Taking My Sister to Disney - Am I Crazy? A Dec 2013 Trip Report - New Posts 5/31

[lizzi6692]

Hello! Almost a year and a half after I went to Disney last(almost 2 years by the time we're there) I finally get to plan a new trip! Except for actually going, planning is my absolute favorite part of every Disney trip(and going doesn't beat planning by much).

Some back story for our trip:
About 6 months ago we moved back to my hometown in Indiana from upstate New York. I had been having Disney fever since about 2 days after we got back from our last trip in Dec 2011, but money was a little tight(which is one of the reasons we moved back here). A couple months ago DH and I decided that we were comfortable enough financially that we could start planning a Disney trip.

I was so excited, because that meant I was going to get to take my little sister, Morgan, for the first time. My parents aren't big travelers so I didn't get to go until after I'd turned 18 and I am bound and determined for that not to be the case for her(she'll be 14 when we go). We decided on December, because we really enjoyed it the last time we went. The decorations are beautiful and the weather is perfect for us.

However, we didn't want to go as late in December as we did last time(12/18-12/23) because the crowds were unbearable towards the end. So we decided to do a horrible thing and take Morgan out of school for 5 days. I know most people think it's bad, but honestly my sister does well in school and hardly ever misses and I know she can and will make up the work, so we'll be going December 1-7.

We originally booked the trip in early March and then about a week later we found out I was pregnant and due on November 21st. That meant cancelling the trip because no way I was taking a newborn to Disney. There was also no way to move up the trip because we wouldn't be able to come up with the money to pay for the trip we were planning(we want to go all out for Morgan's first trip) any earlier. We were all heartbroken, but DH and I quickly got over it because we had been trying to get pregnant for a year.

Unfortunately at my first prenatal appointment during the ultrasound we discovered that the baby didn't have a heartbeat and I had to have a d&c . It was a devastating loss for us, but we've started to heal. We decided that since we have to wait 3 months to try again, that even if I got pregnant right away at that point I would be 6 months pregnant at most in December, so we're going to book the trip and there's no going back now.

Even if I am pregnant we'll just take it easy, and even though I'm so upset about how things worked out, I'm definitely looking forward to having one more Disney trip before we have a baby.

Onto the cast for this trip:

This is me. I'm Emily. I'm a 20(21 in less than month) year old student and Disney addict. I've been in love with Disney ever since I was little, bit never got to go to Disney World til my DH(BF at the time) took me back in 2010 to propose. My favorite characters are Eeyore, Belle, Chip, Dale, Mushu, and Stitch, my favorite park is MK, and my favorite ride is TOT.

This is my wonderful DH, Daniel. He's 32 and works in insurance and as a content producer for a couple different websites. His parents took him once as a child and we've been to Disney 3 times together. His favorite characters are Stitch, Piglet, Mickey, Figment, Arthur(from Sword in the Stone), and Tigger, his favorite park is MK, and his favorite ride is Space Mountain.
Former Cast

My baby sister Morgan(athousandtries is her disboards username, she commented below) is the newest member of our cast. She's 13(will turn 14 in September) and will be in 8th grade next fall. Her favorite characters are Lilo, Stitch, Handy Manny, Snow White, Mulan, Mushu, and Sleeping Beauty, but since she hasn't been to Disney yet, so she doesn't have a favorite park or ride. Morgan has decided that she doesn't want to be away from home that long and will no longer be going with us.

This is the farthest out I've ever really planned a trip and I hope to have a lot to talk about, so hopefully I will be able to keep this active until we go in December. Also we plan to do matching shirts for each day of the trip and I will be attempting to make them, so I will post all about that adventure once we get to that point.

 

[lizzi6692]

1. Change of Plans Already?
2. Preparing to Make Dining Reservations
3. Day 1 Original Plan vs Current Plan
4. Day 2 Original Plan vs Current Plan
5. Day 1 and 2 update plus Day 3 Original Plan vs Current Plan
6. Unfortunate Cast Update
7. Day 4 Original Plan vs Current Plan
8. Small Update on Day 2 and Day 5 Original Plan vs Current Plan
9. Day 6 Original Plan vs Current Plan
10. Day 7 Original Plan vs Current Plan
11. Day 8 Current Plan

 

[happybelle]

Joining In!

 

[lizzi6692]

So when we fly we always fly Southwest. It's always got the cheapest fares and the no change fees and 2 free checked bags per person just can't be beat. The flights for December were released a couple days ago and the other night I was looking at prices. So I put in our dates and for some reason there was no "Wanna Get Away" fares available for our flight there, but there were for the flight back, which meant we were looking at over $500 per person round trip.

We have never paid more than $300 per person round trip flying on Southwest. After checking some other airports in the area and getting similar results, I realized that maybe the problem was that we were flying out on a Sunday. I changed the first day of our trip to Saturday instead and lo and behold, there are "Wanna Get Away" fares for nearly 1/3 of the price of the flight to MCO on Sunday, which brings our total down to about $270 a person round trip.

I talked it over with DH and after realizing that we were going to save about $600 in air fare by flying down a day early we decided to add an extra day to our trip!

I also realized that in the initial post I never mentioned where we are staying(although you probably already know if you've read my signature). I knew we wanted to stay at a moderate this time. I don't mind the values but because I prefer having a bigger bed on vacation, I didn't want to stay at a value because we would have to sleep in doubles since we need two beds.

We considered renting points and staying at a DVC resort, but since we want to do the deluxe dining plan it just didn't make sense financially and for us our food is more important than our hotel room(all 3 of us are big eaters). DH and I have stayed at Caribbean Beach and Coronado Springs, both of which we loved. However, Caribbean Beach still hasn't been updated with queen beds and Coronado Springs is just too big of a resort. So we will be staying at Port Orleans: French Quarter from 11/30-12/07! I've wanted to stay there for a while and it looks like the perfect resort for our vacation.

 

[benji2012]

Joining in! What a great big sister you are!

 

[athousandtries]

Joining in because well I'm the morgan going on the trip!

 

[CinderellaMouse]

So cool that you are taking your sister! Excited to hear how everything goes!

 

[lizzi6692]

So for the first time ever I get to take part in the fun that is making reservations at 6:00am 180 days out(and there is no sarcasm there, I really can't wait to do it).

The past few days I've been having trouble sleeping because I have a tooth infection that has caused a lot of pain(I'm on antibiotics, but it takes time for them to start working) and so it's thrown off my sleep schedule. Between my mind racing with thoughts about Disney(as much as I love having so much time to plan, it also drives me nuts that I can't really make any firm plans yet since park hours aren't out yet and so the crowd calendar I'm using to make plans could be completely inaccurate), the fact that I've got to be up by 7:30 to get ready to go take my final, and only being awake since 7:30 last night I decided to just push through and take a nap when I get back home.

A little while ago it occurred to me that it wasn't quite 6 yet which meant that the online reservation system would be opening soon, so I decided to do a "dry run" for making reservations. What I mean by that is I used the day that just opened up and checked to see if there were reservations available at the restaurants we wanted for the times we wanted.

First the good news: all of the character meals we wanted had breakfast times for before the parks open, which is what we want. We're planning on getting to the parks early, because on past trips we've always slept in, but we end up going back to the hotel shortly after dinner still(we eat late, but still that means being back to the hotel by 10 at the latest). So this trip I figure we'll get up early and then plan on going straight back to the hotel as soon as we're done with dinner in an effort to maximize park time.

Now for the bad news: at 6 o'clock on the dot, Be Our Guest was already completely booked for the entire evening . I already knew that the chances of us getting that reservation were slim, but now my hopes are almost completely dashed. The only chance we have left is the fact that we will hopefully be able to book all of our reservations at 180 days out from the first day of our trip and the day we currently want to eat at Be Our Guest is towards the end of our trip(and I plan to try to keep it that way). And if I can't get the BOG ADR I do have a back-up plan and I will continue checking as often as possible to try to get a reservation.

Hopefully you guys don't think I'm completely crazy for doing this .

 

[lizzi6692]

Joining In!

Joining in! What a great big sister you are!

So cool that you are taking your sister! Excited to hear how everything goes!

Glad to have you guys joining . And thanks for the compliments, I try my best to be a good big sister.

 

[lizzi6692]

So I started planning this trip the minute we booked the first time. Because of this there have already been about 5 iterations of the trip plan in about 2 months. Since it will be awhile before I have anything else to talk about, I thought I'd share what our original plan was and what our plan is at the moment. I'm going to post a day at a time a: because it gives me 8 days worth of posts and b: because it would take way too long to write it all at once, so here is day 1(all pictures included are taken from google images, I just felt like my posts haven't had enough pictures so I will be adding some to the plan posts):

Original Plan

We like to get started early on arrival day so we always take the first non-stop flight out. Because of this we don't do a park on arrival day because we would be way too cranky by the end of the day. We hope to arrive at Port Orleans French Quarter by noon(we're currently debating between two flights so we're not sure what time we'll get to MCO, but either way we should be at the resort by noon).

We'll check in and then if our room is ready we'll go up there and get settled. If not we'll leave our bags with Bell Services and explore the resort until about 2. Then we'll be picked up to go to Saratoga Springs for a DVC resort.

We probably won't buy on this trip, but we do plan on buying in the semi-near future, plus we can't pass up the free fast pass incentive. After the tour we'll eat dinner at the Turf Club Bar and Grill and then head back to POFQ. Morgan and I will probably enjoy the hot tub for a bit while DH has a drink or two at the pool bar. Then we'll hopefully be in bed between 10 and 11 and get a good night's sleep to prepare for an early start the next morning.

Current Plan

The plan for arrival day is probably the one with the least changes. Everything is still the same except we decided to do dinner at Fulton's Crab House at DTD instead of the Turf Club Bar and Grill.

DH loves crab and is very excited to try this restaurant. I've heard mixed reviews about this place though so hopefully we're not disappointed. Either before the DVC tour or after dinner we'll probably unpack as well. I'm actually kind of excited to finally have a long enough trip for it to be worth unpacking. We usually only stay for 4 nights so it's just seems like a waste of time.

 

[lizzi6692]

Before I get this update started I just want to say I'm incredibly excited that Disney has released the park hours for December. They're not on the site yet but EasyWDW did a blog post with the link to them. If you want to see them go HERE. This goes a long way to being able to create a more firm plan so that I can make my ADRs on the 3rd.

This plan has changed a lot because now our second day which will be our first park day is on a different day of the week.

Original Plan:

After hopefully getting to bed at a reasonable time the night before we will get an early start at Animal Kingdom with an ADR at Tusker House.

We will explore the park until mid-afternoon and then hop over to Hollywood Studios for the rest of the evening. Hopefully there will still be some fast passes left for either TOT or Star Tours or both.

If not we'll either ride standby or just stick to the shows. We'll end the night with a late-ish ADR at 50's Prime Time.

Current Plan:

We will still be getting an early start, but the addition of a day to our trip will allow us to start off the trip at our favorite park: Magic Kingdom! We will hopefully get an early reservation at Cinderella's Royal Table and be in the park well before it opens. I am so excited about this because the first time you see the castle is so magical and I am ecstatic that Morgan will get to experience it from the end of a nearly empty Main Street.

If photopass photographers are out at this point we will definitely get our pictures taken. Around 4, once the guests for the MVMCP start coming into the park we will hop to EPCOT. Since Test Track and Soarin' fast passes will certainly be gone by that point we will probably stick to rides that have shorter lines like Living with the Land, Nemo, Spaceship Earth and Figment.

We'll end the night with an ADR at Coral Reef. This is a new restaurant for us and we're looking forward to trying it. After that we'll head back to POFQ so that we can get a good night's sleep, because we have another early morning planned for the next day.

 

[lizzi6692]

I hate when I do stupid things, I typed out a long post and then went to find pictures for it and my computer was being slow so I decided to reboot without saving the post, so now I have to retype the whole thing.

So I was very excited to see that EasyWDW posted the crowd calendar for December yesterday and first thing this morning I reworked my plans to fit their suggestions. I had to change quite a bit because on many days EasyWDW suggests the opposite park from what Undercover Tourist said, which I used to make my plan before. I trust EasyWDW more for crowd calendars so I'm going with their suggestions. Even though I had to change a lot, I don't mind because it allowed me to add an extra character meal, which means we'll be doing 9 character meals in 8 days.

I don't think I need to do a whole new Original Plan vs Current Plan update for the first two days so I'll just put my changes in this post followed by Day 3.

Day 1: Since we're not doing a park on this day the crowd calendar hasn't changed anything.

Day 2: The first half of the day is still the same, but instead of heading to Epcot we'll be going to Animal Kingdom instead. We'll spend the second half of the day touring AK and then have dinner at Rainforest Cafe.

Day 3:

Original Plan:
We will start off the day with a before park opening ADR at Hollywood and Vine. Morgan still loves Disney Jr and is looking forward to meeting Handy Manny and Oso.

Hopefully I'll be able to talk DH into running for fast passes for TSMM when the park opens since I doubt we'll be done by then especially if they're still opening the park 15 minutes early at that point. If we're able to ride TSMM this trip it will be a first for everyone. Then around 3 we'll leave the park and head to Magic Kingdom so we can enter the park for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. Hopefully we'll be able to score a Be Our Guest ADR for after 4 but before the party starts at 7.

If we can't we'll probably eat at Liberty Tree Tavern instead. This will be our only late night, so we will enjoy the Magic Kingdom after dark. We're not parade people(I don't do crowds, the last time we tried to fight through crowds for a parade I had a panic attack) so hopefully we'll be able to ride a bunch of rides while everyone else is watching the parade.

Current Plan:
Day 3 is now a day earlier in the week, so there is no longer a MVMCP on the night of day 3. The day will start the same though with Hollywood and Vine hopefully followed by everyone's first ride of TSMM.

Instead of hopping to Magic Kingdom though during mid-afternoon, we'll be going to Epcot instead. We'll spend the evening exploring the world showcase and doing Agent P's World Showcase Adventure(we're all big Phineas and Ferb fans).

We'll end the night with an ADR at Le Cellier before heading back to POFQ.

 

[lizzi6692]

So I've been really busy with life stuff and haven't posted for the last week or so. June 3rd is right around the corner and I'm so excited to make my ADRs although I may be changing some plans around, because unfortunately we're dropping a member of the cast.

My sister has decided that she doesn't want to be that far away from Mom for over a week. That means it will just be DH and I for the vacation. I'm sad that she made this decision, but I'm still really looking forward to it and I'm not going to let her not coming make me enjoy it less. Plus this will save us some money.

We've already changed the plans a little bit. For now we're going to switch our package over to Pop Century, rather than Port Orleans French Quarter.

We really liked it when we stayed there in December 2010 and since we'll only need one bed now, we can get a king bed at Pop. No matter what, free dining or not, we will be getting the deluxe dining plan and even if we have to pay for the entire thing at full price we'll still save $500 on our current package price.

If we don't get free dining though, we will probably end up renting points and trying out a new resort: Boardwalk Villas.

For the same price as Pop Century, we can stay at BWV with DxDP and buy our tickets through Undercover Tourist.

If we can get free dining that won't make sense because FD will save us an additional $500 which we just can't pass up even in return for staying DVC.

Also, we made another money saving decision. Instead of flying, we're going to drive to Disney. It's about a 16 hour drive from our house to Disney, which is basically nothing to DH(he loves to drive). It will cost us about 50% of the price of flying to drive and it means we'll have our car at Disney. We are going to have a lot of early morning ADRs so having our car will be great, plus I hate getting on the buses at the end of the night, they're very crowded and by the end of a long day, my tolerance for crowds is even less than usual.

In the next post I'm going to continue on with the original plans vs current plans. I think I'm going to try to rush the last few days so that once I make the ADRs on Monday I will be done with them and can move onto other things.

 

[lizzi6692]

Original Plan

Our original plan started off with a later breakfast at Ohana since we had the party the night before. That would be followed by a monorail trip to EPCOT for the day.

This was to be one of two days that we spent the whole day in one park. The night would end with dinner at the Garden Grill.

Current Plan

Our current plan is an early breakfast at 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian.

Then we will take the monorail over to Magic Kingdom to spend the morning and early afternoon there. Then we will head over to Animal Kingdom to spend the rest of the day until closing. After AK closes we will go to the Beach Club for dinner at Cape May Cafe. I'm kind of still on the fence with this choice though. I know DH will enjoy this meal but I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I still have a few days to change my mind before I make ADRs.

 

[lizzi6692]

Tomorrow is ADR day! I stayed up late and slept in this morning, so I can stay up and make ADRs, rather than trying to force myself out of bed at 6. I'm finalizing my plans and getting more excited by the minute.

Before I get to Day 5, I have made a change to our plan for Day 2. Instead of having dinner at the Rainforest Cafe after our afternoon at Animal Kingdom we will head over to the Grand Floridian for dinner at Narcoossee's.

Now onto Day 5!

Day 5:

Original Plan

Our original plan started with an early breakfast at Chef Mickey's.

After a fun meal with Mickey and the gang the plan was to go to AK and spend the morning there. Mid-afternoon we were going to head over to EPCOT to spend the evening exploring the World Showcase followed by dinner at Le Cellier.

Current Plan

Our current plan is to start the day at EPCOT with breakfast at Akershus.

We'll spend the day in Future World most likely since this will be our only morning in EPCOT, so we'd like to ride Soarin' and Test Track. Midday, we'll head over to Hollywood Studios. If lines are long, we'll probably just stick to the shows, but hopefully we'll at least be able to fit in a ride of Tower of Terror and Star Tours, two of our favorite rides. Around 6, we'll head out of the park and go over to Yacht Club for dinner at the Yachtsman Steakhouse to end the night.

 

[lizzi6692]

Day 6

Original Plan

Our original plan for this day was to spend the whole day at Magic Kingdom since it was going to be our last park day. We were going to start the day off with a before park opening ADR at Crystal Palace.

After eating breakfast with Pooh and his friends we'd spend the day exploring the Magic Kingdom. We would end the night with an ADR at Cinderella's Royal Table right before the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party starts.

We won't be going to the party that night, so we want to be able to maximize our time at MK.

Current Plan

Our new plan is to start our morning at Animal Kingdom with a breakfast at Tusker House.

We're really excited for this because we've never eaten there and we've never met Donald either. In the afternoon we'll head over to EPCOT and ride the rides we didn't get to during our morning there the day before. We never got to the Living Seas during our last trip so I'm hoping to finally get to ride the Nemo ride and see Turtle Talk with Crush. We'll end the day with a meal at Garden Grill.

We really enjoyed our meal there on our last trip, so we're looking forward to it. The food was good and the character interaction was amazing.

 

[sysadminwatdo]

I'm the husband OP complains about on here - I'm as excited as she is, and it's awesome having my own personal Disney travel planner... 2x CRT this trip, if we can get in! A bit disappointed that the restaurant at the Swan(?) isn't included in DDP, but no one needs 2.5+ pounds of steak in a sitting. Would eat, for sure, but do not need.

I know from past experience that by the time we leave home the morning of the trip, every detail will be planned, everything will be paid for or included, and it's entirely possible I won't need to pull out my wallet other than for tips. She's found her calling!

Also a fan of her being willing to drive instead of fly... More fun, more stops, more flexibility, and less chance of some idiot causing hours of delay because they made a snarky offhand comment inside the airport without thinking.

Wifeybear = Awesome
WDW = Awesome
.:. Wifeybear = WDW
:

 

[blairbear]

I just read through your PTR. I'm sorry your sister will not be able to join you, but you all will still have a great vacation. We stayed at Pop last year and loved the food court, the Tie-Dye cheesecake is now my favorite Disney snack. I have always wanted to go in December to see the Christmas decorations, I can't wait to follow your plans and read all about it.

We drive down for our trips too, we have a 12 hour drive. The drive down usually isn't too bad. We try to just make the road trip as part of the vacation.

PS We were in IN not too long ago for the Notre Dame spring game. I loved Indiana!

 

[lizzi6692]

Day 7:

Original Plan:

Originally this day was to be departure day . The plan was to sleep in a little bit, get up around 9, check out and then have a late breakfast at 1900 Park Fare(we were going to aim for a last seating breakfast ADR).

We were going to take the latest flight out so we could maximize our Disney time. After our ADR we'd explore the Grand Floridian before heading back to our hotel to get on the Magical Express.

Current Plan:

This will now be our last park day. It will also be our only day that we don't hop. We'll be spending the whole day at Magic Kingdom. Most of the plan is the same as our original plan for Day 6. Early breakfast at Crystal Palace, followed by touring the park all day.

One change we've made it that I'm going to try to get us an ADR at Be Our Guest.

If not we will fall back on the original plan of Cinderella's Royal Table. I really hope we can get BOG, but being able to go to CRT twice in one trip is a pretty good consolation prize. Either way we're going to aim for an ADR right before party time because we still are not planning on going to the party, but if I can get any reservation at BOG I'll take it, no matter what time it is.

 

[lizzi6692]

Since there was no Day 8 originally, there is no original plan for this day, so we'll go straight to the current plan.

Day 8:

Current Plan:

This is now our departure day . However, now that we are driving we get to decide when we leave instead of having to go by the ME schedule. We still plan on sleeping in until about 9. We'll check out and head over to the Polynesian for a late breakfast at Ohana!

We were originally going to do this earlier in the trip, but we really enjoyed our breakfast here last trip, so we wanted to be able to take our time and not have to rush to get to the park for rope drop. We'll spend the day exploring the monorail resorts, probably focusing mainly on the Contemporary and the Polynesian since we will have time to explore the Grand Floridian when we have dinner there early on during the trip, plus we've never actually been in the Contemporary so I'm looking forward to checking it out.

Around 5 we will head back to the Poly if we're not there already to have dinner. We'll be dining at Ohana again. It may seem silly to eat at the same restaurant twice with all the dining options Disney has to offer, but we really want to try dinner at Ohana, but we also don't want to miss breakfast with Lilo and Stitch, so we're going to eat there for two meals and it just worked out best to have them on the same day.

Around 7 we'll start heading for home. It's a 15 hour drive from Disney World and we're going to split it up into two days. The first night we're only going to drive a few hours before stopping for the night and then finish the drive the next morning.