Happily ever after again: our Disneyversary! April 2017 PTR

[windcriesamy]

Is this thing on? This is my first PTR, so...I hope I'm doing this right!

Who even are you?

I'm Amy. I'm 32 and work as a sales manager at a major US retailer. My favorite color is purple and I love nail polish, board games, Broadway musicals, and a good guacamole.

That tall guy is my husband, Thomas. He's 34 and works as an afterschool program coordiantor. He loves Star Wars, roller coasters, computer games, and peanut butter anything.

Once upon a time...
We met in college and got married in 2013 after TEN years of dating. Yes. Ten years.
Anyway, when we were discussing planning our honeymoon, the idea of going to Disney World was the first thing to come to mind that really made sense. Most of the other couples I knew went on cruises or booked all-inclusive resorts somewhere tropical, and while those sounded lovely, that just wasn't us. But when I came to the DISboards and started reading trip reports about Disneymoons, I knew THAT was what we wanted to do. So we did, and it was beautiful and magical and wonderful.

Fast forward about three years, and I really had the Disney itch again. We managed a family trip to Disneyland when we were visiting California last summer, which was great but really just whet my appetite for another WDW visit. So on Election Day last year, with all the turmoil in the country weighing heavily on both of us, I felt the need for escapism and got on the MDE app and started pricing vacations for the 1,237th time. But then I asked Thomas, "what if, instead of Christmas presents...we put our money toward another Disney vacation?" OF COURSE. After we talked more, we decided to forgo Valentine's Day and anniversary presents to pay for a trip in the spring of 2017.

And, by happy accident...
My husband's spring break falls the week before Easter this year! So we'll be going to Disney April 9th-14th, just a few days after our fourth anniversary!

 

[windcriesamy]

In which we change our minds about sixty times
Where to stay? I was determined to pick a moderate resort. We stayed at CSR on our honeymoon and LOVED it! It was quiet and romantic and beautiful. Unfortunately, CSR didn't have any availability during our window. Boo! A little shopping around showed we could get a standard room at CBR for the days we wanted. Great! I was ready to book it for April 9-12 along with the QS dining plan and a three-day ticket for each of us. Initially we planned on spending one day in Magic Kingdom, one in Epcot, and splitting the last day between Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. But with all the hype around nighttime events in AK, we realized we would really want a day for each park instead. Okay, so we agreed to pinch pennies and extend our stay through the 13th and get a FOUR day ticket! "But, my love, there is no four day ticket! It skips from three to five days!" "What?! Seriously?" "Seriously. The fourth day is...what's this word? 'Free'?" Okay...so then we decided maybe possibly we could get to Disney early enough on the 9th to get most of a day out of HS, and then go do a part of a day at MK after checking out and before flying home maybe I guess? "Okay sure great BOOK IT!" But we looked in our wallets and watched the little cartoon moths fly out and realized we really couldn't afford a moderate resort, and a dining plan, AND five day tickets, AND air fare there and back, AND souvenirs. I did some math and realized if we ditched the dining plan, agreed to drive rather than fly, and downgraded to a value resort, we'd save money AND be able to add an extra day to our stay. No more trying to stuff arrival and departure day park visits! "OKAY GREAT BOOK IT FOR REAL." "OKAY I DID THE THING."

omg, tl;dr version plz thx
We'll be staying at the All-Star Movie resort from April 9th-14th.

 

[windcriesamy]

What to dooooo
Our touring plans are still a work in progress, but here's a tentative look:

April 9: Arrival, Hollywood Studios (9:00a - 9:00p)
It's about a nine hour drive from our parking lot to the All-Star resorts. I thiiiiink we'll leave in the wee hours of the morning on the 9th and trade off driving so we get a little rest. My super optimistic goal is to get to Orlando around 12:00 or 1:00. Once we arrive, we'll see if our room is ready. If not, no big. We'll mostly be running on adrenaline and caffeine at this point, so that's the perfect time to hit the parks, right?! I figured since this was a truncated day and HS sort of has less to do than the other parks, we'd head there for day one. Star Tours is one of our favorite rides, so we might see how many times we can manage to ride it
FP+: Star Tours, Tower of Terror
ADRs: None

April 10: Epcot & Flower and Garden!!! (9:00a - 9:00p)
Epcot was our favorite on our honeymoon since Flower and Garden was going on and everything was so beautiful, plus the World Showcase is so great! The last time we went, we had ADRs for both evenings we spent in the park, so other than one celebratory drink, we didn't take advantage of any of the F&G food cart offerings. This time will certainly be different! We're both foodies and will be Snacking/Drinking Around the World! Epcot is really the reason I've been hesitant to book many ADRs, as I'm sure we'll be spending a lot of money here.
FP+: Frozen Ever After
ADRs: None, because we will be soooo fat

April 11: Magic Kingdom (7:00a EMH - 12:00a)
I almost hate to wait until the third day of our trip to make it over to MK, but it's just working out that way with our plans. This is the park that really requires a lot of planning for us since there's SO MUCH to see! Touringplans.com is helping me out a whole lot (especially by helping me with their ADR request texts!)
FP+: Peter Pan's Flight, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
ADRs: Liberty Tree Tavern, 12:45p; Be Our Guest, 8:00p

April 12: Animal Kingdom (9:00a - 9:30p); Maybe MK again?
I have Kilimanjaro Safari and Expedition Everest FP+ booked already, along with a Rivers of Light (it'll have juuust had it's hard open, so I'm hoping it'll be worth it to have gotten a FP).
What I would LOVE to do is surprise my husby with a Wild Africa Trek or Savor the Savanna tour. I'm still trying to see if I can pinch enough pennies to make it work, and of course I'll have to be lucky enough to score a couple of spots for us on a tour. We didn't know about the Trek before we went on our honeymoon, but when we saw the entrance near Kilimanjaro Safari and read about the tour, we both agreed it would be something cool to do someday. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
Since AK closes at 9:30, we're considering adding the park hopper option to our tickets either this day or the next. MK has EMH until 2:00 a.m., so if we felt like leaving AK after the first RoL show, we could swing by MK and hang out for a while and maybe ride some more popular stuff during Wishes? What do you all think?
FP+: Kilimanjaro Safaris, Expedition Everest, Rivers of Light
ADRs: None, but we have a Savor the Savanna tour booked for 5:00!

April 13: Magic Kingdom agaaaaain/or HS/Epcot maybe? (MK 7:00a EMH - 12:00a; HS 9:00a - 9:00p; EP 8:00a EMH - 9:00p)
I'm not so sure about what we'll be doing for our last day. MK makes sense, but we'll likely have the park hopper on our tickets at this point and may hit HS or Epcot again? We're still working this one out, BUT...we have a late ADR at the California Grill so we can watch Wishes from the Contemporary!
FP+: none...
ADRs: California Grill, 9:35p

April 14: Check out/Disney Springs/head home ;_;
We'll check out in the morning and likely head to Disney Springs for a little while to poke around and have lunch before our looooong drive back! Disney Springs was under construction the last time we were there, so we definitely want to check it out. What's your favorite thing to see there?


Any feedback or suggestions are welcome! Watch this space for updates!

 

[windcriesamy]

Reserved for other otherness

 

[iheartbelle87]

Hi... I'm in! DH and I also went to WDW for our honeymoon AND we stayed at CSR! Sounds like you have a some great plans

 

[windcriesamy]

Hi... I'm in! DH and I also went to WDW for our honeymoon AND we stayed at CSR! Sounds like you have a some great plans

That's awesome! I wish we could've gone back there, but maybe next time

 

[windcriesamy]

So I used touringplans.com to look out for a BOG dinner reservation during our stay, and one opened up at 8:00 on the 11th!! I'm pretty pumped, since we really enjoyed the theming when we were there last time, but now I need to try to work it into our plans somehow. That was supposed to be Our eat-and-drink-around-the-World day at Epcot, so we obviously won't be hungry for dinner that day.

Of COURSE I'm getting ready to leave for work right now! I'll be thinking about this until lunch time when I can sit down and try to figure it out!

 

[windcriesamy]

Okay, my plans have been updated to accommodate our BOG ADR. It required some switching around of days, but I think it might work out better this way since we won't be hitting as many parks on EMH days so they'll be a liiiiiittle less crowded. I'm still trying to figure out what to do on our last day, though.

In other news, since they had the free shipping promotion for President's Day, I ordered a Vera Bradley wristlet from the Disney Store site AND a Mickey Magic Keeper from the Shop Parks app. I'm so excited to be Disneyfied in the parks!!

 

[windcriesamy]

Okay, we're 11 days out! I worked a lot of overtime last week and made bank, so I called this morning to see if I could book a Savor the Savanna tour for our AK day. The wait time to speak with a CM was over 30 minutes, so I put the phone on speaker and cleaned up in the kitchen while I waited. About 32 minutes into the call, when I was all done cleaning, I picked up my phone to move to the computer and I ACCIDENTALLY HUNG UP So I called back again, waited around 20 minutes, and finally got to speak with an extremely nice CM who was able to book us for either the 5:00 or 6:15 slot!! I chose the 5:00, since the tour is around two hours and we have FP+ for RoL at around 8:00.

I'M SO EXCITED!!! I want to surprise my husband, but I don't know how long I can keep this a secret! He's already been trying to make some kind of dinner plans for AK...