Oregonians Onward to Orlando - December 2016 PTR

[ociana]

Oregonians Onward to Orlando

​

Welcome to our first Pre-Trip report, but far from our first visit with the mouse. As a small child, I fell in love with Disneyland as my happy place and I have treasured the opportunity to share that love with my own children. While not as smitten as I am, my boys enjoy their Disney trips and both agreed that they want the final epic vacation of their childhood to be to WDW!

Who we are:

Pictured here devouring the Kitchen Sink on our 2011 WDW visit are (clockwise from left) DH Aaron, DS 18 Timothy, myself (Angela), and DS 16 Sebastian. Yes, both boys have Disney sidekick names and yes, that is intentional.

We have only been to WDW twice, and technically the first visit does not count. We were in Florida to visit with my grandfather on a whirlwind 3 day trip and spent one unplanned, ridiculously hot and humid day at the Magic Kingdom. So our one and only REAL visit was in October 2011 when we spent 10 fabulous days visiting WDW and Universal. That said, we have made numerous trips to Disneyland over the years, typically canceling Christmas at home every other year and using the time and money for a Disneyland visit instead.

What we are doing:

(Yes, this is a Disneyland photo, but it's so pretty!)

This time we will be visiting the parks for a mere 4 days, one per park, and then two days over at Universal before embarking on an Eastern Caribbean cruise! We arrive on December 10th, switch to Universal on the 15th and board the cruise ship on the 17th. We also get a bonus night in Orlando on the 23rd before leaving for home Christmas Eve morning.

I will go into more planning details in the next post and would love any tips and advice those of you who are more seasons WDW travelers have to share as I go through my more detailed plans.

 

[ociana]

What kind of travelers are we:

Food, ride, food, ride, ride, food.... Our family is a combination of foodies and ride junkies! We never miss a rope drop or park close when we are at Disney and are quite proud to say that we have successfully ridden Space Mountain 6 times on a jam packed Christmas Day at Disneyland (along with lots of other rides). We were masters of the old "take a FP and come back whenever" system, so the new FP+ may be our greatest travel planning gauntlet yet. On the food side of things, we fit into a weird middle zone between cheap eats and signature dining that can sometimes be tough to pinpoint. We are food snobs when it comes to flavor and ingredient quality, but love the more relaxed atmosphere that comes with a local diner or pub. When we visit Disney parks we tend to book a blend of restaurants that help satisfy our desire for high quality, casual dining.

Bring on the Details!

First up, our park days. As much as I have read to try and avoid the extra hours days (I always forget the right acronym for these), those extra hours tend to be very handy for us in our style of park visit so we went ahead and matched up our schedule to the days with extra hours and skipped the park hopper option. This simplifies travel and helps us tackle the 4 parks in the 4 days we have to work with.

• Sunday 12/11: Hollywood Studios
• Monday 12/12: Animal Kingdom
• Tuesday 12/13: Epcot
• Wednesday 12/14: Magic Kingdom

Second, we are staying at Port Orleans Riverside in a Garden View room. Our last visit we got an amazing discount at the Dolphin that made it cheaper than the value resorts, but apparently they have changed their pricing structure and they are now more comparable to deluxe pricing. Originally I had booked us for the All Star Movies resort, but the discount released earlier in the month made POR accessible to us for our budget...a whopping $126 more for the whole stay!

 

[ociana]

Food Glorious Food

We booked our trip after the 180 day mark, so I was worried I would not be able to pull off the dining reservations I wanted. Luckily, by using the reservation finder text alert and being persistent at searching for openings I have assembled a pretty dang good dining schedule, if I do say so myself. Despite the pride with which I am presenting my plan, feedback is encouraged!!

Saturday

• Dinner at Flying Fish

Sunday

• Breakfast at POR food court
• Lunch at Mama Melrose
• Dinner at 'Ohana

Monday

• Breakfast at POR food court
• Lunch at Tiffins
• Dinner at Morimoto's

Tuesday

• PPO Breakfast at Garden Grill
• Chefs de France Lunch
• No Dinner (plan LOTS of Epcot snacking)

Wednesday

• Breakfast at The Wave
• No Lunch (MK snacking)
• Dinner at the Skipper Canteen

Bonus Meal: The night we return from our cruise we are booked for the Hoop Dee Doo Review. This was a big highlight our last trip, so we are super excited to go again.

 

[Steppesister]

Angela, I love you already. Why?

1) You are also from Oregon. We live in Salem.

2) You are my perfect kind of mix between cheap eats and Food Snob.

3) You know how to milk a Disney system to perfection; we too never miss a RD or a closing. It's how we roll.

Anxious to see your plans pan out!

I'll be there in 43 days, and also have a PTR going if you're interested.

Ciao,

Liesa

 

[ociana]

Angela, I love you already. Why?

1) You are also from Oregon. We live in Salem.

2) You are my perfect kind of mix between cheap eats and Food Snob.

3) You know how to milk a Disney system to perfection; we too never miss a RD or a closing. It's how we roll.

Anxious to see your plans pan out!

I'll be there in 43 days, and also have a PTR going if you're interested.

Ciao,

Liesa

Wow...I just got done skimming through the letter "N" of your PTR and am thoroughly impressed by your trip planning and storytelling. This PTR will be a far cry from the Lord of the Rings style epic novel you have brewing!

We are also in Salem and I bet that means that you understand our food preferences perfectly when I describe it as "Word of Mouth".

Pleasure to meet you and I look forward to reading more about your upcoming adventure. We loved being at WDW in October and found it to be perfect weather for visiting Florida. It should be a great trip.

 

[ariane37]

Joining! Love the Space Mountain pic from your last trip

Boy you're in for some changes since your last trip! I don't mean that in a bad way lol. But yes, FP+ will be one of them.......not my favorite change. You can learn to love it though and you can get it to work in your favor but it may take some finagling
Your dining plans look good! We've done HDDR once and loved it. DH and I just returned yesterday from an adults only trip and tried Skippers - he thought it was just ok but I really enjoyed my meal. We also did GG breakfast for the first time last November, LOVED it, and are doing it again this November. Look forward to hearing more of your plans!

 

[ociana]

Joining! Love the Space Mountain pic from your last trip

Boy you're in for some changes since your last trip! I don't mean that in a bad way lol. But yes, FP+ will be one of them.......not my favorite change. You can learn to love it though and you can get it to work in your favor but it may take some finagling
Your dining plans look good! We've done HDDR once and loved it. DH and I just returned yesterday from an adults only trip and tried Skippers - he thought it was just ok but I really enjoyed my meal. We also did GG breakfast for the first time last November, LOVED it, and are doing it again this November. Look forward to hearing more of your plans!

Thanks for joining! We rode Space Mountain so many times that trip that the guys practiced their timing to pull off that photo...I expect we will have similar ones this time around.

Glad you enjoyed GG breakfast, it is actually the one that I was least sure of in the plans. I figured that it is worthwhile for the PPO so we can get to soarin nice and fast.

 

[ociana]

Slow Wait to Fast Pass

It's been a bit since my last update because of a lovely staycation week for my non-Disney obsession, World of Warcraft. (Yes, I am an adult geek!) Despite my copious hours at a computer screen, I was busy slaying internet dragons and my mind was far from the Magic Kingdom. Now that I am back at work, trip planning is back on my mind and I am starting to realize that I am in a lull before fast pass selection can begin. This, of all the planning steps, has me the most nervous about it's impact on our travel plans. As you can see from the photo, we had mastered the old school fast pass system. Most evenings from about 5-close were spent deciding which rides we wanted to go back to with our passes and giving away the ones that we would not even get a chance to use. We had a solid system of walking on rides and collecting passes in the morning, watching shows or enjoying a leisurely lunch in the early afternoon and then back around to spend our passes into the night. Heck, just look at the date on the pass in the photo to demonstrate our mad skills - that was at California Adventure on Christmas Day! They were packed and we rode things so many times we couldn't keep track, never waiting more than 20 minutes. How do we come down from that to the FP+ selections that we get to make for this trip? Is it really going to throw us for the planning loop that I am anticipating??

I am not going into this blindly and have done a bunch of FP+ research to start figuring out a plan to ease the pain. I read the post about using unlinked tickets at the kiosk in the park to get extra passes when you arrive and bought a set of tickets on ebay for $20 to use that nifty trick. I also strongly considered trying to snag a Be Our Guest PPO reservation so that we do not have to waste a FP+ reservation on the mine train, but the food does not look interesting and I am doubting my ability to even find an opening at this point. The good news is that our family is perfectly happy to ride single rider anywhere we can, so we do not have to fight for FP+ on those rides, but there are still going to be some hard choices to work through for which rides we want to shoot for. Here is my tentative plan:

Hollywood Studios

1. Star Tours
2. Rockin Roller Coaster
3. Tower of Terror

Animal Kingdom

1. Dinosaur
2. Expedition Everest
3. Nemo Show (loved this show last time)

Epcot

1. Frozen
2. Mission: Space
3. ??

Magic Kingdom

1. Mine Train
2. Big Thunder
3. Space Mountain

Thoughts? The safari didn't really interest us at Animal Kingdom, which is why it is not on our list, and on our last visit we mostly just rode Expedition Everest about three billion times in the single rider line. For MK, we can do without Peter Pan and I am banking on less Splash Mountain demand since it is December for our visit. Anyone have good tips for pulling off FP+ magic, beyond the basic advice of booking the second the window opens. I assume we should book in order of most difficult to get and not chronologically, yes? So Frozen> Mine Train> Big Thunder> Space> the rest....

My DS Sebastian thanks you for any help you can provide for his ride junkie needs!

 

[Steppesister]

Wow...I just got done skimming through the letter "N" of your PTR and am thoroughly impressed by your trip planning and storytelling. This PTR will be a far cry from the Lord of the Rings style epic novel you have brewing!

AWwww, shucks. I just enjoy writing a lot, and especially on my favorite subject... Disney trips. Definitely an outlet for me. I'm so glad you're reading along- let us all know when you're caught up and join in!

We are also in Salem and I bet that means that you understand our food preferences perfectly when I describe it as "Word of Mouth".

Actually, while I've heard a lot about that place, I've never been! True story! I need to change that! Wanna meet up sometime and talk trips? PM me if you might be interested.

Pleasure to meet you and I look forward to reading more about your upcoming adventure. We loved being at WDW in October and found it to be perfect weather for visiting Florida. It should be a great trip.

I really think it will be. Just hoping no hurricanes, no sicknesses, and no missed or delayed flights!

 

[ariane37]

Your FP selections look fine Some that you have listed you won't actually need a FP for, but that's just one of the "things" about FP+.......as for booking them in any order, not so sure it'll matter. I've never had trouble getting what we wanted but I'm usually pretty flexible with times. Maybe do your Epcot day first for Frozen?? Right now that seems to be the hardest to get, followed by 7DMT which is becoming a tad easier. Splash should definitely have same day FP's left for after you use your first 3; we were there 8/27-8/31 and at around 2:00, Splash
had FP available for 9-10 that night. If there was availability during one of the hottest months of the year, should be in Dec!
And now a moment of silence for legacy FP