ALOHA! Sept. 2015 PTR! * Updated 11/3 - p. 11*

[TheLittleKatie]

ALOHA!

WELCOME!

Hello my lovely DIS-friends!

Some of you may know me from my on-going TR:

Oh it's a Jolly Holiday with Katie! (15 days, 2 Deluxe Resorts)​

But for those of you who don't, allow me to introduce myself..

My name is Katie, I'm 23 years old, and I am a Disney-holic.

"Hiiii Katiiieee.."

And this is Jamie, 25 years old, and my partner in crime..

Ok, ok, I guess we can be normal sometimes.

Welcome to my first pre-trip report!

To quote the introduction of my last trip report:
"I visited Walt Disney World and Disneyland Paris a bunch of times as a kid and I have so many amazing memories.
I was SHOCKED to hear that before I came along, Jamie had NEVER, I repeat, NEVER visited a Disney park.
Of course, every family has it's own great memories and traditions, but I couldn't wait to introduce Jamie to the magic!"

Jamie and I travelled to WDW together in September 2012 and September 2014.

2012:

2014:

Now we are really excited to start planning for September 2015!

This time we will be there from September 22nd - October 6th, meaning we will get to experience something exciting that we haven't done before..

FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL!

I decided to write this PTR to map out some of our plans, and to note which ADRs and FPs we book, and to take on any suggestions you might have for us.

I don't plan on updating this PTR too frequently, particularly right now while we're still 266 days out (and counting!)

But to me, the planning is part of the fun!
And I think I'll thank myself when I come to (inevitably) book another trip, for being able to look back over my own planning tips.

So again, WELCOME!




​

 

[TheLittleKatie]

Contents

3 Magical Weeks... Booked!!
2/13 Update! - Resort Changes / Potential ADRs
3/28 Update! - ADRs!
5/3 Update! - Disney friends are the best type of friends!!
7/13 Update! - YAY
8/26 Update! - Fastpasses, and other random musings
9/13 Update! - ONE MORE SLEEP TIL DISNEY!
11/3 Update! - THANK YOU!!!
​

 

[ursalita]

Hi Katie! Nice to see you will be doing a PTR. I will happily follow along here and at your TR.

I love the planning part of a trip, too, almost as much as the trip itself. Well, maybe not that much.

 

[TheLittleKatie]

3 Magical Weeks... BOOKED!!

YOU GUYS, I'M SO EXCITED.
I have the most incredible few weeks planned for September-October 2015.

First of all (since I already mentioned it in my last post), as a Christmas present to each other, Jamie and I just booked 2 weeks at Walt Disney World for September 22nd - October 6th!!

Some even better news?
Due to ANOTHER special offer, we will be staying at..

DISNEY'S POLYNESIAN VILLAGE RESORT!

...

CLUB LEVEL!

!!!!

I can hardly contain myself!!!

After our September 2014 trip, we agreed that that would be the last time we stayed Deluxe for quite a while.
I am more than ecstatic to stay at value resorts as long as I am at WDW.

But Jamie is a sucker for a special offer.

And to be honest, I don't take much convincing.

So when we looked at the offer and worked out the math, we decided to go all out, for one last time!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO US!

(Jamie and I after booking..)

But wait, THERE'S MORE.

In August my brother, James, turns 18, and I will be completing my Masters degree in September.

James is a Disney parks fan too, so, to celebrate, my amazing Dad has booked himself, my Step-Mom, James, and I into..

THE DISNEYLAND HOTEL, AT DISNEYLAND PARIS!!!

For 5 days / 4 nights, from September 14th - 18th.

And Jamie may be joining us (if he is available)!!

What better way to spend the week leading up to WDW?!


THE PLAN:

September 11th: Hand in my Thesis
September 13th: Drive to the north of France
September 14th: ARRIVE AT DISNEYLAND PARIS!
September 18th: Drive back to the north of France
September 19th: Arrive back home
September 22nd: FLY TO WALT DISNEY WORLD!
October 6th: Home. Booooooo.

---

For Disneyland Paris, my Dad did the booking, but we looked into dates and prices together.

I visited DLP with my three best friends in December 2013.
We had SO much fun, but due to work restrictions, we went for a long weekend (Thursday 5th - Monday 9th), and the difference in crowds was HUGE.
Thursday was great and empty. Friday was a little busier. Saturday and Sunday were INSANE. And Monday was fairly quiet again.

For this trip, we have managed to book Monday 14th - Friday 18th, hopefully avoiding a lot of mad weekend crowds!
We will be driving part of the way there on the 13th, and arriving home on the 19th.

---

For Walt Disney World, Jamie and I fly with Virgin Atlantic, who had a sale on flights from Manchester Airport.
We booked our flights first and reserved our favourite seats (the best perk of early booking!)

We then booked our hotel and tickets together direct through Disneyworld.disney.go.com (the UK version).
By doing this, we got 14-day tickets for the price of 7-days, and a "4 nights free" discount for deluxe resorts, which saved us £1,653.65 (roughly $2,600) !!

---

That's where we are now!

I have just linked our WDW reservation to MDE and customised our Magic Bands.
Because we were given two Magic Bands each after our recent split-stay, we will now have one of each colour! (minus the grey..)

I suppose there isn't much to do for a while now!
Disneyland Paris doesn't require that much planning, and my family likes the flexibility to roll around the parks as we please, so this PTR will focus primarily on the Walt Disney World leg of our trip
Our park hours wont be listed until mid-March, so for now all we really need to do is decide where we want to eat.
We will plan when we want our ADRs based on park hours, and get them booked at our 180 day mark on March 26th!

But I might do a couple of posts about how we plan our WDW trip and potential room requests, or anything else that comes to mind.

Bye for now!

Click for next post!​

​

 

[ursalita]

Hello again, Katie. It totally seems like I'm stalking you but I just had to comment on this update. First, Polynesian CL!! Congratulations! You're going all out for "one last time," huh? I know it's a ways off but I can't wait to hear about this trip. The Poly is on my list, I WILL stay there someday.

Also, this sentence makes me so envious: September 13th – Drive to the north of France

It just boggles my mind that you can drive to France. I guess I'm pretty naive because I've never been outside the US, I don't even have a passport. I hope to visit England and Paris someday, if I can stop going to Disney.

 

[TheLittleKatie]

Hi Katie! Nice to see you will be doing a PTR. I will happily follow along here and at your TR.

I love the planning part of a trip, too, almost as much as the trip itself. Well, maybe not that much.

Hello again, Katie. It totally seems like I'm stalking you but I just had to comment on this update. First, Polynesian CL!! Congratulations! You're going all out for "one last time," huh? I know it's a ways off but I can't wait to hear about this trip. The Poly is on my list, I WILL stay there someday.

Also, this sentence makes me so envious: September 13th – Drive to the north of France

It just boggles my mind that you can drive to France. I guess I'm pretty naive because I've never been outside the US, I don't even have a passport. I hope to visit England and Paris someday, if I can stop going to Disney.

Yay I'm glad you found me!!

Oh my gosh, I know!! I can't believe we'll be staying there. It basically came from the fact that we could only book at standard room at the Poly for the first 12 nights.. for some reason the last 2 nights weren't available?!
So we decided that we would stay those 12 nights standard garden view, 2 nights CL garden view...
Which turned into 7 nights standard garden view, 7 nights CL garden...
Which turned into 7 nights standard LAGOON view, 7 nights CL garden...
But then we realised that the week of standard lagoon view was the same price as a week of CL garden...
So obviously we just ended up being ridiculous and switching the whole trip to CL..?!?!

Jamie is that type of guy that will go,
"Well it's only £xxx more to stay 7 nights / 7 nights.."
"Oh, it's only £xxx more to stay 14 nights CL.. We may as well."



Haha I know right!! It is really cool that we can drive over to France, it's really cheap to get the ferry over too!
But it boggles MY mind that some people have the ability to drive to WDW..!! Have you guys ever done that..? I'm thinking Rhode Island (if the location under your avatar is correct) is kinda far? Like near New York right? Still, if you can drive into New York, THAT is insane to me !!! Me and my parents have been there a few times, I would LOVE to live that close!!

Aww yeah, you'll have to fly over to England, then hop right over to Paris, and you can do Disneyland there to get your Disney fix!

 

[ursalita]

Yay I'm glad you found me!!

Oh my gosh, I know!! I can't believe we'll be staying there. It basically came from the fact that we could only book at standard room at the Poly for the first 12 nights.. for some reason the last 2 nights weren't available?!
So we decided that we would stay those 12 nights standard garden view, 2 nights CL garden view...
Which turned into 7 nights standard garden view, 7 nights CL garden...
Which turned into 7 nights standard LAGOON view, 7 nights CL garden...
But then we realised that the week of standard lagoon view was the same price as a week of CL garden...
So obviously we just ended up being ridiculous and switching the whole trip to CL..?!?!

Jamie is that type of guy that will go,
"Well it's only £xxx more to stay 7 nights / 7 nights.."
"Oh, it's only £xxx more to stay 14 nights CL.. We may as well."



Haha I know right!! It is really cool that we can drive over to France, it's really cheap to get the ferry over too!
But it boggles MY mind that some people have the ability to drive to WDW..!! Have you guys ever done that..? I'm thinking Rhode Island (if the location under your avatar is correct) is kinda far? Like near New York right? Still, if you can drive into New York, THAT is insane to me !!! Me and my parents have been there a few times, I would LOVE to live that close!!

Aww yeah, you'll have to fly over to England, then hop right over to Paris, and you can do Disneyland there to get your Disney fix!

My Jamie is the kind of guy that says, "Why do we need to stay 7 nights when 4's enough?"

We drove to Florida when I was a kid but I can't imagine doing the 18 hour drive with my kids. We're lucky enough to live 10 minutes away from a small airport that offers non-stop flights to MCO relatively cheap.

It's sad how I don't really appreciate what I have. Rhody is between Boston and NYC. I actually think Providence is a pretty cool city but I can get to Boston in a little over an hour if I don't hit traffic and NYC in 2.5 hours. I think that living in such a small state (we can drive the length of it in 45 minutes) we don't like to drive long distances so NY seems far. We have done the drive for Yankee's games and I'm looking forward to bringing the boys when they're older.

 

[desheag]

Hiiii Katie!! Coming over from your current TR! We will be in Disney World at the same time! Our estimated dates are Sept 25 - Oct 3! Still don't know where we will stay.. I'm hoping to book a bounce back offer when I go in 2 weeks!

 

[ach222]

Just found your other TR and jumping over here as well - looking forward to following along!

 

[STLMickeyMom]

following along! you have so much to look forward to this year!!!

I hope you'll post some pics of your time in DL paris. we've never been and I don't know that we'll ever get there.

can't wait to hear all about your planning. it's possible we might be at WDW when you're there. we're doing a cruise in 260 days and i'd like to try to get one park day in while we're so close. really, I want to go to MNSSHP again while we're so close!

 

[Teetah]

Joining in! We did F&W for the first time in 2014 - it was FANTASTIC! We are hoping to go for at least a long weekend in 2015. I will get a TR going soon! Can't wait to see your plans! Nice to meet you!

 

[beckykarstetter]

Joining in! (Now I feel like a stalker, but we are going to the World at the exact same time!) I said "hi" on another thread, since we'd be at the Poly at the same time. We also stay two days at Universal and then back to WDW at AKL from the 9/29-10/6. I'm a crazy planner, so I'm loving the pre-trip report and since our dates are the same, we can be in this together! Ha! It will be me, Becky, DH Mark, DS Martin, and we just told my 13 year old niece Prima that we were taking her with us. 261 days to go!

 

[SimplyGoofy]

I'm in, Katie!

I'm thrilled you're heading back to WDW (and will hopefully do another fantastic trip report for us?). Also, POLY CLUB LEVEL?! Awesome! It should be nearly done by that time so you shouldn't have to deal with the construction craziness.

I can't wait to see your plans!

 

[HomeSweetDisney]

How did I not see this before

Oh well, I am in! Looking forward to hearing your plans for the trip - and for the record, it's NEVER too early to start planning a WDW trip

I am currently planning a trip as well - it's a completely fictional trip though

 

[Leshaface]

I'm TOTES in!

Poly Club Level?!

So looking forward to this amazing trip you have coming up (which really isn't that far away) So you pretty much have 3 weeks of Disney?! Jealous.

 

[DaisyDuck001]

Joining in!

 

[blklotus]

AHHHHHH! I hope you're going to be doing a TR for this trip! We have a one-day MK trip planned for February, but then we'll be there for a week November 30-December 5! I know it's a lifetime away, but I still kind of want to do a little dance.

 

[saintstickets]

Jumped over from your previous TR to this one. You will LOVE F&W! DW and I have been twice and are going back again next year. I'm looking forward to reading this TR and reading about your stay at the Poly!

 

[princessbelle2015]

Joining in. Looking forward to your ptr. What could be better than poly club level.

 

[beckyx3]

Joining in from your TR! That is so exciting! I was in Paris quite a few years ago and BEGGED my parents to go to Disneyland but it was a no go. My sister got to go when she lived in London, so jealous!

The Polynesian is so excited! I'm going around the same time as you with a few friends, we considered staying at the Polynesian but the WL was a little bit more affordable. We'll only catch the very beginning of F&W but I'm so excited!