Insert cute name here - Oct 2017 Family Trip

[BabyHabs]

I'll update the name once something cute pops into my head.

I've never done a pre-trip report before. I've decided to do one now because every time I bring up any plans to my DH, he rolls his eyes. Also, it's a surprise for the kids, so they don't know and I can't discuss it with them.

No one gets the fun of Disney trip planning quite like the DIS. No one. So I thought I'd share all the mental craziness that's going on inside my head right now as I'm trying to plan this lovely vacation out.

The WHO: DH and I (although if he keeps rolling his eyes, I may need to leave him home. I'm kidding, I won't because the kids would drive me mad). We both work in the IT field. I'm the Disney obsessed one. I love everything Disney. My favorites are Beauty and the Beast, Frozen and I'm really enjoying Moana. DH has no Disney favorites.

The boys: We have 2 sons, ages 8 and 10 - Riley and Jacob. They are typical of their age and love Star Wars and everything Pirates related. They LOVE thrill rides, although Jacob still isn't a fan of dark rides. Riley also loves singing along to Frozen and Moana, although he'll never admit it to his friends. On our last trip, he enjoyed the Frozen singalong more the anyone. Jacob is the grumpy one of the bunch and it takes alot to make him happy or impress him. Riley is the one that bounces off the walls and could talk anyone's ear off.

The Lauryn is 3, but will be 4 at the time of travel. When I say princess, I do not exagerate. DH spoils her. The boys adore her. She is the first granddaughter on both sides of the family. So yeah, she's treated like a princess and loves everything princess related. She dresses up like a princess every.single.day. She enjoys all princess movies. Her current favorite is Moana, which she has watched 6 times and we've only owned the movie for a week. She's watched Frozen so many times I'm on my 3rd copy. She is currently watching Cinderella on repeat on the tv in the SUV. She also loves Beauty and the Beast and Big Hero 6. I'm grooming her to take over my Disney obsession. We are hoping she will hit 40" before our trip so she can participate in a lot more rides. She's currently just over 38".

This will be our.. 4th trip to the World (3rd for Lauryn), but I count it as #2, because the first couple of times were off site, with only a few scattered days at Disney.
Our last trip was March 2016, over March Break (we are Canadians). We spent 2 full wonderful weeks, split between 1 bedroom DVC at Bay Lake and Beach Club. We rented points from David. It was a great trip, but we were really whipped out at the end.

For that reason, we decided on a shorter 9 day trip this time around. Also, DH has been wanting to do the Halloween party, so we decided on October.

We live in Altantic Canada and getting to Disney is an expensive task. We have taken the route and driven down to the US and taken a direct flight, but last year, flew right out of our home town and it was much easier, so that's what we planned to do this year too.

As I was looking at flights to pick out some dates, I found the prices were so eradicate. I'd look one day and the prices were $520 each roundtrip (this is around the lowest flight you will see out of our city), which was fine and then the next day, the prices would be up $100. OMG the anxiety. So one day, I sat down, found the cheapest dates and booked it. Oct 2-11.

Of course it was later I found out this was over US Colombus Day (ugh), but it was set it stone and tickets non-refundable unless for medical reason.

So those are our dates, like it or not, October 2-11.

 

[BabyHabs]

So, now that I had dates, we needed a place to stay.

We were spoiled on our last trip with 1 bedrooms at BLT and BCV. However, we were trying to cut the costs back.

We through around several ideas - a family suite at ASM, maybe a 1 bedroom at SS, but I had my heart set on Poly in a standard studio.

Like our trip last year, I contact David's to see if I could rent points for our stay. While the availability was there (and still is), they have no Poly owners with the points, so we have been wait listed. Did you know that Oct-Dec is the busiest time for DVC units?!?! I sure didn't!

I would check Disney's website every day for prices and noticed more and more resorts becoming unavailability for our days, so out of another panic, I booked the Poly in a studio for our dates, along with 6 day tickets and the DDP. We will buy MNSSHP tickets for another park day, giving us 7 park days and 1 resort day.

I'm hoping that my waitlisted request through David's will come through and I can cancel my ressie through Disney. This will save me about $2500. However, if it doesn't, at least I will still have a place to stay!

So that's where we are at..

October 2-11
Polynesian Standard Studio
Disney Dining Plan
6 Base tickets
1 MNSSHP day

Time to start planning the details!

 

[BabyHabs]

Even though we've been to Disney less than a year ago, it seems like there have been so many changes! And even more coming before our trip in October!

New Frozen ride, A&E are now meeting in Epcot, Wishes is going away! Pandora! ROL! I know there is more, but that's all I can think about right now.

I'm not gonna lie, I've already dug pretty deep into my planning. ADRs are only just over a month away!

There is already a colour coded spreadsheet involved.

Think I'm kidding?

I'm not. If you can make that out, you may be as cray cray as me.

 

[BabyHabs]

So, I'm just over a month away from booking ADRs. Which means, I need to have a good idea of what parks we are hitting on each day.

Let's start with Day 1. Technical, Day 1 is our Travel Day. But we don't like to count these days. Travelling for means lugging 3 cranky kids through airports, layovers, take offs, landings, hungry, cranky, needing a nap, cramped, bored... ugh. I hate travel days. Did I mention cranky?

Luckily, because I booked my flights so far in advance (the only good thing about pre-mature booking) is that we've got some great flights.

We leave our city about 5am and with 1 stop, arriving in MCO at 11:25am. Last year, we had a noon flight, with 1 stop and didn't arrive at MCO until like 8pm, which means we didn't actually get tucked into bed until midnight or something crazy.

Anyway, back to day 1 - Magic Kingdom.

 

[ndwiese]

I share in your excitement and I started a post on the Disboards because I feel like I also talk my hubbies ear off about our trip. Ours is also a surprise for our kids ( they have been to MK once, my daughter wasn't even 2 yet, so she only remembers through photos. They are 8 and 6 now.) They have been saving change in a Disney Jar for over 2 years, thinking they have to have the whole thing filled before we can go...little do they know that we have our trip booked for September this year! 6 months and 2 weeks to go!!! My hubby and I went for a week in 2015 for our anniversary and also went the same week in October you are going. It was busier than what we had been told, but more and more schools in the US are adding longer fall breaks to their schedule (our kids get 2 weeks off for fall break.) Looking forward to reading more about your planning and your trip!!

 

[BabyHabs]

Traditionally, we like to start out our Disney vacations at Magic Kingdom. I don't know why. That's just our thing. I can't imagine going to any other park first.

Tuesday - October 3.

Touring Plans has MK ranked as a 2/10 on the crowd calendar. Not a bad start!

We will likely not be hitting the party on this day, so the plan will be to hit the park early and hard!

My current thinking is I will try to get Lauryn a PPO apt at BBB. I KNOW she will LOVE this. She loves everything princess and girly. She'll adore getting dolled up. I'll probably go with the Castle package because half of the fun for her will be picking out her dress. And it'll likely be a once in a lifetime experience for her, so I really want her to get the full treatment! YAY!

So, I will hit MK early with Lauryn. I'm thinking if we hit the monorail for 7:30am, we should be good for a 8am ressie? Or maybe earlier. I'm not planning on bringing all the gear. DH can bring that later when he comes with the boys, so we should be pretty quick getting through the gates.

So, assuming she gets a ressie at 8am, hopefully will be done by 9-9:30?? I can't see this taking more than an hour. Maybe I'm wrong. I will need to do some more research on how long these things take first thing in the morning.

DH will bring the boys in for rope drop and meet us when we are done. From there, we will hit as much as possible in the first 2 hours. 7DMT (this will be Lauryn's first time riding), caroussel, mad tea party, peter pan, iasw, winnie the pooh, belle - as much as possible in Fantasyland. Probably fast pass 7DMT and Peter Pan.

11am will be breakfast at CRT.

We did CRT last year, but the experience really sucked. We scheduled it for 8am on our first day. Remember when I said that we didn't get to bed until midnight on our travel day? Well that combined with an 8am ADR AND all my kids were sick with colds (Lauryn had a fever of over 101), the breakfast was a bust. No one was happy or filling it. I'm hoping for a redo. With Lauryn dressed like a princess and meeting her favorite princesses, and it will be later in the morning, I figure this will be much better.

I picked 11am because we are PICKY eaters. All.of.us. I don't know why. I wish I could change our ways. But we are stubborn. I checked the CRT menu and for lunch and dinner, there wasn't anything appealing to us. For 2 table service credits, I want to enjoy my meal. So I picked a late breakfast. We are all breakfast lovers. Bacon, eggs, Mickey waffles. We'll be a happy clan.

After lunch, we'll probably FP Space Mountain and hit some tomorrowland rides- we love Monsters Inc, Buzz Lightyear and the boys love the speedway.

This should bring us close to the parade. We'll grab some snacks (2 snack credits a day!!) and find a spot for the parade.

If the kids are still feeling it after the parade, maybe we'll hit the Jungle Cruise (if we can score a 4th FP) or Magic Carpets.

Likely though, they will be done and we'll head back to Poly for a nap and the pool.

Dinner on this night is a wildcard. Probably something from Capt. Cooks. I'm excited to try this quick service. I wasn't impressed with either Contempo Cafe or Marketplace? at BCV on our last trip.

We will probably hit bed early and get ready for our next day!

 

[BabyHabs]

I share in your excitement and I started a post on the Disboards because I feel like I also talk my hubbies ear off about our trip. Ours is also a surprise for our kids ( they have been to MK once, my daughter wasn't even 2 yet, so she only remembers through photos. They are 8 and 6 now.) They have been saving change in a Disney Jar for over 2 years, thinking they have to have the whole thing filled before we can go...little do they know that we have our trip booked for September this year! 6 months and 2 weeks to go!!! My hubby and I went for a week in 2015 for our anniversary and also went the same week in October you are going. It was busier than what we had been told, but more and more schools in the US are adding longer fall breaks to their schedule (our kids get 2 weeks off for fall break.) Looking forward to reading more about your planning and your trip!!

Welcome!! It sounds like we are having very similar vacations coming up! I've been told that October is getting busier and busier. We were considering September, but I was scared away by people it saying it was rainy season. Honestly, I wished I hadn't jumped the gun and bought our flights so early and that I'd done more research first. We've only ever gone in March before. If I could do it again, I'd probably go in September. Oh well. I'm sure it will be magical no matter when we go!

 

[ndwiese]

Oh it will still be magical!! Honestly, When we went in October, we still got everything done that we wanted to! The crowds were predicted to be around 4/5 at the parks, but ended up being 7/8. We didn't think that it seemed that bad because we didn't have horrible wait times. I wouldn't worry about the crowds too much. it will still be a wonderful time! We also went to MNSSHP and LOVED it! We are going again this time! I would suggest going on a night in the middle of the week. We went on Tuesday and are planning on the same day this year. I have had similar concerns with the weather and September. It didn't rain once on our trip in October. So I am hoping we don't get rained out this time..We will have to make the best of it!