The Quest For 15K & 18 FP+ ~ A Marathon Weekend 2016 PTR - TR Link, Page 18

[SarahDisney]

I don't really have time for full replies right now (darn Fridays), but I wanted to answer Stacy's question, which some of you may have been wondering and just not asked, because it's something I didn't really address.

I am curious as to why park hours play such a role in your vacation planning? Will you actually spend less/more days there depending on the hours? I've never actually given park hours a thought when planning a trip (although we usually travel in the summer where I know the park hours will be long...). Can you look at last years hours?

We know that we want (at least) 5 park days - at least one and a half days for MK, and 1 day for the other parks.
Mostly the issue is Saturday night. For us, it doesn't pay to go to the park unless we have 4-5 hours. Since we won't be getting to the park until after 7, the park would need to be open until at least 11, preferably 12. Last year the park closed at 10 with extra magic hours until 12. That would be perfect for us - we could arrive Tuesday night or Wednesday (still not sure which one), do parks Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then leave on Monday.
The problem is, for the November & December (maybe even October, I don't remember right now), Disney has been doing night EMH at MK on Wednesdays, not Saturdays. If they move it back to Saturday nights for January, then it's fine, but if not, we probably don't have enough time to do a park Saturday night. Which means we now need an extra park day.

When we went in February, our dates were dictated by airfare (it was like a $200 difference to fly an other days), and the few trips before that were situations where our dates were already determined and we had to find a way to make the parks work within the dates we had. This trip we have a bit more flexibility in our dates, so we want to choose our dates in a way that maximizes our park time.

Hopefully park hours will come out over the next few days and we'll be able to figure it out. Of course, they could change between when they come out and the trip, but as long as we have a preliminary idea, we can find a way to make it work.

 

[afwdwfan]

I reached my 5 miles on National Running Day (yes, apparently there is such a thing)

Wow... I guess I celebrated it by sitting on my butt.

Only about 1.1 miles left until I reach 10K! I really wasn’t expecting to reach 5 miles until at least July, so this is pretty cool. I think the cooler weather last week really helped – I do much better with weather in the 50s & 60s than I do with the warmer weather. I was already a bit slower yesterday, and that’s where I’m expecting my pace to be for the rest of the summer.

Not bad at all! Congratulations on hitting that 5 mile mark so early. Plenty of time to work on building up that extra 1.1 mi.

So, I was trying to distract myself one day last week by watching TV ... and I happened to see that Full House was on Nick@Nite, so of course, I watched. The first episode was Prom Night. A classic episode (really, they all are). And it's followed by the two-part season finale ... at Disney World! So of course I had to watch ... and Danny Tanner makes personalized plans for everyone! It felt like such a DIS moment.

There was nothing quite like the TGIF shows going to Disney World. Some of my all time favorite sitcom episodes ever. Yes, all Full House episodes were good. But the Disney World shows were just epic. It has been years since I've seen them.

I'm kind of looking forward to Fuller House too. I don't have Netflix anymore because I didn't like their content. (not enough current movies) I might consider subscribing again for at least a month or 2 to see that though.

Seriously, what do people do while waiting for park hours? I CAN’T HANDLE THE WAITING!!!

Just plan the best you can. I always get bit by them announcing the hours and then changing them a week or 2 before, so it really doesn't matter to me in the least whether they've announced the hours or not. You can't trust them!

 

[stacy~**]

I knew you had a reason on waiting for park hours and I can definitely see your logic! I would think the weekend hours would be extended with all the runners but you would know about that more than me! I hope they come out with the hours for you soon.

 

[Dis_Yoda]

That's great that you hit 5 miles at that pace when you still have 7 months to go until the races! You are doing to do great!

 

[SarahDisney]

Hey Sarah! I just noticed you started your trip report so I'm joining in. Congrats on hitting 5 miles! I loved how you said you felt like you were flying. I'm looking forward to hearing about your journey.

Hi!!
Thanks - it really was a great run. I'm usually very aware of my feet hitting the pavement (and the fact that I'm not breathing like I should), but there were times when I really just felt myself going, which is a really cool feeling.

You're doing fantastic with your running! You will be at the 10k distance before you know it.

Thanks! I'm really excited with my progress and I'm really looking forward to hitting the 10k distance.

I know Full House has a following but I am not one of them. Haha! I wouldn't mind watching this Disney episode everyone talks about but I don't care that much to seek it out.

I love Full House ... but I'm also a bit of a TV junkie. It's definitely a fun episode, especially because there's one scene where Scott Weinger, who does the voice of Aladdin and is also on the show, appears as Aladdin. It's one of the best inside jokes on a Disney TV episode.

Wow... I guess I celebrated it by sitting on my butt.

That's how I've celebrated it most of my life. So I totally get that.

Not bad at all! Congratulations on hitting that 5 mile mark so early. Plenty of time to work on building up that extra 1.1 mi.

Thanks! I was definitely excited to hit it so early ... especially because I'm hoping to do a half marathon in September 2016, so the sooner I hit 10k, the sooner I can start training for the half.

There was nothing quite like the TGIF shows going to Disney World. Some of my all time favorite sitcom episodes ever. Yes, all Full House episodes were good. But the Disney World shows were just epic. It has been years since I've seen them.

I really love all of the various shows going to Disney World ... but I think the Full House ones are my favorite. They're on TV occasionally, so I try to watch whenever they're on.

I'm kind of looking forward to Fuller House too. I don't have Netflix anymore because I didn't like their content. (not enough current movies) I might consider subscribing again for at least a month or 2 to see that though.

I actually have access to someone else's Netflix account ... so I get the benefits of Netflix without having to pay for it.
I'm kind of excited about Fuller House, but I'm also kind of nervous ... I watch Girl Meets World, and while I do like it, that's mostly because I'm an overgrown teenage girl. It's not that great as a Boy Meets World sequel. So I'm afraid of what will happen with Fuller House (although it does have the fact that it's not on Disney Channel working for it...)

Just plan the best you can. I always get bit by them announcing the hours and then changing them a week or 2 before, so it really doesn't matter to me in the least whether they've announced the hours or not. You can't trust them!

It's easier to plan a little when I have park hours ... even when they change, they usually extend the hours, so while it will affect crowds a bit and early ADRs, it generally helps me more than it hurts.
Like when they extend MK hours ... that's when I get all of my last seating BOG reservations!

I knew you had a reason on waiting for park hours and I can definitely see your logic! I would think the weekend hours would be extended with all the runners but you would know about that more than me! I hope they come out with the hours for you soon.

Princess weekend was a little different because that's already a medium-high crowd level. It's at the end of President's Week, which is vacation for a lot of public schools in NY and New England (that was actually when we took our family trip in 2000 - the school we were in had vacation then). Add the fact that Mardi Gras was also that week, and the runners ... it was a high enough crowd level that they needed longer hours.
On the flip side, they don't really need to extend hours that late just for a race because many of the runners will be asleep by then. Who wants to stay up until midnight when you have to get up obscenely early for a 5:30 AM race? They also probably don't want to keep the parks open too late the night before a race because they have to clean up after the park closes and start to set up for the race (I was actually surprised in February that MK was open until 1 the night before the half).
I'm hoping they do offer EMH on Saturday night, but ... as of right now it's not on the schedule. Then again, the January schedule currently has no EMH at all. They released a very sparse park hours calendar today.

That's great that you hit 5 miles at that pace when you still have 7 months to go until the races! You are doing to do great!

Thanks! I'm not wild about running during the summer, so I was glad to hit that milestone early, because I think it will help keep me going through the hard summer.

 

[Elevationist]

Seriously, what do people do while waiting for park hours? I CAN’T HANDLE THE WAITING!!!

Well, I don't know how well this would work with your MIA EMH issue... But what I did was I made all of my tentative plans based on the hours/EMH for the last week of November. And it worked perfectly. When the December hours came out, everything for my dates matched up to the end of November. Just a thought!

 

[SarahDisney]

Well, I don't know how well this would work with your MIA EMH issue... But what I did was I made all of my tentative plans based on the hours/EMH for the last week of November. And it worked perfectly. When the December hours came out, everything for my dates matched up to the end of November. Just a thought!

That's actually an awesome idea ... except that crowds/hours at the end of December (aka between Christmas & New Years) are very different than in January.
I could probably look at early December for ideas, though, and just figure hours might be a drop shorter in January. So thanks for the suggestion!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I'm joining I hadn't seen that you started a PTR!

I too can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards too with Mary Poppins. So I totally feel your sister.

 

[Elevationist]

Good news! I think so, anyhow. On the Disney Travel Agents portal, as of today they have removed the link to the January Hours PDF. I think that's a pretty good indicator that somebody goofed up on leaving those EMH blocks blank, and they are working on correcting it. That's my guess, at any rate.

 

[SarahDisney]

Good news! I think so, anyhow. On the Disney Travel Agents portal, as of today they have removed the link to the January Hours PDF. I think that's a pretty good indicator that somebody goofed up on leaving those EMH blocks blank, and they are working on correcting it. That's my guess, at any rate.

Yay! Thanks for the info!
I knew something was off with those hours, so it's good to know Disney has taken them down. I hope they put up the corrected hours soon!

 

[SarahDisney]

I'm joining I hadn't seen that you started a PTR!

Now you can keep track of all my plannings so that we can figure out if we'll be in the same place at the same time at any point (and maybe actually see each other this time ...)

I too can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards too with Mary Poppins. So I totally feel your sister.

I'm impressed. Not necessarily surprised, but definitely impressed!

 

[Elevationist]

Tell me how much you love me!

https://media.disneywebcontent.com/StaticFiles/ParkHours/WDWTravelAgent_January.pdf

Updated yesterday.

 

[SarahDisney]

Tell me how much you love me!

https://media.disneywebcontent.com/StaticFiles/ParkHours/WDWTravelAgent_January.pdf

Updated yesterday.

Yay! Thank you thank you thank you, you're the best!

(I mean, I already had the link from my special friend Google, but it's good to know the hours are updated!)

 

[Elevationist]

Yay! Thank you thank you thank you, you're the best!

(I mean, I already had the link from my special friend Google, but it's good to know the hours are updated!)

I figured you did, I could have just typed "Refresh the PDF link!" But that wouldn't have looked nearly as impressive!

 

[SarahDisney]

Booked!​

So … I had dreams last night about booking. Well, really, I had dreams last night about searching prices. One of which involved me waking up when I thought it was like 8:15 but it was really like 3:30 and package prices weren’t available yet. The other one was even weirder and involved what looked a bit like the old entrance to Disney California Adventure and a bunch of celebrities, including Derek Jeter and Debra Messing (but as Grace from Will & Grace, not as herself).
I finally woke up at 6:30ish, about 45 minutes before my alarm, and tried to go back to sleep … but couldn’t. So I grabbed my phone, looked up prices online, smiled, and then tried to go back to sleep. No dice. So I gave in, grabbed the computer, and went to work on spreadsheets.

I honestly thought booking would be easy as pie – the hotel we wanted was available for less than we had said we were willing to pay. So of course, it should be an easy decision, right? WRONG! Apparently when faced with the opportunity to actually book a trip we become very indecisive – do want a different hotel? Or a different number of nights? Making decisions and sticking to them is not exactly our strong suit.

So, what was the final decision?

That’s right, we’re headed back to Pop Century, our first ever Disney hotel, for the first time since 2008! It’s not AoA, which makes me sad, but we’ll be right across the lake and can enjoy (most of) the awesomeness of AoA.

And our dates are …


That’s 7 nights, 8 days. Our longest Disney trip ever ... so it better be our most fun!

We haven’t booked flights yet, but we’ll go down Tuesday afternoon or evening, do parks Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Monday, do breakfast at DTD on our last day, and leave that afternoon.

We ended up buying a package (we had originally planned to get tickets from Undercover Tourist) because we plan to do a morning mini-golf, which is included with the package and evened out the price.

So … that’s the basics. It’s way past my bedtime and I have to be up early tomorrow, so I’ll stop here, but stay tuned for more updates over the coming weeks and months.

 

[stacy~**]

Yay! How very exciting! It's getting real now (and your ticker is less than 200 days).

I think POP is a great choice. The proximity to AOA is such a nice bonus!

What a nice long trip.....yay! I was actually really surprised by this but am really thrilled for you guys. Especially since trips sound like they will be harder for Beth in the future having this long one will be so special. I still need to finalize our dates.

 

[afwdwfan]

The other one was even weirder and involved what looked a bit like the old entrance to Disney California Adventure and a bunch of celebrities, including Derek Jeter and Debra Messing (but as Grace from Will & Grace, not as herself).

Wow. You have some crazy dreams...

I honestly thought booking would be easy as pie – the hotel we wanted was available for less than we had said we were willing to pay. So of course, it should be an easy decision, right? WRONG!

It always seems so easy until you've got to actually make those tough decisions.

That’s right, we’re headed back to Pop Century, our first ever Disney hotel, for the first time since 2008! It’s not AoA, which makes me sad, but we’ll be right across the lake and can enjoy (most of) the awesomeness of AoA.

Looks like a good plan! I always like Pop, so you can't really go wrong.

We ended up buying a package (we had originally planned to get tickets from Undercover Tourist) because we plan to do a morning mini-golf, which is included with the package and evened out the price.

Makes sense! I'm glad things are coming together.

 

[KatMark]

Although I've removed my TR's, I'm still following my friends and stumbled across this. Saving my spot and be back later to read.

 

[KatMark]

Okay...I'm back and caught up. Love your intros, as always. And congrats on doing two runs at Disney. I've been that time of year and it is one of my favorite times weather wise and crowd wise (although I can't really say much about the water since I'm moving to Florida next year and will have to deal with the heat ALL the time).

for getting your room booked and at your very first resort you stayed at.

Lookingi forward to all of the plans.

 

[SarahDisney]

Yay! How very exciting! It's getting real now (and your ticker is less than 200 days).

Yup! It didn't really feel real until I could open up the MDE app on my phone and see that Pop Century reservation pop up!!
(Also, only around 200 days until Olivia comes home!)

I think POP is a great choice. The proximity to AOA is such a nice bonus!

I love Pop, so I'm excited to go back ... I just wish we were staying at AoA. Maybe we'll request a lake view so that I can look out my window and see AoA!

What a nice long trip.....yay! I was actually really surprised by this but am really thrilled for you guys. Especially since trips sound like they will be harder for Beth in the future having this long one will be so special. I still need to finalize our dates.

I'm really excited for the long trip. I've been hoping/planning to do the 8 days/7 nights thing for a few weeks now, but didn't want to mention anything in case it didn't happen. I'm really excited it worked out though. I would have gone for longer (Beth has almost the whole month of January off this year), but it would have been too expensive ... and I don't know what I'll be up to so I don't know how doable it would be for me.
But I'm hoping to do a really long (aka like 5 days) Disneyland trip in September ... so 2016 will be the year of the long Disney trip for me.
And you have a few months to finalize your dates!

Wow. You have some crazy dreams...

Yes. I do. But I knew that already ... this isn't even that high on the "Sarah's Bizarre Dreams" list.
I guess I watch too many "old" Yankees games (not that that's even possible) and too much Will & Grace (that one is possible).

It always seems so easy until you've got to actually make those tough decisions.

That's certainly true. I just wish decisions were easy.

Looks like a good plan! I always like Pop, so you can't really go wrong.

Thanks!
I'm glad to hear you like Pop! I haven't been to Pop in years, but the fact that other people like it and I remember liking it makes me excited. I was just hoping I could make it back to AoA ... and maybe get some of your pixie dust and get a Cars upgrade! I guess I'll just have to live without a Cars suite ... for now.

Makes sense! I'm glad things are coming together.

Thanks! It's really nice when things start to come together and work themselves out.
Although I can't take all the credit, the morning mini-golf was Beth's idea.

Although I've removed my TR's, I'm still following my friends and stumbled across this. Saving my spot and be back later to read.

Hi Kathy!
I recently heard about what happened, and I totally understand why people are staying away from DIS. I'll miss your TRs, but I'm glad you're here to follow along!

Okay...I'm back and caught up. Love your intros, as always. And congrats on doing two runs at Disney. I've been that time of year and it is one of my favorite times weather wise and crowd wise (although I can't really say much about the water since I'm moving to Florida next year and will have to deal with the heat ALL the time).

Thanks!
I went to Florida (non-Disney) for Memorial Day Weekend once ... I thought I was going to die of heat stroke. It turns out it was just a really bad sunburn and dehydration along with a stomach bug. My August Florida (also non-Disney) trip a few years ago wasn't quite as bad ... I just stayed inside most of the time because every time I opened the front door it was like walking into a block of humidity. So I'm going to go ahead and keep going to Disney in the fall and winter ... that's the only way I can handle the Florida weather!
Hopefully you can get acclimated to the weather once you're there ... hopefully it's not as bad once you're used to it!

for getting your room booked and at your very first resort you stayed at.

I'm pretty excited to be going back to my first ever Disney resort ... Pop will always hold a special place in my heart!

Lookingi forward to all of the plans.

Thanks for following along! Hopefully I'll have another update over the next week or so!