A Little Less Griswold, A Little More Smolder - A May 2017 PTR

[LaBelleVie]

A Few Updates
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• I made our final payment today! It's not a big deal, but it is nice to know there's nothing left to worry about other than packing!
• Our Magical Express tags arrived Monday! This is actually kind of a big deal, because both other times we've flown, they didn't arrive until we were already at Disney World. As such, we've always just gotten our own luggage. I haven't yet decided if I want to have Disney get our luggage or not; I like the idea of the convenience, but I am a little concerned about something happening to the luggage. Yes, I might be overly paranoid.
• I still haven't had any luck finding a BOG dinner. I did put in for a Touring Plans reservation finder, so hopefully something can come of that.

 

[hulagirl87]

We are going in a couple weeks and can't wait! We schedule in a rest day as well. It's nice to get a little break from the parks and have some down time. We booked the Kindermoon package too, but didn't receive our fastpasses. Did you get them in the mail? I called and asked about it and they told me that I would need to go to guest relations in any of the parks and ask for them.

 

[LaBelleVie]

We are going in a couple weeks and can't wait! We schedule in a rest day as well. It's nice to get a little break from the parks and have some down time. We booked the Kindermoon package too, but didn't receive our fastpasses. Did you get them in the mail? I called and asked about it and they told me that I would need to go to guest relations in any of the parks and ask for them.

Enjoy your trip!

As for the fastpasses, no, we haven't gotten them in the mail. But we still haven't received our package info in the mail yet either. All we've gotten is our ME tags (though our MagicBands shipped a couple of days ago, so they'll be here soon!).

 

[LaBelleVie]

Day 4 Plans (For Real This Time) - Animal Kingdom
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Previously, I mentioned that we were going to Disney Springs on the fourth day of our trip, we're actually going on the fifth day of our trip. The fourth day will be spent at Animal Kingdom.

Now I'm going to level with you, Tom and I have only been to Animal Kingdom once, on our first trip. The boys have never been. When we were there, it was the middle of our trip. It was our third straight day touring (not unlike this trip, though we've learned a bit from our mistakes since then!). Things were going wrong, and we were getting cranky. After seeing Festival of the Lion King, Tom was getting hungry. We were hot. There were a lot of people. We were over it. We ended up catching a bus to AKL and getting a nice, quiet, relaxing lunch at the Mara and taking the rest of the day off from touring. As you may surmise, we both decided AK was our least favorite park.

However...

I do feel like we have missed out on so much at AK because we never truly gave it a chance. And I know that there are a lot of things there that the boys would really enjoy. So we're doing it again, but hopefully with a slightly better, less criss-crossy plan.

Rather than starting our day in Africa like we did last time (we actually only ended up experiencing attractions in Africa), we're going to start over in DinoLand U.S.A. Our first fastpass of the day is for Finding Nemo - The Musical, and I'm sure the kids will want to play at The Boneyard! We'll be getting a QS lunch somewhere at AK, but I'm not sure where yet; we're currently leaning toward Restaurantosaurus or Flame Tree BBQ.

We will plan to explore the trails, probably meet some characters, and maybe do It's Tough To Be A Bug. In Asia, I really want to see the tigers, and we might see Flights of Wonder if we have time.

We'll end(ish) our day in Africa, with an afternoon showing of Festival of the Lion King, followed by an early Rivers of Light package dinner at Tusker House. After dinner, we'll do the safari, and we'll probably explore a little bit until Rivers of Light begins.

I'm really hoping that we'll be able to truly appreciate all that Animal Kingdom has to offer!

 

[LaBelleVie]

We are going in a couple weeks and can't wait! We schedule in a rest day as well. It's nice to get a little break from the parks and have some down time. We booked the Kindermoon package too, but didn't receive our fastpasses. Did you get them in the mail? I called and asked about it and they told me that I would need to go to guest relations in any of the parks and ask for them.

New update! They came with our MagicBands. They were tucked in the same compartment as the luggage tags, in a little folder thing with Dumbo on it.

 

[LaBelleVie]

Day 6 Plans - Magic Kingdom​

It's been a couple of weeks since I updated; at this point, we're less than a week out from our trip! We have made some changes to our plans, mostly for our MK days.

On our last (MK only) trip, we actually never made it into Adventureland at all, so we're starting our MK journey there this time. We have morning fastpasses for Jungle Cruise and Pirates, and I'd like to do the Enchanted Tiki Room (I've wanted to do it every trip, but we've just never gotten around to it), and probably the Swiss Family Treehouse. The kids will probably want to do the flying carpets, so we'll do that if we have time before we leave MK for a late breakfast at 1900 Park Fare. That meal is replacing our previously planned dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern; while discussing the trip, my oldest mentioned that he really wanted to eat with Pooh again, so we maneuvered things in order to make that happen (I, for one, am looking forward to trying the strawberry soup!).

Our third fastpass is for Haunted Mansion, and we definitely want to see the Muppets history shows. Our plans for the rest of the evening are a little more open-ended, and depend on how much time we have. We might make it over to Tom Sawyer Island for the first time. We plan to have dinner at either Pecos Bill's or Casey's (we haven't been to either before), and we will likely watch Happily Ever After from inside the park.

 

[LaBelleVie]

Day 7 Plans - Magic Kingdom​

This day will feature something new for us (provided I can drag myself out of bed in time) -- Extra Magic Hours! We've always stayed onsite, but we've never taken advantage of them before. We figured it would make sense to come in and get a couple of rides out of the way while there were fewer people in the park. We have a breakfast reservation at Be Our Guest shortly after park opening, followed by a fastpass to meet Cinderella and Elena (though to be honest, the boys don't really care about Cinderella -- they are ALL about Elena!). Our other fastpasses are for Enchanted Tales with Belle (which they will be thrilled about...my three-year-old loves to pretend he is Belle) and Peter Pan's Flight. We'll be leaving the park for an air conditioned late lunch and a break from the crowds at Whispering Canyon Cafe before we finish up anything else we still *have* to do at MK. We're capping off the night with the one thing I have been extremely intent on keeping a surprise from the boys -- when they released the later Be Our Guest reservations, I was able to score one for 8:55pm! I think I'd be crazy to try to feed them dinner that late, so I'm planning on just going for dessert so that they can meet the Beast! I can't wait to see their faces! It'll be such a lovely way to end our time in the parks

 

[LaBelleVie]

Day 8 Plans (Departure Day)​

Ah, the sad ending to our trip. I'm already dreading it, and it hasn't even happened yet.

After we check out of Pop, we're going to head over to 'Ohana for a late breakfast. After that, we'll have a few hours to kill until the Magical Express picks us up, but we haven't decided what we're going to do yet. We might resort hop a bit, or maybe head back over to Disney Springs for a couple of hours. We'll just play it by ear (though I'm open to suggestions!)