How long since we were at Disney World?! - An Oct/Nov 16 PTR - Updated 10/26 Heading to WDW Now!

[LadyD]

Just found your PTR. Your trip sounds awesome! We'll be there during part of that week as well.

I have a red wingback chair JUST LIKE YOURS sitting in my bedroom. I saw it and had to get it, though. It was $30! Do you accept FedEx First Overnight deliveries for your upholstery services? I'm such a procrastinator and totally not crafty. I got a quote from an upholstery guy here ... $275 plus fabric. Eek. Yours is looking great.

I'm subbing to follow your PTR and progress of your chair!

Awww thanks! Yeah I am totally not crafty at all, and as a non-crafty person taking on this re-upholstery challenge, $275 plus fabric sounds like a steal for the emotional toll this project has taken haha. I'm roughly 32 hours into this chair....

I might be a little biased, but I think visiting WDW at the end of October/beginning of November is a fantastic time of year to visit the parks! I hope your trip planning is going well. Ready for FP+ booking day?!!?

Yes my ADR days were terrible. BUT my FP days wont be so bad. I will be in Disneyland those days so at least I wont mind getting up at 4am to do them!

Yeah it is definitely always easier to get up at any insane hour when it is for Disney. Disney is about the only thing that will get me up that early. Anything else can just wait or be re-scheduled.

 

[ariane37]

No way, a 101 Dalmations chair!! I don't know if that's what it's supposed to be lol, but either way I love it! I need to reupholster our dining room chairs but I know I'll never ever get through one, never mind all 6 and I only have to do the seat cushion!

9 weeks, yay I'm excited for you! Between your disneybounding, photo shoot and V&A dinner I'll be extremely disappointed if you don't do a TR

 

[ArielSRL]

Totally saw your signature with PTR link on @ariane37 's PTR and decided to join in. First off...my name is also Renee and second...I want to go to Disney in October (my bday is 10/29). Until I do, I will live vicariously through other Disers.

I'm subscribed and I'll go back and read soon!

 

[LadyD]

No way, a 101 Dalmations chair!! I don't know if that's what it's supposed to be lol, but either way I love it! I need to reupholster our dining room chairs but I know I'll never ever get through one, never mind all 6 and I only have to do the seat cushion!

9 weeks, yay I'm excited for you! Between your disneybounding, photo shoot and V&A dinner I'll be extremely disappointed if you don't do a TR

Yes! You caught me! They are 101 Dalmatian chairs!! They are going to go in our front room beneath our framed Disney records Yes, we even decorate in Disney to bring a little bit of the magic home haha. My desire to finish my front room is the only thing motivating me to get these chairs done, because I would never start the second chair after this first one otherwise.

I'll try really hard to do a TR!! I may take forever, but I will certainly try to get it done!

Totally saw your signature with PTR link on @ariane37 's PTR and decided to join in. First off...my name is also Renee and second...I want to go to Disney in October (my bday is 10/29). Until I do, I will live vicariously through other Disers.

I'm subscribed and I'll go back and read soon!

Hello, and welcome aboard! Renee is a fantastic name isn't it?? I mean, I might be a little biased, but I do think it is one of the better names out there We'll be in Magic Kingdom on October 29th! We'll have to wish some good birthday pixie dust your way

 

[absolutmey]

Awww thanks! Yeah I am totally not crafty at all, and as a non-crafty person taking on this re-upholstery challenge, $275 plus fabric sounds like a steal for the emotional toll this project has taken haha. I'm roughly 32 hours into this chair....

I might be a little biased, but I think visiting WDW at the end of October/beginning of November is a fantastic time of year to visit the parks! I hope your trip planning is going well. Ready for FP+ booking day?!!? .

Yep! It was Tuesday and it was a success! Thanks.

 

[ariane37]

Yes! You caught me! They are 101 Dalmatian chairs!! They are going to go in our front room beneath our framed Disney records Yes, we even decorate in Disney to bring a little bit of the magic home haha. My desire to finish my front room is the only thing motivating me to get these chairs done, because I would never start the second chair after this first one otherwise.

No need to explain Disney décor! My living room, family room, kitchen, hallway, maybe a little bit of my dining room - all have Disney in them, from curios filled with stuff to framed prints on the walls. It's a little ridiculous lol

 

[ArielSRL]

Finally read all the way through....

Great plans! Love that you are doing both parties! I've done them both before but not in the same year.

We were FP+ virgins this past year and it ended up working out fairly well. I got all the FP I wanted but of course that was when the window opened at midnight. I really dislike the 7am time. I'll be off when our next FP window opens bc I'm a teacher and it'll be spring break but at midnight my kids would be asleep. At 7am one will most likely be up and the other one up at any moment. So it stinks. But I shouldn't complain too much bc at least it's not 4am.

Love the Disneybounding outfits. I'm so not good with fashion stuff but I wish I was!

Loving all the ADRs. Sounds like a wonderful trip.

Oh and I'm not a DIY person at all, so props on the chair.

Btw, I've done DLR twice in my life (1981 and 2002) but I'm so ready to bring my boys bc if CarsLand. My 2 yr old is obsessed with Cars and my 4 yr old used to be. But it's just a lot more difficult to get there, as we drive to WDW (we are in GA).

Looking forward to more pre-trip plans!

 

[LadyD]

And We're 60 Days Out!!

So much to my surprise, my FP+ day was this morning... Counting is not my strong suit, and apparently I miscalculated when our FP+ booking window opened. Oops.

There I was this morning. Relaxing on a leisurely Saturday morning, reveling in my ability to sloth about for the day due to a complete lack of plans. I figured what better way to spend a lazy Saturday than to review my FP+ selections, ADRS, etc and make sure everything was in line for tomorrow morning. Grabbed my laptop, logged onto MDE, and lo-and-behold I'M 60 DAYS OUT!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Cue the panic.

Immediately I try to log-in and start booking my FP+ for the first hotel stay, hoping all of my desired times were still available so I didn't have to do too much schedule tweaking. And I can't see more than 30 days out from today.

And the cursing began.

Thankfully, when I called Disney I didn't have to wait long to speak with a CM. Apparently, my wife and I had like 10 duplicates each of us under our accounts and it was screwing things up. No idea how it happened. The very nice CM merged all of them together so we each now only have one entity under our accounts and let me know I shouldn't have any issues making my FP+ for the trip through the 8th.

When I logged back into my MDE and went to the FP+, everything looked great! I immediately began moving through my days and desired FP+ selections. Everything was smooth sailing and I didn't have any problems booking anything until I hit 10/31 at Hollywood Studios. We had wanted a FP+ for Rockn Roller Coaster in the morning, but there were none available , so I had to make a quick adjustment to our plans.

Now we check out of AKL and into OKW on 10/31. I thought you could only make FP+ 60 days out for the duration of your on-site hotel stay?? This is the first time I'm going to WDW with this FP+ system, so I wasn't really sure how it is supposed to work. Once I made the bookings for the 31st, I noticed I could make the reservations for FP+ for the rest of my trip through 11/8!

This was unexpected and totally made my day. I thought I was in for another version of the ADR bookings where I needed to get up at 4 AM several days spaced out according to my hotel reservations.

Since I was able to make all of my FP+ reservations, I put together my spreadsheet for the entire trip!

Behold! The spreadsheet!



Yeah there is a lot going on there. I definitely like to go in with a rough strategy of what I want to accomplish because I am easily distracted and prone to forgetting to do something that I had wanted to. Hopefully knowing up front what the rough daily goals are, it will help me stay on track so I don't come home kicking myself I missed out on something I had wanted to experience.

We also added in a couple of Food and Wine events! We're now doing the Beverage Seminar on Johnnie Walker Whisky on 11/2 at 5:30 PM and the Mix It, Make It, Celebrate It for the Moscow Mule by Ketel One. After we selected our FP+ and looked at our rough touring schedule, we decided to look into more of the Food and Wine event offerings, and these two sounded really intriguing to us.

As a side note, I am super sad so many of the beverage seminars are on California wines since I can visit so many of the vineyards here lol. California does grow some great wines though!

In other news, we've been steadily collecting gift cards for this trip and I am kicking myself for not being aware of swagbucks and shopkick earlier. There are some really great avenues out there to generate a little (or maybe even a lot in some cases) extra cash to help with trip splurges.

Now all we have left to do is finalize approximately 10 more Disneybounding outfits, find my wife a shirt for her suit, locate some Disney cufflinks for her, and wait out the next 60 days!!

 

[LadyD]

Finally read all the way through....

Great plans! Love that you are doing both parties! I've done them both before but not in the same year.

We were FP+ virgins this past year and it ended up working out fairly well. I got all the FP I wanted but of course that was when the window opened at midnight. I really dislike the 7am time. I'll be off when our next FP window opens bc I'm a teacher and it'll be spring break but at midnight my kids would be asleep. At 7am one will most likely be up and the other one up at any moment. So it stinks. But I shouldn't complain too much bc at least it's not 4am.

Love the Disneybounding outfits. I'm so not good with fashion stuff but I wish I was!

Loving all the ADRs. Sounds like a wonderful trip.

Oh and I'm not a DIY person at all, so props on the chair.

Btw, I've done DLR twice in my life (1981 and 2002) but I'm so ready to bring my boys bc if CarsLand. My 2 yr old is obsessed with Cars and my 4 yr old used to be. But it's just a lot more difficult to get there, as we drive to WDW (we are in GA).

Looking forward to more pre-trip plans!

Hope the read wasn't too painful!! I can be a little long-winded..

We just had our first FP+ booking experience! DL is still on the day of paper FP system, and it is so different. Each has its own pros and cons, but I am excited to see how the FP+ system works in action at WDW.

I really hope all these Disneybounding outfits come together for the trip! We usually pull one together every few months, but we're being ambitious and going for every day this trip. We will see how it works out in the end. I may end up giving up haha. I'm definitely going to need to make sure these bounds and eating friendly though to accommodate the massive amount of food we're going to be eating haha.

This chair is as DIY as I get, and it is really pushing my DIY limits. Every time I take on a DIY project, i end up saying never again. Then I find something else to try to DIY. I've never done the same thing twice as a result.

Carsland is definitely worth seeing. They did a spectacular job theming the land, and I personally really enjoy DCA as a whole. The DLR has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. It is pretty crazy, and they're chugging ahead with quite a few more changes in the not so distant future as well.

 

[ArielSRL]

I'm like you and like a good solid plan. If we need to deviate, that's ok, but I need a plan. So I used touring plans for our June trip.

I'm glad that everything worked out for the most part on the FPs. And you were able to book them all in one sitting. Keep checking for RnRC bc people change plans all the time.

It definitely was not a painful read.

Good luck with the rest of the Disney bounding!

 

[ariane37]

I am so bad at keeping track of how many days out I am from my Disney trips However I do make sure to write down my FP day for each trip - then I just need to check my calendar lol!
I've always gone with a very loose plan, not much more than ADR's and FP's (since FP+) booked, and which attraction we want to start with each day. However on this trip Steve and I just returned from I forgot to do one very important thing and then remembered it as I was falling asleep on our last night and I got a little teary, so going forward I will have a much more detailed plan in writing!!

 

[ArielSRL]

I am so bad at keeping track of how many days out I am from my Disney trips However I do make sure to write down my FP day for each trip - then I just need to check my calendar lol!
I've always gone with a very loose plan, not much more than ADR's and FP's (since FP+) booked, and which attraction we want to start with each day. However on this trip Steve and I just returned from I forgot to do one very important thing and then remembered it as I was falling asleep on our last night and I got a little teary, so going forward I will have a much more detailed plan in writing!!

Oh no! I'm assuming I'll read all about it?

 

[ariane37]

Oh no! I'm assuming I'll read all about it?

Yes, unfortunately you will

 

[LadyD]

I'm like you and like a good solid plan. If we need to deviate, that's ok, but I need a plan. So I used touring plans for our June trip.

I'm glad that everything worked out for the most part on the FPs. And you were able to book them all in one sitting. Keep checking for RnRC bc people change plans all the time.

It definitely was not a painful read.

Good luck with the rest of the Disney bounding!

Yeah I'm definitely someone who can get stuck and not know what to do without some kind of prior outline of a plan, and ultimately end up wasting time.

We saw that Rockn roller coaster is going down for refurbishment October 27 through November 9th. Just in time for the nearly entire duration of the trip. I think we're going to end up riding it quite a bit on the 26th.

We just got a bunch of outfits together for our bounding, so I'm super excited to share those on our trip

I am so bad at keeping track of how many days out I am from my Disney trips However I do make sure to write down my FP day for each trip - then I just need to check my calendar lol!
I've always gone with a very loose plan, not much more than ADR's and FP's (since FP+) booked, and which attraction we want to start with each day. However on this trip Steve and I just returned from I forgot to do one very important thing and then remembered it as I was falling asleep on our last night and I got a little teary, so going forward I will have a much more detailed plan in writing!!

I flat out counted the days wrong and marked it on my calendar wrong. My wife has said she is now in charge of checking what days the ADRs, FP+, etc fall because this is, unfortunately, not the first time I've done something like this.

Our last trip to WDW was five years ago and so much has changed since that last trip that I end up probably over planning because I want to make sure we get to see/do all of our must dos during our trip since we do not know how WDW may change before out next visit. I'm excited to keep reading your mini TR and I'm so sad you missed out on something that is the worst.

 

[AnnaGiselle]

How fun!!! When next year are you going?? I have lots of tips!! A lot of them involve food... I absolutely love the food at Carthay Circle in DCA. It's so good and the atmosphere is just amazing. If you're a fan of cheese, I highly recommend checking out the Monte Cristo sandwich at Café Orleans in DL. Right now DL still exists on the paper fastpass system like WDW used to, so that is part of why I'm having such a hard time getting onboard with this FP+. Can't I just efficiently tour the parks and collect all the fastpasses??

We are thinking about doing our DL and Yosemite trip the week starting Memorial Day weekend. I was trying to coordinate between good times to go for both places. We'll go to DL Wednesday-Friday, so I'm hoping it won't be too busy and not too many kids will be out of school yet! I'm having trouble getting back into the old school paper FastPasses mode! And I love cheese, so thanks for the recommendation!

My wife is wearing a grey three piece suit that we're currently getting tailored for her. We're still deciding on the color suit and tie she is going to wear. I'm thinking a white shirt might work best to contrast against my black jumpsuit??

OMG I love LOVE your jumpsuit! And I think it will look striking with the suit. I like that you'll have some light and dark contrast with your wife. And I think those are really great options for AK and EPCOT! I can't wait to see what countries you pick. I think you guys would look really chic in Morocco or Italy! Or France. Or I guess all the countries haha.

Behold! The spreadsheet!

I love a Disney planning spreadsheet! Is there anything more joyful to create?!

 

[LadyD]

We are thinking about doing our DL and Yosemite trip the week starting Memorial Day weekend. I was trying to coordinate between good times to go for both places. We'll go to DL Wednesday-Friday, so I'm hoping it won't be too busy and not too many kids will be out of school yet! I'm having trouble getting back into the old school paper FastPasses mode! And I love cheese, so thanks for the recommendation!

Ooo DL and Yosemite!! How exciting! If you're camping in Yosemite over that weekend, good luck getting a tent spot! I tried a few years ago and for the reserved sites, they booked up within 30 seconds of the system going live for that booking day The kids here don't get out until early June usually for school, so hopefully you miss some of the summer crowd! May is a nice time a year to go, and maybe they'll be doing an event this year you can participate in

OMG I love LOVE your jumpsuit! And I think it will look striking with the suit. I like that you'll have some light and dark contrast with your wife. And I think those are really great options for AK and EPCOT! I can't wait to see what countries you pick. I think you guys would look really chic in Morocco or Italy! Or France. Or I guess all the countries haha.

Thank you! Yeah I'm hoping the contrast photos well and makes for some nice pictures. We cannot decide on what countries we want! It is such a hard choice! So many beautiful options...

I love a Disney planning spreadsheet! Is there anything more joyful to create?!

A filled in Disney planning spreadsheet always brings a little extra joy to my day when I see it

 

[LadyD]

Less than 6 weeks to go!!!

We are 37 days out from leaving for WDW!!! I cannot believe how fast time has flown by! We received our Magical Express luggage tags this week, and it really hit home how close this trip is aaaaaahhh!!!! Even though we have all our ADRs set (or do we???) and all our FP+ selected, I feel like I still have so much to do to get ready for this trip. Here is a summary of what we have left to do to get ready for this trip.


Only 37 days until we check into AKL - Kidani for 5 nights to kick off our trip!!!

Disneybounding: We have settled on all of the characters we're going to bound as for each day of the trip. Yes, we are disneybounding every day of this adventure! At this point, we have 90% of our outfits complete. There are just a couple of pieces we're still searching for and accessories we need to really tie in the looks. Hopefully I can find them in the next couple of weeks here so I don't have to worry. You'll have to tune in for the TR to see our Disneybounding looks!


The possibilities for our Disneybounds are endless!

Photo shoot items: Diana's suit is all tailored. She has her shirt, tie, and shoes. The only thing she needs is her cufflinks, and then her outfit is done. I still need to get my jumpsuit tailored. I do not have a tailor in this area, so I need to find one soon. I have a couple of other pieces I need to bring in to have altered so I can see their work first before I hand them my jumpsuit, because I would be devastated if that were ruined. Any tips for finding a good tailor?

Upgrading the Disney AP: We have DL Signature Plus APs that need upgrading prior to our trip. We are unable to upgrade them until they expire October 15th, so we need to go to DL on the 16th to go in person and upgrade our renewed passes. Crossing my fingers that adventure is not too painful since it is not a SUPER clear process and I have received conflicting answers from people about how this is going to work since our APs expire right before our trip, but we had to purchase tickets to make FP+ reservations.

ADRs: I keep tweaking those, mainly just the times ever so slightly to fit in my ideal scheduling better haha. However, last night we did make the decision to switch our Splitsville ADR to Paradiso 37 in Disney Springs. Diana and I were just not feeling the Splitsville menu the more we looked at it (and we're still a little grumpy about their you can only bowl for an hour and if you want to eat while you bowl, you have to do it all within that hour policy), we wanted to look at our other options. After doing some searching, I'm kicking myself because I realized we should have booked Morimoto Asia, but they do not have any ADRs available around the time we need so we can see La Nouba. So we settled on Paradiso 37, but I think I might monitor Morimoto Asia for any availability.


I hear they have lots of tequila. Not sure how this night will end...

La Nouba Tickets: I'm waiting until we upgrade our APs to buy La Nouba tickets because I know AP holders can get a discount on them. I will save dollars where ever I can!! Hopefully the show does not sell out before then though...

Odds and ends: We get back from WDW on November 8 quite late in the evening, and immediately go to work the next day. Since we're going to be gone for 2 weeks, that basically means our house will be completely devoid of food for the week and I am not one to go shopping after work and prepare a meal (my commute is over an hour each way). A few weeks ago we tried Home Chef, which is one of those services that ships you the ingredients and recipe cards to prepare yourself at home. The meals were really tasty, so we're thinking we're going to do that again and have the items delivered on Wednesday so we can make dinner Wednesday night.
This past week I signed up for the Tinker Bell 10k in May during the early registration period. It is going to be my first runDisney event, and I'm crossing my fingers my training will go well. I have no issue running a 5k right now, so I'm hoping my body will hold up for a 10k!

Hope all of you are having success in your Disney trip planning! I'm having fun reading through other's PTRs

 

[SnowWhiteOz]

Thought I should pop on over seeing as we're OKW trip buddies now!

Your trip sounds fantastic! The photo shoot sounds like such a fun idea and your Disney-bounding looks are so cute!

 

[ariane37]

Congrats on booking the Tinker Bell 10kI keep saying I'm going to do a RunDisney event one of these days......then I remember I hate running lol. But they look like so much fun!

Huh, I didn't know about the you-can-only-bowl-an-hour thing at Splitsville We plan to go there at open on Thanksgiving but to be honest, I haven't looked into it all that much yet. Only enough to know that even if it means waiting 30 minutes or so for a lane, I don't want to pay the extra $10/pp or whatever it is to reserve a lane ahead of time. I also figured we'd end up eating some snacks/apps while there and planned to eat while bowlng, like at the lane. Assuming we can do that? Guess I need to research a little more

 

[ArielSRL]

37 days!! I'm so envious. We are at 266 (I think) over here. AKL will be so nice to start out, I'm sure! Can't wait to see all the Disneybounding in action (wait....you are doing a TR, yes?). The Splitsville thing sounds a little annoying! And congrats on the 10k registration. I definitely want to try a runDisney event one day but I'm never off work then.

Everything sounds great at this juncture!