Don't forget to sing in the lifeboats! Nov/Dec PTR 2015

[v3rs3]

Just picture this; a big, manly 6'2" guy who works at a car dealership (90% guys) that keeps a Disney countdown and likes to tell everyone about it everyday. Yeah, that's me!



I'm Jon.
Born and raised in Columbus, OH.
I'll be turning 30 in October.
I only went once to WDW as a child. I only remember screaming for my dad on Space Mountain. haha
My favorite ride would be Splash Mountain.
Favorite Disney movie will always be Aladdin, but Wreck It Ralph and Big Hero 6 are close behind.


Now the main character of the trip



It's Levin! (Pronounced like Kevin with an L)
He'll be 8 and a half this trip.
He's been to Disney only once for his 7th birthday.
His favorite ride is Buzz Lightyear.
His favorite movie changes weekly, a lot of Wreck It Ralph and Monsters Inc.

We'll be staying at the Pop Century Nov 29th to Dec 8th.
We stayed here last year in the 90's section and really enjoyed it. The price also let us stay a little longer this year.





The title is from one of my favorite motivational sayings "Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats!" I have a problem of singing all day during work, so it fits well. It keeps me happy and I've worked hard to be able to smile in life. Just the past few years my life has went upside down and the depression and sadness I fought has all but went away. I realized what I was doing to myself and to my son and knew I had to change. I started a new rule that every weekend had to have something fun and something new. At that point we had never went on vacation at all, so we packed up and went off to the happiest place in the world last year for Lev's 7th birthday. We had so much fun, he said he wants to go every year. We'll see how that goes.


Anywho! I was just so excited b/c today I made our final payment on our trip that I had to tell the world about how excited we were. haha I want to keep this thread going and share our experience and hopefully gain some new friends!

 

[v3rs3]

Just a few more pictures from our trip last year. We went for 7 days at the beginning of April and stayed at the Pop Century. It was a blast and it really is the happiest place on earth!!












Oh and my absolute favorite!!! This will be a keeper when meeting his high school girlfriends!

 

[vicceja]

I'm glad you have found the sun through the clouds. We all go through it, but you just have to keep going.
You and Levin look amazing - he will remember these trips forever!

I have three boys and we have been going to Disney World since my youngest was 3...he is 14 now! It's been 4 years since we've been back and because the boys have been working hard and there has been so many changes at home...I thought we all deserve a vacation, so we are going Dec 15-21! Can't wait until my Final Payment!

Have an Amazing Time!

 

[v3rs3]

Can't wait until my Final Payment!

That was definitely an exciting payment. I was excited to send that last payment so I didn't have to stress it until October when it's due.



Also scored our flights the other day and it came up under the $500 budget I set for flights. I saw return flights at $99 and couldn't grab my card quick enough. Ended up only being $468 for the two of us.

We'll be leaving Columbus at 5AM!!! and reaching Orlando before any parks open! Hoping that we can make it to Magic Kingdom near rope drop. It'll be close, we should be landing around 7:20AM. My family thinks I'm crazy, but it's basically like an extra day at Disney I said!!! haha Returning home at 8PM on the 8th.



Switched up our ADR's a bit the other day as well. We had Teppan Edo for one of our nights, but figured we had enough Hibachi places close by and never ate a revolving restaurant so changed it to Garden Grill. Now I'm starting to think we may have too many character ADR's now, if there is such a thing. We are using the DDP, just like last year. I really like that I don't have to have a dining budget and with him still being a child I think we are getting our moneys worth.


11/29 T-Rex 7PM (Our first day must do)
11/30 O'hana 9:25AM (A new restaurant for us, we love Stitch!)
Coral Reef 4PM CPP 8:15 showing (My son said we had to do Coral Reef again, but I'm mostly excited to see Neil Patrick Harris at the CP)
12/1 Raglan Road 6:45PM (Another first)
12/2 Chef Mickey's 12:35PM (We loved breakfast here last year)
12/3 Sci-Fi 6:40PM (Another fun one we had to do again)
12/4 Garden Grill 6:35PM (First)
12/5 BOG 6:55PM (Exciting first)
12/6 Beaches & Cream 1PM (OOP first)
12/7 Tusker House 8AM (Another fun one from last year, pre-park just like last year)


4 or 5 (if you consider BOG to be character ADR) out of 10. We'll definitely get our money's worth with all these character dinings.

 

[MataHari22]

Hi! I'm your neighbor over in Pennsylvania. Lol. Thought I'd follow along. I am also going in November this year, staying at Pop, and it will also be intersting to get a guy's perspective on planning a WDW trip. You have lots of good/popular ADRs there. I've only been to Coral Reef, Chef Mickey's, Sci-Fi, BOG, and Tusker House. Hope you and Levin have a great trip!

 

[v3rs3]

Looking at December hours today and realized our Tusker House pre-opening ADR is on an EMH morning. Anyone had something like this happen before?

We've always stayed away from EMH parks. We did enjoy our Tusker House breakfast last year, but I'm almost thinking of cancelling it now and going with another new restaurant we haven't been to before. AK was the one park we spent very little time at last year and I wanted to explore more, so moving to another day might be smart. Thinking we should skip it that day now though as the EMH will make it a more crowded park, even though Monday's are always a busy MK day. AHHHH. hahah


Updates are always more fun with photos though.

Here's a picture of us at the yogurt shop after seeing Inside Out opening weekend.



Ran into some Disney princesses; Snow White, Mulan, and Cinderella were here. I overheard them talking to a lady saying they did birthday parties and were just coming from one.

 

[MataHari22]

Bummer about your pre park open ADR and hours change.
From what I've been reading here, it looks like it happens a lot. What about trying to get a later time instead of canceling. Like a 10-10:30? Then, you could ride a ride or two before your meal.

ETA: I just looked at two calendars and I don't see EMH at open for AK. TA calendar has AK hours listed as 9-5 and EMH at MK. EasyWDW shows EMH at 8 am for MK. AK is

https://media.disneywebcontent.com/StaticFiles/ParkHours/WDWTravelAgent_December.pdf

http://www.easywdw.com/dec15-v2.jpg

Haven't seen Inside Out yet, but I want to. Funny about seeing the princesses.

 

[v3rs3]

ETA: I just looked at two calendars and I don't see EMH at open for AK. TA calendar has AK hours listed as 9-5 and EMH at MK. EasyWDW shows EMH at 8 am for MK. AK is

I just googled Disney December hours, and clicked the wdwinfo link. Didn't realize it was 2014. Phewww. Plans are stable again. Glad I didn't do anything drastic and cancel them yet.

 

[MataHari22]

Lol. I wondered what you were looking at, because I couldn't find anything. I looked at a bunch of calendars and didn't see anything. Course you never know when Disney is going to do that, change the hours. Hope they don't change it on you.

 

[v3rs3]

Just a little video from our adventures at the Ohio State fair today. Trying to get some practice in with the new GoPro before Disney. Already found some things that don't work and I'll have to modify the backpack mount b/c it was a little uncomfortable. We had fun though.

Levin with Smokey the bear. Only you can prevent forest fires!

 

[MataHari22]

How fun. That'll be great for Disney! Maybe this year I will finally take some video and do a movie. I don't have a GoPro, though. My iPhone will have to do. Lol.

 

[chocolateavocado]

Just found your ptr & am excited to follow along! We're also going in Nov - 11/26-12/1- right over Thanksgiving. This also be our 2nd trip / first was 11/13 when our ds was 6 1/2. He'll also be 8 1/2 this time, lol. You guys are so lucky to be able to go for such a long time! Ds usually has a bunch of sick days through out the school year (usually sinus or ear infections) that I didn't want to stress about him missing too many days from school for the trip. Congrats on making your final payment! That is an awesome feeling & can't wait til ours is paid off. too! Now that it's under 4 months away- it's starting to feel real! Have fun with the planning & will be following along!

 

[v3rs3]

Now that it's under 4 months away- it's starting to feel real!

I know I looked at my tracker this morning and only 119 days! That feels like you're almost there when you start with almost 400 on it! Thanks for coming aboard!

We are excited and saved extra this year to be able to go some extra days. I'm not too worried about Lev missing school. He does very well in school and didn't really miss many days this past year. It's normally a better learning experience than sitting in a class room in my opinion.


Fun how some of our Disney obsessed people will go crazy the moment someone mentions Disney World. Last night at my nephews birthday party (25 years old), my sister-in-law said her and my brother were going to Magic Kingdom for a day in 3 weeks...and they had NEVER heard of fastpass!!? My brother thought it was something he had to pay for. I had to go all Disney on them. Now they are going to be much more prepared for the day and have a lot more fun. I have to go over and show her how to set up MDE and fastpasses later this week. haha

 

[MataHari22]

Yikes. Well at least you can help them get sorted with FP+ and they will have those three rides to experience without much wait. Summer is so busy. It's best to be prepared and have a plan. I always worry about the people who don't plan or do research. They always seem to come home saying they had an awful time and won't go back.

Last year I knew someone that went down for a weekend in the summer. Same thing, didn't know about fp+ or anything. I tried to help. Also suggested easy WDW cheat sheets, since they basically only had one day in each park. They didn't want to "stress themselves out planning it's supposed to be a vacation" so they wouldn't look at them and didn't schedule FP+ either. They did not have a good experience and then blamed it all on WDW.

 

[v3rs3]

Yikes. Well at least you can help them get sorted with FP+ and they will have those three rides to experience without much wait. Summer is so busy. It's best to be prepared and have a plan. I always worry about the people who don't plan or do research. They always seem to come home saying they had an awful time and won't go back.

Last year I knew someone that went down for a weekend in the summer. Same thing, didn't know about fp+ or anything. I tried to help. Also suggested easy WDW cheat sheets, since they basically only had one day in each park. They didn't want to "stress themselves out planning it's supposed to be a vacation" so they wouldn't look at them and didn't schedule FP+ either. They did not have a good experience and then blamed it all on WDW.

That's basically what I told her. That she should be slightly prepared so she doesn't have a horrible time. They are actually lucky getting to Florida the week the kids all go back to school. It's showing the crowd should be around a 4 on the day I told them they should go. We'll see though! lol

 

[chocolateavocado]

I completely agree about this being an awesome learning experience. Normally, I wouldn't hesitate to have him miss a few more days for the trip, but he usually ends up missing quite a few days being sick throughout the year. He's prone to severe allergies and usually has at least a few bouts of ear or sinus infections. Thankfully last year was alot better and hopefully he'll start to outgrow them or less the frequency at least.
and...if I'm being completely honest, I can't help but keep a very small hope of being able to squeeze in another small trip (maybe 3-4 nights) somewhere along the line...lol.. I'm a sahm but do ebay to pay for my ds's school tuition and to help fund our new disney habit, so maybe if I work really hard this year at it...just maybe we can squeeze another long weekend type trip...one can hope/dream!

Your brother & sister-in-law are lucky to have you to help them out! I hope they're able to get a few good fast passes set up to save them some time! Hope they have a great trip! I wish we could go in the summer, but I know we would DIE in the heat and humidity down there in summer. Have fun helping them plan as well

 

[DalmationGal29]

Good Evening! Just found your PTR and following along! We are also going around the same time 11/28 - 12/5. There are 10 of us in our party as well as a dog so we are staying off-property. Looking forward to seeing how a guys plans for Disney as my DH wants nothing to do any of it. Your son is adorable!

 

[v3rs3]

A lot of excitement visiting the P.O. Box today.

Only 110 days away!!!

 

[MataHari22]

Cool! Always exciting to get Mickey Mail. I won't get mine for quite a while, I think we always get it about a month before. I book my package through a TA. You had me curious, so I checked my days, and I have 93 to go. Double digits now. Yay!

 

[v3rs3]

Checking in parts this morning at work and found a nice little reminder that we only have 100 days until we are at DISNEY!!!!





Hidden Mickey in the form of a gasket. haha Had to make a post b/c I'm sure some of you see crazy things like I do.