I Guess This Makes Us Officialy Disney Freaks...a 15th Anniversary Pre-Trip Report

[imama]

See, we were SUPPOSED to take this trip to New Orleans in June...

Well, maybe we shouldn't start THERE, perhaps we should begin with some introductions:

Hi! We're the Duncans and we are officially Disney Nuts now.

I'm Malinda, the park planner and Disney dreamer. My husband, Jamie, is a willing participant in my scheming Our fabulous kids, Jay (12), Annie (10) and Jane (5) are along for every ride and enjoy EVERY minute. Well, except THIS time. Yep...we are leaving the kids at home and taking an adults only trip to Disney. I can't wait to tell you how this trip just came about YESTERDAY. I also can't wait to start my trip report from our trip last month. Nothing better than planning a new trip while you finish up the details from the last one.

I'm excited to share this journey with you!

 

[imama]

It was a sad Disney Day in February 2014, as our family of five boarded the Tragical Express for our ride to MCO and flight back to Oklahoma. We knew that we would be telling Disney "See Ya Real Soon!" until January of 2016...that seemed a looong time away.

And for me, it really seemed like an extra long time, since planning Disney trips has become a hobby of sorts. WHAT would I do with my time before I could start planning our next trip? You understand...

But my husband, Jamie, and I had an anniversary trip planned for that summer. We had planned on taking a trip to New Orleans, for some food tours, art museums and general relaxing. I began researching hotels and prime places to eat (told you, I like planning). We had everything pretty much set and ready to book...until.

I got up last Thursday morning with my coffee and pulled up my standard coffee reading material...the DISboards. I happened upon this post (and for the life of me, I can't remember what it was even about) and someone mentioned the cost of Pop Century for two people.

And suddenly...it occurred to me. Nah...THAT would be crazy! We JUST got back! What would people say??

But I checked on the price of a package staying at Pop with three day park tickets. There was a special offer. Huh. That was less expensive than I thought. I sent a text to Jamie, you know, just to tell him what I had looked at. Kind of a "Ha ha...isn't this funny that I would even look. Tell me to stop in my tracks." kind of text. Only, he didn't laugh. He said, "Check for air fare."

Well. He did NOT tell me to stop in my tracks. Soooo...I MAY have called Disney Reservations and checked prices and put a hold on a reservation. You know, just in case. And then I MAY have called Disney Dining to book a few dining reservations. You know, just in case. And then I sent him a text, just to let him know that there was no monetary commitment, but that I had done this, you know, just in case.

BUT THEN...tragedy struck!! (What's a good story without a bit of conflict?) We realized that the week I had booked with the special offer, was not actually his vacation week. His vacation week was the NEXT week, which had no special offer. With a sad, sad heart, I called Disney back, just to check prices, knowing that I would have to cancel the reservation. But Disney came through! The price, with a preferred room, only went up by fifty dollars. With THAT was an unexpected piece of good news. So I kept the booking. And added the dining plan. Oops. And then changed all of our dining reservations.

As the day wore on, the texts flew back and forth between us. Despite my growing excitement, we still were unsure that we would actually book this trip. New Orleans would be considerably less expensive and not require airfare. AND we wouldn't be getting any grief about taking ANOTHER Disney trip (our fourth..and we JUST got back). AND we DID want to see New Orleans again (it has been a while since we have been there). So, we debated. And made a pros and cons list. And looked at very expensive plane tickets.

And then we found a good deal on plane tickets. And our pro list for Disney grew and grew with all the grown up things we wanted to try that we never had the opportunity to do. And we realized that this was on our bucket list of things to do together without kids, and even though it we had just gotten back, it would be worth going again. And with both sets of our parents so close to New Orleans, we would have lots of chances to get there for a weekend getaway sometime...who knew if this Disney opportunity would present itself again like this.

And so, I booked it. And with two trips in four months, we were instantly pushed into the "We are Disney Freaks" category. I'm happy to be there.

 

[imama]

With our package booked, I began nailing down details. We were booked at Pop Century from 6/22-6/26. Our plane arrives at 3:00 and doesn't depart until 4:30 on the afternoon of the 26th. I felt like this gives us a bit more time, even with only having three park days.

The first step was to nail down our dining reservations. The more I looked at it, the more the dining plan just didn't fit us for this trip. We always save lots of money with it when we bring the kids, so I just assumed that would be the case. But as I looked at the prices and the amount of food I knew we wouldn't eat, it just wasn't cost effective. But taking away the dining plan would change some of the restaurants I had booked the day before (Twice, in fact). And thus, the restaurant discussion began in earnest.

I had booked a signature dining restaurant, The Flying Fish, when we had the dining plan. But without the dining plan, I had decided that we should eat as cheaply as possible, with only a few table service restaurants at Via Napoli and The Plaza. The rest would be counter service. I'm TRYING to be cost conscious here. But, with this being an anniversary trip, AND a trip without kids, Jamie really wanted to eat at a signature restaurant. So, back to the drawing boards. We poured over menus, read reviews and finally decided on Citrocos on our arrival night. With that part out of the way, I assumed we wouldn't need another table service, but Jamie had really wanted to try Prime Time at DHS (we usually eat at Sci Fi with the kids) so we added this as well. Even with those restaurants, we can share snacks and meals at counter service restaurants and still save a good deal of money over the dining plan. So, I called to cancel that, and added the new dining reservations.

This is what our (hopefully) final dining plans look like:
Citrocos-6/22-at 7:45 (hopefully will have time to walk out to the dock and see MK fireworks)
Via Napoli-6/23-at 7:00
Prime Time-6/24 at 1:45
The Plaza-6/25 at 6:35


With the dining part out of the way, I began listing the ideas we had for our "Grown ups only" trip.

 

[imama]

Every time we have been to Disney World, Jamie and I have eyed the different tours offered enviously. We knew the kids (especially the five year old) would never be interested. We figured that this would be something we might experience when they were significantly older. Like, married with their own children. But suddenly, the world of tours had been opened to us!

Now, we are cost conscious here, so I didn't want to go overboard and spend too much money on the tours themselves. We knew that the Behind the Seeds tour was a MUST do, since Jamie has been interested in this for years. Gardening is one of his hobbies, and Living with the Land is one of his favorite attractions, so this tour was obvious. Plus, the price is awesome, so yay there! My bucket list item has always been the Keys to the Kingdom tour. But...hello...the $80.00 price tag was just too much to ask Jamie about after already taking a trip that was more expensive than our original New Orleans plans. So, I put that thought out of my head and decided to book the Behind the Seeds and was perfectly happy.

Until...

I woke up this morning, and with my DISboards/coffee time, noticed a post reviewing some of the tours at WDW. One of them was the Marceline to Magic Kingdom tour. I had never heard of this tour, but the poster seemed to love it. So, I looked up some reviews and prices. With a $30.00 per person price tag, it was MUCH more in budget than the KTTK tour. And the reviews were outstanding. I was so excited! The texts flew again. And once again, I wished I could just CALL Jamie at work. After much waiting around for him to respond and look up the tour himself, he excitedly told me to go ahead and book that as well.

I called this morning and booked both with my Disney Visa. The total price with the Disney Visa discount was:
Behind the Seeds-34.00 for both of us
MtMK-51.12 for both of us

I thought those were great prices, and perfectly in budget. And they made me even MORE excited about this trip.

For this quick get away, we have three park days and numerous things we want to accomplish in each park that we have never seen.

For our Epcot day-Obviously, we want to repeat our favorites (Soarin' and TT). We are also taking the Behind the Seeds tour and will actually get to watch some of the movies in World Showcase that we have always wanted to see. Jamie also plans to drink a lot of beer.

For our DHS day-I plan to FINALLY ride ToT. My older kids have hated this ride since the first time they rode it. Jamie rode it with them during our first trip and we used a rider switch pass, thinking I would ride with one of the kids when we switched. Only the kids HATED it. Lol! And since I didn't want to ride by myself, I missed my opportunity. And would you believe that two more trips after that (and numerous years) my adventure loving kids (who LOVE R&R coaster) will STILL not ride that ride?? So I have never ridden. And even though the idea of the drops TERRIFY me, I would LOVE to experience this ride...so I will suck it up. We also are planning to watch Fantasmic for the first time. We have done this park three times (once was during Star Wars weekends...it was awesome!) and we have never made this show. The five year old (who has been 3 and barely 2 during previous trips) is never able to hang quite long enough to see this show. This park always falls in the middle of our trips and everyone is so exhausted by the time the afternoon rolls around that we always leave early. I am very much looking forward to seeing it. That way I will know if it is worth dragging my tired people to next time.

For our MK day-Obviously we are doing the MtMK tour that starts at 8:15 and runs about three hours. This cuts down into a lot of morning touring time, but since we JUST got back, I don't feel like I have to have a commando touring plan to hit every ride. We will probably use FP+ to HOPEFULLY ride the new Seven Dwarves Mine Train (pretty please??) and will fastpass something else of interest (haven't decided yet). We don't mind waiting in line for POC since this is a favorite. Mostly, I just want to enjoy MK in a relaxing way, without dragging the kids from ride to ride. We don't mind standing in lines a bit since we won't have the kids. The only other thing that I really want to Fastpass is Wishes. We used a fastpass for this in January and it was AMAZING. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

And so, our park plans are fairly well set and I am just waiting for my time to pick fastpasses. Our Magic Bands are customized (I went with green this time and Jamie went with blue). I had such fun painting my yellow magic band and fixing it with rhinestones for our January trip. I am making plans for my new magic band now. I think I am going to go with a Monsters Inc temporary tattoo, fixed with clear nail polish and decorated with some blue rhinestone Mickey heads. This plan is subject to change at a moment's notice.

 

[imama]

Annnd...I'm horrified as I have just noticed I misspelled "officially" in my title. And for the life go me, I cannot figure out how to edit it. Oh well. The English major in me will just have to "Let it Go". I'm punny when I want to be...