set88
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2016
- Messages
- 243
Hi all! I hope I'm doing this pre-trip report thing right!
I'm super excited to be planning a Disney World trip for my husband and I for November 2022!
My background... grew up in Florida, parents were big Disney World fans and we went a couple times a year for most of the 90s. I have so many amazing memories of those trips and much fondness for WDW (and general love of theme parks!) because of them. However, when I got to be a teenager, I started wanting to do parks with lots of thrill rides and eventually became a roller coaster junkie. For many years I didn't care to go back to WDW because I wanted to travel to parks with more exciting rides and roller coasters. I do credit Big Thunder Mountain as being the reason I learned to love roller coasters!
About the only thing I have realllly wanted to go back and do for most of these years is Haunted Mansion! And what with the 50th anniversary celebration going on this year (and me remembering being there during the 25th anniversary as pictured above!), it finally feels like time to go back. (Also pictured is me meeting Mickey on one of my very first trips when I was 2.)
Also, DH has basically never been to WDW! He went once when he was 3 and doesn't remember much of anything.
So what was sort of a spontaneous idea to return to WDW has become an actual plan, and I am super excited to be making my first trip back in almost 20 years.
We decided to buy APs because it makes more sense value-for-money wise than doing a single 4 day trip. It means we don't have to worry about cramming everything into one trip in case it's really crowded. I'm hoping we chose a low crowd time in November, but I know it's unpredictable so I'm preparing for the worst!
We'll be staying at All Star Music (we're pretty low key hotel people... as long as it has a bed, bathroom, and is clean and in a decent location, I'm happy!).
Our park days look like this right now:
11/13: arrive and visit Disney Springs
11/14: EPCOT
11/15: MK (party day, so will be hopping to another park)
11/16: HS
11/17: AK (driving home in the afternoon)
I am most excited about introducing DH to Haunted Mansion (we're both big horror fans and I truly believe without Haunted Mansion in my early life, I might never have learned to love being scared!)... and about checking out Rise of the Resistance, and Tower of Terror (we never went to MGM Studios when I was a kid). Also excited to be there for the end of Food & Wine!
As far as ADRs... I'm really hoping for Space 220 reservations. As soon as I saw pictures I knew this was somewhere I had to go, I love all things space - and DH is excited about it too. I hold no illusions that I will get reservations when my 60 day window opens because our hotel stay isn't very long. But I'm prepared to stalk canceled reservations when the trip gets closer.
Otherwise, I think we've decided on Sebastian's Bistro for our arrival day. Heard lots of great things about it and the menu looks awesome, especially for DH who has to eat gluten free. I was thinking about doing Sci Fi Drive-In, but I probably will not as I don't want to spend too much time at a sit down meal on our HS day... and I do want to keep the budget down where possible. We might do Skipper's Canteen, but we might also skip it for the same reasons. Luckily I know that's not a hard reservation to get.
Genie+ / ILL thoughts:
I've studied up and I feel pretty prepared to use Genie+. I obviously never went to Disney during the Fastpass+ era, so I don't have much of anything Disney-wise to compare it to, but I love that it's less expensive than almost any other of the Fast Lane/Express Pass services offered at other theme parks. Obviously it doesn't provide nearly as much value since you're not guaranteed to be able to use it on every attraction, but I think we'll get enough use out of it to justify the ~$30 extra on the days we use it. I can't say enough how glad I am that it's not more expensive. If it was $100+ a day, I don't think I would even be willing to consider buying it. Currently, I plan to use it at MK and HS, and likely not EPCOT, and definitely not AK.
The only ILL I plan to purchase is RotR. That seems more than worth it to me since I don't want to risk it being broken at the end of the night, and I think I'd rather use our early entry time on ToT / RnRC instead of potentially still getting stuck in a long morning queue unless we get there insanely early.
I am wondering what to do with our MK night. I chose the party day in the hopes that MK will be less crowded. My current ideas are 1) hop to EPCOT and eat more at Food & Wine, and watch Harmonious or ride Remy at close (whichever we didn't do the evening before). Or 2) hop to AK to be able to see it at night, and maybe get a late night ride of FoP. Also hoping for less crowds there since it's not as popular of an evening park, and we're not planning to spend a full day there. I guess we'll see how the EPCOT day goes and then decide. Bonus for me with doing the MK-EPCOT hop is I'd get to ride the monorail! That was seriously one of my favorite parts of the day as a kid, lol.
Anyway... that's the plans for now! I plan to do a detailed trip report after the trip (I absolutely love reading the trip reports of others!)
Fellow 90s kid here and very excited to follow along for your TR! 
I used to be from NY but have lived in Southeast FL for nearly six years now and I love it. Believe it or not, the first time I went to WDW wasn't until I was 12, but I have loved it ever since and I know you will be amazed when you returned, as it has changed a lot since the 90s! It is incredible that you and DH haven't been to WDW in so long, so you will love it and it is awesome that despite that you went to other theme parks in search of more thrills, it was WDW that started your appetite with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for roller coasters and The Haunted Mansion (both attractions are among my favorites) for scary stuff respectively. As far as 
