1 more day! Some Mother/Daughter Mischief: A Jan 2016 PTR

[kcpinwdw]

Hello Everyone!

My name is Casey!

This is my second PTR, following my double trip PTR http://disboards.com/threads/toddler-twins-take-another-trip-aug-sept-15-ptr-3-more-sleeps.3402421/

I have decided that I would like to take my daughter for a quick mother/daughter get away. We are looking to escape at the end of January for three nights. The reasons for this mini trip are many:
1) my husband is good with just one trip a year, while I can't seem to wait that long
2) my children are twins but are vastly different, and my son takes up about 90% of my parenting on a day to day basis. The princess tends to get the shaft.
3) we can do some girly things that the boys don't have as much interest in.

Here's the munchkin:

Sylvie age 3

Here is us sporting some custom Ts I made, from our trip in early September.


Next up: Selecting a time and a place

 

[kcpinwdw]

We just got home from a trip 8/28-9/5 but it's hard not have some plans in the works. When a certain magical agency released their labor day deals for 2016 I jumped on the chance and booked a week of CL at the Poly for next fall. Looking at that calendar for a WHOLE YEAR wait just seemed ridiculous. So I started dreaming of a little get-away, following the success of our three night trip last May.

I narrowed the dates down to three options: Nov 15th ish, mid January, or early May. I decided on January when the discount was released and didn't extend too far into spring. I have never been in January. I am looking forward to
1) relatively light crowds
2) colder weather

I think that without the oppressive heat we can get more done in the three days, and not feel as bad about not hanging out at the pool. The reason our Sept 2016 trip is CL is we plan to spend a LOT of time at the resort.

Picking a hotel

After booking CL for our big yearly trip I kind of have the idea of it stuck in my brain. I do like a little luxury. We can afford to spend a little more but I don't want to feel like I don't get good value for my money, so we are always looking for a bargain. I started by looking at Deluxes, wanting something near MK. Wilderness lodge popped up as a good option. I scoped it out from the monorail on our last trip and thought it looked like a great place to try, and I love the idea of boat transport to MK. Plus, the deal on CL was fantastic! So a little tweaking of my dates and we have a Club Level room booked at Wilderness Lodge.

Next up: planning park days and thinking about ADRs

 

[Trixie15]

Love the shirts you made! And you daughter looks like a sweetie pie.

 

[kcpinwdw]

Tickets and Park days

I am scoping out flights now though I havent purchased. Thinking we will fly in pretty early on a saturday, landing by 1130 or so, so we should be able to get 1/2 a park day in. Then full days sun and mon, leaving early on tuesday. We will use Magical Express and Disney transportation solely. So basically I need three day tickets.

My thought is though, with our big trip this fall, it will be worth it for me to get an Annual pass. The cost of the three day ticket plus the 8 day ticket is actually about ten bucks cheaper than an annual pass, (we do not typically hop), but factoring in Tables in Wonderland I should come out way ahead with the AP. But it doesnt seem worth it for the kid, so I will likely just get one myself.

I am thinking with the kid my options for park days are either
1) Epcot, MK, MK again
2) Epcot, MK, AK

Sorry DHS, not this time...
and i am pretty we will be doing the double MK option.

Next up ADRs

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Exciting to have another year with two trips planned!

 

[kcpinwdw]

Exciting to have another year with two trips planned!

I know! Looks like you have another one on the horizon too! I'm going to go check it out now

Good to "see" you again

 

[Gracefulskinny]

I know! Looks like you have another one on the horizon too! I'm going to go check it out now

Good to "see" you again

Haven't started the ptr for it. I'm waiting till I finish my current tr from May. Its a very short trip.

 

[kcpinwdw]

ADRS

Considering this is a "late" booking I was fully prepared to have to do some SERIOUS STALKING to get my ADRs in line. I love table service restaurants and even staying club level I want at least one sit down meal daily. And of course, characters!

I just couldn't believe it when literally everything I could want was available this weekend... I am talking 8am prepark CRT and BOG, dinners right at 6pm at every restaurant, even very popular ones. What is going ON? Maybe it means it will be slower than predicted? Is it because we are only a party of 2? Or maybe not everyone jumps on the room deals the day they are released like me!

Here's what I went with so far:

Saturday: Epcot: 6pm Akershus
Sunday: MK: 8am BOG
Mon: MK 11:15am Chef Mickeys

I am also thinking of adding a liberty tree tavern dinner one of the MK nights, I just love their food, yum yum. They were closed last visit and I missed it!

Extras

The next day I called BBB to check if there were reservations, and there were, no problem. So I booked one for sunday, and then traveled over and got CRT for lunch afterwards. But this is what we did last visit, so after thinking about it a day or two I decided we should try something new.... so I called and cancelled both, and instead booked A Disney Girl's Perfectly Princess Tea Party! I am so excited for this special event. The cost will be a bit more than BBB plus CRT (we don't buy dresses there, I sew them!), but looks like a pretty unique experience and not something I would be able to do during a regular family vacation. No problems getting reservations for this even though it is a very small venue... I am loving this Disney Magic!

In preparation I am going to have to make Sylvie an Aurora dress. Yippee!

 

[NJlauren]

How special to get some special mom daughter time! I love that and Disney too!

 

[Gracefulskinny]

I am talking 8am prepark CRT and BOG

Is it because we are only a party of 2?

More than likely.

so I called and cancelled both, and instead booked A Disney Girl's Perfectly Princess Tea Party!

Should be fun!

I was surprised at what was available as well. I got my choice of BOG times no issue.

 

[kcpinwdw]

that is exactly how I felt!

 

[kcpinwdw]

Day 1 Plan

I havent booked my flight yet so this is still possibly in flux, but I am leaning toward flying from our local airport with a layover, getting us in about noon. THe other option would be to drive about 3 hours to a bigger airport and fly direct. The direct option is cheaper (about $200 total), but the drive is long so it doenst save us time. Plus if I want to get there very early on saturday we would need to drive the night before and stay near the airport, which makes it a 4 night trip instead of three, and I really dont want to leave my other child for that long. When its the whole family a direct flight is fantastic, but I think with just the two of us it makes more sense to fly out locally. Now I just have to wait for a good flight sale for jetblue.

So, we plan on landing around noon and heading right to Magical Express. I think we will likely share one bag, and depending on how packing goes I will decide if we'll just carry on or check it. When we did Magical Express end of August I was pleasantly surprised when our bags arrived at our room at Beach Club just a few minutes after we did.

Check in at WL, and grab a snack in the CL lounge. If room is ready, great, we may have a little rest. If not we will grab the bus to Epcot. I really hate buses, but I dont think it will be too bad this time because NO DOUBLE STROLLER! Yippee!

Probably getting to Epcot by 3 or 4 pm. We will likely start with a character meet. Then if Sylvie is tall enough for Soarin' I will take her on that. She was 39.5" in shoes last month. We'll have to see if she makes 40" by travel date. Back up plan is Nemo. Then we will head to the world showcase, because we are having dinner at Akershus. If we are early we will pop into Mexico and ride the boat. If we are late we will do the boat ride after. Probably multiple times. I want to head back to the resort by 730 so we can get an early start the next day. IF she falls asleep in the stroller we can always take the monorail route home too.

 

[kcpinwdw]

Day 2

Good Morning, Sunday!

Early rising day! Let me just pop down to the CL lounge and get some coffee, and milk for the princess. Good, now we are ready to hit the Magic Kingdom!

I've changed my plans a few times for this day already. First I was thinking a classic princess day with BBB and CRT, etc. But we have done that before, and I am ALWAYS disappointed in my CRT meals. So the schedule is shaken up a bit!

We will start with an 8am BOG reservation. I have had breakfast here before and it was very good, much quieter than lunch, and well worth the price for some good down time in park for pictures. Sylvie doesn't eat anything so I will probably just order myself breakfast and she can chomp on a pastry or two.

I am anticipating having trouble getting A&E fastpasses since we are having such a short stay, so if they aren't available we will likely do that at RD. If we get fastpasses we will ride Peter Pan first instead. We will only pop on to a couple rides because we have to head to the Grand Floridian for the highlight of our morning:

My Disney Girl's Perfectly Princess Tea Party!

I am happy to be able to do this special event with my daughter. She is going to love it. But it starts at 1030 so we will pop on the monorail by 10 to make it around the right time. That doesn't leave us a lot of time at MK, but from my experience a lot can be done in a short amount of time early in the moming so I think it is worth going anyway.

I've been enjoying reading all the reviews I can find about the tea party. We will definitely be dressing up! I will post pictures of the princess gown I will make for it. Not sure if I should do a classic Aurora gown or something pink and more princess inspired.

After the tea party we will plan on heading back to WL for a few hours. Take a nap if needed.

We will go back to MK in the evening, around 4pm. I plan to have my FPs around this time. We will do ETWB, Under the Sea, and maybe meet some characters. I don't have dinner plans, but if Skipper's Canteen opens we may pop that into the schedule. It was an early morning and I don't know about nap, so we won't push it if the little lady is wearing out. If she seems good, though, we will make a night out of it. On previous trips it's my son's behavior/crankiness that is usually the rate-limiting step in Disney enjoyment in the evenings. And we can sleep in for Day 3 if we want! I'd love to watch Wishes, I haven't checked the schedule yet but I bet it's pretty early in January.

 

[Gracefulskinny]

I am anticipating having trouble getting A&E fastpasses since we are having such a short stay

I doubt that I will even bother trying for us.

 

[kcpinwdw]

Okay, all above plans are now changing... because I found new flights that seem to make a lot more sense and give us about 5 hours more park time. And under $180 a person including luggage! So now, we will fly in Saturday evening.

So Saturday night we will magical express to the resort and just have a light CL dinner and then go to bed!

Sunday will stay the same, MK day as above.

Monday we are now going to go to Epcot. New plan to follow!

Tuesday will now be a park day because we don't leave until 730... which means ME will pick us up around 4:30! So we will have another basically full MK day here.

I need to change around some ADRs, update my touring plans, then I will come back and update!

 

[Gracefulskinny]

Yay for more park time!

 

[JReneeW]

Following along! How exciting to have just a "girls trip!"

And you made those shirts in your first post? How? They're amazing!

 

[kcpinwdw]

And you made those shirts in your first post? How? They're amazing!

Thanks! they are appliqued. I draw the design on freezer paper, cut out each color, and use wonder-under to make the individual fabric pieces stick to the shirt, then zig zag stitch them on. I have some instructions at makeitwithmagic.com, though not for those particular shirts. My old trip report has a lot more ones I have made, but I think I deleted the link from my signature??

 

[kcpinwdw]

Okay, here's updated days..

DAY 1 arrival day, will just check in and go to bed
DAY 2 Is our MK and princess Tea day, and will stay as above.

and new plans for DAY 3

Originally we had a MK day planned for this Monday, because it was our last full day, last park day, and no other choice. But I wasn't loving the idea of MK on a Monday, plus it isn't super recommended (though the crowd calendars seem to vary very widely for this day, more than I have seen before). Now we will make this day an Epcot day! Touring plans says it will be a busy day even at Epcot (6/10), but easyWDW has the day as a 3/10 with epcot in green.

I love Epcot!

I had no problem changing my Akershus reservation to this day instead. I even had my choice of meals at great times. I wonder if the increased availability is related to Disney shutting down the dining websites? Regardless I am a happy camper. Here's my touring plan for the day so far:

Up naturally in the morning (guessing around 7am). Head to Epcot for RD.
Start our day meeting characters at the Character Spot. Maybe we can be first! We did not try on our last trip and we were the third family waiting (in fact we did a starbucks run on our way), it was pretty cool to see the characters come out and greet the family ahead of us. If it's a crazy day I'll have a FP anyway.

Then we will head to Nemo and also do Turtle talk. After that we will plan on Figment and Spaceship Earth. Then if there is time we will pop onto Living with the Land, otherwise on to lunch. We have 11:35 at The Garden Grill.

Back to the resort after lunch for a break, nap if needed. If not needed we may just hang around. Depends on the weather. But 4 hours or so of flexible time in here.

Then back to Epcot. Plan on one ride before dinner, maybe FP for Soarin' if Sylvie is tall enough. She was 39" in her shoes on our last trip. So she could be 40" by January! We will see! If not tall enough we will walk the world showcase a bit. She loves the boat ride in Mexico.

Dinner reservations at Akershus at 5:15. I am still hopeful with all the Norway changes, eventually the great A&E will show up there! After dinner we will mosey along the showcase depending on crowds and how tired we are. I would love to stay for IllumiNations, as I have never seen it! We just never seem to make it that late on our Epcot days, or it was rained out when we planned to. I am considering the dessert party once it opens too. 9pm is late though so maybe not. Wishes is at 8pm over at MK so it may be good to go back and watch from the hotel.

 

[NJlauren]

Adding park time with a flight change is always nice!

I really am loving reading your plans, I can't wait till my daughter is a little older and I can fit in a Mommy daughter trip!

As for A&E, give it a try and try for one at a time so you can possibly get over lapping times 5-6 and 515-615... That's what we did and it worked perfectly. @Gracefulskinny tip could work for your March trip too