Canadians doing WDW in a (cheated) weekend! PTR Jan21-24

[jesterrific]

HOW ON EARTH CAN ANYONE DO WDW IN A WEEKEND?
​

Hi

This is my very first PTR so you know... bear with me. I've only ever done a small TR for parks once (it was prior to our DCL cruise) so I would LIKE to try a full one out. Also figured it would be easier since it will be a short trip...

Anyways! Where are my manners. Hi. Again. My name is Jessica. A little bit about this trip that I am doing planning for... We are doing WDW from January 21-24, 2017. For the longest time, we thought, "you could never do WDW in JUST a weekend. You need at LEAST a week for that!" But alas... here we are. Trying to do this. And somehow, I think we will manage to pull it off. Granted, it's a bit of a cheated weekend… But overall it's about 3 and a half days in the parks! (We have done Disneyland in a weekend, and even that was 2 and a half days. Soooo wish us luck!)

Okay! A bit of background info.

Like... WHY would we do this to ourselves? Why not just book at least a week?
Because. In all honesty after our last trip (did 2 days at parks before leaving for DCL. TR currently in progress!) we hadn't had anything planned for either of the American parks. BECAUSE we have a big one coming up in February: Disney ASIA! Shanghai - Tokyo - HK! (I'll also be likely doing a PTR for this one. So much to dooooo) But... we're Disney addicts. Plus you know... we have AP's that expire in February. Sooooo we decided why not! WELL there are tons of reasons why not... First of all, we work. Which means we took up all our vacation time up already for 2016... and will be booking all our vacation time off for 2017 for Asia. And we both have vacation black out time (for me it's oct-dec, and for him it's all of summer to nov). So that literally means if we decide to go, it would have to be either added onto our Asia trip, or we do a totally separate trip sometime probably in January. Secondly ... let's be real here. Disney can get pretty expensive. We just moved into our own place, started paying a big mortgage... it's not exactly ideal to just decide HEY LET'S GO TO DISNEY!


But this is what prompted us to do so:

• Annual Passes (this means… we don’t have to buy park tickets. Which already is a huge money saver. Plus we paid for these… why not get ONE last excitement out of it!)
• Because we were using our credit card like crazy (moving, buying new appliances, furniture, etc…) we racked up air miles
• Disney Vacation Club

So… When you take all of that into account. And use it all together. Basically… we could get to do this trip as close to FREE as possible. Park tickets accounted for… flights to be paid by air miles… hotel to be covered by booking with DVC points… The only problem was getting time off of work. (Ultimately, our ideal would have been to book around a long weekend, but only long weekend in January is New Year’s and we didn’t want to do that). But we decided to just do a weekend trip anyways. PLUS they started doing a red eye flight out of Vancouver. So really we could still work during the day, leave at night, be in Orlando the next morning and GO GO GO.


SO we decided we’re gonna do it.


OKAY let’s get started. Here I will tell you all my big plans for my small trip!

FIRST THOUGH! Formal Intros I guess!​

JESSICA JESSICA JESSICA
Sometimes I’m weird and obnoxious. But ultimately, I think I’m just a normal person… with a slight Disney addiction But that’s normal, right?
I am a 26 year old Canadian girl from a city called Edmonton in Alberta. Currently it is winter time, so that means... it's cold.
My favourite Disney characters (I have a LOT of “favourites”) include Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Donald Duck, Oswald, Wall-E, Gus Gus…. and etc.
My favourite Disney princess, though, is Cinderella.
I am a weird girl and I have this really strange dislike for Tinkerbell. I just plain don’t like her.
My favourite Disney park is… I’m actually not sure which is my favourite. I have favourite aspects of all parks. So maybe to answer this one… I’ll just say… Magic Kingdom (Because you know… Cinderella castle!!)
My all time favourite ride at Disney is Tower of Terror
Favourite rides at specific parks?
Magic Kingdom - includes Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain… (I say on almost all rides… “This one is my FAVOURITE!”)
Epcot - Test Track
Animal Kingdom - Expedition Everest
Hollywood Studios - ToT
Disneyland - Indiana Jones & It’s a Small World
California Adventure - Radiator Springs Racers


I have done a total of 10 Disney trips: once to Disneyland when I was 5, then again at 13. WDW at 21. Then Disneyland again at 24. Later that year WDW. Then the next year WDW, with a 7 night DCL trip on the Fantasy. A weekend trip to Disneyland to take in the Diamond Celebration. Then last year 2016 2 weeks in WDW and one last trip with 2 days at WDW and another 7 nighter on the DCL Fantasy. Most of my trips started after we started dating (first was our Disneyland trip when we were both 24!)


And when I talk about “we” and “us” who on earth am I talking about?

Glendon. (@glendroid). He’s my boyfriend. We have been together for 3 years, and this last year in 2016 we bought a place together. Eventually we will probably get married. But that costs money and right now we are spending our money going to Disney parks. He is (believe it or not) an even bigger Disney addict than me! His family are DVC members, and he has been to Disney World 20 times. And that’s just Disney World! This does not include his trips to Disneyland, his DCL trips, or his Tokyo Disney trip. Total there are too many for me to count.
HIS favourite park is Tokyo Disney Sea (he is beyond excited for our Asia trip next month!)
And most of his favourite rides are pretty close to mine. Which is good because then I don’t feel like either of us have to drag the other to something we didn’t want to do!



(Also to note, our friend Mitch will also be joining us on this trip. He has never been to a Disney park before so this will be his first! This means I will have some solo time here and there.)



To come. Our Itinerary =)

 

[jesterrific]

ITINERARY​

SO OFFICIALLY our trip is Jan 20-24. I say our WDW is from the 21-24 because the 20th is all for flying. So here is our official itinerary:


Friday Jan 20 - 5pm we fly out of Edmonton for a layover in Vancouver. Our layover is 3 hours, so we plan on meeting up with my best friend for dinner close by to the airport! (We will not be checking any luggage, so no time wasted with waiting for bags!) Then back to the airport for our 10:30pm flight out of Vancouver to Orlando!


Overnight flight means somehow… we are all going to try and sleep on the plane. It’s about a 5 hour flight, which means not exactly a full night’s sleep, but we do what we gotta do, right?


OKAY Now officially onto our DAYS:
Saturday (Jan 21) Magic Kingdom
Sunday (Jan 22) Epcot
Monday (Jan 23) Animal Kingdom, Disney Springs in the evening
Tuesday (Jan 24 half day) Hollywood Studios. Fly back home on our… I do believe 6pm flight.


That’s our total of… 3 and a half days!

Our resort stays will be Boardwalk Villas on night of the 21st, and then on to Animal Kingdom Lodge Jambo house for the remainder nights.

We have all our fast passes booked, and only ONE ADR. And we actually just booked it today… We figured that since we are on such a short time frame, that it would be more use of our time to just have quick service for all our meals! So our one ADR is for Ohana on the 21st.

Next will be each of the days with our fast passes, and what I hope to get in on each day and a rough outline of our days. Mostly we'll be doing a lot of whatever it is we feel like at the time.

​

Onto... DAY 1!

 

[Nakkira]

You can do it. I am trying to cram a lot into my own small trip 2.5 days! I am hoping that in my case that since I am going solo I will be able to get more out of my time, not having to worry about what anyone ELSE wants to do (or needs a break, or is't feeling it)
Looking forward to seeing the rest of your plans and your Trip Report!

 

[jesterrific]

You can do it. I am trying to cram a lot into my own small trip 2.5 days! I am hoping that in my case that since I am going solo I will be able to get more out of my time, not having to worry about what anyone ELSE wants to do (or needs a break, or is't feeling it)
Looking forward to seeing the rest of your plans and your Trip Report!

Yes! We are going to literally try to get every single thing we want to do done in 3.5 days. So far, planning wise it looks like we will be able to do all of it (exception being BOG ahaha. Booked up by the time we booked our trip, of course)
Would love to see our trip report too! coming up so soon!!!

 

[jesterrific]

DAY 1: Saturday.
​

Our first day is going to be a busy one. We are planning on spending it at Magic Kingdom. And it's a Saturday. So we all know what that means! But we will do our best. Here is what we have planned!
Park Hours: 9:00am to 11:00pm

Flight arrives at MCO at 7:00am. We are estimating that we will get to our hotel (Boardwalk Villas) at around... 8ish. So upon arrival, check in, change out of our travel clothes to our MK clothes, leave bags with bell services until our room is ready, maybe grab some quick service items for breakfast

Fast passes booked:
10:00am to 11:00am Space Mountain
11:05am to 12:05pm Seven Dwarfs
12:25pm to 1:25pm Big Thunder Mountain

We also have dining reservations for 'Ohana at the Polynesian at 4:20.

I WANT to go and do Peter Pan first thing when we get to the park. If we don't make it to the park right by open time and the line up is already long, we will do it closer to closing time in the evening haha.

After all of our fast passes are done... So probably around 2. Probably grab some quick service lunch if we haven't already... then split up. I plan on going back to the hotel, see if our rooms are ready, hit the pool.
Hopefully my plans don't foil as we only have the one night at Boardwalk and I've ALWAYS wanted to play in the cute pool and ride the creepy clown slide! Weather, please be on my side! (Praying that it doesn't rain! Or if it does rain then it's still a warm rain that isn't heavy. So I can still go play)
The boys plan on heading over to the Polynesian Village Resort early to hit up Trader Sam's

Then dinner at 'Ohana! I have never been, but literally every time 'Ohana gets brought up, Glendon gets so excited about it and always talks about how delicious it is. (I'm actually quite surprised we didn't do this on our last trip, as we actually STAYED at the Polynesian Village Resort!)

Then the evening will be mostly checking what fast pass we can snag from the kiosks, grabbing all the photo pass photos, checking to see what rides have lower wait times, running to ride them, then fireworks! And stay all the way until we get kicked out =D

Possibly a mid day refresher nap... but who knows maybe we will power through.

Day 2!

 

[Corrine 1973]

Joining in on the PTR. Your trip, strangely, is almost exactly like the solo trip I took in March of 2017. I got to Florida late on a Thursday night. I didn't arrive at my resort until about 1am on Friday. I spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at the parks and headed back to the airport on Monday evening for a late flight. It was a lot to get done in the time allowed but I got a lot done and had a blast.

 

[jesterrific]

Joining in on the PTR. Your trip, strangely, is almost exactly like the solo trip I took in March of 2017. I got to Florida late on a Thursday night. I didn't arrive at my resort until about 1am on Friday. I spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at the parks and headed back to the airport on Monday evening for a late flight. It was a lot to get done in the time allowed but I got a lot done and had a blast.

Was there anything you felt you missed out on at all?

 

[jesterrific]

Day 2: Sunday​

Alright! Our second day just might be as busy as day one. We plan on spending it at Epcot! Most of the time when we go to Epcot, we tend to relax a bit and take our time and kind of do whatever it is we feel like doing.

Park hours are 9am to 9pm.

Fast passes booked:
10:55-11:55 The seas with Nemo and Friends
2:00-3:00 Meet and Greet at Character Sport
7:20-8:20 Test Track

Test Track, Soarin', AND the new Frozen ride are in the same bracket for booking fast passes... so that meant we could only choose one of the three. We decided on booking our fast pass for Test Track, because Glendon really wanted Mitch to be able to have his first Test Track ride to be in the evening.

How we plan on tackling the day:
Since we have to resort hop, we will be waking up EXTRA EARLY so we can get ready, get checked out, have our bags with guest services to be transferred over to Animal Kingdom Lodge... and then RUN OVER to Epcot for park open. Hurray for staying at the Boardwalk!
Once we get into the park, since the resort entrance is by France in the World Showcase... we are booking it to Frozen to ride that first thing in the morning. HOPEFULLY since technically a wee bit closer than the monorail entrance, that crowds will disperse to Test Track and Soarin' first since the ones through the other entrance will pass these attractions first. I think this is a brilliant plan... which means other people have also though this out haha. So we shall see how long a wait we will have to wait through!
We will do Soarin' any time in the day... probably after we finish Nemo since we'll be in the area. Let's hope the line up doesn't exceed 30 minutes. I'm being hopeful.

No dining reservations! (We originally had a lunch reservation for Nine Dragons because they have a pretty good lunch option... but we cancelled since we found out it's Festival of the Arts!!!)

SO food throughout the day will be checking out the different food stands! Hoping for some recommendations on "must try"

We don't really have too many plans other than to check things out for the day. I really wanted to check out the DVC lounge but Glendon's membership is under his dad's name and we looked it up, need membership card and ID to get in. So that probably means we won't be able to go.

Then when we are done, we will head over to Animal Kingdom Lodge Jambo House for sleeping. Which is also where we are staying for the remainder of the trip!


Day 3!

 

[jesterrific]

Day 3: Monday!​

Very likely by our third day, we will be rather exhausted haha. Which is why we just decided to do the two most hectic days back to back first, then we can take our time on day 3, where we will be spending it at Animal Kingdom!

Park Hours are from 9am to 8pm, with extra magic hours from 8am to 9am.

We honestly have no idea yet whether or not we will take advantage of the extra magic hours... Almost always, if the extra magic hours work out with whichever park we plan on seeing, we will go during extra magic hours. But since it's our third day, we think we will be too tired to get up in time.

Fast Passes booked:
10:35 - 11:35 Kilimanjaro Safaris
11:40 - 12:40 Expedition Everest
1:20 - 2:20 Dinosaur

Normally, if it were just Glendon and I, we would probably go during the extra magic hours and ride Everest over and over until our fast pass for Kilimanjaro Safaris haha. But we are going with Mitch, and he isn't really a rollercoaster person... So if we do go in early, we'd probably do the Safari, just because it's earlier (potential of more animals to see!)

Again no dining reservations... we usually do Tusker House because it's one of my favourites for lunch, but we are on a bit of a budget this trip so we opted out of that this time. Most likely we will grab some food at the Harambe Market.

We haven't decided if we will be seeing any of the shows yet. I think we will decide when we are in the park. Kali River Rapids is closed when we are there, so that is one ride we won't be doing. So if we do all the walking tours and ride our fast passes, I think we would be able to finish in the early to late afternoon.

Which means we might head back to our hotel... I just might swim in that pool too even though I've gone before. Just a bit more of a relaxed day. Or if I were adventurous I might go to another park for a bit aha.

In the evening we plan on heading over to Disney Springs. We will likely meet up with one of Glendon's best friends who will be in Orlando the same time for dinner. The last time G and I were at Disney Springs, the name had only just changed from Downtown Disney, and a lot of the shops and food places weren't open yet. So we plan on doing exploring, seeing the huge expansion, and shop! We are most excited to visit the Uniqlo!!! It's one of our favourite stores ever... but we don't have any near us in Canada! Plus all the Disney exclusives. SOOO EXCITED!
I will also probably spend some alone time at Sephora while the guys catch up, because I have a $350 USD gift card to spend that I've been holding on to since it's in American dollars haha. Best bang for my buck, so why not!

I am also not gonna lie... I am very curious. I heard that there is a Coca-Cola Rooftop Bar that opened... and has a drink called Beverly's Revenge... which... here is where I'm not gonna lie... I am curious about trying. I am of the "UGH BEVERLY" group... but the beverage itself sounds so delightful... minus the Beverly. Gin and Blood Orange Liqueur though... I am definitely thinking on it haha. Glendon said don't waste your money. But I say what if I actually like it!


Then finally, and sadly.. Day 4: Our last day

 

[jesterrific]

Day 4: Tuesday!​

Sad to say, this will be our last day at WDW. Holy cow, a weekend goes by so fast. Our flight leaves Orlando at 5:40 pm, which means our Disney Magical Express will likely leave the resort at... about... I guess 1:40, then. (4 hours prior to departure time for international flight...) So our plans for the day is basically a half day at Hollywood Studios, then make it back to the resort in time to pick up our bags and meet our motor coach!

So here we go! Park Hours: 9am - 8pm

Fast Passes booked:
9:35-10:35 Toy Story Mania
10:35-11:35 Tower of Terror
11:40-12:40 Star Tours

Plan: Wake up super early, because we have to check out of our hotel and leave our bags at guest services. Then we gotta leave in time to catch the bus to get us to the park on time for open. Because first thing we are going to do is run over to Rock N' Roller Coaster since we didn't get a fast pass!

Then basically it will be catching our fast passes... and making sure we get a ride on The Great Movie Ride somewhere in between.
Originally we had 50's Prime Time Cafe booked for lunch (another of our favourites...) but decided to cancel it and instead grab quick service so we can spend as much time in the park as possible. If all goes well, we'll be able to have caught everything we wanted to do in Hollywood Studios, and leave the park around 1 or just before 1 to head back to head home!

 

[jesterrific]

REEEEAALLLY hoping to receive the 2.0 Magic Bands upon arrival of resort... I seriously want one so bad =O

 

[chunkymonkey]

Oh it looks like you're on your trip today! Good luck and have a fantastic time!
Sounds like a great plan! Lucky you guys will be there during Festival of the Arts. We arrive there the weekend after it ends! It looks really fun!
I hope you will be able to survive the red eye and last at MK tomorrow! I am always so exhausted on the Red eye from the west coast, but I think Disney will give you some energy once you hit the parks.
Soarin' wait times have decreased since the third theater was built, so that was nice. Frozen Ever After was insanely long. I do hope you get to ride it first thing in the morning!

 

[jesterrific]

Oh it looks like you're on your trip today! Good luck and have a fantastic time!
Sounds like a great plan! Lucky you guys will be there during Festival of the Arts. We arrive there the weekend after it ends! It looks really fun!
I hope you will be able to survive the red eye and last at MK tomorrow! I am always so exhausted on the Red eye from the west coast, but I think Disney will give you some energy once you hit the parks.
Soarin' wait times have decreased since the third theater was built, so that was nice. Frozen Ever After was insanely long. I do hope you get to ride it first thing in the morning!

Yes!! Really excited to see what's all happening for festival of the arts!

We've done the red eye once before and it really is exhausting, sleep more on the bus ride to the resort... but somehow once in MK you just go go go and you forget how tired you are haha! Generally when it starts to get really busy in the middle of the day we do a small nap when we go check our room.

Yah we are really counting on the wait times for soarin' to be lower! Excited to see around the world though! If it doesn't work out (but I'm sure it will) we will at least be able to see it when we are in Asia next month.
Gonna have our running shoes on for Frozen! Haha

 

[jesterrific]

We haven't even been back a week yet and it feels like it has been forever !!!!


Crazy how you have everything planned and suddenly when you're there how quickly everything can change!


Will be starting the actual TR soon