Adventures in Un-rope dropping!

[Mama Mouse]

Currently about to start park day 2 and wanted to go ahead and start my report! I'm crummy at reports so expect short updates and a few pictures.

We're here June 7-June 15 and making good use of FP+.

We are normally rope drop people but when we do that, we can't do evening EMH. We need sleep, our family just can't cope without it. So this trip, we are (mostly) UN-rope dropping! This plan relies heavily on using FP+, evening EMH and late night park hours and, honestly, a nice long length of stay. Oh and a positive attitude and no expectation of "doing it all."

So, we hope you enjoy our adventures!

 

[Mama Mouse]

Our trip began Friday night (June 6) on a late flight to Orlando from St. Louis. A little delay meant we landed after midnight (around 12:15). Then we trudged our way to gather luggage in Terminal A and then trudged back to Terminal B to catch magical express-which apparently has a longer wait at that time of night. Arrive at Coronado Springs, check in and finally arrive at room at nearly 3 am.

Nothing left to do but crash.

We had noon ressies at Liberty Tree Tavern yesterday. (June 7.) Overslept, dashed around, arrive at MK at 11:55 and haul...well, you know what, to LTT and WE MADE IT!

Instead of my normal, teary eyed gaze at the castle it was more like "MOVE, FAMILY! LET'S GO! YEAH YEAH WE'LL SEE IT LATER!" Whatever works, right?

MK was open until midnight so here's what we managed to do in twelve hours on our first Un-rope drop day.

Lunch at LTT
Haunted Mansion (Standby)
Seven Dwarves Mine Train (FP)
Peter Pan (FP)
Teacups (Sb)
Dumbo x 2 (Both SB)
Speedway (FP)
Space Ranger Spin (SB)
Winnie the Pooh (Including a total ride shut down mid ride and a walk off!) (For anyone interested, we got FP good for any attraction in Fantasyland-except 7DMT.)
Mickey's Philharmagic
MSEP with fantastic spot acquired a five minutes until parade time
Shopping at the Emporium
Shopping for, purchasing and waiting on the boys latest mouse ears. (He chose Oswald!)
Food at Pepper's Market (Back at Resort)
Food at Cosmic Rays
Swimming at the Dig Site (Including the long walk there and back from Casitas!)
Waiting in our room for approximately 25 minutes for maintenance (around 5ish) to come address the crazy loud grinding coming from our wall. (It's the adjoining room showering. Here's hoping they don't shower in the middle of the night!)

I think that's about everything.

Did I mention it was MK on a Saturday AND Gay Days? And we weren't even rushing around! (With the exception of LTT.)

Wonderful, WONDERFUL day at the Magic Kingdom and proof positive that with good planning, it CAN be done.

 

[Mama Mouse]

*Saving this spot for day 1 pictures, which I can't figure out how to add via the app.

 

[heathsf]

Our trip began Friday night (June 6) on a late flight to Orlando from St. Louis. A little delay meant we landed after midnight (around 12:15). Then we trudged our way to gather luggage in Terminal A and then trudged back to Terminal B to catch magical express-which apparently has a longer wait at that time of night. Arrive at Coronado Springs, check in and finally arrive at room at nearly 3 am.

Nothing left to do but crash.

We had noon ressies at Liberty Tree Tavern yesterday. (June 7.) Overslept, dashed around, arrive at MK at 11:55 and haul...well, you know what, to LTT and WE MADE IT!

Instead of my normal, teary eyed gaze at the castle it was more like "MOVE, FAMILY! LET'S GO! YEAH YEAH WE'LL SEE IT LATER!" Whatever works, right?

MK was open until midnight so here's what we managed to do in twelve hours on our first Un-rope drop day.

Lunch at LTT
Haunted Mansion (Standby)
Seven Dwarves Mine Train (FP)
Peter Pan (FP)
Teacups (Sb)
Dumbo x 2 (Both SB)
Speedway (FP)
Space Ranger Spin (SB)
Winnie the Pooh (Including a total ride shut down mid ride and a walk off!) (For anyone interested, we got FP good for any attraction in Fantasyland-except 7DMT.)
Mickey's Philharmagic
MSEP with fantastic spot acquired a five minutes until parade time
Shopping at the Emporium
Shopping for, purchasing and waiting on the boys latest mouse ears. (He chose Oswald!)
Food at Pepper's Market (Back at Resort)
Food at Cosmic Rays
Swimming at the Dig Site (Including the long walk there and back from Casitas!)
Waiting in our room for approximately 25 minutes for maintenance (around 5ish) to come address the crazy loud grinding coming from our wall. (It's the adjoining room showering. Here's hoping they don't shower in the middle of the night!)

I think that's about everything.

Did I mention it was MK on a Saturday AND Gay Days? And we weren't even rushing around! (With the exception of LTT.)

Wonderful, WONDERFUL day at the Magic Kingdom and proof positive that with good planning, it CAN be done.

Sounds great!

 

[Mama Mouse]

Day 2:

Got a later start than we wanted, arriving at AK around noon. Did lunch at Flame Tree, Dinosaur, some Dinoland games, Nemo the Musical, Jungle Trek, Everest and food at Pizzafari. It was positively sweltering and we were all dragging (hence the loooong sit down at Pizzafari even though we barely ate anything.) The whole up late/sleep extremely late works in theory but we're just groggy with that type of schedule and the really stagnant, sticky AK air was brutal. That said, we got that stuff accomplished in a short period of time.

Headed back to the room for a swim and a bit of a break.

Then we hopped to MK for EMH. We were there from around 8:50-1ish. Managed to do MSEP with a fantastic spot, Space Mountain (husband only), Buzz, Teacups (Husband and son only. Any time you see teacups, just assume I'm not on them), Little Mermaid, Haunted Mansion, Small World, Jungle Cruise, Swiss Family Treehouse, Aladdin's Carpets, Tomorrowland Speedway, Dumbo, Food at Cosmic Rays and some of Wishes.

We're getting quite a lot done. But really feeling the effects of the drastic change in sleep patterns. Having a great time, though!

 

[Mama Mouse]

Day 3:

We. Are. Dragging.

Slept waaaaay in. Lunch at Pepper Market. Got to Epcot by 1 I think? I absolutely HATED walking in that late. It's just so contrary to what I'm used to. That said, it worked.

We did Test Track, Ellen, Mission Space (I shopped, the boys rode that one!), Figment, Three Caballeros, Maelstrom, Character Spot, Spaceship Earth and food at Mexico.

Back to the CSR for a long swim and just could not get motivated to go to Hollywood Studios for EMH so we were in for the night.

 

[Mama Mouse]

Day 4:

Got a better start today. Breakfast at Pepper Market before we headed to Hollywood Studios.

Still not in the park until 11:15ish but that was better than 1! Did Muppets, Star Tours (twice), TSMM, one Man's Dream, Great Movie Ride, HISTK Playground, LMA, Food at Sci Fi and a ton of shopping.

This is basically all we like to do at HS, except maybe Backlot Tour. Ds is not a thrill ride kid so RnRC and ToT is out. We'd ridden Everest while he waited but didn't have a RnRC fp so I was happy to skip it. This basically covered everything we wanted to do except Fantasmic.

It was raining pretty well for quite some time. I was wearing white and we forgot our ponchos so we waved the white flag and went back to CSR to change, grab ponchos and head to MK at 9 something.

Managed to do Pirates, Enchanted Tiki Room, MSEP (this time at the very end of the route), BTMRR (husband only) and Country Bears.

 

[Mama Mouse]

Day 5:

I needed to switch gears and Dh wanted an off/no park day for himself.

I surprised ds and took him to Blizzard Beach and it was wonderful!

Got there shortly after 9 and spent the next 8 hours in the water, minus 45ish minutes waiting for rain to pass.

Dressed and met DH at Boardwalk and ate at ESPN.

Rode the boat to HS thinking we might catch Fantasmic but Ds had some unfortunate chaffing from the day in the water and it was catching up to him. So we went in, got nearly to the Fantasmic line, then hobbled back to the front, stopping only to buy a plastic droid stein.

Now we're about to crash and up early tomorrow.

We've gotten as much done un-rope dropping as we did rope dropping. (Again, provided smart use of FP + and the extra FP's when we finish our first three, No expectations of "doing it all" and a laid back attitude. And it doesn't hurt that there are some things we simply don't do. (Splash, RnRc, ToT, etc.)

But this schedule is too hard. It makes me way too groggy so we may not rope drop most of the last few days we're here but we won't be sleeping in until 10 anymore, either.

 

[Mama Mouse]

Day 6!

Went to MK this morning for the sole purpose of DS doing Tom Sawyer's Island, which, after all these visits, he's never done.

I did it as a child and again on my honeymoon 13 years ago. I still hate it.

MK was packed today. We also rode the train around the park and watched the Time of your life thing. Dh had forgotten his wallet so we lost some time spinning our wheels waiting for him to get back to MK. We had no intentions of staying and hopped over to Epcot. I think we got there by 2?

Had lunch at the Electric Umbrella, Ds and Dh rode Mission Space and then we hung out in Innoventions for a bit before FPing Spaceship Earth. Headed to World Showcase and spent some time in Japan, UK and France before heading back for our Soarin' FP. We left the park at 7:30.

Dinner at Pepper Market and some swimming. Not a bad day but I have to say, I'm so glad we left MK. Maybe we were just in the wrong places at the wrong time but it was horrible. Soooooo crowded, shoulder to shoulder in the area of the new Fantasy Land bathrooms and all the way up past Peter Pan. Combined with the sticky, pre-storm heat, it was torturous.