Aloha, Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas

Always sad to see the end of TRs.
I've really enjoyed reading along with yours.
Thanks for sharing.

I am glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading along.

Your upcoming trip sounds very nice! I love that you are doing 2 Halloween parties this is my favorite Disney event.

Actually, I am doing three. I am doing Mickey's Halloween Party at Disneyland twice and then I also have a ticket for MNSSHP at Walt Disney World.

Do we get a sneaky preview of outfits?

Here are the various bits and bobs that will make up my Halloween costumes:

https://www.pinterest.com/corinnaball1/halloween/

She loves those and I really like the batons... Let me look for a picture.
3000986xun.jpg


But yes, I think we love them b/c you cant get them here... LOL

I don't think I have ever seen those before. I have to check them out.


Sorry to see/read it has come to a close, I will look forward to the next one!

Thanks for reading along. Not long now until the next trip.

Corinna
 
Nice wrap up. Sorry to see the TR come to an end, but as you pointed out, it's been 8 months since you got back. Nothing lasts forever, so t you might as well get on with it!

The next trip will be here sooner than ever and we will have a great time!
 
Loving the Cinders outfit!

That was a stroke of luck. Somebody posted this on one of the Disney groups I belong do. This actually came from Torrid, a chain for plus size closing in the USA.

Plenty there to select. All very nice.

All of this little lot will combine into three different costumes.

Cool re 3 parties!

Yes, I am very excited about this and the best thing is that I get to share two of them with friends.

Sorry to see the TR come to an end, but as you pointed out, it's been 8 months since you got back.

Yes, I can quite believe that it has been so long both in terms of time passed since the last trip and how long it took me to finish this. It is a long time since I had more than 6 months between trips.

The next trip will be here sooner than ever and we will have a great time!

As far as I am concerned, it cannot got quick enough and I am sure we will have a wonderful time.

Corinna
 


The plans for your upcoming trip look great! And I enjoyed your recap. Too bad about WoC holiday, good that the next one looks better.
 
The plans for your upcoming trip look great!

Thanks. I have been meaning to do an update, but real life has got in the way.

And I enjoyed your recap.

I am glad that you enjoyed it.

Too bad about WoC holiday, good that the next one looks better.

WoC Winter Dreams was the biggest turkey I ever had to misfortune to sit or rather stand through. Still, it looks like it is not coming back this year.

Corinna
 
I am going to do a proper update over the weekend when I am more awake. However, I wanted to post about two quick things.

I have had a complete nightmare with getting an additional ticket for one of the dates that I am attending Mickey's Halloween Party. The Disneyland website is a complete mess. The process started yesterday evening and I finally succeeded about an hour ago. I bought my tickets for Mickey's Halloween Party last week and had no issues whatsoever. On this occasion however, I tried on my iPad,my laptop, my work computer and my iPhone, with Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari. I tried to log in or not. Either nothing happened after I have entered my card details or it went to the next screen saying that some details are incorrect or missing and then just threw me back to a blank payment screen. I really wanted to do this online so that I could get an eticket, but at one stage I really doubted that this would happen. I wish Disney would sort out their awful IT. I started to get worried that the tickets would sell out before I was able to get an extra one.

On a more positive note, I read some articles that it looks like there may be a purple Magic Band fairly soon. I so want one of those. I know that they are releasing a whole bunch of new retail Magic Bands later this month so I am hoping that they release the purple Magic Band at the same time. Speaking of retail Magic Bands, they are also going to release a Figment one on 21st August. I hope that those are still available when I get to Walt Disney World on 1st October.

Corinna
 


Purple magic band? Totally envious.

Sorry about your Disney IT experience. That would have been a nightmare going through it. But on the plus side....you have your tix. YAY.
 
Purple magic band? Totally envious.

Sorry about your Disney IT experience. That would have been a nightmare going through it. But on the plus side....you have your tix. YAY.

I just hope that they hurry up and release them to the general public. I have to until the 31st August to customize one set and until 7th September to customize the other. I think I will leave the first set alone even if they have released the purple one by then as I have ordered to colours for this that we don't have yet. However, I have chosen green for my second one and we already have a green one so I would love to replace this with a purple one.

I have heard people complaining about Disney IT for years, but up to this week, I have not had any first hand experience of this apart from the system not recognizing my Fastpasses in 2013. However they were still testing then and teething problems were to be expected. This however was a complete nightmare. Still, all is well that ends well.

Corinna
 
This trip this past may, I too had IT problems, I ended up calling DVC and they took care of everything for me, they conference in the IT people and they fixed everything and we had not problems.

So even thought I did everything over the phone they had everything out into my account and it showed up online.

I am so glad that you got it worked out and got your extra ticket.
 
This trip this past may, I too had IT problems, I ended up calling DVC and they took care of everything for me, they conference in the IT people and they fixed everything and we had not problems.

So even thought I did everything over the phone they had everything out into my account and it showed up online.

I am so glad that you got it worked out and got your extra ticket.

I am glad that they managed to work everything out for you. Unfortunately when it comes to Disneyland, DVC can't do much to help. Even when I booked my room with DVC points at the onsite hotels, they had to ring the hotel to make the booking. There were a whole bunch of people who due some technical fault did not get their etickets. They were told to go to a ticket booth at Disneyland to sort this out. I know that Disneyland is still very much a park for locals, but some of the people caught up in that mess were from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. I got off lightly. Once I could convince the system to accept my payment details, it then issued me an eticket straightaway.

Corinna
 
I am glad that they managed to work everything out for you. Unfortunately when it comes to Disneyland, DVC can't do much to help. Even when I booked my room with DVC points at the onsite hotels, they had to ring the hotel to make the booking. There were a whole bunch of people who due some technical fault did not get their etickets. They were told to go to a ticket booth at Disneyland to sort this out. I know that Disneyland is still very much a park for locals, but some of the people caught up in that mess were from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. I got off lightly. Once I could convince the system to accept my payment details, it then issued me an eticket straightaway.

Corinna
Wow, that does not sound like fun at all.

I have not been to Disneyland since 1988 :eek:
I have got to find a way back, the problem is I just do not have enough vacation time to do everything I want. LOL
So for now, I get to live thru your TR's :)

Thanks again for sharing your trip.
 
Sorry about the pain with IT, but glad it worked out in the end.

They need more colors for the MB's, hopefully purple comes out. I know tons of people love purple.
 
I have got to find a way back, the problem is I just do not have enough vacation time to do everything I want. LOL

Goodness, in all that time Disneyland will have changed beyond recognition. I know what you mean. I used to have tons of vacation time when I was teaching, but because my vacation was when school was out, everything was so busy and expensive. Now that I can go off season and get all kinds of discounts on travelling, I don't have nearly as much vacation time anymore.

They need more colors for the MB's, hopefully purple comes out. I know tons of people love purple.

I agree. I really hope that they release purple bands before my window for customizing them closes. My go to colours are blue and purple.

Corinna
 
Sorry about all the IT woes. I have been crazy MIA. Did I say your MB arrived?

Hope to catch up around here next week once the DISmeets are over. Having fun is a lot of work!
 
Sorry about all the IT woes.

Fortunately it all got sorted out in the end.

Did I say your MB arrived?

Yes, thank you.

Hope to catch up around here next week once the DISmeets are over. Having fun is a lot of work!

I am glad you are having fun. I am hard at work being hard at work at the moment. I am halfway through another 8 shifts in a row. When they are done, I am heading straight to the other side of the country for a bit of sightseeing for three days. When I get back, I have one day at work, one day to run errands and pack and then I am in Dubai for a week. Once I get back from that it is 3 weeks until I leave for California. I really want to do an update as so much has happened, but the time is eluding me.

Corinna
 
Great wrap up!!!! I understand how all trips usually aren't perfect but in the years to come you usually remember the good times over the bad...well most people do.

Disney IT has been a mess over the past month or so. they keep saying they are doing magical enhancements and when they are done it seems to be worse instead of better. This is my biggest complaint too. How can they keep going forward with so many issues?

I look forward to your next report. I totally understand about having a bit a free time when you finish up a report too. I enjoyed the summer a lot this year without having to do an extensive report.
 
Great wrap up!!!! I understand how all trips usually aren't perfect but in the years to come you usually remember the good times over the bad...well most people do.

Indeed and for me that is definitely the case.

Disney IT has been a mess over the past month or so. they keep saying they are doing magical enhancements and when they are done it seems to be worse instead of better. This is my biggest complaint too. How can they keep going forward with so many issues?

I wanted a hammer to take my various gadgets. It was just a complete nightmare. Fortunately it is all sorted now and unless the famous purple Magicband turns up sooner rather than later, I do not have to brave Disney IT again before the trip.

I look forward to your next report. I totally understand about having a bit a free time when you finish up a report too. I enjoyed the summer a lot this year without having to do an extensive report.

I am now reaching the stage where I am starting to miss writing a trip report although realistically I would not have the time to do so at the moment. For me writing a trip report is a welcome escape from the stress of real life.

Corinna
 
I have got so behind with updates although I have definitely not been idle on the planning front. I know that I said that I would not plan anything for this trip, but there were a whole lot of things that needed my attention. I have now ordered and received my Photopass+ pack for Disneyland and added Memory Maker to my account for Walt Disney World. I got the standby tickets for the trip back from Orlando. I also sorted out my transfers for Los Angeles. I have gone with Supershuttle again. At least I know what I am letting myself in for. I also paid the balance for the All Star Music Resort.

Last weekend, I finally bit the bullet and applied for our ESTAs. Mine expired in April and Graham had to get a new passport so we both needed new ones. I had been putting off this particular joy for a while. Goodness, this process has become so complicated. I felt like I had to write a dissertation. I knew that it had changed and was now asking for the names of parents, additional nationalities and employment details. However, it has changed again and now you also need to supply an emergency contact in either the USA or abroad plus a US point of contact with name, address and phone number. Fortunately I have plenty of friends in the USA so this was not an issue, but it still surprised me. Then to add insult to injury, both of them came back as pending approval. Fortunately when I re-retrieved our application number, they had both been approved. What a nightmare.

This now leaves four things to sort out. I cannot apply for my ticket that will take me to Los Angeles until one month before travelling. Strictly spoken, this is next Saturday. However, I am on a late shift on Friday and will email the application to our London office before I leave. It won’t get picked up until Monday and by then we will be inside the one month window. I am hoping that my ticket will be waiting for me when I get back from Dubai, but as another airline is involved, this may not happen quite so quick.

At some stage I need to call DVC Member Services to book the two member exclusive Fitness in the Park offerings that they now offer at Disneyland.

Now that Graham has firmed up his plans and I have his flight details, I am going to have to call Disney’s Magical Express to see if he can use this two days later than me although our hotel booking starts on 1st October. I don’t really see why this should be an issue, but we will see.

The last thing that I need to do is sort out is booking Discovery Cove. The plan is that we will spend Graham’s birthday there. I think I will just call them as I can then put a request for a specific dolphin on the reservation. I really want to swim with Dash again, who was the first dolphin I ever swam with.

Once all those things are done, all that I have left to do is print out all the confirmations and this can wait until the week before I leave.

Finally the schedule for first few days at Disneyland has been released. This has come with a few surprises. I had expected both parks to open at 10:00 with California Adventure closing at 20:00 and Disneyland at 21:00 with the exception of the party nights. Well, the only thing I called right is the closing time of California Adventure and even then I was surprised that the park is open until midnight on 25th September. I suppose this is to give people who are not heading to the party somewhere to go. On the day I arrive, Disneyland will be open until 22:00, which suits me just fine. When I arrive, I am planning to nap for three or four hours. I am then planning to head to the parks around 18:00. If Oswald is still due out then, I will head to California Adventure first to pick up my Photopass+ lanyard and to say “hi” to Oswald. I then have plenty of time to go over to Disneyland to stake out a spot. Paint the Night is on at 20:45 and Disneyland Forever at 21:30. By then I will be ready for my bed.

The next two days, the parks open at 9:00 and Disneyland is open until 23:00. This has given me an interesting problem. I had originally made a reservation for Goofy’s Kitchen for 7:40 on the first full day at Disneyland. I figured that the parks would not open until 10:00 so that would give me plenty of time to have a leisurely breakfast and maybe go for a swim before meeting friends at around 10:00 for a day in the parks. However, now I am second-guessing this and wonder if I should bring my breakfast reservation forward to 7:10 and go and enjoy some of Magic Morning at California Adventure before meeting up with my friends. I do however think that this may proof too much of a good thing and I am better off just sticking to my original plan. After all, I am getting more than enough park time on this trip.

One thing that utterly confuses me is that there are still not details about the Happiest Haunts Tour. I have not made up my mind if I want to do this or not, but I thought this could be fun. In past years, this started as soon as the Halloween season started. As tours can be booked 30 days in advance, I would have expected that by now we would have details for this. However, it still says schedule unavailable so this may require a phone call to see if this is bookable. I will wait until I come back from Dubai though that if it is bookable and I fancy it, I can make the booking on the same call.

The biggest task was doing the Fastpasses. However, this actually went surprisingly smoothly. I have heard horror stories about people who logged in a couple of hours after the booking window opened at 60 days and not getting what they wanted anymore. I was not willing to get up at 5:00 the morning my Fastpass window opened as this was the only day that I did not have to be up at 5:00 that week. In one way, I was rather laid back about it as I really had two must have Fastpasses. However, those are some of the hottest tickets in town: Anna and Elsa and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. I did not need to worry. I had no problem getting Seven Dwarfs Mine Train on every day I am planning to be at Magic Kingdom and although Fastpasses for Anna and Elsa were not available on my first choice of day, my second choice was no issue. On some days the times that the system suggested actually worked for me straightaway, but on most days I changed the times once I had the Fastpasses I wanted confirmed. Here is what I ended up with.

1st October:
17:50 to 18:50 – Mission:Space
19:00 to 20:00 – Meet Disney Pals at Character Spot
20:00 to 21:00 – Soarin


2nd October:
9:55 to 10:55 – Spaceship Earth
10:55 to 11:55 – Test Track
12:00 to 13:00 – Journey into Imagination with Figment (don’t really expect that I need this)

3rd October
10:00 to 11:00 – Meet Mickey at Town Square Theater
11:15 to 12:15 – Big Thunder Mountain
13:15 to 14:15 – Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

4th October
15:00 to 16:00 – Meet Ariel in her Grotto (I will be dressed up as Ursula for MNSSHP)
16:00 to 17:00 – Meet Anna and Elsa at Princess Fairytale Hall
17:25 to 18:25 – Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

5th October
9:45 to 10:45 – Soarin
11:40 to 12:40 - Meet Disney Pals at Character Spot
16:05 to 17:05 - Mission:Space

7th October
9:30 to 10:30 - Meet Disney Pals at Character Spot
10:35 to 11:35 – The Seas with Nemo and Friends
11:40 to 12:40 – Soarin

8th October
9:20 to 10:20 – Enchanted Tales with Belle
10:30 to 11:30 - Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
11:45 to 12:45 – Peter Pan’s Flight

9th October
11:30 to 12:30 – Meet Disney Pals at Adventurers Outpost
12:55 to 13:00 – Kilimanjaro Safaris
14:00 to 15:00 – Expedition Everest

I pretty much made the Fastpass reservations for the last day just in case I do fancy popping into Animal Kingdom, but I think it is more likely that I end up cancelling them nearer the time. I have the strange feeling that I will be all “parked out” by then and sitting in a rocking chair in a public viewing area at either Kidani or Jambo House will be much more appealing. However, I wanted to keep my options open.

I am in two minds about the first day as well. I figured that it would be nice to get some park time after travelling all day. By then my body clock should be on West Coast Time so it will still feel really early in the day when I get to Orlando. Unfortunately there are no Extra Magic Hours this day so Epcot sounded like the best option. Now things have changed. When I booked my ticket for MNSSHP, I expected that I would arrive in Orlando much later. Best case scenario was that I would arrive in Orlando shortly after 18:00 but more likely even later. So doing the party on 1st October was not an option. However, now I arrive at 15:45. So even with delays along the way, I should be able to get to the park by 19:00. Some people I know are going to MNSSHP and I am kind of tempted to add another party on 1st October. I am just not sure if this would be overkill as I am already doing two Halloween parties at Disneyland and one at Walt Disney World.

When I was booking my Fastpasses a couple of weeks ago, I was prompted to do online check in for All Star Music. I have never stayed at a value resort before and I have to admit that I am a little apprehensive about this. So I asked for some tips from people I know who have stayed there before. I was told that a good request to make is for ground floor in building 10, away from the courtyard so it is quieter. I looked into this and realised that building 10 is part of the preferred category and I have booked a standard room. So I did not think this would be an option. However, when I came to do the online check in, even though I have booked the standard category, one of the request options that came up was Calypso section, which translates to buildings 1 and 10, which are both preferred category. I decided to use my two requests on Calypso section and landscape view so I am hoping that this translates to away from the main building and not facing the pool. I know that this is a request only and I will make do with whatever I will be assigned, but I figured it was worth a try.

A week after this, it was time for me to do online check in for our one night at Kidani Village. I have only ever stayed at Jambo House. At Kidani, what my choices really boiled down to is which savannah I ideally want to be on. Initially was leaning towards the Pembe savannah as they have red river hogs and okapi on that savannah. However, Okapi are relatively shy and red river hogs are small so I figured I would be better off with animals that will be easier to see from the balcony. In the end I requested a high floor overlooking Sunset savannah. I figure I will have better luck seeing okapi and red river hogs from the public viewing areas.

Corinna
 
That sounds like a lot of work!

Well done for having things sorted out and FP+ booked. I would leave the first day and last day a little bit more flex too. You never know how you'll feel.
ESTA sounds like a nightmare. It was still relatively easy when I last renewed our ESTA applications. Looks like its going to be a whole new world of *joy* next time round. :(
 

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