Celebrating the Big 4-0 in style- Disney style that is!

[hes122]

So I realized last night that I never did a recap of my November trip. I've got some time on my hands today (thanks COVID-19), so I thought I'd pull up my notes and go ahead and type this out.

The players- me and my friends S & A. The both traveled with me in 2018 and S came with me in 2017.

Planning for this trip technically started before our 2018 trip even happened (as an idea of "hey wouldn't it be fun to go to Disney for my 40th?"), and while we were there the bounceback offer was pretty tempting (especially since S was willing to throw down the deposit), but the dates I wanted (because if you're going to go for your birthday, shouldn't you be there ON your birthday?) weren't part of the deal we let it pass by. A few months passed by and I kept thinking about it and between S & our travel agent they convinced me to at least get booked before the price increase. So we booked in early March. At this point A hadn't yet committed to coming along (and well frankly I wasn't 100% convinced I'd be able to afford another trip). Looking back, I think what finally convinced me to bit the bullet was the fact that Facebook kept reminding me of the 2017 trip and I couldn't resist the temptation. So we were booked at Pop from 11/13-11/17 w/ 3 day tickets & QSDP.

My original thought process was to spend a day at each park, and tentatively based park days based on what we did in 2018 and how I felt about not doing a park on arrival day (as we did in 2018). The only thing I knew for sure was that we would be doing MVMCP on my actual birthday. Then Disney announced the opening of Galaxy's Edge (which I really thought would be between Thanksgiving & Christmas) and the extension of Food & Wine to include our dates, so that really changed my thoughts about a lot of things.

Several thoughts rolling around my brain included:
- Do I really want to go to Epcot this trip (it's my least favorite park)?
- I haven't seen Happily Ever After yet...how can I make that happen if I'm only in Magic Kingdom the Christmas party?
- Oh crap, Galaxy's Edge is going to be open. Am I going to be able to do everything at Hollywood Studios I want in one day?
- Oh, but I really like Animal Kingdom.
- Well, now Food & Wine will still be going on. I really liked that, so I don't want to skip Epcot now!

So in early May my travel agent (we'll call her C) contacted me about dining reservations. Obviously I had no clue about park days, so I had C book us for 2 lunches at Hollywood Brown Derby and 1 lunch at San Angel Inn knowing that we'd cancel what we didn't need/want later on.

Again....at this point I'm still not even sure this trip is ACTUALLY happening, so I'm still acting hopefully optimistic.

 

[hes122]

Mid-August rolls around and some things fall into place so I'm FINALLY able to commit to this trip actually happening. WOOHOO! It was probably around this time that I started talking about it more with A and one night while we were on the phone in early September, her husband grabs the phone from her and asks me where he should send the $$ so she can come too. So YAY- A is coming along too! I celebrated by finding a super sweet deal on matching silver mouse ears for us to wear the night of the Christmas party. At this point, I rescheduled our dining plans to accommodate the 3rd person of our party.

That's when I started getting serious about my travel plans. I initially wanted to fly from my local airport but the connecting flights had long layovers resulting in a later than I would have liked arrival or a REALLY early departure. I then started looking at flying down the night before, but those flight options weren't ideal either, so I but the bullet and booked my flight on Spirit (which for the record I don't mind traveling with them at all- it's just that the airport is 2 hours away from me and the return flight doesn't land until 10:00 PM or later). A booked her flight to be similar to my arrival so we could take the Magical Express together. S was already planning to be in Florida visiting her parents so she was planning to have them bring her over the day before or morning of our arrival.

Mid-September rolls around and we've finally decided on park plans because our 60 day window has popped up.
W- HS (FPs for TSMM, Frozen Sing Along & Star Tours)
R- EP (FPs for Test Track, Spaceship Earth & Mission:Space)
F- MVMCP (FPs for Thunder Mountain & Peter Pan)
S- HS (FPs for Slinky Dog, Muppets and Indiana Jones)

(As a reminder, this is during that window when pretty much every "ride" in HS was in Tier 1). At this point we decided to keep the 2nd Hollywood Studios day, but would make it a game-time decision once we were there on that first day.

A and I talked a LOT about plans and by early October (right before our final payment was due) we realized that adding the park hopper to our tickets would give us more flexibility than adding an extra day, so I called C and had her add it to our reservation. I also managed to score some ADRs for Oga's Cantina on Wednesday once those opened up and a lunch reservation at Be Our Guest for Saturday, so things were looking good!

Not long before that a deal came out that included our dates, BUT, because we had booked before the price increase earlier in the year adding the deal to our package would have actually INCREASED our price. So no discounts this trip.

For WEEKS I kept stalking the available upgraded Magic Bands hoping the birthday one would show up again, but it never did so I opted to have BDay Girl put on my name in lieu of my actual name this time.

A got a cricut at some point so she decided to make us matching shirts for this trip (since we already had matching shirts from the last trip) so that was really only 2 days worth of outfits that I had to thinking about packing. Woohoo!

 

[hes122]

So I should probably mention that the 3 of us are all on the executive board for an organization we were all members of during college. The weekend before we left A & I both had regional retreats to be at so we were very consumed with the planning and implementation of those. Needless to say, the time those were over we were READY for a vacation!

This trip I decided not to bother my family members that live local to the airport I was flying out of because they were dealing with some things so I booked a hotel room just a few miles down the road from the airport. So I went home at lunch that Tuesday and finished up my packing so that I could leave straight from work because guess what it was supposed to do that night? If you guessed SNOW (my mother calls it "that 4 letter word"), you would be correct.

So I'm on my way to the hotel and it starts snowing but it's not bad. I got about 10 minutes or so from the hotel when it REALLY starts coming down. At this point, I realized my scraper wasn't in the car (oops), which would be a problem the next morning. At one point traffic comes to a full on stop for no apparent reason. I left plenty of room between me & the car in front of me so I turned around and opted for a different route. (This is where it came in SUPER handy that I knew an alternative route without having to rely on GPS). I made it to the hotel in one piece but there was A LOT of snow on the ground for mid-November.

I checked in and called my sister as I settling in to my room. I video chatted with her & her boys so they could wish me an early happy birthday. They were quite jealous of my vacation, but little did they know that their mom & dad would surprise them with a trip of their own in a few months!

After I finished up with them, I attempted to get some sleep but 1) the elevator was right by my door and it was loud and 2) the people next door were OBNOXIOUS! Needless to say it was not the restful sleep one hopes for prior to a vacation.

 

[hes122]

Arrival- November 13th (Hollywood Studios)
So my alarm went off a little before 5:00, so I got up and got ready (my flight was at 7) and when I got out to my car it was COVERED in ice. Again...remember how I didn't have my scraper with me? I also didn't have proper gloves either so I sat in the car while the defroster worked its magic.

I got to the airport in plenty of time, but it was 12 degrees out and I left my coat in the car. Thankfully I did take my winter hat so at least I wasn't totally frozen by the time I walked into the terminal! I got my bag checked and made it through security just fine. Right before they boarded the plane there was an announcement that there was a frozen pipe issue and that we wouldn't be able to use the restrooms on the plane. We ended up leaving later than anticipated, but it wasn't really an issue once we arrived at MCO because A's flight was also slightly delayed.

I arrived around 9:30 and made my way down to ME, but stopped at Starbucks to get some hot chocolate (not a coffee drinker) and a breakfast sandwich on the way. While I was waiting for A, I browsed Facebook and saw that a friend of ours (T) was on property visiting her sister prior to her Disney cruise. So I texted T to find out what she was up to that day and made plans for her to meet us at Pop. I called S real quick to fill her in and then A texted saying she was on the ground. So I picked up Starbucks for A and then we got in line for our bus to Pop. We arrived at Pop around 11:30 and went to the room (Disney connected our reservation with S's room-only from the previous night). T was there with S chatting so we freshened up real quick and then made our way to the Skyliner so we could get to Hollywood Studios.

I don't have all of this written down, but my TP app tells me this is what we did:
- Toy Story Mania (FP)
- Lunch at Hollywood Brown Derby
- meet & greet with Darth Vader (via Disney VISA entrance) where he told me I was a rebel spy (probably because I had on my birthday button)
- Tapped into FP for Frozen Ever After but didn't use it
- Single Rider line for Smuggler's Run
- Drinks at Oga's Cantina
- Star Tours (FP)
- Beauty & the Beast show (A had never seen it before)
- Tower of Terror (picked this up as FP #4)
- Rock N Roller Coaster (single rider line)
- meet & greet with Olaf
- Frozen Sing Along (S & I had never seen this before)
- Alien Swirling Saucers (FP #5)
- Slinky Dog Dash
- meet & greet with Buzz Lightyear

We made it back out to the Hub area with plenty of time to see Jingle Bell Jingle Bam. After the show was over we browsed the shops and then hopped on the Skyliner to head back to the hotel. When we got back to Pop, we went to the front desk to set up our individual credit cards and A & I picked up our refillable mugs.

I forgot to mention that I had been tossing around the idea of doing a 40 character challenge during this trip. We didn't think about it too much this day, but with everything else we did over the span of about 9 hours, trying to squeeze in Mickey & Minnie and additional Star Wars characters was going to be a lot.

Even though we technically still had Saturday available to us, we decided that we say everything we needed to at HS (but left the option open to come meet Sorcerer Mickey because he's my favorite) so we cancelled our Saturday FPs and re-booked ones in MK.

Once we got back to the room we basically unpacked and went to bed since A & I had been up since dark o'thirty that morning.

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more. I celebrated my 40th and 50th at WDW.

 

[hes122]

Day 2- November 14th (Epcot & Animal Kingdom)
A & I both warned S that we wanted to be up and at em this morning because we wanted to really utilize the AM EMH. Today was matching shirt day #1. We left just a minute or 2 after we planned to so we were doing good so far. When we got to Caribbean Beach we stopped to pick up hot beverages for everyone and then got back in line for the Skyliner ride to Epcot. The security lines at Epcot were a little insane (and it seems like S always ended up in the longest line no matter how short it actually was the whole trip). Once we were all in, we made our way over to Norway and rode Frozen Ever After. Once we finished there we worked our way back towards The Land. I don't 100% remember the order we did things in, but here's a rough idea:

- Soarin
- eat breakfast at Sunshine Seasons
- Living with the Land
- The Seas with Nemo
- Spaceship Earth (FP)
- picked up our Remy scavenger hunt booklets
- did a little snacking & drinking at the food booths on the FW side
- Mission: Space (FP)
- Test Track (FP)

At this point we decided to hop over to Animal Kingdom. A managed to grab us FPs for Kilimanjaro Safaris, but we had a tight window. We almost didn't make it because the bus took FOREVER to come. We almost said screw it and got a Minnie Van. We made it with about 2 minutes to spare before to grace period expired....whew! We saw a lot of animals this time. In fact, we got stopped because there were some hippos walking right alongside our jeep. It was very cool!

Here's what else we did during our AK portion of the day:
- It's Tough to be a Bug (FP #5)
- Expedition Everest (single rider)
- Finding Nemo show (we had VIP seats)
- Expedition Everest (FP #6)
- Dinosaur

At this point we decided to head back to Epcot, but instead of waiting for the Epcot bus, we hopped on the bus to Yacht Club (where we stayed last year) as a away to avoid the dreaded bus depot at the front of the park. When we got back we snacked some more, traded in our Remy scavenger hunt booklets for our cute mugs (I found a cheat sheet online the week before), rode the Gran Fiesta Tour and walked through the World Showcase (snacking along the way of course). When we made it over to the area where they do the Eat to the Beat concerts, we were going to try to get in, but it was full. Some lady walked up to us and handed us vouchers so we were able to get in after all. The show was great and such a pixie dust experience (even though it wasn't from a CM). After that was over, we sat around and waited for Epcot Forever. I really like it better than Illuminations. While were sitting down, the back of my foot got bitten by something (which I didn't quite realize at the time).

After that we made our way out of the park and man was the Skyliner line long! It was moving though, so it didn't really seem as long as it probably was. It was still better than waiting for a bus at the front of the park! We chit chatted with the family in front of us and rode the Skyliner with them on both legs of the trip.

Another night of pretty much crawling into bed as soon as we got back.

 

[suse66]

Joining in! I celebrated my 50th at Disney ( my first solo trip) and LOVED it! Looking forward to hearing more!

 

[hes122]

Day 3- November 15th (Resort Hopping & MVMCP)
So today was my actual birthday, so HBD to me! We all slept in some which was lovely. When I woke up, I started scratching my foot and then's when I truly realized I had been bitten by something the night before and wasn't just scratching because of dry skin. A woke up around the same time so we grabbed our refillable mugs and went over to Everything Pop to get some beverages. We also took S's mug and got her some coffee. When we got back to the room, S was just waking up so the 3 of us walked over to Art of Animation via the path (rather than over the Generation gap bridge) and looked around at the Cars section. We ate breakfast at Landscape of Flavors and then walked through Finding Nemo section on the way back to our room.

We took our time getting ready for the day (matching shirt #2 complete with matching ears) since we didn't really have an agenda other than looking at the monorail resort Christmas decorations before the Christmas party. We left Pop a little before noon and hopped on the bus to MK. When we got a MK it took us a few minutes to find the boat launch because of the construction walls. Once we figured that out, we got in line to take the boat to the Wilderness Lodge. It seems like it took forever for the boat to come, but it probably wasn't all that long.

We spent a little time at the Wilderness Lodge, but they didn't have all of their decorations up yet (no tree, but some other things were up). I know a CM that works there but he wasn't on duty until later that day so I left a note to say hi. We then went back to the boat launch and went to the Contemporary. They didn't have a lot of decorations up yet either, so we hoped in line for the monorail and headed for the Polynesian. The rolling theme of the day continued with not many decorations up (but oh did we love the smells!), so off to the Grand Floridian it was!

We had read earlier in the week that the gingerbread house would be up, so we spent some time checking that out. At that point, we were hungry so we went to Gasparilla Island Grill and got some lunch. I ordered the equivalent of Thanksgiving dinner on a sandwich so I was happy about that (TG is my favorite!). I can't remember what S & A ordered, but A's sandwich took FOREVER to come out. So long that a manager came over and offered her a dessert as an apology. A mentioned that it was my birthday so I ended up getting a free dessert too!

After we finished lunch, it was getting close to the time when we needed to start heading towards MK for the Christmas party. We made our way back inside (passing by a wedding party taking pictures) and then poked our heads into the Enchanted Rose lounge on our way to the monorail station. The line wasn't obnoxious but the people in front of us in line took forever to get through security.

We made it to MK, tapped in with no issues (S had issues last year for MNSSHP) and stopped to take some pictures along the path behind the Main Street shops. We had fast passes pre-booked for Big Thunder Mountain and Peter Pan's flight, so we started making our way over to Frontierland.

This is what we managed to do between the time we entered and 6:00 when the park closed to day guests:

- Big Thunder Mountain (FP)
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Haunted Mansion
- Peter Pan's Flight (FP)
- It's a Small World
- Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

After that we made our way to the HUB to watch the Frozen Wish and then started making a game plan for the party time. Here's what we did during the party itself:

- Met Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet & Tigger (probably about a 45 minute wait)
- Mad Tea Party
- Met Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (maybe a 15-20 minute wait)
- Dumbo
- Met the 7 Dwarfs (probably about a 45 minute wait)
- Minnie's Wonderful Christmastime Fireworks
- Monster's Inc Laugh Floor
- Met Mary Poppins & Bert
- 11:00 parade
- Space Mountain (S & I)

We stopped and picked up some cookies at one point, but I don't really remember when we actually did that. Somewhere in there we also trekked down Main Street in order to meet Jack & Sally, but the line was at a standstill at one point so we said forget it. While we were staking out spots for the fireworks my foot was BEYOND itchy, so I went over to the first aid station by Crystal Palace and got some anti-itch cream and some band-aids.

By the time we got off Space Mountain we were shivering so we all bought sweatshirts. I also bought a reusable bag. I can't remember if we actually stayed until midnight this time, but it must have been close by the time we left the park.

Again, we were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to Pop, but I stopped by the gift shop to pick up some generic neosporin for my foot on the way.

Had we not purchased the PH we probably would have taken a completely different approach to of park touring.

Did I mention my 40 character challenge? In the weeks leading up to the trip I was trying to think of something extra to mark the occasion, but at the same time I wasn't making it my end goal for the trip. After Wednesday when I only got 3 characters, I kinda gave up on it but by the time we got back to the room after MVMCP I had 18 characters logged (and we had more characters on tap for Saturday) so maybe I was going to get it done after all!

 

[hes122]

Day 4- November 16th (Magic Kingdom & Epcot)
I don't really remember what time we woke up this morning, got dressed (matching shirt #3) and went over to Everything Pop for breakfast. After we finished eating we went out to the bus depot and made our way to Magic Kingdom for the first part of the day.

When we got to the park, we waited in the obnoxious line at Main Street Bakery for some coffee (S & A) and hot chocolate (me). We got some pictures in front of the castle with our beverages and then made our way towards Adventureland. Here's what we managed to do before our lunch reservation at Be Our Guest (1:30)

- Magic Carpets of Aladdin (FP)
- Enchanted Tiki Room
- Country Bear Jamboree
- Mickey's Philharmagic
- Prince Charming's Regal Carousel
- Meet & Greet with Rapunzel & Tiana
- Meet & Greet with Cinderella & Elena

At that point we headed over to Beast's Castle for lunch. The line was crazy, but thank goodness we pre-ordered. We ate in the ballroom. Lunch was delicious (especially the grey stuff). After that we decided to head back to the hotel briefly to grab our sweatshirts and then head over to Epcot for enjoy some yummy foods at Food & Wine.

We were at the hotel for maybe half an hour (this was probably around 3ish when we arrived), so I got to see the end of my football game while we were there. We then went back to the Skyliner and made our way into Epcot. Holy moly was that park crazy! Now I understand why they recommend avoiding weekends during the festival!

We mostly snacked, but we did manage to do the following while we were there:

- Meet & Greet with Jasmine
- Meet & Greet with Daisy
- Meet & Greet with Mickey & Goofy (Disney VISA spot)
- Meet & Greet with Vannellope
- Journey into Imagination with Figment

At that point we headed back to Magic Kingdom so that we could see Happily Ever After. We were very happy when we found out that the park hours had been extended that night. We scored a FP earlier for Jingle Cruise so we headed there first. Once that was finished we started scoping out a spot for HEA when a CM took us to an even better spot. We all enjoyed the show, but decided that we liked Wishes better. After that we started making our way to Fantasyland and walked around a bit before we used our FP for Under the Sea- Journey of the Little Mermaid and had a Meet & Greet with Ariel.

The line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was still longer than we really wanted wait, but we noticed that Astro Orbiter was reasonable so S & I rode that while A went on People Mover. We contemplated waiting for Seven Dwarfs after this, but ultimately decided we were tired and wanted to head back to the room. Earlier in the trip we contemplated staying fot the Kiss Goodnight but that would've pushed us of the edge I think.

The park was technically still open so we shopped some on Main Street and then stopped on the way out to meet Tinkerbell.

So now, that puts the character total up to 29. For 3 adults who didn't really start putting an effort into this until there were 2 days left of park tickets, I think we did pretty well.

 

[DLo]

I did a similar thing when I went to MVMCP last year - Nov 11th . Had late lunch at the Wave then hit the monorail resorts to look at decorations. You are right not much besides the gingerbread decorations at that time.

 

[hes122]

Day 5- November 17th (Disney Springs and departure day)
Today was our last day in Disney (boo). We started off with breakfast at the resort and then went back to the room to pack everything up. When we finished that we dropped our bags off with bell services (S & A checked their bags with the airline; I flew on a non-participating airline) and then hopped on the bus to Disney Springs.

A friend of ours (B) lives about an hour from Disney so she came and met us for lunch. We were shopping ( where I FINALLY found the pajama pants I'd had my eye on for a while!) when she arrived so when we finished up we decided to check out the Christmas tree trail. We loved this! After that we went to Blaze and had lunch.

Not long after that A had to take the bus back to Pop to catch her ME bus, so we said goodbye. The rest of our browsed around some more and then S & I had to head back as well. So we said goodbye to B and got on our bus.

When we got back to the resort we filled up our mugs and sat in the eating area for a few minutes and then went out to meet our ME bus. I don't remember how many other resorts we stopped at on the way back to the airport, but it wasn't that bad.

We arrived at the airport and ate dinner at Macaroni Grill after I checked my bags. The security line was long, but it was moving. I was not able to get any sleep on the flight home thanks to the kid sitting behind me kicking pretty much the entire time.

I think I've finally learned my lesson with the small airport I flew out of: pay the few extra dollars for the carry-on bag rather than check it. This is the 4th time I've flown to/from there and my bag always seems to be the last one off the plane. Obviously that one works for short trips when I've got a carry-on sized bag.

By the time I got home it was after 1:00 am. The other lesson I think I finally learned is to take at least half a day off on the back end so I can get some sleep!

 

[hes122]

Post-Trip Thoughts

1. We definitely preferred going to a park on arrival day versus Disney Springs like we did on our 2018 trip.
2. Adding the park hopper to our tickets was well worth it. I don't know that I'd add it for long trips, but for short trips I will definitely consider it in the future.
3. I preferred MVMCP to MNSSHP.
4. I love the Skyliner. It's such a game changer, especially not having to deal with the front of the park at Epcot.
5. I like trying out new resorts (like we did in 2018), but something just draws me back to Pop. I loved the refurbished rooms!
6. I can't wait to go back and check out Rise of the Resistance.