A first-timer, a second-time returner, and a yearly visitor. PTR 12/17

[taythecray]

Hello readers! My name is Taylor and I will be the host for this pre-trip report. I am fairly new to the Disboards and this will be my first report so bare with me. Our trip is days away and I cannot stop obsessing over Disney so I figured this would be a great way to share some excitement

A short bio about me: I am a Michigan native currently enrolled in college in Illinois. I have a huge blended family consisting of 5 brothers and 2 sisters (all younger) and will be expanding my family even more when I tie the knot next August (more on that later).

My first ever trip to Disney was when I was somewhere between 2-4, but that doesn't count because I don't remember a thing (let alone how old I was when I went). My first "official" trip was December 19th, 2013. We stayed off-site with my now-fiance's family, and didn't do a "traditional" trip. We only bought MVMCP tickets because it was something I really wanted to experience. So, we drove to the park and had breakfast at O'hana which I loved, then resort-hopped to see the decorations and went to DTD until we could get in MK at 4.

This was where the magic happened. I was so excited to be in Disney that nothing bothered me. Crowds, waiting in line, not seeing/doing everything etc. I was so happy-go-lucky that nothing could put a damper on my day. To make the day even more magical, my boyfriend of 3 years got down on one knee in front of the castle and asked me to be his wife

Ever since that night, we've vowed to (at least try to) make it a tradition to go back to Disney once a year. This year's trip is approaching fast, so I realize I probably made this report a little late, but I'm having a hard time containing my excitement. My fiance and I will be joined by our best friend and Disney newbie, so it will be an all new experience for her. I will also be able to experience more since we are doing a full day and park-hopping this time around. So if you do read this, thanks! If not, at least it's a way for me to hold myself over until the trip

 

[taythecray]

A Little About Us​

Me: Taylor
Favorite Movie: Aladdin (although Pirates is a close second)
Favorite Character: Tinkerbell or Stitch
Favorite Ride: Big Thunder Mountain with Haunted Mansion at a close second
Disney Status: This will be my second time at DW and my first time visiting AK and HS
Random Fact: I am the planner. I LOVE planning. I basically outlined our entire day but left room for things like longer waits/travel time/unlucky circumstances etc.

Fiance: Austin
Favorite Movie: The Lion King
Favorite Character: Stitch
Favorite Ride: Space Mountain
Disney Status: Used to go to DW for extended stays with his family when he was younger, last year's visit was the first one for him in a while
Random Fact: Even after the countless visits to DW, he's never gotten a chance to ride TOT

Newbie/Friend: Hannah
Favorite Movie: Beauty and the Beast
Favorite Character: Belle
Favorite Ride: We'll find out soon!
Disney Status: FIRST TIMER!!!
Random Fact: She's my MOH ^_^

 

[taythecray]

Disney Date
12/17 Wish we could visit for longer but we almost didn't go at all so I'm happy with the one day. Plus it will be a full and packed day so I'm excited

Accommodations
With my fiance's family off-site. They are lucky enough to live 20min away from DW!

Food
No ADR's but we do have plans to eat at BOG for lunch. Lining up early but it will be worth it Other than that we are eating breakfast beforehand and packing snacks/food for dinner

Itinerary?
YES! I LOVED planning this trip and even though I changed things around 5000x, I enjoyed every minute of it

Overview
Full day 8am-midnight and park hopping between MK, AK, and HS. We will be busy, and obviously we won't be able to hit everything, but we are fast walkers and have the patience. I planned this trip with the mindset of just hitting the headliners, so you'll notice in our itinerary that we are only at each park for a couple hours at a time. I have been stalking the wait times, easywdw and disboards to determine how much time to give each ride and travel times, and I think things turned out well. That being said, there are basically only 2 things at each park that we have down as must-dos, so anything else is just extra fun. If we find the line too long or just don't feel like doing a certain ride, that's fine! We'll be in Disney, and the last thing we want to do is get stressed out

 

[taythecray]

The Pre-Planning Process​

I'll try to make my posts entertaining, but this one is simply my experience with buying the tickets, checking out the parks, and working with fastpass before I really set out to do any planning. I'll also throw in some random Disney pics from our last trip for fun

We bought our tickets on November 11th easily through the WDW website. We opted not to buy magic bands, and instead just got our plastic cards about 2 weeks later. It was during those weeks that I started vaguely planning our trip. We knew we wanted to go to MK in the morning, AK and HS in the afternoon, and then MK again at night for the parade/fireworks.

Originally, MK was set to open up at 9am, but the day before our FP window opened up, they changed to an 8am opening (score!) Now this was my first time ever trying any sort of FP system, and even though I haven't used them yet, I can say I did love the process and being able to plan things ahead of time. When our window opened, there was nothing big in MK available that we really wanted (7DMT was all gone as well as A&E but we weren't planning on meeting them anyway), so we grabbed passed for Kilimanjaro Safaris, Expedition Everest, and Festival of the Lion King since we planned on going to AK in the afternoon when lines are busier.

Then I found disboards. I started reading posts about people dropping passes, found the December cancellation thread, and the next day I was able to snag one pass for 7DMT at night. Problem was, there are 3 of us. So I (literally) stalked MDE for the next couple days, checking it every couple minutes to see if anything else would open. Finally I grabbed 2 overlapping passes, and we were booked for 7DMT

With the other 2 passes, we just picked SM and POTC. Then about a week later, Disney went crazy and released a ton of FPs for Anna and Elsa! I stared at them forever because meeting them was something we never really thought about doing, so I text my friend to see if she was interested and she responded with a very enthusiastic YES!!!! Who cares if we're 20? We want to meet the characters! So I snagged 3 passes for us for late at night (tried to be nice and give kids the early ones) and then we kept our SM pass for the morning.

Once our passes were set, it was just a matter of planning our day around them. It's okay though, this was the fun part for me I was a little upset at first because HM was scheduled to be closed and then we had the unfortunate luck of POTC closing down ONLY on the day we'll be there, but things ended up working out (and HM ended up opening early). Like I said before, I probably re-worked our itinerary a dozen times and only finally settled a few days ago with the HM opening announcement and a final question on the boards here. I will post our itinerary next so you can see what I finally came up with.

 

[Vernie822]

Love your PTR so far! Congratulations on the engagement - we got engaged in the exact same spot at the Halloween party!

 

[taythecray]

Love your PTR so far! Congratulations on the engagement - we got engaged in the exact same spot at the Halloween party!

Aw thank you! I was debating on how much to post at once because I didn't want to do it all in one day, but I was on a roll
Also congratulations! I would love to go to one of the Halloween parties. That's on my list for next year depending on the dates

 

[Vernie822]

Thanks! I am so excited to hear about your 3 parks in one day adventure!

 

[taythecray]

The Plan​

I said the itinerary was going to be next, so here we go! As I mentioned before, we're hopping between MK, AK, and HS with only 2-3 must-do attractions picked out at each, so it may looked packed but hopefully things will work out
Magic Kingdom
6:30am: Wake up call! Getting up and around, grabbing breakfast to go and heading out for our 20-30min drive to the park. Hoping to be at the MK gates between 7:15-7:30am
8:00am: First rope drop!
Only attractions we're hoping to hit within the first hour and a half are Space Mountain, Meet Ariel at her Grotto, and Haunted Mansion (FP). Any extra time we have will be spent shopping and possibly hitting up another ride (Peter Pan, Small World, Jungle Cruise etc.)
9:30am: Meeting Aladdin characters! The only characters I absolutely HAVE to meet because they've always been my favorite
9:45am: Grabbing our spot in line for lunch at Be Our Guest! I've heard a lot of instances lately where lining up between 9:30-10 gets people in, so we're hoping this is the case for us! If the line looks long earlier, Austin volunteered to save our spot in line while we run to meet Aladdin characters (can you do that?)

Animal Kingdom
I've heard different stories of how long BOG lunch lasts, so I gave us a two hour window just in case. If we get done early, great! More time at AK
12:30pm: Kilimanjaro Safaris (the only ride Hannah said she really wants to do)
~1:30-2pm: Expedition Everest single rider (not sure how long the safari line is going to be so whenever that gets done we'll head here)

This is where I say "hmmmmm" We kind of want to see the Lion King show, but we also kind of wanted to be at HS by 3:30pm to meet the characters at the sorcerer's hat. If we can get the 2 o'clock Lion King show great! But if not I'm not sure if we would want to hit the 3 o'clock show and miss the characters, or skip the show and just kill time shopping/wandering the exhibits (maybe ride Dinosaur) and leave in time to meet the characters. I feel like we'll just play it by ear.

Hollywood Studios
3:30pm: Meet characters at the sorcerer's hat (who is usually here?)
4:00pm: Tower of Terror!!
5:00pm: Rock 'n' Roller Coaster (is single rider line worth trying? I've heard it's really slow)
6:30pm: Fantasmic! We aren't concerned about getting amazing seats, and were actually wondering where the best place to sit for a quick exit would be. Can you still see the show well enough from all the way in the back?

Magic Kingdom Part II
8:15pm: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (FP from 7:45-8:45pm)
9:00pm: Main Street Electrical Parade
9:45pm: Celebrate the Magic
10:00pm: Wishes
10:30pm: Enchanted Tales with Belle (We originally had this in the morning but everyone I talked to said to not waste precious morning RD hours on it)
11:15pm: Meet Anna and Elsa (FP)
11:30pm: Big Thunder Mountain...multiple times

Is this all possible? 0_o I sure hope so Any input would be fantastic and if anyone has answers to any of the questions I asked along the way I would love it!

 

[taythecray]

Random update: I finished packing today. Although we are only going to Disney for one day, we will be down in Orlando for about a week. Hoping the weather cooperates! 12/17 looks promising with 70+ degree weather and only a 10% chance of rain (and to be honest that's the only day I care about)
The only thing I have left to buy are batteries for my camera...I was debating for the longest time on bringing my nice DSLR camera to grab nice shots of the parades/shows, but the thought of dragging that around the park all day speaks for itself. Instead I'll just be bringing my small kodak that I used last year.

In other news, even though we still have a few days until this Disney trip....I'm already thinking about next year I would love to either do a Disney Honeymoon or head down for MNSSHP. My mom also mentioned the possibility of taking my little brother and sister down next year, so of course I'm looking into all the possible resort/dining options......am I crazy?

 

[taythecray]

It's the final countdown! We leave tomorrow morning at 10am for our flight. Which means only two days left until I'm back in Disney! The only thing I'm concerned about now is that I caught wind of someone saying you can't just have one person wait in line for BOG, so now I'm trying to figure out if I want to risk missing lunch to meet my all-time favorite characters (Aladdin & Jasmine) or miss out on the characters again to make sure we get a spot in line for lunch....the struggle!

 

[taythecray]

Well after a short 15min delay at takeoff, we are officially in Florida! Less than 12 hours now until we leave for Disney ^_^
I brought along an Ariel shirt to hopefully have her sign for my little sister. They can sign shirts right?

 

[taythecray]

Completed trip report here: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3360572