Finding My Own Happily Ever After - November 2021 (UPDATED 10/26)

[RollTideinMD]

Hello Hello Hello! Welcome to our November 2021 Pre-Trip report!

WHO:
Hi, I'm Shanna. I'm a thirty-something mama to two wonderful munchkins. I'm an HR director for a growing robotics engineering company. I was born and raised in rural Alabama and now call Baltimore, Maryland home.

Mitch is the bearded handsome man in our life. He's a thirty-something Butcher and has lived in Maryland the majority of his life.

Dillon (11) is my sweet, kind, and athletic kid, who is dedicated to his Travel Baseball Team and plays basketball in the offseason. Delaney (8) is my loving, kind, Disney Villain of a daughter with a heart of gold and some mischief under her sleeve. She plays soccer and is interested in branching out into something new like karate.

We're a blended family and embarking on our first trip to Disney together as a family of four!



WHEN:
November 3 - 9, 2021. It simply can not come soon enough.

WHERE:
Finding Nemo Family Suites at AOA

DISNEY FAVORITES:
What is our favorite park?
Dillon: Hollywood Studios, Delaney: Animal Kingdom, Me: Epcot
What is our favorite ride?
Dillon: Space Mountain, Delaney: Expedition Everest, Me: Space Mountain
What is our favorite restaurant?
Dillon: Chef Mickey's, Delaney: CRT, Me: The Crystal Palace (for the characters!) and Sanaa (for the food!)
What is our favorite snack?
Dillon: unsure, Delaney: Popcorn, Me: Churros or the cheeseburger spring rolls

This is Mitch's first trip! I can't wait to discover what his favorites will be!

This will be my third-ever Disney trip. 2020 robbed me of 2 planned trips, unfortunately. I'm an obsessive planner and love reading through everyone's PTR and TR on the forums.

I hope y'all join along with us!​

 

[Bama Mom]

Roll Tide!

Joining in from Bama!

 

[RollTideinMD]

Table of Contents

Finding My Own Happily Ever After
My Chaotic Inner Monologue: part one
Puttin' Amazon to Work and Potentially Something Really Big!
If You Like Obsessive Planning, Come Sit by Me!
Hey Friends, long time no talk!
A life update
Makin ADRs makes my head hurt
Where oh where have my ears gone
Our ADR day has come and gone
Packing perfection and life stuff
Only 7 days to go until we have 30 days left!
Critical update: there is a ring
Okay, so it looks like we need a plan B
SINGLE DIGITS, Y'ALL​

 

[RollTideinMD]

Roll Tide!

Joining in from Bama!

So happy to have you here! Roll Tide Roll!

 

[RollTideinMD]

Finding My Own Happily Ever After
I sure tell y'all what - our love story is a long time coming.



I often joke that I am dead on the inside (actually I touched on it in my first PTR), but experiencing the magic of Disney has sparked something inside of me and I became obsessed before even getting on the plane to Orlando in 2019.

I can say the same for Mitch. He put some sparkle back into my soul that I had been missing for a very long time and I want to shout it from the roof tops. I think that I'll have to settle for this PTR for now.

Mitch and I met five years ago on an online dating site. We initially dated for a couple of months. I was convinced that we were looking for different things and I broke things off with him, but we remained close friends and would continue to see each other every so often over the next 4 years.

We always had a spark and we've always had chemistry - - I wish that I could tell you what I was so afraid of all this time.

About a year ago, we went on what could've only been our 15876th first date together, little did we know that it would be our last first date. We haven't looked back since then. We have the kind of love that is written about or conveyed in a Disney movie. It's magical all of the time and I am wildly happy that we are where we are today.

Through a series of unfortunate events and a lot of ups and downs, I have found my happily ever after. It's so cheesy that I am rolling my own eyes at myself, but yeah..he's it.

This is a really big year for us - we're combining households this summer and taking on Disney in the fall. We recently adopted two cats, Floki and Freya, and are adjusting to life with two furbabies.



All of my fears about not having the same priorities (dating a single mom is not for the faint of heart!) were completely unfounded because my children love him so much and he loves them so much.

So..that's the four - err six - of us!

PS - I'm lowkey dreaming of a Haunted Mansion Disney proposal. We shall see..​

 

[BellesLibrary]

How amazing would a Haunted Mansion proposal be?! I can't wait to hear more about your plans. November will be here before you know it!

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[amador]

Those are the exact dates my boyfriend and I are staying! I can’t wait to hear more from you about your plans!

 

[RollTideinMD]

My Chaotic Inner Monologue: part one
Before I get started, I've been listening to Disney soundtracks non-stop and it's pulling me through these last few ugly weeks of winter.

This trip is going to look a little different than our trips past. Some things by choice, some not by choice.

Our choice: Park Hoppers! We've never opted for Park Hoppers on previous visits, mostly from a cost saving move. For this trip, which will be during Epcot's F & W Festival, we've opted for Park hoppers for two big reasons - - Food and Wine and knowing that the parks are not operating 100% as normal during COVID.

I learned during my first Food and Wine trip in Fall 2019 that I need more than one day to tackle Epcot during (my favorite) festival. I'm a light-weight when it comes to drinking and can only have 2-3 drinks before I need to stop drinking. Additionally, I wanted us to have options as to how we were spending our time now that things are..different. So..I don't know. I'm curious to learn how Park Hoppers will work for our family.

Our choice: Trying a new resort! We love love love Pop and consider it to be our 'home' resort. While we're still very much newbs, we've always had an amazing stay at Pop and have never had any complaints. Unless I fall into a pit of money and can afford to go Deluxe, I'm always happy to stay at Pop. The addition of the Skyliner adds so much value for us. Since our family has grown by one full-size adult human man, I see the need for extra space. We chose the Nemo Family Suites at AoA for the private bedroom and extra bathroom.

Not our choice: Not having the DDP! Oh man! Disclaimer - I am supportive behind the reasoning of the DDP being removed for the time being, but man does it suck! While I love planning, I absolutely loathe budgeting. We're foodies (and love to drink) and maximize the value of the DDP on trips past. We love character meals. We love the all-inclusive feeling of having all of our meals prepaid.

As it currently stands, our plan is to stock up on gift cards. I have planned out several months of buying gift cards that will equal up to $6k. I started out just a few days ago by buying $350 at BJ's wholesale club and saved $12. The $6k is intended to be used for all of our meals & snacks, plus shopping and/or experiences. Dillon is considered an adult by Disney standards. If the dining plan happens to come back between now and November, I will absolutely be adding it to our vacation.

In the meantime, I've began researching menus and trying to come up with rough costs for various meals so that I can make sure we have enough money budgeted for both dining and shopping. I'll share more on this as I continue to pour myself into planning and forcing myself to budget. I also have been thinking a lot about our dining strategy. Man, I miss the DDP.

This Disney trip was a surprise to the kids on Christmas - we wrapped our Magic Bands as stuck the box under the tree.



Mitch: 1971
Delaney: Unicorn
Dillon: The Child
Me: Haunted Mansion

I linked them to our vacation on MDE, hopefully all works well in 249 days.

I have a lot of anxiety about not being able to have Fast Passes and I've been stalking wait times on the MDE app. I'm sure I'll lose sleep over this in the coming months.

I need to start saving for plane tickets when November opens up for booking on Southwest. I am a diehard SWA flier, both professional and personal.

Dillon has a big baseball tournament this summer in Myrtle Beach that we will go down for. My parents are meeting us there and it'll be a nice summer vacation as a large family. They live down south and we only see them once or twice a year.

I've been adding things to my Disney list on Amazon - I'm aiming to get at least two new suitcases before then. I've also saved a new toiletry bag, packing cubes, a family pack of ponchos, and several foot-care related things. I have learned that organization is the name of the game! Clutter and disorganization drives me batty, even more so on vacation.

I think that's it for today! Stay turned for even more ramblings..​

 

[RollTideinMD]

Those are the exact dates my boyfriend and I are staying! I can’t wait to hear more from you about your plans!

Oh how awesome! I love meeting trip buddies!

 

[lcc2]

Following along!

 

[RollTideinMD]

Puttin' Amazon to work and potentially something really big!
I find it hard to believe that there was a time in my life that I didn't think that my monthly Prime bill was worth the cost. Each month when that automatic payment would hit my account for, like, $13 bucks, I'd ask myself if the Amazon Prime subscription was worth the cost. Then COVID hit and I sold my soul to Amazon. It's like some weird form of Christmas all year 'round.

Being an organizational junkie and a planner extraordinaire, I am delighted to share with y'all a handful of things that I have picked up for our trip. While these purchases have been added to my obnoxiously large basket that holds all of my pre-Disney Trip purchases, they're going to pull double duty and get used during baseball and soccer season.

As previously mentioned, we are a travel baseball family. Beginning at the end of March through early November, our weekends are baseball baseball baseball. As of right now, Delaney is still in club soccer and not on a travel team, which is fortunately just a 2x/week commitment (though she's asking to switch to travel soccer, so we may work on getting her ready for try outs this year).

Dillon and his baseball team will be playing in a week-long tournament in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in July and it's going to be hot hot hot. What does that have in common with Walt Disney World? It's going to be hot hot hot. Keeping cool and comfortable is the name of the game for our family (as I am sure it is for everyone else).

Without further ado, here's how Amazon has been getting my money so far.



Top, center:
A family pack of assorted ponchos, great for sports and Disney. I'm happy to fork over my paycheck to Disney (and apparently Amazon), but I draw the line at a piece of plastic that we will ultimately throw away. I love these individually packaged ponchos in a size that will fit any of us and and they're so cheap, I don't mind tossing these in the garbage once we're finished wearing them.

First row, left:
Bagsmart DSLR Camera Backpack. I own a Canon EOS Rebel T7 DSLR Camera with a couple of lenses, which I am still learning to use. I live by the quote "these are the good old days" and document so much of our every day life. While I have yet to put this bag to work, I wanted to find a backpack that I could use to lug around my camera on the daily (lmao - yeah right..something like that). The bag has good reviews on Amazon and I am impressed with the quality so far.

As far as Disney is concerned, I don't think that I'll lug my big camera into the parks every day, but Walt Disney World is just so beautiful, that I know I am going to want to document as much as I can. This bag has a lot of compartments and I know that I will feel organized with this camera bag that will double as a park bag.

First row, center:
O2COOL Battery powered necklace fan. This will be especially handy for baseball season (soccer is far more mild as far as weather is concerned in Maryland) and for Disney. Knowing that we'll have to wear masks, I figured it was smart to have a fan directly blowing onto your face.

First row, right:
It's a neck fan! I'm a girl who likes her options.

I bought two each of both types of fans, enough for the four of us. I am curious to see who likes which one best!

Second row, left:
Four pack of cooling towels in a carrying pouch. I'm pretty happy with this find. We have a couple of the Frogg Toggs Chilly Pads (mostly used by Dillon with baseball), but what I love about this Amazon purchase is that they have their own little pouches and not some obnoxious plastic tube.

Second row, center:
eBags Pack-it-Flat toiletry organizer. Organization is the name of the game! With a couple of out-of-state tournaments this year, we'll see great mileage out of these. Mitch and I will share one and the kids will share another one. I'm a pretty low maintenance gal and don't wear much makeup, so these are the perfect size. Clutter and disorganization is an anxiety trigger for me, so I really love all of the compartments that these toiletry organizers have. Everything has a home.

Second row, right:
Shower Foot massager/scrubber. Great for every day life, but Disney really takes a toll on my feet (just like everyone else, I am sure). This product is supposed to improve foot circulation and reduce foot pain, so we'll see. Right now, all I can tell you is that this thing tickles the tar out of my feet. On my first Disney trip, I was woefully underprepared in the foot care game and I will not make that mistake again.

That's it for this installation of 'Shanna giving all of her money to Disney and Amazon'. I have a few things saved to my Disney list in Amazon that I will buy as we continue to wait for our November trip and I will, of course, update y'all along the way.

What are your go-to purchases to prepare for Disney? Is there a product that you swear by?

One final thing...

WHAT IS THE MAYBE SOMETHING REALLY BIG?!



WHO WOULD BE IN FOR A FREAKIN BASEBALL TOURNEY AT DISNEY!? UM OMG OMG OMG

ME ME ME ME ME! PUT ME IN COACH!

(yes, I am screaming)

My response?


Hopefully we'll find out soon if we are planning this. OMG Y'ALL!




​

 

[RollTideinMD]

Following along!

So happy to have you here!

 

[lcc2]

Gotta love Amazon!

 

[Bama Mom]

Puttin' Amazon to work and potentially something really big!
I find it hard to believe that there was a time in my life that I didn't think that my monthly Prime bill was worth the cost. Each month when that automatic payment would hit my account for, like, $13 bucks, I'd ask myself if the Amazon Prime subscription was worth the cost. Then COVID hit and I sold my soul to Amazon. It's like some weird form of Christmas all year 'round.

What are your go-to purchases to prepare for Disney? Is there a product that you swear by?
​

LOL I had the same feeling about the Amazon Prime membership price but we have definitely got our money's worth in the past year.

I actually have an amazon package coming today for our trip. I had them in my cart and hubby placed an order for some things he needed for a job and went ahead and ordered my stuff too. I ordered more poopouri because mine is almost out. With 6 people in a family suite, we need it (even if we are all girls) and some epsom salt get for our feet at night. Someone on the March thread suggested it so I thought we would try it on our trip. Hopefully it will help with our tired worn out feet if we use it at the end of the night.

 

[RollTideinMD]

If you like obsessive planning, come sit by me!
Happy, Happy Friday my friends! I was hanging out in some Disney Facebook Groups this morning and someone posted a picture of the bus line at Pop, which was all the way back to the Lobby entrance!

Cue mini crisis. This week, I have been on the fence about choosing to fly down and depend on Disney transportation or if we should suck it up and drive down from Maryland. We're rope drop people and the latest advice is to line up about 90 minutes before park opening each day.

I talked it through with Mitch and he was very firm on not driving from Maryland to Orlando. That answers that question! I guess now the choice to be made is to arrive to transportation ~90 minutes early or Uber.

Our current park strategy is:
Rope Drop
Ride ride ride
QA lunch and shopping
Mid-Day break
Go back to the parks and ride ride ride

I'll continue to stay dialed in with Trip Reports and 'Here Now' posts on the boards and see how things continue to play out.

Meanwhile, I've been plugging away in my Google Sheet and wanted to share some of that here (slightly modified for some sense of privacy).



I am totally cracking myself up because I know everything above without writing it down, but there is something satisfying about seeing it in black and grey in front of my face.


Ah - the budget portion of my spreadsheet. Gosh, Disney is expensive.

but...

it's worth it!

The $6k in gift cards is for all of our dining, shopping, and experiences. It's probably too much, but we like to eat, drink, and shop! I like to collect coffee mugs (especially the SBux 'You Are Here') mugs and jewelry. I imagine that we'll end up building a couple of Droids during our time in Galaxy's Edge.

Ideally I'd like to spend $5k or less, but I'd rather have a nice cushion and not spend our vacation penny pinching.


As part of developing our park strategy, I have started stalking wait times on the app and making a note of what the wait times look like during the day (DHS and AK are further down on the sheet). It seems tedious, but I enjoy it. I collect a lot of analytics as part of my job; this level of detail comes naturally to me. The goal of tracking wait times over the next several months will allow for me to better figure out which rides to hit first. I did subscribe to Touring Plans and our park days are looking pretty good on the crowd estimator so far.

I normally would not go to these lengths in non-COVID times and this is our last trip that we'll take the kids out of school for (as they're getting older, it's hard for them to miss a week of school) and I am dying to make the most of it.

And hey, if FP+ or some variation of it comes back, no harm no foul. Again, I find joy in this process.



Lastly, here we have a daily plan (each day has its own tab). I'll detail out a transportation game plan, touring plans, must-dos (knowing full and well you can't do EVERYTHING in a single trip), and our dining plans for the day. Eventually, I will sketch out our daily strategy to simply form an ideal itinerary for each day as a whole. I'm not a minute by minute planner, but having a rough idea of what our day will look like will help us win Disney.

I love involving the kids with this part of the planning - learning what their must-dos is so important to me. I also think that I am going to have everyone choose a restaurant that they have have have to eat at for dinner while we are in Disney (hoping and wishing that I could snag an ADR when the window opens). It builds so much excitement and will help these next 236 days pass.










​

 

[BobaFettFan]

Lady, you had my interest but now you have my attention.

My family is arriving the week before Thanksgiving. I feel and hope that by November, we will be able to get a lot of 'normal' back with fast passes and such. That being said, my wife and I plan to succeed when it comes to Disney. I didn't think to look at average trends in line rides for any significant duration but now I think it might be a must do.

After the crazy reaction to spring break in Florida, I'm less convinced that we'll be all mapped out "at six months out" like our honeymoon trip years ago.

Have you posted on the 'semi' official November thread? I think everyone might be interested in information you pull together.

 

[BobaFettFan]

https://www.disboards.com/threads/november-2021.3810561/page-7#post-62809432

 

[jmakesmagic]

LOVE all your charts. we'll be going in mid november as well. following along!

 

[RollTideinMD]

Hey Friends, long time no talk!

I don't have too much to update right now, I'm just trying to hold myself together at work and with these busy little kids of mine. We are in the midst of baseball season, with out of town/state tournaments every weekend.

I've started collecting moving boxes for the big move next month! I'm not sure how I will find time to pack, but I always find a way.

Speaking of moving, Mitch and I attended a wedding together last weekend and had a lovely time together. Now, of course, all I can think about it planning a wedding one day and all of the magical Disney touches that I want to make happen.



We cute.

We're officially 180 days out from our fall 2021 trip! I really wish that I would've been up at 6:00am making those ADRs, but waiting never killed anyone.

To keep this update more Disney related..


I made our Park Reservations as soon as we booked and I have not adjusted them since (I am somewhat terrified to do so).

Here's what we've got:
Wednesday, November 3: Arrival Day & Disney Springs
I am salivating over a Gideon's Bakehouse cookie from 899.1 miles away (I googled it. I'm serious) and I've got my sights set on Homecomin' and a chocolate chip cookie. I haven't booked our flights yet (that will be in July), but we always take the first flight out of Baltimore, which lands at MCO around 9:00am, so I am crossing my fingers for lunch at Homecomin'.

In addition to chasing a Gideon's Bakehouse cookie, I can't wait to do a little shopping at Sugarboo and hit the cupcake ATM.

I'm not sure where our day will take us after that - I'm THINKING we'll have dinner at a resort, but I'm waiting to see what all opens up between now and then. As of this moment, Cape May Cafe is sounding pretty good!

Thursday, November 4: Magic Kingdom
Our first park day will be spent at Magic Kingdom and as of this moment, despite having hoppers, I am mentally planning on a full day at MK as this park is very much a full park day for us. The deciding factor will be whether or not we can get into LTT for dinner that night.

Friday, November 5: Epcot
I am sooo ready to eat and drink around the world during Epcot's Food and Wine festival

And while I have yet to think about the rest of our trip, I have the following park reservations..

Saturday, November 6: Hollywood Studios
Sunday, November 7: Animal Kingdom
Monday: Hollywood Studios (I'm trying my darndest to get on RoTR)

So the waiting game continues, the days seem to drag on, but the months are moving quickly.
​