“How Much Magic Can We Fit into One Day?” ~ A December 2014 One Day Magic Kingdom Trip Report

[tinkfan160]

Introduction

Hello! After lurking on the Dis and reading trip reports all the time I decided to try my hand at my own. I lurked on the boards for quite a while before making an account, so I guess I just have to work my way up to doing things! This report shouldn’t be too long since it is just covering one day at the Magic Kingdom and a brief trip to Downtown Disney the next day, but I thought it would be a good way to dip my toes into writing a trip report. Before I get too much into the trip, I guess I will introduce myself a little more and the other people who will be found in this report.

My name is Chelsea. I’'m 22 (almost 23) and a self-proclaimed Disnerd! I have always loved Disney, but instead of my love disappearing the older I get I think it is growing! My favorite princess is Belle and my favorite non-princess is Tinkerbell (hence my username). I have however, recently developed a love for the newest queen in the Disney family. Despite Frozen being a little overwhelming, I love Elsa and the movie. This may have something to do with my previous love of Idina Menzel though! I don’'t really have a favorite non-face character, but I do find Marie from the Aristocrats to be particularly adorable. My first experience with Disney was at the age of 4 during the time that Barbie made appearances at Epcot. We were in Florida visiting my grandparents and took a 2 day trip to Epcot and the Magic Kingdom. We stayed at Port Orleans Riverside, although back then it was still Dixie Landing. I don’'t remember the trip, but I have seen photos and to make it simple, I was horrified of just about everything! I was scared of all of the characters…even the face characters. Needless to say, our trip to see Barbie wasn’t too successful. After that it was some time before we went again. However, we have gone to Disney in some capacity several times. As an only child with a Disney loving mom and dad, vacation choices were pretty simple. In December 2002, we did 3 park days combined with a 4 day cruise on the Wonder. We stayed at Caribbean Beach. This was a trip that my dad had promised we would go on when I turned ten and I didn’t let him forget it. We were on the ship for New Year’s Eve, which was awesome! So technically, this trip spanned two years. Our next trip was in December 2004. This was a week in the parks and we spent Christmas at Disney. For this trip we stayed All Star Movies. Clearly we enjoy staying on property! From there we kind of took a little break from Disney. We did a one day trip to Epcot while visiting my grandparents as they had never been there, but off the top of my head I can’'t remember when this was. We also did a day trip to Magic Kingdom in 2007 while we were visiting my grandparents during Spring Break to meet up with my best friend and her family who were there for the whole break. Finally in 2008, we returned for a longer trip. We did Spring Break with my best friend and her family. We stayed at Pop Century and while it was fun, we learned that they had a different vacation style than us, which wasn’t always fun. From there other than visiting Downtown Disney a couple of times, we didn’t return for a full trip as a family until July 2013. I had done a day trip to Disneyland with my aunt while visiting California, and even though I enjoyed it – it just wasn’t the same to me. We worked the trip around my Dad’'s birthday. This was a new time to visit for us, but we loved it. We also discovered our favorite resort, Port Orleans French Quarter. I lurked on here a lot prior to this trip, but finally joined officially after we got home. Now I am a daily reader of the boards, I comment on occasion, but I still do a lot of lurking! Well now that you know a little about our history with Disney, I will briefly introduce the other members of this trip report.

On his birthday with Wreck it Ralph and Vanellope!

Bill (who I will refer to as Dad): My father is a 53 year old child! He is my partner in crime and even though both of my parents love Disney, he and I have a different level of devotion than my mom does. If she wasn't around to keep us thinking rationally, we would probably be at Disney at least once every year, if not more! He’'s a big, kind of intimidating guy who is constantly told he never looks happy, but once you get him on Disney property he’'s like a little kid again. I know he was at Disney World at least once when he was younger, but he didn’t come from a Disney obsessed family like the one we have. I’'m not sure if he has a favorite character, but my mom and I like to place him somewhere between Goofy and Grumpy, so he has a lot of shirts with them on it!

Modeling a nice Olaf hat!

Ann (who I will refer to as Mom): As previously mentioned, my mom loves Disney, but is a lot more rational than my dad and I. Eventually, she usually gives into our shenanigans, but she doesn’t make it easy! Similar to my dad, she visited the parks a few times when she was younger, but didn’t have the same enthusiasm in her family either. She loves Eeyore and has recently developed a love for Olaf. I like to tease her that those two characters couldn’t possibly be any more different.

With Prince Charming at 1900 Park Faire

Jan (who I will refer to as Grandma): My grandma, who is 77, has not been to the Magic Kingdom since the 1970s when my mom and uncle were little. In fact, she still has part of one of the ticket books for the rides that she showed me. She did visit Epcot with us quite a few years ago and has been to Downtown Disney, but that’'s all. Unlike the rest of us, she does not share our Disney enthusiasm. She likes it, and I will spoil the trip report a little and say that she did enjoy this trip, but she doesn’t seem to understand what we like so much and I’'m still not entirely sure she gets it even after going. I don’'t know if she has any favorites, but the only ride priorities she mentioned were the Teacups and Dumbo.

If you’ve read this first part…...thank you! I’'m a little nervous to write this, since I've read so many great reports, but I guess everyone has to have a first! Even though this is only a trip report for a day trip, I was surprised at how much we accomplished given the time of year, so I thought it would be fun to show others what can be achieved in such a short period of time! My next post will include where the idea for this trip came from and from then on I will try and break the day up into pieces. I’ve never posted with pictures, but I know there is a limit so that might also determine how I break things up.

 

[tinkfan160]

Well, I see that my first post had some views so I will keep posting! This post will just talk a little bit about how we decided to attempt a crazy one day trip during one of the busiest times of the year!

Where did this trip come from???

This trip came from the basis that my dad would be joining us on the trip we had been making to Florida over winter break for the last few years. My grandpa got sick in 2010 and he and my grandma were unable to travel alone to Florida, where they escape Michigan for the winter months. As a result, my mom and I began traveling down with them and then flying home. Even after he passed away in 2012, we continued to this and my college schedule allowed me to stay with my grandma a little longer than my mom; however my dad had been unable to go with us. These short trips to Florida usually included some small dose of Disney as she only lives about 45 minutes away, usually trips to Downtown Disney for shopping or the Disney outlet store. In 2012, we went to Disney for New Year’s Eve and watched Wishes from the boat dock at the Grand Floridian with my grandma and her Disney loving friend. In 2013, I managed to get last minute dinner reservations for my grandma and I at 1900 Park Faire after my mom left for home. We visited Downtown Disney and then road the monorail around prior to our reservations. That is where this trip was born. While we were riding around, my grandma mentioned to me that she wouldn’t mind visiting the Magic Kingdom again since it had been so long since she’d been there. I was hesitant to take my grandma to a character meal with face characters as I wasn’t sure how she would react to them, but when Prince Charming came to our table and I saw tears in her eyes, I knew we needed to think seriously about making a trip to Magic Kingdom happen.

I'll throw in a few pictures from our little day trip just for fun!

I told my parents what she had told me as soon as I got home, so the idea was planted around a year ahead of time. We could have done the trip with just my mom, grandma, and I, but my mom and I both agreed it wouldn’t feel right without my dad. So, once we knew he would be able to get the time off to go with us this year everything took off. Even though she lives close, we knew she would want to see the nighttime festivities at the park so a mid-day break would probably be needed. This led us to staying a night on property. I priced trips with different hotels and even though we loved Port Orleans French Quarter on our last trip, it just wasn’t reasonable for a one night stay where we would hardly be in the room. In the end, we chose All Star Sports, which would allow us a reasonable price and with the handicap accessible rooms it would have a better shower for my grandma and a king size bed for my dad’s comfort (6’4” in a double bed doesn’t work too well!). I looked a crowd charts to pick the dates; we knew it would be busy either way given the time of year, but I wanted to try and pick reasonably. In the end, we decided to go to Magic Kingdom on Saturday, December 27th and spend the night and hit Downtown Disney on the 28th before heading back to my grandma’s house. Here's the wonderful official Disney countdown right after booking!

I was thrilled to stay on property, because I knew we would get Magic Bands. When were there in 2013 they were still testing them and our room had touch to enter, but you just used your card. I don’t think anyone understood my excitement about a rubber bracelet, but I was far too excited the day that I got the box in the mail! After receiving them, I promptly used glitter nail polish (a tip I found here on the boards) to decorate mine! I guess I didn't take a picture of mine after I decorated it, but here is the magical day they arrived!!!

We also got to have our first experience with Fastpass+. In all honesty, we never used regular Fastpass very much when were in the parks, but I knew we had a short amount of time and needed to use it wisely. We booked past 60 days, so I was able to book make reservations as soon as we booked. I booked them for Mickey (10-11 AM), Tinkerbell (11:10-12:10 AM), and Journey of the Little Mermaid (5:30-6:30). I had really hoped to get one for Anna and Elsa, but knew it wouldn’t be realistic. I constantly checked, but nothing came up. I waited until 30 days hoping something would open up, but it didn’t. As a result, I had ended up cancelling my existing times and could only rebook them in times that overlapped with everyone’s times. Despite this challenge, you’ll learn that it didn’t really matter in the end!

My final priority for the trip was lunch at Be Our Guest. I found the thread on here about how to make a Fastpass reservation and followed the directions. I never did get an email, so I was glad I came across the thread. Due to our Fastpasses and wanting to see parades, I stayed up until 2 AM on 27 days out to get our reservation. After refreshing a few times, I got just the time window I wanted, 1:45-2:15. I had to document my excited over getting these reservations...please note the time on the screen shot! I do have to clarify that I did this while laying in my bed and went to sleep promptly afterwards!

From there it was just a count down. We would leave home to head to Florida on December 20th and would arrive sometime on the 21st. The drive down was uneventful and we had a great few days opening up my grandma’s house and celebrating Christmas, but I was more than ready to head to my favorite place on earth! The days prior to going also included showing my grandma Frozen since all she knew about it was as she said “That Let It Go song that I’m tired of hearing is from that right?” and me and my dad constantly checking wait time apps to try and create a mental game plan. We did this often at the same times without even mentioning it and then had to talk about it, which drove my grandma nuts! She even told my mom she thought we were being a little ridiculous and maybe we were too obsessed. Thankfully my mom defended us and said there were worse things we could be obsessed with. This kind of led me to think my grandma wasn’t really excited to go, but fortunately I was proven wrong. Finally it was Friday night! My dad and I decided that we should leave my grandma’s no later than 6:30, so we could go to the hotel and check in and make to MK at a reasonable time for an 8:00 opening. So we went to bed with alarms set.

Would we set off as planned??? Stay tuned to find out!

 

[abarriger]

I love short trip reports! my partner and I took a very similar Disney trip three years ago: we stayed at Pop and did a marathon day at MK. (We opened the park, stayed till closing, and had a fp lunch at BOG too!) We had an amazing time and have been back each year since... Last year we added one night and this year we're up to three nights and two park days We have family in the Florida area-- like your grandma, my partner's parents are beginning to settle in Florida (they're starting out spending part of the year there but hope to retire there eventually) so it makes these trips feasible for us-- Disney wasn't something we really considered before.

Excited to hear how much you can cram into your day! I know we managed a lot!