Scooterbritches
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2010
Hi,
It’s been many years since I’ve been on these boards, probably because it’s been many years since I’ve been able to go to a Disney park. I love to plan trips and have been blessed to be able to go many places in my life. I haven’t been to WDW since 2006 and DL since 2010. I’ve had a little dry spell. I would like to share what I’ve got planned for this trip.
Who:
I am 52 yo mom of 6 kids and grandma to 5. I’ve been to Disneyland or WDW a total of 9 times. (See how lucky I’ve been?)
My 16 yo DD. This will be her 3rd trip to a Disney park, but the first to WDW.
My 27 yo DD. She lives in Austin, TX and will be joining up with us in Orlando. I didn’t know if she would be able to join us because of her job at first, but it looks like she will be able to. Yea! She’s been to a Disney Park a total of 4 times.
When:
We have to go while my 16 yo is out of school for spring break, so I know it will be crowded, but she can’t miss school. I decided to go after Easter in the hopes that the crowds will be a tiny bit smaller than before/during Easter, but I’m still expecting to deal with crowds. Our dates are March 29 – April 3. We will spend 2.5 days at Universal and 2 days at WDW doing MK and DHS.
Where:
I’ve stayed both on property and off property. To me, it is sixes. It seems to me that I pay a lot more when I stay on property compared to the “perks” I get that I actually enjoy. Perks I enjoy when I stay on property are no parking fees and transportation around the world (though sometimes that can be aggravating with crowds and schedules). I’m not a big resort person, meaning I don’t find it all that appealing to hang out at a well-themed pool area, etc. I have usually been time constrained when I go, so I spend my time in the parks, not at the resort. I also like to frequent other parks in Orlando so I usually have to rent a car anyway. The extra time in the park is okay, but being from the west and having the 2 hour time difference makes it extra difficult to get up even earlier or staying later and then utilizing the fewer crowds the morning after. So, in my situation, I find it better to stay off property and save some cash.
For this trip, we are staying at the Galleria Palms which is on Maingate Road just south of all the parks for about $100 a night. We are renting a car through Advantage for about $25 a day.
Rental car: The price is great, but then someone told me that Advantage was not located at the airport and that I’d have to take a shuttle. I tried calling them because my confirmation indicated that the counter and car were at the airport, but I got no answer (it was late at night when I made the call, though). I went ahead and ordered another car through Sam’s Club travel at $41 a day until I get a chance to investigate this further. I don’t want somewhere away from the airport because our return flight leaves at the crack of dawn and Advantage lists its hours as beginning at 4:30 a.m. and I don’t want to be stuck away from the airport trying to return a car to a closed business and not being able to get to the airport. I’ve been very busy lately and haven’t had a chance to call Advantage again during normal hours. For the time being, I do have the other reservation that I can cancel if I find that Advantage will be able to get me taken care of. UPDATE: I was perusing reviews online and found many negative ones for Advantage. I did not want to deal with problems, so I cancelled that reservation and stuck with the one through Sam’s Club, which is Hertz.
Special Needs: Some special considerations I had for this trip that I’ve not had on others are that I’ve now got some pretty bad arthritis in my back. This causes some difficulties in standing and sitting for long periods of time, though I’m very active in my daily life when I can control when I stand and sit and for how long. Knowing that the parks were going to be busy, I knew this would negatively affect me. I turned to the disabilities section of the DIS boards to answer some questions and see if perhaps the DAS card would work for my situation since I could get around, I just couldn’t wait in lines. I’m a big planner and like to know what I’m walking into. I want to take advantage of early morning lines and single rider lines to limit my time standing in line or getting as much done as I can before I end up feeling bad. Being very inexperienced with dealing with disabilities, I just like to know what I can and can’t do.
So based on my experience in the disabilities board (which helped at the same time as giving me anxiety!) I decided to rent a manual wheelchair. I had a hard time wrapping my brain around that because like I said, I ride my bike and walk for exercise almost daily. It seemed silly to lug a wheel chair around the park when I was perfectly capable of everything but standing/sitting. Even with the pain, I’m so used to working through it, that I debated in my head if I should just grin and bear it and forget the wheelchair.
So I will be pushing an empty wheelchair around the park in between using it to alternate standing and sitting in lines. All in all, not my favorite solution, but they did convince me that to have it would be better than not having it and having to leave the parks early because of pain of overdoing it.
I figure I’m going to have a love/hate relationship with that wheelchair. Having to tow it around with me will not be great. But, there is no way I could repeatedly stand waiting in lines once the park got busy. One afternoon of that and I’d be done for the rest of the trip. Before the wheelchair thing, I was just planning on leaving the parks after lunch because I knew standing in line would hurt and there was no way I could do the parade and Wishes without it. We would just miss those things if I didn’t have somewhere to sit while saving our place and/or watching those things. I can just see it now, though, when I go to the disabled section of the parade with my wheelchair and then stand for a period of time (the alternating thing I need to do) while waiting for the parade to start. I’m going to have disgruntled people thinking I got the wheelchair just so I could have a reserved spot for the parade. The moral of the story is: you don’t know people’s circumstances and until you do, give them the benefit of the doubt.
There is nothing wrong with trying to advocate the best for yourself. If you don’t get the best, so be it, but there’s nothing wrong in trying.
Here’s my plan for the wheelchair: Get to the parks at opening, rent the wheelchair and park it in stroller parking near attractions that I’m at taking advantage of the shorter lines in the morning. When I leave an area, I’ll push that empty baby to the next area only sitting in it if I’m really needing it because I don’t want to wear out DDs. Then at about mid-morning when the lines start to be more than 20 minutes, I’ll take that baby in the lines with me and sit in it when I need to sit and stand and push it when I need to stand.
UPDATE: I was at my dad’s yesterday. He is 89, doesn’t get out much and uses a cane. I mentioned that I was going to rent a wheelchair at WDW and he stepped into the other room and comes out with a rollator! He had purchased it not long ago and I wasn’t aware of it. Anyway, so he told me I could borrow it for the trip. Yea! I’m saved $50 in rentals and I don’t have to push around an empty wheelchair (WDW does not rent rollators). So now I will not park the rollator in the stroller parking, I will keep it with me. I will be able to sit whenever I want. This also frees me to walk about the park more and not have to plan to do things that are close together so much and plan my day with more regard for line waiting than area. If I can sit periodically, I’m actually pretty good with 6-10 mile days.
Our plan:
Tuesday, March 29 – Arrival day
We arrive late afternoon. My DD from Austin will arrive before us so she will wait at the airport for a couple of hours until we arrive. We will meet up, get the rental car, go grocery shopping for a few supplies and then check in. I haven’t investigated where a good place to shop is, other than a Publix that is somewhat near our hotel. We’ll pack our swim suits in case we feel like swimming at the hotel pool, but might just get dinner and hang in the room.
Wednesday, March 30 Universal
As I said earlier, I love to plan trips and I have a motive to make the wait as short as possible to avoid pain, so I bought access to touring plans. After playing around with it, this is the schedule I came up with that has the least amount of line times while taking into account that I also don’t want to walk all over the place.
8-11 Despicable Me, Rip Ride Rocket, Transformers, Mummy, Simpsons, MIB, ET, Hogwarts Express to IOA
With the exception of DM those rides should all be less than 20 minutes in the morning. I will have the option of the single rider lines if the waits are longer than the program says it will be.
11-3 Lunch at Three Broomsticks, Dragon Challenge, Flight of the Hippograff, Triwizard Spirit Rally, HP & the FJ, Cat in the Hat, and Hogwarts Express back to Universal.
3-6
My 27 yo DD is a huge Harry Potter fan so we will spend the rest of our time exploring Diagon Alley and riding any rides we want to do again if the wait isn’t too long.
By this time it will be busy so I will use the single rider lines and rollator to get me through.
I explored getting express passes or staying at a Universal resort for one night, but my husband and I couldn’t wrap our heads around the cost. I understand why they need to make them somewhat expensive, cause if they weren’t everyone would get them and their effectiveness would be null and void. I once heard, and I don’t know how true it is, (so don't scream at me if its not) that Disney has a copyright on their Fastpass procedure so other parks can’t replicate it. Universal really has no other option, but to charge extra. I’ve read other people complain about the unfairness of Universal in doing that and favoring people with money, but perhaps there is something to that copyright thing and they don’t know how else to do it. They use a lot more single rider lines than Disney, so that helps too.
We’ll eat dinner off site and then head to hotel for an ice pack or soak in the hot tub before getting to bed.
Thursday, March 31, Islands of Adventure
This day we’ll just do opposite of the day before and start at IOA and enjoy the short lines in the morning there and then head to Universal in the afternoon.
8-11:30
Spider Man, Ripsaw, Barges, JP, FJ, Dragon Challenge, Hogwarts express to Universal
11:30-3
Lunch at Leaky Cauldron or Fast Food Blvd., Gringotts, Olivanders, Explore Diagon Alley, Knight Bus
3 – 6
Animal Actors 3:15 show, Rip Ride Rocket, Mummy, Gringotts, Hogwarts Express back to IOA
We’ll have dinner off-site again and then back to hotel for hot tub soak, ice pack and rest.
Friday, April 1 DHS/Universal
8-11:30
I haven’t secured my FPs yet, but I’m hoping for TSMM and TOT before 11:30 and Star Tours around noon. We’ll see what I’m able to get. I’ve been practicing and so far have not had a problem getting those times. The days I’ve been practicing for are not as busy as the days I’ll be going so that might make it more difficult.
TSMM (FP), GMR, R&RC (single rider), Voyage of the LM
11:30 – 2:30
TOT (FP), Star Tours (FP), Lunch APR at 12:30 for 50’s Prime Time, Muppetvision, IJ
2:30 - 4:30
– Hopefully catch a FP to R&RC or TOT (TSMM I will probably not be so lucky), Lights, Motors Action
4:30 – 6:30
Catch dinner off site and head to Universal to use our free day.
6:30 – 8:30
USF’s cinematic spectacular (or exploring HP areas if we didn’t get enough time before), Gringotts, Rip Ride Rocket, Simpsons
Head to hotel for ice pack
Saturday, April 2 MK
Hoping to make FP reservations for SM around 9:00, PP around 10:00, and SDMT around 11:00 (If SDMT is not available, then I’ll switch it to Spl M.) Then I’ll be able to catch some extra FP+ in the afternoons. I may not get SDMT and will be okay with that.
9-12
BL, PP (FP), HM, SM (FP), Winnie the Pooh, SDMT (FP), BTMRR, Spl. M
12-4
POC, 1:05 ADR Plaza Restaurant, JC, HM (again. My favorite!), Hall of Presidents, Dole Whip
4-6
Free time for shopping, fitting in extra FPs or non major rides with short lines
6-10
Dinner at Columbia Harbour House, IASW, Under the Sea, Wishes, MSEP
Head back to hotel for ice pack and bed.
Sunday, April 3
So sad. It’s time to go home.
Our flight leaves around 6AM so we need to check out at 4AM at the latest. I’m assuming traffic will not be bad at that hour and the lines at security won’t be either.
I know this seems like a lot crammed into our days, but keep in mind, we are not shoppers and we don’t care about characters so a lot of time that other people spend doing those things, we would be on to our next ride. Also, I will have to play it by ear depending on how I feel. The Wishes and MSEP were not even a consideration before the rollator so I'm excited to give it a try if I can.
It’s been so fun to plan this and play around with touring plans software! I will report after my trip to let you know how it goes doing the disabilities thing. I think more trip reports regarding that need to be written.
It’s been many years since I’ve been on these boards, probably because it’s been many years since I’ve been able to go to a Disney park. I love to plan trips and have been blessed to be able to go many places in my life. I haven’t been to WDW since 2006 and DL since 2010. I’ve had a little dry spell. I would like to share what I’ve got planned for this trip.
Who:
I am 52 yo mom of 6 kids and grandma to 5. I’ve been to Disneyland or WDW a total of 9 times. (See how lucky I’ve been?)
My 16 yo DD. This will be her 3rd trip to a Disney park, but the first to WDW.
My 27 yo DD. She lives in Austin, TX and will be joining up with us in Orlando. I didn’t know if she would be able to join us because of her job at first, but it looks like she will be able to. Yea! She’s been to a Disney Park a total of 4 times.
When:
We have to go while my 16 yo is out of school for spring break, so I know it will be crowded, but she can’t miss school. I decided to go after Easter in the hopes that the crowds will be a tiny bit smaller than before/during Easter, but I’m still expecting to deal with crowds. Our dates are March 29 – April 3. We will spend 2.5 days at Universal and 2 days at WDW doing MK and DHS.
Where:
I’ve stayed both on property and off property. To me, it is sixes. It seems to me that I pay a lot more when I stay on property compared to the “perks” I get that I actually enjoy. Perks I enjoy when I stay on property are no parking fees and transportation around the world (though sometimes that can be aggravating with crowds and schedules). I’m not a big resort person, meaning I don’t find it all that appealing to hang out at a well-themed pool area, etc. I have usually been time constrained when I go, so I spend my time in the parks, not at the resort. I also like to frequent other parks in Orlando so I usually have to rent a car anyway. The extra time in the park is okay, but being from the west and having the 2 hour time difference makes it extra difficult to get up even earlier or staying later and then utilizing the fewer crowds the morning after. So, in my situation, I find it better to stay off property and save some cash.
For this trip, we are staying at the Galleria Palms which is on Maingate Road just south of all the parks for about $100 a night. We are renting a car through Advantage for about $25 a day.
Rental car: The price is great, but then someone told me that Advantage was not located at the airport and that I’d have to take a shuttle. I tried calling them because my confirmation indicated that the counter and car were at the airport, but I got no answer (it was late at night when I made the call, though). I went ahead and ordered another car through Sam’s Club travel at $41 a day until I get a chance to investigate this further. I don’t want somewhere away from the airport because our return flight leaves at the crack of dawn and Advantage lists its hours as beginning at 4:30 a.m. and I don’t want to be stuck away from the airport trying to return a car to a closed business and not being able to get to the airport. I’ve been very busy lately and haven’t had a chance to call Advantage again during normal hours. For the time being, I do have the other reservation that I can cancel if I find that Advantage will be able to get me taken care of. UPDATE: I was perusing reviews online and found many negative ones for Advantage. I did not want to deal with problems, so I cancelled that reservation and stuck with the one through Sam’s Club, which is Hertz.
Special Needs: Some special considerations I had for this trip that I’ve not had on others are that I’ve now got some pretty bad arthritis in my back. This causes some difficulties in standing and sitting for long periods of time, though I’m very active in my daily life when I can control when I stand and sit and for how long. Knowing that the parks were going to be busy, I knew this would negatively affect me. I turned to the disabilities section of the DIS boards to answer some questions and see if perhaps the DAS card would work for my situation since I could get around, I just couldn’t wait in lines. I’m a big planner and like to know what I’m walking into. I want to take advantage of early morning lines and single rider lines to limit my time standing in line or getting as much done as I can before I end up feeling bad. Being very inexperienced with dealing with disabilities, I just like to know what I can and can’t do.
So based on my experience in the disabilities board (which helped at the same time as giving me anxiety!) I decided to rent a manual wheelchair. I had a hard time wrapping my brain around that because like I said, I ride my bike and walk for exercise almost daily. It seemed silly to lug a wheel chair around the park when I was perfectly capable of everything but standing/sitting. Even with the pain, I’m so used to working through it, that I debated in my head if I should just grin and bear it and forget the wheelchair.
So I will be pushing an empty wheelchair around the park in between using it to alternate standing and sitting in lines. All in all, not my favorite solution, but they did convince me that to have it would be better than not having it and having to leave the parks early because of pain of overdoing it.
I figure I’m going to have a love/hate relationship with that wheelchair. Having to tow it around with me will not be great. But, there is no way I could repeatedly stand waiting in lines once the park got busy. One afternoon of that and I’d be done for the rest of the trip. Before the wheelchair thing, I was just planning on leaving the parks after lunch because I knew standing in line would hurt and there was no way I could do the parade and Wishes without it. We would just miss those things if I didn’t have somewhere to sit while saving our place and/or watching those things. I can just see it now, though, when I go to the disabled section of the parade with my wheelchair and then stand for a period of time (the alternating thing I need to do) while waiting for the parade to start. I’m going to have disgruntled people thinking I got the wheelchair just so I could have a reserved spot for the parade. The moral of the story is: you don’t know people’s circumstances and until you do, give them the benefit of the doubt.
There is nothing wrong with trying to advocate the best for yourself. If you don’t get the best, so be it, but there’s nothing wrong in trying.
Here’s my plan for the wheelchair: Get to the parks at opening, rent the wheelchair and park it in stroller parking near attractions that I’m at taking advantage of the shorter lines in the morning. When I leave an area, I’ll push that empty baby to the next area only sitting in it if I’m really needing it because I don’t want to wear out DDs. Then at about mid-morning when the lines start to be more than 20 minutes, I’ll take that baby in the lines with me and sit in it when I need to sit and stand and push it when I need to stand.
UPDATE: I was at my dad’s yesterday. He is 89, doesn’t get out much and uses a cane. I mentioned that I was going to rent a wheelchair at WDW and he stepped into the other room and comes out with a rollator! He had purchased it not long ago and I wasn’t aware of it. Anyway, so he told me I could borrow it for the trip. Yea! I’m saved $50 in rentals and I don’t have to push around an empty wheelchair (WDW does not rent rollators). So now I will not park the rollator in the stroller parking, I will keep it with me. I will be able to sit whenever I want. This also frees me to walk about the park more and not have to plan to do things that are close together so much and plan my day with more regard for line waiting than area. If I can sit periodically, I’m actually pretty good with 6-10 mile days.
Our plan:
Tuesday, March 29 – Arrival day
We arrive late afternoon. My DD from Austin will arrive before us so she will wait at the airport for a couple of hours until we arrive. We will meet up, get the rental car, go grocery shopping for a few supplies and then check in. I haven’t investigated where a good place to shop is, other than a Publix that is somewhat near our hotel. We’ll pack our swim suits in case we feel like swimming at the hotel pool, but might just get dinner and hang in the room.
Wednesday, March 30 Universal
As I said earlier, I love to plan trips and I have a motive to make the wait as short as possible to avoid pain, so I bought access to touring plans. After playing around with it, this is the schedule I came up with that has the least amount of line times while taking into account that I also don’t want to walk all over the place.
8-11 Despicable Me, Rip Ride Rocket, Transformers, Mummy, Simpsons, MIB, ET, Hogwarts Express to IOA
With the exception of DM those rides should all be less than 20 minutes in the morning. I will have the option of the single rider lines if the waits are longer than the program says it will be.
11-3 Lunch at Three Broomsticks, Dragon Challenge, Flight of the Hippograff, Triwizard Spirit Rally, HP & the FJ, Cat in the Hat, and Hogwarts Express back to Universal.
3-6
My 27 yo DD is a huge Harry Potter fan so we will spend the rest of our time exploring Diagon Alley and riding any rides we want to do again if the wait isn’t too long.
By this time it will be busy so I will use the single rider lines and rollator to get me through.
I explored getting express passes or staying at a Universal resort for one night, but my husband and I couldn’t wrap our heads around the cost. I understand why they need to make them somewhat expensive, cause if they weren’t everyone would get them and their effectiveness would be null and void. I once heard, and I don’t know how true it is, (so don't scream at me if its not) that Disney has a copyright on their Fastpass procedure so other parks can’t replicate it. Universal really has no other option, but to charge extra. I’ve read other people complain about the unfairness of Universal in doing that and favoring people with money, but perhaps there is something to that copyright thing and they don’t know how else to do it. They use a lot more single rider lines than Disney, so that helps too.
We’ll eat dinner off site and then head to hotel for an ice pack or soak in the hot tub before getting to bed.
Thursday, March 31, Islands of Adventure
This day we’ll just do opposite of the day before and start at IOA and enjoy the short lines in the morning there and then head to Universal in the afternoon.
8-11:30
Spider Man, Ripsaw, Barges, JP, FJ, Dragon Challenge, Hogwarts express to Universal
11:30-3
Lunch at Leaky Cauldron or Fast Food Blvd., Gringotts, Olivanders, Explore Diagon Alley, Knight Bus
3 – 6
Animal Actors 3:15 show, Rip Ride Rocket, Mummy, Gringotts, Hogwarts Express back to IOA
We’ll have dinner off-site again and then back to hotel for hot tub soak, ice pack and rest.
Friday, April 1 DHS/Universal
8-11:30
I haven’t secured my FPs yet, but I’m hoping for TSMM and TOT before 11:30 and Star Tours around noon. We’ll see what I’m able to get. I’ve been practicing and so far have not had a problem getting those times. The days I’ve been practicing for are not as busy as the days I’ll be going so that might make it more difficult.
TSMM (FP), GMR, R&RC (single rider), Voyage of the LM
11:30 – 2:30
TOT (FP), Star Tours (FP), Lunch APR at 12:30 for 50’s Prime Time, Muppetvision, IJ
2:30 - 4:30
– Hopefully catch a FP to R&RC or TOT (TSMM I will probably not be so lucky), Lights, Motors Action
4:30 – 6:30
Catch dinner off site and head to Universal to use our free day.
6:30 – 8:30
USF’s cinematic spectacular (or exploring HP areas if we didn’t get enough time before), Gringotts, Rip Ride Rocket, Simpsons
Head to hotel for ice pack
Saturday, April 2 MK
Hoping to make FP reservations for SM around 9:00, PP around 10:00, and SDMT around 11:00 (If SDMT is not available, then I’ll switch it to Spl M.) Then I’ll be able to catch some extra FP+ in the afternoons. I may not get SDMT and will be okay with that.
9-12
BL, PP (FP), HM, SM (FP), Winnie the Pooh, SDMT (FP), BTMRR, Spl. M
12-4
POC, 1:05 ADR Plaza Restaurant, JC, HM (again. My favorite!), Hall of Presidents, Dole Whip
4-6
Free time for shopping, fitting in extra FPs or non major rides with short lines
6-10
Dinner at Columbia Harbour House, IASW, Under the Sea, Wishes, MSEP
Head back to hotel for ice pack and bed.
Sunday, April 3
So sad. It’s time to go home.
Our flight leaves around 6AM so we need to check out at 4AM at the latest. I’m assuming traffic will not be bad at that hour and the lines at security won’t be either.
I know this seems like a lot crammed into our days, but keep in mind, we are not shoppers and we don’t care about characters so a lot of time that other people spend doing those things, we would be on to our next ride. Also, I will have to play it by ear depending on how I feel. The Wishes and MSEP were not even a consideration before the rollator so I'm excited to give it a try if I can.
It’s been so fun to plan this and play around with touring plans software! I will report after my trip to let you know how it goes doing the disabilities thing. I think more trip reports regarding that need to be written.
