All My Bags Are(n't) Packed(But I'm Ready to Go)~My 1st PTR (11/2014) - TR Link (p.8)

[stacy~**]

Try not to let the FP+ stress you out too much. I personally found it to be very easy and I was very surprised at how I was able to change and add things on the fly while there in the parks. Sure the super headliners you won't be able to do much with but there were always options. Try to look at it like anything you can't squeeze in this trip will be priorities for your next one.

The 1900PF breakfast looks fun. (we've only had dinner there) If you are going to have limited food options I would definitely pick a character meal that is known for fun character interaction. I think PF is a good choice when keeping that in mind.

It's hard not to get caught up in the over planning, etc. While I spend way too much time planning I try and keep it fun and don't let any of it stress me out. You will be at Disney on vacation with your sister. You will have a great time! Don't let it get to you.

 

[SarahDisney]

Try not to let the FP+ stress you out too much. I personally found it to be very easy and I was very surprised at how I was able to change and add things on the fly while there in the parks. Sure the super headliners you won't be able to do much with but there were always options. Try to look at it like anything you can't squeeze in this trip will be priorities for your next one.

We were there last year and used it, and we found it to be pretty easy. I'm just worried because not all of our FP+ are showing up in the app, and if they're not in the app, we can't change them. I'm starting to worry less and less every day, though ... whatever happens happens. We got a generic 4th FP+ from guest relations (as an apology for our troubles) for our Epcot & MK days, which for me are the only days that really need FP+ (Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom we don't have as much to do, so we can spend time waiting on lines).

The 1900PF breakfast looks fun. (we've only had dinner there) If you are going to have limited food options I would definitely pick a character meal that is known for fun character interaction. I think PF is a good choice when keeping that in mind.

I was actually looking at a dinner first, but I couldn't find a good time. I think the breakfast will be great because my sister loves Mary Poppins. I really don't know which character meals are better than others, so I'm glad to hear you think it's a good choice

It's hard not to get caught up in the over planning, etc. While I spend way too much time planning I try and keep it fun and don't let any of it stress me out. You will be at Disney on vacation with your sister. You will have a great time! Don't let it get to you.

Thanks for the advice! I'm trying not to let it stress me out ... but I'm one of those people who gets stressed out about everything. Every day things get a little less stressful, so hopefully by trip time I'll be entirely excited and not at all stressed.

 

[SarahDisney]

How it came up is a long story, but there was a theoretical question of "what if we had to move our vacation?" (it was purely theoretical - no vacation moving necessary)

Sis: It can't be the next week, I have a doctor's appointment
Me: I have class that week

Me: How about the last week of October so that we can do MNSSHP? (not that we celebrate Halloween, but we like seeing rare characters)
Sis: Actually, that works better for me!

We're not moving vacation, because the stress of changing the flights and hotel room and changing FP+ and looking for ADRs would probably kill me, but ... I wanted to share that conversation.

We're a little crazy.

(Although, really, other than one small thing ... it would be a better time to go. Why didn't we think of it when we were booking?)

 

[SarahDisney]

Fair warning – not so many pictures in this one (once again). I’ll make it up to y’all by posting lots of pictures when I get to the actual daily plans, which I should be able to start this week. Also, I wrote/edited this Monday, and I’m posting it Tuesday, so take words like “yesterday” with a grain of something.

Week 10:​

MOVIE NIGHT: Sleeping Beauty (we watched it together Saturday night – it was cute)
CHARACTERS: Winnie the Pooh & Friends
Our character activities:
- SW: Changed her computer background, ate lots of hunny
- Me: Ate lots of hunny, wore my Pooh & Tigger t-shirt to sleep (was going to scan in a picture of me wearing it when I first got it in 2000, but I just didn’t have the time … maybe I’ll throw that picture in somewhere later just as a bonus treat).

Sarah’s Extra Movie Night: Didn’t happen – I was so swamped last week that I didn’t have time for a movie. I thought maybe yesterday, but I was too exhausted, and then today I was also super swamped (which is why I’m writing this Monday night at 9, but now I have to put on my shoes and get ready to go back out … so I probably won’t finish and post until Tuesday, which means that when I say “today,” it’s really yesterday, and my “yesterday” is two days ago, aka Sunday).

Despite it being an insane week for me, I did take care of a few things:

Dining/ADRs:
*Adding kosher to 1900 PF reservation was painless (although I do wish Disney dining had an option in the menu for “kosher reservations” – there’s always some confusion somewhere about it (and nobody can ever pronounce anything properly – “blintz” is not that hard of a word!). The meal is more expensive than I wanted it to be ($28.75/adult), but we’re doing it anyway. We do have access to the full buffet, so I can probably grab some fruit or something to go, which will make me feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.

Disney “Spirit”:
*I have to pick my MagicBand color this week! I’m trying to decide between boring gray (which I would decorate) or pink (which I would also probably decorate, but differently). It may depend on what my sister gets – if she goes with gray (she wears a lot of gray), I’ll get pink, but if she gets something else, I may get gray (right now she’s deciding between red and gray, but that may change). I haven’t done any of my crocheted MB covers since the first one, but I’ll probably wait until I start picking out outfits to do those so that I know what colors to do. It shouldn’t be too hard to do them right before the trip (I can even finish them on the plane/bus if necessary).

Parks & Plans:
*Working on park plans, and hoping to have at least the first part of day 1 ready to post later this week (I have to gather all of the pictures!). Here’s what the plan “checklists” we’re printing & bringing with look like:

It looks like each park will be about 4 pages (maybe less for HS & AK, which I haven’t started working on yet). Each page has the park name at the top, with a box below with park hours, parades & night shows, and kosher quick service location(s). The rest of the page is attractions/characters/dining/shopping, divided up by area. I’ll probably also do boxes for ADRs (not sure yet how I’ll do Thurs, because 1900PF isn’t part of AK … we’ll see). I’m also color coding the attractions by “must do” status – things we absolutely have to do are in green, things we want to do are in blue, and things we’ll do if we have time are magenta. Some characters (none on this page) have asterisks next to them – those are characters that are only available at that location (and are therefore must do’s – for example, Belle in France, because that’s the only place we can get her autograph)
Of course, because of the way things are going at Disney right now, I’m waiting until just before the trip to print these so that I can change the information when it becomes obsolete.

*The one FP+ thing I was really worrying about was changing our times for arrival day (in case there are flight issues) and for AK (in case 1900PF breakfast runs late), and one arrival day FP+ isn’t showing up in the app (AK day finally started showing up a few days ago … so I now have hope that the other missing ones will show up eventually). But … SUPER EASY to get to the FP+ part of the website from my phone (and I can modify everything there), so … no problems. Everything will be just fine – it’ll just be as if I don’t have the app for changing that particular FP+.

*We changed our AK FP+ times (we had to because of the 1900 PF breakfast). I did it from the app, and it was pretty painless. Not exactly what we wanted, but close enough and we’ll make it work. Here’s what we have:

• Meet Disney Friends @ Adventurers’ Outpost: 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM (a little earlier than I wanted (I’m assuming we’ll get to the park around 11), but we’ll see how it works out)
• Expedition Everest: 1:05 PM – 2:05 PM (we’ll wander and see characters/animals in between the two)
• Kiliminjaro Safaris: 2:25 PM – 3:25 PM

Packing/Clothing:
* Started making my packing list this weekend … so far we’ve got eyedrops (for both of us – my “prescription” (which are actually OTC, but I have a prescription for them) and her regular), my allergy medication, and suntan lotion. I’ll add stuff slowly, but that stuff just had to get on the list. I did scribble some stuff down while I was on the train today, but I haven’t looked at it since, and it will probably end up being ignored.

Other:
*I looked into booking a trip for Flower & Garden, which we LOVED in 2011. Most of the festival is not really convenient for us in terms of timing ... I looked at the 3 possible weeks that we could go, and the CHEAPEST hotels are $150. Unless I win the lottery between then and now, that's a bit out of my price range - especially because we can't plan this far in advance and I'm sure prices will only go up (although I don't remember how much we paid per night in 2011 - it may have been that much, but that was also only 3 nights, and this would be 4 or 5).

*So, one thing has been knocked off my shopping list: Mickey bottle stopper. The bro had one (unclear from who/where, because we didn’t get it for him) which he donated to the family. So that’s one less thing to buy.

*I mentioned the concept of the “Lime Green Mickey Head,” which I learned about from my new obsession with DISboards, to my sister. I thought she’d be against it, but she’s all for it – she wants to put it on a pin/button and wear it every day. I’m still not sure if I want to – if someone actually saw it and came up to me it might be too much for me (yes, I’m fine telling all of you my plans, but that’s because this is the internet and somewhat anonymous … actually talking to people is a lot harder for me). We shall see. It won’t hurt me to design one, even if I don’t end up using it.

*I’m planning to inventory my keychains so that I don’t risk buying doubles (last year my sister took a picture of her pins, which actually saved her from buying a duplicate). Rather than just list my keychains or take one or two big pictures like a normal person … I’m creating something that I can view on my phone with pictures and descriptions, sorted by park. I can picture it in my head, I just can’t describe it. Maybe if I actually get it done I’ll take some screenshots to show y’all what it looks like. It could be super useful, but it will probably just be overkill.

Expect to see daily plans soon ... I'm hoping to have part 1 of day 1 posted later this week, but my days have been so hectic lately ... I'm still catching up from last week, so everything I should be doing this week will probably get delayed to next week (make sense? I didn't think so)
I'm so dang stressed! That's it, I'm watching Frozen as background music (followed by Tangled and then Aladdin - it's gonna be a Disney kind of day)!

 

[SarahDisney]

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for ... the daily plans!

Before we start, a few things:
1 – Our plans are very loose and out of order – we’ll figure out the order when we’re there. These “daily plan” posts cover attractions we want to do, FP+ times, and ADRs … generally with very little order involved.
2 – Unless otherwise noted, pictures are from previous vacations.
3 – Attractions without pictures (or without us in the picture) are either ones we’ve never been on before or ones where we only have pictures that we look weird. Most of the pictures are of me, but there may be a few of both of us or of just the sis. Pictures are from 3 different years, so you’ll be seeing up to 3 outfits for each park (more if I start including character pictures from California, but no plans to do that as of yet). Also … the 2008 ones were taken with a disposable camera and we got a CD of the pictures, and the copies I have here I ninja’ed off my sister’s facebook page … so, that’s why the quality of those pictures is terrible.
4 – Everything here is subject to change, except what park we’re at. We always do Epcot on arrival day. It works for us.
5 - Some of the pictures are really bigger than they should be. Sorry. I can't figure out how to resize straight from here and I don't want to go back and resize all of the originals (especially because some are not mine)

And without further ado …
Day 1: Part 1 (Travel & Future World)

So, day 1. After spending Friday night reviewing last year’s trip, Saturday playing Disney trivial pursuit (or possibly the other way around … I don’t remember the schedule), and Sunday packing and doing any last minute shopping, we get to wake up at some obscene hour of the morning on Monday to head to …

Taken (without permission) from http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323901604578157630681664080 – because I never manage to get the picture (but I’ll try again this year if it’s not too dark)

Okay, maybe not exactly there, but right across from it (for those of you who are confused, that’s the old TWA terminal at JFK – it’s not used for anything other than looking pretty, but the JetBlue terminal is right there).
If we make it through security (and I certainly hope we do), we get to board a plane and then try to sleep for about 3 hours until we get to MCO. At some point towards the end of the plane ride, when my sister will have been sleeping for 3 hours and I will be cranky because I don’t sleep well on planes, we’ll probably put on our MagicBands.

Once we land at MCO, the first thing we do is … put in our contact lenses. And then …

"Starbucks Corporation Logo 2011" by Image based 1992―2010 logo on File:Starbucks Coffee Logo.svg. Licensed under Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Starbucks via Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S...ewer/File:Starbucks_Corporation_Logo_2011.svg (that part was copied exactly from Wikipedia … that’s how they say it should be attributed)

And then we head down to the Disney Magical Express counter, where we board a bus headed to …

Once we check in, we’ll dump whatever stuff we have but don’t need in the room, then head back out to take a bus to …

Epcot, Part 1: Future World

The day will start with some pictures of us by the giant golf ball. We need at least one good one, so we’ll take day and night pictures, and pictures from different areas if we can. According to my research, Pluto may also be in this area – so we may stop and take a picture with him if the line is decent.

Assuming we get to the park and are ready to start visiting attractions somewhere in the 1:20 PM – 2:20 PM range, we’ve got a FP+ for Spaceship Earth (see above for picture – we don’t really have a better one than that, so we’ll have to get a picture of the sign that says “Spaceship Earth” this year). This FP+ can be moved if necessary … hopefully we’ll get to the park early and I’ll get to move it earlier, but we shall see.

After that, the order is TBD, but here’s what we want to cover:

We’ve got an FP+ for 2:25 PM – 3:25 PM (this is the one that’s not showing up in the app – but I have it saved in the calendar on my phone and can change it from the browser if necessary). We’ve actually never done New Test Track without FP+, so we don’t know what the regular line looks like, and I do kinda want to see it. If the line is short enough (ha ha), we may do it twice (and that way I can see the regular line).

Taken from http://land.allears.net/blogs/jackspence/2009/10/sum_of_all_thrills.html
We’ve never done this before (I’d never even heard of it before this year), but if we have time we’ll stop in and check it out … although it might be too much math for SW, and it might be a little too claustrophic for me. Not gonna lie, the more I learn about it, the less I’m interested, but … we shall see.

We’ll also stop in at the Food & Wine Festival Center and see some of these at the Ghirardelli exhibit …

And, of course, get our free chocolate (we love free chocolate … when we were in San Francisco, we kept going in and out of the store in Ghirardelli Square just to get the free chocolate).

Then we pop from east over to west, where we’ll see some of our favorite characters, including …

&

and, of course, Mickey (I would post pictures with him, but I don’t really like how we look in most of them). We’ve got an FP+ for 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM – whether we go at the beginning or the end of the window depends on what time it is and what order we decide to do everything.

We’ll make sure to visit some more friends (I wrote that and now it makes no sense … but I’m leaving it) as we search for a clownfish on

We may also do Turtle Talk with Crush if we have time … we haven’t done it since 2008 because it’s a bit kid-centric, but it’s on our list for “if we have time.”

We’re also hoping to get on …

I love what I did to this picture …
This is probably (okay, definitely unless we actually miss the TT FP+) what we’ll use our 4th FP+ for (the one we got as a gift from guest relations).

If we have time, we’ll visit a purple dinosaur

Image taken from http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Figment
I find him a little creepy (I dunno why), but my sister thinks he’s cute, so if we have time, we’ll journey into the imagination with him (we haven’t done it since 2008, so we might as well).

According to what I’ve seen, they sometimes do character training near Journey Into Imagination, so we’ll be on the lookout for that before and after the ride.

Our last stop before heading out to World Showcase is Club Cool, where I will take a picture of …

and have some random soda (hopefully the only soda I drink all trip … although I will feel bad skipping the free soda at the Chase Lounge, it’s not worth the sugar).

And that is Day 1, Part 1. Stay tuned for Part 2, hopefully coming later this week.

 

[MonsterWDWmom]

Plans for day 1 look great!

I have never tried Sum of all Thrills and really I am not interested, so I don't blame you for having this as a maybe.

Can't wait to hear about day 2!

 

[stacy~**]

Your EP day sounds great and should be a perfect start to your trip!

Loved seeing all the images along with your plans.

Figment....creepy? No way!

 

[SarahDisney]

Plans for day 1 look great!

I have never tried Sum of all Thrills and really I am not interested, so I don't blame you for having this as a maybe.

Can't wait to hear about day 2!

Thanks!
In theory I thought it would be fun ... create your own roller coaster.
The more I learn ... the less interested I am.

Your EP day sounds great and should be a perfect start to your trip!

Loved seeing all the images along with your plans.

Figment....creepy? No way!

Thanks!
I really don't know why I think he's creepy, because everyone else thinks he's cute. I guess I'm just weird ... (although I knew that already). Who knows, maybe I'll change my mind after going on the ride again ...


I'm posting a planning update in a little bit, and then Day 1 Part 2 (that's right, we're not done with Epcot yet - we're very intense) hopefully tomorrow (I just have to gather all of the pictures)

Also - why do some people not understand the words "weekend" and "emergency"? Nothing I do is ever an "emergency" situation ... it may be time-sensitive, but never an emergency. And I don't like to work weekends ... since I work very random hours and from home, it's the one boundary I have.
Also, apparently to some people, "email me, don't call me" means "email me and then call me before I get a chance to respond to your email" (I was in the middle of opening the file I needed to respond to the email when I got the call ... I replied with a text saying "don't ever call me on a Sunday" ... I know this guy doesn't understand that email is a much better way to get in touch with me than phone, but when he does bother to email me, why can't he give me 10 minutes to do what he asked and respond to the email before harassing me by phone?)
Sorry, just ranting ... people drive me crazy. I have no problem doing 5 minutes of work for something time-sensitive ... if I'm asked in an appropriate way and given time to respond to the request. AHHH!!!! And this is why I need a full-time job ... so I can tell this guy to take a hike and annoy someone else.

Also - I just got an email from him saying "Didn't even occur to me there would be a mistake" - what? Even if I was just copy and pasting (which I wasn't ... I was changing the date on a file from last year, so I typed it in by hand), you still have to assume that there will be a mistake somewhere. To me it makes sense to always assume that there could be a mistake ... I would never think that there couldn't be a mistake ... seems like bad business sense to me. I really don't understand this guy ...

And I just got an email from the office (which I wasn't supposed to get, but that's a different issue) which I expected to have the graphic I just had to edit because it's an "emergency" ... and it didn't. Please explain to me why it was so important if it wasn't even for the email they were sending out tonight? Seriously ...

 

[SarahDisney]

Week 11:​

MOVIE NIGHT: Pinocchio (watched it Sunday morning after breakfast … I don’t remember when the last time I saw that movie was)
CHARACTER: Belle!
Our character activities:
- SW: Changed her computer background
- Me: Went to the library (I took out 3 books, haven’t had a chance to read any of them yet, though)

Sarah’s Extra Movie Night: The Rescuers … it was cute, but not really what I was in the mood for. I watched after I got home at 9:45 Thursday night, so I wanted something short, but … there just wasn’t anything on Netflix that I was in the mood for that was short enough.

Usually my updates are very structured, but since there’s not much this week, I’ll do it more freeform (which also means no strange color coding). Here are the highlights of the week:

When I first typed this up, I forgot something very important … (thankfully I remembered before I posted)

This came on Monday (we didn’t open it until Friday, though … I wanted to wait until my sister was home). It’s our luggage tags, DME tags, and discount/package/information/whatever booklet. Yay! We haven’t had time to really go though it (hopefully we will soon), but … it means the trip is coming up super soon. OMG!!!! Hopefully once we actually start to go through it I’ll be more excited.

Another thing that means the trip is coming up soon: MAGICBANDS. Our MB customization deadline just passed. I wasn’t sure what to get, but I went with gray (it was between that and pink) and I’m going to try to paint it purple (light to medium range … there’s a nail polish I really like, but I’m not spending $8.50 on a bottle of essie nail polish just because I want a magicband that color). SW got red. Here’s a summary of our MagicBands (last year’s & this year’s):
- Sarah: green, gray (may become purple)
- SW: blue, red

Yesterday I checked my MDE app, and …

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place – Test Track finally showed up in the app! VOTLM is still not showing up in my sister’s app, but I’m less worried about that because that one’s less important to us. I can finally breathe!

Today was Disney coloring day. Here are the results (as well as the starting picture):

(yeah, I know I’m terrible at collages … dunno why, I just am)
I think my favorites are Rapunzel (which is why it’s in the center), Ariel, and Belle.
We also watched The Incredibles (NO CAPES!) and Mary Poppins as background music while coloring.

HOWEVER, we did this all lying on the floor in my sister’s room, and I beat up my back pretty badly (and that’s on top of beating up my back pretty badly yesterday … I think tomorrow will be a relax day … except when I’m standing and baking).


And … that’s all the planning that happened this past week.

Stay tuned for Daily Plans Installment 2 – Day 1, Part 2 (Epcot World Showcase … and some things I forgot from part 1), hopefully coming tomorrow (I have to gather all the pictures, but I do want to get it posted tomorrow so that I can start posting MK Tuesday or Wednesday before I’m off the computer for 3.5 days).

 

[SarahDisney]

This one has a lot of pictures that aren’t mine … I guess I need to take more World Showcase pictures this trip …

Before I get started on Day 1 Part 2, there are 2 things I forgot from Part 1:
1 – These guys …

I need to remember – Chip has a chocolate chip brown nose!

2 – In case we didn’t get a chance to (or decided not to) stop for coffee at the airport, there’s always

Image taken from http://www.wdwfacts.com/2013/09/08/wdwshutterbug-andys-photo-update-of-inside-the-new-fountain-view-starbucks-at-epcot/

I love having Starbucks in the parks. I just wish they had them at all the parks! (And I wish they had Coffee Bean at Disneyland, but I guess I just have to settle for Starbucks)

And now, without further ado,
Day 1, Part 2

Epcot: World Showcase
I really have no idea what order we’re doing World Showcase … it makes sense to start at Canada because we’re already in the area, but we’ve been known to do illogical things. So I’m going to go in the order it’s listed on the map. If I wind up doing a TR, you’ll find out the order we did things then.

So, the map starts with

Image taken from http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/epcot/epws-mexico.htm

Where we will meet this guy …

And then go on an awesome boat ride …

Image taken from: http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Gran_Fiesta_Tour_Starring_The_Three_Caballeros

After Mexico is Norway. Unless there's something Frozen there (and minimal lines), we'll skip it. Norway has never had anything for us (we didn't like Maelstrom), so until the Frozen ride opens, we skip it and go to ...

Image taken from: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/epcot/epws-china.htm

We may watch the video if we have time and feel like it, but the real highlight of the pavilion for me will be …

Image taken from: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/epcot/epws-china.htm


I’ve actually never seen the terracotta soldiers before (real or replicas), so I want to see them, but we’ll keep it a short visit because SW is not particularly interested in them.
We’ll also (if we can time it right) try to see the Jeweled Dragon Acrobats. This was SW’s suggestion – she heard good things about them, so we’ll stop in and see them.
We may stop by and meet Mulan if she’s around and the line isn’t too long, but she’s not a priority character for us because I don’t like the movie and SW has never seen it.

Next up is

Image taken from http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/epcot/epws-germany.htm

We don’t actually go into the pavilion – everything we need is outside:

and

SW will be wearing her brand new Snow White t-shirt that I bought her. Hopefully it’ll make for a really nice photo. SW always gets a picture with Snow White alone (just like I always get Ariel alone) because she’s her favorite princess. Sometimes we’ll then get a picture with the two of us – and in 2011 we actually had an extra-special picture (although we look pretty stupid … and I no longer believe in wishes, so I'd skip it this year):

We’ll skip over Italy because there’s nothing there for us. Continuing according to the map, we get to …

Image taken from: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/epcot/epws-unitedstates.htm

If we have some extra time, we may do the audio-animatronics show, but it’s nowhere near a priority. Our biggest priority there (for now) will be

Image Taken From: http://abbysroadtoamazingness.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-chase-lounge-at-epcots-food-and.html

where we will get free beverages and a place to rest. I’ll probably feel bad not getting free soda, but if I’ve already had coffee & a little weird (international) coke, that’s too much for me. I’ll also refill my water bottle (wasting a cup because last year they made me put the water in a cup and then pour it into my water bottle).
Depending on the time, we may also catch the Eat to the Beat concert … but it may wait for our return to the area at a later time.

There also seems to sometimes be character training near the American Adventure Pavilion, so we’ll be on the lookout for that. Our goal for this trip is to see as many rare characters as we can, even if it means we miss a few less-important (to us) rides or the occasional “regular” character (most of which we see in multiple parks anyway).

Next on the map is Japan, but there’s nothing there for us. Our next stop will be …

MoroccoEpcot [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], by UpstateNYer (Own work), from Wikimedia Commons


The big deal here is to meet Jasmine and Aladdin. We hope Genie will be with them (or near them), but don’t expect it. This is where we saw him in 2008, but we haven’t seen him since.

If we have time I also want to look around the pavilion and see the architecture, mosaics, etc. Because this pavilion was actually built by the King of Morocco’s architects, it really is amazing, and I’ve never taken the time to just look around.

Next pavilion on the map is one where they speak one of the same languages as Morocco …

Epcot france2 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], by M.Minderhoud (Own work), from Wikimedia Commons

(I know Arabic is the official language of Morocco, but all of the Moroccans I know speak French … it’s why half of my second cousin’s wedding invitation was in French)
As with China, if we have time, we’ll watch the video. Our main priority is …

I look really bad in this picture … but it’s the only one I have with her in this outfit

We may also stop in and see Aurora since she’s apparently there and we’ve finally seen Sleeping Beauty … but she’s not a must-do (Belle is because it’s the only place we can get her autograph).

Next on the map is a place with lots of characters … and tea:

Image Taken From: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/epcot/epws-uk.htm

All of the “regular” characters here are ones that we will see at breakfast on Thursday, so our priority is seeing if there are any rare characters out and about.
If we don’t see any rare characters (and we have the time), we’ll see the regulars:

I don’t know that Eeyore is still there (although I hope he is), but he was there in 2008, so …

Last on the map is …

Image Taken From: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/epcot/epws-canada.htm

We’ll watch the movie if we have time (Martin Short is entertaining), and look for rare characters.

Now that we’re done with pavilions, before I get to the end of the night, just a few things we might do as part of Food & Wine (no pictures for this one because I’m too lazy to track them down):
Belgium Booth:
Depending on what’s in it, the Chilled Coffee with Godiva Liqueur could be an option. If it’s just coffee & Godiva, it’s fine (and I love Godiva Liqueuer), but if there’s anything else in it, it could be a no-go. Depending on the line and how much I feel like trying it (and how I’m doing with my anxiety that day), I may go up and ask what’s in it.

Desserts and Champagne Booth:
FANCY BELGIAN SEASHELL CHOCOLATE!
I love the Guylian seashell truffles, and I haven’t had them in a few years. So we’ll most likely stop by and pay $2 for 2 pieces of chocolate. And love it.

There’s a slight chance that I may also try a beer flight (probably Hops & Barley because it features 2 Sam Adams flavors), but that’s not very likely.

The one thing I do know about the order of the day is … the night.
We’ll probably want to get dinner around 8:30 so that we’re sitting outside and ready for Illuminations at 9.
Dinner will be at

Image Taken From: http://www.allergyfreemouse.com/2011/07/liberty-inn-dining-review/

We’re ordering off the Kosher menu. SW will most likely get chicken tenders. I’ll probably get a burger cooked inside its own bun, unless I feel like a hot dog cooked inside its own bun (no joke, those are my options … and possibly also corned beef). Then we’ll sit outside and watch

This picture is from IllumiNations 2000 … according to my dad, we left early because us kids were cranky. I’m not surprised – when I was 13, I was pretty much always cranky

From what I’ve seen online, people do not seem to recommend Liberty Inn for watching Illuminations … obstructed view. We’ve done it twice (I think) before, and we always sit there and watch Illuminations while eating dinner. Maybe it’s not the best view ever, but it’s good enough for us.

Once Illuminations is over, we’ll slowly find our way to the exit, stopping for night pictures in front of the giant golf ball and anything else we find interesting. Once we exit the park (sad), we’ll head for a bus back to …

We’ll probably stop in at the Ink & Paint Store just to browse for a few minutes, then head back to the room, where we’ll hopefully get a good night’s sleep – we’ll have a big next day ahead of us.

 

[SarahDisney]

Warning: There are a decent number of California pictures here. Some of the character pictures from California are better.

Day 2 Part 1
Tuesday morning we’ll be trying to get up bright and early. Our goal is to get to Magic Kingdom for the Welcome Show.

Once we’re up (not an easy feat for us), dressed, and our backpack is packed, we’ll head over to the AoA food court, where we’ll grab some milk and coffee (for the sis – I’ll probably wait for Starbucks) and have our cereal (we’re bringing our own individual cereals). I’m hoping we can be done with breakfast and on a bus to MK around 8ish.

Magic Kingdom

Assuming we make it there on time for the welcome show (it’s a big assumption for us), once we get into the park, we’ll be spending some time on Main Street USA. Depending on whether or not I’ve had my coffee and how tired/cranky I am, first stop may be Main Street Bakery for my

I believe that is an Iced Grande Unsweetened Nonfat Iced Coffee with Milk (although I may get a tall if I’m less tired).

Next up is characters.
#1 character priority at MK for me is having a chat with this guy …

While we’re at Town Square Theater, we’ll probably also wait in line for my favorite Disney mean girl …

After that we’ll likely head back outside and see who’s around. We’re hoping there are some rarer characters out in addition to the regulars, but mostly we’ll see who has a shorter line and wait for those.

We may also pick up Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom cards, even though we probably won’t use them. And we have to stop by City Hall to get our Dwarf Miner certificates stamped.

Once we’ve seen some characters, we’ll head over to our first ride of the day:

It’s always our first ride because it’s the best ride in Magic Kingdom (in my not-so-humble opinion).

If Buzz is out before or after we do the ride and the line isn’t long, we’ll stop by and see him. He’s not a huge priority, though, because we’ll be seeing him at HS on Wednesday.

I don't know if Anna & Elsa and 7DMT have changed anything, but as of last time we were there, we discovered that there is a period around 10-10:15, after the rope droppers have gone through but before the second wave of guests comes in, where the line for Space Mountain is pretty short. We're hoping to hit that lull again and enjoy our time on …

And by “enjoy our time” I mean I love Space Mountain and my sister hates it. But she closes her eyes and rides it and it’s all good.


If we’re running ahead of schedule (not likely), we may do Carousel of Progress (we’re history people and we’ve never done it) and/or PeopleMover. However, these may not happen, because my goal is to get to Fantasyland by 11am THE LATEST!

I’m expecting to spend most of my day in Fantasyland … and I’m very happy with that. No idea what our order will be, but I will list the attractions we want to do and characters we want to see. Somewhere I saw Fantasyland divided into three areas (regular Fantasyland, Storybook Circus, and Enchanted Forest), so that’s how I’m dividing this plan.

Starting with the main Fantasyland area:
Attractions (in the order that they’re listed on my checklist, and with some commentary):

As a NYer, I feel a need to remind the world that this is a replica, not the original (the original is in California, and while it is not exactly the same as it was at the 1964 World’s Fair, it does have most of the original parts). This is also one of the big parts of my resolution for the trip – take fewer pictures.

On rides like this I always take a million pictures of what’s going on inside the ride … and I’m so focused on taking the pictures that I don’t know if I’m truly enjoying the ride (the worst example of this was Festival of the Lion King last year … that one the phone is going in my bag and staying there). My goal is to take no more than 2-3 pictures per ride – enjoy the ride, and let my memory (or youtube) remind me what it looks like on the inside – I don’t need pictures to remind me.

This was closed for refurbishment last time we were there! So it’s a MUST-DO of the highest order. We love it so much (because who doesn’t love Peter Pan?)
This was also my smart FP #1 of 2011 – when we started Fantasyland I/we (I don’t remember if it was just me or both of us) ran to get that FP, the]n did the rest of Fantasyland and our timing was perfect – we were ready for Peter Pan pretty much exactly when our FP time was!

Image Taken From: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/magickingdom/fan-philharmagic.htm
We haven’t done this since 2008, and I’m actually really excited about it. I love Mickey, I love Disney movies/music, I love 3D shows … it’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser.

We love carousels. And I, for one, am excited to see if riding side-saddle is less awkward the second time or if I should just go back to sitting on the horse normally and being annoyed at my skirt (this will also depend on what skirt I’m wearing).

So, this is going to be an interesting one (specifically, waiting on line). I love Winnie the Pooh (and this ride), so it’s a must-do, but since they added the interactive stuff for kids on line … kids making noise is not easy for me to handle. Last year we used FP+ and didn’t have to wait on the line, which was great, but this year we’ve got better uses for FP+ (it was #6 on my priority list and I ended up with 1, 3, and 4), so we’ll have to wait on line. Hopefully the line will be short, we’ll get past the loud part fast, and I’ll be okay. We shall see.

And last in this section is …

I look kinda weird in this picture, but I like how my hair looks all off to one side, so it stays
It’s the teacups. What else is there to say? (Yes, we spin, a moderate amount)

And now, the characters in the main fantasyland area:
Near Mad Tea Party we may encounter:

Yes, that is an Epcot picture, and the exact one I posted for day 1 … get over it
Or

Depending on the line, we’ll take a picture with whoever’s there (especially if it’s someone other than those two), but Alice is not a priority because we’ll be seeing her at our 1900PF breakfast.

Since we love Cinderella (who comes up later), we’ll meet some of her movie co-stars, including one who helps her …

And a few who don’t

The Tremaines were talking to me last year and I was so flustered I didn’t even know what to say. I really need to work on my character interactions this year. I am naturally shy and I have some social anxiety, so it’s hard for me to talk to the characters sometimes.

We watched Brave on Saturday night (for the first time), and while we didn’t love it, we may stop by and see Merida if it looks like the line is short. Not a priority for us, though, because the movie was kinda blah.

If the line’s not to long we’ll see

They’re not a huge priority because they’ll be at 1900PF (and we may have seen them the day before at Epcot), but if the line isn’t too bad I’d like to see them … there’s no such thing as too much Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.

And that’s all for “main” Fantasyland.

Enchanted Forest is next on my list, but it’s a lot of pictures and I’m close to my 25 picture per post limit, so we’ll skip that (come back to it later) and go to the “Storybook Circus” area.

First stop will probably be …

I like the idea of the play area, but I’m much too big for it … but I guess it’s nice to sit for a few minutes. I’m always afraid that I’ll miss the vibrating/lighting up of the ticket thing … but I have that fear when I go to restaurants that use that kind of system too.

We’ll also hit

which is cute but not super exciting. We can live without it (so it’s a “want to do”), but we did enjoy it last year.

We’ll also stop in at Pete’s Silly Sideshow to see … (not in these outfits)
Note: Most of these pictures are from California … because I didn’t want to take pictures from other Florida parks and I didn’t have good ones from previous MK trips

And that should be my 25 pictures, so that’s the end of Day 2 Part 1. Day 2 Part 2 will be coming eventually and will include the rest of Fantasyland and a few other parts of MK too.

I’ll also probably have a planning update either later today or tomorrow, but … I’m really not excited about the trip right now (even after doing the daily plan), so it’s hard for me to muster the energy for an update when I’m not excited (this one was mostly written last week and just needed a few changes and some pictures, which took all of my Disney enthusiasm). I hate to say it, but right now I think I'll just be happy when this trip is over ... not a good feeling to have about a Disney trip.

 

[MonsterWDWmom]

Oh No! Not into this trip I hope as you get closer you will get more excited. That does not seem like a fun way to go to Disney

Your plans for day 2 look great, I love the Fantasyland area, there is so much to do there and it seems like you have a lot planned!

Maybe this year we can finally see the White Rabbit, so far we have had no luck catching him.

Can't wait to hear about the rest of day 21

 

[ZehnJahren]

So many characters! I just started meeting them this trip, and it was fun but it was really... awkward! I was standing waiting on Goofy at the Character Spot at Epcot (nothing else for a FP+!) and the PP photographer was like "quit looking so sheepish; people of all ages meet the characters all the time!" I think I was blushing.

I did that this trip - I put my phone down and quit taking pictures sometimes. I kept reminding myself that I could just watch the rides on YouTube if I really wanted to!

 

[SarahDisney]

Oh No! Not into this trip I hope as you get closer you will get more excited. That does not seem like a fun way to go to Disney

I'm hoping that the excitement comes back as the trip gets closer. Unfortunately I've got some not so fun stuff going on in my life, and while at first the trip planning was an escape from that and the one thing I could be excited for, I think the personal stuff is starting to interfere with the Disney

Your plans for day 2 look great, I love the Fantasyland area, there is so much to do there and it seems like you have a lot planned!

We spend most of our time there ... it's probably my favorite part of the park. It's the only part of the park where I will do pretty much everything (I don't think there's a single thing in Fantasyland that I wouldn't do except the stuff I'm too old for, which is basically just the Casey Jr. play area)

Maybe this year we can finally see the White Rabbit, so far we have had no luck catching him.

Can't wait to hear about the rest of day 21

I hope you get to see the White Rabbit! I think last year was the first time we saw him - he was just outside the teacups and didn't really have much of a line.

So many characters! I just started meeting them this trip, and it was fun but it was really... awkward! I was standing waiting on Goofy at the Character Spot at Epcot (nothing else for a FP+!) and the PP photographer was like "quit looking so sheepish; people of all ages meet the characters all the time!" I think I was blushing.

We've always loved meeting characters, but I know a lot of adults are hesitant to do it, and sometimes people with kids look at us funny when they see that we're kid-free. The characters really are fun, and I'm glad you started meeting them this trip - hopefully you'll meet tons more in the future. I'm trying to convince my parents to meet characters when they go in January, but so far no luck.

I did that this trip - I put my phone down and quit taking pictures sometimes. I kept reminding myself that I could just watch the rides on YouTube if I really wanted to!

That's what I'm hoping to remind myself - pretty much every ride is on YouTube somewhere, so there's no reason for me to record it or take pictures!

In other news, I just got back from the mall (an hour ago), and not only did I not get anything (Disney or otherwise), being in the Disney store didn’t even cheer me up at all. And I stopped at CVS on my way home (between buses) to look for nail polish with which to recolor my magic band, and not only did they not have the essie color I wanted (which is fine because I figured I'd rather get a cheaper nail polish anyway), everyone here on the DISboards recommends starting with base coat ... and maybe it's because I don't wear nail polish much, but I couldn't find any base coat (at least not for less than like $15 bucks, which seems weird).
So, overall, not a good shopping trip.

Expect a planning update some time later today - even though I'm cranky now, we did have some Disney fun yesterday that I haven't had a chance to post about yet.

 

[SarahDisney]

WEEK 12:​

MOVIE NIGHT: Brave (it was kinda blah … we didn’t care for it. I liked the triplets, though).
CHARACTERS: Lightning McQueen & Mater
Our character activities:
- SW: Changed her computer background, played Mater’s Memory Game online
- Me: Played Mater’s Memory game, watched Mater’s Tall Tales on Netflix (they were kinda stupid)

Things are at that point where they’re either happening all at once or not at all, so I’ve ditched my “organized” format. Most of the week nothing big happened, but things heated up a bit on the weekend.

I got a package:

I can’t wait to read it – it’s longer than I thought it would be. I just gotta finish my library books (I just finished 1 of 3 and they’re due next Thursday), and then I get to read about Disney.

Sunday was a big “get excited for the trip day” … except SW was a little cranky about work stuff and I’m a lot cranky about a lot of things. But here’s what we did, in very detailed pictures:

Morning – Toy Story Practice Time!
(Sorry for the quality of the cell phone photos, most of which were taken while playing)
First, the game goes into the Xbox …

Then we get to the opening screen …

And then we play!

We play in “Free Play” mode, which allows us to stop whenever we want and change games in between each round (but only scores individual games and doesn’t add up a total score). There are 5 types of games: (in the order we played them)
Army Men Challenges: (breaking plates – SW’s favorite)

(The end)

Wild West: (Shooting Darts at Targets)

(I took this one while playing – not easy for a game that requires two hands)

Space Frontier: (Tossing Rings – my favorite)

(Little Green Men!)

Animals and Friends: (throwing eggs)

Balloon Garden: (popping balloons)

There is one thing the Xbox game has the TSMM @ HS doesn’t have – pies. Pies are “thrown” at you during the game, and if you don’t duck successfully, the screen is covered in pie and your controller vibrates. I’m decent at ducking, but my sister doesn’t even try because she can’t get the hang of it, so we tend to end up with:

Mostly we do okay – and sometimes we both get 3 ribbons, high scores, and the maximum number of special thingies (I have no idea what they’re called):

We had fun, so it doesn’t matter who won or lost … especially because I’m going to beat her when we’re at Disney! We both maintain that it’s a very different experience (pushing a button and moving a knobby thing as opposed to moving a canon and pulling a string attached to said cannon … I always say that the experience at the park is more organic, but that’s kind of a random thing to say), so we’ll have to wait and see how our practicing affects our gameplay on the ride.

Part 2 of the day was
Coloring
Continuing last week’s theme, we colored 2 more giant coloring pages.

For SW’s office:

For my room: (I haven’t hung it up yet, nor do I know if/when I will)

This time we brought a table into my sister's room to sit at while we colored - so my back doesn't hurt. Always a good thing.

Monday morning we/my sister got a package which I assume is the MagicBands (they’re supposed to arrive this week), but I haven’t opened it yet because it’s a federal crime (it’s addressed to her, not me). We’ll open them when she’s here Saturday night.

And that was pretty much my week.
I’ve micromanaged my schedule for the next few weeks – here’s what to expect from me (in terms of updates/plans) for the next 2 weeks or so:
Daily Plans: Day 2 Part 2 – Wednesday 10/15 (hopefully ... if I'm ahead of schedule I'll start writing them tomorrow so that I'm all done by Wednesday)
Daily Plans: Day 2 Part 3 – Sunday 10/29
Planning Update: Week 13 – Monday 10/20
Daily Plans: Day 3 Part 1 – Tuesday 10/21
Daily Plans: Day 3 Part 2 – Thursday 10/23

 

[SarahDisney]

Day 2, Part 2

More Magic Kingdom

I know what you’re all thinking – Sarah actually has PhotoPass pictures? What? We haven’t seen any before! This is one that we printed last year and I scanned in for just the purpose of posting here. We don’t download them, but we do print a few at the end of each trip. I scanned in a bunch of pictures, so expect to see more over the course of the rest of the daily plans.

When you last saw me, we were in the “Storybook Circus” part of Fantasyland, having skipped over the “Enchanted Forest.” Now we’ll start with what I skipped.

Enchanted Forest part of the day will probably start with Princess Fairytale Hall, where we’ve got FP+ from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM to see

and

I really would like to get better pictures of the portraits this year … the ones I have are all from weird angles

Depending on what time we do that and what time we get out, our next stop may be

We have a Be Our Guest FP+ for lunch for arrival between 1:10 PM – 1:40 PM. The system was being a PiTA for the past week or so and not letting anyone reserve for November dates, but apparently it went back to normal yesterday morning, so I’m very happy to have this FP+ - it’s the last piece of the puzzle finally falling into place. We’ll get drinks and eat our own food (although I do have to find out if we can get just plain hot water, which will affect what lunch we bring with us).

While we’re in the area (probably either right before or right after BOG, depending on timing), we’ll do

Last year my sister tried to get me to go up and get my picture taken with Belle at the end. I was going to do it but then got scared off by the fact that it was all little kids. She’s trying to convince/force me to do it this year, but I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try to get picked to participate (but I never get picked for anything, so that probably won’t happen).

We’ll also do

I LOVE The Little Mermaid, so I love this ride. We first did it in California in 2012, and since then it’s been a must-do for us. This is another ride where I have to put down the phone camera (or … put down the ducky, because apparently I want to play the saxophone).

If the line’s not too bad, we’ll also stop by to see:

Ariel is my favorite princess, but this line has always been hard for me to wait in (we’ve tried, but we always get off the line after 5-10 minutes when I get frustrated). Last year we did it with FP+ and we went straight through. This year we didn’t get the FP+, so we’ll see about waiting on line. Last year Ariel recommended I come visit via dolphin – so if I do see her, I’ll have to remember to incorporate that somehow.

While we’re in the area, we’ll also look for

Image taken from: http://earnthis.net/brian-terrills-100-film-favorites-42-beauty-and-the-beast/

Apparently he’s supposed to be a hysterical character interaction … which scares me. I’ll probably get really flustered and scared and not know what to say. This will be a “deep breathing” moment (and if I haven’t yet had my Starbucks, this may be when I want it). But because it’s a good interaction, we really do have to do it. Worst comes to worst, if I don’t think I can handle it, I’ll make my sister be the one to actually be in the picture and whatnot.

Also – I figured out how to make Memory Maker worth it for me – include videos of character interactions! Hard to implement on Disney’s end, but I would love to have those videos, and would probably spend the $150 to get them.

Our time in the Enchanted Forest will probably end right back where it started:

Image taken from: http://blog.touringplans.com/2013/09/19/princess-fairytale-hall-primer/
If the line for Anna & Elsa isn’t too bad (yeah, right), we’ll wait. More likely we’ll use the generic FP+ that guest relations gave me for this one. This is why I wanted it. I love Frozen (it’s my favorite Disney movie that came out in the last 5 years – SW’s is Tangled), so I am excited to meet the sisters. I wish you could get a picture with the two of them together, because that would be an awesome picture to print and give to family, but I’m just happy that we’ll be able to see them (although I wish there was a M&G for Olaf … I love Olaf! They could even put Olaf and Sven together – that would be awesome.)

As you may have noticed, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is not anywhere on this list. If the line is super short we’ll do it, but we’ll probably wait until later in the day, because we have a late FP+ for it. So we’ll be back in Fantasyland later, but for now we depart and head over to …

Or possibly not, depending on the time.
We’ve got a FP+ for 5:05 PM – 6:05 PM. If we’re ready for Frontierland before 5, then we’ll see if we can meet

We love them, and there’s nowhere else to see Jessie, so we really really really want to get there in time to see them.
If we’ve seem Woody and Jessie and we’re still not ready for BTMRR, we may go on …

Image taken from: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/magickingdom/fro-splash.htm
We’ve never done it before because either:
A) The weather was too cold/rainy/etc
B) The line was too long
or
C) My sister had a boot on her foot and didn’t want to get it wet or have to take it off (that was California 2012 … 5 minute line and she didn’t want to get the boot wet)
It’s become kind of a tradition for us to not do it, and I’m not super excited about it, but it’s one of those things that I think I should experience at least once, so if the weather is ok and the line’s not too bad, we’ll do it.

Once our BTMRR window hits, we’ll do that and love it. It’s SW’s favorite ride, so we like to do it more than once if the line isn’t too bad and/or we have time (although the best was California 2012 where we did it twice with no line … one of the few advantages of my sister having a broken foot and being unable to do stairs).

We need to change it up … this year I should be in the BTMRR picture, and she can be in the Test Track picture

Next on our agenda is …

But only if we have time and the line is short. We’ve got a lot to do, and this tends to be one of the first things we cut out.
I know what you’re all thinking – what kind of crazy person doesn’t do Haunted Mansion as many times as possible on every single trip???? The answer to that is … us. It’s not that we hate it, it’s just … nothing special for us. It’s not terrible, but we don’t particularly enjoy it. So we do it if we have time and the line is short. If we’re low on time or the line is too long, it gets skipped.

Also a possibility is

Image taken from: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/magickingdom/lib-hall.htm
we haven’t done it since 2000 (I think … I’m pretty sure we skipped it in 2008 and I know we haven’t done it post-Obama – and I’m actually not entirely sure that we did it in 2000, but it seems like the kind of thing we would have done). It’s not a priority at all, but it’s something that if we have time to do it, we may as well. Although it does seem like a colossal waste of half an hour when we only have 1 day in the park.

Apparently Tiana and Naveen are also in Liberty Square, so if their line isn’t too bad, we may stop and see them. We didn’t love The Princess and the Frog, but we’ve never met them, so why not?

We may also try to track down a pair of our favorite characters near The Diamond Horseshoe … these guys:

I love this picture … it’s from Animal Kingdom 2011 (our first time ever at AK) and there was a fan to keep the characters from overheating … and we couldn’t get my hair to stop blowing in my face

By then it should be dark enough for us to go on

I know what you’re all thinking – what do I mean by “dark enough”? We have a tradition to only go on POTC at night. It’s an indoor ride, so it makes no real difference, but … it started because we always start in Tomorrowland, and it’s easiest to just go around, landing us in Adventureland at the end of the day. It happened a few times, and then it became tradition. Last year I suggested starting the day with POTC and going around the other way … but that’s just too radical a change for us (also, why would anyone not want to start with Buzz Lightyear?). So we do Pirates at night.

After POTC will be …

This one is better ridden at night – it gives you a really nice nighttime view of the parks. The ride itself is nothing too special, but I do enjoy the view.
And we really do need a better picture …

We may also do Tiki Room, but not likely because it’s a long thing and we’re not swimming in time. It’s something we’ve never done and we should do it eventually, but it’s another thing that gets cut when you only have one day in a big park.

If they’re still out when we get there, we’ll try to see Aladdin & Jasmine.
I could have sworn we’ve met them at some point in time, but if we have, I can’t find the picture (it may have been 2008, and we can’t find a lot of those pictures)

We may have seen them the day before at Epcot, so they’re not super high priority, but we don’t mind seeing them more than once if we have the opportunity. Bigger deal is meeting …

I don’t think we’ve ever seen him in Florida – I know we’ve seen him in California (this picture is from 2009). I was afraid to go over to him because he was just there and there was no line … so my sister did it.

By this point in time we may be ready for

Image taken from: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/guides/magickingdom/fan-seven-dwarfs-mine-train.htm
Our FP+ is for 6:35 PM – 7:35 PM – whether we go at the beginning or end of the hour depends on what we’re up to. I’m really looking forward to this one, so it better be good!

If we have lots of time, we may redo one or two Fantasyland attractions, but the more likely plan is for us to head back to Tomorrowland for one last

If we have time, we may also ride

Originally my plan was dinner @ Cosmic Ray’s and then stake out a place for Wishes. But … park hours were extended an hour (but time for Wishes hasn’t changed), so now I’m wondering if it would be better to get dinner after Wishes, which gives us more time for rides (I think we’re more likely to do rides before Wishes than after, unless we run back for one last Buzz Lightyear). I would love it if they added a MSEP for that night (10 PM would be great … we could probably just not move that much after Wishes), but it looks like they’re only adding additional parades to nights that already had one, not adding it to nights that didn’t have it at all. Oh well.

We’ll figure out exact night plans while we’re there based on what time it is and how we’re doing, but it will definitely include Cosmic Ray’s (where we will have the same dinner we had the night before … mostly), Celebrate the Magic projection show, and Wishes fireworks. And we’ve been told we have to look for Tinkerbell in the fireworks show, so we’ll be on the lookout.

At the end of the night we’ll get some more castle pictures

(this is stormy, not night, but I didn’t have any night castle pictures available to scan … and this is from the 2008 trip, which is special because it was our first trip just the two of us)

Once we’re ready to leave MK (hopefully no earlier than 10:30 – my goal for the day is to be there before rope drop and stay past closing), we’ll head back to AoA. And that will be the end of Day 2.

A bonus picture, because I have room for one more and I didn’t have this scanned in yet when I did Epcot:

This is from Flower & Garden 2011 – we really want to go back for F&G, but it hasn’t worked out so far

Stay tuned for Day 3, Part 1 (day 3 may actually have 3 parts in the end, unlike day 2, which I thought would be 3 parts and turned out to all fit in 2)

 

[SarahDisney]

(kind of low on the pictures in this one … it’s a relatively short update anyway)
(also, I didn't have the patience to proofread this ... so I apologize for any mistakes and/or style and/or picture issues)

Day 3: Part 1

In Which My Hair is Actually Up

Day 3 is the day we plan to get a bit of a later start. My plan is still to get up obscenely early and hit the ground running (which these days really is the only time I wear my hair in a pony) …

Well, not exactly. It’s important to warm up before exercising, so I’ll drink some water, put on my workout clothes, hit the ground, warm up, and then run (and I do walk/run anyway, but whatever). There’s a jogging path around the lake separating Pop Century & Art of Animation, so that’s where I plan to run in part, but I may also run around the hotels.
After all, who doesn’t want to see these on their run:

A few issues I need to think about:

1. Distance – I run based on time (right now I’m at 30 minutes, but I should be up to 35 by Disney Time). From what I’ve seen, apparently the path is 1.38 miles. I’ll probably be running about 2.75 miles at that point (I’ll have a better idea after my “Day Before Disney” run), so I have to decide if I want to go around the lake twice or try to go around the perimeter of the hotels (and I don’t know what the distance is on that). So I gotta make that decision eventually.
2. Warm Up/Cool Down – At home, I run in a park that’s about a 13-minute walk/0.75 miles from my house. Warm up is walking to the park, and cool down is walking home from wherever I finish (still in the park, but it’s different places along the path depending on the day). At Disney, I have to figure out if I’ll try to do a warm up based on distance or pick an amount of time to warm up (and cool down will just be walk from finish back to room, with a minimum of 10 minutes, and if I’m under that, I’ll walk around LM for a little bit).
3. What to take with – When I run at home, I leave the house with my phone, my headphones, tissues, my water bottle, my sunglasses, and my house key. I know at Disney I will need to add MagicBand to that list (and subtract house key), but is there anything else I should bring with me? I don’t usually carry ID when I run (I know, terrible idea), but should I carry a piece of paper with my name and contact info for my sister?
4. Water Fountains – At the park where I run, there are water fountains, which I use to fill up my water bottle (it’s a 24-oz, but I often drink more than that over the course of a run). I’m not sure if the hotels have water fountains (although my sister thinks they do, so it’s worth looking into), so I don’t know what I’m going to do about liquid – between warm up, run, and cool down, I often go through 2 water bottles (sometimes more), so I really do want to know if I can refill it somewhere. Worst comes to worst I can go into the food courts to refill, but … I take no responsibility for how I smell (I said that to my mom when she drove by me on my cool down last week and offered to drive me the rest of the way home).
5. Pictures – I don’t know that I can take pictures while running, but I’m sure there’s plenty I’ll want to take pictures of over the course of the run. So … I guess I need to practice taking picture while running? I shouldn’t have any trouble taking pictures during my walk intervals, but those are shorter than my run intervals.

When I told my sister about this plan, she said it sounded really cool and pretty (because the resorts are both awesome) and she wanted to join me. To which I had the following response in my head:

Dear Sister,
I love you, and I enjoy spending time with you. That said,
OMG CAN I PLEASE JUST HAVE SOME TIME TO MYSELF???
Seriously.

Thinking about it, I came up with 3 options for her (she doesn’t run):

1. She can come with me if she can keep up (I don’t run particularly fast, but running still inherently tends to be a little faster than walking)
2. She can explore Pop Century while I’m running around both resorts, and we’ll meet up at the Generation Gap Bridge when I’m done
3. I can go out by myself, take note of things I think she’ll want to see, and then point them out to her later – making sure she doesn’t miss anything (also saves me from having to take pictures while running). This, I think, is the best option – I don’t have to worry about sticking with/meeting up with her, she can sleep late, and I can be an advance scout to make sure we don’t miss anything good!

Because we really don’t want to miss something as awesome as this …

… or this

Once I’m back and showered, I’ll wake up my sister and we’ll head down to breakfast. Once again, we will have cereal. I will probably want iced coffee. I gotta figure out how that works – I know they have an Iced Mocha, but I don’t know if they have plain iced coffee or if I’m just expected to put hot coffee over ice (there is often a difference – many places cold brew iced coffee). Or, since we’re bringing Starbucks Via packets with us, I may just get a cup of ice, make the Via with cold water, and then make an iced coffee that way.

Once we’ve had our breakfasts, we’ll take what’s left of our coffee and start exploring. This is our first time staying at a hotel for the second time (does that make any sense?), so I’m not sure how it will work. Usually we just pick a start point and explore from there (we also usually do it right before departure – last year was the first time we set aside an hour in the morning to do it). Based on what we had the least time for last year, we’ll focus on

and

If we have time, we’ll also check out some of

and

My secondary focus is the pools, which we didn’t go into last year. I’m hoping to get some better pictures than these:

(as you can see, these are not actually pool pictures … they’re pictures of areas surrounding the pools)

If we still have time before we have to leave to head over to the parks, we may walk across the Generation Gap Bridge and check out

We’ve got a few pictures from when we stayed there in 2008 …

We didn’t have as much time to explore when we stayed there, so I really would like to see a lot … but we shall see what we have time for.

Once we’re done exploring, we’ll head back to the room and pack up for the day. This involves making sure I have all important paperwork in my folder (especially important because we have an ADR and I will most likely be nervous about it), packing snacks (no lunch necessary), and making sure we have all our "waiting on line" stuff. Then we head out to the buses and grab the next bus headed to …

If I had the patience, I’d go into Photoshop and try to clean up these images, because my scanner is pretty junky, but … I don’t. So junky photos it is.

We’ll get off the bus and then head for one of our favorite attractions …

… STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT – DAY 3, PART 2
(I know, I know, you want to know what happens next … but I’m splitting this up like this on purpose, so you’ll just have to wait until Tuesday to see where we head first)

 

[MonsterWDWmom]

So far day 3 looks great!

What a great run, I usually am surrounded by trees and I think your scenery is much better

Can't wait to hear where your ADR is at!

 

[SarahDisney]

Week 13 Planning Update:​

I have 2 questions where I need an opinion, and rather than making everyone read carefully to the end, I’m putting them up top so that you can skim the rest:
1 – I bought new running/walking sneakers yesterday. Should I try to break these in over the course of the next few weeks and bring them down to Disney? Or should I stick with the old ones, which are close to the end of their life, but should still have another few weeks in them? I know it’s a bad call to wear brand new not broken in shoes to Disney …
2 – Dining reservations – I always assumed I was supposed to show up 15 minutes early for ADRs. I don’t know if it’s because I try to be 15 minutes early for everything or if I read it somewhere. But when I asked a question here on the disboards, someone said something that made me think I don’t have to show up early. So what’s the story – should I be there 15 minutes early or is arriving on time okay? I actually asked Disney Dining today – the wonderful woman said 5-10 minutes, but I’m curious to see what experiences others have and when my wonderful readers show up for their ADRs.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled update:

MOVIE NIGHT: Wreck-It Ralph (was supposed to be Peter Pan, then got changed to The Aristocats because we watched Pan early, then my sister decided she wanted to watch Wreck-It Ralph). It was a super adorable movie and we really enjoyed.
CHARACTER: Rapunzel
Our character activities:
- SW: Changed her computer background; hung up a Rapunzel coloring page in her office; used a frying pan (to make pancakes - they were delicious)
- Me: Rocked 2 of Rapunzel’s hair styles – straight down and long (although mine is not as long) and braided; used a frying pan (to make an omelet)

A lot got taken care of this week – so I’m back to my hyper-organized format for now:

Dining/ADRs:
*Drumroll please …

This isn’t the final draft, but I didn’t feel like reuploading it after I changed it

So, here’s the story behind it:
I woke up at 6:30 Sunday morning and couldn’t fall back asleep (I normally don’t get up until 8:15 on Sunday), and I saw an email from DISBoards that people were saying BOG was available for the week following my trip.
I decided to grab my phone and check for my MK day – assuming the answer would be no – but there was an 8:35 available! I turned on my bedroom light, grabbed my credit card, and booked it. One problem: this would mean missing the projection show and fireworks.
I asked my sister which was more important – Fireworks or BOG dinner (reminding her that we had a BOG lunch FP+). Her answer was fireworks. I explained why I asked, and told her that I thought it was because they extended park hours, so now the restaurant was open an additional hour, and they must have just released the new times today. She suggested I look for a 9:30 – brilliant suggestion! There was no 9:30 available (that’s when BOG closes), but there was a 9:25 – so I grabbed it!
As of right now we have both the 9:25 dinner ADR & the 1:10-1:40 arrival lunch FP+. Plan is to drop the lunch one at some point, watch fireworks (or at least Tinkerbell flying over the castle), maybe leave fireworks a little early and head over to BOG for our dinner!

Disney “Spirit”:
*I finished my Character Bingo. And then Disney announced that they’re getting rid of the Ralph & Vanellope M&G. To quote my brother (who says this a lot) “argh!” Oh well, I didn’t print it yet, so I just have to replace all of the Ralphs and Vanellopes.

*I’ve made some good progress on the trivial pursuit cards (even tried printing one, which taught me that my alignment was all wrong) and I’ve started assembling “Magic Kingdom Fun Facts” (ala Ted Mosby). So line stuff is going okay (but I’m hoping we don’t have much chance to use it – hoping for short lines!)

Parks & Plans:
*So, my sister came up with an awesome plan for MK, which is not what I thought it would be, but could work really well (I hope). We start with our normal Tomorrowland, and from there we cut across to Adventureland, then go around "the long way" to Fantasyland, stopping to see all characters on the way (no rides, just characters – unless the line for BTMRR is super short). I think it could work.

*We also have to plan snack and meal times for MK and stick to them, because we’ll be having an early breakfast and late dinner, and we could get crabby in between. Right now I have about 3.5 hours separating each eating period (snack 3.5 hours after breakfast, lunch 3.5 hours after snack, etc), but I may change it to be snack 4 hours after meal and meal 3 hours after snack (because a meal should fill you up more).

Packing/Clothing:
*My sister is still trying to figure out what to bring. I’m trying to convince her to Disneybound. Snow White would be a great one for her (or Cinderella … I sent her an email about that or Sorcerer Mickey late last night), so I’m hoping I can convince her to do it.

*Meanwhile, I’m having trouble with my Disneybounding. There’s one shirt I’m looking for that I just can’t find (I found something decent today, but my sister said it’s too fancy for the parks). I did, however (with much help from my sister), get a ribbon to wear in my hair for Anna and a pendant to make into her necklace (for coronation dress – I don’t remember if I mentioned that when I first made the decision) – the pendant is gold and green and in the shape of a flower.
The pendant for the Anna necklace (I’ll put it on a black ribbon)

Ribbon for my hair:

Other:
*We bought our canvas bags for the characters to sign. We have thick sharpies for the ones who may have trouble gripping normal Sharpies, now we just have to get the normal sharpies … but I can get those cheap either at the drugstore or at Target
The general shopping haul:

*Here's a funny way you know I've been doing too much Disney planning (if that's even possible):
I wanted to log into my credit card account to check something on an old statement. I go to the website, type in the right username ... and type in my Disney password.
Maybe I should have just pulled out the paper statement …

*Today I watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Doc McStuffins. I was in front of the TV waiting for the doorbell to ring (I really hate waiting for the guy from the electric company to come read the meter … I always wait all day and he comes either while I’m making lunch or very late). I've seen Mickey Mouse Clubhouse before, Jake was kinda cute (but I wouldn't watch it regularly), but I really did not like Doc McStuffins. Seemed so stupid to me.

*I booked a hotel for Thursday night of Princess Weekend (that’s all I would need the hotel for as of now) – Caribbean Beach Resort (I wanted to go moderate and it was the cheapest moderate for that night). I know I’ll have to end up cancelling it, but it’s nice to have the reservation show up in my account.

And your non-Disney comment of the update:
Still having a really hard time with the unemployment thing. I’m either underqualified or overspecialized for everything I apply to – having a hard time finding something that’s the exact right fit for me. I’ve been looking at Disney job listings … but they’d probably be looking for someone with more education than I have (which is actually a fairly common problem for me). This is really weighing on me and I’m so worried that it will interfere with my enjoyment of the trip .

And that was my week.
Day 3 part 2 plans will be posted either tomorrow or Thursday (hopefully tomorrow ... I've got it all written out, I just have to track down the pictures)

 

[SarahDisney]

So far day 3 looks great!

What a great run, I usually am surrounded by trees and I think your scenery is much better

Can't wait to hear where your ADR is at!

Thanks!
I usually run in the part surrounded by softball fields and other runners ... this will be a much better background!

The day 3 ADR is actually my least exciting of the ADRs I have, but it still should be good. You'll hear about it tomorrow (hopefully)!