviations make your head spin? I personally avoid shortening words whenever possible (I am the person who will text "y-o-u" instead of "u" every single time). Going forward with my planning posts about our Disney trip, I will try to use real words instead of letters, but you will see a few. If you're ever curious about what I'm trying to say, just leave a comment!

xoxo,
Fallon

Disney Fever has struck us...

If you read any of my posts about our trip to California, you know that our reason was not to visit Disneyland, or even Los Angeles. We are extremely Canadian - we went for NHL playoff hockey. Disneyland was just an added bonus - something we knew we wanted to do at some point, but we figured we would have children before we ever made it there. As it happens, we ended up loving Disney! 

Luke had mentioned before that he would like to run a Disney race at some point in his life, so as soon as we returned to Canada we started looking into it. There was a Marathon weekend in January 2016 at DisneyWorld which had a full marathon, a half, a 10km and a 5km race. Luke has run 5 different 10km races, a half marathon and numerous 5km's in the 2 and a half years we've been together, so I knew he'd have no trouble with the training. He ended up deciding on the 10km - long enough to feel a sense of accomplishment, without putting himself out of commission to recover from a half marathon (which would have meant an entire missed day in the parks, and I just wasn't having that!).

Luke signed up and paid his registration fee at the end of April - this trip was going to happen! It was time for us to start looking at the length of our trip and where we'd like to stay. The 10km race is going to happen on January 8th, so we knew we'd want to be there by the 6th (sitting in an airplane for the entire day before a race didn't seem like a good idea), and my birthday is on January 13th so that gave us a starting point of dates to work with. 

We figured we would book the cheapest flight available, and then book everything else accordingly. Neither one of us is loyal to any one airline company - if flying within Canada we try to stick to WestJet, but international flights are entirely based on price! I've flown Alaskan Airlines (to Anaheim and to Las Vegas), American Airlines (from Anaheim to Edmonton), United Airlines (last time I went to Miami), and Air Canada (to Philadelphia, Puerto Plata and numerous domestic flights), as well as Lufthansa and Air Austria when I went to Europe years ago. We finally settled on Delta (who I don't think I've ever flown with) because they had the cheapest flights by a couple hundred dollars. The connections sucked, especially on the way there with 2 layovers, but money talks! So we now had our dates set: January 5th - 16th, 2016!

Check back soon for my next post: What the hell is a pre-RD ADR @ BOG?!

xoxo,
Fallon

Lip Monthly December 2014

Yes, this is almost a year old at this point, but I still wanted to get it up here.

I have no idea if it's still the same or not, but when I was subscribed to Lip Monthly it cost $10/month plus $6/month for shipping to Canada.

The 5 products in the December bag:

Hikari Lipstick in Crush, Value $13

City Color White Gold Shadow & Highlight Mousse, Value: $5.99 ($4 according to the card)

NYC Expert Last Lipstick, Value: $1.99

Ofra Lipliner in Orchid, Value:$13

Crown Lip Brush, Value: $3

At least they didn't send the ugly blue bag this time! 

I actually kept all of these items. The Hikari lipstick is a beautiful colour, the City Color Mousse is so smooth and creamy and I don't think there's such a thing as too many makeup brushes! The NYC lipstick hasn't received a ton of use but it's nice to have a different colour in my collection, and the same goes for the lipliner. 

The total value of these five items was $36.98, which is more than double the cost of $16. This was one of the better months from Lip Monthly for sure.

xoxo,

Fallon

Meowbox October 2015

It's been awhile since I've done a review for Meowbox, but we have been receiving it consistently since June 2014 (I keep renewing a 6 month subscription). It's a big hit with the cats, some of their all-time favourite toys have come from these boxes, and it has introduced us to so many great treats that we probably would not have purchased if not for Meowbox.

Cost: $32.95/month 

          $27.95/month on a 3 month subscription ($83.85 charged every 6 months)

          $22.95/month on a 6 month subscription ($137.70 charged every 6 months)

I love the personalization each month! Obviously the cats don't care about this, but it makes me feel like they value my business by adding a personal touch. Everything is always nicely wrapped in orange tissue paper with a little feather, which the cats usually try to destroy.

The Empurrium Handmade Candy Corn

Value: $6?

Meowbox has sent items from this company before, and they have all been a hit. Pita loved this thing! They clearly contain decent catnip because Pita licked this thing for about half an hour when I first gave it to her. Magoo loves chewing on catnip toys for some reason, so I've had to hide this thing.

Ruff & Whiskerz Wildlife Cherperz

Value: $3.99

I honestly forgot about this being in this box, I don't think I've seen it since I took this picture. One of the pets must have kicked it under a couch or took it downstairs. In this house, hard to say where it went....

Bavarian Cat Toy Welli Fish

Value: $6.99

We received the red version of this, and oh man does it stink. It actually smells like fish, gross. That said, Hero went absolutely nuts over this thing (see picture below). It's been awhile since he's loved a toy this much...so if he's happy I'm happy!

Petstages Plaque Away Pretzel 

Value: $4.55 (Amazon.ca price)

This toy has been a hit with all of the animals. I've caught both dogs and both cats playing with it, and it's been strong enough to hold up against all of them so far.

Purebites Freeze Dried Wild Pacific Salmon Treats

Value: $3.19

Meowbox has sent this brand of treats before. The cats ate them, even though they were in no way their favourite. Hero will eat these, Pita prefers soft treats. This brand is also sold for dogs, which our guys love though.

Hero was one happy kitty cat with his new fish. To keep this away from the dogs it's been placed into a giant box that Hero likes to hide it, and every so often we'll hear him inside the box going crazy playing with this thing. 

This box contained 5 items (4 of which were toys) with a total combined value of $24.72. On a 6 month subscription it's just barely worth more than the price I paid, but on a 3 month or month-to-month you wouldn't even break even (if that's what is important). I like receiving new-to-us products that I probably wouldn't pick up and buy on my own. This is a subscription box that's around to stay for awhile.

xoxo, 

Fallon

October Empties

I had originally planned to be all over this and have this posted on November 1st, but of course my camera died, and I had no idea where my charger was. I finally found it, and although it's a bit late, here are my October empties!

It was actually a decent month for finishing things off - yay for us!

We wash our hands! We pretty much only use Bath & Body Works hand soaps - you can always get them on sale for a decent price, and they have delightful scents. Yes, I just said delightful. We also have seven different kinds on the go in our house at any given moment (3 bathrooms, 2 kinds in each plus one in the kitchen) - we finish off one each month on average.

The Body Shop Hemp Face Protector

This isn't my favourite, and I tend to love Body Shop moisturizers. Luke actually ended up being the one who used most of this up - he also didn't love it, but neither one of us hated it either. I have a hard time going a day without moisturizer of some sort in this dry Alberta weather.

Gillette Shave Cream

Fairly generic. I've never tried this, but there's usually a bottle of it kicking around somewhere. 

Crest 3D White

It's always good to clean your teeth! This stuff was one of my favourites for awhile. I still like it, but I'm so partial to the classic Colgate.

Bread & Butter Face Shave

I guess Luke finished off two things of shaving cream this month. This one he claims is one of his favourites ever - thank you Men's Holiday Topboxes from the past few years!

Random hotel samples

We always bring these things home from every hotel stay, but there's soooo many of them in our house now. I've started trying to actually use some of these - in October we managed to finish off a body wash, a shampoo and a conditioner.

Foil samples - 

Jergens Ultra Care Body Moisturizer - We received a handful of these when we went to see Stars on Ice back in May. I had this one in my desk at work and used it solely as hand cream. It's fine, no complaints. It has no fancy smell or anything, but it helped my hands.

Clarins - Multi-Active Night Cream - I was a big fan of this! The sample contained enough to last about 4 nights, it was a really nice cream! If I ever run out of moisturizers (which is highly unlikely...) this would be one of my first picks for a night cream.

Perfume samples 

I might have a slight addiction to perfume...I love the packs Shopper's sells for $80 (used to be $75) that contain 10 of these minis (usually about 3-4mL) along with a certificate for a full sized version of one of them. I love being able to wear a perfume before committing to spending $80 on one, so I will continue to buy these. 

Givenchy - Hot Couture - I've traded in the certificate from the third set I bought for the full sized version of this one. I love it so much.

Diesel Loverdose - This was the one I traded in my 2nd certificate for. 

Ralph Lauren #2 - The full sized version of this was only $69 (and I had paid $75 for the box) so I decided it wasn't worth using my certificate on (plus I tend to love multiple samples from each box) so I traded in some Shopper's points to get the full sized version of this one. This is up there as one of my top three favourite scents of all time.

Lancome Hypnose Star Mascara

I received this in the mascara sampler box from Shoppers that they released last year. I'm very particular about mascara - when I receive a new one I will not even twist off the cap until I'm about to start using it. I only keep them in rotation for a max of 6 months, and then they go into here, whether they are fully used up or not.

I really liked this one. I will never use another cheap, generic drug store brand mascara again, they just don't compare! I wouldn't say this is my favourite one ever, but it would definitely be one I'd consider paying full price for. 

There you have it - October's exciting empties! Our November box is filling up quite nicely :)

xoxo,

Fallon