Yay!! We’re so close!! Unfortunately the weather for our trip (especially our arrival day) is not looking very good. They’re expecting a winter storm and winter temps. Silver lining is that maybe it’ll keep crowds away? Were hoping the weather changes before our trip, we still have some time.
I’ve been buying hand warmers and Disney themed hats, gloves and jackets for everyone. Hopefully we won’t need them! I’ve been gathering things that we’ll need to pack, going through our Disney themed clothes to pick out things for the trip. I had my DH grab our suitcases out of the basement and I’ve started throwing things in them.
Packing will be different for us because we always drive down so we’re able to pack as much as we want, but this time we’re flying. So we’ll have to be more picky about what we bring. I’m going to pack about a weeks worth of clothes for everyone and do laundry halfway through our trip. It’s really hard though to narrow down our cute Disney shirts to only 7!
My DD bought me a really pretty Beauty and the Beast
Loungefly bag for Christmas to use on the trip. It’s pretty but I’m not sure it’s practical, it’s small and looks uncomfortable to carry around. Do a lot of people wear these in the parks? I do love it and I’ll bring it with me but I’m not sure how to use it.
We will start undecoraring the house tomorrow (bad luck to do it before New Years), then I’ll deep clean it (two oldest are staying home with the dogs-they didn’t want to go) and then I can fully focus on the trip.
I need to go through and make touring plans for our park days, because if I don’t it’ll be a whole lot of “what do you wanna do?” “I don’t care what do you wanna do?”
We’re planning on 3 and a half MK days, 3 Epcot days (1 before and 2 after FARTS), and 2 days each of AK and HS. We can do more if we feel like it, we have 14 day tickets. We’ll only be hopping one day, where we start out at AK hop to MK for the EEH there.
For extras we have a post FW dessert party at MK, an Epcot FW boat ride, and the fantasmic package at HS. Plus an After Hours at MK. So we’ll be able to see all the nighttime shows without difficulty. And we’ll be able to take advantage of short lines during the nighttime shows on the nights we’re not seeing them. Between that, the 2 MK EEH and the 1 Epcot EEH (we’ll be at MK after hours for the other one), having several park days, plus having
DAS pass were going to gamble on not buying LLMP. Still considering buying them for one of our HS days though, because it looks like crowds are a 9 that day. We would save so much money (5 people over 10-14 park days) not buying in. And our goal is to not have to use our credit card on this trip, but to just use our Disney gift cards that I’ve been buying discounted (except for things you can’t buy on the GCs obviously).
We’re budgeting $1,000 for souvenirs ($200 per person, though DH prob won’t use his so we can put that somewhere else, and we don’t buy that many souvenirs because we go every year) $7,000 for food (1 TS, 1QS, and 2/3 snacks per person per day for 14 days- I went through and looked at prices for what we’ll probably eat and this should be more than enough plus we don’t drink so that helps) $200 for groceries, $500 for incidentals and $200 for transportation to/from airport. We’ve already paid for the After Hours, the dessert party and the FW cruise (around $1,400 total) so Disney math says that doesn’t count lol. So we plan on charging everything to the room and I’ll go down nightly and pay it off with a gift card. This is our first trip using gift cards, we usually just charge everything or use our debit card but I’ve been buying discounted gift cards from Target and Costco, saving about $650!
We had planned on not going into any parks on Sunday the 12th, our first full day there, but touring plans has MK as a crowd level 2 that day so now I’m thinking we’ll pop in there. Original plan was to check out of POR and check into WL/BR and just hanging around the resort, maybe heading to DS from POR on the boat for a bit before heading to WL, but now considering heading to WL, dropping off our stuff at Bell Services and heading into MK, just doing whatever we want with no real plan other than to soak in some MK time. And we’ll be able to take the boat there which will be nice.
Here’s our finalized schedule:
Sat 1/11
arrive at MCO at 4:30, uber to POR.
check in, dinner at Boatwrights, take carriage ride around the resort, eat some beignets, explore both PO resorts
Sun 1/12
check out of POR, head to WL then MK, dinner at Geyser Point and campfire at resort
Mon 1/13
AK rope drop til close, lunch at Tusker House, dinner at Flame Tree. After park closing we’ll take kids to resort then DH and I will head to MK for our date night/After Hours. Older DDs will watch DS in the room
Tuesday 1/14
Epcot day. Arrive around 11am, stay til around 7. Dinner at San Angel, lunch wherever we want. Have to be at YC marina for FW cruise around 7 I think. After FW cruise we’ll Minnie van back to WL
Weds 1/15
MK day. Arrive around 10:30 for ADR at Crystal Palace. We have the last breakfast ADR so this will be our lunch too. Will hang out in the park til close, staying for extended evening hours. May take a break back at the resort at some point if we feel like it.
Thurs 1/16
DHS day. Arrive around 11, stay til close. Dinner at Roundup Rodeo, lunch at Docking bay 7
Friday 1/17
MK. Arrive around 9, stay til around 6. Lunch at CHH. We have 2 ADRS scheduled and will choose that day which one to do. We have Raglan Road, and if we choose this one we’ll spend our evening in DS. We also have 1900 park Fare. If we choose this one we’ll prob head back into the park after dinner or just head back to the resort.
Sat 1/18
Off day. Sleep in, rent pontoon boat, do activities at resort, resort hop. Have dinner at Ohana.
Sun 1/19
HS. Rope drop to close. Will probably get LLMP for this day. Sci Fi fantasmic pkg dinner. Lunch at Woodys lunchbox.
Mon 1/20
Epcot. Arrive around 11. Stay for extended evening hours. Dinner at Biergarten, lunch at FARTS booths.
Tues 1/21
MK. Arrive around 10. Eat at Tonys around parade time so we can hopefully catch the parade from their porch. I know it gets hate, but we like it. This is our post-FW dessert party night.
Weds1/22
AK, arrive around 9-10:00. Dinner at Rainforest cafe, lunch at Satuli. Hop to MK after close, stay for MK extended evening hours.
Thurs 1/23
Epcot. Arrive around 11. No TS this day because we plan on eating at the FARTS booths all day.
Fri 1/24
MK all day, rope drop to close. Dinner at Be our Guest. Head back to the resort after park closing and pack up. We could also split this day between another park we want to go back to and MK if we want. As long as we finish at MK for the BOG ADR.
Sat 1/25
Breakfast at Whispering Canyon, then flight home. Begin planning for the next trip lol.
It’ll be busy but I always say we don’t go to WDW to relax. If we want a relaxing trip we go to the beach. In my opinion you’re at WDW for the parks, so I like to be in a park just about every day.
I’m sure my girls won’t be wanting to go to the parks as frequently as we do so they’ll be coming and going as they wish, meeting up with us wherever we are when they want to head into the parks. I’m not going to force them to do everything we do or they’ll just make it miserable. So I suspect most mornings will just be me, DH and DS.
Almost there! I can’t wait!
Baymax cupcakes. Had Japanese food
