Are we crazy? A first-timer's Disneymoon!!

[Sparklysoph]

Hello everyone and thank you for joining me for not only my first ever trip report but my first ever trip to Disney!

First things first, who am I? I’m Sophie! I’m 29 and live in Montreal, Canada but am originally from the UK. While I’ve lived in Canada since I was a teenager, I still have an English accent, which leads to many awkward conversations from kind Canadians welcoming me to the country and me having to explain that I’ve been here forever!

I LOVE Disney and I have always wanted to go to Disney World but my fam had no interest, (although my Mom, Dad and Sis did actually go to Magic Kingdom for one day while they were visiting friends in Florida, I was at university back in London and was SO mad about it!) They did not have a good time – they did no planning and basically just showed up and got stuck on a Small World, at least that’s what they told me. They think I’m crazy for going to Disney for my Honeymoon.

Which leads me to the reason for our Disney trip! At the end of September I’m getting married! So my other half and my partner for this trip will be my soon-to-be husband, Andrei! I mean, I kind of had to invite him on our honeymoon, right? We’ll be heading to Disney for a week during the second week of October.

This picture cracks me up. We were walking the Freedom Trail in Boston and it was freezing but I made Andrei stop for a selfie and he looks SO miserable haha. He wasn't, I promise!

A has actually been to Disney World once before as a teenager but has seemingly NO memory of any of the trip details, he can’t remember where they stayed or what they did or where they ate, despite me grilling him for details to see what he did and didn’t like. (Eyeroll…) So I am basically treating him as a first-timer.

So how did a Disneymoon come about? When we started talking about our honeymoon, we threw around a few ideas…Mediterranean cruise, Dubai, Europe. When we started considering the logistics though, we needed to be practical. As we are both originally from Europe, we have family and friends flying over for the wedding so instead of having one day or one weekend of activities and fun, we have like two weeks! In particular, Andrei’s dad, stepmom and two little brothers will be staying with us for the week before and the week after the wedding. It will be so nice but it’s going to be exhausting, It’s their first trip to Canada so we want to make sure they have a great time. Throw in a wedding and a whole bunch of other relatives and friends on both sides flying in, it’s set to be a really fun but really tiring couple of weeks. So all that being said, we decided that a long-haul, transatlantic flight was probably the last thing we would want to do, so a trip closer to home it is.

I’ve been talking about us going to Disney for a while but it always seemed like a ‘someday’ thing. Andrei has wanted to go back too but again, it seemed like a trip that would happen in the future. My favourite hobby became watching Disney vlogs on YouTube and I began dreaming about going. So when I had the epiphany that, ‘Hey, maybe our honeymoon would be the perfect excuse for a Disney trip.’ I mentioned it to Andrei and he was totally up for it.

OMG ARE WE GOING TO DISNEY?!

We knew we wanted to take a two-week honeymoon, because you only get one honeymoon (hopefully!) and a week just didn’t seem long enough. We are also super lucky because both of our employers are allowing us to take four weeks off so that we can spend time with our families while they’re here and have two weeks for the honeymoon.

We decided though, not to spend the full two weeks at Disney. With all of the aforementioned family visiting and what is sure to be a very busy and exciting but stressful couple of weeks followed by a busy and exciting and hopefully not stressful week at Disney, we decided to take the second week and do a super luxe all-inclusive in Mexico, where we planned to lie on a beach, eat a lot of food and drink a lot of cocktails for a week. (Spoiler alert – these plans change…twice).

So I’m starting this report on May 13 and we began our Disney planning around the beginning of the year and boy has it been a rollercoaster since then! I will go back in this report and take you along the process so far until I get to present day and we can do the rest of the planning together.

Thanks for joining and please, please feel free to chime in with suggestions and tips. While, given all of my hours and hours of research, I feel like a Disney World expert, the fact is, I’ve never actually been, so my online expertise can only go so far!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Ok so once we decided we were definitely doing Disney (after me second guessing myself and wondering if we were crazy to go on such a planning-intense honeymoon, hence the title of this PTR!) it was time to think about the logistics.

First things first: Tickets.

I bought 7 day park hoppers. For the most part, we’re planning to do rope drop – mid day break – park evening and park hoppers seemed like the best option to take full advantage of everything we want to do. I missed out on the special rate for Canadians by two days so these ended up being pretty expensive.

Next step: Accommodation.

I started by looking at the Disney hotels and was quickly in shock at the price, especially when you convert to the Canadian dollar. I kind of had my heart set on staying at one of the Port Orleans resorts but considering we will have just paid for a wedding and we’re saving for a down payment and we’ll be having a splurgey second week of honeymoon after Disney, I had to be practical (eurgh) and realize that while this is our honeymoon, I don’t think we’ll be in our room that much and as much as I would LOVE to stay at a moderate or deluxe, for this trip, the Disney accommodation was going to be the place we compromised.

7 nights at Port Orleans was going to cost about $2500 CAD or $1950 US and that was just too much for us this trip.

For some reason I kind of completely dismissed the value resorts (Spoiler: This changes!) and looked at Disney Springs. With the EMH and 60 day FP perks that were given to those 7 Disney Springs hotels, we decided that this was the way to go, so I booked a room through Booking.com at… Best Western Lake Buena Vista. The cost was about $950 CAD (plus taxes and resort fees) so it was pretty cost effective. I wasn’t excited about it but the proximity to Disney Springs seemed like a good fit and I kind of just accepted it and that it would be fine, which I’m sure it would have been.

BUT WAIT...

I was having trouble linking my Best Western reservation to MDE, which, given the 2018 perks, I should have been able to. I called Disney and got several different answers but no solution. After checking the Dis, it seemed that the Best Western was the only hotel not to be working with MDE yet (I think this may have changed now though). Anyway I got freaked out – the whole reason I was okay with booking at D.S was because of those perks and I was worried that it wouldn’t be fixed in time. So…I cancelled that reservation and booked at…Wyndham Garden Lake Buena Vista. The price was about the same although the resort fee was more expensive. It is closer to Disney Springs though, which was a plus! The reviews for this hotel weren’t great but I was totally treating it as just a bed for the night and thought it would be fine.


BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE.

So this is the problem (or benefit??) of being a planner and doing things so much in advance and constantly researching - you keep second guessing every decision. I had a cold last week and was working from home. At lunch time I started playing around on the Disney website looking at room costs (anyone else do this? It’s like I’m waiting for the deluxe hotel prices to magically decrease to something I can afford!) and decided to look at All Star music. I was more interested in Pop Century but that still ended up being a bit more than we wanted to pay. I plugged in our dates, and with the Enchanted Escape offer, it was going to be about $1400 CAD, which, when I did the math, ended up almost exactly the same as the Wyndham Garden, once you added the tax and the resort fee. So I waited until Andrei got home from work, asked him what he thought and he was very keen – he’d wanted to stay in a Disney resort from the beginning and had been disappointed that we were staying offsite. So I went back on the website and… All Star Music had sold out. Sports didn’t appeal to me at all and I was hesitant to book Movies, because everything I read said it was the most worn out and needed work. Upon further research though, I realized they are updating the rooms and so decided to book Movies and we will keep our fingers crossed that we get an updated room. Even if we don’t, I’m sure it will be fine!

So that’s where we are now with accommodation! I think we will stick with this! The only change I can possibly see is if our wedding expenses end up being less than anticipated and I throw caution to the wind and upgrade us to a moderate at the last minute. But for now we have 7 nights at All Star Movies and I’m so excited that we’ll be on-site!!

If any of you have stayed there, please let me know your tips and tricks and recommendations!

Next up: ADRS!

 

[Araminta18]

Congratulations on your marriage, but mostly on the Disneymoon! (just teasing!) That's awesome that you were able to find the deal on All Star Movies--crossing my fingers for you to get an upgraded room!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Congratulations on your marriage, but mostly on the Disneymoon! (just teasing!) That's awesome that you were able to find the deal on All Star Movies--crossing my fingers for you to get an upgraded room!

Thanks so much! I'm getting so excited now! Btw I read your trip report a while ago and enjoyed it so much!

 

[Sailormoon2]

Congrats on your soon to be wedding AND on your Disney planning!! As a fellow Canadian (who goes to Disney annually) I'd be super happy to answer any questions that arise! Can't wait to see how your planning continues to evolve.

 

[Sparklysoph]

Congrats on your soon to be wedding AND on your Disney planning!! As a fellow Canadian (who goes to Disney annually) I'd be super happy to answer any questions that arise! Can't wait to see how your planning continues to evolve.

Thank you so much! Oh you’re so lucky to go every year. I’m totally hoping that we love it and can go back! It’s so hard to fit everything in that I’m trying to have the ‘we’ll be back’ mindset so that I don’t drive myself crazy! I will definitely pick your brains as needed!

 

[Araminta18]

Thanks so much! I'm getting so excited now! Btw I read your trip report a while ago and enjoyed it so much!

You should be--it's going to be so fun! I'm excited to hear more.

Aw, thanks! Glad you liked it

 

[Sparklysoph]

I'm back!

Let's talk about FOOD!! One of my favourite topics! Is it bad that the Disney food is like 1/2 of the reason I'm looking forward to going? To give some context, I have made some lifestyle changes and have been following a Keto diet since August of last year and have lost about 55lbs. Woohoo! I'm going to stick with it strictly (Or at least try, I can feel my willpower fading lately) until the wedding and to be honest, will probably stick with this way of eating after the wedding too but the honeymoon...on the honeymoon, no carbs will be denied. I plan to enjoy everything. I have spent hours pouring over menus, my mouth watering as I decided where we should eat and dreaming about what I might order. Don't judge.

So with all that being said, I was VERY excited to plan our meals and make our ADRs. We're not on the dining plan as I'm not sure it would make sense for us so we'll be paying out of pocket.

Let's take a step backwards though. Once our tickets were bought and I'd figured out our dates, I started the planning process by figuring out how much time we would want to spend in each park and how our days might look. As a reminder, we arrive Saturday morning and leave the following Saturday afternoon and we have seven-day park hoppers. At least that's the current plan. I haven't booked our flights yet.

Andrei's Dad and fam go back to Europe on the Thursday evening so our original plan was to leave for the honeymoon on Friday. I looked at flights and they were pretty expensive but the Hopper app told me they would go down. (Has anyone used that app?) I then looked at flights leaving on Saturday instead and they were WAY cheaper so I made all my plans with an early Saturday morning arrival, as the Saturday flight gets into MCO at 10am ish. I should have bought them right when I saw them because now the Saturday flights are about the same as the Friday flight. I'm still hoping that the flights will go back down but at some point I'm going to have to just buy them. In an ideal world, It would be nice to arrive on Friday so we can have a full day in the parks on Saturday. I will keep you updated on this!

Hmm maybe it would make more sense for me to talk about our park plans before we get to the food? Stay tuned for our ADRs!!

So when planning our days, there were several things that I knew we wanted to do and when I say we, I mostly mean me. Andrei is so chill, and knows how type A and organized I am so he has left the planning almost completely up to me. No pressure! I knew that we wanted to see Happily Ever After (which turned out not to be such an easy feat with all the halloween parties), I wanted to book the Star Wars Dessert Party and the Star Wars Void experience as surprises for Andrei as he is a big fan and I know he will love them, and I wanted to eat at Ohana and Be Our Guest for sure. I knew that we would want a couple of afternoons at Epcot for food and wine because I am totally into the idea of eating and drinking around the world! But I also wanted to build in afternoon breaks and try and restrain myself from wanting to do everything. I know we're going to be tired before we even get there and I want us to enjoy ourselves and not feel pressured to do too much, even if I really want to pack everything in!

So my first step in the planning was figuring out when we could see Happily Ever After. Now MNSSHP is on four nights that we are there and we had decided that we weren't going to go. Neither of us are interested in meeting characters and I don't think we'll be that into parades so, after reading a ton of reviews, I decided that it seemed like a really expensive few hours that might not be worth it for us on this trip.

So the only days that we could see Happily Ever After were Saturday, Sunday or Wednesday. Wednesday is an evening EMH and I think it will be insanely busy so I ruled that out. Either Saturday or Sunday would have worked so I decided to let the ADR availability dictate when we would go to see Happily Ever After. I'll get to the ADRs in the next post I think so more on that later.

I also looked at crowd calendars to try and plan our days around that. I mostly looked at Kenny the Pirate's calendar but I also subscribed to Touring Plans. To be honest, I think looking at these may have hindered me more than they helped me as they both show different crowd levels so I've tried to take them into account but am also taking them with a pinch of salt. We are also going on Columbus Day week so it's going to be insanely busy by all accounts unfortunately.

Bear with me, I'm SO longwinded with my writing!

So here are our park plans right now, bearing in mind these may change if we get a flight on Friday instead of Saturday.

Saturday
Arrive in Orlando!
Go to All Star Movies
Head to the Magic Kingdom, spend the evening there and watch Happily Ever After!

Sunday
Animal Kingdom

Monday
Epcot

Tuesday
Magic Kingdom day (closes at 6)
Epcot evening

Wednesday
Hollywood Studios
Star Wars Dessert Party (this isn't open to book right now, so this is just a plan but I really hope we can book it!)

Thursday
Epcot morning
Animal Kingdom evening

Friday
This is a little up in the air and may potentially change if we think we've missed something in another park, but I think it might be a Magic Kingdom day and Disney Springs evening.

Ok, so this is where I need all of y'all's expertise! Does our park split look about right? We are planning on doing early mornings, afternoon breaks at the hotel and then returning to a park for the evening. I think that midday break will be crucial!

Would love your opinions on whether you think we have our time spread across the four parks accordingly? It's so hard to judge considering that I've never been!

Ok, I will let you go now! I'll be back to talk about our ADRs and the ever-changing plans!

 

[Araminta18]

Wow, we are doing so much of the same stuff! Star Wars the Void, the HEA dessert party, eating at Ohana and BOG...You're gonna have a great trip! and CONGRATS! on the weight loss!

Your visits to the park look good to me! You'll probably find that you gravitate towards one park more than others, but you've got that flexibility on Friday to go back to whatever park you end up liking best.

As for the midday break, I've never done them, but my husband liked it. So yea, probably a good idea to build it in, just in case.

also, heck yes to the EAT ALL THE THINGS!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Wow, we are doing so much of the same stuff! Star Wars the Void, the HEA dessert party, eating at Ohana and BOG...You're gonna have a great trip! and CONGRATS! on the weight loss!

Your visits to the park look good to me! You'll probably find that you gravitate towards one park more than others, but you've got that flexibility on Friday to go back to whatever park you end up liking best.

As for the midday break, I've never done them, but my husband liked it. So yea, probably a good idea to build it in, just in case.

also, heck yes to the EAT ALL THE THINGS!

Oh good, I'm glad you approve of our itinerary so far - that reassures me!

I think you're right, once we've visited all the parks, we'll probably end up with a favourite and want to revisit! I'm building the midday breaks into most days but I think it will be a play it by ear thing and we'll see how we feel. I just wanted to give us the option so that we don't feel like we have to go all day to make the most of it, even if we're exhausted. If I've planned for it, It won't matter if we don't take them but if I hadn't planned for it and we decided we needed a break, I think I would feel like we're 'wasting' our park time. Does that make sense?! It's all psychological haha.

OMG I'm SO excited to eat all the things!! Like, down to looking at the menus and deciding what I might order...is that sad?!

 

[Raeven]

Following along!

Ok, so this is where I need all of y'all's expertise! Does our park split look about right? We are planning on doing early mornings, afternoon breaks at the hotel and then returning to a park for the evening. I think that midday break will be crucial!

Would love your opinions on whether you think we have our time spread across the four parks accordingly? It's so hard to judge considering that I've never been!

I think you have a pretty good split of the parks there. Midday breaks are definitely a great idea, we tried to skip those on our first trip and it was not a good idea.

OMG I'm SO excited to eat all the things!! Like, down to looking at the menus and deciding what I might order...is that sad?!

I do this before every trip I find it really helps with setting the budget.

 

[Araminta18]

OMG I'm SO excited to eat all the things!! Like, down to looking at the menus and deciding what I might order...is that sad?!

Um totally not! I had my husband do that months ago--how else could I fiure out if the dining plan would be worth it for us or not?! lol

 

[Sparklysoph]

Following along!



I think you have a pretty good split of the parks there. Midday breaks are definitely a great idea, we tried to skip those on our first trip and it was not a good idea.



I do this before every trip I find it really helps with setting the budget.

Hi and thanks for joining!! I enjoy your dining reports SO much!

Oh good, glad you think the plan looks ok and that I'm not the only one who studies the menus! I haven't looked in detail at our food budget yet but I should - that just gives me even more of an excuse to look at the menus again!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Um totally not! I had my husband do that months ago--how else could I fiure out if the dining plan would be worth it for us or not?! lol

Haha exactly - it's totally necessary!!

 

[Sailormoon2]

Seems very similar to our plan too. Lots of split days, with an afternoon break. I'm an early morning riser myself so I love to RD, especially as I know the crowds are the lowest then. DH really can't deal with the heat so afternoon breaks are essential for his mood. Then evenings we hop to the a different park for the nighttime show! We too are looking to potentially book the Star Wars dessert party

 

[Sparklysoph]

Seems very similar to our plan too. Lots of split days, with an afternoon break. I'm an early morning riser myself so I love to RD, especially as I know the crowds are the lowest then. DH really can't deal with the heat so afternoon breaks are essential for his mood. Then evenings we hop to the a different park for the nighttime show! We too are looking to potentially book the Star Wars dessert party

Yes I think it seems like the most sensible touring plan for us. I also HATE the heat so am hoping by taking that midday break, we will be out of the parks for the worst of it! Ooh if you make it to the Star Wars Dessert party, you'll have to let me know how it is!

 

[Raeven]

Hi and thanks for joining!! I enjoy your dining reports SO much!

Aw thank you!

Oh good, glad you think the plan looks ok and that I'm not the only one who studies the menus! I haven't looked in detail at our food budget yet but I should - that just gives me even more of an excuse to look at the menus again!

Yes!

 

[Sparklysoph]

Back with a mini-update.

Remember how I said I had booked All-Star Movies and that's where we were going to stay. Well, NOT ANYMORE.

Um, this is the fourth hotel I have booked for this trip. I have a problem. At this point, by the time we get to our vacation, we'll be staying at the Grand Floridian!

Ok, so I was pottering around on the Disney website looking at the menus (story of my life) to start working on a food budget. Somehow...I ended up on the hotels page and plugged in our dates to take another look and whaddya know. Pop Century was available and it was only like an extra $14 a night... I'm not sure why, when I switched from Disney Springs to All-Star Movies, I didn't look at Pop Century more closely because that was the value I was originally more interested in but for some reason, I didn't. Anyway, when I looked at Pop Century, it was only going to be about $90 USD extra in total for our seven night stay. I, very excitedly, told Andrei and he didn't understand why I didn't book it in the first place, when the difference was so small, and encouraged me to go ahead and book. So I did and now we're staying at POP! I'm actually pretty excited. For some reason, I just couldn't get that excited about All Star Movies, even though I'm sure it would have been great.

Of all the values, Pop Century appeals to me the most and with the fact that the rooms are renovated and it has its own bus service, it was a no brainer to make the switch. So now I'm even more excited about our trip! I will try not to make any more changes to our hotel...no promises though haha!

Next up....What do we do for our second honeymoon week?

 

[Raeven]

Back with a mini-update.

Remember how I said I had booked All-Star Movies and that's where we were going to stay. Well, NOT ANYMORE.

Um, this is the fourth hotel I have booked for this trip. I have a problem. At this point, by the time we get to our vacation, we'll be staying at the Grand Floridian!

Ok, so I was pottering around on the Disney website looking at the menus (story of my life) to start working on a food budget. Somehow...I ended up on the hotels page and plugged in our dates to take another look and whaddya know. Pop Century was available and it was only like an extra $14 a night... I'm not sure why, when I switched from Disney Springs to All-Star Movies, I didn't look at Pop Century more closely because that was the value I was originally more interested in but for some reason, I didn't. Anyway, when I looked at Pop Century, it was only going to be about $90 USD extra in total for our seven night stay. I, very excitedly, told Andrei and he didn't understand why I didn't book it in the first place, when the difference was so small, and encouraged me to go ahead and book. So I did and now we're staying at POP! I'm actually pretty excited. For some reason, I just couldn't get that excited about All Star Movies, even though I'm sure it would have been great.

Of all the values, Pop Century appeals to me the most and with the fact that the rooms are renovated and it has its own bus service, it was a no brainer to make the switch. So now I'm even more excited about our trip! I will try not to make any more changes to our hotel...no promises though haha!

Next up....What do we do for our second honeymoon week?

Pop Century is definitely the best value. The refurbed rooms are great! I don’t know if they’ve finished them all yet (though probably by the time of your trip), but last year we stayed in the 80’s building and it was refurbed and really close to the main building.

 

[Sparklysoph]

Pop Century is definitely the best value. The refurbed rooms are great! I don’t know if they’ve finished them all yet (though probably by the time of your trip), but last year we stayed in the 80’s building and it was refurbed and really close to the main building.

Yeah the new rooms look great. I'll definitely have to do some research about room locations before I send in my room request! Good to know that the 80's is a good location, I need to study the resort map haha.