A Moment, A Love, A Dream, A Laugh - January 2015 PTR - ~*UPDATED 1/14*~

[jamieann]

Introduction​

Welcome to my first pre-trip report! I realized recently that the obsessive ADR booking and re-booking, 4 times a week podcast listening, and constant mental preparation for a week of pure Disney magic just wasn’t enough to keep me satisfied during our countdown, so that brings me here!.

Joe and I on our 2 year anniversay​

The Particulars:
Who? My husband Joe and I + likely a short visit from our friends Hayley and Justin
When? January 24-31, 2015
Where? Pop Century

We booked this trip in August and went into it a bit tentatively. Since last December Joe has been doing full-time freelance work, so our budget tends to fluctuate quite a bit from month to month. We both knew a Disney cruise was at the top of our vacation wish list for next year, so if we could only afford to take one big trip it was going to be with DCL. However, we went ahead and booked, knowing we could always cancel before the 45 day mark. I think that little bit of uncertainty made me hesitant to start a pre-trip report. My hopes were already pretty high, but I knew this would only elevate them. I’m happy to report, though, that Joe is a freelancer no more! He recently (we’re talking last week!) accepted a full-time position so it’s much easier for us to know exactly where we’ll be financially in the coming months. So what does that mean for us? A week at Walt Disney World in January and a week on the Disney Fantasy in September! We are feeling incredibly blessed

Want to plan along with me? We all know planning is half the fun anyway!

Next Post: Get to know us!

 

[jamieann]

Reserved for index

 

[jamieann]

Who Are We?​

We’re Joe and Jamie from KY! We celebrated our second wedding anniversary in June and this is our first trip back to Disney World that is (mostly) just the two of us since our honeymoon! I took a girl’s trip with one of my best friends and her daughter in the spring of 2013, and we both spent 2 days at the World after our January 2014 Disney cruise, but it’s been more than 2 years since we’ve spent a week on property. We couldn’t be more thrilled!

Honeymooning at Magic Kingdom

Post-Cruise enjoying a deserted Sunset Boulevard​

A little more about who we are:

Joe works from home as a mobile designer. He especially appreciates the 30 second commute from bed to office first thing in the morning. Growing up in the Bay Area of California, Joe made several trips to Disneyland, but his love for Disney really grew after we took a trip to the Magic Kingdom when we were dating. I was in College in Tampa and Joe flew in from California for a visit. What better place to spend a day with your long distance girlfriend than Disney World?! Yeah, I set the bar pretty high with that date. Prior to our honeymoon Joe had never been to Epcot, Hollywood Studios, or Animal Kingdom, but after visiting all 4 parks for a week he was totally hooked on all of Walt Disney World!

Favorites:
Park: Magic Kingdom
Attraction: Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Restaurant: Le Cellier
Movie: Monsters Inc.
Character: Art from Monsters University

I work at an independent Christian bookstore. My love for Disney in general began before I can remember. I grew up on all the princess movies and the sing-along VHS tapes. Unfortunately though, my family only spent one day in Magic Kingdom when I was probably 4 or 5 and all I can remember is “it’s a small world” and the fact that it rained during the entire parade. My WDW fanaticism really started when I was in school in Tampa. Disney ran a Florida resident deal: $120 for 4 single day admissions. CRAZY good deal, right?! So several of my friends and I took advantage and visited each park for a full day. The rest is history.

Favorites:
Park: Magic Kingdom
Attraction: Tower of Terror
Restaurant: Le Cellier
Movie: Beauty and the Beast
Princess: Belle
Character: Kronk

This is Hayley and Justin. Hayley and I have been friends since we were 8 years old and let me tell you, 15 years of friendship means a lot of very blackmail worthy pictures. Our awkward years were not pretty. What’s funny is that while Hayley and I were growing up in southeast, Joe and Justin were both growing up in California! They were acquaintances long before Hayley and I knew them. Small world, huh? Hayley and I lived together for a year in college and she is one of my dearest best friends. These newlyweds will be joining us either for 1-3 days, TBD. They’re not as OCD about planning and they’re basically locals (Tampa), so their plans are still fluid.

So, that’s us!
Next Post: A little background – how this trip came to be

 

[jamieann]

Our Trip: Background Info​

So, how did this trip come to be? Well, Joe and I love to travel. I’ve definitely got the travel bug a bit more than him, but he enjoys it as well. So far in our relationship we’ve been to California (where Joe is from), Chicago, D.C., New York, The Bahamas (Disney Cruise), and a few smaller trips like Gatlinburg, TN and the Blue Ridge Mountains in GA. We like to go new places we’ve never been before, but we always come back to our love of Disney World. Since we don’t have kids yet our travel dates are really flexible, so we’ve figured out that we really like taking a trip in January. That’s when we went to D.C. in 2013 and we took our Disney Cruise in January of this year. It’s nice to have something to look forward to when the hustle and bustle of Christmas (I’m a Christmas NUT!) is over, plus you can usually get cheaper flights since it’s an off-season for travel.

So once we decided that January was our target travel month, we had to decide where we wanted to go! Initially, my idea was to do Southern California for a week. Joe is from northern California, but it’s a totally different world from SoCal. He’s done some of SoCal, but I’ve never been and he’s only been with his family when he was younger so there would be plenty of new stuff for us to experience together. Plus, of course, I had Disneyland in my brain! The more I read reviews and trip reports about Disneyland, the more I’m convinced that we HAVE to make a trip out there. I love that it’s the original, the one where Walt walked. So we started planning and pricing a SoCal trip, but the cost quickly started escalating. Flights to get out there are so expensive by themselves. Then when you add hotels, things to do, car rental, food, etc., we were looking at $4000-5000. That’s when I started thinking how much I would rather spend that amount of money on a Disney Cruise. So I started looking at cruise dates for 2015 and we pretty much settled on September.

So what about SoCal? Well, we still wanted to take a trip in January, so we started looking at ideas that wouldn’t be quite so expensive, and our first thought was DISNEY WORLD! I contacted a Disney travel agent to get a quote, we put down our deposit, and here we are 3 months later anxiously awaiting our trip!

Fast forward to September. I’m texting my friend Hayley when a lightbulb goes off. She and her (now) husband live in Tampa. They could come to Disney World with us!

She was so onboard! So now they’re in the planning stages, which I’m sure will affect which days we spend at which parks. I’m hoping to have all that nailed down before our 60 day mark so we can make our FP+ selections right away.

Until then, I’ve been busy making ADRs, which may also change based on Hayley and Justin’s plans. It makes me a bit nervous to think about cancelling and re-planning ADRs 60 or fewer days out, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what the availability is like by then. Speaking of ADRs…

Next Post: Our advance dining reservations and initial plans

 

[jamieann]

Initial Plans and ADRs​

So how’s the planning going? Where are we going to be on which days? I feel like I’ve configured and re-configured this so many times, but this is what I have right now. This is all subject to change once Hayley and Justin’s plans are set in stone. They’ll be with us for Thanksgiving, so I’m thinking we should be able to nail things down while they’re here.

Saturday 1/24 – Arrive in Orlando at 12:10 --> Magic Kingdom for the afternoon/evening
Sunday 1/25 – Epcot AM --> Hollywood Studios PM (EMH)
Monday 1/26 – Animal Kingdom AM (EMH) --> Magic Kingdom PM
Tuesday 1/27 – Epcot (EMH)
Wednesday 1/28 – Magic Kingdom (Marceline to Magic Kingdom Tour)
Thursday 1/29 – Hollywood Studios AM --> Animal Kingdom or Magic Kingdom PM
Friday 1/30 – Hollywood Studios AM --> Epcot PM (EMH)
Saturday 1/31 – Magic Kingdom --> Depart Orlando at 4:35

I’m feeling pretty confident that these plans are going to change drastically. For one thing, they don’t line up great with all of our ADRs. I made the ADRs based on one set of plans, then changed the plans but didn’t change the ADRs. A lot of this is due to waiting to find out Hayley and Justin’s plans for sure. I don’t really see the point in switching a lot of stuff around when I might just have to do it again anyway. SO, needless to say I’m really looking forward to spending some time with them over Thanksgiving so we can get plans 100% set!

One of our absolute favorite things about any vacation is FOOD! We always scout out restaurants before taking a trip and we even took a food tour in Brooklyn over Memorial Day. It was easily the highlight of our trip! Of course, with all the incredible dining options, Disney is a great place for us to try new things and revisit old favorites. We’ll be on the Disney Dining Plan for the first time thanks to the Stay, Play, and Dine discount. Paying rack rate for the dining plan never makes financial sense for us just because we rarely get dessert and don’t want to feel like we have to get the most expensive entrée to make it “worth it.” But when the discounts were released, my travel agent got me a quote for adding the dining plan and it was going to end up being less than I had figured for our food budget, so we booked it! I am SO excited to try out the dining plan. One of our favorite things about our cruise in January was the fact that it was so all-inclusive. I think the dining plan will help give me that same feeling at Disney World. We won’t have to think about how much we’re spending because it’s already paid for. So nice!

So, without further ado, our ADRs!

Saturday 1/24 – Whispering Canyon Café – 6:30
Sunday 1/25 – Cape May Café – 5:05
Monday 1/26 – California Grill – 7:25
Tuesday 1/27 – Teppan Edo -- 5:30, Beaches and Cream -- 9:00 (dessert)
Wednesday 1/28 – Sci-Fi Dine-In – 12:25
Thursday 1/29 – ‘Ohana – 5:20
Friday 1/30 – Le Cellier – 5:35

Again, I’m sure these will change. Some of them just aren’t possible with our current schedule. I’ve been making schedules partly based on Extra Magic Hours and partly based on recommended days from TouringPlans.com, but I may be overestimating how much stamina we’ll have to stay for late EMH or get up early for morning ones. We had big plans to do both on our honeymoon and I think we maybe took advantage of them a total of 2 times. So we’ll see!

For this trip we tried to do a mix of old favorites and places we’ve never tried. Of the ADRs we currently have booked, we’ve eaten at four of them before: Teppan Edo, Beaches and Cream, Sci-Fi, and Le Cellier. Joe is absolutely set on Teppan Edo and neither of us are budging on Le Cellier, but I’m thinking we might drop Sci-Fi. It’s such a fun atmosphere and the food was good (not great), but it doesn’t seem to be fitting in with our plans and Joe wasn't terribly enthused about going back. So maybe we’ll add a 5th new place!

Looking at what we currently have, what ADR(s) would you add? Are there any you would drop?

Until next time!

 

[desheag]

I'm joining!!! Can't wait to read more!!!

 

[bellaally]

Going in january too, I am so excited can not wait at all!! You guys look so cute together wish my husband were into Disney World like me but as long as he lets me go we will be okay lol!

 

[jamieann]

I'm joining!!! Can't wait to read more!!!

Thanks for joining in!

Going in january too, I am so excited can not wait at all!! You guys look so cute together wish my husband were into Disney World like me but as long as he lets me go we will be okay lol!

Can you believe how soon it is?! I keep looking at my countdown app in disbelief. Thank you, he does love it! Not as big of a nut as me, but few people I know are

 

[jamieann]

FastPass+​

If you've been on the boards for any length of time (it probably takes about 37 seconds), you've probably noticed some pretty heated debates and feelings about FastPass+. I may be one of the few people who just doesn't fall squarely on one side or the other of the debate. On one hand, I loved legacy fastpass. My friends and I would do commando style touring and had the system down to an art. We could easily get 8-10 fastpasses in a day and never waited in line. On the other hand, I really do like having the flexibility of not feeling like I have to be at rope drop every morning to run around like a crazy person getting fastpasses. Having those 3 attractions picked out that I know for sure I will get to experience makes it easy to fill in the blank spaces with attractions that have shorter wait times. So anyway, that's my 2 cents. On to FastPass+!

For the most part I had a smooth process reserving my FastPass+s. The only hitch was that right at midnight instead of letting me into the system, MDE told me that I could select FastPass+s on January 24th (the first day of our trip.) This was my face:

Thankfully, everyone in the January Disney World Facebook group was having the same issue and it resolved itself at 1:00 AM (midnight my time). No big deal. I was super pleased to see that I could get 7DMT for all 3 Magic Kingdom days! Who even knows if we'll like it enough to want to ride it that many times, but I'm glad we have some options!

Oh, I should also mention that I switched my days around a bit since my last post. These FP+s reflect the new day plans.

Saturday 1/24 - Space Mountain 3:20 --> Buzz Lightyear 4:25 --> 7DMT 8:50
Sunday 1/25 - Test Track 10:10 --> Spaceship Earth 11:40 --> Figment 1:15
Monday 1/26 - Haunted Mansion 12:40 --> Peter Pan 1:50 --> 7DMT 3:05
Tuesday 1/27 - Kilimanjaro Safaris 10:00 --> Expedition Everest 11:50 --> Dinosaur 1:00
Wednesday 1/28 - Tower of Terror 10:05 --> Toy Story 11:15 --> Star Tours 1:25
Thursday 1/29 - Star Tours 9:55 --> Little Mermaid 11:20 --> Toy Story 12:10
Friday 1/30 - Kilimanjaro Safaris 9:15 --> Expedition Everest 10:30 --> Dinosaur 11:30
Saturday 1/31 - 7DMT 9:30 --> Big Thunder Mountain 10:40 --> Space Mountain 12:40


I could definitely see us changing plans at some point in the week. From what I've read most FP+s are still easy to get a day or 2 in advance (with A&E and 7DMT being the exception). But it's nice to have these pinned down now.

I can't believe how close the trip is getting. We're 53 days away now! EEEEK!

 

[jamieann]

My Disney To-Do List​

We're getting SO CLOSE now! In just 10 days we'll be at one of our favorite places on Earth. Magic Bands arrived about 2 weeks ago. I've seen lots of different ideas for decorating them, but I didn't want anything too elaborate. I decided to just paint mine with gold nail polish and I really like how it turned out! Not too flashy, will match everything, and I love gold!

Ever since we started planning our trip back in August, I've been keeping a running to-do list for this trip. One of the things I love about Disney World is that no matter how many times you've been, there are always things to do that you've never done. So that's what this list is! As I'm looking over it I realize that many of them have to do entirely with food . What can I say? This girl loves to eat. Plus, I start Whole30 the day after we get back, so I need to enjoy every bit of bad-for-me goodness that I can! Without further ado, here it is!

1. Carrot cake cookie at HS Writer's Stop
2. Picture in front of gate with trees and castle (Do y'all know where I'm talking about? There's a metal gate you stand in front of with trees on either side and the castle in the background. I love it, but we've never gotten a picture there!)
3. Frozen strawberry cheesecake at AOA
4. Columbia Harbour House (Can you believe I've never eaten here?!)
5. Picture sitting outside the Plaza with castle in the background
6. Opening MK show
7. MK Kiss Goodnight
8. Brioche ice cream sandwich in France
9. Sum of All Thrills
10. See the dolphins at The Seas
11. Waffle sandwiches at Sleepy Hollow
12. Tonga Toast
13. Character Palooza at HS
14. Train at MK (I've done this one before, but Joe hasn't)
15. Jungle Cruise at night
16. Cronut at Epcot
17. Meet Gaston​

What's on YOUR Disney World to-do list?