An AP Value Trip in April

[Neon Cactus]

A lot of moving parts are helping this trip come together. First, after doing the marathon in January for the second time and talking to a lot of people who did Dopey, I decided that next year I'm going for that. Second, I got an offer from Hilton Grand Vacations for 3 free nights in the Orlando area for listening to a 2 hour timeshare presentation and I was planning to use them in September during the Food & Wine Festival. I did the math and saw that it would be less expensive to buy an annual pass than get tickets separately. At the same time, I have a friend who is a DVC member who offered to let me stay with them at the Polynesian in September. Hmmm...Hilton off property or Polynesian? So I still had those three Hilton nights to use and an extra trip just adds value to the annual pass. I went home, got on Southwest's low fare calendar and in the sea of $350 airfares, I found a window in April where the price is $102 round trip. Done!

So I'll be flying in April 7. My flight leaves at 10:25 PM and I land at 1:40 AM. It's Disney World, so who needs sleep anyway? I decided to stay at the Hilton Parc Soleil because it's fairly close to Disney World, about 3 miles from Disney Springs (so I can Uber it or even run it). My return flight is 6 AM Wednesday morning, so I really have two days in the parks, but I will take them. They gave me a choice of 8:15, 10:30 or 12:30, so I took the 8:15 since that's at least 45 minutes where the parks aren't open. I'm hoping it won't take all two hours, but it's a good deal on the hotel, so I can say no for two hours if necessary. I'm seriously considering moving to Orlando in just over 3 years when my youngest graduates high school, so there's no point in even considering a time share in Orlando, not to mention if I was going to do that, it would be with DVC.

So my plan is on Monday morning, I'll do their presentation until 10:15 (hopefully earlier) and then take Uber to Animal Kingdom. This weekend was 30 days out, so Fastpass windows. And another reason why I don't generally like staying off property. Flight over Pandora was already gone. I got Festival of the Lion King at 12:30, Everest at 1:30 and Navi River Journey at 2:40. I haven't done that yet, though I've heard mediocre reviews, but at least I'll finally get to ride it. My goal was to be at EPCOT or on the way by 3:30, so I should be in good shape. So when I get there, I'm figuring no later than 11, I will be able to do the Safari, Primeval Whirl and Dinosaur, and at least one of the animal trails before Lion King, then have lunch at Flame Tree BBQ, do the other animal trail before Everest and then It's Tough to Be a Bug and maybe single rider Everest one or two more times before Navi. I'm not going to wait for FoP on this trip at least.

The main thing I want to do at EPCOT is see everything for the Flower and Garden Festival. I used to live in Atlanta in the mid 90s and had an annual pass when the festival was new and I haven't made it there since, so I'm excited. I'll definitely ride Figment, The Seas, probably Spaceship Earth, single rider Test Track and see Impressions de France and maybe the other films, which I haven't seen in several years. I haven't booked any restaurant for dinner. I'm thinking I'll get some of the food from the kiosks around the Festival. And dessert at Boulangerie in France! And then I'll get to see Illuminations, probably for the last time. I'll be running on about 4-5 hours of sleep, which I usually function OK on, so I may end up at Jellyrolls after the park closes.

On Tuesday, I will be at the Studios at park opening. I'm going straight to Slinky Dog, which I haven't been on yet, and then ride Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, Rock N Roller Coaster and Star Tours and then head over to Magic Kingdom. I have Fastpasses for Thunder Mountain, Peter Pan and Space Mountain, starting at 12:30. They surprisingly did have Seven Dwarfs available but not until 9:15 pm, and since I can just wait standby around that time before park closing and that would keep me from getting additional Fastpasses after Space Mountain, I opted for Peter Pan instead. I was going to get Splash Mountain instead of Thunder, but since Thunder clearly had more distributed, I figure I'll have a better chance at picking up Splash after I've used the other three.

So with those Fastpasses, I'll head to Pirates and Jungle Cruise first, then Haunted Mansion, It's a Small World, Pooh, Little Mermaid, Teacups, PhilHarmagic, and then Astro Orbiter, Buzz, Peoplemover and Carousel of Progress. I saw the Happily Ever After fireworks show from Ohana in July, but this will be my first time seeing it in the park, so I got the dessert party with the reserved area to watch it. I love the castle projections and want to make sure I get to see them. At first, I booked the option with the dessert party after the fireworks, but realized that would have kept me from going on a ride or two after the fireworks, so I'm doing it before. After that, I'll say goodbye to Disney World for 5 months (unless I end up there this summer).

Now the frustrating part begins. I have 28 days to wait and have nothing to do but tinker with my Fastpasses.

 

[Neon Cactus]

Now I have two more things I need to add to my itinerary. First is to get my replica Walk Around the World brick. I bought this when some friends and I were there in 1994 and for the past 25 years, I've had my name 20 feet away from the Magic Kingdom turnstiles. While I'm sad it's going away, they only promised 10 years, the bricks were worn and who knows, they might have something similar with whatever they're planning to replace it with. I'm glad they're at least offering the replica bricks and $10 is a lot less than I would have expected them to charge.

The second thing is a stop at the Grand Floridian to see the Easter Eggs. One thing I love about Disney World is that, as many times as I've gone, I'm almost always able to find something new that I've never done before. I've never seen the Easter Eggs there but just saw the pictures online and I'm not quite sure when, but I'm definitely going at some point. Only 4 more days. I looked into flying standby earlier, but the costs and hassle look like they'll be too much, so I'll stick with my late night Sunday flight.