13 Days of Disney – Shh-it’s a Surprise! - June 2016 PTR - Update 6/4

[ArielSRL]

No!! Not the final park day...... Boo hoo!

Glad the surgery went well! Yay for MBs!

It's getting so close!

 

[ArielSRL]

Did you see this thread about adding onto 10 day tix? I know you have break days scheduled in, but I thought it might be good to have the info, in case you needed an extra day...

http://www.disboards.com/threads/regarding-adding-days-to-10-day-tickets.3510740

 

[ariane37]

LOL I think that's hysterical that your Dr. drew on your cast. Glad the surgery went well and hope you heel quickly
I love the character-meet day! We've never met Gaston; I've wanted to but I want the boys to do it with me and they won't I might just do it myself next time........
Steve would be in heaven also if he got a hug like that from Jasmine

 

[Jfsag123]

Thank you to everyone for the happy surgery recovery thoughts! Things seem to be progressing nicely, and I've powered down from my hard meds to the over the counter stuff. I have a doctor's appointment to check progress on Thursday, so I'll update after that!

Glad your surgery went well!

Crystal Palace was delicious. Your son is so adorable trying to get Cinderella to kiss him

I'm trying to plan a secret trip for me and my boyfriend and I'm terrible at it I think I've given him far too many hints already.

It's so hard not to drop the hints! However, if he's anything like my DH he's still completely in the dark. Keep us posted on your surprise trip! I think it would be a lot harder to pull of a surprise with an adult.

Happy it went well. Here's more well wishes to fast healing Your plans are looking good. Are you mentally preparing for the AK announcements on 5/20? I have to book FP+ at night on 5/21, so I have to get my game ready. I won't have much time to prepare. Hopefully, it will be good news for Jungle Book and the rest of AK.

I am so on it for the AK announcements! Of course, chances are it will happen first thing in the morning and everything will be booked by the time I wake up. I'm glad you're at least getting a one day notice!

I need to fit this in somewhere because Will LOVES McQueen and Mater. Maybe on departure day. Or Disney Springs night (though that MK PM EMH so I may sneak over for some solo fun!).

Oh my gosh, if you've got little Cars fans they will LOVE AoA! We made the trek because DD is a big Lion King fan (and mommy may have wanted to see the resort as well...).

Sounds like you're on the road to full recovery, glad surgery went well!

You are sooooo right, Gaston is THE BEST!!!! My family doesn't really meet characters, except at character meals, and we did meet Anna and Elsa last trip b/c that was so coveted at the time. We didn't wait in line to meet Gaston, but we thoroughly enjoyed watching other people meet him, he is so good and so hilarious!!!

I would love to be able to just hang out and watch his meets with other people! I imagine a lot of folks end up doing this - he seems to be good at drawing a crowd.

Did you see this thread about adding onto 10 day tix? I know you have break days scheduled in, but I thought it might be good to have the info, in case you needed an extra day...

http://www.disboards.com/threads/regarding-adding-days-to-10-day-tickets.3510740

I'm all over that now, thanks! I may look into it just to be able to add some FP reservations for those couple of days. We'd still primarily keep them as off days, but if we could pop into Epcot for a ride on Test Track or something it might be worth it.

LOL I think that's hysterical that your Dr. drew on your cast. Glad the surgery went well and hope you heel quickly
I love the character-meet day! We've never met Gaston; I've wanted to but I want the boys to do it with me and they won't I might just do it myself next time........
Steve would be in heaven also if he got a hug like that from Jasmine

I was surprised to discover my cast artwork courtesy of my doc lol. I wondered why my recovery nurses kept pointing at my foot and laughing.

You need to meet Gaston! Trade Steve a Jasmine meet for a Gaston meet. But seriously, I'll bet your boys would love it! People of all ages go out of their way to meet him. Would showing them a couple of videos potentially help to persuade? If not, I say ditch them for a bit and get your meet in!

 

[ariane37]

You need to meet Gaston! Trade Steve a Jasmine meet for a Gaston meet.

LoL this might work!

Would showing them a couple of videos potentially help to persuade?

I may be able to sneak some videos under Ricky's nose while he's eating, since that's about the only time he sits still and concentrates on anything Really though videos are a good idea. And worse comes to worse, I'll make them stand there while I'm in line to meet him. Chances are at least one of the boys will feel guilty enough and join me -I'm not above using the guilt!

 

[Jfsag123]

Day 13: Friday, June 17 – Magic Kingdom

Last full park day. Wah! But it should also be a pretty good day. We’ll have a morning extra magic hour at the Magic Kingdom this day, so we’ll show up at the gates bright and early in order to take advantage of it. This will be our 4th rope drop at MK. To recap, previous days we will have started in Fantasyland, Adventureland, and with characters. On this day we’ll start in Tomorrowland. Our morning plans look like this:

Space Mountain
Tomorrowland Speedway
Winnie the Pooh
Little Mermaid
Barnstormer
Dumbo
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train FP+
Philharmagic
Talking Mickey FP+

After Mickey, we’ll head out for a break. I will probably end up sending DH and the kids down to the pool while I get a lot of the packing done. Having the room to myself will allow me to cry in peace during this process. We will head back out for the park a little after 4:00pm. When we head back, we’ll use our 3rd FP at Enchanted Tales w/Belle. We’ve done it twice before. The first time, the kids were Chip and Mrs. Potts. The second time DS was Maurice and DD got Mrs. Potts again. This time they are determined for one of them to get Beast. We’ll see…After ETwB we will try to book a 4th FP+ for Buzz for later in the evening before heading to our dinner reservation at Be Our Guest. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite princess movie. This area of the park is so well-themed it makes me feel like I’m really in the movie, and so I become a little fan-girlish and giddy. This is me geeking out in front of the stained glass.

And obligatory shot of the kids.

After dinner, we’ll head to Tomorrowland to (hopefully) use the Buzz FP and whatever else. I love the atmosphere of Tomorrowland at night! We will hang out in there for as much time as we have doing the Peoplemover, Carousel of Progress, and Dance Party until time for us to line up for the Wishes Dessert Party. I did not plan to book the dessert party this time. We have done it twice in the past, both times at the old price point. I did not want to pay the new price, especially with the recent changes requiring lining up early because they’ve done away with assigned seating. But then they removed FP+ for Wishes…and I’m weak…and I caved. Here’s my confession: I do not book this to see Wishes. I book it to see Celebrate the Magic, which is probably my favorite show in WDW. It is amazing and I love it and I cry every time. While we could see the fireworks from somewhere else in the park (or even outside the park, as we will if we end up keeping the Pirates and Pals cruise), CMT can only be seen from the hub area and this guarantees us decent viewing. Plus my kids love the view of Tinkerbell flying over and stuffing their face with desserts. It has become a final night tradition for us.

After Wishes, we will slip back into Tomorrowland. There seems to be a theme here, right? Really, this time it’s just because it’s easy to hop over there while the crowds exit. DD and DH have a tradition of going to ride Astro Orbiters after the fireworks. I have never been on it, as I am irrationally terrified of feeling like I’m going to fall out, so DS and I have gone on Peoplemover again in the past. I am hoping for an extension to a 12:00am closing on this night, but am not getting my hopes up with recent trends. Regardless, we will close down the park. The closing time will just dictate how much we are able to do. I would like to round the park and grab last rides on it’s a small world and Haunted Mansion before they kick us out. Maybe we’ll get to see the kiss goodnight for the first time. We’ll drag ourselves back to BLT for what will likely feel like the longest walk of our lives to get ready for our departure the next day. But first, one last park visit.

 

[ArielSRL]

Those desserts look awesome!! I really would like to book a dessert party but my parents will never go for it and this trip is with them. Next June I will have more leeway with planning but not as many funds....lol. Since it looks like they are dismantling Club Villain, DH and I will do the Star Wars dessert party for a date night one night while the kids are at a kids club. As for CtM, I've never seen it so we will line up fairly early Sunday night and maybe I'll send the kids off with an adult to do a few things while others wait it out.

I have watched most of it on YouTube but I probably will cry when I watch it in person!

 

[Jfsag123]

Those desserts look awesome!! I really would like to book a dessert party but my parents will never go for it and this trip is with them. Next June I will have more leeway with planning but not as many funds....lol. Since it looks like they are dismantling Club Villain, DH and I will do the Star Wars dessert party for a date night one night while the kids are at a kids club. As for CtM, I've never seen it so we will line up fairly early Sunday night and maybe I'll send the kids off with an adult to do a few things while others wait it out.

I have watched most of it on YouTube but I probably will cry when I watch it in person!

Ah! I'm excited for you seeing it for the first time! I have never seen anything in the MK in the hub except for with the dessert party because of all of the horror stories I've read of people fighting for their spots. The early line-up scares me, which is why I keep getting suckered into the dessert party, but I know literally thousands of people successfully do it every day.

 

[Jfsag123]

Finally Some Updates!

What’s that noise? Oh, it’s the sound of our plans (finally) clicking into place! With Disney’s massive dump of information this morning, I at last have some certainty about the things we will and won’t see. Here are the ways in which the updates affect our plans:

Epcot:
Old Soarin’ returns until 6/16 – We will swap out our Test Track FP+ on 6/8 for one for Soarin’. We may drop our PPO Akershus ADR in order to rope drop TT so we can still ride it on the first day. As I’ve mentioned, DS’s favorite ride is Soarin’ and DD’s is TT. I would love to be able to let them each ride their favorite ride on the same day.

New Soarin’ opens 6/17 – Look for how we’ll see this in the next day’s plans that I post (6/18).

Royal Summerhus opens 6/21 – Already secured a FP+ to meet Anna & Elsa on 6/9 in MK, so missing this will not affect us.

Frozen Ever After opens 6/21 – Boo! So we will obviously miss this one. We may try hovering a little on 6/18 to see if we can catch a soft opening, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Officially, I’m letting this one go until next year.

Animal Kingdom:
Jungle Book show begins 5/28 – It looks like dining packages for this will not be offered at Flame Tree as originally rumored, so that scraps that plan. However, it seems that the Tusker House option will be available for breakfast bookings, so I hope to reschedule my current 8:00am reservation with a dining package in the same time slot. This also means I can add Yak & Yeti back in as a potential dinner plan.

All other night time experiences begin 5/27 – I’m not making specific plans around these, but I do hope to be able to see some of the Tree of Life projections

Hollywood Studios:
Current Star Wars fireworks run on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday through 6/17 – Considering we are going to be in DHS on a Tuesday and a Saturday, looks like we’ll miss these. I’m going to see about potentially getting an extra day added onto my 10 day tix, as it was recently mentioned this might be possible on the theme parks board. If I can, we may use it to come over to DHS on the evening of 6/10, which is currently one of our off days, and see the fireworks. If not, we may walk down the path from Beach Club toward DHS and see them from outside of the park that night.

New fireworks start 6/17 – We’ll miss these. There’s just no way for us to see them. 6/17 is our last night in WDW and it is already heavily scheduled with Be Our Guest and the Wishes dessert party. Another to add to the see-it-next-time pile.

Club Villain – Still no official announcement that I can see, but this looks like a no-go since people are saying it’s scheduled to be dismantled after the last May show. Oh well.

Magic Kingdom:
New castle show starts 6/17 – Since we’re already planning to be in MK on 6/17, I think we can catch this one. They haven’t released times yet that I can see, but we’ll work it in. Looking forward to this one!

And there you have it! I’d been holding off on putting our plans into Touring Plans because I knew they would be continuously changing. Now that I have some clarity, I know what I’m doing with my afternoon.

Quick Surgery Recovery Update: I went in yesterday morning and was told that things look to be progressing well – no signs of infection and pain is quickly decreasing. I am scheduled to have my stitches removed next Wednesday and was told that 2 days after that I should be back to normal. Bonus: I will no longer have to shower with a plastic bag around my leg! That gives me a week and a half post-stitches removal to continue to recover before we head out to WDW. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it.

 

[soniam]

Glad your plans are coming together and good news on the foot Your trip will be here before you know it. Lucky

 

[ArielSRL]

I'll be up at 6am trying to switch our 6/7 10:40 TH to a dining pkg. At 7, I'll try to change our 6/8 TT to Soarin', as well. And look to see if they have nighttime EE FPs available. That's about it for us. We are missing all the other new stuff but I'm glad to be able to finalize the plans and we always have next year!

I'm wondering if the dining packages will be for all JB shows or just the first one. We want the 2nd show, so I may end up booking a pkg and a FP. We are fortunate to have the extra FPs I got from emailing the WDW exec office. We'll use those for TT on 6/8 and probably EE on 6/7. I'm afraid the newer stuff (Soarin and JB) could be excluded from those, so I'd rather book those and use the anytime ones for the things I KNOW are included.

 

[soniam]

I'll be up at 6am trying to switch our 6/7 10:40 TH to a dining pkg. At 7, I'll try to change our 6/8 TT to Soarin', as well. And look to see if they have nighttime EE FPs available. That's about it for us. We are missing all the other new stuff but I'm glad to be able to finalize the plans and we always have next year!

I'm wondering if the dining packages will be for all JB shows or just the first one. We want the 2nd show, so I may end up booking a pkg and a FP. We are fortunate to have the extra FPs I got from emailing the WDW exec office. We'll use those for TT on 6/8 and probably EE on 6/7. I'm afraid to thede newer stuff (Soarin and JB) could be excluded from those, so I'd rather book those and use the anytime ones for the things I KNOW are included.

JB might be, because the paper ones that I have received before and the electronic anytime ones, usually excluded shows, at least some shows. I have not seen rides excluded before, unless only specific rides were mentioned. What do they say?

 

[ArielSRL]

JB might be, because the paper ones that I have received before and the electronic anytime ones, usually excluded shows, at least some shows. I have not seen rides excluded before, unless only specific rides were mentioned. What do they say?

Right now they list every FP ride available for our dates as ours are any park anytime FP (my co-worker has some that are just for one park) but I have heard of ones that exclude 7DMT before, though ours don't. I just hate to chance it.

 

[soniam]

Right now they list every FP ride available for our dates as ours are any park anytime FP (my co-worker has some that are just for one park) but I have heard of ones that exclude 7DMT before, though ours don't. I just hate to chance it.

You could call and ask. Could you substitute a different FP+, like TT, for the anytime one, and use a regular one for Soarin? The only restricted ones that I have seen have been via email for a substitute for a ride break down for an existing FP+ and the paper ones at DHS, which excluded shows but not TSMM. That's the only time we have done TSMM more than once on a trip

 

[ArielSRL]

You could call and ask. Could you substitute a different FP+, like TT, for the anytime one, and use a regular one for Soarin? The only restricted ones that I have seen have been via email for a substitute for a ride break down for an existing FP+ and the paper ones at DHS, which excluded shows but not TSMM. That's the only time we have done TSMM more than once on a trip

Yes, I plan to change our TT one to Soarin and use the anytime one for TT. I plan to change my EE for JB and use the anytime for EE...because I definitely know those are included.

 

[ErinF]

So glad everything is falling into place--for you and me both!

Unfortunately for me, leaving the 13th, we miss out on a number of things.

But, I'm really to happy to at least see old Soarin' one last time, and even though I'm missing out on new Star Wars fireworks, we never saw the old ones, so they'll be new to us.

And we have Jungle Book show, too...guess it's not so bad after all!

 

[ariane37]

Maybe we’ll get to see the kiss goodnight for the first time.

That is one thing I've never managed to see I hope you get to!

What’s that noise? Oh, it’s the sound of our plans (finally) clicking into place! With Disney’s massive dump of information this morning, I at last have some certainty about the things we will and won’t see.

Holy Moly, it was like every time I came on for a minute something new was posted! Glad you finally have answers to everything that was up in the air for your trip.

I went in yesterday morning and was told that things look to be progressing well – no signs of infection and pain is quickly decreasing

 

[disny_luvr]

I love how your plans are falling into place!

We adore Crystal Palace. Unfortunately, we have not eaten there the last few trips just because there are so many other places to eat. We won't be eating there this trip either, but I'm hoping to on our next trip. It's been too long.

These new announcements today are seriously messing up some of my plans. I need to figure out my Epcot days; I'm going to have to drop one of my Soarin FP+ so we can get a Frozen Ever After FP+.

 

[Jfsag123]

Glad your plans are coming together and good news on the foot Your trip will be here before you know it. Lucky

Thank you! I am getting to the anxious excited place where I recognize it's right around the corner, but still have a million things to do!

I'll be up at 6am trying to switch our 6/7 10:40 TH to a dining pkg. At 7, I'll try to change our 6/8 TT to Soarin', as well. And look to see if they have nighttime EE FPs available. That's about it for us. We are missing all the other new stuff but I'm glad to be able to finalize the plans and we always have next year!

I'm wondering if the dining packages will be for all JB shows or just the first one. We want the 2nd show, so I may end up booking a pkg and a FP. We are fortunate to have the extra FPs I got from emailing the WDW exec office. We'll use those for TT on 6/8 and probably EE on 6/7. I'm afraid the newer stuff (Soarin and JB) could be excluded from those, so I'd rather book those and use the anytime ones for the things I KNOW are included.

I'm so happy we're getting to finalize too! And it looks like the JB packages are only for the first show. Nice for us because that's what we planned, but sounds like FP may be the better option for you.

So glad everything is falling into place--for you and me both!

Unfortunately for me, leaving the 13th, we miss out on a number of things.

But, I'm really to happy to at least see old Soarin' one last time, and even though I'm missing out on new Star Wars fireworks, we never saw the old ones, so they'll be new to us.

And we have Jungle Book show, too...guess it's not so bad after all!

Having certainty that there will at least be a few new things to see has really helped to improve my attitude related to this trip! Even staying until the 18th we will still miss out on Frozen and the SW fireworks, but I've decided I'm ok with it.

Holy Moly, it was like every time I came on for a minute something new was posted! Glad you finally have answers to everything that was up in the air for your trip.

Seriously! I got up and my newsfeed was just bombarded with Disney announcements. Better late than never, I guess!

I love how your plans are falling into place!

We adore Crystal Palace. Unfortunately, we have not eaten there the last few trips just because there are so many other places to eat. We won't be eating there this trip either, but I'm hoping to on our next trip. It's been too long.

These new announcements today are seriously messing up some of my plans. I need to figure out my Epcot days; I'm going to have to drop one of my Soarin FP+ so we can get a Frozen Ever After FP+.

I'm really looking forward to trying CP! It is really hard to narrow down dining choices at Disney because, as you said, there are so many. I imagine we'll be trying new places for years to come.

Lucky you getting to see Frozen! By the time we see it next year it'll be old news. Maybe that will help with the crowds...nah

 

[Jfsag123]

Gettin' Stuff Done!

That's the theme for today! I got up at 6:00am (which is incredibly difficult for me, especially on a weekend!) to try to secure the last two things I needed: a Jungle Book dining package and a FP for old Soarin'. At first I failed miserably on both counts. I started with JB and when I searched the only things I found for our day were a 9:50 and a 10:50. Neither of those were good for us. We want to see the first Lion King show, so 9:50 would mess that up and we have a FP for Kali River Rapids from 10:40-11:40, so there goes the other. I grabbed the 10:50 just in case I wasn't able to get anything else, figuring I could change the FP if I absolutely had to, and turned my attention to Soarin'. Nothing showed up and the website kept crashing. I figured it was likely just Disney IT problems, but decided that we could keep our TT FP and rope drop Soarin' if I missed out and we needed to. Then, on one of my search attempts, my finger accidentally brushed the "cancel" button on my iPad for my Test Track FP. I tried to hit the "no" button when it asked if I wanted to confirm, but of course MDE froze at that moment and I had to "x" out of the screen. When I came back, I found that it had cancelled my TT FP and was showing no availability for that either. I could have cried in that moment because I wasn't awake enough to think rationally and realize that, even if I did miss Soarin', I would likely be able to get TT later, as I'm sure a bunch of people cancelled those in favor of Soarin'. I gave up on Soarin' at that point and went back to JB. I wondered if I cancelled the 8:00am regular TH ADR I already had, would it show up in the system as a dining package availability? We are only doing one day in AK, so my plans kind of hinge on getting the dining done PPO and not losing early park time. I decided to take the risk and opened both windows simultaneously. I clicked the cancel button on my 8:00am and immediately clicked search on the dining packages and it worked! I was able to book my own 8:00am cancellation as a dining package. Whew! I then switched back to Soarin', which had finally started showing availability, and was able to get the exact time I wanted for 6/8. So, though it ended up taking close to an hour and being way more stressful than I had anticipated, it all worked out!

Next the mail came and our second set of MagicBands arrived. They shipped last Saturday, so I was waiting anxiously for them since I don't want the kids to see them. Here they are!

This afternoon, I went ahead and joined the Landry's Select Club, which we'll use to dine at Yak & Yeti on our AK evening. The kids are staying overnight at a grandparents' house this evening, so we're going to use the time to really get started with packing, since we can't do it openly while they're around. We're also working on making a list of all the last minute things we need to get done before we leave - a lot goes in to leaving town for two weeks!

Hope everyone else who was trying to book things today had success, ideally with less hassle than me!