Psymonds
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2006
Synopsis:
A Trip Report from our Florida Vacation: while we are Disney people, we are infrequent visitors to Florida, hailing from California. In multiple parts
Future Acts of report:
Act 1: Travel day that we’ll just forget about eventually
Act 2: Universal Solutions
Act 3: A Busch-y Interlude
Act 4 Day 1: MK
Act 4 Day 2: Epcot
Act 4 Day 3: DHS
Act 4 Day 4: AK
Act 4 Day 5: DHS 2
Act 4 Day 6: MK 2
Finale: A 4pm test track Lightning Lane and home in bed by midnight? Let’s do it.
[Edited:
Trip Highlights:
11 straight days of theme parks
1 Lost laundry bag
20 new roller coaster credits, 61 roller coaster experiences, 94 inversions
0 churros
5 new appreciations of Air Conditioning.]
Players:
Myself, Dad, engineer
DW, Mother, teacher (a new second career, part of why we were celebrating with the trip)
DS 14, Coaster enthusiast, proprietor of Coasterin California on Youtube, the other half of our celebration group, as he finished 8th grade this year
DD 12, Harry Potter enthusiast, avid reader
DS 6, theme park “expert”… for a kindergarten graduate (he had watched ride throughs of almost everything on youtube before hand). Opinionated stroller dweller.
![IMG_4128.JPG IMG_4128.JPG](https://www.disboards.com/data/attachments/778/778355-53aa1000866c0b20ece03392eb2a5678.jpg)
Prologue: Plans and Decisions
Being from the West Coast and coming out we had to make some decisions. We did approach this with the thought, as we had in 2006(! We were just babies! ) that “we aren’t coming back…. Well at least not anytime soon”
So we had to try to do everything!!!
(check’s earpiece)… I’m hearing it’s impossible (and expensive) to do everything and we have to set priorities.
What are we going to prioritize:
What were we not going to prioritize?
Questions to be answered on the trip:
A Trip Report from our Florida Vacation: while we are Disney people, we are infrequent visitors to Florida, hailing from California. In multiple parts
Future Acts of report:
Act 1: Travel day that we’ll just forget about eventually
Act 2: Universal Solutions
Act 3: A Busch-y Interlude
Act 4 Day 1: MK
Act 4 Day 2: Epcot
Act 4 Day 3: DHS
Act 4 Day 4: AK
Act 4 Day 5: DHS 2
Act 4 Day 6: MK 2
Finale: A 4pm test track Lightning Lane and home in bed by midnight? Let’s do it.
[Edited:
Trip Highlights:
11 straight days of theme parks
1 Lost laundry bag
20 new roller coaster credits, 61 roller coaster experiences, 94 inversions
0 churros
5 new appreciations of Air Conditioning.]
Players:
Myself, Dad, engineer
DW, Mother, teacher (a new second career, part of why we were celebrating with the trip)
DS 14, Coaster enthusiast, proprietor of Coasterin California on Youtube, the other half of our celebration group, as he finished 8th grade this year
DD 12, Harry Potter enthusiast, avid reader
DS 6, theme park “expert”… for a kindergarten graduate (he had watched ride throughs of almost everything on youtube before hand). Opinionated stroller dweller.
![IMG_4128.JPG IMG_4128.JPG](https://www.disboards.com/data/attachments/778/778355-53aa1000866c0b20ece03392eb2a5678.jpg)
Prologue: Plans and Decisions
Being from the West Coast and coming out we had to make some decisions. We did approach this with the thought, as we had in 2006(! We were just babies! ) that “we aren’t coming back…. Well at least not anytime soon”
So we had to try to do everything!!!
(check’s earpiece)… I’m hearing it’s impossible (and expensive) to do everything and we have to set priorities.
What are we going to prioritize:
- I came on here and asked for park and restaurants things that are different or unique to WDW over DLR (where we do go more frequently).
- We also wanted to visit more of universal because it is substantially different than the Hollywood counterpart.
- DS14 wanted to go to Busch Gardens Tampa because:
- It has one of the best coasters in the country
- It has 10 coasters available for coaster credits
- It’s only an hour away (ish)
What is a coaster credit? (aside)
"Credits" are basically the amount of roller coasters someone has ridden, for those of you who don't know. All the rules about what is a “roller coaster” are subjective to interpretations and various people count credits different ways. A coaster is a ride which relies upon potential or kinetic energy to complete a portion of it’s circuit (i.e. not fully powered through the ride) and is not fully a water ride.
One person’s internet opinion are below:
-Dueling coasters are two credits as long as the two coasters do not follow the same path, are clones, or are mirror images (YES for Matterhorn and Dragon Challenge, NO for Gemini and Space Mountain at WDW) (personally I do count both sides of mirrored coasters, any unique track is a credit.)
-Water rides are not credits unless they feature banked turns (YES for Divertical and Journey to Atlantis at SWSD and SWO, NO for Splash Mountain and Journey to Atlantis at SWSA)
-Transformations are only new credits when an element is added or subtracted (YES for Son of Beast and Hades 360, NO for Rougarou and The Legend)
What were we not going to prioritize?
- We do not have extra days for Disney Springs or other resorts
- We are not going to prioritize fine dining unless it’s a unique experience. We have spectacular fine dining experiences in California near us and we just aren’t going to take park time for that.
- We decided not to go to any other parks or attractions just to prioritize what we were doing in our time available
- Funspot
- Legoland (we have one which is probably better)
- SeaWorld (DS 14 was given the either-or choice of SeaWorld or BGT)
- No time to visit anything outside of Orlando/WDW bubble or to see any “real florida”
- Timing: we had 11 days. Last half week of June and first week of July. Is this an ideal time? No, but our choice was to go then or not go this year.
- So, procedurally we had 3 ish days at Universal, 1 transition day and 6 days at WDW.
- I get a great corporate rate for rental cars, so renting a car and keeping it for the whole time was cheaper than transfers for all of us, especially needing 3 transfers. It also facilitated BGT.
- We looked at offsite, onsite etc.
- We ended up using onsite for 2 nights at universal for the express pass and staying at CBR at WDW to do early entry (plus skyliner access for 4 days of our trip).
- We flew direct SFO to MCO on Alaska. This basically takes all day on the way east and fortunately was late in the day (7:45pm) going home. We ended up doing an extra park day on our last day due to timing of the flight.
Questions to be answered on the trip:
- Are we crazy for going in the dead heat of summer?
- Can we make it through our schedule without quite enough rest days?
- Will they ever find DS14’s clothes?
Last edited: