September 2015 Countdown!

14 days until I fly out to ATL, 16 days until I drive down to WDW!

I need to start writing my to-do and packing lists!

8 more days here as well! Trying to get organized and figure out what I still need to do to get ready!

16 days till we fly out! Got my mani/pedi booked for next Tuesday, and I have almost all of DD's things packed.

Hope everyone has a safe journey down there!

Tonight at 10pm, my ticker will finally come off the "2" week, down to the 1 week (6 days ). Gotta have something to look forward to while I wait, and wait and wait. Planned this trip since last October. Its been a LONG year. Our last big vacation was in April 2014.

8 Days!!! Last weekend we will be home. The following two will be spent in WDW!!!!

Mrs Grumpy said:

8 Days!!! Last weekend we will be home. The following two will be spent in WDW!!!!

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Where are you staying? Do you have any dining plans? What are you looking forward to the most? Tell me all about your trip

Lillian Gracey said:

But you'll be less than two weeks away! Happy thoughts! I'm so excited for you!

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Tell me all about your trip plans too. I need something good to read to help pass the time! I love reading about other peoples plans

Lillian Gracey said:

And that's pretty much going to be our trip!

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Wow...that sounds amazing I love the combo of relax AND have fun. I havent been able to manage the "relax" part yet at Disney! Yes, please check in here and tell us how everything is going. along with any tips for me (us) the following week

Woohooo....my ticker changed. Im in the "1 week" X days column!

I'll be there from 9/25 - 10/2 ; staying at the Art of Animation!

3 days!

And in those three days we will be anxiously watching the plans of TS Erika... I know we will be in for a lot of rain on our trip no matter what path the storm takes, which is disappointing since it's our very first trip and it's so short (just 4 park days total), but we're ready to make the most of it and have as much fun as we can. At this point we're just nervous about actually being able to fly down as scheduled. Our flight arrives in MCO around 4 pm Tuesday. Hoping, hoping, hoping...

I don't think I'll have any fingernails left by the time we head to the airport.

DISNEY1975 said:

Tonight at 10pm, my ticker will finally come off the "2" week, down to the 1 week (6 days ). Gotta have something to look forward to while I wait, and wait and wait. Planned this trip since last October. Its been a LONG year. Our last big vacation was in April 2014.

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It's exciting you are only 5 days away now but after planning for so long you will see it's sort of sad too when all the planning and packing is done . EVERY year I'm in agony counting down the days and feeling like our trip is so far away and then when the trip actually comes I start missing the planning part! I guess it's all part of the fun

We will be staying at the All Star Music September 20 thru the 28th. Going with our daughter and family. Looking forward to seeing the granddaughters first trip to Disney!

DISNEY1975 said:

Tonight at 10pm, my ticker will finally come off the "2" week, down to the 1 week (6 days ). Gotta have something to look forward to while I wait, and wait and wait. Planned this trip since last October. Its been a LONG year. Our last big vacation was in April 2014.

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Our last big vacation was in April 2013! I've wanted to go so badly since DD was born in February 2014, but it just hasn't worked out. I just hope we can handle the heat in September.

Lillian Gracey said:

The final few days have arrived! I just need to get through this weekend! We fly at 6am on Wednesday morning. Here's hoping that Erika will calm down by then. I don't mind rain if it keeps the crowds away, but I don't want it to prevent me from actually enjoying the parks. My TA sent me an email expressing her concern and to call her if we need to make any changes due to the weather. We're not changing anything right now and will see how everything turns out on Monday. I'm trying my best not to be worried. I've also been keeping myself occupied by doing laundry, dishes, and cleaning the living room and bedroom. Just making sure we don't come home to a mess. The last thing I want to do is clean when I get back! It's raining her in Chicago. I need to go out and grab some ponchos for DH and I as well as some other things we need around the house while I'm out and about. Tuesday is going to be a busy day for me. I have to do airline check in, clean out the fridge of anything that will expire while we're gone, and finish up packing. It's going to be exciting though!

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My TA is there right now and says that Erika has been downgraded to a tropical storm, so the most it should affect central Florida is extra rain. I hope she's right! I really don't want to deal with delays.

I haven't planned anywhere near as much for this trip as I usually do. I know DH wants a semblance of a relaxing trip, and it's going to be much hotter than what we're used to, but here's the general plan, and I'll be printing out EasyWDWs cheat sheets to take along and come up with plan for what we'll do in which order.

Day 1: We won't arrive until after 5pm. It's going to be a LONG day of traveling. We may hit the pool at CSR for a little while, but hopefully I'll be able to get the kids into bed around their usual bedtimes, which would be 8 & 9pm Florida time. Hopefully, our bags will arrive in time for me to put everything away, so I don't have to do any of that later in the week. We may head over to DTD to activate our AFS tickets, and I think DS and DH would enjoy a visit to the Lego Store. No set plans for eating. I used to plan meals for arrival day, but we've ended up canceling them pretty much every time, so now that there's a fee for canceling most things I don't see the point.

Day 2: Animal Kingdom day.
Fast Passes for Kilimanjaro Safaris, Festival of the Lion King, and Finding Nemo: The Musical. If we want to do Everest, we'll just single rider line it, but since neither of the kids can do it, we'll probably skip it. We'll probably spend some time in the Boneyard, and I really want to do lunch at Flame Tree BBQ. We usually take a break around 1pm, and go back to the hotel for a few hours. We may or may not return to a park in the evening, but it will probably be Magic Kingdom if we do. I've thought about switching and just getting MK FPs for the evening, since the only one at AK we'll likely really 'need' a FP for is Kilimanjaro Safaris, but I'm not sure it will be worth it if we decide to just relax a bit in the evening. I'm also not exactly sure what we would get. Maybe Thunder Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, and the Barnstormer? In reality, we'd probably be happy playing the Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom game.

Day 3: Hollywood Studios Day
This is my "Rope Drop or Die" day.
We definitely want to sign DS up for the Jedi Training Academy, then we have a late breakfast ADR at Hollywood & Vine.
Fastpasses are at Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, and the Frozen sing-a-long. I may change Frozen to something different, but I'm not sure. Nobody in my family is a Frozen die hard, so Indiana Jones FP may do just as well. I just like doing everything once. I may need to plan this day in more detail, since the shows can be difficult to fit in. It's hard since I don't know what time we'll get for the Jedi Training Academy.
No idea what we'll do in the evening. Fantasmic is my favorite evening entertainment, but I don't particularly like keeping the kids up late. Since we have a meal scheduled, our break time will likely start closer to 2pm, and we won't likely be ready to return to a park until 5.

Day 4: Break Day
We only have 4 day tickets, so we'll spend this day at the pool. I have an ADR at Las Ventanas for dinner, but I may change it.

Day 5: Epcot Day
Fast Passes at Soarin, Character Spot, and Spaceship Earth. I haven't decided if I want to do lunch or dinner at Restaurant Marrakesh, so I have ADRs for both, and will pick before we leave. The tough part here is that Epcot is DH's least favorite park, and the only thing he really likes about it is the Fish & Chips at the UK. This drives me crazy, because Epcot has the most options, but if I want to schedule lunch, so we can go somewhere else in the evening if we want, then DH doesn't get his Fish & Chips. So basically we have to spend more time in the park that he likes the least in order to accommodate his food request. I may actually have to break the Disney cone of silence and ask him what he would prefer.

Day 6: Magic Kingdom Day
Fast Passes at Enchanted Tales with Belle, Peter Pan, and the Mine Train. My biggest problem with this day is that the Mine Train wasn't available at an ideal time, so we're pushing the limit on our break time. I may end up sending DH back to the room with DD, and just keep DS with me to ride. MK closes at 7pm, so if we go anywhere in the evening, it won't be back there. Maybe I should switch Marrakesh to this night, and plan to watch Illuminations on our last night?

Day 7: Departure Day
We'll probably have to hop on ME fairly early in the morning, so not much time left for relaxing.

Funny story. I went to Target yesterday to buy some birthday presents for some parties DS was invited to, and decided to grab a few Disney Gift Cards to get the 5% off with my Red Card. I wasn't buying very much stuff, so when the cashier said $2XX my eyes just about bugged out of my head. Then I remembered I was buying $200 worth of GCs.

One week from today (my countdown is off by one day below because we added a day but I didn't want to see Mickey start all over). Here are our plans:
Staying at POP 9/5-9/16

Day 1 - Arrival Day - head to MK after check in.
Day 2 - MK - Dinner at CRT
Day 3 - HS - Frozen Premium Package and lunch at Sci-Fi
Day 4 - EP - Dinner at Chefs De France
Day 5 - AK/DTD - Dinner at House of Blues
Day 6 - MK - Dinner at BOG and Wishes Dessert Party
Day 7 - AK/EP Maybe - Dinner at Boma
Day 8 - EP - Lunch at San Angel
Day 9 - MK - Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour - Dinner at Tony's
Day 10 - HS - Lunch at 50's Primetime
Day 11 - MK - Lunch at BOG - Dinner at The Plaza - MNSSHP
Day 12 - Home