Is 26 years too long? Fighting Injustice and Rediscovering the Magic (Jan 2011 PTR)

[Pontifex]

Preamble to a Trip

I have been to Disney World Several Times before. The first time in 1971, just a couple of months after Disney World opened, most recently in 1984, and a number of times in between. I will assume that we can all agree that 26 years is perhaps a bit over due.

I remember being one of those children, you see in the videos, jumping up and down when my parents surprised my brother and me with a trip to Disney. While today, the products can be bought anywhere, Disney was more pervasive, in some ways, in a child’s life than it is today. In my simple child mind Disney=Good. There was far less TV in general and whenever a new Disney movie or TV special came up this was a major thing since we knew that it was something for us and that it would be good.

I went through the phases where the magic and the characters were real and Disney World was not a façade but a true place of magic; right up there with Santa Claus. While I don’t remember that much from the earliest of my trips there is little doubt that it was at these early trips where I inhaled deep of the pixie dust and become bonded to that place in a way different from any other.

Later, I had to make a point of knowing that the characters where just people in costume and that much of what you saw wasn’t real. But these trips were still magical and the pixie dust still real. My memories of Disney from these trips are still some of the greatest memories of an exceptionally great childhood.

As I got older still, I had less use for Disney. I still had a great time but there was always something else to do, other places to go, and other places to spend money. So the years went by. It was also during this time that we moved away, no longer was Disney a short trip but now it sometimes felt impossibly far. I felt the pull of EPCOT when it opened but other things in life drew me more. Animal Kingdom and MGM Studies sounded too much like other thing that I had seen before and elicited little more than passing thought. Despite all of this, the magic wasn’t dead but it was certainly sleeping tucked away in a nostalgic corner that only seldom was recalled.

Oh sure there were occasion when it stirred. When the Little Mermaid came out, the magic demanded attention and reminded me it was still there. It had been a long time since such movies were made. And though I was an adult, I went back to see it many times not so much to see the movie but to feel that little spark that I had remembered from my childhood and bonded more to some of my friends who also held Disney dreams and with whom I watched. But it wasn’t to last. With each new release the magic flared a little more weakly until in time that which had been a blazing torch became instead but the flicker of a candle. The magic went back to sleep.

Then something significant happened. I got married.

I discovered something horrible about my beautiful bride. She had never been to Disney. She had never drunk from that font, she had never had the change to breathe deep of the pixie dust, and she had never had that spark of magic ignited.

This was an INJUSTENCE THAT COULD NOT STAND, and suddenly I could see the magic again. I knew then that I would be going to Disney World again it was just a question of when.

We were not able to do anything immediately but her brother moved to California. We went to visit and took our kids 4 and 1 to Disneyland. On the way in I was High-Foured by one of the CM’s and that single act was sufficient to restore the magic. And I, a grown man, stood there and cried. Still, I was not yet home. Home was a continent away but now I knew that I would be going home and now I could remember why.

So this is why I go to Disney World, for my beautiful wife to try to make up for what she missed as a child, for my children to share what I got, and for myself to feel the magic back again and to hopefully not lose it again. I document this in these pages with the hope that some of you will enjoy my tale as much as I have enjoyed some of yours.

 

[Pontifex]

The Genesis of the Plan

Every year we do a big family trip or at least a biggish one. Before the kids were in school we did these trips in April or October as I find those are the two months where there is almost universally good weather and smaller crowds (our cruise ship brush with a hurricane and Easter at the Vatican not withstanding). When this round of planning came up we talked about California again, which of course put Disney in my head. Once there it took root, grew, a flourished into a somewhat unkempt shrubbery of some kind but on that really looked kinda cool. I still needed to show my bride the light and it had been put off long enough.

Then, one day in April, the shrub bore fruit. Yes, I know it is kinda odd for a shrub to have fruit but what are ya going do. Unstrangely, this exactly corresponded to that day that my little princess turned four.

Four, as it turns out, is the absolutest mostest bestest age to go to Disney World. Oh I have seen the debates against it, and I pity the poor children who parent can’t see this. The thing about four year olds, at least the ones that I want to associate with, is that for them it is all real. They have no trouble seeing the magic. There is no pressure or inhibition to giving yourself over freely to it and inhaling deeply of the pixie dust (yeah, I know I’m overusing this inhaling and breathing theme but it is my PTR so I’ll breath if I want to).

For me not taking my daughter to Disney World would be denying her a moment of sheer childhood bliss that could be with her for the rest of her life. In a world where the magic can sometime be hard to find giving her a chance to have this little bit with her and for always is a very precious gift and perhaps one of the best I can give her (think violins playing quietly in the background…or in my case violas since that is what I play).

So, now, how to convince the wife….time to get devious, time to get sneaky…or time to beg like a Friday night (whoops, did I say that online). In any case none of that turned out to be necessary, the Daughter turning four thing was enough to do the trick and besides she gets to have me shut up about it. So we all win.

Also joining us, will be the son, nine). He is fun loving and inquisitive and, like my little princess, just totally fricken awesome. Oh, he will have a very different experience than my daughter but one that I expect will be no less valuable. Unlike my daughter, my son will clearly remember the trip and the experiences of Disney. He has no use for the characters (and has always had an irrational fear of any character) he is into almost everything else. Like the force with Luke, the magic of discovery, experience, and family time are strong with him. His energy about learning, and doing is a magic all of its own. He is extremely excited about EPCOT and Animal Kingdom in particular.

Ok, now we know where we are going on vacation, hard part done, right? Right?

 

[Pontifex]

My princess and prince

 

[Pontifex]

This episode will cover the plans so far and then I’ll go into how I got here…
Dates: Jan 29th – Feb 6th
Resort: Coronado Springs
Arrive by air 10:30am, depart 7:30 pm
Transportation : Rental Car
Agent : Dreams Unlimited
Tickets : 9 days park hoppers with Dinning Plan

Day 1 – Arrive, Dinner at Chef Mickey’s
Day 2 – Magic Kingdom, Dinner at Crystal Palace, Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique
Day 3 – EPCOT, Dinner at Biergarten
Day 4 – Animal Kingdom, Dinner at Boma
Day 5 – Magic Kingdom, Breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table
Day 6 – Hollywood Studios, Dinner at Sci-Fi
Day 7 – Open, Dinner at Planet Hollywood (May change this one)
Day 8 – EPCOT, Dinner at Coral Reef
Day 9 – Open, Go home

 

[Pontifex]

Decisions, decisions, decisions….

Once the decision to go to Disney World was made there was no turning back. I like to plan trips and have planned a number of complicated trips, how hard to could this one be. I mean they speak English and stuff. Pieces o’ cake, just jump on-line, get a few ideas, trip planned.

But when to go? While solidly on board with the plan, the answer to the question on when to go apparently isn’t “Right Now”. And as much as I struggled to see her point on this (and as she reminds me I can sometimes be a bit slow.) she eventually got through to me. I’m not entirely sure what did the trick but it may have been just after she started quoting random passages from the Texas truancy code. Whatever it was, we now had to pick a date.

Flip…flip….flip….went the calendar pages…..wait…..what is this. Two teacher work days in January, a three day school week, could it be…. Something about a maximum of three unexcused absences was still echoing around somewhere. Then my brain went into automatic word association mode….January = COOL = OFFSEASON = DISCOUNTS. So now January was associated with opposite of three of my least favorite things 1) The opposite of being hot, 2) the opposite of begin crowded, 3) and the opposite of being expensive (ok may it is just two of them). Seemed like we had a match.

The wife, then points out that this was the beginning of January. Hmm, didn’t pay attention to actual dates, just that it didn’t look like these dates were going to get anyone thrown in Jail or anything. Apparently the kids begin there the first week of school is important….who knew. Though I totally get the point on going in a different credit card cycle. Guess I need to add another desire….opposite of post-Christmas credit card bill. And I suppose I see her point on spreading thing around a bit as we are going out of town the week before.

Ok, ok…I get it January isn’t the best idea for us after all. So if January isn’t going to work the answer is very obvious, February. I mean really, how long did you expect me to wait once we decided to go. March would be like totally out as my college years have made the permanent association of SPRING BREAK = PUKING. April = TAKS testing at school. Since the TAKS test is, in the minds of the school, just below avoiding nuclear war in the order of importance of things (I’m not even positive about this one) we can’t do it in April. After that we start violating my requirements of not hot, not crowded, and slightly less expensive than the government bank bailout.

Cool…now, being the man of action that I am, I have something to do….to the internet.

I get on to the Disney Site and start poking around….I answered a few question, I think my entire 1040 was in there somewhere, and found out….yikes tickets are expensive. Apparently they have raised the prices a little in the last 26 years. Go figure. But then, I noticed something else… something intriguing…. Something wondrous…. Something I had never associated with Disney before. They were having my favorite food (that being free of course). Our sure I saw the resort discounts and did the quick calculation… Discount = $500, Free Food = $1000. Go with free food.

The full impact of this decision will need to be saved for a later edition but the free food very much limited the days that we could go. So we knew if had to be the 1st part of February.

Now, we need to get crafty. How to get the boy out of school for a week. Oh sure we could point out “the wonderful learning and education opportunities” available. Or, we just point out that “it was hard, but we were able to get this arranged so that we wouldn’t have to do it in April. We didn’t want him to do it too close to the TAKS test.” Having uttered the magic words, “not too close to the TAKS test,” I think they would have
agreed to almost anything. So, school is taken care of.

One last go around with the Disney web site, slide ruler, and Microsoft project…and January 29th-February 6th popped out.
We were all set…..or so I thought….

 

[Pontifex]

Alright, we have a date. School is taken care of, the hard part is done. Now just pick a resort, buy some plane tickets and away we go.

The first part of the resort question was easy. From the beginning I was only interested in on-site resorts. Also, now that on-property = Free Food this became a no brainer.

But then, something happened… being the man of action that I am, I was on the internet, when suddenly; out of nowhere my instant messaging box started flashing. Someone was trying to get in touch with me. It was….bum bum bum (think tuba)…the Brother in Law. After informing us of our plans he provides me information that would end up stopping me in my tracks, no, he didn’t threaten to come along, no, instead, he suggested, he might have a free place for us to stay. He had to use up a week and one of the options was at the Hilton in Down Town Disney.

Now, I did immediately recognize that Hilton = No Free Food but I also am thinking FREE HOTEL. I’m also thinking Disney Quest after kids are in bed (of course I can hear my wife thinking – not a chance buddy; strange how I can hear that but not that she didn’t want a new vacuum cleaner for her birthday). All kidding aside, it was a generous offer and we were expecting him to get back to us the next day. The only trouble was that after we closed the instant messaging window, we realized we weren’t entirely sure what he was offering. Was he planning on going with us after all, when is it available, did he want to charge us for it? No worries, we would get this all worked out the next day, then, ON WITH THE TRIP PLANNING!

Then, the Brother in Law disappeared. No word came the next day, nor the next, nor that week, nor the week after. We tried to sic the Mother in Law on him, that didn’t work either. He was completely incommunicado. Meanwhile, I’m completely paralyzed between wanting to book something now as visions of hoards of vicious vacation goers are STEALING MY RESERVATIONS and getting a nice place to stay for free.

Meanwhile, back in Gotham, airfare dropped. My trick to getting cheap airfare is to know the lowest prices that are offered and then track fares until they drop to (or close to) those lows. Those fares are sneaky buggers and can swing dramatically in a few weeks. So when the fare dropped from about $500 a ticket to $120 a ticket it was time to get moving…..to the internet.

Snagged 4 tickets for about what one normally goes for….SWEET! I am not on my preferred airline but for those prices, I don’t care. The only other issue is that if we wanted a direct flight, and who doesn’t, we had to get up very early in the morning. I think we will have to head to the airport at like 5am or some such. I guess on the bright side there is nothing like a good TSA molestation to get you going in the mornings.

The good news is that we should be at Disney World by lunch time on our first day, so bonus!

 

[Pontifex]

Dates – Check
Air Fare – Check
Hotel – No Check

The brother in law still missing in action we called a family pow wow. The kids, never having watch cowboy & Indian movies didn’t know what a pow wow was so they decided to play WII instead. Still we decided, to heck with the Brother in Law, let’s get this trip booked. (We decided this in a very nice a friendly way out of deep respect for the Brother in Law and not for the fact that he is a rather large ex-football player that could do some significant damage to body parts that I would rather not have damaged. So Brother in Law, if you are reading this – You ROCK!)

It was time to leap into action….to the internet.

Wait, there are more than two hotels now? When did that happen?

Value, Moderates, and Deluxes oh my….hmmm…I’ve been accused of having no values and I like deluxe…let start there, besides, I remember liking the Contemporary when I was a kid, though I am not entirely sure what it is a contemporary of. Now, I have to assume that this was part of the experience and they are just joking but the prices here required me to either laugh or cry so I picked the former. While laughing I switched over to the value hotels. Now I was really shocked, at least this time of year they actually seemed to be extremely reasonable. But, my mama always told me, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is so I moved on.

Moderates it was to be then. It was about this time that I got hooked up with the DIS forums and quickly came away with the impression that one of the Port Orleans hotels was right for me. Also, as we recently had a most excellent trip to the French Quarter in New Orleans the kids would get a kick out of that. I was also tempted by the Caribbean Beach Resort since, well, I like going to the Caribbean and some friends liked that one. I was having trouble making up my mind but then I had a flash back (queue sounds effects) of our recent trip to the Gaylord and the fact that the kids not only insisted that they must sleep with a parent but that they wiggle just slightly less than herd of stampeding buffaloes, hoof kicks and all, if my shin could shudder they would be still at the prospect. With vision of this happening for eight nights straight, I quickly and confidently settled on the Coronado Spring Resort and the queen sized beds. Didn’t really check into much else but I need my beauty rest.

 

[Pontifex]

Booking

Alright now we are ready to do something….ready to book. But wait, the wife steps in with one of her rare, though extremely valuable, contribution to the trip planning and suggest that we book with a travel agent. WOAH!!! Travel agent, we don’t need no stinking travel agent. I know what I want to do, ready to move, no you want me to not actually do anything, what if I need to make a change, what if one option isn’t available, how could this possibly work?!? Well, apparently, this was a great idea just my slow brain hadn’t quite grasped all of the reasons why yet so I might as well get on with it.

She mentioned that one of her friends had used an agent and that the agent was able to get them a better deal when the discounts changed. Hmmm….possibility of being cheap….well I like it cheap and easy so it was time for action…..to the internet.

Since I don’t like to actually like talk to people and stuff I did a quick search to find the web site. Too a look to make sure that they didn’t have like a million complaints against them, and fired off a quick quote request. Now, this felt like an unnecessary delay in that I already knew exactly how much the quote was going to be and this added a couple of days of delay during which y’all were stealing my reservations. But overall was painless enough.

So I tell the wife, “Wife, I just submitted our vacation request to the same agent your friend used, Magic Unlimited”.

The wife, states, “You moron, that isn’t the one that she used.”
Me, “Doh!”

Well, since the internet responses reviews were all favorable about Magic Unlimited I decided to stick it out. I wasn’t really expecting much from them as it was but since it wasn’t costing me anything might as well see where it goes.

The agent got everything booked, put in my room request (I would let you know what they were but I don’t remember. Hope I didn’t ask for anything stupid. Had a page up with recommendations at the same time I was keying in my info but didn’t save it. Hope it wasn’t a Brazilian cheerleader’s recommendations) and got my tickets.

I ended up getting 9 days of tickets with park hoppers. I have no idea if I’ll actually park hop but it seem like the thing to do. Since I will have them ahead of time I won’t have to justify it each time there is something we would like to do at a different park. I also didn’t feel like waiting to see if I would need it before adding it on later because I was pretty sure I would eventually want it and it would seem pretty inflexible to have to stop down and do it. Besides the price would seem a lot higher then than it does now. Then it will seem like I am spending an extra $250 just because I want to go get one more Dole Whip. I don’t think so. But $250 do add 9 days of flexibility seems like a bargain after all I like my vacation plans to have a lot in common with a circus contortionist acts.

For this reason, I also got a rental car. I turns out that, rental car companies apparently people to baby sit their cars this time of the year. This is the one area where I find rates so low I had to go for it. I don’t know if I’ll even need it but for a little over $100/week seems like a good trade off to me. Plus this way I can handle my own luggage and have half the number of people touching it (read loosing it). If we decide we need an off day then we don’t have to figure out how to get anywhere. If nothing else, the ability to get easily to a grocery store will probably pay for the car. Besides, one I can always just driver to the contemporary and leave my car there for the day while going to the parks (just kidding).

Ok, so the hard part is done. We are in good shape. Now I can relax. Right?

 

[ForeverDance]

What a great PTR. I am thoroughly enjoying reading it.

I too have an aversion to actually talking to people on the phone and like to try to do everything on the internet so I totally get that one.

I agree with the park hoppers. We have always included it with our tickets. For us, the freedom it gives you is priceless. Sure, we might not always use them, but knowing I can hop out of a park if it's too crowded is wonderful. It's a lot less stressfull when planning to know if you mess up and pick a bad day for a park, no harm, no foul, just hop over to another

 

[Pontifex]

What a great PTR. I am thoroughly enjoying reading it.

Glad you are enjoying it and welcome aboard. I have started do trip reports for all of my trips but this is my first ever pre-trip report.

 

[Pontifex]

Not so fast…

It turns out the fine folks at Disney played a little trick on me. They practically begged and pleaded for me to take this free food. They make it sooooo easy to get started. Little did I know that it was taking me right down the path of vacation planning heck. I start poking around a bit on the boards, read a little in my book, talk to a few people, and realized, I HAVE TO GET ADR’s and I HAVE TO GET THEM TWO MONTHS AGO….WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR. LETS GET BUSY --- to the internet.

I start downloading menus. I start reading recommendations. I figure out character meals. I figure out what’s where. I attend a course at the community college so that I can understand the meal plan. I spend hours upon hours just trying to figure out where we want to eat. But worse, I figure out that I CAN’T do anything about it since I don’t know where I will be to schedule the meals. My circus contortionist is starting to look like creaky Uncle Frank with no sense of humor (you know a stiff (Yes, Uncle Frank I’m just making a point I actually think you are a riot)).

But how do I know where I will be….

Ok, time to shift gears. I stop reading my menus. Now, I am downloading crowd estimators, show calendars, ipad applications, and signing up for web sites. Ultimately I found a number of web site with sound reasoning behind their recommendations, touring plans with sound data behind their recommendations, and many forum posting with something akin to religious fervor behind their recommendations. Blended it all up and then did whatever I wanted to do for the most part.

Basically it went something like this….

The 1st day is a travel day. Anything I do on this day is a bonus. We may decide not even to go to a park this day so it doesn’t count.

The 2nd day (or the real day one) has to be the Magic Kingdom. Yeah I know by going here first we run the risk of making other places seem less grand. But hey, did you ready the first sappy party of this trip report. While I’m not sure how to take it, this seems like a good choice to from the touring plan perspective as the crowd estimate is a whopping 1.4 and this is with an evening extra magic hours. In addition, the one other request my wife made was to get my princess into Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique and to do it early in the trip. She already looks like a princess to me but apparently she need more glitter to make sure no one mistakes here from a serf or something. I would think the princess dress may clue people in but apparently I’m not the only slow one. (Actually, I think she will love this so I’m fully on board even though it cost as much as my hair cuts for a year, and she doesn’t even actually get her hair cut.)

The 5th day Magic Kingdom – It turns out there is a force more powerful than a crowd calendar, one able to leap dire wait predictions in a single bound, look up in the sky it’s a hidden Mickey, no it’s a dad on a fastpass run, no it’s….an open reservation at Cinderella’s Royal table. This actually was found by the travel agent, not me, I wasn’t able to find anything. I guess she proved her value after all. In any case, it was the only open slot for our entire time there so that is where we will be at 8:30 am on day 5.

The 3rd day EPCOT/The 4th day Animal Kingdom -- Day 3 and Day four are interchangeable in my eyes. I wanted to get to all of the parks as quickly as possible in our trip and these two were the next top priorities after the Magic Kingdom.

The 6th day Hollywood Studios – Well I need to get here sooner or later. This should have been day 5 by Cindy called. This is also the only possible Fantasmic! day. There is a possibility we will park hop here on day 5 and then just do a partial day here on day 6 if the crowds are bad. Will one of the iphone apps to check and make the decision that day.

The 7th day Open – Open, this would be a EPCOT day but, while I took their advice only minimally, the fact that touring plans rates this crowd at over a 9 kinda scared me off. So, we will play it by ear.

The 8th EPCOT – Assuming we are ready for more; we will make this our 2nd EPCOT day.

The 9th Open / Go home – Will have plenty of time for one last go around as our flight isn’t until 7:30 so will do whatever.

So, that is my plan…any thoughts?

 

[Pontifex]

Like most guys, I have a fear of commitment. So clearly it was some guy hating woman who came up with the ADR process. You are expecting me to commit to a up to 6 month ahead of time to a dinner. Heck my first three marriages didn’t last that long (just kidding, still on wife one and plan to keep it that way).

I did have the travel agent find me a Cinderella Royal Table reservation since I could not but otherwise I had a blank slate. I love the possibilities of a blank slate. I didn’t know if what it would come out to be, I am certain I don’t want a Maplethorpe, Pollock or a Caravaggio but a Van Goeth, O’keefe, or a Monet, a Klimt might be tasty but certainly not for the kids. Perhaps you will let me know what you think it came out to be.

I boldly placed my first stroke on the tablet, it was bright, loud, and colorful. I booked the Spirit of Aloha at Poly. At two TS credits it was a bit chancy for so early on but I thought this might be a good welcome to Disney meal for the kids after a day of traveling. I also thought they would enjoy watching Wishes from the beach. But alas, it was not to be, bold though it be, this stoke was undone. After booking the dinner I saw a number of recent reviews that made me wonder if it was such a good choice, also now that we were getting in much earlier than I had originally planned I think there is a good chance we will go to a park that first day so the entertainment wasn’t as important. I think this will have to wait for another trip. So again, my slate was clean.

So where to go, where to go… (and yes, I’ll drop the art theme)

I still wanted something fun and a good welcome to Disney so we settled on Chef Mickey’s. This way we get some of the key characters out of the way. I don’t know how much the kids are going to want to stand in line for autographs but by going to Chef Mickey’s on the first night we can get several out of the way right off. Plus, who could say welcome to Disney more than the cheesemiester himself? Throw in a monorail ride and life is good. So, one meal down.

The next one that got planned was for our day at Animal Kingdom. I am the only adventuresome eater in the family and I wanted to try BOMA. It looks to be the most unique restaurant at Disney World where the rest of the family will be happy and not have to resort to junk food.

The next one was easy too. The one request my wife made was to go to the Biergarten. While it looks fun the food looks kinda meh to me. As usual my inner German is the quiet one and doesn’t stand a chance to like of my inner Italian. But what the wife want the wife gets so Biergarten it is.
The rest were more difficult to pick but I’ll get through them quickly. Feel free to comment if you think I erred.

Crystal Palace – get more characters out of the way early in the trip had a menu where everyone in the group can find something to eat.

Sci-Fi Dinner -- food sound so-so but this was a must do for me after I failed in my attempts to book a Fantasmic! dinner.

Coral Reef – again, not the best menu but good enough. Seems like someplace the kids would like.

Planet Hollywood – ok, ok, I know, I know, but hear me out first. This was a safe one and one that if we cancel I won’t feel any loss. Also, we may exhaust our TS credit and have to pay out of pocket and this will be good for that. However, we may have TS credit left and wanted someplace that the kids would like that take them. Would love to know what others think on this one.

One note, my Son will be on the adult meal plan. I would expect that he will choose to go with the kids menu at a number of the restaurants. If he does that, we may pay a couple of these out of pocket and then have some adult TS that can be used by the Wife and I.
So there you have it, ADRs all booked and think we got the core figured out. What do you think?

 

[ForeverDance]

Not so fast…

It turns out the fine folks at Disney played a little trick on me. They practically begged and pleaded for me to take this free food. They make it sooooo easy to get started. Little did I know that it was taking me right down the path of vacation planning heck. I start poking around a bit on the boards, read a little in my book, talk to a few people, and realized, I HAVE TO GET ADR’s and I HAVE TO GET THEM TWO MONTHS AGO….WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR. LETS GET BUSY --- to the internet.

I start downloading menus. I start reading recommendations. I figure out character meals. I figure out what’s where. I attend a course at the community college so that I can understand the meal plan. I spend hours upon hours just trying to figure out where we want to eat. But worse, I figure out that I CAN’T do anything about it since I don’t know where I will be to schedule the meals. My circus contortionist is starting to look like creaky Uncle Frank with no sense of humor (you know a stiff (Yes, Uncle Frank I’m just making a point I actually think you are a riot)).

But how do I know where I will be….

Ok, time to shift gears. I stop reading my menus. Now, I am downloading crowd estimators, show calendars, ipad applications, and signing up for web sites. Ultimately I found a number of web site with sound reasoning behind their recommendations, touring plans with sound data behind their recommendations, and many forum posting with something akin to religious fervor behind their recommendations. Blended it all up and then did whatever I wanted to do for the most part.

Basically it went something like this….

The 1st day is a travel day. Anything I do on this day is a bonus. We may decide not even to go to a park this day so it doesn’t count.

The 2nd day (or the real day one) has to be the Magic Kingdom. Yeah I know by going here first we run the risk of making other places seem less grand. But hey, did you ready the first sappy party of this trip report. While I’m not sure how to take it, this seems like a good choice to from the touring plan perspective as the crowd estimate is a whopping 1.4 and this is with an evening extra magic hours. In addition, the one other request my wife made was to get my princess into Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique and to do it early in the trip. She already looks like a princess to me but apparently she need more glitter to make sure no one mistakes here from a serf or something. I would think the princess dress may clue people in but apparently I’m not the only slow one. (Actually, I think she will love this so I’m fully on board even though it cost as much as my hair cuts for a year, and she doesn’t even actually get her hair cut.)

The 5th day Magic Kingdom – It turns out there is a force more powerful than a crowd calendar, one able to leap dire wait predictions in a single bound, look up in the sky it’s a hidden Mickey, no it’s a dad on a fastpass run, no it’s….an open reservation at Cinderella’s Royal table. This actually was found by the travel agent, not me, I wasn’t able to find anything. I guess she proved her value after all. In any case, it was the only open slot for our entire time there so that is where we will be at 8:30 am on day 5.

The 3rd day EPCOT/The 4th day Animal Kingdom -- Day 3 and Day four are interchangeable in my eyes. I wanted to get to all of the parks as quickly as possible in our trip and these two were the next top priorities after the Magic Kingdom.

The 6th day Hollywood Studios – Well I need to get here sooner or later. This should have been day 5 by Cindy called. This is also the only possible Fantasmic! day. There is a possibility we will park hop here on day 5 and then just do a partial day here on day 6 if the crowds are bad. Will one of the iphone apps to check and make the decision that day.

The 7th day Open – Open, this would be a EPCOT day but, while I took their advice only minimally, the fact that touring plans rates this crowd at over a 9 kinda scared me off. So, we will play it by ear.

The 8th EPCOT – Assuming we are ready for more; we will make this our 2nd EPCOT day.

The 9th Open / Go home – Will have plenty of time for one last go around as our flight isn’t until 7:30 so will do whatever.

So, that is my plan…any thoughts?

I think it all sounds pretty good. I am currently planning a trip for a group of 9 and although I do plan on following some of the crowd indicators I am still doing things basically how I think is best.

Our first day will also be MK. It's suppose to be a busy day for MK, but I agree with you how can you not start the trip with that park when you have people who have never been

I have definitely noticed that FANTASMIC days are very busy at DHS. I personally try to avoid them and then just hop over for evening to do FANTASMIC, but you may find that the crowds are pretty low in Jan anyway (at least that's what my neighbour says).

 

[ForeverDance]

We love love love BOMA We have only made it over there during our adult only trip because AKL is a bit of a hike and we always do Tusker House on our AK day (another one everyone loves) but it is soo good.

We also love Chef Mickey and Crystal Palace so I think you have good choices there too.

 

[Pontifex]

We love love love BOMA We have only made it over there during our adult only trip because AKL is a bit of a hike and we always do Tusker House on our AK day (another one everyone loves) but it is soo good.

We also love Chef Mickey and Crystal Palace so I think you have good choices there too.

Glad to hear.... I just ran into one of my son's best friends parents yesterday while picking my son up from school. They just got back and said that BOMA was their favorite. I figure it getting there won't be too bad since I'll have a rental car and will just drive to AK that day.

It does sound yummy.