January PTR Update 1/15

[Paulaparm]

Pre-Trip Report

Today was the first day I could make ADR’s so I figured this is as good a time as any to start a pre-trip report.

WHO: Me (Paula) and DH (Gary)
WHEN: January 21-February 10, 2025
WHERE: Fort Wilderness (with our camper)
WHY: I know I don’t even really have to answer that question here, but I will. DH wants to go to the Daytona 500 again and he knows that the trade-off is a trip to Disney first. (We did this for the first time in Jan/Feb of 2022.)

While we will be at Fort Wilderness for 21 days, we are only purchasing 10 day park hopper tickets. On our previous trip, we stayed for two weeks while visiting the parks 10 days. We decided we didn’t have enough time to just relax and enjoy all the Fort has to offer and said next time we would add a week.

This morning was the first day I could make any ADR’s so I scheduled the days I could. I still have 4 more ADR’s to make and will just do them as those days become available to me.
Here is what I scheduled:

Jan 22 Hoop Dee Doo 6:15
23 Homecomin’ 11:30
25 Biergarten 2:00
28 Liberty Tree Tavern 1:00
30 50’s Prime Time Cafe 2:00
31 Beaches & Cream 3:00

To be scheduled:
Feb 2 Round Up Rodeo
3 Crystal Palace breakfast
5 Via Napoli
8 Whispering Canyon Cafe

I have a schedule of park and non-park days. I have a pretty good idea of which park for each day(including park hopping), especially at the beginning of the trip. I’m a little more go with the flow towards the end, so we can just go back and spend time where we feel the need. Of course, this has me stressing over Lightning Lanes. I just don’t know that I want to shell out the cash for all 10 days. I’m pretty sure I’m going to purchase LLS and LLMP for the first few days at least so we can make sure we get everything in. I’m just not sure we need it the whole trip. We will have 10 days and we aren’t traveling during a high crowd season. Thoughts on this??

 

[Griffin11]

Of course, this has me stressing over Lightning Lanes. I just don’t know that I want to shell out the cash for all 10 days. I’m pretty sure I’m going to purchase LLS and LLMP for the first few days at least so we can make sure we get everything in. I’m just not sure we need it the whole trip. We will have 10 days and we aren’t traveling during a high crowd season. Thoughts on this??

I am having the same debate. My trip is shorter (7 park days) but we are in the same time period.

I like the idea of being able to schedule lighting lanes in advance, but this is one of the biggest drawbacks - not knowing how many days you'll need them for. I am pretty committed to one lightning lane day for each of the parks, but not sure if we'll want a second lighting lane day in any of the parks.

I'm going to make a list of our "must-do" and "really-want-to-do" lighting lane rides and take a look at Thrill Data to see which ones we can realistically get on a single day, and hopefully that helps me decide.

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more

 

[Paulaparm]

6 days to go!


Since my first post, I scheduled our remaining ADR’s and yesterday I made some LLMPs and LLSPs. I ended up purchasing them for 4 of our park days so that we have it for one day in each park (technically more because we will park hop each of those days).

We are in full packing mode now! Since we will be camping for three weeks, I’ve made some food to have in the freezer. I spent today going through and packing up some other kitchen and bathroom items that we don’t keep in the camper for the winter.

We will pack the camper Saturday and leave Sunday morning. We are pulling our 5th wheel from NE Pennsylvania, so we break the trip up into 2 days. We plan on driving to South Carolina and stay over, probably at a Cracker Barrel. We will continue onto Florida Monday and have reservations at a KOA about 9 miles away from WDW. Tuesday morning we will head over to Fort Wilderness. Our first park day won’t be until Friday, so we have a few days to hang around the Fort, go to Hoop Dee Doo, Homecomin’ and shop at Disney Springs.