10 Nights, 9 Days, 2 Birthdays and 1 Magical May 2014 Vacation! **Complete 6-10**

[kansasdisneygal]

Your plans sound excellent!! How fun that you guys will be able to have a date night!!! Do we have to start talking about the last day??

 

[anniebabymu]

Oh man... I hate working three night shifts in a row! The last two nights I've gotten the pleasure (ughhhhh...) of being the triage nurse in our Welcome Center. Makes for a SUPER long night! But it did allow me to play around on Touring Plans and make some personalized plans for us!

So, I'm hitting the hay to gear up for my last shift... but then I'm off until Thursday night so you can bet I'll be sharing all those plans with you guys and writing responses to all of you

Doing the personalized touring plans had me curious if any of you had ever used TP.com to make your own? And if you did, how accurate were the wait times?? And to you lurkers out there... I'd love to hear from you too!

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[anniebabymu]

Ahhh!! Double post! My phone was apparently going crazy when it told me the first post didn't post!

 

[blueangel2]

Oh man... I hate working three night shifts in a row! The last two nights I've gotten the pleasure (ughhhhh...) of being the triage nurse in our Welcome Center. Makes for a SUPER long night! But it did allow me to play around on Touring Plans and make some personalized plans for us!

So, I'm hitting the hay to gear up for my last shift... but then I'm off until Thursday night so you can bet I'll be sharing all those plans with you guys and writing responses to all of you

Doing the personalized touring plans had me curious if any of you had ever used TP.com to make your own? And if you did, how accurate were the wait times?? And to you lurkers out there... I'd love to hear from you too!

Thanks in advance guys!

My dh and I used TP.com on our first trip and I don't believe we waited for more than 15 min on any ride the entire trip. I remember commenting the entire time that "wow, only a 8 min wait, just like it said." At that time the premade plan for touring with out kids was perfect for us. I am using them again, but I am doing personalized plans. Our longest wait so far will be the mine train if its open, at 24 minutes, but I think that is also taking in to account that we will ride it twice for child swap.

 

[anniebabymu]

My dh and I used TP.com on our first trip and I don't believe we waited for more than 15 min on any ride the entire trip. I remember commenting the entire time that "wow, only a 8 min wait, just like it said." At that time the premade plan for touring with out kids was perfect for us. I am using them again, but I am doing personalized plans. Our longest wait so far will be the mine train if its open, at 24 minutes, but I think that is also taking in to account that we will ride it twice for child swap.

Awesome!! I can't wait to hear how it works for you this trip with the personalized plans!! And now... I must get to bed or I'm going to nod off mid-shift or worse, my drive home

 

[AprilRenee]

We also used touring plans for our first trip (2008?) and we also never waited more than 15 minutes!! I LOVE them. But we used the premade plan too. I just saw a few days ago that you can create your own with their software and I'm super excited to try it! I'm a big believer in their system. We've used modified versions of their plans on all of our trips with great success.

 

[STLMickeyMom]

we've never used tp.com but now i'm excited to try to out and see how it works for you guys. might have to give it a shot!

 

[anniebabymu]

I got an unexpected early night off of work! Since I slept all day, now I'll probably be up all night... blah! But now that gives me some time to play on here!

For day 8 why don't you do MK in the morning, hop to HS around noon when MK gets busy, use your FP+ there, then at dinner time go to ohana and then back to MK for evening. It doesn't take THAT much time to hop over to HS and then there will be a bus directly back to the poly from HS so getting to dinner will be easy. I think there are buses from MK to the other parks. But if not, you can take the monorail to Epcot and then the boat to HS.

That could be a possibility, we'll have to play it by hear how the rest of the week goes! Our plan is to head back to Pop every afternoon so our oldest can swim and the youngest can nap. But Harper will be turning 3 and a nap might not actually happen! So if she's refusing to nap and isn't a beast at the end of the day with no nap, this is a great solution!

And I think you should be able to make separate FP+ reservations for your in laws. I mean you can do different rides I would think you can also do different parks. As long as that person has all 3 in the same park.

I was thinking... if I can't do it from my MDE, if I log into hers maybe it will work to change theirs! I guess we'll have to play around and try!

Yay for date night at Disney!!

I am sooooooo excited!

Free choice days are my favorite days at Disney. Every time we leave our last day open to decide on while on our trip. And that's always my favorite day! Haha
FP+ kinda makes that hard, but I think if you decide the night before and make your FP+ choices then you'll probably be ok.

That will probably work. Since we're not going to try to cram in as many rides we can, and probably taking time to character hunt on those days we won't have to be married into a certain time slot for the big ticket rides and can take whatever is available!

Plans sound great! I wish I could have a date night while we are there, unfortunately there is only the three of us, so we just bring tag-along with us.

Thanks! Yeah... that stinks! But at least your tag-along doesn't wear diapers Ha ha!

Commenting on Hollywood Studios day

Hollywood Studios is our favorite park. There is really nothing at this park we do not like (although the stunt show is close for me). I also think that with this park more than any other you need a plan. This is because alot of this park is shows and they are only at certain times.

Our touring plan for DHS usually look like this:

Rope Drop
Star Tours
Rock N Roller Coaster
Tower of Terrer
Indiana Jones - 11:15am
Lunch
Beauty and the Beast - 1pm
Voyage of the Little Mermaid
Disney Jr - 2:20pm
Toy Story Mania
Great Movie Ride
Lights Motor Action Stunt Show - 4:10pm
Muppet Vision 3d
Dinner at 50's Prime Time
Fantasmic

Normally we do not do Fantasmic(it is just not something we enjoy) but I am planning it for our September trip for two reasons:

1) We have newbies coming with us and I do not want to decide for them whether they like it or not
2) I plan to get the Glow Ears and they work with Fantasmic

Your Hollywood Studio days sound wonderful! I played around with a personalized plan on Touring Plans that I hope works out. It seems we will be able to get most of the stuff done that we'd like, but if not... hopefully we can make it back the next day! We didn't see Fantasmic our last trip and it's still kind of up in the air for this trip. I really liked it, but it at points in the show it scared my then 4 year old... so I'm thinking it will probably do the same to my 3 year old! Now, if my in laws want to see it I'll just have to try it out and if it scares them take them out!

A date night sound fun! I'm hoping that we will get to experience that one night on our trip...and my parents can do their own thing on another night.

I can't wait! I've been wanting a night in Epcot kiddo free forever! So glad my in laws were on board! Ha ha! And it might be nice for us to get away from them on a different day so they can do their thing... 11 1/2 solid days with them might be a little much to handle

Two days not completely planned...I bet you are I'd be so frustrated

Oh you know it! A Type A Personality nightmare!

A date night, you two are such lucky ducks! Someday, maybe we cant talk my parents into going and giving us a date night! Someday!

That would be awesome if you could! Not that we don't love our children... it is nice to get away every once in awhile! And by Day 9 of our trip, I might need a little booze. Ha ha!

I think you might be happy that days 8 and 9 are kind of uncertain when you get there. You just never know what little corner of the "world" you may want some more time. For longer trips its kind of nice to have some time to go back and do other things you may have missed or want to do again.

That is exactly the reason I'm looking forward to our long trip! With our other 2 being 7 days I felt like there was still sooooo much I wish we could have done or devoted more time to!

'Ohana is totally worth working around, it is amazing! You guys will love it!

That's what I hear! Didn't I see that you made Charlotte a dress out of a Lilo-like fabric for your last trip?? Do you remember where you got that? I'm by no means the most talented seamstress, but I think I could pull something off and I'd love to find a print like you had!

Disney date night? awesome!! you should be excited!

Very!

i don't know how fastpass works when you're all in the same party but going to different parks. i'd just say try it when you are able to make your FP selections and see what comes up. it does let you choose who in your party you want for that selection, so it might be fine. also, we didn't have any trouble changing things on the app on my phone when we were there, so i'd just also say not to worry too much. i found it really easy to change things on the fly.

Great to hear that you didn't have problems with your phone!

love the lady and the tramp pictures! how cute to recreate the spaghetti scene with dad!

Addie was so cute... and it took some talking daddy into it! But of course he can't say no to her!

Your plans sound excellent!! How fun that you guys will be able to have a date night!!! Do we have to start talking about the last day??

I'm already dreading it...

 

[anniebabymu]

We also used touring plans for our first trip (2008?) and we also never waited more than 15 minutes!! I LOVE them. But we used the premade plan too. I just saw a few days ago that you can create your own with their software and I'm super excited to try it! I'm a big believer in their system. We've used modified versions of their plans on all of our trips with great success.

Yay! Another Touring Plans success story! Surely if their premade plans work well, their personalized ones should... right??

we've never used tp.com but now i'm excited to try to out and see how it works for you guys. might have to give it a shot!

I'll make sure to give a full report in my (most likely) TR to come!

 

[Jackiemarie21]

Yes I made Charlotte a Lilo like dress. I got the fabric from Etsy. It is Red Paradise Pareaus Tropical Print by Robert Kaufman. Just search for it in Etsy or Ebay, I am sure you can find some. Then I just used a simple peasant dress tutorial to make the dress. It takes about a yard to make a 3T dress. Really simple but so cute! Plus Lilo loves it!

 

[anniebabymu]

I've been up to some exciting things the last few days... but before I can get into that, let's finish up our daily plans!

Saturday May 31st

Ahhhh... Day 10... our last full day at Disney. This day will be devoted to revisiting things that we didn't get to or would like to see again at Epcot and Magic Kingdom!

Our morning will start with sleeping in I know there's no sleeping in at Disney, but by Day 10 we are going to need it! We have nothing planned until our 10:10 ADR at



Hollywood and Vine!

We ate here our last trip and the girls LOVED it! So much that it quickly was put on Addison's must eat at list. So we booked it... then I found out that Doc and Sofia were joining the crew! I had heard a rumor that Doc was going to join them, but Sofia was a surprise! So I told Addison that Doc might be there and she freaked. I'm going to try my hardest to keep the fact that Sofia is there a secret! It might be hard because I'm sure she is going to see the Sofia M&G out in HS and want to meet her and I'm not really wanting to waste time in her line when we'll be meeting her at breakfast! Might have to do some quick thinking...

So, then because it's SWW at HS we will quickly be leaving the madness and boarding a boat to head to Epcot!

The plan for "lunch" is to use up our remaining snack credits by snacking around the World!

After we wander and snack a bit, depending on the time, we'll either head back to Pop to rest (preferable!) or take the Monorail over to the Magic Kingdom where we will spend our last night. I'm thinking that we'll use our FP+ for this park and close out the night here.

We have to spend our last night here because 1. you have to spend your night taking in as much of the castle as you can and 2. we'll be headed to Tomorrowland Terrace for the Dessert Party! My in laws are huge dessert people and when we did it our last trip we quickly knew it was something we had to do with my in laws! Our last trip, the night of the Dessert Party was rainy and nasty. They still went ahead with Wishes, but you could hardly see them thanks to the smoke being magnified in the water droplets coming from the sky! And of course Tink didn't fly. So I'm praying for weather that cooperates!! I waited until the last night to book it because I knew we'd see Wishes before this day and if it was nasty again it wouldn't matter as much and thought it was the perfect way to send our vacation out with a bang!

After Wishes we may try to hit up another ride before park closing at 11. Then it's back to Pop for one last night

Sunday June 1st

Not a whole lot to report about this day except the beginning of my Post Disney Depression.

In the two past trips back we've left super early in the morning... and I was not about to do that again this time! We found a wonderful 1:40 non-stop flight home, so that means the unMagical Express will be picking us up at 10:40. Plenty of time to sleep and finish throwing everything back in the suitcase.... errrrr... I mean packing.

We will eat a quick lunch at the airport, board the plane and get home around 3. The hubs isn't too excited about getting home this late since he has to work the next day... but sorry baby, an easy-going morning won out!

Continued in Next Post​

 

[anniebabymu]

Yes I made Charlotte a Lilo like dress. I got the fabric from Etsy. It is Red Paradise Pareaus Tropical Print by Robert Kaufman. Just search for it in Etsy or Ebay, I am sure you can find some. Then I just used a simple peasant dress tutorial to make the dress. It takes about a yard to make a 3T dress. Really simple but so cute! Plus Lilo loves it!

Perfect!!! Thank you so much!! Can't wait to try it out!

 

[anniebabymu]

So now that you know all of our daily plans... and boy that was a lot to take in... here's a quick recap of our ADR's. All in one place

5-22
Akershus: Switched to 6:50pm from 6:30pm

5-23
1900 Park Fare: Switched to 7:00pm from 6:10pm

5-24
Be Our Guest: 6:45pm

5-25
The Garden Grill: 6:30pm

5-26
'Ohana's Best Friend Breakfast: 10:15am

5-27
Whispering Canyon Cafe: 6:50pm

5-28
50's Prime Time Cafe: 6:30pm

5-29
'Ohana: 7:10pm

5-30
Chef Mickey's for Grandma, Grandpa, Addison and Harper: 7:00pm
Via Napoli for Derek and myself: 7:00pm

5-31
Hollywood and Vine: Switched to 9:35am from 10:10am
Tomorrowland Terrace Firework Dessert Party: 9:00pm

And I'm hungry just thinking about it!

Next up: Personalized park touring plans and what in the heck are we (and by we, I mean the girls!) going to wear!?!?

Continued in Next Post​

 

[STLMickeyMom]

We LOVED h&v when we did. And it sounds even better now with Sophia and doc! I think you'll have a legitimate excuse to skip Sophia in the park--her line is always long!

I think your ADRs look great! I've heard whispering canyon is so fun!

I can't wait to see what you're going to wear!!!

 

[blueangel2]

Just some advice about TP.com. When are doing the personalized plans check the order in map after you Optimize it. At Epcot it had us walking back and forth all day. I rearranged it by moving things up and down, Taking in possible FP+ and distance between each. On most of my plans I was able to shave down the wait time in line and end the day earlier (or have more free time in the evening to browse the shops

 

[lsenquiz]

Commenting on AK

The two times we have done the Safari first thing we have been disappointed because not all the animals were out. Not sure if that is a fluke but we started riding an hour or so after opening and had a better experience.

It usually takes us about 40 minutes to do the Jungle trek but we really take our time.

Nemo can be a very long show. We had trouble keeping our DS entertained when he was younger and haven't made it back since.

We ate at Whispering Canyon last September and really enjoyed it.

Sounds like you will have an awesome day.

 

[AprilRenee]

Yay! Another Touring Plans success story! Surely if their premade plans work well, their personalized ones should... right??

Definitely! They have this whole thing down to a science. Like literally, they have a whole computer program that creates the plans and then they check them, tweak them, and update the program! Totally worth the $12 it costs for the membership.

With their original touring plan they sent 2 groups into Disney on the same day. One group had their touring plan to follow. One just had a list of all the attractions on the touring plan. But not in any specific order. The group with the touring plan finished 3 hrs before the group with just a list. I think that's just crazy and awesome!

 

[anniebabymu]

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I'm a little MIA right now because I'm in Dallas!! It's been a stressful week with juggling flights... but I made it down here with 7 hours to spare! What was so important about me getting here ASAP??? My baby sister had a baby!!!!

With me being a L&D nurse, she really wanted me here and in the room with them . I was the only family member here and the only one who got to be there for that most special moment! I played paparazzi and held a leg... and it was fabulous!!

They didn't find out what they were having while pregnant and we ALL would have put money on it being a boy! My sister said, "If this baby comes out with a ******, I'm going to be completely shocked!" Ha ha! Well... the little one was born at 7:40pm and 2 seconds later the doctor says, "We have a GIRL!!" Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! So completely shocked! As soon as she said that our jaws dropped . Needless to say, I'm thrilled with a niece and my oldest DD said she would only love the baby if it was a girl... so she's over the moon too!

My parents are driving down today from STL and I'll be going back with them on Sunday. They all get discharged today and I can't wait to get in some baby snuggles while mommy and daddy rest

If it were my child I'd totally be posting pics of this beautiful baby, but alas... I'm not so sure my sister would appreciate it! So there you have it! Miss Aria Jane born on 1-29 at 7:40pm... and I'm totally over the moon about my first niece or nephew!! And now I have another princess to spoil with Disney trips

 

[blueangel2]

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I'm a little MIA right now because I'm in Dallas!! It's been a stressful week with juggling flights... but I made it down here with 7 hours to spare! What was so important about me getting here ASAP??? My baby sister had a baby!!!!

With me being a L&D nurse, she really wanted me here and in the room with them . I was the only family member here and the only one who got to be there for that most special moment! I played paparazzi and held a leg... and it was fabulous!!

They didn't find out what they were having while pregnant and we ALL would have put money on it being a boy! My sister said, "If this baby comes out with a ******, I'm going to be completely shocked!" Ha ha! Well... the little one was born at 7:40pm and 2 seconds later the doctor says, "We have a GIRL!!" Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! So completely shocked! As soon as she said that our jaws dropped . Needless to say, I'm thrilled with a niece and my oldest DD said she would only love the baby if it was a girl... so she's over the moon too!

My parents are driving down today from STL and I'll be going back with them on Sunday. They all get discharged today and I can't wait to get in some baby snuggles while mommy and daddy rest

If it were my child I'd totally be posting pics of this beautiful baby, but alas... I'm not so sure my sister would appreciate it! So there you have it! Miss Aria Jane born on 1-29 at 7:40pm... and I'm totally over the moon about my first niece or nephew!! And now I have another princess to spoil with Disney trips

Congratulations to your entire family!

 

[Jackiemarie21]

Oh congrats Auntie! Sounds like you got to be a part of a different type of magical moment! How special.

Your ADR list is making me hungry. I think your last day looks good. We are fairly certain we are doing the H&V meal not sure if we will do breakfast or lunch but I can't wait for Charlotte to see Doc and Sofia! She still loves Oso however after our last meeting with him there so I hope she is not too disappointed once she gets there.

Have a great trip in Dallas. I can't wait to see what outfits you come up with!