Flowers and Star Wars and Harry, oh my! TR started, link inside!

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

So I was looking at the photopass website this evening as we always get the photopass cd and I had heard that you can preorder it and save $50 off the usual price bringing the cost of the cd to $100. Another pre-order offer they have is the cd and a photobook for $150. Have any of you ever made a photobook through the photopass website? What was your experience with it? Is it worth the extra money?

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Since I am now done school and have extra time on my hands I have reworked our vacation itinerary. I also noticed that the park hours have changed for May and extra Fantasmic and Electrical Parade showings have been added. Here is the link to the Travel Agent Calendar which I use as it is reported to be updated more often and thus more accurate than the calendar on the official WDW website.

http://www.disneytravelagents.com/S.../pdf/ParkHours/WDW_Operating_Calendar_may.pdf

Without further ado, here is our new itinerary! Old plan in red, new plan in purple.

May 11th - Arrival Day
We should be at WDW by noon, hopefully our room will be ready, if not, no big deal. We will spend the afternoon getting settled which means a trip to the grocery store to stock up on breakfast foods and snacks. Lunch at Downtown Disney or perhaps off-site and then some pool time. We have two choices for dinner this night 1) Chef Mickey's at 5pm or Ohana at 6:40. I haven't decided which place we will eat at yet.

Arrive at MCO at 10am, hopefully we will be at Coronado Springs by noon. We have an ADR at T-Rex for 2pm. I tried making an ADR for this on a different day but it is all booked up so I am sticking with this day and time. The day will be spent settling in (grocery shopping, unpacking, hanging out by the pool). We will end the day watching Survivor and then early to bed!

May 12th
Hollywood Studios
Lunch at 50's Prime Time
Fantasmic

Unchanged. The park has extended their hours this day and added an extra Fantasmic.

May 13th
Animal Kingdom
Early entry breakfast reservation at Tusker House
Dinner at T-Rex at Downtown Disney?

Magic Kingdom 9am-10pm
Lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern
Dinner at Chef Mickey's or quick service

May 14th
Epcot
Flower and Garden Festival
Lunch at Le Cellier (hopefully the lunch menu doesn't change too much since this is changing to a Signature restaurant for dinner).
Dinner ?

Epcot
Lunch at Beaches and Cream
Late dinner at Via Napoli
Pixar Weekend
Flower and Garden Festival

May 15th
Epcot
Beaches and Cream Lunch
Via Napoli Dinner

Epcot
Flower and Garden Festival
Pixar Weekend
Lunch at Le Cellier
Survivor Finale


May 16th
Magic Kingdom
Early Entry breakfast reservation at Crystal Palace
Dinner at The Plaza

Magic Kingdom 9-11
Early Entry breakfast at Crystal Palace
Late Lunch at Tony's, hopefully we will be seated on the patio so we can watch the afternoon parade while we eat.
Electrical Parade

May 17th - Universal

May 18th - Universal

May 19th
Day off
Probably a water park day
Breakfast at Boma
Dinner at Medieval Times

May 20th
open park day
Dinner at Medieval Times?

Hollywood Studios 8am-12am
Star Wars Weekends
Late Lunch at Sci-Fi
Fantasmic at 9 and 10:30

May 21st
Water park morning/afternoon, Magic Kingdom evening
Late lunch at Liberty Tree Tavern

Open day, probably a water park and Epcot. No dining reservations.

May 22nd
Star Wars Weekend at Hollywood Studios
Late lunch at Sci-Fi

Animal Kingdom 8am-8pm
No dining reservations


May 23rd
open park day
Breakfast at 1900 Park Fare?

Epcot
Lunch at Chefs de France

May 24th
off day
Breakfast at Ohana?

Open Day, water park, Magic Kingdom or Animal Kingdom
No dining reservation

May 25th
Open Park day/Departure
Early Breakfast at Crystal Palace

Open Day
Lunch at Raglan Road

 

[pinkxray]

Thanks for posting the new May hours. Glad to see they have added the 2nd showing of Fantasmic the nights we wanted to see it.


Congrats on being done with school work for 4 months!

 

[jenbear123]

Your plans look great! You have a lot to look forward to - Pixar Weekend AND Star Wars Weekend! That's going to be so much fun. I'm excited to hear what you think of Raglan Road. I've got a dinner planned there for my trip in July but since I've never been there, I'd love to hear what you think! I can't remember (please forgive me!) but are you renting a car while you're there? I like how your first day is planned. I'm always eager to run off to the first park but taking it easy when you first get there is always a good idea. I hope you can make it to your lunch ADR at T-rex! How come you scrapped dinner at either Chef Mickey's or O'hana? Just curious

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Your plans look great! You have a lot to look forward to - Pixar Weekend AND Star Wars Weekend! That's going to be so much fun. I'm excited to hear what you think of Raglan Road. I've got a dinner planned there for my trip in July but since I've never been there, I'd love to hear what you think! I can't remember (please forgive me!) but are you renting a car while you're there? I like how your first day is planned. I'm always eager to run off to the first park but taking it easy when you first get there is always a good idea. I hope you can make it to your lunch ADR at T-rex! How come you scrapped dinner at either Chef Mickey's or O'hana? Just curious

Yep, we always rent a car when we go down. We like the freedom it presents us with as we don't have to wait for crowded buses and it allows us to go off property.

Chef Mickey's was scrapped for arrival night as Erich said he would be too tired to eat a big buffet meal after also eating lunch and we would be way too hungry to wait until dinner to eat.

I scrapped Ohana for the same reason as Chef Mickey's but also because I don't think my mom would be able to eat what they serve because of her MS, not worth the price.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Thanks for posting the new May hours. Glad to see they have added the 2nd showing of Fantasmic the nights we wanted to see it.


Congrats on being done with school work for 4 months!

I was happy to see the two Fantasmic showings as well. We always try and go the later showing when possible, not as crowded, don't need to wait as long and the park is usually pretty empty as most are in the theatre watching the first show.

 

[PirateKate]

I sort of wish they wouldn't change the hours at the last minute. I guess the extra Fantasmic shows will be handy for you all, though. I just hope the later hours don't indicate higher crowds.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

I sort of wish they wouldn't change the hours at the last minute. I guess the extra Fantasmic shows will be handy for you all, though. I just hope the later hours don't indicate higher crowds.

I suspect that they changed the hours because of crowds but on all of our past trips this has happened and we get there and have no problems, perhaps that is because I am an expert park planner. Heck, we went over the Fourth of July and had a great time with little to no crowd impact.

 

[wdwgirl03]

Hi there! I'm really late but saw your post on my TR and thought I'd join in. I've got to catch up but I did see you are going to go to Universal! My sisters and I went in August, mainly for WWOHP, and loved it! We ended up going early since we really only cared to see the Harry Potter stuff and it worked out pretty well for us. The one thing I will say (I don't know if you mentioned it) is that Forbidden Journey has a single riders line that isn't really advertised at all. We did FJ first all together so we could walk through the queue and then later on we rode single riders and it only took about five minutes! The only bad thing was, like you said, the rest of the park was pretty crowded so we didn't get to do much else. But we were fine with just doing the WWOHP stuff. It was great!

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Hi there! I'm really late but saw your post on my TR and thought I'd join in. I've got to catch up but I did see you are going to go to Universal! My sisters and I went in August, mainly for WWOHP, and loved it! We ended up going early since we really only cared to see the Harry Potter stuff and it worked out pretty well for us. The one thing I will say (I don't know if you mentioned it) is that Forbidden Journey has a single riders line that isn't really advertised at all. We did FJ first all together so we could walk through the queue and then later on we rode single riders and it only took about five minutes! The only bad thing was, like you said, the rest of the park was pretty crowded so we didn't get to do much else. But we were fine with just doing the WWOHP stuff. It was great!

Hey there! Thanks for joining in! Thanks for the advise about WWOHP. We will definitely use the single rider line if we have to in order to get through the line quickly and then double back and go through the castle tour line to take pictures. I hope we get to experience some of the rest of the park, IOA looks really neat! We may decide to add another day to our tickets and return later in the trip if we really like it and run out of time.

 

[englishrose47]

Morning Lessa !! Originally we planned on doing Universal too but cost wise we couldn't swing it !!!Carol and I are eyeing a Universal Free Trip next year so if that happens I will be looking for lots of TIPS!!!

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

mmm the homemade corn beef hash at crystal palace great way to start the day.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Morning Lessa !! Originally we planned on doing Universal too but cost wise we couldn't swing it !!!Carol and I are eyeing a Universal Free Trip next year so if that happens I will be looking for lots of TIPS!!!

Universal isn't going anywhere, you still have lots of time to visit on future trips.

mmm the homemade corn beef hash at crystal palace great way to start the day.

I'm thinking waffles, bacon and puffy french toast.

 

[Sundancer UK]

How have I not seen this PTR before?! Look at the dates!!

I'm staying (first time ever) at Disney May 10-24th! As I'm such a newb I'm gonna have to follow you like a hawk for tips...

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

How have I not seen this PTR before?! Look at the dates!!

I'm staying (first time ever) at Disney May 10-24th! As I'm such a newb I'm gonna have to follow you like a hawk for tips...

Crazy! You are going to have so much fun! If you have any questions feel free to ask!

 

[Marshay]

Thanks for the new park hours. I hadn't been to the TA site in a while so will check them out.

I see you changed both 5/14 and 5/15 to Epcot days

Hope to see you guys there.

I'm hoping to do: F&G, Pixar and 2 Dismeets (5/14 @ 3pm American Fountains and 5/15 @ 1pm UK) -- whew!!

 

[All7OfUs]

Just letting you know I haven't abandoned you... just a busy time and now a dead computer. I'll be back asap to really catch up

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Thanks for the new park hours. I hadn't been to the TA site in a while so will check them out.

I see you changed both 5/14 and 5/15 to Epcot days

Hope to see you guys there.

I'm hoping to do: F&G, Pixar and 2 Dismeets (5/14 @ 3pm American Fountains and 5/15 @ 1pm UK) -- whew!!

I thought all of my May readers would appreciate the hours.

Pixar weekend sounds like fun but as I think about it more there are really only a few characters that will really entice me. Boo from Monsters Inc, the more unusual Toy Story characters and Remy and Emile. The rest, well, most of them can be found in the other parks on a regular basis or we have already met them before. My hope is that everybody will be so taken up with meeting all the Pixar characters that there are less crowds in the pavilions and at the rides.

Just letting you know I haven't abandoned you... just a busy time and now a dead computer. I'll be back asap to really catch up

No worries.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

We are one step closer to the trip! I got my tax refund today so I went straight to the bank and took out some US money for the trip. The exchange rate is so good right now that I didn't want to risk waiting until closer to the trip to change some money over. Alek also came over tonight and we spent the evening rolling change. We rolled $150 in change which will be going into our dining fund and there there is a bunch more change that we should be able to finish rolling in the next few weeks for an extra $30.

 

[All7OfUs]

We are one step closer to the trip! I got my tax refund today so I went straight to the bank and took out some US money for the trip. The exchange rate is so good right now that I didn't want to risk waiting until closer to the trip to change some money over. Alek also came over tonight and we spent the evening rolling change. We rolled $150 in change which will be going into our dining fund and there there is a bunch more change that we should be able to finish rolling in the next few weeks for an extra $30.

Let the good times roll!!