A Survival Guide to A Girls Only Disney Trip September Pre Trip

[bellaally]

Hello and welcome, you have now entered my pre trip report. I am leaving to Florida in 4 days time. Better to start this trip report late than never, the reason I am writing a “guide” to an all adult girls trip is because in reading all the wonderful trip reports, I realized the best friends “adult trip report” is few and far between. I was going to just start when I returned but realized that a trip report might let you into the planning aspect and it’s a much greater introduction to my trip report and you guys will have a feel of what this trip is meant to be. Which is a much needed mommy break, with a great friend and of course all the Disney food & drinks we can stomach.



So let’s get off to introductions shall we?


First off there is me. My name is Alexandra, I go by Ally mostly. I work as a nurse, love all Disney movies including Pixar and marvel. I just recently went t to Disney for the first time. It was also our first family vacation. It was my husband, my two baby boys (at the time they were 2 yrs, 6 months) and I. We went to Disney and stayed in POP in December of 2012. We had such a great time; they were really young but behaved beautifully. I was bitten by the bug and have gone 5 times since then. I just wanted to add the reason I love Disney so much, it’s like a break from reality from all the negative things and all the hate in the world. It’s just so peaceful & joyous to me. Everyone is happy and kind and it’s just this sense of joy that you get walking through the parks. It is hard to explain that to people that have never been or that have had a bad experience like…. A theme peaceful park; filled with screaming kids? Yea okay lol…. But it really is to me at least.


Next up to bat… is Ashley. She is my cousin and very best friend ever since we were little. She works as in administrative for Cooper Hospital in New Jersey. She has always loved Disney movies ever since we were little especially Pocahontas, which is her favorite Princess. Surprise she has never been to Disney before and I am dragging her along for this ride. So along with being our first girls’ only trip it is her first trip ever!!!!


This trip was planned time ago,sort of. The last time I was in Disney was February of 2015, which is entirely too long for me to be without Disney. I began planning our next trip to Disney in September 2015. Ashley also immediately decided she was going to go as well with her finance and son, their family’s first time to Disney World. My oldest son is 5 and was going to be starting school in September and normally here in Philadelphia they start after Labor Day. What threw all of our plans out the window were two things. First, my son was accepted to a charter school but it begun on August 22nd (I know right). I tried to change the dates but my husband could not get any weeks off during August so sadly I was going to say we can’t go this year and mess up our yearly streak.

I was kind of sad, we would reschedule for later but I would start school for my masters program in September and it was going to be difficult to arrange a vacation that will be good for all of us. Secondly, Ashley was cancelling too; She decided early May that they couldn’t go to Disney either because they would be getting married in June!! We had 1 month to plan a wedding and all her trip money went into that. It was a beautiful wedding and everyone had fun.

After the wedding my husband surprised me with Airline tickets and told me to go solo, it would be my last chance before school began and I deserved to go( I love that man) Except I’m a chicken and I think I could do solo but didn’t know lol. Ashley heard what was happening and was like” I would love to go with you”; it would save her money if she just went by herself.

So that was settled a Girls Only Adult Trip to Disney World!!!

Where would we stay, I’m going home I could pretty much sleep in a car lol, but we wanted to do it on a budget and it was between POP and POR. Pop Century won with free dining. I didn’t upgrade our dinning( as much as I wanted to) since we had such a limited time there. I didn’t want to sit and wait 2 hours for every meal. We will be leaving August 31st , and returning on September 6th. I am so super excited for this trip. I love Disney World and I get to share that with my best friend. Walt Disney World, Florida her we come!​

 

[bellaally]

All Must Go According to Plan

Wednesday, August 31- Arrival Day
Ashley is sleeping over the night before, we are heading out to Philadelphia International Airport not so bright but very early!
Our plane with American Airlines departs at 6:20am yikes!!! that usually means no sleep lol​

We are fortunately renting a car, but also sadly for ashley she does not get to experience the wonderful Magical Express. I thought it be more cost effective since we are visiting the outlets on Labor day. We also might save a whole bunch of time if we don’t have to wait for that magical bus ride and we can go straight to Walmart to pick up some essential items.
After Walmart if our Magic bands are active, like they should be from completing the online check in, we are heading straight to Disney Springs for our first meal Wolf Gang Puck Express. We do have the Quick Service dinning plan but there are some hidden gems with some of the quick service restaurants.
After that we will swing by our room, if its ready leave all of our things fretting up and head to the Magic Kingdom.
We do have three fast passes, The little Mermaid, 7DMT, and Peter Pan. Hoping to get a lot of rides done as the park is open later.

Thursday, September 1- EPCOT Day
Waking up bright and early to take advantage of the extra magic mornings at EPCOT. I think we are going to drive over but am not quite so sure yet. I didn’t really find the tier fast passes useful to say the least. I used my first one and only fastness for illuminations. I know a lot of people say you don’t really need it but since we are going to be there all day its nice to view the fireworks the way they were meant to be viewed, and also we are pretty close to the exit so we can make a mad dash for the car. I don’t know if I will be driving because we will be drinking around the word! I think it is a fun adults only thing to do. We plan on being there all day so 11 drinks in 9 hours doesn’t sound so bad lol. I have read the many tips which include, eating along the way, drinking plenty of water in between, not to mix your spirits. I don’t condone being sloppy and drunk at Disney it is not what I am about at all but I think it can be really fun and it is a great way to experience a lot of different food and drinks. Main highlights will be frozen, and the new soaring, Ashley get motion sickness so we will be sure she takes ginger pills before hand.


Friday, September 2- MNSSHP
This will be a sleep in later kind of day, I will try and go be lazy by the pool but its really hard to do at Disney, I kind of feel like it is wasted time. We have decided to dress up somewhat so its more like Disney bounding more than it is an actually costume. We do have lunch at BOG and I am excited about this. I have been before and love the food but more than that the decor and beast castle is OMG perfection! We do have fast passes but I might change my mind. I do want to meet Jack and Sally because they are BAE but I don’t want to line up at 5:30pm. It feels like a waste of time. I definitely want to see the Sanderson sisters and I might watch the show more than once. I also want great seats for the parade and Hallowishes! I have never been to MNSSHP so this is very new and since it will be the first party night I will be keeping my eyes peeled for social media royalty!!! I know its going to be overly crowded and a mess as the first one always is but hopefully not. Keep your fingers crossed for us.......​

 

[bellaally]

Saturday, September 3- Animal Kingdom
Today is a great day, if we stay up to late from the night before we can choose to sleep in. I say we can but nothing has ever made me sleep in at Disney(the early bird indeed gets the worm, all they also get to ride all the rides with no wait times) I plan to go back to the resort if we do wake up early.I wanna try flame tree BBQ as well as Yak and Yeti counter service Now I also wanted to try the Monorail Bar Crawl, which sounds like fun especially stopping at Trader Sams at the Polynesian. After that its back to a late night at animal kingdom since we have later fast passes and the Jungle book live fastness for like 10:30pm. We might do something after if we are not too tried maybe Disney Springs.

Sunday, September 4- Disney Hollywood Studios
Even with a lot of closures in this park, I am most excited because all of it is new to Ashley! I wanna get to this park at opening so we can run to TSM. I can’t wait to see all the star wars additions at Launch Bay. I can’t wait till this park is done with all of the promised renovations. Its going to be my favorite park. I adore both Star Wars and Toy Story Movies!
We have fast passes for Fantasmic and other lesser rides. I don’t know if we really need a fastpass Fantastic since the seating seems the same. Also I’m kind of bummed that we have to miss the fireworks hopefully we can catch it on another night.I plan on eating at starring rolls and maybe ABC commissary not a lot of options here

Monday, September 5- ???
So this day is totally open, We will probably either go to Epcot early, than hit the outlets or hit the outlets after dinner. We have a reservation to my favorite dining experience in all of Disney World..Ohana’s. It is a pretty early reservation but it was all that I could snag. I would definitely give Epcot another day of we don’t get everything accomplished or don’t do the frozen ride. We do have an extremely early flight home as my first class begins at 12 noon the next day. We opted out of staying another night at Disney and instead will be going to the Hyatt regency at the airport. ​

 

[chunkymonkey]

Hi! I just wanted to say have a great trip and love that you are doing an adult girls trip! That's my kind of fun! I've been over labor day before a few years ago. I really loved that time. The crowds are very low, and all the decorations are up, but it was very hot every day! With free dining the restaurants were more crowded but nothing we couldn't handle. With the crowds being so low I don't know if you need FP+ for illuminations or Fantasmic. I've never had FP for either and I've always made it and had a good view. I think making FP+ for Frozen would be good because I've seen some of those wait times...gasp!
Love your plan for drinking around the world and the monoroail crawl! I definitely wouldn't be able to handle that but it seems like so much fun! I really enjoy Trader Sams as I like Tiki Bars and the Poly is my favorite resort!

Have a great trip! We'll be in Disneyland at the same time!