A January 2019 PTR- is this thing on?! Updated 2/15 TR Link!

[Gina Starr]

Wow this trip is right around the corner! So we both decided we need a couple days off before the trip to get some stuff done so we really only have 3 days of work left and hopefully none of those are full days! We are in the area of the country that might get 2 feet of snow this weekend or might get just rain. Fingers crossed for rain (DH wants the snow!) I guess I should move on to some daily plans.

(I decided to throw in some pictures from past trips to avoid the wall o text again)

Day 0- Travel Day

DH really wanted to drive straight through the night and get to Disney in the late afternoon/early evening but I vetoed that plan because we drive through mountains and with it being winter I don’t want to be driving through snow in the dark. So we are leaving a day early and staying about 4 hours from Disney. This will get us on property much earlier, hopefully around 11 am, depending on when we can get up that morning.

Some people like to stop at the Florida welcome center but we just want to get to Disney! We actually try to stop as little as possible. Our car tells us our “journey time” when you go two hours or more without stopping and we usually see a four hour journey time a couple times. DH will be listening to an audio book and I will be taking Dramamine and probably falling asleep (the non drowsy kind just doesn’t work as good!)


(DH with my niece on the carousel with Anastasia)


(And my nephew totally ignoring Anastasia)

Day 1- Arrival, Magic Kingdom, and Epcot

Like I said hopefully we are arriving around 11 or earlier. I doubt our room will be ready. We already have our room request through touring plans and we are really hoping to get our requests. I might pay off our room at this time too. ( I got a ton of gift cards at Target with my Target red card- 5% off of that much money adds up!)

The first park we will be going to is Magic Kingdom! It always has to be our first park! We have an adr at Be Our Guest for lunch and we might try and ride something with a short line. (Hopefully all the lines are short! We picked this time to avoid marathon and MLK crowds) We won’t have a ton of time here cause we are hopping over to Epcot. When we realized we would be there early enough to get to a park the first day DH snagged us a FEA fp (and Figment!) We might check out some of the Festival of the Arts offerings too but if we don’t get around to it, we have plenty of other time planned there the rest of the week.



DH would like to go back to MK to catch HEA. Oddly he loves fireworks and my opinion on them is meh. I feel like you see fireworks once and you’ve seen them all. But he says if we can get it out of the way this first night we won’t have to worry about it the rest of the week! I’m sure we will sleep well after our long day!
*I forgot I wanted to get to DS to get some snacks from Erin McKennas but I don’t know if we will have time!

 

[Gina Starr]

Day 2- Magic Kingdom

Yes we are going to Magic Kingdom again! This was originally our Day 1 and we always start at MK. Our fp are for 7DMT, HM, and Splash. We picked our favorites for our first full day like always. Our first fp starts at 10. I usually start them around this time so that if we get out early we have the first hour to get on stuff with low waits but also if we wanna sleep in we have until 11 to get to it. I learned on our first trip that I cannot go rope drop to close.



We also have an adr at Skippers Canteen for the early bird dinner. We really love this restaurant which is surprising considering neither of us are really adventurous eaters. But we love the theming being huge Jungle Cruise fans. Still not sure what to eat here. My fave was something on the appetizer menu and I don’t know if it’s still available or if it’s even gf.



Day 3- Hollywood Studios

My original plan was to get Toy Story Land done in late morning/early afternoon but I couldn’t get a fp for SDD til 5:40 so I honestly have no idea what we will do in the morning. Maybe go to AK since that will be the only park we haven’t been to yet and our first scheduled time there is still 2 days away. If we do that I’m sure we will get lunch at Satu’li and hopefully see the baby giraffe on the safari??


(I have like no photos of HS! This was a day where we were first in line at rope drop for some reason?)

I would like to try Woodys Lunchbox for dinner when we get to HS. The sandwiches just sound too yummy! We don’t have any other fp besides SDD so maybe we can grab one for TSMM after we ride slinky? HS is hard for us- I can’t do star tours cause of my motion sickness, neither of us like rock n rollercoaster, and we usually skip tower of terror too. So really the only rides we like are all the same tier for fp. We enjoy all the shows though so we usually do them all at least once.


(See why we don’t do rock n rollercoaster? Lol! This is our first and only ride on it)

 

[missangelalexis]

I'm with you about picking this week to avoid the marathon and MLK crowds. Hopefully this will work to our advantage!

Your first few days sound great!

 

[Gina Starr]

OMG! I totally forgot that we are going to Disney After Hours at MK on Day 3! That’s why I wanted the early SDD fp! I really don’t know what my plan was but if worse comes to worse we have plenty of time to get to DAH cause it starts at 8. But I’m going to be checking for an earlier fp until then. Stranger things have happened, right?

In other news, we just added a day at the beginning of the trip. We took enough extra days off at the beginning that we have time to actually go several days early but the rates are all so high so just decided to do one extra night. We are staying in a royal room at Riverside! We are so excited!



Day 4- DS and Epcot

We did our fp for later in the day so that we can go to DS this morning! We have an adr at Raglan Road for lunch and I’m really excited for the gf onion rings. If we haven’t made it to DS before this I’m sure we will be going to World of Disney as we are both excited to see it since the refurb. We also like the co-op (is that still what it’s called?), Basin, and the Christmas store. We started a Disney Christmas tree last year and our ornament collection is still pretty weak so we will want to get one or two ornaments.

I’m sure by the time we finish shopping and eating we will have to get going to Epcot. Boat back to FQ and bus to Epcot or bus from DS to and Epcot resort?? FP are for SE, Soarin, and Figment again! I somehow do okay on Soaring even with my motion sickness and really love it. DH on the other hand is terrified of heights and pretty much does it to make me happy.

For dinner I’m sure it will be Festival of the Arts booths. I highlighted everything we want to try in my snacks post. If it’s not too cold I really wanna try kaki gori in the Japan pavilion. We have one more day scheduled in Epcot but there’s so much we want to do that we will probably hop here another day. I definitely want to do the animation academy! We did it both years and I love it but they go sooo fast and I’m a perfectionist so they are always like 5 steps ahead of me. I’m also a terrible artist so I always hate the way my picture turns out. DH is a really good artist though so at least one of us is!


(I’m so sorry, Tigger!)


(That’s what Tigger is supposed to look like. DH says it’s horrible but I think it’s good!)

We really enjoyed the paint by numbers wall and I don’t know if we will watch the broadway series concert tonight or another time. One big priority though is merch!!! I NEED the spirit Jersey! I love spirit jerseys even if they are big and shapeless, they are so comfy. I love the Figment ears too but I have a big head and can’t usually wear ears. I’m sure DH will get an ap exclusive shirt as he loves those.


(It has a little Figment on the front!)

Day 5- Animal Kingdom
Yay! Finally our first scheduled day at AK! We have fp for FOP, the safari, and FOTLK. If you couldn’t tell by our RNR picture, we aren’t “big” rollercoaster fans. At least I’m not. We have done EE before and enjoyed it but the backwards part always makes me sick. Maybe we will try it again if we can get a 4th fp or there’s a short standby. We really like Dinosaur but it’s sooo jerky! We will probably skip it this trip.

FOP is our first fp and it’s late morning. I really like the ride but again my motion sickness really messes with me. I considered letting DH use my fp after he uses his but I might give it a try again. I’m sure we will do Satuli Canteen for lunch and will get bowls of some sort. I’m so excited they have started doing allergy meals on mobile order because it’s just so convenient!

Fingers crossed that the baby giraffe will be out on the safari! We would like to do some of the trails as we have never done them before. Yes, we have never done any of the trails!! We should probably head out around 3:30-4:00 cause we have an adr at Sanaa at 5! I’m seriously so excited for this! Bread service and butter chicken here I come!



Not sure what we will do after dinner. We usually check out wait times on the app and just go where it looks the slowest.

 

[Gina Starr]

I'm with you about picking this week to avoid the marathon and MLK crowds. Hopefully this will work to our advantage!

Your first few days sound great!

I hope so too! I know there’s no such thing as a slow time anymore but hopefully it’s slow-ish

 

[missangelalexis]

Exciting staying in a royal room for one night!

I really want to check out the animation academy too! I miss it not being at DHS!

I hope the baby giraffe is out!

 

[Gina Starr]

Ok I gotta finish this up cause we are leaving.... like soon! My fault for starting a PTR three weeks before a trip! It kinda served as a test to see if I could actually do a TR. I think the writing part will be easy but I’m not sure if I will be the best reporter. Do most people take notes through the day or just remember everything and write it all down at the end of each day or even the end of the trip? (Or just make it all up?!) I’m not a big picture taker but I know that will have to change because what’s a TR without pictures? And I will definitely have to figure out how to use a photo hosting site cause I don’t know about posting them straight here with the 10 picture limit.

We got through the work week and didn’t have to work a single full day so yay! Of course we will be sad later in the year when we are low on vacation time but oh well. It was worth it! It’s currently 0 degrees and feels like -15 so we are beyond ready to be in FL!

Day 6- Hollywood Studios

No plans for the morning/afternoon. This might be a good day for DS. Maybe we will see a movie and I’m sure another stop at Erin McKennas will be in order. We have an adr at 50s Prime Time for an early dinner. We love the atmosphere here and I always get yelled at for using my walkie talkie!



After dinner is another fp for SDD. I have heard AS2 and TSMM can be semi easy to get as extra fp so let’s hope that’s true! Since this will be an evening at HS I’m sure we will watch the Star Wars fireworks tonight. Neither of us love Fantasmic! Blasphemy, I know. I just think it’s kinda boring. Back to FQ and to bed early since tomorrow might be a rope drop day.



Day 7- Magic Kingdom and Hoop-Dee-Doo!

I sometimes look back at my fp plans and wonder what I was thinking? This is one of those days. My fp strategy I mentioned earlier where I like to start them between 10-11 apparently went out the window for today. Our MK fp start at 9:05 with POTC, Big Thunder, and Jungle Cruise.

I’m sure we will have been on POTC by now but I’m excited to see the new red head scene. We watch lots of Disney vlogs on YouTube and for a long time DH would make sure we didn’t see any spoilers but then he gave up so we technically already saw it. I was never attached to the first version so I have no opinion either way.



Maybe we will do an early qs lunch cause we have tickets to the 4:00 Hoop-Dee-Doo! I have booked this in the past and cancelled it cause I have heard how much time it takes to get there and it’s not cheap. But last summer we went to Cedar Point and they had this corny little stage show that DH loved and I figured he would love Hoop-Dee-Doo so we booked it! I have read good reviews of the gf food here and it seems like we will each get our own buckets so that will be fun.

 

[Gina Starr]

Day 8- Animal Kingdom

Another morning of early fp here for some reason. I’m usually tired by the end of the trip so you would think I would be starting them earlier, not later. We have Navi River Journey, Safari, and Finding Nemo the Musical. I tried to tell DH I was fine with another FOP fp but he said he wanted nrj for today so I didn’t argue. I like nrj more than fop but I’m sure that’s cause of my motion sickness. NRJ is just so peaceful and relaxing!



We literally can’t go to AK without going on the safari cause no matter how many times you ride it, it’s different. Lately I haven’t been impressed with our guides. They have been mumblers and just speed around so hopefully we get a good one this time! And lastly we have a fp for Finding Nemo the Musical. I know this fp is totally unnecessary but we haven’t seen it in years and last year when we tried to see it they cut the line off literally 30 seconds before we got there so we wanted something that would force us to see it. I have seen people say this is boring and too long and they are wrong! I love musicals of all sorts and I think this is one of the best stage shows at WDW!



*DH found a BOG adr for lunch on this day when we were unsure if we would make it to the one on arrival day (which is no longer arrival day) But the time is right in the middle of our fp so unless we are really craving BOG I’m sure we will cancel it.

Day 9- Epcot

Okay my normal fp approach is back for today. FP at Epcot are Spaceship Earth, Frozen Ever After, and The Seas with Nemo and Friends. I think I mentioned before that we aren’t big Test Track fans and we already did Soarin so that means our tier 1 choice is fea. Our nieces were fans of Frozen when it first came out but not like watch it a hundred times a day fans. So we never got sick of it, so to speak and we just think the ride is so cute so we have to do it at least once a trip!

The other fp are obviously not necessary but I do really like se and will be sad when it’s down for two years or however it will be for the refurb. And of course Nemo is cute too but I do have to close my eyes during the one scene when they are riding the waves (don’t know the official name of that) it makes me so sick!!



Hopefully more Festival of the Arts stuff! Based on the forecast it might be too freakin cold for us to want to be outside so who knows.

 

[missangelalexis]

I try to take little notes during the day and at the end of the day fill in any blanks. I also use my photos as a guide since I take a lot and they help me keep track of what we did!

Your plans for these days sound great!

 

[Gina Starr]

I try to take little notes during the day and at the end of the day fill in any blanks. I also use my photos as a guide since I take a lot and they help me keep track of what we did!

Your plans for these days sound great!

Thanks for the tip! That sounds like a good idea except I rarely take pictures. Like last years trip I literally have 4 pictures on my phone and two of them are of the same thing... I will have to get into the habit of taking more pictures!

 

[Gina Starr]

Day 10- Magic Kingdom aka The Last Day :-(

We must end our trip with a full day at the Magic Kingdom. We have a reservation for breakfast at 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian and we are so excited! DH is just excited for a breakfast buffet and I’m excited for strawberry soup (hopefully) and the characters! I’m most excited for the Mad Hatter and I know they can’t “guarantee” a certain character will appear but I hope he does!



After breakfast we will hop the monorail over to MK where we have fp for sdmt, hm, and pp. Peter Pans Flight is currently down for refurb and will be back up the day before this so I wanted to make sure to get a fp. I was originally just going to ride it during a dah event to avoid having to use a fp but that obviously won’t work. I mean I like the ride but I don’t get why the waits are as long as they are. People say cause it’s a classic or it’s a ride without height requirements but it’s a small world never gets waits like that!



I’m sure we will take our time soaking it all in on our last day. Last years trip I was beyond ready to go home on our last day. I was tired and not feeling the greatest. I told myself we weren’t going to do a 10 day trip again but here we are doing 11 days! I hope we can have more free time and rest days so I don’t get to the point where I’d rather be home to get a vacation from our vacation. It has nothing to do with Disney. I just have this weird thing where if I know vacation is ending I’m just ready for it to be over even if I’m having fun. I also am NOT a people person at all and the crowds bother me a lot.

Day 11- Drive Home

Our usual plan of attack is to leave super early. It’s never fun but I don’t wanna be getting home at 4 am. I always think about hitting a park for the morning since we have ap and then stopping at a hotel to break up the drive but at this point I. Want. To. Be. Home. So that doesn’t happen. We still technically have the rest of this week off so I’m sure DH will try and talk me into staying one or two more nights sometime through the week which I will be the responsible adult and say no.

 

[Gina Starr]

So now that I have the daily plans done let’s talk about packing cause that’s really all we have left to do. I can’t be one of those people that packs like a week ahead of time. Most of the stuff I take with me I need through the week so that just doesn’t work. I have been setting out clothes I know I won’t wear and have my list all ready so I know what we need to buy still. I just bought a lighter jacket cause the forecast looks like it will be chilly a lot of the days. I never know what kind of jacket I will need. I will have my winter one with me since we are driving and will be cold the first half of the drive but I know FL is notorious for being cold during the morning and night and warming up during the day and I really don’t feel like carrying around my huge winter jacket. Ughh FL in January is frustrating. I won’t complain though. At least I won’t be drenched in sweat.

At the beginning of the month I realized I didn’t have any shorts that fit me since I lost weight. I ordered some from Target and they didn’t fit so I guess that was the worlds way of telling me I wasn’t going to need shorts anyways! DH is brining mostly shorts and only one or two pairs of pants. He’s a man and apparently men’s legs are warmer than women’s?


(Okay he’s not this bad but you get the idea)

I’m sure we will overpack as always. I’d rather be over prepared than under prepared. And that’s the beauty of driving- we can pack as much as we want.


(This is what our car usually looks like except more organized cause DH is a neat freak)

I guess that’s gonna wrap this up. Thanks for reading along if you did! I hope I wasn’t too boring. See ya real soon!

 

[missangelalexis]

Your plan for the last day sounds great! And hey maybe you won't be ready to leave and will do a park the morning you leave

Driving places is always nice because you can stuff the car with everything you need! Especially when you need to pack extra for the weather!

 

[Gina Starr]

Hi everyone! We have been back for 10 days so I finally decided to start my TR!

I Felt Like A Chickmunk! January 2019 TR